By Haddon Libby
On behalf of at least half of all Americans, let me apologize for the less than nice things that our current President is saying about your country. To refer to Canada as the 51st state should be a sign of the closeness that our countries share, not a threat.
I understand your restrictions on American dairy and poultry. Much of our livestock is fed antibiotics and growth hormones not to mention all of the preservatives. Still, to impose tariffs on our healthy product that conforms to your regulations just isn’t very fair…especially after that whole “Buttergate” thing that you had in 2021. For those who don’t remember, Canadians farmers were adding so much palm oil to the feed of the cows that butter was as hard as a rock at room temperature with flavor closer to margarine than the creamy Wisconsin butter just over the border. Despite this quality problem, restrictions made it next to impossible to replace the poorer quality palm oil enhanced butter with the Wisconsin variety.
Truth be told, it is not like your dairy industry does the healthiest things for Canadians if we are going to be honest about things. The dairy restrictions are in many ways meant to help your national industries thrive where they might be overwhelmed by American farmers.
Putting dairy and poultry aside, the way you helped China evade U.S. sanctions on its steel just wasn’t very Canadian, if you ask me. How can a friend profit by helping folks to avoid the law? You’d expect that of an American but not a Canadian.
Now it is true that your banking rules are unfair. How can Canadian firms be allowed to operate banks and investment firms here, yet your policies make it next to impossible for a U.S. firm to operate in Canada. And let’s not get into all of the fraudulent companies that operated on the Vancouver Stock Exchange. There were so many bogus companies on this exchange that it became known at the ‘penny stock casino’. The fraud, illegal kickbacks and money laundering were so bad that the exchange had to be rolled into the Canadian Venture Exchange, whatever that is. While that move prettied things up a bit, fraud continues to this day. Once again, Canada behaved in a manner that you’d expect from America.
When it comes to the fentanyl issue that our President is aggressively addressing, that is something Americans and Canadians must fight together. The real culprits here are Chinese and the Mexican cartels responsible for so much evil.
It made sense when our less than polite President classified a number of the strongest Mexican drug cartels as terrorists. This rattled a corrupted Mexican political system as it suggested that the U.S. might invade as it pursues the terrorist groups. As a reminder, these terrorist groups have killed countless numbers of people while leaving many honest Mexicans fearful. These gangs are now active throughout the Coachella Valley and Riverside County.
In response to the terrorist designations, Mexico tightened up its Constitution to better protect its sovereignty against a country in pursuit of terrorists. In addition to the gang problem, there was that whole wave of folks crossing into the U.S. illegally. Any problem that we have with Canada related to fentanyl is far worse with Mexico. The same goes with Chinese steel as Mexico facilitated more than ten times the flow of Chinese steel than Canada.
The truth about all of this is that we all need to work to stem illegal activity of all kinds. While it is ironic that the President doing all of this has engaged in less than honest dealings throughout his business career, his administration is serious about addressing some of these more blatant abuses.
Haddon Libby is the Founder and Chief Investment Officer for Winslow Drake Investment Management. For more information on our services, please visit www.WinslowDrake.com.
