Tausi Insider

The Canadian dollar CADUSD strengthened to its highest level in eight weeks against its U.S. counterpart on Tuesday, as the greenback broadly declined and domestic data showed a surprise increase for wholesale trade in September. The U.S. dollar fell against a basket of major currencies and U.S. stock index futures rallied as data showed that U.S. producer prices increased less than expected in October, providing further evidence that inflation was starting to subside. Canadian wholesale trade increased by 0.1 per cent in September from August, beating expectations for a 0.2 per cent decline, helped by higher sales of pharmaceutical products, data from Statistics Canada showed. Separate data showed that manufacturing sales were unchanged in September from August, an outcome that was also stronger than expected. Canada’s inflation data for October is awaited by investors on Wednesday for clues as to whether the Bank of Canada would raise interest rates by 25 or 50 basis points at its ...

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau speaks with Thailand's Prime Minister Prayut Chan-o-cha, during a meeting at Government House, in Bangkok, Thailand, on Nov. 17. POOL/Reuters Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s tour of Southeast Asia includes a brief stop in Bangkok, which is a visit aimed at showing Canada is serious about forming deeper ties with the region. The two-day visit to Thailand is for Trudeau to take part in the leaders’ meeting of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum, a group of 21 economies on both sides of the Pacific that work together to break down barriers to trade. “Showing up is critically important. In Asia in particular, face-to-face relationships are vitally important,” said Timothy Dattels, one of Canada’s three representatives to the APEC Business Advisory Council. “Long-term relationship building is absolutely critical to business; it’s not all just done over the phone, at all,” said Dattels, an investor specializing in the region. He noted that major pl...

Defence lawyer Gary Martin, right, representing Yuesheng Wang, and Crown Prosecutor Marc Cigana leave after speaking to the media following a hearing at the courthouse in Longueuil, Que., on Nov 15. Ryan Remiorz/The Canadian Press Matt Malone is an assistant professor at Thompson Rivers University’s Faculty of Law. The arrest of Hydro-Québec employee Yuesheng Wang on Monday for allegedly obtaining trade secrets from the utility on behalf of China puts Canada in uncharted waters. It represents the first major use of Canada’s criminal trade secrets laws and should prompt a shift toward cracking down on economic espionage. This is an area where Canada has lagged the efforts of its peers for years – and still has a long way to go to get it right. Canada has two major criminal trade secrets laws. One criminalizes trade secrets theft for the benefit of, or in association with, a foreign economic entity. The other, and more recent criminal law, makes it an offence for anyone to obtain or c...

EU energy ministers meet in Brussels on Thursday to approve the latest set of emergency measures to mitigate an energy crisis, but the plans risk being eclipsed by disagreements over whether and how to cap gas prices. On the table are new draft laws to speed up permitting procedures for renewable energy sources, and to launch joint gas purchases for the 27 EU countries. Poland, Belgium, Italy and Greece threatened to block these if the package does not contain a gas price cap as well. A small but powerful camp led by Germany is opposed to a cap, however, saying that would prompt suppliers to sell elsewhere. Europex, the association of European energy exchanges, was among market participants to criticize plans for such an intervention. As temperatures drop on the continent ahead of the winter, the ministers will have another go at the matter that has divided the bloc for many months. The European Commission, the EU executive, has so far proposed applying the cap to month-ahead derivat...

Czech Energy Minister Jozef Sikela speaks with the press prior to presiding a meeting of EU energy ministers at an extraordinary energy council in Brussels, on Nov. 24. Olivier Matthys/The Associated Press The European Union and the United States are treading precariously close to a major trans-Atlantic trade dispute at a time when the two Western giants want to show unity in the face of challenges from Russia and China. EU trade ministers on Friday insisted they would be forced to respond if Washington stuck to all the terms of its Inflation Reduction Act, which is favourable to local companies through subsidies and, according to the EU, will unfairly discriminate against its firms that want to compete for contracts. “Nobody wants to get into a tit-for-tat or subsidy race. But what the U.S. has done really isn’t consistent with the principles of free trade and fair competition,” Irish Trade Minister Leo Varadkar said. Even though the allies have stood shoulder to shoulder by imposin...

The U.S. trade deficit widened sharply in October as slowing global demand and a strong dollar pushed goods exports to a seven-month low, suggesting that trade could be a drag on economic growth this quarter if the trend persists. The report from the Commerce Department on Tuesday, which followed on the heels of recent upbeat news on the economy ranging from consumer spending, the labour market to the services industry, did not change perceptions that the economy had got off to a solid start in the fourth quarter. “A rewidening in the trade balance will mechanically weigh on GDP growth fourth quarter,” said Veronica Clark, an economist at Citigroup in New York. “However, this should be partly offset through strength in domestic demand, particularly in business investment as real capital goods imports have jumped in the last few months.” The trade deficit increased 5.4% to $78.2 billion. The second straight monthly widening in the trade gap was partly driven by a shift in pharmaceutic...

Indigenous communities on both sides of the Canada-U.S. border are trying to build an alliance with U.S. Congress and the Biden administration in hopes of pressuring Ottawa into a bipartisan effort to confront toxic trans-border mining runoff. Jeff McIntosh/The Canadian Press In a city of pinstripes and partisan power brokers, Mike Allison sticks out like a sore thumb. He’s in the wrong place – and he knows it. “I shouldn’t be here,” the denim-clad Indigenous elder suddenly says, fighting tears beneath the brim of his trademark cowboy hat. “I should be out on the land, working with my kids, teaching them values. I should be teaching them kids how to work with the environment, not fight for it.” Instead, the Upper Similkameen Indian Band councillor is in a downtown D.C. boardroom, gearing up for a second day of meetings with State Department officials, bureaucrats, diplomats and members of Congress. Fighting for the environment is exactly what Allison, whose British Columbia First Nat...

China has launched a trade dispute at the World Trade Organization against the United States over its chip export control measures, China’s commerce ministry said. The United States passed a sweeping set of regulations in October aimed at kneecapping China’s semiconductor industry, prompting a complaint from a top China trade group. “China takes legal actions within the WTO framework as a necessary way to address our concerns and to defend our legitimate interests,” said a statement by China’s commerce ministry, its diplomatic mission in Geneva relayed. It added that the U.S. curbs “threatened the stability of the global industrial supply chains.” The office of the U.S. Trade Representative did not immediately respond to Reuters requests for comment. A WTO spokesperson declined to comment. The so-called request for consultations is the first step in a long procedure at the global trade body. The United States has blocked appointments to the WTO’s top ruling body on trade disputes, me...

Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland speaks at a news conference in Ottawa, on Nov. 3. Justin Tang/The Canadian Press Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland has lots of reasons to be losing sleep. Soaring living costs have Canadians lined up at food banks. The federal Liberals are anticipating a possible recession. And Freeland is personally connected with people living all across war-torn Ukraine. But in April, the finance minister said there was another looming problem on her mind. “If you were to ask what keeps me up at night, I’d say, ‘China’s zero-COVID approach and the very severe lockouts we’re seeing right now,’” Freeland said at an event held by the Canadian Chamber of Commerce. If Beijing’s tough COVID-19 rules and factory shutdowns had her the most concerned, it was because these, more than anything else, were sure to wreak havoc on the supply chains Canada relies on to keep its economy running. In July, Canada dodged what was potentially an even bigger blow when the U.S. broade...

The U.S. Trade Representative’s office said on Friday it is extending China “Section 301″ tariff exclusions for another nine months on 352 Chinese import product categories that were set to expire at the end of 2022. The tariff exclusions, which include industrial components such as pumps and electric motors, some car parts and chemicals, bicycles and vacuum cleaners, were reinstated in March by U.S. Trade Representative Katherine Tai as part of her strategy to confront Chinese trade practices. USTR said the extension “will help align further consideration of these exclusions with the ongoing comprehensive four year review” of the Section 301 tariffs imposed by former U.S. President Donald Trump on some $370 billion worth of Chinese imports. The trade office said it is collecting comments in the tariff review through Jan. 17, 2023. https://www.tausiinsider.com/u-s-extends-tariff-exclusions-on-352-chinese-import-categories-for-nine-months/?feed_id=327684&_unique_id=641714e63b...

If Canada needs to pivot from its dependent trade relationship with China, why not try the Americas? ANDRES VALLE/Getty Images Kevin Lynch was clerk of the Privy Council and vice-chair of BMO Financial Group. Paul Deegan was a public affairs executive at BMO and CN, and served in the Clinton White House. With China becoming increasingly a geopolitical and security concern, Canada’s release of an Indo-Pacific Strategy is timely. The strategy is primarily a reset of how Canada views China in the Xi Jinping era, pivoting away from what has become a dangerously dependent trade relationship. Worthy objectives, but it raises the question: Shouldn’t we have a comprehensive economic strategy for our own Western Hemisphere? The unequivocal answer is yes. The geopolitical calculus is twofold, not only in diversifying away from China but also in helping others in such diversification. Over the past two decades, China has emerged as a much bigger player in Latin America and the Caribbean, courti...

The Canadian dollar CADUSD weakened against its U.S. counterpart on Thursday as a rebound in equity markets lost momentum and despite preliminary domestic data showing that wholesale trade rose in November. The loonie was trading 0.3 per cent lower at 1.3650 to the greenback, or 73.26 U.S. cents, after moving in a range of 1.3572 to 1.3663. Wall Street stocks fell as investors weighed signs of a still tight U.S. labor market. On Wednesday, the major U.S. indexes posted their biggest daily gains so far in December. Canada is a major producer of commodities, including oil, so the loonie tends to be sensitive to shifts in investor sentiment. Oil climbed to its highest level in 2-1/2 weeks with U.S. crude, heating oil and jet fuel stocks growing tighter just as a wintry blast hits the United States. U.S. crude prices were up 1.1 per cent at $79.14 a barrel. Canadian wholesale trade rose 1.9 per cent in November from October, largely reflecting higher sales in the motor vehicles and parts...

The United States Embassy in Ottawa says it has concerns that the federal Liberals’ controversial online streaming act could discriminate against American companies. In a statement to The Canadian Press, an embassy spokeswoman said U.S. officials are holding consultations with businesses about how Bill C-11 could affect their operations. “We have … concerns it could impact digital streaming services and discriminate against U.S. businesses,” Molly Sanchez Crowe said in the statement. The bill aims to update Canada’s broadcasting law so it reflects the advent of online streaming platforms such as YouTube, Spotify and Netflix. If the bill passes, such platforms would be required to contribute to the creation of Canadian content and make it accessible to users in Canada – or face steep penalties. The proposed law has come under intense scrutiny amid accusations from companies and critics who said it left too much room for government control over user-generated content and social-media a...

Singapore's trade minister Chan Chun Sing, speaks next to his Canadian counterpart, James Carr, during a meeting of the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership, in Santiago, Chile, Thursday, May 16, 2019. Esteban Felix/The Associated Press Carlo Dade is the director of the Trade and Investment Centre at the Canada West Foundation. There are more questions than answers in the federal government’s developing Indo-Pacific strategy, which is designed to help Canada navigate a world where China is a dominant economic force. For Canadian businesses, the most puzzling question is probably why Ottawa is not aggressively pursuing the country’s only real competitive advantage in the region: the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership. The CPTTP is one of the very few areas where Canadian businesses are on par with its competitors in the Pacific Rim and ahead of U.S. companies that want but cannot have a real trade agreement in th...