North Korea announced that the United States may well receive an unwelcome “Christmas gift”. POTUS seems unphased, although he is struggling through a NATO meeting where he is criticizing French President Macron for stating that NATO is braindead, when he, in fact, has frequently questioned the value of the alliance. Then, POTUS abruptly left when other leaders made fun of him in what they thought were private conversations- really!
The USMCA continues to bounce around Washington, some commentator’s hypothesis is that Mr. Trump has trapped Democrats by including changes to the labor, environmental and other provisions of the agreement that are important to Democrats. Chairman Neal of the Ways and Means Committee is a strong labor advocate and is quoted as saying, “By any standard, what we have already negotiated is substantially better than NAFTA and Labor enforcement, in my judgment, is the last hurdle”. I am not sure those changes will equalize the cost of manufacturing among the Member Countries nor will it substantially impact manufacturing jobs in the US. That said, for our region, passing the USMCA remains critically important as it creates stability. In another twist, POTUS is discussing the easing of drug protection to break the deadlock on the USMCA with Democrats, although not much chatter is coming from the Democratic caucus on this subject. We have long awaited action and anticipate that whatever “version” the US passes, that Canada will then take it up and pass. It is worthy of note that Mexico passed this legislation quite some time ago and will need to act again on the new version.
On the other trade war fronts, President Trump on Tuesday warned that the trade war with China could go on beyond the 2020 election, while China issued its own warning indicating that it may institute counter measures against the US along with banning military visits to Hong Kong This disruption followed the imposition by POTUS of tariffs on Brazil and Argentina, threats to impose tariffs on the EU with the French immediately asserting that they will retaliate. By the way, the market fell 350 points. The chaos continues.
The House Democrats released the Ukraine impeachment report which focuses on the Ukraine affair and obstruction of justice. Just a note, in the Nixon impeachment process, the refusal to respond to subpoenas was an article of impeachment. Obviously, the report received loud boos from the Republican side and applause from the Democratic side. How this develops, and what the results are will be very interesting to watch.
Fred Cox, a kicker for the Minnesota Vikings in the 60’s and early 70’s became famous for inventing the nerf football. He was certainly a successful kicker playing many seasons in the NFL, but the nerf football actually supplied him with greater income than his playing career.
Christmas is coming and Christmas trees are for sale on many lots around the country, that only come to life during this time of year. Did you know we buy over 17 million Christmas trees and that it takes 19.7 square miles to produce those trees. In terms of the forests that we have in this country, that is a pretty small number.
An inventor who created a solar powered boat in Canada abandoned it in Newfoundland and it washed up 2,000 miles away on the Irish coast. Puzzled locals discovered it in 2016 in County Mayo in western Ireland. It seems like the inventor, Mr. Small, is a better boat builder than he was a renewable energy genius.
Simultaneously with the declining life expectancy, fertility rates in the US fell in 2018 for the fourth straight year, extending a steep decline in births that began in 2008 as there were only 59.1 births for every 1,000 women of child bearing age in the country last year. These two pieces of news could be very troubling in the long term, if you will, the end dropping off both ends of the spectrum.
Bill Owens is a former member of Congress representing the New York 21st, a partner in Stafford Owens in Plattsburgh, NY and a Senior Advisor to Dentons to Washington, DC.
The views expressed by commentators are solely those of the authors. They do not necessarily reflect the views of this station or its management.