Stuart Trew is a senior researcher with the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives and the director of the Trade and Investment Research Project.
Donald Trump’s trade demands, which would have killed off whole sectors of the productive economy, like auto, were impossible to accept. The negotiations’ collapse could open space for democratic industrial strategy that rejects free trade.
Donald Trump’s sweeping 25% tariff on Canadian and Mexican goods means fewer jobs, lower wages, and higher prices for regular families. Workers will be caught in the cross fire of a political power play.
Trade policy has received next to no attention this election, despite the post-pandemic collapse of corporate supply chains, the unequal distribution of COVID-19 vaccines, and the climate crisis. It will be impossible to confront these problems without a progressive trade policy.
Plastic pollution is choking up the oceans and killing wildlife. It’s the fossil fuel giants who are driving the growth of plastics, not demand from consumers. We need a new approach to environmental regulation that reins in corporate polluters instead of enabling them.