Source: Michael J. Ballanger for The Gold Report 04/26/2017
The tariff the Trump Administration plans to slap on Canadian lumber imports should lead to a further weakening of the Canadian dollar, a move that precious metals expert Michael Ballanger says can only help the bottom line of Canadian gold producers.
Over the past 40 years, the British Columbia lumber business has always taken great glee in plucking the chin hairs out of Uncle Sam’s beard by legislating protection for its markets by way of subsidies and tax credits with political parties catering and pandering to the voting workers in an industry that dominates the provincial workforce ranking second only to agriculture.
Each time one of the grey bristles was plucked from that star-spangled beard, the Big Man would flinch and growl and wave his massive arm as if to swat away the irritant but NEVER would Uncle Sam do anything but make noise. Now, with news that the Trump Administration intends to slap a 24% tariff on Canadian lumber exports to the U.S., the first cannonball in the dismantling of NAFTA has sailed across the bows of the Mexican and Canadian frigates moored in the harbor of international trade.
The Canadian dollar has been smoked for a 0.65% haircut Tuesday and that trend is NOT going to end any time soon because of the old adage that “there is never only one cockroach”; these U.S. politicians will have a sitting duck target in their northern neighbors because Canada has absolutely zero leverage in the negotiations. With that, the Americans are bound to graduate from the obvious lumber bogeyman to other things like pipelines and banking and livestock, because once politicians see the popularity …read more