Thread

EU chief opens door for Canada to become 'associate member'

693 points · 905 comments · hackernj

noir_lord · 1789555669 · focus · HN ↗
Good, if the middle power democracies don't align/work together they are going to get torn apart in the struggle between the US and China.
1. krona · 1789556716 · focus · HN ↗
  70% of Canadian exports are to the US. 6% to the EU. Why would e.g. Poland want to enter a trade war with the US on Canada's behalf?
  1. pasc1878 · 1789556816 · focus · HN ↗
    Because Trump is trade warring everyone.
    The middle democracies will do better fighting together and not deal with US individually.
  2. consp · 1789556821 · focus · HN ↗
    Isn't the point that there already is one?
  3. NuclearPM · 1789557173 · focus · HN ↗
    Because the US is likely to ally with Russia over Poland.
  4. 9dev · 1789557286 · focus · HN ↗
    Because the US is going to throw Poland under the bus without even considering once if it yields a short-term benefit.
    walthamstow · 1789557555 · focus · HN ↗
    Under the bus again, I might add
    gustavus · 1789558124 · focus · HN ↗
    That's rich considering it was France and the UK that threw Poland under the bus despite having a signed defense pact. The US just came in to clean up the mess.
    post-it · 1789558278 · focus · HN ↗
    I don't think they're talking about WWII.
    ajuc · 1789558367 · focus · HN ↗
    WW2 ended with Yalta conference where Roosevelt agreed to Stalin's proposition of giving Poland to USSR's sphere of influence, making Poland (and rest of EE) their puppet state.
    Churchil wanted to pressure Stalin to leave Poland (and at least parts of EE) independent and even considered "Operation Unthinkable".
    At least that's what I think the guy above referenced.
    hilbert42 · 1789561056 · focus · HN ↗
    That's pretty much what happened. Trouble was the stakes were already high, if Starlin didn't yield to a bluff (had one been pursued) it would have been an embarrassing backdown and a show of weakness on part of the allies.
    "Bluff" because no one other than perhaps Stalin would have followed through—to essentially extend WWII (this time between former allies).
    So pragmatism was the order of the day, thus Poland and EE were sacrificed.
    UpsideDownRide · 1789559329 · focus · HN ↗
    If Stewie punched me, It doesn't mean Quagmire didnt.
    awruko · 1789559923 · focus · HN ↗
    I am under impression that some other nation was involved in cleaning up. If you can even call it cleaning up.
    ifwinterco · 1789560306 · focus · HN ↗
    Well we started an enormous war that basically destroyed Europe over poland, so I guess at least we tried?
  5. Komte · 1789557406 · focus · HN ↗
    So the assumption is trading with Canada = trade war with US? Canada is abused pretty hard it seems...
  6. invaliduser · 1789557481 · focus · HN ↗
    If "70% of Canadian exports are to the US", that's probably why the US has so much leverage, and I can see why the Canadian government would like a change. Hence the need for a rebalancing of trade partnerships.
    arethuza · 1789557573 · focus · HN ↗
    Wouldn't being strongly aligned with the EU give Canada a lot more leverage in trade discussions with the US?
    gizajob · 1789560204 · focus · HN ↗
    No
    microtonal · 1789560705 · focus · HN ↗
    Imagine they were in the EU. The EU could leverage the trade bazooka in the current tariff war.
    Even if Canada doesn't join the EU, there is a lot of mutual benefit from an economic and military defense pact (beyond NATO, which is nearly dead).
    gizajob · 1789562761 · focus · HN ↗
    I’m not sure what the EU has to trade, except Volkswagens and BMWs which are 10% car and 90% pension costs.
    microtonal · 1789564212 · focus · HN ↗
    You know that the EU has a large trade surplus of goods with the US?
    ericmay · 1789565396 · focus · HN ↗
    Right… so why do you think the US imposed tariffs? Germany is already seeing gigantic problems via declining exports because of China. Are they going to stop exports to the United States too?
    The EU can’t add any more “trade bazooka” than it already has. Canada doesn’t change anything in that dynamic.
    mcv · 1789559570 · focus · HN ↗
    I'd like to take a closer look at what exactly Canada is exporting to the US, and what exactly the EU is importing from elsewhere, to see if there's a match. I'd rather buy from Canada than from Russia. Or China. Or the US.
    microtonal · 1789560604 · focus · HN ↗
    I bought a dbrand case from Canada last week. Even the packaging is funnier (in a comical way) than US products.
    Sorry, my brain is fried by a cold :).
    enoint · 1789565583 · focus · HN ↗
    The important categories are oil and potash. Consumer actions might not influence those much.
    mcv · 1789566411 · focus · HN ↗
    How much oil is Europe still importing from Russia? I'd rather have Canadian.
    enoint · 1789566807 · focus · HN ↗
    I’m sure China would, too. I wonder what’s harder: diverting that oil to the northwest passage, or diverting Persian Gulf oil around the strait of Hormuz?
    WarmWash · 1789568341 · focus · HN ↗
    You know how despite climate change being very real, in day to day discussions with other level headed people, they still very regularly say stuff like
    "We ran the numbers for an EV, and right now gas is still cheaper, so we are holding off on the switch until it makes financial sense"
    Canadian oil would need to be shipped halfway around the world. It would be more expensive. Price is always the top factor for everyone.
    mcv · 1789569187 · focus · HN ↗
    Fair point. What we really need of course is more renewables, and that is happening, but not fast enough, so we still need oil. And I'd rather get our oil in a way that doesn't fuel the Russian war machine, even if it does cost a bit more.
    enoint · 1789605572 · focus · HN ↗
    The politically-important Alberta oil mostly goes to the mountain states down here. Coincidentally, those same states rely heaviest on coal for electricity. So, the choice is recharge an EV on coal (think arsenic and mercury accumulating somewhere nearby) or good ol gasoline (which is piped from Canada).
    bryanlarsen · 1789649760 · focus · HN ↗
    The heavy oil refineries are generally near the Gulf and in the Midwest, so that's where the Canadian oil goes.
    enoint · 1789719051 · focus · HN ↗
    That’s proportionally true. Utah and Wyoming depend on Alberta because of elevation. I’m confused by the change at Seaway.
    mcv · 1789661718 · focus · HN ↗
    Mountain states? Can't they use hydro power?
    enoint · 1789719682 · focus · HN ↗
    I think what you’re wondering is: can residential electricity schedules promote off-peak rates for EV charging. I’ve seen that and I think it takes the edge off.
    But we’re in a drought right now. I think hydro is down at least 20%. Wyoming wind power alone totally makes up for that.
  7. gbalduzzi · 1789557575 · focus · HN ↗
    Deals right now are intended to increase the trades between Canada and reducing those with the US, in little improvement steps.
    If in 10 years the ratio moves from 70/6 to 50/26, the situation will be vastly different.
    The options are not black and white
  8. Lio · 1789557614 · focus · HN ↗
    It's not that they want to enter a trade war with Trump, it's that there's large room for growth in trade between Canada and Poland (your example).
    Since Trump is hostile to trade with both parties there's an opportunity to replace lost US trade that's probably not coming back.
    Trump has weakened himself and his allies where as mutual trade between Canada and the EU makes both stronger.
  9. ajuc · 1789557927 · focus · HN ↗
    Polish export to US is about 3% of its total export and import - about 5% of Poland's total import. Not much to lose, honestly. We trade more with Czech Republic.
    Polish export to EU is 74% of its total export and import is about 60% of its total import.
    Economically - whatever's good for EU is good for Poland and US barely matters.
    graemep · 1789559246 · focus · HN ↗
    What about the importance of that trade. The US exports a lot of critical things that cannot be supplied from elsewhere. Everyone is heavily reliant on American technology.
    krzyk · 1789559863 · focus · HN ↗
    Like what specifically?
    graemep · 1789560128 · focus · HN ↗
    The hardware is produced in Asia but American controlled. its still a dependency on being supplied by American companies.
    "Only services" covers a lot of critically important things. Just AWS could turn off a huge chunk of European economies.
    krzyk · 1789560457 · focus · HN ↗
    Yes, but services are easier to replace than hardware. And control is something you have, and then you don't have if the country in which you operate decides otherwise (or US presidents throws another tantrum).
    Companies use AWS because it is there and others used it, so they got ball rolling. It doesn't mean one couldn't replace it with another service, most probably more pricey one. If there would be some kind of war, then one doesn't need to have servers in US, and European ones are right there.
    You can't easily replace e.g. lithium or other metals.
    microtonal · 1789561224 · focus · HN ↗
    After decades of globalization, everyone is just extremely dependent on everyone.
    I think hardware is a bit complicated by the way. A lot of hardware is also not US controlled. For instance ARM Holdings is British, Japanese, or global depending on how you look at it and quite a lot of vendors rely on ARM's reference designs. Europe also has a lot of important chip designers, but they are more focused on embedded systems and support chips, like NXP and ST Microelectronics.
    "Only services" covers a lot of critically important things. Clouds services and payment systems, for example. Even just one American company like AWS could turn off a huge chunk of European economies.
    Why European governments and increasingly companies are trying to move away to European alternatives. It all starts small, but e.g. a bunch of governments are already disentangling from Office. The sale of the maintainer of the Dutch DigiD infrastructure to a US company has been blocked (would have happened without any blockers a few years ago).
    It's like turning a mammoth tanker, but it is slowly happening.
    Let's just hope we have critical mass before the right-wing populists take over, big tech has been intensively lobbying them in recent years [1]. So much 'for the people', like they always proclaim.
    [1] <a href="https://www.brusselstimes.com/1916422/us-tech-giants-allying-with-european-far-right-to-strip-back-eu-rules" rel="nofollow">https://www.brusselstimes.com/1916422/us-tech-giants-allying...
    graemep · 1789562264 · focus · HN ↗
    Arm is important, but for R & D. The impact of not having Arm will take a long time to be felt. The same for a lot of the others you mention. Not having a supply or Intel and AMD CPUs would be felt much faster and would be harder to find replacements for.
    > It's like turning a mammoth tanker, but it is slowly happening.
    Is it really happening? As has been mentioned on HN multiple times the EU's age verification app will only run on American controlled devices. Some countries are moving some things away from US suppliers, buts its very much one step forward then two steps back.
    > Let's just hope we have critical mass before the right-wing populists take over, big tech has been intensively lobbying them in recent years
    Unfortunately, not only them. As the article says the existing European Commission is already going in the direction big tech want, just not as far. The current British government (a historically left wing party) has also been cosying up to big tech. One of the organisations mentioned in your link has a lot of info on EU lobbying in general: <a href="https://corporateeurope.org/index%2Ephp/en/lobbying-the-eu" rel="nofollow">https://corporateeurope.org/index%2Ephp/en/lobbying-the-eu
    microtonal · 1789564166 · focus · HN ↗
    Arm is important, but for R & D. The impact of not having Arm will take a long time to be felt. The same for a lot of the others you mention. Not having a supply or Intel and AMD CPUs would be felt much faster and would be harder to find replacements for.
    ARM doesn't just do R&D, they design full CPU cores. Until recently, Qualcomm's cores were ARM's reference design with their own extensions on top. It's only since Oryon that their CPUs are more dependent (the tech was acquired through their Nuvia acquisition).
    graemep · 1789564366 · focus · HN ↗
    > ARM doesn't just do R&D, they design full CPU cores
    How is design not R & D? it is literally what the D in R & D stands for!
    pyrale · 1789629835 · focus · HN ↗
    That is the kind of discussion where people end up saying "Oh okay, but we can FIRE ZE MISSILES".
    AWS will never willingly stop serving the EU, and oil corps will (unfortunately) never willingly stop selling oil. The US govt could force it, but that would be the end of US-EU relations, economic or otherwise.
    subscribed · 1789593831 · focus · HN ↗
    Remember International Criminal Court sanctioned for investigating Israeli and American role in the crimes being committed on the Palestinian territory?
    <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cnvnl0elz47o" rel="nofollow">https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cnvnl0elz47o
    On top of more than 10 already.
    Or sanctioned Francesca Albanese, a UN Special Rapporteur, for her work related to human rights abuses in the Palestine.
    She can't have bank account (or other financial product), own a property or work in many sectors in countries holding meaningful bilateral relationships with the USA.
    So what services do you have in mind? :)
    data-ottawa · 1789560823 · focus · HN ↗
    So the implication is continue doing that?
    I’ve always been told don’t let perfect be the enemy of good, and the journey of 1000 miles starts with a single step.
    The lesson here is that you can’t rely on the US anymore. Not for military protection, not for defence procurement, and not for trade or supply chain. That legacy has ended entirely by choice of the United States.
    The problem has moved beyond monetary trade value and into existential risk.
    pyrale · 1789628676 · focus · HN ↗
    That reliance is increasingly seen as a bomb about to explode rather than a boon.
  10. raverbashing · 1789558457 · focus · HN ↗
    Funny, to justify Brexit numbers like these were meaningless
    subscribed · 1789593928 · focus · HN ↗
    Putler invested a lot in that. Cheap price for the impact we still see.
  11. LeBit · 1789561264 · focus · HN ↗
    Because the US is wreaking havoc world wide. The US cannot be trusted anymore.
    Better remove the bandaid now then wait until you are screwed.
    People now see China as the reliable partner. This will be a multigenerational change.
  12. epistasis · 1789566918 · focus · HN ↗
    Exports are really easy to move and replace, as has been proven again and again in the past two years. Turns out that imports can be far trickier and pose larger problems to an economy.
  13. rsynnott · 1789569351 · focus · HN ↗
    In 1960, 75% of Ireland's exports went to the UK, and 50% of its imports came from there. By 2000, it was 35% imports, 25% exports. Today it is 20% imports, 8% exports. There are a few things going on here, but a lot of it was EU membership giving Ireland options beyond its 'natural' trade partner (and then the big drop from 2000 to now was mostly Brexit).
    Being in a situation where 70% of your exports go to one country is arguably pretty unhealthy; that is something that Canada would do well to work towards reducing, even _if_ the US administration wasn't openly hostile.

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