In some ways I don't blame the companies. That is the business game. However another side of that is that when a company leaves, another company can replace it. It creates opportunity for new Canadian companies to be started. As Canadians, we need to be aware of the companies that leave, stop doing any business with them, build and support new Canadian companies and if that doesn't happen, buy from China or Europe or South America. Yes it will cost Canadian consumers more in the short term but buying from Americans enslaves us over the long term. We have to cut our ties. NAFTA wasn't a boon for Canada, it was a boon for the US. We can choose to support Canada by not buying American.

[–] wampus@lemmy.ca 1 points 15 hours ago (1 children)

Trade isn't really meant to be a win-lose calculation, your take on NAFTA being a win for the USA and not Canada is a fundamentally Trumpian way of looking at it. NAFTA benefited all participating countries.

In terms of Canadian companies filling voids, that's a very optimistic/hopefully outlook. More realistically, Canada's market size is about 1/10th that of the USA, and it's most likely that the Canadian government won't employ things like industry protectionist tactics, such as tariffs on foreign imports. They definitely wouldn't tariff that USA's imports, and not tariff other countries, due to the amount of trade still reliant on the USA -- even if the Canadian govt hits its target of doubling non-USA foreign trade, the USA would still be like >50% of our exports.

I think a slightly different way of looking at this though, is that the companies that are considering moving do not have a sufficient customer base / market in Canada 'alone' to justify their presence. Too many of our businesses get too much of their revenue from USA sales, with little market activity on the Canada side. There are also some manufacturers, particularly in the auto industry, who are getting obliterated by the automation/efficiency of Chinese companies already, who are using the trade fiasco as an excuse -- similar to tech companies using AI as an excuse to trim bloat.

[–] Melvin_Ferd@lemmy.world 1 points 15 hours ago* (last edited 15 hours ago)

Yea but we're telling each other to not implement automation and Ai. So take that China. We have so many groups on western internet telling each other that these technologies are evil. So at least we have morals given to us by these anonymous totally not Chinese backed digital groups

[–] SaveTheTuaHawk@lemmy.ca 2 points 18 hours ago* (last edited 18 hours ago)

The reality is when NAFTA was originally signed, hundreds of US companies shut down and moved across the border. Why? Same reason they won't move back, paying workers on a lower dollar value and not having to pay US medical insurance.

From a US perspective, NAFTA/ USMCA did lose them jobs and was not good for the country, however, Republicans and Democrats did nothing to control US medical insurance costs, which makes US labor impossible.

[–] CanIFishHere@lemmy.ca 0 points 1 day ago (1 children)

If an established company decides they can't make money in Canada, it would be doubly true for a new company.

[–] kent_eh@lemmy.ca 0 points 18 hours ago (2 children)

But what if they are only deciding to increase profits beyond the already obscene profits they already make?

[–] SaveTheTuaHawk@lemmy.ca 1 points 18 hours ago (1 children)

Auto sector makes pretty thin margins.

[–] Canconda@lemmy.ca 2 points 16 hours ago

*thin margins on big numbers with all but guaranteed returns.

[–] CanIFishHere@lemmy.ca -3 points 17 hours ago

You must think it's easy to run a multi-national company and just anyone can do it. It is not.