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From: acton@ubc-cs.UUCP (Donald Acton)
Newsgroups: can.politics
Subject: Re: Trade offsets (Eastern Myopia)
Message-ID: <886@ubc-cs.UUCP>
Date: Thu, 13-Dec-84 01:08:26 EST
Article-I.D.: ubc-cs.886
Posted: Thu Dec 13 01:08:26 1984
Date-Received: Thu, 13-Dec-84 07:44:34 EST
References: <854@ubc-cs.UUCP> <653@watcgl.UUCP>  <1271@dciem.UUCP>
Reply-To: acton@ubc-cs.UUCP (Donald Acton)
Organization: UBC Department of Computer Science, Vancouver, B.C., Canada
Lines: 33
Summary: 

In article <1271@dciem.UUCP> mmt@dciem.UUCP (Martin Taylor) writes:
>I'm not clear why submitting to Indonesian trade offset requirements
>is a bow in the direction of freer trade.

I never said that Canada was required to buy Indonesian goods only that
Indonesia wanted access to the Canadian market and that lack of this 
access resulted in the deal falling through.  I recall that a while
back Canada sold a CANDU reactor to either Rumania or Hungary.  As
part of the deal we were to take a trade offset in strawberries so the 
Canadian government does not have a policy of refusing deals just 
because trade offsets are involved. (If I were truly cynical I would
suggest that the strawberries were accepted because Ontario doesn't
produce a lot of strawberries so damn the rest of the country. :-) )
I, of course, don't support the idea of trade offsets just to secure a deal.
I do believe in free trade and equal access to the market and if that 
was what was required to close the Indonesian deal then those actions
should have been taken.  If trade offsets were involved then they should
have been evaluated to see if the total package was beneficial to the
country instead of choosing the most politically expedient route. 
(Some of us might disagree on what constitutes being beneficial)

>the selling Government has to get into the act to persuade somebody
>not the least interested in the primary deal (lumber) to buy something
>they would not otherwise buy (textiles).  Protection of the industry
>producing the secondary product (textiles) is a separate issue that
>may complicate the whole mess.  If Indonesia wanted its offset in
>something someone in Canada wanted to buy, matters would be easier.

Are you sure we don't want textiles?  Perhaps the perceived lack of demand
for this product is a result of the protection of the Canadian textile
industry which results in artificially high prices for imported textiles.

       Donald Acton