G20 前不久的报道, 加拿大成了美国想和中国脱钩的主力和干将。
加拿大有点懵,大哥都在和中国眉来眼去,欧洲不用说了,就是中立,经济利益是绝对不能少的。
连之前和中国剑拔弩张的澳大利亚最近和中国关系基本解冻。还阻止台湾进泛太平洋贸易组织,说不是一个国家。
Canadian minister in Washington: We need to decouple from China
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Champagne pitches for U.S. investment in Canadian mineral projects to lessen reliance on Beijing
Alexander Panetta · CBC News · Posted: Oct 21, 2022 8:53 PM ET | Last Updated: October 21
Federal minister François-Philippe Champagne holds a news conference on the rooftop of the Canadian embassy in Washington on Friday. (Alex Panetta/CBC News)
This item is part of Watching Washington, a regular dispatch from CBC News correspondents reporting on U.S. politics and developments that affect Canadians.
What's new
Canada's industry minister was in Washington making a pitch for projects north of the border to access U.S. federal funding for critical minerals.
François-Philippe Champagne's trip came after the U.S. passed
several bills offering large sums of money for green energy and other high-tech projects.
They include hundreds of millions for President Joe Biden to steer to certain projects under the U.S. Defense Production Act.
As a
legal member of the U.S. industrial base, and
home to several of the critical minerals that power electric batteries, Canada is hoping some cross-border projects might qualify.
"Yes there are sums in these acts which Canadian companies can tap into," Champagne, the innovation, science and industry minister, told reporters Friday at the Canadian embassy in Washington.
"That's what we're going to be working (on) with Canadian industry. To be embedded in these very important initiatives."
He was speaking at the tail end of a trip where he met his U.S. counterpart, Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo, the head of NASA, Bill Nelson, and
spoke to a business audience.
An electric vehicle being charged in Ottawa in July. The vehicle batteries run on minerals, few of which are produced in North America. (Sean Kilpatrick/The Canadian Press)
What's the context
The context is the rivalry with China and Russia. Washington is increasingly unnerved about being dependent on its greatest geopolitical foe, China, for minerals that power the economy: phones, computers, clean technology and electric vehicles.
China dominates the market and once
cut off Japan's access to those vital industrial inputs. Just as Russia has now cut off Europe from exports of home-heating gas.
The U.S. is now working to decouple its high-tech economy from China's and j
ust restricted exports of advanced computer chips to that country; the U.S. has
set out broad strategies for breaking its dependence on Chinese goods.
Champagne said countries that share similar values should be leaning on each other more and leaning less on rivals including China.
"What we want is certainly a decoupling: certainly from China, and I would say other regimes in the world which don't share the same values," he told a panel hosted by the Canadian American Business Council.
"People want to trade with people who, really, share the same values."
WATCH | The future of Canada's supply chains:
'Resiliency' is key to future of supply chains, says Innovation Minister Francois-Philippe Champagne
29 days ago
Duration1:09
Champagne told reporters after meetings in Washington that Canada will play a key role in the future of cross-border supply chains with the U.S.
Canadian Deputy Minister Chrystia Freeland this month gave
a speech in Washington on a similar theme, arguing for so-called friend-shoring: she said democracies should tighten their economic, and military, bonds and rely on each other more for trade.
Champagne called this a once-in-a-generation chance to rewrite supply chains, as the world shifts toward electric vehicles and toward trading more with reliable allies.
He cited examples of how Canada fits in.
For example, he said he envisions a future where New York State and Quebec form a semiconductor corridor, similar to the auto-production corridor in Windsor and Detroit: as Detroit's Big Three move parts between their plants on either side, he said, an IBM could move computer components to plants back and forth.
He also noted Canadian spending on
a critical mineral plant in Quebec: Champagne said the titanium produced there will benefit the U.S. military.
During his trip, Champagne also received blowback for two bills currently in Parliament, his government's bills
C-18 and
C-11.
They would require big Internet platforms
to compensate Canadian news organizations for content they run, and give the CRTC new power over online content.
A director at a large U.S. business lobby group,
Abel Torres at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, told Champagne the bills discriminate against U.S. websites; violate trade commitments; contradict the principles of an open internet; and give companies little guidance about how Canadian regulators intend to use their new powers.
"We feel these measures are a step in the wrong direction," he told Champagne during the business panel Friday.
WATCH | What is the U.S. Inflation Reduction Act?
U.S. Senate passes Inflation Reduction Act
3 months ago
Duration2:16
The U.S. Senate passed the Inflation Reduction Act — a legacy-shaping bill for the administration of President Joe Biden, that includes $369 billion US in clean energy investments as well as provisions that will lower the cost of prescription drugs and increase taxes on large corporations.
What's next
Canada has increasingly secured a spot in the new supply chains for zero-emission vehicles: companies have announced
new plants and the just-passed U.S. omnibus bill defined cars in Canada as eligible for a domestic tax credit for electric vehicles.
But the fine print on that so-called Inflation Reduction Act has yet to be released. Also lacking: specifics on which projects will get access to funds under the Defense Production Act.
Car companies have complained that so few models will qualify for the electric-vehicle tax credit as to render it meaningless: companies
say there just aren't enough minerals and batteries
produced in friendly countries to be eligible for the credits as designed.
We should have more clarity in the coming months about how the tax credits will work.
The U.S. is still drafting rules for how to implement the law and the U.S. government
announced this month that people will have until Nov. 4 to
submit public comments as part of that process.