EDITORIAL More reasons to end our U.S. trade dependency “We're in a pre-election atmosphere in the Uni- ted States and all sorts of odd things happen in that atmosphere,” said an obviously stunned External Affairs Minister Joe Clark, Oct. 19. Clark and the Tories were reeling from yet another U.S. protectionist blow (the second in two days) that will cost Canada dearly. On Oct. 16 the U.S. Commerce Department imposed a 15-per-cent duty on Canadian softwood lumber exports, a move that could cost 5,000 jobs and reduce exports by about $500 million yearly. This was followed Oct. 17 by a new surtax on all imports into the U.S., a move that will cost Canada an estimated $200 million per year on this country’s $95 million in exports to the U.S. The legislation will affect every kind of Canadian product sold in the U.S.; one exporter decribed the action as “insane.” These latest blows to Canadian trade, contrary to Clark’s simplistic assertions, cannot be blamed on “odd” happenings during a U.S. congressional elec- tion year alone, although bashing foreign imports in the face of a huge U.S. trade deficit and high jobless rate is part of the picture. The fact is, American capitalism and its elected representatives intend to get out of their severe economic mess on the backs of their trading partners as well as their own working class. And Canada, as the biggest U.S. partner, is going to feel American heat in the form of every punitive mea- sure available. Brian Mulroney may well have “a special rela- tionship” with Reagan. But he may not yet under- stand what sort of relationship it really it. But Canada is quickly learning what is demanded of us — first shakes and shingles, then a 15 per cent lumber tariff, then an across-the-board surtax. “Today it’s lumber, tomorrow it could be any number of issues,” a bewildered Trade Minister Pat Carney told the press, inadvertently echoing what most Canadians know to be true — that this is a forerunner of what “free trade” with the U.S. will be like for Canada. “This demonstrates again that U.S. financial interests and the U.S. government intend to ride roughsod over Canada’s interests in trade negotia- tions,” charged Maurice Rush, leader of the Com-- munist Party’s B.C. provincial committee. “The policy of putting all our eggs in the U.S. basket, particularly as far as lumber is concerned, is disas- trous,” he told B.C. voters last week, charging that the province’s Socreds and Ottawa both share responsibility for this latest U.S. attack on Cana- dian jobs. These latest salvos across the border make sev- eral points: First, Canada should immediately get itself out of the free trade talks, understanding as most Canadians do, that they represent a danger to our economic, political and cultural sovereignty. Canada should end its trade reliance on U.S. markets by expanding trade with all countries — especially the socialist one-third of the globe and the developing nations. Our trade with the world should be multilateral and mutually-beneficial, with U.S.-Canadian trade conducted within this frame- work rather than the present dangerously one-sided arrangement. USE AIELE By t/ ee ak np A JIRIBONE- Editor — SEAN GRIFFIN as Assistant Editor — DAN KEETON Business & Circulation Manager — MIKE PRONIUK Graphics — ANGELA KENYON Published weekly at 2681 East Hasti Vancouver, B.C. VEK 125. 9° street Phone (604) 251-1186 Subscription Rate: Canada — $16 one year: Foreign — $25 one year: Second class mail registration number 1560 $10 six months 4] For a few hours-in Reykjavik it seemed the world might be spared the agony and anxiety of an accelerated arms race. It appeared that the proposals placed on the table by Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev — an immediate 50- per-cent reduction of the triad of strategic weapons, total elimination of medium-range missiles in Europe, strict application of the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) treaty — might be accepted by President Ronald Reagan. There was a moment when it appeared the most sweeping, fundamental and dramatic nuclear arms reduction since the nuclear age began could be reached between the USSR and U.S. It seemed the goals of 1986, the United Nations International Year of Peace, were finally within reach. But Star Wars, Reagan’s multi-billion dollar SDI nightmare which offers the horrors of space-based nuclear warfare, scuttled any chance of an agreement at the summit. There should be no ambiguity: had the United States agreed in Reykjavik, under the ABM treaty’s terms, to limit its SDI program to laboratory research only for the next 10 years, we would today be witnessing the dismantling of nuclear arsenals that took the past 40 years to amass and perfect. Reagan and the U.S. military-industrial complex traded arms control for Star Wars. It’s that chillingly simple. If proof is neeeded, let Washington take Moscow up on its offer repeated just days ago — that the Soviet proposals at Iceland remain on the table. What’s needed, they say, is U.S. agreement. Then arms control and reduction can begin immediately. That would require Reagan abandoning his obses- sion with Star Wars, and the Pentagon’s drive for mil- itary superiority over the USSR via the SDI back door. As Gorbachev put it in an Oct. 22 televised speech: the USSR won’t agree to eliminate its nuclear arsenal on earth only to be threatened by nuclear death from outer space. “Only politically naive people would accept such an offer,” he said, “and there are no simpletons in the Soviet leadership.” He again put Moscow’s offer in crystal clear lan- guage: the U.S. must view the Soviet proposals as a package. All facets of the arms race must be covered by an agreement — this includes space weapons, strategic nuclear weapons, medium-range nuclear weapons, conventional weapons, chemical weapons, bacteriolog- ical weapons. Any fair-minded person could understand this con- cept. Not only did Reagan squander an historic opportun- ity in Iceland, but in the weeks since, Washington’s NATO allies have been subjected to intense pressure to back the U.S. position of a protracted, expanded, dan- gerous arms race. And, once again, the Tory government at Ottawa Stop Star Wars, End Nuclear Tests, End Cruise Testing IT’S UP TO THE PEOPLE saluted the Stars and Stripes, joining other NATO allies in supporting Reagan’s Star Wars gamble while hypo- critically mumbling pious words about arms reduction Rejecting NDP and Liberal demands in Parliament that Ottawa press Reagan to abandon SDI and achieve arms control, the Mulroney majority pressed ahead with its pro-U.S., anti-Canadian support of the Reagan | administration. Ina very real sense, Canada, too, will miss an historic opportunity to help end the arms race if this Tory betrayal of our country’s security and survival goes unchallenged. It’s now that Canadians should mobilize for peace more than ever before. It’s now that the majority which exists in Canada for peace, for a nuclear wepaons-free zone, for an end to nuclear tests, against cruise testing, for an independent pro-Canadian foreign policy must be brought together as never before. The Winninpeg convention of the historic Canadian Peace Alliance next weekend, the Edmonton True North conference Nov. 8-9, and countless large and small actions for peace illustrate the capacity and determination abroad in the land to keep the peace process alive, to stop the wreckers of detente and dia- logue. Mulroney’s Tories don’t speak for this majority on these issues of life or death — the people do. ‘4 ¢ PACIFIC TRIBUNE, OCTOBER 29, 1986 a | ge ee