Careful what you wish for

BORDER TAX MIGHT DAMAGE AMERICAN ECONOMY MORE THAN CANADA’S: MORNEAU

Canada’s finance minister warned business leaders in New York on Monday that a proposed U.S. border tax threatens to make both countries poorer — and might even hurt Americans more.

In an appearance at a World Economic Forum event, Bill Morneau cautioned that a tariff-like tax would sting families on both sides of the frontier by disrupting a mutually beneficial trading relationship and imposing extra costs on U.S. firms.

“Our sense is that there would be an initial negative for both economies — and that the negative may be worse for the United States economy,” Morneau said in a question-andanswer session shortly after he raised his concerns about a border tax in a speech. “We don’t think it’s a good idea.” Morneau’s stronger public position against the border tax came after Natural Resources Minister Jim Carr noted last week that the policy faced huge opposition in Washington.

Carr made the comments following a series of meetings in the U.S. capital with lawmakers, administration officials and business people, who he said cast doubts on whether the import tax had any chance of passing in an upcoming omnibus tax bill.

The uncertainty surrounding a border tax has created significant concerns among Canadian companies, many of which rely heavily on exports to the U.S.

Morneau told his audience that the Canadian government had conducted “extremely preliminary” assessments on the potential economic impacts of a tax on U.S. imports.

“As you can imagine, there’s too many hypotheticals to get to an answer that is absolutely clear in that regard,” he said.

Morneau also hailed the strength of the countries’ partnership and argued cross-border trade and investment have been “essentially” balanced over the years.

A border-adjustment tax, he warned, would raise prices for American consumers and could create currency issues with additional challenges of their own.