Trade vs. friendship

Re: Crisis cause is national, not global, Terence Corcoran, April 9

Terrence Corcoran’s commentary on domestic failings is insightful. Whether those failings flow from bureaucratic quagmires or political energy focused on short- term “news du jour” issues, or both, is debatable. Properly functioning capital markets, including globalization, are the best means of balancing supply and demand.

As a former prime minister ( Trudeau senior) pointed out, the objective of capital markets is market efficiency and not social equity (which in my view includes the health and safety of Canadians). Social equity is the role of governments. Corcoran’s thesis is right. However, I would add that recent events have also pointed out a long- standing misunderstanding underpinning much of our trade agenda over the decades namely, that a good trading partner is therefore a good “friend.” President Trump and his cronies, global orchestra leaders of the anti- China agenda, called on Canada to, among other things, further their cause via extradition of Huawei’s Meng Wanzhou. As a thank you, Trump didn’t hesitate in attempting to prohibit exports of PPE ( 3M masks) to Canada and only backed down to avoid embarrassment after the 3M CEO said he would ignore the directive. And Canada was purchasing the 3M masks — they weren’t a gift.

Huawei, on the other hand, is reported to have been shipping millions of PPE items to Canada over the past weeks and at no cost to us. Yes, it may be doing it to improve its reputation here and abroad, and I’m OK with that. Hopefully after we’ve passed this crisis, all Canadians and particularly political leaders and policy- makers, will remember that trade is trade and friendship is friendship. Trade and friendship are not synonyms. George Addy, Ottawa