boycott U.S.A.          

    The U.S. crossed a significant line by opposing the effort the rest of the world is making to prevent the environmental destruction of our planet.

     In the worldwide campaign to reverse global warming, the Paris Agreement provides a working, base-line definition of “dirty goods.”  It might not be the best definition.  It might not even be good enough.  But it’s a commendable start.  In that respect, any country that refuses to sign the Paris Agreement is simply a producer of dirty goods.

    In such a country, for example, goods are produced by electricity that might be made with coal or other carbon products, with no plan to be phased out for clean-energy alternatives;  they might be shipped on roads paved with asphalt produced with no carbon restraints, in trucks fuelled by carbon-spewing gasoline that’s not compliant with the emissions plans approved by 190 other countries.  And what about the heat and air conditioning in the factories, and homes of the people who work in them — and the products those people consume?  In the United States, right now, regulators are poised to give tax and other subsidies to coal, and nuclear producers of electricity, on the grounds they face unfair challenges from wind and solar producers!

    Any conscientious person can very reasonably refrain from buying products from such a country.

     Canadians have other special reasons to take economic action against the U.S.A.  The Trump administration has taken direct aim at the way we manage our forests, our dairy industry, our health-care system, our environmental assessments and our pension plans. The U.S. has taken a “play by our rules or go home” attitude in all of its international trade negotiations, especially for renewing NAFTA.

    The Trump administration maintains that its America First policies are necessary because they are good for its economy — the economic well-being, it claims, of its “middle class” or, more realistically, its ownership class, trumps the environmental and economic health of the planet.  A lot of Canadians are willing to use their shopping dollars to show them otherwise.  At least as far as the U.S. economy reaches into Canada.  Which is pretty far.