A Canadian academic has criticized Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's government's "mirroring" of United States in hiking tariffs on Chinese products, saying the copy-cat move undermines free trade.
Canada's 100-percent surtax on the import of electric vehicles (EVs) manufactured in China took effect on Tuesday. Canada also announced a 25-percent surtax on steel and aluminum products imported from China, which will take effect on Oct 15. In response, China has launched an anti-discrimination investigation into Canada's trade restricting measures.
Radhika Desai, a professor at the University of Manitoba’s Department of Political Studies, said in a Tuesday interview with China Central Television that the Canadian government is just taking its cue from the U.S. in imposing additional tariffs on Chinese imports, like it does regarding other China-related policies.
"It seems as though the Trudeau government has decided, for whatever reason, to basically kowtow to the Americans in practically everything they do. So, the Canadian government essentially mirrors what the U.S. government is doing in terms of its economic policy vis-a-vis China,” she said.
She said some Western countries, using tariffs as a weapon, seek to undermine the free trade regime they themselves created because they have lost their competitive edge in emerging technologies.
"This approach has essentially involve Western countries in undermining the very institutions of free trade and so on that they had once created in the expectation that in any free trade regime they will remain the most competitive producers because they will remain in the technological lead, but China has upended that assumption. China is now in the technological lead in many areas, particularly in the case of EV. Since the West is no longer the most competitive, since it cannot dominate markets in any relatively free trade regime, they are undermining the WTO," Desai said.
Canadian university professor criticizes gov't tariff hikes on China
