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Letters: Let's end this schoolyard fight with Trump

Readers comment on the 'rank childishness' of our trade 'squabble,' fighting wildfires, food safety, stereotyping boomers, and more

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‘Bring this messy squabble over trade to an end’

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Re: Trump wants trade — just not on terms anyone can decipher — Carson Jerema; and Canada wants free trade — only on its terms — Peter Navarro, both July 22

Letters: Let's end this schoolyard fight with Trump Back to video

In the interests of freeing Canada and the U.S.A. to work together on solving critical global issues, both nations must quickly bring this messy squabble over trade to an end.

Let Canada and the U.S. both openly acknowledge that they need each other, that neither nation can operate efficiently saddled with unreasonable, ultimately destructive high tariffs and trade embargoes. Let each side tabulate the minimum set of reasonable trade rules that they need to make possible the efficient management of their affairs, note the trade rules where there is agreement, draw up a treaty framed around those agreements, sign it and get back to work running their respective country’s affairs.

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Remembering the frequent spectacle of two kids duking it out in the school playground came to mind reading these two articles about the never ending tit-for-tat of the Canada-U.S. trade “negotiations.” The school teachers typically didn’t bother to intervene to stop the fights — nobody ever got hurt, we were very young, weighed very little and were friends again afterwards. But the thing was the fights usually just ended without the intervention of a referee, simply when the boys just agreed silently to call the pointless fisticuffs quits.

So who is the referee in these interminable thrusts and parries between the two nations of — adults? Why, it’s the electorates of course. In each of whom is vested the power of the vote. Unfortunately these two power brokers must wait for election time to render their decisions. But then again unfortunately, in Canada at least, our electorate has persistently exhibited an annoying habit of electing mediocre individuals to our nation’s highest office, resulting in a continuation of the same old childish, fruitless conduct.

As a super salesman, surely President Donald Trump has long ago learned the wisdom of the age-old dictum that a customer will come back for repeat business if both he and the seller always end up winners, i.e. each party gets what he wishes for, or close to it. If........

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