An economic own-goal EDITORIAL GLASS CANADA August 2018 Volume 30 • Number 4 Annex Business Media P.O. Box 530, Simcoe, Ontario N3Y 4N5 EDITOR | Patrick FLANNERY pflannery@annexbusinessmedia.com 226.931.0545 ASSOCIATE PUBLISHER | Danielle LABRIE dlabrie@annexbusinessmedia.com 519.429.5187 ACCOUNT COORDINATOR | Stephanie DeFIELDS sdefields@annexbusinessmedia.com 519.429.5196 | 888.599.2228 ext. 257 MEDIA DESIGNER | Curtis MARTIN DIRECTOR OF SALES/GROUP PUBLISHER | Martin McANULTY mmcanulty@annexbusinessmedia.com PRESIDENT & CEO | Mike FREDERICKS Publication Mail Agreement #40065710 Printed in Canada ISSN 0843-7041 CIRCULATION email: asingh@annexbusinessmedia.com Tel: 416-510-5189 Fax: 416-510-6875 (main) 416-510-5133 Mail: 111 Gordon Baker Rd., Suite 400, Toronto, ON M2H 3R1 SUBSCRIPTION RATES Canada -1 Year $36.75 (includes GST) ($39.55 includes HST/QST) U.S.A. -1 Year $50.00 (in US dollars) Occasionally, Glass Canada will mail informationon behalf of industry-related groups whose products and services we believe may be of interest to you. If you prefer not to receive this information, please contact our circulation department in any of the four ways listed above. Annex Privacy Officer privacy@annexbusinessmedia.com Tel: 800-668-2374 No part of the editorial content of this publication may be reprinted without the publisher’s written permis-sion. ©2018 Annex Publishing & Printing Inc. All rights reserved. Opinions expressed in this magazine are not necessarily those of the editor or the publisher. No liability is assumed for errors or omissions. All advertising is subject to the publisher’s approval. Such approval does not imply any endorsement of the prod-ucts or services advertised. Publisher reserves the right to refuse advertising that does not meet the standards of the publication. U.S. tariffs on aluminum are likely to hurt them more than us. Our cover looks a bit different than usual this month. Don’t worry, we aren’t turning into a political magazine. But I suppose it’s an example of how politics has infected everything in this age of Trump that the best approach to our big topic looks like a political cartoon. The U.S. tariffs on Canadian steel and alumi-num have been greeted with head-scratching and condemnation by just about all responsible economic commentators. It’s been well established for a very long time that trade protectionism accomplishes the exact opposite of what protectionists claim. People worried about business and job losses in a particular sector often convince politicians that allowing that sector to be exposed to competition from abroad will damage the economy. The proposed solution is either trade barriers like those imposed by the U.S., or subsidies for the affected companies like those extended to Chinese curtainwall manufacturers a decade ago. But the lesson of history is that these measures almost always inflict more damage than benefit on the broader economy. Trade barriers attract a retaliatory response, as we saw last week in Ottawa’s imposition of tariffs on American aluminum windows and doors. That raises the price on those products and, NEXT ISSUE let’s face it, makes it more likely that you as a Cana-dian supplier will also raise prices or at least not make • Imagic Glass efforts to go lower. I hear you saying, “Higher prices? • Nanoglass Yes, please!” But if I’m a politician, I’m supposed to be • Curtainwall looking at the whole picture. Higher prices on prod-ucts mean consumers have to spend more for the same items, bringing standards of living down (at least until wages catch up – which erases the benefits to companies of the higher prices). Op-tional spending will be curtailed, leading to recession, which hurts everyone. Then there’s all the people who made a living importing, selling and servicing the foreign products that are now blocked or too expensive. Flip through this magazine and count the number of advertisements placed by American companies. If they ever decided to abandon the Canadian market, would you give me a job? As outlined in our cover story by Treena Hein, the impact to Canadian glass fabricators of the aluminum tariffs is likely to be slight, since sourcing extrusions from Canadian sources is always a possibility. The greater impact will be to Ameri-can fabricators and exporters of manufactured systems, who will see their costs rise. It’s unclear at this time if they will make any attempt to pass those costs along. but either way they end up impacted financially or in terms of reduced competi-tiveness. Trump doesn’t seem to understand that even the tremendous power of the White House doesn’t enable him to move the Canadian aluminum mines where the bulk of North America’s supply comes from. Of greater concern are the retaliatory tariffs on aluminum windows and doors that our government has imposed, which will certainly impact prices on contractors used to sourcing those products in the U.S. Perhaps it’s time to look for a domestic supplier? In this World Cup soccer season, it sure looks like the U.S. has scored an own goal with these tariffs. Maybe they just aren’t that good at the game.• @GlassCanadaMag www.glasscanadamag.com 4 August 2018 | GLASS CANADA
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