Canada: Busy Two-Way Street

Canada, which thrives on foreign trade, was getting healthier & healthier. Exports and imports, said the Dominion Bureau of Statistics, totaled $409,218,000 in August, the best peacetime month in the country’s history. (Best previous peacetime total: $383,669,000 for November 1945.) Most of the trade, some $200,000,000 worth, was with the U.S.

But exports and imports would be even larger, said Toronto’s Financial Post, if the U.S. would practice what it preaches. Said the indignant Post: the U.S. talks big about lower tariffs, yet its customs regulations are tangled with red tape and absurdities. Samples:

¶ Canadian rubber tires, supposed to enter the U.S. under a 10% tariff, are often classified by customs inspectors as “articles made wholly or in part of graphite.” Result: a 30% duty.

¶ There is a 10¢-a-gallon duty on mineral water transported from Canada to the U.S. One mineral-water importer got around the rule by freezing his product. Ice enters the U.S. duty free.

¶ Some rugs enter the U.S. under a 40% tariff. But any rug with fringe around it is classified as “an article made in whole or in part of fringe.” The duty on that: 90%.