Canada and the United States are considered to be leading in bilateral trade relationship globally. Canada has got some trade restrictions which it applies in marketing. This essay paper will be focusing on these trade restrictions, the people who benefit from them and the ones who loose.
Some of the restrictions used by Canada are restrictions on exports. Canada has imposed restriction on the United States grain exports. This country insists that all varieties of grain be registered through KVD requirements (ustr.gov). This makes United States and other countries which export in Canada to loose as their varieties are not registered in Canada because they are not visually distinct. Despite the high quality of the United States wheat it’s sold in Canada as livestock feeds at great discounted prices than Canadian varieties (Zhang, 2008). This export restriction on the grains was favoring the local producers of grain in Canada as their products had a ready market.
A restriction on fortification of foods is another aspect applied in Canada trading system (ustr.gov). All the types of food added some vitamins and minerals are restricted by health Canada from being sold at certain levels. All the breakfast cereals and juices are recommended to be perceived as drugs. The manufactured vitamins and minerals are required by the health board to be labeled as meal replacements (ustr.gov). This idea tends to impose a lot of costs on manufacturers who are in turn forced to perform separate production processes for the Canadian markets and for exporters like the United States.
A restriction on container sizes has been in application in Canada for quite sometime. It’s the only country among NAFTA which has imposed this mandatory sizes of the containers which are used to pack processed fruits and vegetables. These container sizes are only available in Canada making it expensive for countries like United States, which produces baby food to make exports to Canada (Sands, 2003). This type of restriction favors the local manufacturers as countries which manufactures baby foods are left on the loosing side. United States has made several requests to Canada to abolish the container size restriction but this has passed without any success. The Canadian government claimed that it would be disruption to trade.
In Canada, there is an agricultural supply management restriction which regulates the prices and supplies which the farmers receive for their agricultural products (Sands, 2003). This regulation limits the powers of the United States and other exporting nations to exports to Canada above the tariffs rate quota levels. This restriction increases the prices which the Canadians give out for agricultural products. In addition, there are sanitary and phytosanitary measures on agricultural and food goods. These measures are imposed to control any spread of diseases to animals as well as people and agricultural activities. There are some meat and dairy products which Canada can only import from United States, and they are only received if they are labeled that they come from US (Neumayer, 2001). Articles like drum from Haiti are restricted in Canada, and the country can not receive any soft shell turtles imports from any country even the United States.
Canada has restrictions on pets, whereby no birds are allowed in the country apart from the ones from US (Zhang, 2008). If Canada is about to receive birds from any other country, those birds must be accompanied by an import permit from Canada which must be obtained in advance.
Reference list
Neumayer, E. (2001). Greening Trade and Investment: Environmental Protection without Protectionism ISBN1853837881, 9781853837883. Earthscan.
Sands, P. (2003). Principles of International Environmental Law, (2nd ed), ISBN0521521068, 9780521521062. Cambridge University Press.
Zhang, D. (2008). The Softwood Lumber War: Politics, Economics, and the Long U.S. Canada Trade Dispute ISBN1933115564, 9781933115566. Web.