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  • Hacker News
  • Canada doesn't even have free trade internally... It's literally easier to sell to the US or EU than to another province.
    by dismalaf
  • It'd depend on what you're selling, surely? I've never had any problems of this sort with basic retail product, for example
    by thunderfork
  • Food and especially liquor continue to have stupid barriers between provinces. But intra-provincial trade increases every year and the CMRA legislation from last year should improve that.

    There are no tariffs between Canadian provinces and never have been.

    by emptybits
  • For me the most striking thing about this was before the Brexit referendum there was rhetoric about how the UK would form a CANZUK alliance with free movement of people and goods between these countries, forming a sort of English speaking EU.

    Even if Canada and Australia don't join the EU as full members which is unlikely anyway (deeper ties are definitely on the table though), these sort of announcements should put to bed these complete and utter fantasies the UK has about leading some alternative world order where it's in charge and can go toe to toe with the EU.

    https://boris-johnson.com/2013/08/25/the-aussies-are-just-li...

    https://www.ippr.org/articles/could-the-idea-of-the-anglosph...

    Even many British would agree that Brexit was full of absolute lies, and even to this day you still see them being repeated in certain circles. These weren't even possibilities.

    by s_dev
  • Too bad those countries are so far apart even if they've once been part of the same empire.
    by petre
  • "Even if Canada and Australia don't join the EU as full members"

    The European project is bigger than the EU - that's just the central core.

    There's also the EFTA, EEA, CEFTA, CU, Eurozone, Shengen, CoE, and Swiss-style bilateral treaties.

    See https://thisbugslife.com/2021/05/10/graphic-representation-o...

    Canada can easily find a home one of these.

    by ta20240528
  • It is a total fantasy that Australia would throw back in with the ghost empire that is the UK. They literally have nothing to offer us apart from a figurehead head of state.
    by smackeyacky
  • Australian here. Theres no way we’re joining the EU. Brussels is on the other side of the planet from Australia. Our major trading partners are nearby countries, like China, Japan, NZ, and the US. Not continental Europe. Europe is too far away.
    by josephg
  • PRC's trade surplus is pushing for a wide customs union. This is a part of this trend.
    by valeg
  • LOL Canada should seek deeper internal alliances first. Since 2015, every year the QoL gets worse.
    by BIGFOOT_EXISTS
  • Why not both? Perfection is the enemy of good.

    More good reliable friends is always better, and fuck the unreliable backstabbing ones as much as possible and reasonable, future will sort out details. World is not static, alliances change and we may revert in future if US population decides it wants to be ruled over by more reasonable, respectable and kind people.

    by kakacik
  • There is a group of people in canada which takes care of QoL and another group of people taking care of external relationships and trade.

    And normally this helps a country?

    by Gregkion
  • Step 0: be included in Eurovision

    Australia 2015 √

    Canada 2027 √

    by landosaari
  • Amazing, let's please do Japan and Taiwan next.
    by svara
  • Japan and Taiwan are culturally very foreign unlike Australia and Canada. If we add them we might as well add the whole globe.
    by dachworker
  • Japan ambassador in Romania said just that in an interview.
    by GoToRO
  • This is a positive sign: free-minded, aligned, progressive nations clustering together. Suggested next steps are to form a single market, military, issue common trade currency, move off US dollar, stop trading with the US, thereby restoring sovereignty and enacting your own laws etc.

    All, of course, is a ramp to eventually shunning the US: the global bully.

    Yes, we can!

    by penguin_booze
  • >Suggested next steps are to form a single market

    >thereby restoring sovereignty

    So Canada will be able to be in the EU single market but make its own trade rules and agreements then?

    Let me fix your chant for you: No, it can't!

    EU can't even shun Russia, let alone the US.

    by drstewart
  • From the Reuters article:

    > Australia and the European Union signed a free trade agreement in March after eight years of negotiations, removing tariffs on almost all goods and potentially easing EU access to Australian critical minerals.

    Reuters left out the most interesting part which is to allow service providers to work on either side and four year visas (which include work) in both directions.

    by gumby
  • An "expanded" Schengen Area that crosses the Atlantic and Pacific oceans and brings Canada, Australia (and Japan, maybe?) into the fold would be an incredible thing. I'm all for it.
    by world2vec
  • It would be nice, but it's too high a bar to set, as the visa policies differ significantly between the three.

    There is a real danger the Schengen agreement itself will collapse in the upcoming years - Germany is already ignoring both the Schengen agreement and its own courts by keeping border controls.

    by bojan
  • It has always surprised me that the 'free world', NATO countries, developed countries (including Japan, Taiwan, Australia), however one wants to call them, do not have at least free trade, if not free movement of people and capital, between them.

    A travesty, IMO. And a great loss making us all poorer. Not a patchwork of point-to-point free trade agreements, but several hub agreements that countries join, and, in time, the hubs agree to free trade between them too.

    by ovi256
  • The schengen zone is exactly this hub agreement isn't it?
    by nemomarx
  • The politics of this is grindingly difficult; people think of "them and us", not "we're all together in three free world". Achieving free trade means either dismantling all the little market carve-outs that local politics relies on, or enshrining them in the collective (EU farming policy).

    Imagine trying to integrate the politics of Japanese rice farming into the CAP.

    by pjc50
  • I guess that's what the EU is trying to be.
    by Steve16384
  • Canada has long had a very good free trade deal with the EU, which eliminated 98% of tariffs in 2016 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comprehensive_Economic_and_Tra...
    by dmix
  • Of course the 2% of items not included are pretty substantial; agricultural products with strict quotas.

    There's also strict country of origin rules so if too many materials are sourced outside Canada, even if its made in Canada it can be subject to tariffs. Not to mention needing to adhere to EU standards.

    by dismalaf
  • The reddit post links to: https://www.reuters.com/business/australia-on-same-page-cana...
    by consumer451
  • Ooops, I meant to link Reuters, not Reddit. @mods, could you change?
    by vrganj