Sri Lanka’s Hard Road To Recovery From Economic And Political Crisis – Analysis

 January 9, 2023  

By East Asia Forum

By Dushni Weerakoon*

In 2022 Sri Lanka faced its deepest ever economic and political crisis. The country’s descent into chaos accelerated from March, sweeping away high-level bureaucrats and political leaders held culpable for implementing the misguided economic policies at the heart of the country’s problems. The political casualties failed to allay public disaffection with prolonged power outages, queues and shortages of essential commodities.

The primary target of public unrest was Sri Lanka’s elected president, Gotabaya Rajapaksa. His ouster in July was achieved amid outbreaks of violence and the occupation of key government buildings by protesters. For a while, there were real concerns that Sri Lanka would descend into a state of anarchy. The fact that it was averted — with a transfer of power to a new president elected by a majority of votes in parliament — speaks not only to the country’s tradition of democracy but also a desire to avoid repeating past experience of violent upheavals.

The parliament’s appointment of Ranil Wickremasinghe as Sri Lanka’s eighth president was not without controversy. Wickremasinghe, the nominated candidate of the departing Rajapaksas, and his party had also been roundly defeated at the parliamentary polls in August 2020. Yet he was still seen as the safest pair of hands to carry Sri Lanka through what promises to be its toughest economic setback since independence. Complex negotiations with creditors on debt restructuring following a sovereign foreign debt default in April, and an International Monetary Fund (IMF) bailout program, demanded a sound grasp of global economic forces and geopolitical relations. A seasoned politician who has held the post of prime minister on numerous occasions, this was territory familiar to the new president.

Wickremasinghe lacks an assured parliamentary majority to carry through painful reforms — as well as the legitimacy of having been elected by the people to do so. These could prove serious drawbacks as Sri Lanka struggles to regain its footing in 2023 and beyond.

A cost-of-living squeeze — that placed Sri Lanka in the top five countries with the highest food price inflation for much of 2022 — tipped many vulnerable Sri Lankans into poverty. Poverty is set to swell, even as job and income losses signal the country’s plunge into a prolonged recession. In 2022, GDP is expected contract by close to 9 per cent and the latest estimates suggest that the economy will contract by 3–4 per cent in 2023.

With few policy choices, Sri Lanka is banking on an IMF bailout to facilitate access to bilateral and multilateral financial support to get the economy back on track. The IMF’s four-year US$2.9 billion program provides limited provision of liquidity. What matters is the program’s ability to catalyse other official lenders, private investors and creditors confidence in coming to the party. But the standard IMF policy prescription that demands stringent financial discipline means that adjustment costs will be front-loaded, preventing the government from spending its way out of recession. Accordingly, taxes are being hiked and expenditures are being cut.

Even at the best of times — with a strong and stable government at the start of an electoral cycle — this kind of reform agenda is politically fraught. An economic crisis can sometimes be the catalyst of a major economic overhaul, but in the absence of political stability the downside risks are significant. Governments have far fewer resources in hand to compensate those who are bound to lose out from reforms. The loss of faith in political leaders and institutions, with the Sri Lankan public having clearly demonstrated its readiness to punish those who have failed to deliver, amplifies the perils.

The best hope for Sri Lanka is a swift conclusion to the debt restructuring negotiations. The evidence is sobering in today’s complex creditor landscape. For Sri Lanka, having China, India and Japan as its largest bilateral creditors alongside primarily US-based private bond holders adds a layer of complexity in working out treatment that is comparable and acceptable to all. China has been unwilling so far to take a cut in principal repayments, preferring to refinance payments with fresh loans. Sri Lanka will have to call on all its diplomatic skills to persuade creditors to arrive at a mutually agreeable formula in 2023.

Even if everything goes according to plan, it will be another two or three years before the Sri Lankan public feels any real improvement in economic conditions. The erosion of real wages and the introduction of higher taxes are squeezing disposable incomes, prompting exit by many to seek better living standards overseas.

With Sri Lanka’s economic progress set back by years by the debt crisis, the government can only hope that people will have enough patience to wait until painful austerity-inducing reforms start to work. With all the uncertainties, next year will be crucial for Sri Lanka as it gears up for the all-important presidential elections in 2024. Meanwhile, containing public disaffection amid calls for early elections — while ensuring that political uncertainty does not delay economic decision-making — is set to test the skills of even the most hardened and experienced political leader.

*About the author: Dr Dushni Weerakoon is Executive Director and Head of Macroeconomic Policy Research at the Institute of Policy Studies of Sri Lanka.

Source: This article was published by the East Asia Forum

East Asia Forum

East Asia Forum is a platform for analysis and research on politics, economics, business, law, security, international relations and society relevant to public policy, centred on the Asia Pacific region. It consists of an online publication and a quarterly magazine, East Asia Forum Quarterly, which aim to provide clear and original analysis from the leading minds in the region and beyond.

Layoffs 2023: 6 Companies Who Announced Job Cuts This New Year

By Danielle Ong
01/08/23 

Representative Image UNSPLASH

KEY POINTS

On Jan.6, Twitter cut a dozen jobs related to global content moderation

Amazon will lay off at least 18,000 employees due to uncertain global economic outlook

Vimeo will lay off 11% of its workforce due to the 'uncertain economic environment'

At least six companies across the United States have announced plans to lay off employees in the coming months.

Twitter Inc., under new owner Elon Musk, made at least a dozen job cuts on the night of Jan. 6, Bloomberg News reported, citing people with knowledge of the matter. The layoffs affected employees working in the trust and safety team handling global content moderation for the company's Dublin and Singapore offices.

The job cut also affected the Head of Site Integrity for Twitter's Asia-Pacific region Nur Azhar Bin Ayob and the company's Senior Director of Revenue Policy, Analuisa Dominguez.

Since Musk's takeover in October, at least 5,000 of Twitter's 7,500 employees have either departed or been fired.

Fast-food giant McDonald's is also planning layoffs to help the company innovate faster and accelerate its restaurant expansion, CNBC reported, citing a company-wide memo given to employees by CEO Chris Kempczinski.

It is unclear how many employees will be impacted by the job cut. McDonald's is expected to begin communicating its layoff decisions by April.

Amazon last week announced plans to lay off at least 18,000 employees due to the uncertain global economic outlook. Employees working for the company's human resources department, Amazon Stores, Amazon Go and its People, Experience and Technology teams will be informed of the cut-offs as early as Jan. 18.

Software giant Salesforce on Wednesday said it will be eliminating 10% of jobs, which amounts to more than 7,000 positions, due to falling profits and revenues. In addition, the company is also losing two of its top executives by the end of January, namely co-CEO and Vice Chair Bret Taylor and Slack CEO Stewart Butterfield.

Video platform Vimeo rang in the New Year with an announcement of cutting at least 11% of its workforce due to the "uncertain economic environment," CEO Anjali Sud said in an email to employees, which was shared on the company's blog. Majority of employees affected by the layoff work in the company's Sales and R&D departments.

Goldman Sachs is also expected to cut at least 4,000 employees, or 8% of its workforce, within the coming days, as per Fortune. The layoffs are in response to several factors, including "tightening monetary conditions that are slowing down economic activity."

READ MORE
Wage Increases Could Come As Companies Cut Jobs

Bed Bath & Beyond Says It Has 'Substantial Doubt' About Future

Europe set to be global leader for electric vehicle use by 2030, report says

It is forecast to edge ahead of China, while a sudden rise in demand in the US is predicted

A Volvo XC60 hybrid car is seen plugged into a charging point outside 

a Volvo dealership in Reading, west of London. AFP

Ian Oxborrow

Jan 08, 2023

Europe is forecast to overtake China and have the highest rate of 

electric vehicle use in the world by 2030, according to a report.

The region is forecast to have a 67.3 per cent penetration rate — up from 22 per cent in 2023 — for new energy vehicles, the Citi State of Global Electric Vehicle Adoption report said.

This places it ahead of China (66.6 per cent), South Korea (60.5 per cent) and the US (45.8 per cent), while the Middle East and Africa are forecast to have a penetration rate of only 2.7 per cent.

In October 2022, an agreement was reached by the European Parliament and European Council ensuring all new cars and vans registered in Europe will be zero-emission by 2035.

“Reaching zero emissions by 2035 raises questions around the long-term relevance of hybrid technology in Europe and implies an outright ban on combustion engine technology within 15 years,” the report said.

“While OEMs [original equipment manufacturers] viewed electrification as just a tool to meet CO2 targets a couple of years ago, it has now become an integral part of many of their strategies. The uptake from end consumers has also been encouraging as evidenced in the strong BEV [battery electric vehicle] sales outperformance since 2020.”

A Flourish map

The growth in popularity of electric vehicles was shown in the UK in the past year, as battery electric new cars took a market share of about 17 per cent in 2022, overtaking diesel for the first time to become the second most popular system after petrol, data released by the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders shows.

December saw battery electric vehicles claim their largest ever monthly market share of 33 per cent, driven by a large number of Tesla cars being delivered.

Sales of new petrol and diesel cars and vans in the UK will be banned from 2030.

Last year was regarded as a “good year” for electric vehicle adoption in the US, the Citi report said, with new vehicle sales penetration growing throughout the year to more than 5 per cent of total light vehicle sales.

The rise in EV adoption came despite significant price increases implemented by car makers to offset input costs, however two-thirds of total EV sales came from just eight US states.

The Citi report said there could be a sudden rise in demand on the way.

“Though US EV penetration continues to lag other geographies, we continue to believe that the structure of the US auto market lends itself well for a potential sharp and sudden inflection in EV demand,” the report said.

“This is because vehicle density in the US — the ratio of vehicles per household — ranks highest in the world at greater than 2x, with around 285 million light vehicles on the road.

“EVs have gained in popularity not only for being electric, but also for containing state-of-the-art connectivity and over-the-air software updates often with next-generation advanced driver assistance systems features. As the supply of available EVs grows and as EV charging infrastructure continues to expand, it is conceivable that an increasing number of US households will rapidly decide to migrate to a one internal combustion engine and one EV household — essentially retaining the best of both worlds.”

The economic downturn could, however, provide a “shock” to EV adoption in the US.

EV sales in California account for 35 per cent of the US total, and they could be susceptible to the technology industry layoffs which have been prevalent in recent months, especially with demand supported by a greater mix of younger buyers.

EV adoption in the latter part of the decade will depend on newer battery technologies and the ability to launch high volume EVs at mass market prices, the Citi report added.

Meanwhile, in China, the adoption of new energy vehicles is being driven by consumer appetite for the technology, strong product cycles and government incentives.

Growth in EV users will be aided by a sharp rise in the number of models available to buyers, and particularly at a lower price point.

“Across the price stack, we expect the number of distinct NEVs [new energy vehicles] available for sale to increase from 235 models in 2022 to 399 models in 2025,” the Citi report said.

“On average, we expect 70 per cent of NEVs to transact at prices below RMB200,000 ($28,700) and only 5 per cent-7 per cent of NEVs to transact at prices above RMB300,000 ($43,000), during that forecast horizon.”

The report comes as Tesla, the world's biggest electric car company, announced another record for annual deliveries as it shipped 1.31 million cars in 2022, up more than 40 per cent year on year.

However, Tesla's deliveries missed Wall Street estimates and even the company's own growth projection of 50 per cent, despite opening two new factories last year.

Indonesia volcano erupts, forcing evacuation of hundreds

Indonesian National Search and Rescue Agency (Basarmas) evacuated 164 climbers from the erupting Mount Marapi volcano area in Padang city, the capital of West Sumatra province, on January 8.

VNA Monday, January 09, 2023 
 

 Mount Marapi begins spew avalanches of ash on January 7. (Photo: PVMBG)

Jakarta (VNA) – Indonesian National Search and Rescue Agency (Basarmas) evacuated 164 climbers from the erupting Mount Marapi volcano area in Padang city, the capital of West Sumatra province, on January 8.

Head of Padang city Abdul Malik said they had climbed on Marapi and the mountain began spewed avalanches of ash on January 7.

He revealed that the climbers were discovered during a search and rescue operation conducted by Basarnas in coordination with relevant forces and local people.

Earlier, Marapi volcano began spewing ash at about 6:11 am on January 7. As of the afternoon of January 8, a total of 22 eruptions had been recorded and the danger in this volcano area raised to Level II – a warning level.

Relevant authorities of West Sumatra province have issued a ban on climbing activities in the Marapi volcanic area until the situation returns to normal.

Indonesia records strong eruption of Marapi volcano
Saturday, January 07, 2023 

Mick Lynch: doughty union boss defending UK rail strikers


By AFP
Published January 8, 2023

Vocal trade union leader Mick Lynch on an RMT picket line outside London Euston station on Friday - Copyright AFP Daniel LEAL

Marie HEUCLIN

For some in the UK he is The Grinch behind rail strikes that stole Christmas, yet others praise him for helping a crisis-hit workforce.

Mick Lynch, the general secretary of the RMT rail workers’ union, has been a highly visible figure during mass industrial action in recent months.

Facing strikes on a scale not seen since the 1980s, the government has agreed to meet union leaders on Monday in a bid to break the deadlock.

Prime Minister Rishi Sunak hinted at a more conciliatory approach in a BBC interview Sunday.

“When it comes to pay, we’ve always said we want to talk about things that are reasonable, that are affordable and responsible for the country,” he said.

The meeting comes after 40,000 rail workers resumed strike action last week, seeking wage hikes, to reflect soaring inflation, and better working conditions.

With his blue eyes and shaved head, often clad in a tweed cap, Lynch, 60, has become the best-known public face of the strikers.

The rail workers’ industrial action caused periods of mass train cancellations over the summer and autumn and in the run-up to Christmas.

Other groups such as ambulance staff and nurses in the public health service and postal workers have also gone out on strike, eliciting more public sympathy.

“Most of our people haven’t had a pay rise for four years” and “there’s not many people can put up with a 20% cut in their income” in real terms, Lynch told AFP on a picket line outside Euston station in London.



– ‘Straightforward’ –



His caustic, sometimes sarcastic responses to politicians and journalists have proved popular and are widely shared on social media.

A YouTube poll in December found him to be far more popular than Sunak or the ruling Conservative party.

Lynch says his role in protests is simply “what needs to be done at the minute”.

He says people respond well to his “frankness” and “straightforward talking”, while insisting: “I don’t want to (have a public) profile.”

The Brexit supporter and passionate football fan grew up in a family of five children with little money.

After leaving school at 16, he became involved in the trade union movement while training as an electrician.

Lynch then moved into construction but was blacklisted for having been a union member.

He later entered the rail sector and worked for Channel train operator Eurostar in the 1990s, gradually rising up the trade union hierarchy.

He is married to a nurse in the public health service and they have three children.

He took charge of the powerful RMT union in May 2021.

– ‘Union baron’ –

Lynch has become a scourge of right-wing media, which depicts him as a Marxist agitator hellbent on destroying society.

The Daily Mail tabloid nicknamed him Mick “the Grinch” Lynch, after the children’s book character who hates Christmas.

Business minister Grant Shapps likened him to “1970s union barons”, invoking a time when powerful unions brought the country to a standstill.

Lynch dismisses such attacks as “ridiculous” and “lazy”, although he once told left-wing broadsheet The Guardian he wanted “a bit of socialism”.

He links the cost-of-living crisis gripping the UK to “a lot of reactionary policies that go back to (Margaret) Thatcher”, prime minister from 1979 to 1990.

With a lack of affordable housing, zero-hours contracts and inflation, “a lot of people feel really insecure”, he said, with “fairly middle class” groups such as lawyers joining pickets.

Hence the failure, he says, of government efforts to turn the public against the strikers — even if the rail workers face greater hostility than nurses or paramedics.

Ordinary people, seeing the strikers, “think ‘Oh, well, they’ve got an argument. And actually, all of this is happening to me in my job’,” he said.

He wants to see greater coordination between strikers, particularly to protest against proposed legislation setting minimum levels of work that must be done in various public sectors.

Watch: Rishi Sunak refuses to answer this question 3 times amid strikes in UK

Published on Jan 09, 2023 

Rishi Sunak: Through the interview, Rishi Sunak 

also told people to stop “bandying around” wrong claims.

Rishi Sunak: Britain's Prime Minister Rishi Sunak appearing on the BBC's 'Sunday Morning' show.

ByMallika Soni

British prime minister Rishi Sunak was urged to "come clean" after he repeatedly refused to answer a question on private healthcare. Amid strikes in UK by the health staff, Rishi Sunak told the BBC that questions over whether he is registered with a private hospital charging 250 pounds for a 30 minute appointment were a "distraction" and "not really relevant".

Through the interview, Rishi Sunak also told people to stop “bandying around” wrong claims that 300 to 500 people are dying a week due to “delays and problems with urgent and emergency care”.

“The NHS have themselves said they don’t recognise those numbers and would be careful about bandying them around," Rishi Sunak said.

Refusing to answer whether he’d work in a care home for 18,000 pounds, Rishi Sunak said, “The job I’m doing is making a difference to the country as Prime Minister.”

Rishi Sunak's comments were criticised by the royal college of nursing general secretary Pat Cullen, saying, “He needed to come clean as a public servant… When you’re accountable to the public, you have to be honest with them.”

While Labour's shadow health secretary Wes Streeting said that Rishi Sunak “gave the impression of someone who not only doesn't use the NHS but doesn't under the scale of the challenge or have a plan to deal with the fundamental problems.”

US Farmers win right to repair John Deere equipment

PublishedShare

IMAGE SOURCE,DEERE & CO

By Monica Miller

BBC News, Singapore

Tractor maker John Deere has agreed to give its US customers the right to fix their own equipment.

Previously, farmers were only allowed to use authorised parts and service facilities rather than cheaper independent repair options.

Deere and Co. is one of the world's largest makers farming equipment.

Consumer groups have for years been calling on companies to allow their customers to be able to fix everything from smartphones to tractors.

The American Farm Bureau Federation (AFBF) and Deere & Co. signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) on Sunday.

"It addresses a long-running issue for farmers and ranchers when it comes to accessing tools, information and resources, while protecting John Deere's intellectual property rights and ensuring equipment safety," AFBF President Zippy Duvall said.

Under the agreement, equipment owners and independent technicians will not be allowed to "divulge trade secrets" or "override safety features or emissions controls or to adjust Agricultural Equipment power levels."

The firm looks forward to working with the AFBF and "our customers in the months and years ahead to ensure farmers continue to have the tools and resources to diagnose, maintain and repair their equipment," Dave Gilmore, a senior vice president at Deere & Co. said.

Farmers are part of a grassroots right-to-repair movement that has been putting pressure on manufacturers to allow customers and independent repair shops to fix their devices.

In 2022, Apple launched a "self-service repair" scheme giving customers the ability to replace their own batteries, screens and cameras of recent iPhones.

The UK and European Union have policies enforcing manufacturers to make spare parts available to customers and independent companies for some electronics.

"Consumers have long been complaining that products not only tend to break down faster than they used to, but that repairing them is often too costly, difficult to arrange for lack of spare parts, and sometimes impossible," according to the European Parliamentary Research Service.

Some US states like New York and Massachusetts and have passed similar measures. President Biden signed an executive order in 2021 calling on the Federal Trade Commission to draw up a countrywide policy allowing customers to repair their own products, particularly in the technology and agriculture sectors.

Three Amigos summit set to start against backdrop of political crises in Mexico

ADRIAN MORROW

U.S. CORRESPONDENT
MEXICO CITY

Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador speaks after attending a march with supporters to mark his fourth year in office, in Mexico City, on Nov. 27, 2022.TOYA SARNO JORDAN/REUTERS

U.S. President Joe Biden has landed in Mexico City seeking help stemming a tide of asylum seekers at his country’s Southern border and in the wake of a bloody cartel shootout over an accused drug lord wanted by American authorities.

This week’s North American Leaders’ Summit between Mr. Biden, Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador and Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is also taking place amid mounting accusations of autocracy against the Mexican President.

To Mr. Lopez Obrador’s critics, the violent arrest of Ovidio Guzman Lopez – which left 29 people dead in machine-gun battles between government security forces and cartel members in Sinaloa last week – was only the latest sign of the Mexican President’s expansion of the military’s role in the country.

He has also faced increased opprobrium for trying to curb independent watchdog agencies and for flouting constitutional and trade rules in a bid to help government oil and gas interests over green-power companies.

Despite its rhetoric on protecting international liberal democracy and fighting climate change, the Biden administration has signalled that the President has little appetite to press Mr. Lopez Obrador on these issues.

Instead, the priority at what is informally known as the Three Amigos summit is securing Mexico’s continued co-operation with U.S. attempts to stop migrants making refugee claims at the border. The issue is a political hot button in the U.S., with Republicans persistently hammering Mr. Biden over the thousands of migrants arriving daily.

Last week, Mr. Biden announced plans that will see asylum seekers from Nicaragua, Venezuela, Haiti and Cuba turned back and ordered to stay in Mexico. On his way to Mexico City Sunday, he stopped off in El Paso, Tex., to tour the border fence and a migrant reception centre.

At a White House briefing, national-security spokesperson John Kirby praised Mr. Lopez Obrador’s administration for arresting Mr. Guzman, who is accused of trafficking fentanyl into the U.S. “This is not an insignificant accomplishment by Mexican authorities, and we’re certainly grateful for that,” he said.

Andres Rozental Gutman, a former Mexican deputy foreign minister, said the Americans would also likely be reluctant to cross Mr. Lopez Obrador because of his penchant for publicly castigating critics and digging in his heels when challenged.

“They know he reacts to these things virulently and I don’t think they want to pick a fight,” he said. “Biden is probably going to make sure that recognition is given to Mexico’s agreement to do the Americans’ dirty work on immigration.”

Since taking power in late 2018, Mr. Lopez Obrador, often referred to in Mexico as AMLO, after his initials, has increased the military’s involvement in policing, border control and infrastructure projects – including the new Mexico City airport that Mr. Biden and Mr. Trudeau are using on this trip.

The Mexican President has also talked about doing away with independent agencies, including the country’s securities regulator and access-to-information authority. Last month, he proposed legislation that would cut the budget of the electoral institute and loosen rules on using government announcements to campaign for office.

“He has shown autocratic or anti-democratic tendencies in the way he views any part of the government that he doesn’t directly control,” said Tyler Mattiace, a Mexico-based researcher with Human Rights Watch.

Mr. Lopez Obrador has tried to restore the primacy of the government-controlled oil and electricity companies. A constitutional reform by the previous administration, which was also written into Mexico’s free-trade deal with the U.S. and Canada, guaranteed private competition in the Mexican energy market.

After green-energy companies began producing power at a lower cost than government fuel oil plants, however, Mr. Lopez Obrador’s administration stopped issuing permits for new private electricity projects and ordered the grid to prioritize government-generated electricity.

Business leaders urge Three Amigos to move past trade disputes, embrace ‘Team North America’ approach

One insider in Mr. Lopez Obrador’s administration said such moves are a contravention of both the constitution and the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA), and the President’s advisers told him so. But he went ahead anyway because he said the president has the power to do as he wants. The Globe and Mail is not identifying the individual because they felt they were unable to publicly discuss internal government deliberations.

The Canadian and U.S. embassies have worked quietly behind the scenes to get Mr. Lopez Obrador’s administration to issue permits for specific energy companies, said Francisco Salazar Diez de Sollano, who helped engineer the opening of Mexico’s energy market as a legislator and regulatory official. But such advocacy, he said, can only resolve individual cases.

“It hasn’t solved the overall problem. It has been very slow and it’s political. If you were to apply the law, you wouldn’t need it,” he said.

Montserrat Ramiro, the former head of Mexico’s energy regulator, said it was difficult to see a way out of the impasse. Even if Ottawa and Washington won a USMCA dispute, the resultant retaliatory trade measures on Mexico could end up just hurting the country’s economy without actually making the government change its policy.

“In a dispute-resolution panel, Mexico would lose and the U.S. and Canada would then impose tariffs, but those wouldn’t impact the current administration,” she said.

Canadian investment in Mexico has grown in recent years

How Mr. Trudeau will handle Mr. Lopez Obrador, meanwhile, remains an open question. He and his government have committed to advocating on green energy and democratic norms in general terms, but it’s unclear how far exactly they will go.

“Defending human rights and democracy has always been, and will continue to be, a priority for Canada,” his spokesperson, Ann-Clara Vaillancourt, wrote in an e-mail Sunday.

Rodolfo Soriano-Nunez, a Mexican political analyst, said Canada’s more distant relationship with Mexico could cut both ways, giving Mr. Trudeau more latitude to press Mr. Lopez Obrador but less motivation to do so.

“AMLO doesn’t have the kind of leverage over Trudeau that he has over Biden. It’s not as if Mexico is protecting the Great North from Russia,” he said. “But I’m not really sure how far Trudeau wants to pick a fight. Mexico doesn’t play a large part in Canadian politics.”