This Christmas, American exporters could be getting something a lot worse than coal in their stockings: a series of steep new tariffs on goods sold in Canada and Mexico. Following a ruling by the World Trade Organization (WTO) that the United States' "country of origin labeling" (COOL) laws unfairly discriminate against our neighbor nations, Canada and Mexico have been authorized to impose new tariffs totaling up to $3 billion on U.S. exports, starting on December 18th of this year.

Did you hear the joke about how a “Tea Party” candidate in Western New York supports tax increases, tariffs and refuses to reform the federal budget?  Karl Marx, a philosophical ally of Republican turned Democrat turned Tea Party chameleon Jack Davis would have mused, “History repeats itself, first as tragedy, second as farce.”