What the wonks are saying: Iran’s nuclear plans and a call for more robots
Welcome to our weekly roundup of the smart policy thinking and discussion from other think tanks and academics in Canada and beyond. In this edition we look at Trump’s Bitcoin plans, Iran’s nuclear ambitions and Canada’s robot shortage.
Bitcoin nation
With the election of Donald Trump and a Republican-controlled Congress, some dramatic changes could be coming to crypto policy, “fueled by ambitious plans to make the United States the crypto capital of the world.” Brookings’ TechTank podcast looks at Trump’s election promises and what might happen, including a national Bitcoin reserve.
Middle East issues
The ceasefire between Hezbollah and Israel dealt a blow to Iran’s regional strategy, writes Bilal Y. Saab, Associate Fellow at Chatham House, in a piece for the think tank: “Hezbollah and its ally Iran will never admit it, but they have suffered a strategic setback. Their aim was to link all the regional battlefields in which Iran had influence to bleed and overwhelm Israel. But Israel has blocked that goal, rather successfully, through brute force.”
What happens if Iran gets nuclear weapons? “Western analysts say the country has the knowledge and infrastructure to produce a nuclear weapon in fairly short order should its leaders decide to do so,” write Jonathan Masters and Will Merrow for the Council on Foreign Relations. Since the election of Donald Trump, Iran appears to be more open to renewed nuclear diplomacy, “but a great deal of uncertainty remains.” In addition to causing regional instability, a nuclear-armed Iran could “catalyze a dangerous nuclear arms race,” say the authors.
Tariffs, robots and wages
Writing in The Hub, PPF Fellow Trevor Tombe has a roundup of Canadian experts and insiders’ reactions to Donald Trump’s threat to impose tariffs of 25 percent on Canadian imports — and, according to them, how Canada should respond.
The robots are not taking over, at least not in Canada. CIGI senior fellow Daniel Araya outlines how China now dominates in the use of robotics in manufacturing. “With more than half the world’s stock of operational robots, China surpassed one million units in 2021 and 1.5 million units in 2022. In fact, some 73 percent of installed robots are in Asia, while only 15 percent of the world’s robots are installed in Europe and 10 percent in North and South America,” he writes. In Canada, robotics are imported and adoption of robotics is “the lowest among the Group of Twenty economies.” Araya outlines how Canada could fix this and get building.
The ongoing Canada Post strike “raises important questions about how Canada should respond to the growth of the gig economy,” writes Adam D.K. King, assistant professor of labour studies at the University of Manitoba, in The Conversation. “By introducing only minimal reforms, as Ontario and British Columbia have done, governments set the stage for labour strife between union members trying to defend their relatively better pay and working conditions, and employers squeezed by unfair competition.”