#but magna is just as important to jesse

[loosesodamarble]

From Luck to Jesse

Summary: The day of their daughter's birth, Luck is confronted with fear and hesitation. Magna is there to reassure his husband though. They're fathers in this together. Genre: general, some hurt-comfort Word count: ~1000 Warning: brief mentions of abuse

..........

When it came time to cut open the blood cocoon and truly bring their new daughter into the world, Luck ran into the room before Magna. His smile stretched across his face, bright enough to rival the look he wore during their wedding. He stopped in front of the blood cocoon and stared at it for a moment.

It's time. Our little girl is ready for the world, Luck thought to himself.

Luck glanced over his shoulder to see Magna speed-walk in after him. Magna smiled, half annoyed-half amused.

"Man, someone's too excited 'round here."

"Maybe you're not excited enough! Get over here already, Magna!"

"Alrigh' alrigh'!"

Once a tub of warm water and a soft towel was prepped, Magna brought out a medical kit and a clean scalpel to cut the cocoon. The husbands shared a look before Manga pressed the blade into the cocoon's surface and glided it through.

With the seal broken, the magic blood within began to dissipate like steam. As the blood faded, a small, pink shape was revealed. A baby, their baby, their daughter. Bits of blood and other fluid clung to the infant's body. She had already begun crying and wriggling. She was alive and a fighter!

With Magna still holding the scalpel, Luck instinctively moved to pick up the baby.

Smack!

Carissa loomed over Luck, looking upon him with contempt. Her hand, hovering close to where he once stood, had been cold.

Luck saw how close his hand was to touching his daughter. He curled his fingers back before withdrawing his whole hand.

"Luck?" Magna's voice was a distant echo in his ears.

"I… I shouldn't…" Luck took a step back as he whispered those words. "Magna, I don't…"

It only took a second for Magna to change gears. He'd already set down the scalpel and wiped his hands so he picked up the baby and moved her to the tub.

Luck quietly watched his husband gently, oh so tenderly, washed their daughter off. He watched and wished he wasn't so afraid of what his own hands could do.

While Magna cleaned up their daughter, Luck shuffled to the bedroom and sat on the bed's edge.

Why did he hesitate all of a sudden? He'd never hesitated when handling children before. He wasn't Sterling's favorite but he always treated her with care. Hikari loved to roughhouse with him. Finral and Mallory's sons would gang up on him. Hell, he'd even held many of the children as babies. So then why couldn't he touch his own daughter?

The mattress shifted under the weight of another person.

"She's all clean now," Magna said in a neutral tone. "Even fell asleep while I bathed her."

Luck looked to the side. And sure enough, the babe was already sound asleep an swaddled like a newborn should've been. Her little fighter instinct was already tired out. A smile cracked Luck's somber face.

"Wanna hold her?" Magna offered with a grin.

Immediately, Luck's mood dropped. Magna saw that and sighed.

"Well, at least get a good look at her." Magna scooted closer until he and Luck were shoulder-to-shoulder. "She's got your hair." He shifted his arms a bit as he tried to point to her forehead and barely present locks. "The color's there at least. But I really hope it's as fluffy as yours too. She'll be the cutest gal in town and then we can be like 'hey, not flirting with my daughter.'"

"Mhm…"

Magna and Luck sat in silence for a while longer. Their daughter slept peacefully in Magna's arms.

"Luck, you don't gotta worry about hurting her, y'know… You love her too much for that."

At his words, Luck cringed.

"My mom loved me and yet she still…" Luck threw his head back and groaned. "She loved me, I know she did. She had to have loved me!" Luck bit his lip when he noticed how loud he was getting. He held still for a moment, watching if the baby stirred. And when she remained serene, he went on, "But that didn't stop her from hitting me… How do I know I won't end up the same?"

Magna leaned in and bonked his head against Luck's.

"There's a lot of things that'll stop you," Magna muttered. "For one, I'd skin your ass if you tried to hurt our baby. Second, the squad would crucify you. But you'd also kick your own ass if you did." He sat upright and looked Luck in the eye. "Also, look at where you are in life. You've got a stable job and home. You've got a husband and more friends than you can count to watch your back. And you've got the mind to hesitate and consider your actions towards your child. You won't hurt her, I promise."

Luck listened to Magna. How his husky voice was warm with reassurance. He watched Magna's face. How his eyes lit up at the mention of them being married and his lips were smiling with confidence. He let the words sink into him.

And Magna was right.

Luck had everything his mom lacked when she raised him. She loved him but she was so vulnerable and alone. It didn't excuse a thing. But it put into perspective her lashing out at him.

Luck looked at his daughter again. She was so small and helpless. He reached out and touched the edge of her blanket.

"Do you wanna hold her now?" Magna shifted, as if to hand the baby over. And Luck pulled his hand back before his finger could brush his daughter's cheek.

"… Not yet. She looks so comfy in your arms right now. Maybe tomorrow though."

"Heh. Let's hope she doesn't get too comfy with me before then. Or maybe she's already chosen me as her favorite dad!"

"Hah!" Luck bumped Magna with his elbow. "I won't let you win, Magna!"

The men shared a laugh before turning their eyes to their daughter again. The gift that they’d been given.

#black clover #black clover fanfic #luck voltia #magna swing #black clover oc #jesse voltiaswing #next gen ocs #soda's ocs #carissa voltia #this is definitely more a luck piece #but magna is just as important to jesse #but luck has the baggage that can be dealt with #initially just something I threw up in a server #kinda inspired by Lyra teasing the Henry and Alice fic #but now I’m posting

[twdmusicboxmystery]

9x07: Details

Okay, let's talk about details.

***As always, spoilers abound for 9x07. Don’t read until you’ve watched! You’ve been warned!!!***

Rosita/Eugene

I talked yesterday about Rosita running out in the woods alone about how we didn't see where she left Eugene behind. I'll talk about this more tomorrow because I'm going to do a predictions post, but this whole situation is still super suspicious to me.

We also saw her try to drink from empty water bottle. We've seen a lot of water bottles over the seasons that were all similar. I still have been wanting to do a post about all of them, but haven't gotten around to it. But remember that we did see a lot of all-around death. At the very least.

Jesus and Aaron find Rosita and she tells them she left Eugene in the barn. I think this is super-significant guys, but I will talk more about tomorrow in my predictions post. For now, just know that the barn reference and everything about Eugene being there is important.

Hilltop:

Hilltop is thriving under Tara and Jesus’s leadership. I don't know why Tara just doesn't take over as leader. I get that Jesus might be a figurehead for people because he was Maggie's right-hand guy, but Tara is obviously better at logistical aspects and the day-to-day running of things, so she might as well just take over that part of it.

At one point, she said they had a noise complaint from trailer seven. This is a very minor detail, but the noise came from a kazoo which is technically a musical instrument or noisemaker and seven, in terms of biblical numerology, also caught my attention.

Aaron and Jesus training out in the woods together, which I think is kind of cool. I noticed at one point, one of them said "Same boat, my friend." So, another boat reference, but also a call back to episode 6x13, which was called The Same Boat. It was one about Carol and Maggie being kidnapped by the saviors. Not sure what to make of this reference, but it's interesting. (I actually have some theories, but this is such a minor point, I’m gonna wait to see what happens next episode first.)

Tara tells Jesus that Rosita will be okay. She was just dehydrated and on IV. They said almost the exact same thing about Yumiko last episode when she got hurt, and I compared it to Beth. Just feels like more Grady parallels to me. Also in this part, Tara says of Maggie, "She's not here. You are." We could relate that to the “here” symbolism and especially Morgan's Here’s Not Here episode. I won't say too much more about that except that we’ve seen these themes before.

Music/Magna’s Group:

Michonne breaks the violin while guarding Magna's group. I do still think that the musical instrument could represent Beth being shot, and I’ll talk about possible implications of that tomorrow.

The musical discussion the group has is really interesting. It’s kind of a rehash of the discussion Beth and Edwards had at Grady, but more detailed. Edwards says art is transcendent and not about survival, and Beth suggests it’s something they can and should still do. (“I still sing.”) So this was the first suggestion of this idea that, despite needing to put survival first in this world, art and transcendence are still important for the survival of the human race.

Luke says the same thing here. “They came together as an answer to defeat. They sat around a campfire. They shared their stories with each other in the form of music, and paintings. And they created a common identity. And then they, you know, built communities. And then, as thy grew, Neanderthal retreated, and then after a while they just died out…this is the one thing that separates us from the animals. For better or for worse, it brings us together. And if we’re trying to rebuild something, you can’t ignore that.” So we have a major parallel between this and episode and Slabtown.

At one point on the road with Magna’s group, we heard frogs. So just frog symbolism and more callbacks to Them.

Daryl/Carol/Henry

 By far most of the details I saw came from Daryl’s scenes. (Naturally 😉)

Daryl’s camp is pockmarked with walker traps. Many of them are pits in the ground that the walkers step in and get caught. That reminded me a lot of the fire pit the Beth dug in Still.

Carol says, "You haven't fixed the boat since last time?" We’ve ever seen Daryl with a boat before, so I'm thinking this has something to do with the 6 year time jump that we don't entirely understand. But, I also can't help but remember the boats that were so prevalent in 5b at Alexandria. Sam played with one, there was one on the water with a red balloon when Rick stood beside the pond. I always thought that was a Beth thing, having to do with all the water and ship symbolism we seen around her, though we don't quite know what it means yet.

I mean, if nothing else, Daryl is pretty much living on a boat, now. Given all the boat/ocean/sailor/water imagery we’ve seen, that’s super-important.

We also saw a “wrecked” boat in 7x15 near Oceanside. There was definitely some Beth symbolism going on there, so if Daryl’s boat is “broken” it could be the same symbolism.

I said yesterday that pretty much everything I said in my dog post was confirmed here, right? Well, it occurred to me when Carol asked Daryl when he’d eaten last, and Daryl replied, "the dog ate yesterday," that was him associating himself with the dog. She asked when he ate, and he answered by talking about the dog. So, very similar to Buttons, Daryl pretty much named himself the dog. So, everything I said before, (black dog equals Daryl, white dog equals Beth) is definitely true.

Daryl shot a snake! Yep, an actual snake. I thought this was a combination of two things from Still. In Still, he tried to shoot a squirrel on a tree and missed, breaking one of his arrows. Later, he kills the snake slithering on the ground with his knife. In this case, he actually did kill the animal on the tree, but it was the snake. Then he cut its head off with his knife, similar to what he did in Still. So, I'm wondering if we should be reading into the differences as well as the similarities. Maybe Daryl missing squirrel in Still in some way foreshadowed his and Beth's arc. Like that he would lose her in some way, so the squirrel escaped. Something like that. But in this case, he hits it dead on, maybe because things will be better for him this time around. I don’t know. Just throwing out ideas.

I also noticed that Daryl specifically doesn’t bury walkers. He kills one of them and Carol asked if he’s just going to leave it there. He says yes, because it keeps animals away. So this is completely the opposite of what he was in 4B. Remember Beth taught him that it was important to bury people, even walkers and people they didn't know. This started out with the Rich Bitch lady, and he helped Beth cover her. We saw it extended after Lenny was killed by the Claimers. But now, he doesn't care at all. He’s just leaving walkers where they fall.

He also refuses to protect people. At least at the beginning. Carol asks him to go protect Henry and he flat out refuses. In a lot of ways, Henry is very similar to how Beth was when she and Daryl left the prison. He’s strong and can take care of himself, but he's also very young and very new to being outside the walls. So was Beth. So, this would be very similar to if, when the prison went down, Daryl simply refused to watch over Beth. I think that's only important to show that he's sort of in the opposite place he was in S4.

Daryl also skins the snake, just like Still. We haven't seen him do this since 4x12 so this is very significant. Also, kind of a fun reversal of 7x10, when Carol cooked for him. I’m sure they were calling back to that here a little bit as well.

Then we have Carol cutting his hair with a knife. Okay, a couple of important things to recognize here. I thought it was really significant that they specifically did not have her use scissors. We know they had scissors in Alexandria because Jesse used them to cut hair and killed kill a she-wolf. And I'm sure the Kingdom has them as well. Maybe Carol just decided on the spur of the moment to cut Daryl's hair, but even so, they could have her pull out a pair scissors or even had Daryl have one in his camp and it wouldn't have been unrealistic. But they specifically have her use a knife rather than scissors to cut his hair.

Why is that important? I think it's because scissors are Beth symbol. Tptb use them very specifically in the show for stuff about Beth and Grady, and they very specifically did not want to put that symbol in here because it was not applicable to the situation. If we’re totally crazy and reading into the symbolism way too much, Carol would've just used a pair of scissors. She didn't, which means the scissors are important and specifically could not be used in the scene.

@frangipanilove also made an amazing observation about this scene. Certain shippers are freaking out because Carol touched Daryl’s hair and face and their misconstruing that as romantic. But 

1) we talked in our group about how that was very much about his scar. The show is trying to draw attention to it, and Carol playing with the hair right over it gave us an excellent look. 

2) @frangipanilove pointed out that this is a PERFECT parallel to the scene in Them (5x10) where Carol gives Daryl Beth’s knife. Think about it. That was a tender moment between them too. She played his hair. And there was a knife present. That’s awesome! Not only is it a callback to a Beth scene, but I’ll talk in a minute about Henry/Beth parallels, so this works well with those as well. And then there’s my predictions post tomorrow. It works well as evidence for all three. Go @frangipanilove!

 We also found out that Daryl originally went out there to look for Rick's body. That's a super-tragic development because it means that when Daryl walked away at the end of 9x05, he was already going out to look for Rick's body. That makes my heart hurt.

Carol tells him, “You have to let that go.” And I think that’s super-interesting considering he told Rick to let Carl go just before the bridge blew, and now he hasn’t really stopped looking for Rick’s body. He never let it go, any more than he ever let Beth go. Just proves that even though he was preaching that, he doesn’t let things go himself.

It's also super significant in a TD way. We’ve said for years that Daryl looked for Beth's body and couldn't find it, and eventually Rick made the whole group move on. So, it's yet another parallel between Rick and Beth where Daryl looked for the body and never found it. And, you know, Rick's alive so…

Let's talk about Daryl scars. Henry asked about the scar on his face, and Daryl is very standoffish about it. He refuses to answer and then gets up to look for his dog, sending the message that he'd rather hang with his dog than with Henry.

Later, we see Daryl's back and find that he has several new scars, including a prominent X scar on his top right shoulder, two parallel lines further down, and then another X scar in exactly the same place as Michonne’s. Yeah, that’s weird. The top X may have already been there. Back in S3, he has something similar, and they may have just changed it so it looks more prominent now. But he definitely didn’t have the same X as Michonne or the parallel lines. As I said yesterday, these are way too clean and even to be normal battle scars.

Several people have suggested they might be brands. If that's the case, we have no idea what they are, or where they came from. Who the hell could have branded Michonne and Daryl of all people? It's not like the two of them would have sat still for it. So, we really don't know what this is pointing to, but it’s quite bizarre.

Daryl’s dog (Dog) gets caught in one of his walker traps. This had major callbacks to Alone, not only because it was dark, and the dog was barking with walkers around, but because Henry's foot got caught in the trap, too, just like when Beth’s foot got caught in the small game trap.

Henry moved to kill a walker (just like Beth did) and his foot got caught in the trap like her. We even had Daryl helping Henry pull his foot out, getting him unstuck. 

Which is exactly what he did with Beth. Then he asks if he's okay. Henry says yes, it's just a scratch, which parallels to Daryl asking Beth if she can move it in her saying yes.

We also had some missing foot symbolism in this scene because the walker Henry kills is originally caught in the trap and trying to pull itself out. When it does, it pulls it’s own foot off. That’s why Henry had to jump in and help him. Remember that two of the major times we saw the symbolism, specifically an unattached foot, was in Inmates when Beth saw the unattached foot by the train tracks and then with Rick and Michonne in 7x12, which was also a major retelling of Still.

Then of course Daryl says to Henry, "I told you to stay back," which pretty much everyone in the entire fandom picked up on. These parallels are pretty undeniable at this point.

Henry even shows Beth’s sarcasm. Beth said, “Thanks for the help,” while Henry says, “Yeah, you’re welcome.” Again, the fact that they’re strong and get right back in Daryl’s face makes him respect them more.

This is where things get really interesting with Henry and Daryl. Very much like with Beth, once Daryl goes through an experience with Henry, where they survive together, and especially when he can see that Henry strong, he instantly has more respect for him. The dynamic between Daryl and Henry here was very similar to Beth and Daryl’s in Still and Alone. At first, Daryl is very robotic and closed off to Henry, but after Henry helped save his dog, and Daryl himself, Daryl sat down and opened up to Henry without being prompted, telling to him about how the dog checked walker traps and thanking Henry for his help.

Then, also like Beth, Henry kind of calls Daryl on his crap. When Daryl says that if Carol needs him, she knows where to find him, Henry says she shouldn't have to. Daryl then asks if Henry truly wants Daryl looking over his shoulder all the time.

(Oh, I forgot to mention the whole chaperone thing. The Beth razzed Daryl about being her chaperone at the moonshine shack, and they use the same verbology here with Henry asking Carol if she thinks he needs a chaperone. So yet another parallel there.)

 Henry replies that it's not just about him, which seems to impress Daryl. Henry really doesn't want a chaperone, but he'll do it so Carol has peace of mind, and I think Daryl seems impressed by that. 

So, much like Beth, Henry and his goodness and innocence pulls Daryl out of his robotic survival state and kind of guilts him into being a human being again, which brings them back to civilization. Major, MAJOR parallels here. I’ll talk more about where we think this Daryl/Henry arc may be headed tomorrow.

Another thing to note, though it’s not specifically a TD thing, is that Carol allowed Daryl and Henry to interact on their own. She was always in the background, watching, but didn’t tell them she was there. I think that’s significant for a couple of reasons. 

Carol knows both these guys can handle themselves, but she’s still around, being Mama Carol and making sure they’re okay. But I think she knew going into this that she wouldn’t be able to convince Daryl to go to Hilltop on her own. She’s not the one who changes his mind about stuff. (Think Beth: “What changed your mind.”) But Carol was hoping that Henry could change Daryl’s mind, and he did. This might be an indication of the insight Carol has into Beth and Daryl’s relationship, or if not that, into Daryl himself. She knows the effect people like Beth and Henry have on Daryl and was banking on Henry getting through to him. That’s why she didn’t interfere, and also why she was smiling when Daryl agreed to go at the end of the episode: she was right.

So at the end, we get Daryl and Carol finally getting to hilltop and kind of reuniting with some people. Michonne isn’t actually there yet, but she probably will be by the time Daryl, Jesus, and Aaron get back with Eugene, so we'll have a reunion of sorts.

So the structure of this arc is feeling very much like 4b to me. After the prison fell, everybody was divided into little groups, right? We had the same thing here. Michonne in Alexandria, Carol at the Kingdom, Tara at hilltop, Maggie off with the Commonwealth. And, of course, Daryl out on his own.

So this confirms @thegloriouscollectorlady’s 4 Arcs for 4 Communities theory. I’m also thinking about the fact that in 4x15/4x16, all the little groups reunited at Terminus. Now we’re seeing something of a reunion in 9x08 and a further introduction of a bad group (the Whisperers) to mirror the Termites.

So, we might argue that if 9x07/9x08 mirrors 4x15/16, well, we didn’t actually see Beth until four episodes after that in 5x04. So, maybe they’ll give us something in the MSF, or maybe they’ll make us wait until 9b or the finale to see her. As always we will just have to wait and see.

Okay, I’ll stop there. I have a lot more to say but it’s more about where we think these arcs may be going. I’ll talk about that tomorrow. Anything I missed?

#beth greene #beth greene lives #beth is alive #beth is coming #td theory #td theories #team delusional #team defiance #beth is almost here #bethyl

[orbemnews]

Loretta Whitfield, Creator of a Doll With a Difference, Dies at 79 In the early 1980s, Melvin Whitfield was working for a health nonprofit in West Africa when he came to a realization: Few of the children he encountered had dolls, and the dolls he did see were modeled after white European faces and bodies. Mr. Whitfield, who is Black, returned to Washington in 1983, around the time his girlfriend, Loretta Thomas, was coming to to her own doll-inspired despair after trying to find a toy for her niece. It was the height of the Cabbage Patch Kids craze, and toy stores were filled with their cherubic white faces; the few Black dolls scattered among them were made with the same shape and features, but used brown fabric. The Whitfields, who married in 1984, decided to design an alternative to the Cabbage Patch Kids. After three years of development and experimentation, they released Baby Whitney, one of the first realistic mass-produced Black dolls. “The doll is the byproduct of their collective revulsion at what they regarded as an ‘endless parade of distorted, phony, and demonic images’ of Black children passed off as dolls,” read a sheet attached to the back of the doll’s cardboard box. There were other Black dolls on the market that had similar aspirations to authenticity, but Baby Whitney stood out for its high quality and its makers’ close attention to detail. “The Whitfields’ Baby Whitney was ahead of its time in mass-producing a baby doll that wasn’t just a white doll colored brown, but a doll that little Black girls could truly identify with,” Debbie Behan Garrett, an expert on the history of Black dolls, said in an interview. Ms. Whitfield, who died on Dec. 27 at 79 at her home in Washington, had a master’s degree in psychology and had spent most of her career as a counselor at Howard University. It was that background, her husband said, that drove her passion for creating Baby Whitney. “We felt it was necessary to take our money and go from scratch to create a real doll that would make a contribution to our culture,” Mr. Whitfield — who confirmed his wife’s death, from complications of Alzheimer’s disease — said in an interview. “We wanted to make a statement without using words.” Loretta Mae Thomas was born on Feb. 17, 1941, in Wellington, Kan. Her family moved to Washington after her father, Jesse, got a job as a clerk at the Pentagon. Her mother, Verna Mae (Hayden) Thomas, also worked for the federal government. Loretta entered Eastern High School in 1954, the same year the Supreme Court struck down school segregation in Brown v. Topeka Board of Education. Dolls played an important part in that case: Thurgood Marshall, the lead lawyer, relied on research by the psychologists Kenneth and Mamie Clark that showed Black children had a preference for white dolls — evidence that segregation taught them that being Black meant being inferior. She graduated magna cum laude from Howard University in 1962 and later received a master’s in psychology from American University in Washington. The Whitfields were not the only people in the mid-1980s thinking about Black dolls, said Fath Davis Ruffins, a curator at the Smithsonian Institution and an expert in Black consumer culture. In 1968 Mattel began selling Christie, marketed as a Black friend to Barbie. In 1980 Kitty Black Perkins, one of the company’s few Black product designers, created the first Black Barbie, complete with an Afro. And in the late 1970s, Ms. Ruffins said, Black artists had already begun selling handmade Black dolls with realistic features at markets and art fairs. A few other entrepreneurs had even sold mass-produced dolls like Baby Whitney. But none had gone as far as the Whitfields. Rosalind Jeffries, a historian of African art whom the Whitfields hired to design the doll’s face, based it on the flat, disk-shaped heads of the Akuaba dolls of the Ashanti people of West Africa. Baby Whitney’s eyes, lips and nails were hand-painted, and her outfits were designed by Ms. Whitfield. Friends and neighbors helped with the painting and sewing. Mr. Whitfield worked on the dolls full time while Ms. Whitfield continued her work as a counselor at Howard. She retired in 1999 as the director of the university’s educational advisory center. In addition to her husband, she is survived by a brother, Jesse Thomas. The Whitfields, who operated under the name Lomel Enterprises, made only 3,500 dolls over their decade in business, selling mostly through mail order and gift shops. Still, Baby Whitney was a hit. The Whitfields regularly sold out their production runs, and they expanded their line to include different outfits. “We had situations where adults would come back to us and buy a second doll because they wouldn’t let their kids play with the first,” Mr. Whitfield said. The doll was considered sufficiently lifelike that several of them were used as stunt dummies in a 1989 episode of “Rescue 911,” in which infants were dropped from a burning apartment complex. The Whitfields stopped production in the mid-1990s to care for ailing parents, Mr. Whitfield said. It didn’t help that their undercapitalized two-person operation demanded an enormous amount of work, especially when they were negotiating with a manufacturer halfway around the world. Nevertheless, the Whitfields proved to be pioneers: By the early 1990s companies like Mattel were making more dolls of color, and paying closer attention to their features. “Kids identify with their dolls,” the Whitfields wrote, “and the dolls become their children and they become the dolls’ parents. You want the dolls to have an image with which the children can interact in a loving way.” Source link Orbem News #creator #Dies #Difference #Doll #Loretta #Whitfield

[crosbyru-blog]

Government rebates could protect Canada's auto industry from certain Trump tariffs

In this file photo, Ford and Lincoln vehicles are parked outside the Oakville Assembly Plant in Oakville, Ontario, Canada, November 6, 2016. Photo credit: Reuters TORONTO -- Canadian government customs provisions are expected to soften the blow on the country’s powerful automotive industry from retaliatory tariffs on U.S. steel, according to trade lawyers and industry leaders bracing for higher costs. Decades-old programs reduce or refund import duties on supplies like steel when companies in Canada can show the material is used in export products. They could protect the auto industry’s supply contracts covering raw materials and parts, which often cross borders several times before a vehicle is finished. While imposing tariffs against a long list of U.S. products this month, including everything from flat-rolled steel to playing cards and felt-tipped pens, Canada clarified that “duties relief” and “duty drawback” programs would be available to Canadian exporters. “That provision in the notice is overwhelmingly directed at the auto industry,” said Jesse Goldman, a trade lawyer at Borden Ladner Gervais. Without drawbacks, Goldman said, the Canadian retaliation would have “very significantly and very quickly” hurt the industry. Some 85 percent of vehicles built in Canada in 2016 were exported, meaning duty relief programs could refund roughly 85 percent of retaliatory tariffs paid by automakers. Canada has vowed to defend the steel and aluminum industries, but vehicle manufacturing employs some 136,000, according to Statistics Canada, whereas only about 22,000 work in the steel sector, giving the government an incentive to shelter vehicle and parts makers from rising costs. “These existing programs continue to be in place and any changes would be done in consultation with the relevant stakeholders,” Canada's finance department spokesman Jack Aubry said when asked whether the programs would continue. {{title}} {{abstract}} Read more > {{/content}} BIG OPERATORS Automakers with operations in Canada include General Motors, Ford Motor Co., Fiat Chrysler Automobiles, Toyota Motor Corp., and Honda Motor Co., which assemble vehicles, as well as parts makers Magna International and Linamar Corp.. Linamar CEO Linda Hasenfratz said in an emailed statement the drawback programs are of particular benefit to her company, Canada’s second largest auto parts maker, since substantially all the steel that the company imports is later exported. Honda said it was still assessing the impact of the tariffs. GM, Fiat Chrysler and Magna declined to comment. Ford and Toyota did not respond to requests for comment. The Canadian Vehicle Manufacturers’ Association needs to do more analysis before commenting on whether drawbacks could protect his industry, President Mark Nantais said. “There are various options that could be used - that would be one of them,” he added. But any relief would be temporary if U.S. President Donald Trump imposes tariffs on Canadian-made vehicles after the administration’s Section 232 national security probe into autos wraps up. The rebate programs limit the impact of tariffs on raw materials, not finished products. Flavio Volpe, president of the Automotive Parts Manufacturers’ Association, said some companies that make stainless steel parts or hardened steel tools in Canada could benefit. Volpe said just over half of Canadian-made auto parts are exported. John Boscariol, who leads McCarthy Tetrault’s international trade and investment law group, said access to the duty relief programs had not been a foregone conclusion before the government’s notice, because Canada’s retaliation is technically a “surtax,” not a normal duty. Some uncertainty remains as companies must apply individually for the refunds, and carefully document how imports are used, he added. “It introduces costs and complications, and it introduces a likelihood that you might not get that relief,” Boscariol said. “That’s not without cost.” http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/autonews/BreakingNews/~3/sfWqDq0UTZQ/trump-canada-tariffs-subsidies-auto-politics buy here pay here https://www.buyherepayherebirmingham.xyz/government-rebates-could-protect-canadas-auto-industry-from-certain-trump-tariffs/