>>Drugs, oil and governmental 'stress' are about the only items we ever hear about.
>
>Canadian company Bombardier has a tough competition with brazilian Embraer aircrafts (http://www.embraer.com/). The US boycott our steel and orange juyce, for example, because we are very competitive (price & quality).

I've heard of the Bombardier thing some time ago, but not lately. I believe that there is a GATT action underway by Canada on the matter, claiming government subsidy by Brazil. And last i heard, the Canadian government was going to give Bombardier similar benefit to "level the playing field".

We also heard some news a while back about Argentina, when one of Canada's big banks said it was pulling out from there.
But in general it is only incidents that we hear about, and virtually nothing regarding general business or cultural or similar things.