31–40 of 169 posts
Why is the American government so hell bent on destroying its own economy? The biggest things they import for Canada aren't even manufactured goods but raw materials. The only way to avoid the T tarrif at that point is to import from a different country but there are tarrifs there as well. What is even the end game here? Make China the new biggest game in town?
Canada was specifically warned not to retaliate in any manner, which is basically an acknowledgement that Canada has some powerful levers. This is farcical and of course Canada is going to retaliate. The $450B of American goods sold to Canada is going to collapse. The F35 purchase will be cancelled. Various other projects with the US will be abandoned. Oil will be export tariffed. Every American service -- Netflix, D…
> Every American service -- Netflix, Disney, Prime, Apple services -- need to have enormous tariffs applied. We can handle without them, and every enabler of this insanity needs to suffer. No need to wait for tariffs. I started cancelling all American services today. Netflix and Prime were first. I will not send money to a country that has declared an unwarranted trade war on my country. And it truly is unwarranted.…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
China, Canada, and Mexico will all retaliate, there is zero consequence for the governments doing so and a lot of consequence for not doing do (Trump is very unpopular in all of these countries, so giving into him or agreeing to his terms won’t be seen as very viable). So get the popcorn ready, this weekend and especially Monday will be really interesting. I bet this concludes with a free trade treaty between China,…
>I’m actually sympathetic to the fent problem If this were limited to China and Mexico, the fentanyl thing might have been a rational argument. Adding Canada, which is the source of a vanishingly small amount, betrays the lie. He needed the excuse to claim an emergency, rather than the incredibly self-destructive "recreate federal funding through tariffs" policy, which coincidentally (and forebodingly) led to the gre…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I have never seen any article saying tariffs will "only" hurt American consumers. They hurt both sides and every article I have seen acknowledges this. However, American news sites tend to focus on the effects in the US, while Canadian news sites focus on the effects in Canada.
I may have worded that wrong. Articles say that they will hurt American consumers and don’t address the actual purpose of the tariffs, which is to put political pressure on their targets. If the tariffs didn’t have at least some chance of succeeding at this, the targets wouldn’t be talking about retaliation.
Why is the American government so hell bent on destroying its own economy? The biggest things they import for Canada aren't even manufactured goods but raw materials. The only way to avoid the T tarrif at that point is to import from a different country but there are tarrifs there as well. What is even the end game here? Make China the new biggest game in town?
They state they think the temporary pain to consumers and the loss of good will with Canada and Mexico is worth some other goal that will be achieved like they think this will cause American manufacturers to decide to expand in America, also they always talk about tax cuts and tariffs are a way to increase federal revenue without a change in the tax code. There's also the stated justification of fentanyl and undocumented immigrants from Canada and Mexico but the vast majority of both of those comes from Mexico with Chinese connections for some avenues of fentanyl so the Canada thing feels like it's a flimsy excuse to be included just for some bargaining on some other subject, or just to have an accomplishment, like how Trump in first term pushed for TikTok ban, then after winning 2024, Trump undoes ban he initiated in first term to claim that as an accomplishment. Versus say the border wall he promised in 2016 campaign but had a paltry result by 2020.
It's like they think a factory or manufacturing plant can be spun up in a few weeks.
Canada was specifically warned not to retaliate in any manner, which is basically an acknowledgement that Canada has some powerful levers. This is farcical and of course Canada is going to retaliate. The $450B of American goods sold to Canada is going to collapse. The F35 purchase will be cancelled. Various other projects with the US will be abandoned. Oil will be export tariffed. Every American service -- Netflix, D…
China, Canada, and Mexico will all retaliate, there is zero consequence for the governments doing so and a lot of consequence for not doing do (Trump is very unpopular in all of these countries, so giving into him or agreeing to his terms won’t be seen as very viable). So get the popcorn ready, this weekend and especially Monday will be really interesting. I bet this concludes with a free trade treaty between China,…
Well Canada & Mexico already have NAFTA 2.0. I doubt there will be one between Canada and China, they have frosty relations.
What's the plan here ? Tariff war with all main trading partners ? According to Trump EU tariffs are coming in soon. US can win any tariff war against a single country. They maybe could win against China or EU or Canada / Mexico alone. But all of them at once ? This is going to be a disaster for the US. Because of current sky-high stock market valuations, US thinks it's the only game in town. We will soon see if it's…
Trump has an infantile view of the economy. He seems to think that a trade deficit means the US is losing money, as if it was a business. If he can manufacturer a trade surplus then then he can do away with taxes. He also seems to believe that tariffs are paid by the foreign countries, not American consumers. It is unfathomable that people voted for this idiot.
What's the plan here ? Tariff war with all main trading partners ? According to Trump EU tariffs are coming in soon. US can win any tariff war against a single country. They maybe could win against China or EU or Canada / Mexico alone. But all of them at once ? This is going to be a disaster for the US. Because of current sky-high stock market valuations, US thinks it's the only game in town. We will soon see if it's…
Trump has an infantile view of the economy. He seems to think that a trade deficit means the US is losing money, as if it was a business. If he can manufacturer a trade surplus then then he can do away with taxes. He also seems to believe that tariffs are paid by the foreign countries, not American consumers. It is unfathomable that people voted for this idiot.
Even among the folks who really do want to "run government like a business", the kinds of businesses they usually admire--large, publicly traded, with a CEO beholden to sharehodlers--are utterly different from the kind that Trump has inherited from his father.
Only kind of government Trump's business experience has prepared him for is running North Korea: A lifetime CEO on top who can't be removed, the ability to fire anybody on a whim, and sneaky power struggles between the kids for who will inherit when the old man finally strokes out.
... He's going to do a lot of damage to America trying to twist it into working that way.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I may have worded that wrong. Articles say that they will hurt American consumers and don’t address the actual purpose of the tariffs, which is to put political pressure on their targets. If the tariffs didn’t have at least some chance of succeeding at this, the targets wouldn’t be talking about retaliation.
Targets talk about retaliation if they think the tariffs have some chance of succeeding, true. Targets also talk about retaliation if they think retaliation has a chance of succeeding.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
China, Canada, and Mexico will all retaliate, there is zero consequence for the governments doing so and a lot of consequence for not doing do (Trump is very unpopular in all of these countries, so giving into him or agreeing to his terms won’t be seen as very viable). So get the popcorn ready, this weekend and especially Monday will be really interesting. I bet this concludes with a free trade treaty between China,…
>I bet this concludes with a free trade treaty between China, Canada, and Mexico. Well Canada & Mexico already have NAFTA 2.0. I doubt there will be one between Canada and China, they have frosty relations.
Canada really doesn't have a bad relationship with China. We had a tiff previously when we arrested Meng Wanzhou on behalf of the US, and in return China arrested the Canadian "two Michaels"[1] and both countries used Canada as a pawn.
[1] I turns out they were, in effect, intelligence operatives in a sense, and China actually had a case. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/mar/07/michael-spavor...