481–490 of 1001 posts
Huh 30% of our lumber just got 50% more expensive. Good thing we don't have shortages of affordable housing that need new construction to solve. Brilliant stuff Donald. Truly some 4D chess moves.
You still think any of his moves are driven by 'what's good for the US'? I think it's motivated entirely by schemes to stuff his pockets with money.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> trade barriers for US goods and services are the trade barriers in the room with us?
To be fair, EU standards prevent the sale of lots of US products so that point, while misleading, is not entirely incorrect.
The world should've collectively recognised what Liberation Day was and responded together, in lock step, and in kind. Instead, the Europeans caved, Japanese caved (PM resigned after doing so), Republic of Korea caved (PM resigned after doing so), India of course caved and so on, shattering any prospect of collective action which might pull the rogue hegemon back into line. Now, the US is simply able to renege or ren…
PM's resignation stemmed from unpopularity not due to tariff negotiation, but diminished ability to pass laws after the ruling party lost significant number of seats in elections for upper and lower houses.
As for other countries around the world, the world-wide inflation caused many ruling parties to lose support.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
The world collectively had so much trade barriers for US goods and services and still has. They just weren’t direct like tariffs.
> trade barriers for US goods and services are the trade barriers in the room with us?
Yes. And I'm saying this in the EU.
e.g. Ein Beispiel ist die verschiedene Sprache.
Although perhaps German is one of the stranger cases, given that I've seen the English phrase "Made in Germany" on some political posters around here: https://www.cdu.de/aktuelles/cdu-deutschlands/mainzer-erklae...
This is also a problem for trade between EU member states.
There's other examples of course, e.g. the Cybertruck is not road legal in the EU. Though I can hardly say that's "in the room" given how unpopular the vehicle is even in the USA.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Ironically Canada’s trade deficit with the USA is largely due to our oil exports. Remove that the trade is fairly balanced.
Why is this ironic? I see this point a lot but don’t understand the underlying reasoning for why it is a meaningful rebuttal? It’s insane that the US administration (said as an American) doesn’t continue to treasure a values-aligned, peaceful, stable, independent neighbor along a massive unprotected border. But I don’t understand this energy carve-out argument.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
To add into what you said. EU’s Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism (CBAM) already affects the United States, though its impact varies depending on the sector. CBAM is big permanent change, and that will be rolled in smoothly below all this. EU has carbon tax internally and they are rolling out CBAM to prevent "carbon exports" (manufacturing stuff outside EU and then importing those product without tax). CBAM is curre…
And then the Europeans suddenly discover that they cannot manufacture enough artillery shells and tanks to out-number the Russians.
And I said "had", because this was before Ukraine destroyed most of their oil plants, and refineries, and their navy, and their petrol fleet, and the online stores, and before they killed a big chunk of their male workforce. And before they have an increasing debt with China and NK that they will need to repay somehow.
At this point everybody knows that the Russian economy will not survive after the war is over and that the country most probably will split.
Europe can deal with a ruined post-Ukraine war Russia.
They would just stand some suffering, but for sure 500 millions of motivated people can build more and faster than 100 millions of a Russia tied by deliberate anti-efficiency rules build to please oligarchs. The only question is how much damage could Russia do, before Moscow and St Petersburg are reduced to ashes as retaliation if they dare to try the final solution.
The hybrid war is the real problem. Russia can sponsor still many street "Syrian" terrorist attacks in Sweden, or cause a train wreck here and there, or burn Malibu for basically peanuts. They can do this for years and years.
The world should've collectively recognised what Liberation Day was and responded together, in lock step, and in kind. Instead, the Europeans caved, Japanese caved (PM resigned after doing so), Republic of Korea caved (PM resigned after doing so), India of course caved and so on, shattering any prospect of collective action which might pull the rogue hegemon back into line. Now, the US is simply able to renege or ren…
>> India of course caved and so on, India and US still have not signed any trade deal. Not sure what's the basis of your comment.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Actually its the opposite. The pain of "giving in" is limited to specific Canadian industries and powerful stakeholders with a LOT of political influence. In the broadest terms, Canada's economy grows rapidly if they give in.
Explain how “Canada’s economy grows rapidly” if we accept a bad deal from a stronger economy. The goal for Canada is a return to the free trade agreement covering ~98% of goods that existed before this chaos, which allowed for close integration and long term planning for businesses on both sides of the border. Rolling over and dying gets us further away from that goal.
The world should've collectively recognised what Liberation Day was and responded together, in lock step, and in kind. Instead, the Europeans caved, Japanese caved (PM resigned after doing so), Republic of Korea caved (PM resigned after doing so), India of course caved and so on, shattering any prospect of collective action which might pull the rogue hegemon back into line. Now, the US is simply able to renege or ren…
Japanese here. Caved is not an accurate expression. After intense negotiations with Trump, Lutnick, and Bessent, Minister Akazawa managed to reduced the tariff from the proposed 25% to 15%. His story of flying weekly to the States on commercial aircraft became legendary. PM's resignation stemmed from unpopularity not due to tariff negotiation, but diminished ability to pass laws after the ruling party lost significan…
The world should've collectively recognised what Liberation Day was and responded together, in lock step, and in kind. Instead, the Europeans caved, Japanese caved (PM resigned after doing so), Republic of Korea caved (PM resigned after doing so), India of course caved and so on, shattering any prospect of collective action which might pull the rogue hegemon back into line. Now, the US is simply able to renege or ren…