Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Canada will match US tariffs 'dollar for dollar' as trade talks break down

bbc.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

751–760 of 1001 posts

Re: Canada will match US tariffs 'dollar for dollar' as trade talks break down

#751

Post by intended »

Eufrat wrote: post #646
goatlover wrote: post #606

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hope the voters remember this for the next couple election cycles.

Voters don’t go and actually look at the data themselves. They rely on pundits and the news to tell them the salient points. The problem is that the media has essentially lost most of its usefulness as a bulwark against the most egregious excesses of crony capitalism and cozied up to it instead. It feels like the Gilded Age again, but the people are somehow more insufferable. Cramming the “light of human consciousnes…

In essence we took the grand market place of ideas, and then let it get completely owned by a few firms.

The media, where it isn’t outright compromised, is dying to survive on any revenue stream. local news outlets which are the backbone of solving actual Issues for citizen are not profitable and dying.

We have platforms, which instead incentivize for the largest viewer count, so local content is sacrificed at the altar of the zeitgeist.

Re: Canada will match US tariffs 'dollar for dollar' as trade talks break down

#752

Post by ColdStream »

Animats wrote: post #607
Chyzwar wrote: post #490

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That not how politics works. It is much slower and hidden process. EU fast tracked Mercosur and other trade deals. China and Japan is slowly dumping US treasury bills, Canada is in open trade confrontation and is diversifying toward China. Everybody is shifting away from US weapons suppliers. Nobody is willing to help with Iran even on symbolic level.

That's happening. The rest of the world is moving away from the US as a trading partner. Trump is just too flaky to deal with. Canada now exports oil to China instead of the US, for example. The EU is moving towards self-sufficiency in financial services. What the Trump Administration does not get is that the US is no longer central to the world economy. Everyone else has a lot more productive capacity now. Trump is…

Exactly, the move away from the US is both fast and slow. Fast on the things that could be swapped for an alternative straight away/short term. Slow in that there are something that will take decades to move away from and are actively being worked on but quietly.

This is the problem of the 2nd Trump admin, the first time was considered a fluke incident and didn't pan out so bad as there was a lot of longer term folks keeping things sort of in check. The 2nd time, it was apparent that there is a significant enough faction of the US population that will ensure this kind of power structure keeps coming back. Trump is but the first of many to operate like he does. There will be more like him.

I must warn some people, who knows which side of politics that will come from. Don't think 'your side' is above it, this kind of rhetoric and rot and creep in a lot quicker than one would think.

Re: Canada will match US tariffs 'dollar for dollar' as trade talks break down

#753

Post by [deleted] »

roncesvalles wrote: post #463
armada651 wrote: post #454

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Everyone is banking on the current trade policy simply being temporary and whoever replaces Trump in the White House next will restore bilateral trade to normal. Why would you destroy your trade relation with the U.S. for decades to come when you can just ride out a bad deal for a few years? Not saying I agree with it, because it sends the wrong signal, but I can understand the reasoning at least.

Exactly. You can't assume it's a new normal until Trump is out of office.

[deleted]

Re: Canada will match US tariffs 'dollar for dollar' as trade talks break down

#754

Post by ColdStream »

benjiro29 wrote: post #523
Chyzwar wrote: post #490

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That not how politics works. It is much slower and hidden process. EU fast tracked Mercosur and other trade deals. China and Japan is slowly dumping US treasury bills, Canada is in open trade confrontation and is diversifying toward China. Everybody is shifting away from US weapons suppliers. Nobody is willing to help with Iran even on symbolic level.

*Nobody is willing to help with Iran even on symbolic level* Most people do not realize how much of a shift that is. In the past there was always a ton of EU countries helping the US out, in whatever crap the US started. And a lot of European soldiers died. Those soldiers did not help Europe but the US, because of being allies. Even when some European countries got called names for not helping in Iraq because they ca…

Credit to France, Charles de Gaulle was the first to realize that the US should be blindly trusted. Macron is also a firm believer in this as well as he is well versed in Gaulle's ideas.

As for the rest of the world, yes the silence in regard to helping the US is deafening. You can see the diplomatic frustration of politicians when they have to talk about Trump and the admins actions. They cannot dismiss them but they really don't want to support them either.

Re: Canada will match US tariffs 'dollar for dollar' as trade talks break down

#755

Post by californical »

epolanski wrote: post #740
brightball wrote: post #641

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I get that statistics can be manipulated but... https://www.ismworld.org/supply-management-news-and-reports/... > Economic activity in the manufacturing sector expanded in July for the seventh consecutive month, say the nation’s supply executives in the latest ISM® Manufacturing PMI® Report. > The report was issued today by Susan Spence, MBA, Chair of the Institute for Supply Management® (ISM®) Manufacturing Business…

Manufacturing has never really declined in US, not in absolute terms. It's simply facing the same fate of agriculture: automation. Politicians want to sell to people they can bring back manufacturing jobs, but it's not like in china they making cars or batteries or chips by hand. It's all automated everywhere.

Have you seen that SmarterEveryDay video about trying to make a grill brush in the US? That obviously would’ve been possible in the US 50 years ago but is borderline impossible today because every manufacturer laughs in your face and just says “make it in China, we can’t help you”

Re: Canada will match US tariffs 'dollar for dollar' as trade talks break down

#756

Post by michaelt »

epolanski wrote: post #740
brightball wrote: post #641

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I get that statistics can be manipulated but... https://www.ismworld.org/supply-management-news-and-reports/... > Economic activity in the manufacturing sector expanded in July for the seventh consecutive month, say the nation’s supply executives in the latest ISM® Manufacturing PMI® Report. > The report was issued today by Susan Spence, MBA, Chair of the Institute for Supply Management® (ISM®) Manufacturing Business…

Manufacturing has never really declined in US, not in absolute terms. It's simply facing the same fate of agriculture: automation. Politicians want to sell to people they can bring back manufacturing jobs, but it's not like in china they making cars or batteries or chips by hand. It's all automated everywhere.

> Manufacturing has never really declined in US, not in absolute terms.

Is a factory making 2GB RAM chips twice as productive as one making 1GB RAM sticks?

Because if manufacturing output is merely constant while chipmakers’ output has skyrocketed (on paper, as PCs went from 32MB RAM to 32GB over a few decades), other manufacturing output must have fallen a great deal.

Re: Canada will match US tariffs 'dollar for dollar' as trade talks break down

#758

Post by ColdStream »

thisisit wrote: post #545
hunglee2 wrote: post #413

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…

This ignores two facts. One, US has been the largest buyer of imported goods. As much as people think turning away is difficult and needs planning. Two, turning away requires time and planning. Supply chain isn't built in one day. People need time for that. In the short term - like next 3-4 years - it is going to look like countries caved. But in the long term Liberation Day will be remembered as one of the days whic…

Long term it is a very tough position for the US. They need to run a trade deficit to keep the power of the US dollar, if that goes so does a lot of their world power.

More broadly however, the question that I think everyone should ponder on is, "If the US falls as the world super power, do you think the alternative will be better?"

A huge part of the US's spending is on the military and that is used to stabilize global trade, that is so that the USD is still THE major currency. But recent moves looks like they are trying to keep that while also kicking out the struts that hold up the entire system. It is very illogical, maybe there is a bigger plan but somehow I don't think there is.

Re: Canada will match US tariffs 'dollar for dollar' as trade talks break down

#759

Post by andrewflnr »

01100011 wrote: post #699
fidotron wrote: post #104

This was totally the right move, if for no other reason than it's the only thing that this US admin will respect in the long run. Being in Canada though this does look v. short sighted of the US. All this is going to achieve is pushing Canada much closer to other countries, particularly China, which at least superficially these negotiations were meant to prevent.

The US admin is basically Trump. Saying Trump will respect Canadian strength shows you are making the same mistake other people keep making in thinking Trump is somehow like them or is consistent enough to predict. I don't think Trump is a rational actor. He is a collection of ephemeral positions lacking coherence accumulated from random sources.

I think the Trump admin is more complicated than just Trump, if only because he doesn't have enough marbles left to run the whole thing. That said, power, pain, and dominance are the one thing he does actually understand, and that's what Canada is showing him. It's as close as we can get to a signal that will reach him and the varying grades of fool he surrounds himself with.

Re: Canada will match US tariffs 'dollar for dollar' as trade talks break down

#760

Post by ColdStream »

8note wrote: post #627
thisisit wrote: post #545

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This ignores two facts. One, US has been the largest buyer of imported goods. As much as people think turning away is difficult and needs planning. Two, turning away requires time and planning. Supply chain isn't built in one day. People need time for that. In the short term - like next 3-4 years - it is going to look like countries caved. But in the long term Liberation Day will be remembered as one of the days whic…

i think canada has found that its been less difficult than we thought it would be ultimately the US is buying stuff, but its the stuff thats actually valuable and not the USD you get from it. its even easier to move when you cant even buy oil from the gulf anymore, whether in USD or otherwise. the supply chain problem arrived in trump 1's covid disaster, and hasnt exactly been solved for getting stuff to the US again

I was very impressed at the pace at which Canadians got behind the move away from US goods. Turns out threatening to annex a country and NOT having those making the threats get punished/thrown out does that. It shows a significant enough part of the US would support the move. That portion might only be 10-30% (who knows exactly) but it is enough that it cannot be ignored and it will keep coming back.

There are still more fundamental materials markets that will take years/decades to move away from but that is already happening.

Post reply on HN