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The Tariff Cost: analysis of the costs to Americans from new tariffs on Canada

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Re: The Tariff Cost: analysis of the costs to Americans from new tariffs on Canada

#81

Post by ericmay »

epolanski wrote: post #74
davidw wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They are willing to bear some pain in order to hit back at the US administration. And they're pretty united - Doug Ford for instance is not on the same team as Mark Carney - but has been very vocal about striking back. It's really a singular achievement to piss off such a good neighbor so badly.

And don't forget the Greenland threats, those for us Europeans, and in European foreign affairs are a line of non return. Other administrations will not be able to repair the damage, because what was exposed really is that the US system allows for each administration to destroy and 180 whatever the previous one did.

They can be repaired - but if you think they can't be, then the US should act accordingly which would mean yea go ahead and take over Greenland, withdraw forces from Europe, &c. because as you say they can't be fixed so we might as well do whatever we think we want or need to do - that's the chain of reasoning that this theory of unrepairable relations sends us down.

But we've had challenges and issues before. The US has tried to obtain Greenland in the past. There are plenty of examples of such things throughout history ranging from the Suez Crises, to French withdrawal from NATO, to, well, 2 World Wars caused by Europe, and more and all was forgiven, if not forgotten.

We sometimes think that things in the moment are perhaps more important than they are. The news wants us to believe the world is ending to get clicks. Europe still lets Russian tourists in and houses Russian billionaires and their families despite this existential threat from Russia, as an example.

Re: The Tariff Cost: analysis of the costs to Americans from new tariffs on Canada

#82

Post by mthoms »

declan_roberts wrote: post #52

Canada is very unfortunately caught in the trade war between the USA and China. It's pretty easy right now for certain goods to bypass the US tariffs by being transshipped through Canada and enter the USA without tariff because of minimal processing. Chinese steel is a notable example of this. And a lot of Canada's trade MOUs with other countries basically requires they have this special privilege. So there's gonna b…

>It's pretty easy right now for certain goods to bypass the US tariffs by being transshipped through Canada and enter the USA without tariff because of minimal processing.

This talking point keeps getting repeated on HN. Always without sources because the only source is a dubious White House "report" that is nothing more than a manufactured reason for buying an expensive new AI system (probably from a big donor). https://www.whitehouse.gov/wp-content/uploads/2026/08/The-Gr...

That same report equally names the European Union, India, Israel, Japan, Mexico, South Korea, and Taiwan alongside Canada. So literally every modern western economy is making this "pretty easy"? Yeah, ok.

Re: The Tariff Cost: analysis of the costs to Americans from new tariffs on Canada

#83

Post by maxglute »

LBH, Canada has always been real economy loser with respect US trade with ~80b goods / services deficit AFTER discounted energy - cheap crude sales to US to fuel US refinery mismatch. US doesn't have strategic domestic energy self sufficiency without Canadian crude, CAN sludge should be selling at premium (same with VZ but we see how that went). In an ideal world Canada could be making more refining and selling high margin refined fossil to global markets and not sending ~80b to US.

Which is to say, if Canada sorts out inter provincial trade, pivot to domestic goods/services and sell commodities globally at benchmark prices it on paper come out ahead. Nvm associated brain drain via US integration killed what was left of Canadian tier1 industries (not much to be done). Or half reason CAN has to sell cheap to US is US lobbying (read political meddling / foreign influence) on infra/pipelines. Or discount NORAD which LBH missiles over polar orbit aren't stopping at Canada, as if Canada needs to free ride on NA security architecture.

TLDR is Canada always loser of even happy vassal arrangement, the carrot was always stale but it dint' need to be sweet with how big US stick is. But stick not big enough to force CAN to deepthroat new rotten carrot arrangement. At least not yet.

Re: The Tariff Cost: analysis of the costs to Americans from new tariffs on Canada

#84

Post by Throaway826 »

ericmay wrote: post #70
cwillu wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you're going to talk about canadian dairy tariffs, please note that (a) this was originally negotiated by trump the last time he was in office, and (b) the tariff only applies when the total imports exceed a limit, which iirc has never actually been exceeded.

Someone else shared this article [1] and I was reading a quote I thought was interesting: “[Canada] has a large dairy producing constituency that it wants to protect, so they put a cap on imports that can be accessed at a competitive rate. That's what we call a ‘TRQ’ (tariff rate quota),” says Becky Rasdall Vargas, senior vice president of trade and workforce policy at the International Dairy Foods Association. Under…

The main reason the Dairy Supply quota is in place is to stop US dairy producers from dumping dairy into Canada.

That's why the USA has never reached the tarriff limit. The big producers there would just dump 20 million litres at once if they could. They aren't interested in 1 or two.

And if they were able to do that, the Canadian producers would go under. So its kinda simple, the Dairy Supply system is there to protect the Canadian Dairy industry. If it was removed, we would be flooded with cheap, low-quality US milk.

The entire Canadian dairy industry produces less milk than Wisconsin alone. Why does the US need the Canadian market? A: They don't, they just want it anyways.

Re: The Tariff Cost: analysis of the costs to Americans from new tariffs on Canada

#85

Post by epolanski »

sobellian wrote: post #49

Imagine you want to build a factory in the US. You pay tariffs on the factory equipment you need - much of it is made overseas. You pay tariffs on your input goods. And then when you try to export your customers get hit with a retaliatory tariff. I don't agree with tariffs but even if we accept some level of protectionism you can't tariff everything the way this administration wants. You have to pick what you actuall…

Protectionism and tariffs simply don't work in the global world.

Capitalism will keep producing things where they make sense not where politicians want.

Exceptions make sense only to protect industries that are absolutely vital and critical for security. Ship building should be one of those for countries like US or UK.

Or when you want to kickstart an industry and need to protect it for a limited amount of time (Koreans and the Japanese both did so with some of their industrial sectors, but it was always time limited).

This administration thinks it can make every industry thrive through tariffs.

I don't see how it can work, even for a country with the resources of the US.

Re: The Tariff Cost: analysis of the costs to Americans from new tariffs on Canada

#86

Post by ericmay »

llm_nerd wrote: post #71
ericmay wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You've returned to this example twice now. And it's interesting. Did you know Canada imports and buys more vehicles from the US than we export to the US? So what? We could still enact a quota on imports regardless of exports. If anything that would be ideal (ask China, Germany) in some ways. But you can just substitute autos for any other random product - the specific product is, as I know you are well aware, isn't…

> So what? You specifically chose a thing that Trump has tried to use as a lever multiple times. Again, I want 100% of vehicle production from the US barred from Canada. A 0 vehicle quota. Let the US automakers collapse into the eventual failure that is coming. > We could still enact a quota on imports regardless of exports. Huh? What does this even mean. When there are two parties to an agreement. If the US did that…

US automakers wouldn't collapse if Canadiens weren't buying American cars. Canada is too small of a market. On the other hand Canada would lose a lot of jobs. It also wouldn't apply to just American auto manufacturers. Japanese and German manufacturers I imagine ship cars to Canada too so you wouldn't get those either.

> Huh? What does this even mean.

Well we would enact a quota on imports, and then we'd be free to export. Certainly we wouldn't self-impose export controls on products we want to sell. Canada could then choose to add more tariffs or just stop imports but that's a separate step.

Re: The Tariff Cost: analysis of the costs to Americans from new tariffs on Canada

#87

Post by bryanlarsen »

maxglute wrote: post #83

LBH, Canada has always been real economy loser with respect US trade with ~80b goods / services deficit AFTER discounted energy - cheap crude sales to US to fuel US refinery mismatch. US doesn't have strategic domestic energy self sufficiency without Canadian crude, CAN sludge should be selling at premium (same with VZ but we see how that went). In an ideal world Canada could be making more refining and selling high…

USMCA (and the 2 deals that preceded it) are definitely better deals for the US than they are for Canada. But they're fairly generally believed to be win-win deals; it's just that the US wins more than Canada.

If you're playing a single football game, the lesser winner is the loser. However, the economy is not a single football game. In real life the lesser winner is still a winner.

Re: The Tariff Cost: analysis of the costs to Americans from new tariffs on Canada

#88

Post by jszymborski »

declan_roberts wrote: post #52

Canada is very unfortunately caught in the trade war between the USA and China. It's pretty easy right now for certain goods to bypass the US tariffs by being transshipped through Canada and enter the USA without tariff because of minimal processing. Chinese steel is a notable example of this. And a lot of Canada's trade MOUs with other countries basically requires they have this special privilege. So there's gonna b…

Canada generally doesn't have much problem coordinating with the US on tariffs on Chinese goods. A primary example is Chinese Vehicles. The trouble is that by launching a trade war against Canada, the US has lost the willingness of Canadians to participate in such coordination.

Re: Canadian dollars, it's the US dollar that I believe is the more salient concern [0]

[0] https://www.morningstar.com/news/dow-jones/20260825307/bitco...

Re: The Tariff Cost: analysis of the costs to Americans from new tariffs on Canada

#89

Post by chocochunks »

nickff wrote: post #65
mullingitover wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't recall Justin Trudeau making leadership decisions so diabolical and incompetent that Serious People were forced to ask if he was a foreign agent.

I am not sure that there is one example which can meet all your criteria, though there are many examples of stupid things that (almost) everyone agrees he should not have done: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WE_Charity_scandal https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SNC-Lavalin_affair https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aga_Khan_affair https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-india-43151115 I still believe his most egregious betrayal of v…

Trump has had worse WEEKS in this term than Trudeau's entire decade. Not even remotely comparable.

Re: The Tariff Cost: analysis of the costs to Americans from new tariffs on Canada

#90

Post by foxyv »

ericmay wrote: post #25
foxyv wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the idea is that tariffs cut both ways. They increase prices for foreign goods as well as reduce demand for imports causing job losses in the exporting country. The original tariffs increase prices and the retaliatory tariffs reduce demand for American products causing job loss.

Yes but since Canada is also initiating new tariffs (they've had existing ones for specific products and industries already) so anything said here applies to Canada as well. For example Canadian tariffs increase prices and their retaliatory tariffs also reduce demand for Canadian products leading to job losses.

Yup! Just like a game of chicken that goes a little too far.
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