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

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

#241

Post by microtonal »

spockz wrote: post #62
eigenspace wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The EU didn't really fold, they blew him off. It was just a bunch of "yeah sure Donny, here's a bunch of meaningless promises we have no ability or mechanism to actually enforce". For example they promised to buy a bunch of gas, but the EU has no mechanism to make companies or even member states buy gas. The only real concession the EU made was just allowing Trump to tariff them at a certain rate, and not counter-tar…

Regarding the retaliation, I’m unsure who would be hurt more. There are very few ready alternatives to the MS office suite, and none with the close integrations like AD. Most corps run on Microsoft. If those contracts get slapped with tariffs they would become unmanageable to buy. Then, because it isn’t on-premise anymore where you could just continue running without paying for the service contract you lose direct ac…

There are so many things that can happen. Since tariffs are percentual, Microsoft could lower prices to avoid that companies will migrate to European alternatives.

In an all-out economic war, anything could happen. The source code of Microsoft products probably exists somewhere in Europe (since they have European offices) and definitely binaries, since it's run on European servers. Once nobody plays by the rules anymore, all bets are off.

That said, a trade war would hurt both badly and it would be an epic fail on the side of the US administration. (Since the EU would not start such a trade war by itself.)

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

#242

Post by iNerdier »

Reciprocal tariffs alone don’t make much sense, it’s just making things for Canadians more expensive with an adversary that’s larger and can sustain them longer (although how long remains to be seen with guilt yields rising.)

If they really want to hurt them start making it legal to circumvent DRM on American products and allow build meaningful replacements.

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

#243

Post by TacticalCoder »

pluc wrote: post #188
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 problem is they're also stifling trade with China. We still have quotas on Chinese cars so that they don't flood the market with affordable cars to preserve our (yours and ours) inferior car industry. It's basically what Canada is doing to the US with dairy, except with Chinese cars.

I'm in the EU and my masters did hand over the car market to chinese cars and this was a very stupid move.

Some EU carmakers are fighting back but it's very hard when politicians managed to have energy price in the EU being about 7x higher than those carmakers in China do pay.

I'm not for tariffs but China is dumping and if we don't all want to end up being vassals of China, we should at least protect some of our industries.

And as "good" as chinese EVs are, I'm sorry but they're not anywhere near the quality of, say, what German cars used to be.

If western carmakers had been given a reasonable timeline to switch to EVs and reasonable energy price, the situation would be different.

EU carmakers may be saved by people preferring to buy cars from their own continent but that remains to be seen. The latest BMW EVs, for example (once you remove the spying / remote control issues: but that affects chinese EVs doubly so), are apparently very fine machines.

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

#244

Post by dboreham »

watutalkinbout wrote: post #159
robmccoll wrote: post #122

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.

The "make more money" rationale is way too logical vs how this guy's brain operates. It's better understood as being like Pro Wrestling. Except the "ring" is the world economy.

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

#245

Post by diego_moita »

YES! YES!

Elbows up, finally!

This is will be painful. But it is what we need.

It is more than time for Canada to learn the lesson that Navajos, Comanches, Apache and Cherokees learned too late: Americans lie, cheat, betray and steal. We shouldn't be cozy with them.

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

#246

Post by [deleted] »

retired wrote: post #128
mytailorisrich wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If Europe does't buy gas from Russia then that leaves Qatar and the US. Qatar does sell a lot to Europe (hence you'll notice how "friendly" Europe is towards Qatar) but is vulnerable to instability in the straight of Ormuz. The US are making a fortune on gas at the expense of Europe an it's not that the promise to buy gas is meaningless because unenforceable within Europe, it's that it was already happening in practi…

Russia killing hundreds of EU citizens should be enough to stop buying gas from them.

[deleted]

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

#247

Post by xxs »

dbdr wrote: post #240
robmccoll wrote: post #122

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.

Please be aware people reading don't know which country you are from, so using "our" is ambiguous. You could just as well have been Canadian, and it took extra deciphering to guess you're apparently from the US.

Given "Donald" reference is beyond obvious, same if you know anything about trade, geography or housing issues.

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

#248

Post by phonon »

paganel wrote: post #98
u1hcw9nx wrote: post #93

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.

Uhhh, we're not doing so hot there either. https://www.propublica.org/article/general-dynamics-artiller...

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

#249

Post by ricardobeat »

microtonal wrote: post #168
bhouston wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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. Unfortunately, Canada (where I live) will feel way more pain from this than the US. I am not sure Trump will have respect for this at all, but the alternative was to put in a permanent trade deal that significant disadvantaged Canada.

I know that this is insanely complex with everybody protecting their own economies, but I think this is where middle powers working together more strongly could help. Imagine that Canada, the EU, and Britain worked together as an economic NATO, where a tariff attack on one is a tariff attack on all. It would hurt the US much more to bully one of these economies.

Canada and the EU already have a trade agreement since 2016. The UK economy is about 1/5th that of the EU, not enough to move the dial, and they kind of went off in the opposite direction around that same time...

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

#250

Post by jtrn »

iNerdier wrote: post #242

Reciprocal tariffs alone don’t make much sense, it’s just making things for Canadians more expensive with an adversary that’s larger and can sustain them longer (although how long remains to be seen with guilt yields rising.) If they really want to hurt them start making it legal to circumvent DRM on American products and allow build meaningful replacements.

If this was even close to true, why did basicly this exact same move work when china did it and when EU threatend to do the same before.

And from a different angle: “giving fines to firms makes no sense since they firm can only get money from customers so it’s just going to make it more expensive for the customer”.

Not an identical situatio, but to say it’s the only consequence, that it becomes more expensive for Canadian, is just not right.

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