Everything the current US administration has done has been an unmitigated disaster. Tariffs are taxes. Manufacturing is still declining, not returning and a man who could not run casinos successfully is not going to change that. His economic and foreign policy are dictated entirely based on who flatters him the most. Add to that continued environmental damage, domestic policy dictated by a regressive religious minority and a lack of interest in performing the duties of the position in favor of caring about only what it can be leveraged for. A failing state operating on grievances and stupidity.
> 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 Survey Committee.
> “The Manufacturing PMI® registered 55.6 percent in July, 2.3 percentage points above the June figure and the highest reading since May 2022 (55.9 percent). The overall economy continued in expansion for the 21st month in a row.
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.
Every founder I know in manufacturing is thankful for this admin. There is a ton of invested interest in not having tariffs or a pro-manufacturing industrial policy as a lot of people got rich shipping it overseas. For some reason this is all ignored because the president is a very unpopular person (for obvious reasons)
That’s the point. He wants to crash the monetary market and he has allllll the investments in digital currencies, ai, data centers, energy, computation & weapons. Why prop up a system that literally tried to kill him and will wreck havoc on his family after he’s outta office stripped of power. Dude is operating on death ground right now.
>His economic and foreign policy are dictated entirely based on who flatters him the most
Are you sure, it seems mostly based on illegal share trading. Murdering foreigners and sending soldiers to die is a lever Trump/his handlers keep pulling because they 'win' $millions every time.
I'm not sure how old you are, but shortly after Obama took office in 2009 there was quite a bit of reporting claiming that the Bush administration had been so disastrous and young people had been so thoroughly poisoned by Republican policies, that it would likely be a generation before the Republicans had the chance to win the presidency again. Remember, Bush left office in the depths of the Great Recession. Instead, it took less than 8 years for us to get MAGA.
They didn't in the last couple. Those elections went 49% vs 51%. I don't hold out a lot of hope for the next couple. They feign surprise, but it isn't like it was a mystery as to what he was going to do. He campaigned on everything he is doing.
They won't. I have industrial clients who are financially eating shit from all this and they have posters of Trump hanging on their office wall while extolling his antics. The workers think the same way. We're boned unless these morons wake up (they won't.)
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 consciousness into the stars” apparently requires we create CSAM generating machines powered by nitrogen oxide belching gas turbines. Even the folks at non-profit news outlets like Pro Publica have leadership that refuses to understand that it is difficult to prevent AI errors at scale. Nobody reviews drafts with such detail, we make a lot of assumptions, we trust that the person/machine is not feeding us trash.
This is, of course, doesn’t even bring up the fact that a lot of people in the US now get their news—similar to folks in India via WhatsApp (that became such a problem that Meta was forced to curtail the number of forwards you could do in the app)—by passing trash, hate fueling articles around on social media.
I don't think it's helpful to suggest that "both sides" are equal in American politics, but I do think you have to be a least a little understanding that the democrats aren't an attractive alternative to most Americans. I'm afraid a pretty large minority of Americans have landed in the lose-lose position of "if i can't make it better, i might as well make it worse faster".
This is where the democrats need to smarten up. They should be hammering “tax and spend” Trump, 24x7.
The baseline Republican base doesn’t give a shit about the more extreme racist stuff, they don’t care about women being raped, etc they tolerate it. But they hate paying taxes above all else.
Trump closed the stretch IRA loophole in 45, and implemented the largest tax increase in recent history with the tariff regime. Only the really rich people and real estate folks get the big tax breaks.
If someone asks Chuck Schumer what the weather is like, he should say: “It’s a good summer day, but it would be a great one if tax and spend Trump released the Epstein files”
I'd argue more largely that the right is a loose coalition of people with differing goals...whether it's conservatism, lower taxes, anti immigration, religious right, etc. I'm reminded how my econ professor would say that hardened bootleggers and hardcore Christians would pretend to be friends just long enough to vote to keep alcohol illegal.
I feel like the Dems should have an easy time in the next elections if they don't fumble it given the current state of things. On the other hand, they seem to purity test each other in ways that make such a coalition harder to attain.
The Republican base doesn’t give a shit about “tax and spend” either. For all their hand-wringing about deficit spending, Republican administrations have for decades been the party of excessive spending and ballooning deficits.
They’ve demonstrated over and over that their core principles don’t actually exist, and are simply maxims that they have heard often enough that they blindly parrot them back.
The weak kneed leadership will be getting replaced by the populist message of Trump but coming from the left, people like Mamdani, the DSA candidates, etc.
The people clearly want leaders who will say : we will use political tools to help the economic situation of the poor and middle class.
Everyone from Jon Ossoff to Angie Nixon has some version of this message and its resonating
Huh? Check out the Twitter feeds of your favorite Republican or Republican-aligned personalities. It's racial or nationalistic dog whistles all day every day.
I really don't want people to be left with the impresion that this is Democratic Party incompetence. It is not. They are complicit in pretty much everything the Trump administration has been doing. They know what works. Just do what Obama did in 2008 and run on a populist economic platform. They don't want to do that. It's a choice, not incompetence.
If Chuck Schumer is asked about the weather, he'll first check with Netanyahu.
Just look at what Senatorial campaigns Schumer supports and doesn't. There's a lot of suspicion that Schumer (and the DSCC) is going to leave Abdul El-Sayed out to dry because he's anti-Israel, basically. Mandela Barnes got similar treatment in 2022. And yet you have blockbuster challenges like Jaime Harrison's, which spent $130M to oust Lindsey Graham. He lost by 10. Trump won by 12 so I guess he gained 2? Well done, everybody, the system works.
Oh and what did the DNC do with Jaime Harrison after he spent $130M to lose by 10? They made him the DNC Chair. The Democratic Party loves a loser. Just like Howard Dean.
> The baseline Republican base doesn’t give a shit about the more extreme racist stuff, they don’t care about women being raped, etc they tolerate it. But they hate paying taxes above all else.
Honestly wild opinions to have. Watch 30 seconds of fox news. A significant chunk of their coverage is about protecting women and children from migrants/pedos/trans people. They want a tough on crime executive branch almost as much as they want low taxes.
Taxes are good! China, which is run by some of the smartest technocrats in the world, has a very strong system for controlling the flow of foreign products into the country. Because of the nature of their government, they have more tools at their disposal than just tariffs, e.g., requiring foreign companies to establish joint-ventures with Chinese companies. But the purpose is the same.
Do people have no shame in attaching a minority group - who by the way by and away opposed Trump from a voting perspective - with ethnicity (the majority are secular) - and with a foreign government - Israel?
In any other normal sane world stuff would get called out, greyed out, and ultimately shot down. In THIS world, the responses (I bet, like this one) are the "greys."
It's a scary world we live in where the Left turns into the Right of the past.
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 renegotiate the bilateral deals whenever he feels like it, forcing the other party to face down the US by themselves - not many can do this, maybe only China. Anyways, I wish the Canadians well and I hope they gain global support
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.
You are both right. The world capitulates more than it should. But the world is also moving away and building contingencies.
The world needs leadership. And Canada is helping with that.
I do not think that reciprocal tariffs are actually the answer though. They hurt both sides and the US is not a rational enough actor to respond like you hope they will. The answer is in shifting trade away from the US and isolating their economy. It takes longer but it is what will work. And even if their behaviour does not change, their power will fade with their economy.
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 running on a 1980s world view.
*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 called out that the whole Weapons Of Mass destruction was a load of bull** . It did not stop others from helping the US.
Yet, now, what we see as "help" is so minimal, and even countries like Spain not just refusing but active blocking. It shows how much relationships have deteriorated.
Trump thinks of Europa like a vassal state, and every time we say no or delay, it drives him nuts. Or our best "yes", if often a "well, we need to have agreement in all the countries, see you in a few years". Do not think its coincidence, its done deliberately.
In the past when the US said something, beyond maybe France, most countries quickly followed. This is gone ... We know the world has changed, and the old order is finished.
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 which put a nail into the American exceptionalism.
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.
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
"Now, the US is simply able to renege or renegotiate the bilateral deals whenever he feels like it, forcing the other party to face down the US by themselves"
This won't last. There are consequences for behavior on all scales. If you prove yourself untrustworthy and treacherous, people will treat you as such. International politics don't move very quickly, especially if coordination is required. But it will eventually move.
"Winning" at all costs has never ever been sustainable and I don't think see why this time will be different, especially with diminishing real power.
"They make it a desert and call it peace(winning)."
Absolutely agree; but it's never too late to react. Europe could impose tariffs on US tech or forbid it altogether to bid on government contracts. Etc.
Possibly waiting for a reasonable replacement for US tech. For example, if the US should decide to shut off MasterCard and VISA services to Europe, it would create non-trivial difficulties for the European banking system.
the bilateral deals signed means we (the world, minus the US) is already divided. Got to scrap those deals first, which isn't going to happen. The shark has scattered the shoal and we're all going to get picked off - perpetually signing worse deals, then having to renegotiate again before signing ever worse terms.
Responsible governance around something like when and how to retaliate (if at all) against tariffs comes down to one of the most fundamental forces of economics and trade: real leverage. Whether or not the US should exercise its leverage to attain outsized and favorable terms on the economic stage is the peanut gallery conversation that happens on social media. The two worlds couldn't be farther apart. What will actually happen in the end is just a math equation that has never changed and will never change.
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 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.
I said it in another comment, not only did they negotiate that, the resulting negotiation held very little of substance for the US. It was very light on specifics and all for show.
It has been said that when the tariffs started that the Japanese delegates went to Washington to negotiate. The delegates asked them "Since you are trying to negotiate, what do you want of Japan?"
All they got back was "Well, what can you offer?"
Turns out they had started the tariff war with absolute no idea on what demands they wanted to make. Japan used that to their advantage because without any specifics, they were free to write the terms.
they carved because most of those places want access to the 'yuuuge' US market.
politics vs reality. they could correct though by selling US treasuries - but that would make the world economy sneeze which might result in pneumonia.
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.
> 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?
We aren't the ones who are destroying it, and we have a backbone strong enough to say this isn't good enough.
If what you say is true, then the next administration should understand how one sided the damage done to the relationship has been. No economic trade partner should have to tolerate attacks on their sovereignty and unreliable trade negotiators.
> 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?
This was a common attitude 2017-2020, and they got disabused of that notion when Trump won in 2024. I would further argue the muted response during Trump I based on an idea that thing would "return to normal" emboldened Trump II - so that was not a winning strategy. The only country that seemed to have the correct read, and translated it into policy was China. Every other trading partner of the US seems to be floundering still.
What I fear is Trump didn't break any promise done to their electors by starting this trade wars (he did when he failed to stop actual military wars and started more instead, but that's a different point). He was elected by stating that America was the greatest country in the world and that the others were freeriding on US wealth. I'm not sure his successor can entirely overturn this policy, if a majority of the US voters believe this - also because undoing the damage would require brokering deals less favourable than before to show good faith.
I live outside of the US so I might be misintepreting the situation, but I'm unconviced that a full u-turn will happen once he's out of the office.
I am not sure how much of it is that, versus a mix of tariffs being paid by the recipient rather than the vendor, versus all his unpredictable behaviour being an inherent non-tariff barrier, versus it not mattering much what a deal with the USA even looks like if we all transition to other trade partners.
The UK's Neville Chamberlain is remembered for saying of an agreement with Hitler, "peace for our time"*, and by this agreement, appeasement; less well known was that he did pursue re-armament and mutual defence agreements while attempting to deescalate.
Hopefully we won't be here in 8 years wondering how the USA got carved up into a Canadian zone, a Chinese zone, a European zone, and an Aztec zone. That last one might be from a TV show I watched as a kid.
They still can of course, all they need to do is collectively start selling off their US treasuries. The US is at a highly vulnerable and precarious point with their potential bond market debt spiral situation, and this is a point of leverage that can be exploited to encourage improved behavior from a bully.
This capital can then be reallocated into domestic investment to continue to decouple from the US. Very similar to how Germany learned the hard way that buying fossil gas from Russia wasn’t going to prevent aggression. Canada has started this with their recently announced energy investment plan, Europe can do this with Eurobonds.
China and Canada Energy Pact as Canada Aims to Cut Reliance on US - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46640932 - January 2026 (a component of China’s next five year plan includes LNG infra investment to support imports from Canada)
This is a classical problem. In theory it works when majority of the players work together and move in same direction, however everyone being opportunistic here makes in infeasible from long term perspective. Europe itself is in a difficult stage, its dealing with Russia on one end, has trust issues with China and now the its long term partner has gone rouge. The result of all this would be a mandate to be self sufficient aka anti-globalization
Japan did start selling off US treasuries because the yen is fucked. They stopped when the US agreed to buy yen and sell euros. If China starts selling treasuries, US is fucked. But it’s in China’s interest to have this incompetent in power.
They were not prepared and at least had to mitigate immediate harm, while preparing their economies, security, etc. to be less entangled with the US.
But once they are 'prepared' as best they can, one approach is for other countries to decide / accept that the US is mostly a lost cause while Trump or most other Republicans are in power, which will happen at times. It will affect their economies but they cannot control that. Negotiating with the US only encourages more bad behavior.
The rest of the world could then recreate (or continue) the global trading system, including the WTO, simply excluding countries that violate its rules. This puts the ball in the US's court to participate or not, never slamming the door in the US's face, always welcoming and encouraging them rhetorically, by their rules, and genuinely ('we look forward to our friends in the US joining and enjoying the benefits of doing business with the rest of the world').
In the meantime, global trade rules would be created in the interests of the other countries, without the US having a voice - a great boon after decades of US domination of such rules. This incentivizes the US to join sooner rather than later.
(It seems to me - I have no expertise in this area.)
Yes sure. Add it to the pile of contradictory goals:
1. Bring back manufacturing jobs
2. Remove trade barriers
3. Make US rich by collecting huge amount of tariffs
If 1 is true then there is no benefit for countries to remove trade barriers or pay tariffs because now there is no leverage (manufacturing jobs to protect).
If 2 is true then there is no leverage for other things to happen - countries aren't going to voluntary remove trade barriers without keeping the jobs or paying tariffs.
The U.S. also has a huge amount of trade barriers that are indirect against the rest of the world. Don't act like the U.S. is the victim here.
One example: In Canada, there's a vibrant french language film industry, meaning films in french that originate and are made in Canada and then marketed abroad. The english language equivalent is anemic because decades ago, as part of trade negotiations, the Canadian gov't gutted subsidies for english language film production as a trade barrier against Hollywood.
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.
Trump and MAGA have destroyed the good relationships and trust that the US had built throughout the world. Canada's Prime Minister wrote [1]:
"We have recognised from the beginning that America has changed, and that we will not return to our old relationship. Our government understood, before many, that America is altering all its trade relationships. Putting tariffs on its closest allies and charging for access to its vast market."
> All this is going to achieve is pushing Canada much closer to other countries
The world is watching this story just like the world watched Davos.
Last night will encourage further decoupling of the US for nations other than Canada.
idk if Trump 2028 will happen or not. I will say with conviction no matter who is in office by then will not rebuild trust around the world in their tenure. Too much damage is done to the US's reputation.
> I will say with conviction no matter who is in office by then will not rebuild trust around the world in their tenure. Too much damage is done to the US's reputation.
The only way that the US can start rebuilding this trust is that the incoming Democratic President and Congress (assuming we are so lucky) immediately starts by prosecuting Trump and his family (and results in actual jail time, not just fines or small stays), zero out their government contracts, fire most of the people installed in government since 2025, expand the Supreme Court, and remove the fillibuster. I know people think ideas like that are extreme, but really, what else is going to convince the rest of the world that the US has cleaned up their act? It has to start at home first.
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.
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.
What is going to happen is this lack of deal will accelerate the (inevitable) decline of the Canadian car industry, which will reduce objections to the Chinese imports leading to those quotas changing in an ever accelerating feedback loop.
From the US strategic perspective this is moving out of the frying pan and into the fire.
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.
> 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.
There is also the factor that Canada has been propping up unsustainable dead end industries on a massive scale for years, and that this will make any pain from such a situation, deal or no deal, that much worse.
Most obviously Southern Ontario is living in a dreamland where inexplicably ICE autos remain a viable industry ad infinitum.
Some forced reality, by any means, will in the long run prove to be welcome.
I think you're right that this will be more painful for Canada, economically, but I'm not so sure about "way more". But politically, it will be much more painful for the US side of the negotiation than for the Canadian side. The Carney administration is on much firmer political ground than the Trump administration. Time is on Carney's side.
> 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.
It's unfortunate and in some ways unfair. I hope the Canadian economy will move towards more open trade partners and will proposer.
The thing that I really struggle to understand is what the grand vision behind this is. A logical consequence of the tariffs is that Canada, Europe and other American allies focus more on those who are willing to trade with them, including China.
If I put a 2/3y contract in place with an American supplier, there's a fair chance that I might have to deal with 10-50% tariffs at some point during the contract. This does make (long)-term business deals with the US risky.
Perhaps, but Canada will emerge stronger. The US doing to flip Congress by a margin of 2 and just lock in Trump insanity until something really bad pops.
For example, the first tariff wave was a huge transfer of wealth from citizens to corporations in the OBBBA. First, the income from tariffs was projected to offset the tax cuts for the rich and corporations. Then, when the Supreme Court found them unlawful, the money had to be returned. But first the corporations let consumers pay the tariffs by increasing product prices, but now it is the same companies who get the tariff refunds. And since they are obviously not going to give the money back to the customer, it lined their pockets.
They stand for Project 2025 and the Maralago Accord, and the ideology behind them. So far they followed both projects quite closely. Trump is a tool they have to manage to reach their goals
Also, of course, extracting as much money from the state as possible
Putin wanted Trump to decapitate the Iranian regime?
Let's be serious, that has nothing to do with the Canadian situation, which has more than enough going on without needing to imagine things.
Edit to add: the extent to which many of you will apparently blame anything and everything on Putin is extraordinary. Just because the sun shines on Putin as well does not mean he made it do so.
Would Putin want Germany to cancel the shut down of its nuclear power plants as Trump urged it to. [1]
The Green Movement in Europe, which Trump opposes, was best thing to happen to Putin.
As far as I can see, where Trump goes wrong is the same place the social democrats go wrong: believing in economic fallacies. In Trump's case that would be the belief that tariffs are beneficial.
He also on rare occasion aligns with very socialist leaning politicians like Elizabeth Warren, like when he sought to prevent private equity from buying up housing — which totally misdiagnoses the cause of the housing shortage. But it's these economic fallacies that makes Trump popular for the same reason social democrats are popular. The vast majority of people don't understand economics.
This is the way. If the US imposes tariffs, impose tariffs on US goods.
The US administration twists facts to suit their agenda. For example, they often complain about the trade deficit the US has with other countries. However, that deficit often (depends on the country) only exists if you exclude digital goods (Microsoft, Google, Apple, etc.).
If the rest of the world were to restrict the import of those digital goods, in the interest of fairness, the tech lobbyists would swarm D.C. in panic.
Europe/Canada should ban chatgpt/anthropic and say "ok we will use chinese models for our vibe coding I guess" and watch the stock market implode overnight. Remenber when they tried to ban non-US citizens from using Fable? best to remove that sword of damocles now regardless
Good luck with the Chinese models I’d say. Next they’ll be using Russian ones just because they hate Trump so much haha.
It feels good to say things like the EU and Canada should just ban whatever, but the US can just ban imports of critical goods from Europe too and harm European industries (I’m not in favor of this but it’s certainly an option).
So if the EU can cozy up to China, well we can drop the whole Taiwan issue and cozy up to China too. If Europeans don’t care about democracy in Taiwan maybe we shouldn’t either. Oh and by the way, China is helping Russia prosecute its war against Ukraine (just like Iran and North Korea) but I guess Trump sent some mean tweets so NATO is over, all the alliances are over, the EU and Canada will cozy up to China, and ban all American products. Things that can be easily discarded by both sides aren’t worth much.
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.
Agreeing with your larger point but on the other hand, Trump-voting districts with older industries probably have trade deficits, both with other American districts and especially internationally.
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-tariffing back (with various escape clauses).
While the EU response certainly wasn't a feel-good display of chest thumping, I think it was somewhat effective. He was able to strut around and feel big, and they were able to move on.
The only reason the EU would really want to apply counter tariffs against the USA would be to either make a point, or because they are actually afraid that exports from the USA could outcompete EU products unless tariffed, but this just isn't really the case right now.
___________________
The only form of retailiation I think the EU should actually be pursuing is the equivalent of tariffs on US software. This is the area that the USA is a highly competitive 'exporter', and putting up barriers agaisnt these software services would be a good way to hurt the USA, and protect / stimulate domestic alternatives.
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 currently used directly some high-emission sectors: iron and steel, aluminum, fertilizers, cement, electricity, and hydrogen.
EU importers require granular data on the embedded emissions (both direct and indirect). US companies in these supply chains have had to overhaul how they track and verify carbon intensity down to the sub-supplier level to help their EU buyers comply with strict European reporting standards.
EU will gradually expand CBAM after allowing supply chains to adjust.
I really would love to see this, but the sad truth is that there are no real alternatives for a very big amount of software products.
In the end, the eu residents will simply have to pay more for a lot of software products, and that's it :(
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 access to the product. So that might even mean whole companies going under.
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 practice. And that makes Europe even more dependent on the US (while the complaint was that we could't buy gas from Russia and depend on them).
Yanis Varoufakis - aside from being radically left and becoming the finance minister in Greece after their financial crisis hit - is a professor in game theory and economics.
He did a pretty good explanation of the difference between theory and practice in his Rest is Politics Leading podcast interview recently :).
I guess it has a little to do with your goals. Optimal trade economically or avoiding giving something that looks like a win to this type of politicians with the goal of avoiding re-electing trump. I don’t know what science say here.
Tarriffs will hurt your existing industries, they will lose sales/revenue.
Since you are getting hurt you play tit-for-tat to get the other to knock it off.
So you add export taxes to items they care about (oil/fertilizer/...) and compensate the losses incurred by existing industries.
You also add tarriffs on items that have alternatives, like alcohool.
Maybe add tarriffs on items with elastic prices, say 100% tarriff on digital services. Software services will have to adjust prices so they end up the same after tarriffs since few people will accept youtube or netflix doubling in price.
This hurts both countries but will get a result - either free trade or no trade.
In the meanwhile, Trump's entourage has derivative bets on this and take massive proffits shorting everyone. For them, this is all massively profitable.
China put tariffs specifically on the sectors that voted for Trump and depended on sales to China.
When the other party is not playing the same game, or not playing in fairness, then the best game theoretical move is to cease cooperation and retaliate.
We are leaving the time when trust allowed trade agreements that went beyond the maximum minimum with the US. Trust allowed countries to make agreements with the US that had obvious potentials for exploitation, but overall they were followed to the greater benefit of both. Trust enabled that. Now the US has decided to break trust and countries know it. That lost premium means a major loss in value to both sides but ultimately the US will be the biggest looser because the other algorithm here is tit for tat. In a world economy, countries that cooperate will thrive and those that exploit will fail. We are seeing completely uneducated, emotion driven, economic policy play out.
I’m interested to see if this spurs other countries to push back on this administration. Once you get a couple of countries to collectively stand firm is when things take a turn. Bullies can only push for so long
You could also try a bowl of mashed potatoes on Donald’s head.
This was one of the very embarrassing things that happened to Donald as a boy, done by Freddy Trump (his late older brother), when everyone had enough of him.
Take the USMCA - Canada and the US at times team up against Mexico and then the pendulum swings, line item by line item - no one has anyone’s back and they all have short memories
A deal with the US when others turns away from them is still a good deal
Pushing back against a US that is at this point economically and militarily dominant does nothing. It might push for cooperations outside the US-sphere.
Are they still dominant? They can't even win their war against Iran. And everyone is slowly moving away from the dollar. The US as world hegemon is counting its days.
To be fair as a percentage of exports, Canada (and Mexico, in different ways) is at a completely different level of economic integration than pretty much any other country. We have no choice but to take a unique stand. That being said, we are so lucky to have Carney at this moment. Canada hasn’t exactly had flexible, informed, and eloquent leadership in a long time that has been willing to think and work for the long term.
He provides some details about the last minute demands that the US made including restricting Canada's ability to trade with other countries. He also refers to the US signature as being written in "pencil".
Nice to see them putting up a fight. Though I assume this will cause pain for everyone.
One note: aren't these sentences strange - like a series of half-thoughts? Especially the 2nd paragraph.
> Our government understood, before many, that America is altering all its trade relationships. Putting tariffs on its closest allies and charging for access to its vast market.
>
> We have worked in that context. To strike a fair deal that would provide the best access to the U.S. market and greater certainty to Canadian businesses and workers.
Ever seen the Twilight Zone episode "It's a Good Life"? It's a tough situation when your opponent is an all-powerful preteen. No win scenario: perpetually give in to childish temper tantrums and everyone is worse off forever, or suffer the consequences of opposing the child.
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.
I wonder what would happen if Canada taxed electricity exports to the US, and used the money to directly subsidize other exported goods the US applies tariffs to?
it is easy to tax exports, but this makes the export less profitable (for the entity making that export). Unless you mean the producer raises prices to cover the new tax - in which case, the export is now more expensive, and less of it gets exported.
It doesn't really help with the tariff situation much in any case - a political problem requires a political solution (such as reciprocal tariffs). Both sides hurt, and there's no good outcome.
Oil and potash are made in provinces that have had their voter bases successfully propagandized by US Republican interests. They refused to get on-side at a political level.
It might be good to tax exports and use the proceeds to subsidize Canadian consumers. This should snuff out the dependence on export to US pretty fast with little harm to Canadian companies.
The US would then just stop importing that electricity and funnel the power in from domestic sources. The electricity comes in from Canada because it’s cheap, not because the US can’t make electricity. Canada would shoot itself in the foot with this move.
Won’t work out well for either side, namely citizens and leadership aside.
Wearing my forecasting hat…
Canada holding $200 billion in USA treasuries, one of the largest exporters of oil into the USA, and integrated supply chains for everyday goods. A fast and painful price shock is coming for every average American.
Canada has and will continue to be very dependent on the USA. No amount of new trade partners can change the fact that the largest economy in the world is a 2-hour trip down the road while everyone else is an ocean apart. This has a risk for long-term price pain for decades.
I don’t know offhand what the price of beef is generally these days (I am a vegetarian).
Generally speaking, capital and commerce steer towards efficiency. Goods from Australia will always be “less efficient” than goods crossing between Canada and the USA and Mexico due to geography.
The only way to make up for that difference is if goods are dramatically cheaper to produce (i.e China) to make up for the geographical barriers.
While it may work for beef, it can’t work for everything. So, Canada is generally stuck with the USA until it can find ways to export/import efficiently from other countries, and some things, like produce, can never work.
It has been shown time and time again that the only thing the US administration respects is brutish headbutting, so I cannot blame the Canadian government for responding with such a stance. It is unfortunate for everyone though that it is happening. Ultimately, these tariffs just tax the consumer for no real gain on either side. I think I speak for many when I say 2028 cannot come soon enough.
The average American suffers being hated for this government and I say this currently sitting in a town filled with fly in rich American tourists to keep it alive. IMO the only retaliatory pain point for Americans to start to care will be taxing discounted oil, electricity, fertilizer, and transits of everything to Alaska. But they’ll just blame rather than support Canada. I don’t like Doug Ford or his policies but hopefully he brings up the electricity thing again as leverage because it won’t happen in the other sectors given AB separatism and SK being, well, SK.
What unity? They didn't take American liquor off the shelves during the last round of this mayhem unlike every other province, we have no reason to expect solidarity this time.
Its nice to see some backbone, but the challenge for Canada is that it’s broadly in a weak negotiating position here. Generally speaking Canadian companies need access to the US market a lot more than US companies need access to the Canadian market.
In context, this only applies to oil that the US imports. That number means that of the oil that the US imports, 60-70% of it comes from Canada. The US currently produces more oil than any other nation. Your note should read "the US imports 60-70% of the oil that it imports from Canada"
- 100% of the natural gas
As mentioned above, this means that US imports of natural gas come exclusively from Canada. The US currently produces more natural gas than any other nation too. Your note should read "100% of the natural gas that the US imports comes from Canada"
It makes sense that Canada is sole source for imported natural gas since that is a product that is most efficiently transported in pipelines, like crude oil.
The way your numbers are framed seems to me to imply that the US is a net importer of oil and natural gas when in fact we began to ramp up exports of oil and natural gas (and coal) in 2006-2008 time period. Those exports helped the industry remain a dominant political force and provided a lot of seed money for the corruption that we have seen in the US since.
And Canada has also been passing up an absolutely enormous opportunity for industrial growth by spending generations supporting American industry by remaining a primary resources economy.
Notably, none of the goods you just mentioned about (energy imports, uranium, potash, etc.) have had tariffs applied by the Trump regime because they know all this. And it would be political suicide to apply an export tax on them.
No, instead the Trump tariffs have specifically targeted the regions of Canada that a) elect left of centre governments and/or b) have manufacturing economies.
So Ontario's auto sector, BC's forestry, and Quebec's aluminum and aerospace sectors.
Meanwhile Alberta and Saskatchewan -- which have compliant quite honestly pro-Trump governments -- have only 2% of their exports currently impacted by tariffs.
It has the look of an attempt at regime change, masquerading as economic policy.
>Canada is that it’s broadly in a weak negotiating position here.
That's an understatement. Hypothetically if Canada were isolated from the world, it would regress in the quality of life in 10 years. The most capable Canadians have moved out, mostly to the US. The average Canadian has unwarranted sense of nationalistic pride about them (compared to their neighbors).
Isolate US from the world, and assuming that the govt does not meddle too much with local businesses, in 10 years they will bounce back to being more self sufficient than it is now.
This is a useless hypothetical. Almost every country would regress in quality of life if it were suddenly cut off from the global economy. The options aren’t a bad deal from the US or complete isolation. Canada is making deals with reliable partners abroad.
By definition if you isolate a country from the world it would be more self sufficient that very moment than it is the moment before it is isolated. Isn't that obvious?
A few months prior to the midterms is exactly the right time for this sort of action. If the voters keep seeing prices increase because of Trump's tariffs, it increases the odds that the republicans will lose the legislative branch and will be able to act as a check on Trump's power. Ideally some other countries will follow suit.
This will cause some short term pain for Canada, but hopefully they'll have a less insane trading partner after November.
Unfortunately I think the only usable big lever we have as Canadians -- wine/beer liquor imports and people choosing to restrict personal travel to the US -- has already been used. We cannot and will not exercise energy or potash restrictions. And import tariffs are unlikely to be substantially impactful enough for Americans to notice enough that it alters their decisions at the ballot box.
I would however urge my fellow Canadians to continue to or start boycotting goods from the US and travel to there, generally.
And likely encourage Americans to come visit here. Come ski here this winter. You're more than welcome here.
I get it, but tariffs will only make things more expensive for Canadians, too.
I've got a better idea.
1) Repeal all DMCA-like laws. Make it explicitly legal to break a digital lock to repair a device, run custom code, install third-party parts, or just tinker and hack with your own devices and software.
2) Ban parts-pairing. Prohibit manufacturers (looking at you Apple & John Deere,) from using cryptographic serialization to block independent mechanics and technicians from swapping parts.
That's it. This would make things cheaper and better for Canadians. Lutnick and Trump would seethe eternally, but it would be downright excellent for Canada and a shining beacon unto the world.
I'd be happy to see the solution to consumer pain And economic productivity to pass permanently pro productivity and pro consumer policies.
Anti monopoly stuff. Maybe a growth policy like land value tax.
I'd need to hear from some experts to know which specific policies would be best though. Ideally you choose some policies that are not perceived as going nuclear, or which leave open counters, or which you would want to remove after a deal is made.
In general, going heavier into consumer/data protection laws and proceeding to prosecute both the Canadian and American monopolies would be amazing though.
> In general, going heavier into consumer/data protection laws and proceeding to prosecute both the Canadian and American monopolies would be amazing though.
IMO you don't want lawfare -- but rather you want to remove bad laws like the DMCA (and related), and the life-plus-70 copyright term, and thus foster more innovation and growth.
It's easiest to repeal anti-consumer/anti-commons laws.
Cory Doctorow wrote a piece about DMCA wrt Canada and US tariffs in January [0], "A winning trade war strategy for Canada", which chimes with your position. I admire his work, and thought that you might like to read it, if you've not already done so.
I'd love this too, but it is impossible. If you believe it's possible then you fundamentally misunderstand how greatly coupled our countries are.
A rather large amount of Canadian industry is benefiting from these regulations. Adopting policies like these would be tremendously disruptive and cause a lot of short term issues, upsetting manufacturers, foreign owned subsidiaries (who employ a lot of people), unions and retailers.
> A rather large amount of Canadian industry is benefiting from these regulations. Adopting policies like these would be tremendously disruptive and cause a lot of short term issues, upsetting manufacturers, foreign owned subsidiaries (who employ a lot of people), unions and retailers.
And how would something like banning parts pairing "cause a lot of short-term issues"? Existing supply chains would remain intact. They'd simply be broadened, eventually, by new entrants. If incumbents leave the market in a fit of pique, you can rest assured that the gaps will be filled, and that those incumbents may very well be liable for breach of contract if they refuse to service existing Canadian customers.
The problem is that Canada makes ~1.3M cars/year -- and about 1M of those are for Japanese manufacturers like Toyota and Honda. With unbounded Chinese imports at Chinese prices, a sizable fraction of that domestic industry is going to vanish.
Yet what I'd suggest is to go a step further rather than retreat: Subsidize EV production (including from Chinese firms) on the condition that final assembly or some fraction of production is done in Canada. Keep the jobs, make cleaner cars more efficiently, and make them available to Canadian consumers at reduced (subsidized) prices.
...Then export those subsidized vehicles to Europe and wherever else, where they might benefit from favorable EU-Canada or Brazil-Canada trade policies.
> but tariffs will only make things more expensive for Canadians, too.
Yes, there is no war without pain. But I am willing to face the pain.
However, in the long run, the pain might bring good. It might help products from other countries to enter the Canadian market. I hope to see more food, cars and appliances from Latin America, Europe, Asia and Africa in the Canadian market.
Motor vehicles is funny - tariff the vehicles owned by American companies (GM, Ford, Stellantis). I wonder how the CEOs of those companies react or communicate with the White House their feelings on this.
Can the US even afford a trade war, they are beginning to find borrowing more money increasingly difficult… currently the debt is around $130k for every man, woman and child in the US.
More difficult is a relative term. More difficult but still easier than other countries so the US remains in a stronger position here. The US can sustain the mess a lot longer than most countries can survive it.
Look at the wars the US fought after WWII: Korea, Vietnam, Afghanistan, Iraq, etc. The US suffered a lot less pain than any of those countries and was in a lot stronger position. But those countries were willing to face the pain, the US wasn't. That's why the US lost those wars. The same pattern goes now with Iran. You kill people on those countries, those countries hurt the American voters in their pockets.
In trade wars it might be the same mechanism. For the American people, a trade war is mostly to follow the glorious orange leader. For Canadians it is a matter of national sovereignty.
Gross debt to GDP ratio in the US has fallen from 130% in 2021 to under 125% now. It'll likely tick back up closer to 130, but it's been relatively flat.
Economic growth and inflation have kept pace with gross debt for a long time, and if the US continues to stay on top of the tech industry, the raw numbers will likely continue not to matter.
> Gross debt to GDP ratio in the US has fallen from 130% in 2021 to under 125% now.
Most of that was inflation, so it hurts U.S. citizens. I mean, you could reduce it even further pretty easily, but I'm not sure you would want to pay $1,000+ for a Big Mac.
The Atlantic has just posted a piece about this [0] in which it argues many points echoed in comments here. Chief among them:
> The Trump administration has one big idea about Canada: The U.S. is larger, stronger, and richer than Canada, so Canada must sooner or later surrender to Trump’s demands. That one big idea is wrong.
> Yes, Trump can hurt Canada more than Canada can hurt Trump. That part of Trump’s thinking is true. But wars are not decided only by the question Who can inflict more pain? Wars are also decided by the question Who can endure more pain? Trump’s failure to accept this truth is why he lost the Iran war—and why he is losing his trade wars.
Even with rising economic uncertainty within Canada, the LPC is enjoying ever-growing support amongst the Canadian voting public including amongst conservatives.
Premiers are almost united (excluding Alberta's Danielle Smith) in their support for Carney walking away from trade negotiations.
Canada needs to create an "Economic Reparations Fund" to help those workers and companies harmed by trump's tariffs. Its initial funding should come from selling $10B of US bonds (Canada is ~5th largest holder) and a 5% surcharge on oil exported to the US. US already extracts a 12-22% discount off world oil prices from Canada (who's taking advantage of who?) so 5% shouldn't be an issue. As needed to cover damages, more bonds could be sold and the oil surcharge could be raised.
MAGA wanted factory jobs and Trump is providing that. There is nothing wrong. I hope they go and work in factories rather than Going to other countries and murder school children.
For some perspective about what’s being negotiated:
“What’s at stake in the Canada-U.S. trade deal? How looming tariffs could cost Canada 90,000 jobs”. Trevor Tombe, professor of economics at the University of Calgary
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.
Well it's 73 days till the midterm elections so we'll see what happens. Signing a bad deal when the political landscape could dramatically change in a few weeks never made sense.
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.
You’d have to tariff fruits and vegetables like crazy to make the American varieties more expensive than oceanic shipped produce. That seems a fairly steep price for the Canadian consumer.
Which highlights the problems with tariffs, they are self harming. You have to be willing to give up better alternatives for some other reason, and food is a hard one.
I've always said that the only way Trump would "Make America Great" would be to show the world how completely hollowed out by kleptocrats we've become.
These moves increase other countries independence of us, lessening our power and forcing us into a more post America world.
If Trump isn't a double agent then he missed his calling. It feels like every decision they are making is intentionally the "wrong" one.
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.
• PHASE 1: COLLECT UNDERPANTS. (tariff "foreign" goods desired by Americans, collect upon import from companies, clarify spiked prices experienced by consumers ‘entirely’ due to prior admin policies)
• PHASE 2: … (let simmer)
• PHASE 3: PROFIT. ("return" tariff costs to companies)
It's worse than that. He is so completely off that he thinks this means US builders will chose to buy US lumber instead and that will work out positively for everyone in the US.
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.
Indeed. Donald Trump is only the visible tip of an iceberg. Below the waterline it's a massive and all encompassing corruption, comprised of an organized multi-national cabal that touches every part of the globe and which has its roots in the world starting well before WWI. The goal of which appears has always been to enrich the people on the inside while sewing chaos. To these figures, war and peril have always been more profitable than making peace.
Price is set at the margin. If America is physically incapable of supplying 100% of its own lumber needs, then that Canadian lumber is the marginal good, and the price of 100% of lumber will go up, not just the Canadian stuff.
Two things that will prevent that:
- inertia
- it's likely that Canadian lumber before the tariffs wasn't the marginal good, wasn't the highest cost supplier. If Canadian suppliers were making 10% more profit than the previously marginal supplier, the price will go up 40% instead of 50%, Canadian suppliers absorbing that 10%.
Or they'll raise prices by that ten percent and become the marginal supplier. No way they're going to accept a loss. (Many items shipped into the USA of late have tariff related fees.)
I know you're being facetious, but his entire immigration policy is to deport a large part of the construction labor pool, so he was never had a chance to make housing more affordable.
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.
This comment seems exactly like the school room exercise where the teacher hands out a test with a paragraph of instructions that includes the text buried in it: "do not answer any questions below" and students rush through the test and fail because they didn't bother reading the entire comment before ripping off their own because "our" is ambiguous. There is plenty of context in the comment, even for non-North Americans, since its very unlikely "Donald" was referring to famed Canadian-actor Donald Sutherland.
Or would you prefer every comment on HN to begin with: "As a/an $CountryDemonym..." or other requisite bona fides?
His negotiating methods, if one can call them that, are like "single use weapons" that are relationship burning rather than building. If you are doing 100s of one-off deals with counterparties you will never talk to again, and who don't know each other.. it might actually work.
But you burn the ability to make more deals with the same counterparty again.
If you played this game with your neighbor over a fenceline or tree limb dangerously overhanging into your yard.. you would save a few bucks once, and have an antagonistic relationship for the next 10-20 years of living next to them. Good luck getting the benefit of the doubt next time.
Trump is and always has been a one-trick-pony: Shock and awe with a ridiculously over-the-top threat to shake his opponent and anchor the discussion high, then "accept" a deal that's better than any that could have been achieved with a calm opponent (pure bullying).
His second weapon is throwing a monkey wrench into the works after agreeing to something. Keep the opponent on their back heel.
It works well, until it doesn't. Once you meet an opponent who stands firm no matter what you threaten, you lose your bargaining position. Carney is well-versed in this kind of negotiation.
Right it probably works in real estate if you aren’t dealing with the same trading partners often. It is a business where dirtbag behavior is the norm.
May also explain why he stopped doing actual NYC RE dev and moved onto his licensing model in dozens of cities (new pools of suckers).
But when every threat & walk back is covered in national media, and he is playing the same game with the same big trading partners .. it loses its effect. Similarly he’s quite old and certainly lost any touch he had.
You gotta think long term. This is going to cause all those lumber companies to plant more forests and 40 years from now when they’re big enough boom, 3 new jobs servicing the autonomous tree harvesters.
I read the article, I don't take away from it that Canadian lumber is suddenly 50% more expensive. It explains that tariffs for some Canadian lumber products was set to 50 percent at some point (or maybe lowered again, and raised, it's hard to tell since the Trump administration has issued 50+ different tariff directives in the last year), and that Canada walked away from negotiations recently.
I tried to do some more research before my coffee finishes in 5 minutes, you're right it's not ALL Canadian products or even all Canadian lumber products.
> Canadian negotiators also hoped to achieve some relief on softwood lumber tariffs that go back decades and were augmented with additional tariffs from Mr. Trump.
Not sure if you're joking, but I remember noticing the same thing last time I spent time there (2017). Lumber yards tend to have a lot of lumber. It's kind of like when you drive by a feed lot and they have an implausible number of cows (the ones over in imperial valley amazed me). Also there's always tankers by my house in Manhattan Beach. These anecdotes are not economic indicators.
You cannot negotiate with a country that doesn’t stand by its word.
All other issues aside, Trump and the Republicans love to boast that they aren’t bound by anything including their own promises. This is the end result of that.
You’d be mad to cut a deal with the US right now. The Trump Admin will just try to take another bite. They are dishonest and unreliable. Making America’s word mean nothing is the greatest long term damage done to the country and the surest indicator of the end of the American Century (80 years but we can round up)
It has to do with how America politically structured. The trade nego change every 1-2 terms. China is much more consistent in this, and will scrap all markets from America in the long term. I simply dont see America able to force a Plaza Accord out of this. Japan fizzled because of that. But China wont. And China now backed by Russia, world powerhouse of fossil and minerals. Russia has way more natural reserve than what Venezuela America and Middle East officially published.
It would be the most effective way to hurt Americans.
But it isn’t politically possible for Canada to do this. The two segments that would be most effective, oil & gas and potash happen to come from provinces that already have significant issues with the federal government. One is even flirting with separation, which would be inflamed by export taxes.
Canada is also very venerable to similar actions by the Americans. Refined oil products, fertilizers and oil & gas pipeline transit all come from the Americans.
It is fun to imagine Canada sticking it to the Americans with export taxes, but it will never happen.
Note that these new tariffs are on goods covered by CUSMA, making that treaty inoperative. Pity it’s one Trump signed…
One must stand up to bullies otherwise they’ll keep at it. Until the US population feels the pain the rest of the world has been dealing with, nothing will change.
Oh, we’re feeling the pain. Anyone trying to actually build things in the USA relies on an increasingly unpredictable and expensive global supply chain.
What he’s been doing is only good for his grift game, not the USA.
If you want to bring manufacturing home, you frame a 5-10 year progressive tariff plan with tax incentives, financing, and grants to help build the infrastructure to progressively fill the demand as the tariffs roll in. Commerce thrives in stable environments with predictable changes, not in chaos and broken promises.
False. I'm in the trenches on the cross-border trade and issue in general every weekday. Investment, industrial production and migration of CAD businesses to the US is rapidly growing. Nothing Canada can do will reverse this, though several storms on the horizon unrelated to Canada could slow it.
It's ironic that the US might currently do better with a (constitutional monarchy) king, to serve as an ethical example of living and governance, and change the role of the president to more of a serving bureaucrat
In the UK we've been lucky with our royalty recently, but with a different roll of the genetic dice we'd have Randy Andy as king instead of Charles.
Anyway, you have kings, you just elect them and call the presidents, but they have basically the same political role and powers as George III did in the 1790s cut-and-pasted across. The USA needs to get itself a decent parliamentary system.
I'd argue almost the opposite: America's governing system (and the political culture of rejecting hereditary rule) is a big part of why it became so successful.
There's arguably a straight line from the Commonwealth's greater deference to inherited authority to today's tolerance of weak borders, stagnant growth, and declining economic mobility. A king seems like more of the thing that caused the problem, not the solution.
Have you read John Steinbeck's "The Short Reign of Pippin IV?" [0] All political sides in France frustrated decide to create a constitutional monarchy. The Communists supported the idea because it would give everyone something to revolt against.
Carney had to take a stand, the last few moves he pulled angered a lot of people. For example he started talking about asking the provinces to put US booze back on the shelves which for us who boycotted prior to the govt saying it was a good idea, is giving up our leverage before any demands were acquiesced. He's playing the same song with the digital media tax and even with the case that made Meta forego all Canadian news outlets.
Basically he was elected to stand up to Trump and as an economist, come up with a strategy. He initially appeared to do that, but given that it largely hasn't swayed Trump, he is now backing off most of it. You could argue it's a strategy worth trying since to buck-for-buck hasn't worked, but you could also make the point that the electorate, without being told what the plan is (duh), feels he is weakening our position.
A lot of the strategy has been to wait it out and expect uproar from the US people which... largely hasn't come.. yet?
If a bear is rampaging around your campsite do you think you have to "take a stand"?
This isn't some sort of status game. Well, maybe it is for Trump, but not for anyone who's not an idiot. Unfortunately, Carney is an idiot, and is in it for himself and his friends, not Canada.
The way to deal with the bear to the south is to first get rid of all the stupid stuff that is bad for Canadians regardless of Trump, like provincial liquor monopolies and dairy supply management. Don't ask for anything in return - Trump's word is no good anyway - but it may help with public opinion in the US. It will also help with better trade relations with other countries. After getting these other countries to open up as much as they're inclined, unilaterally eliminate tariffs on all countries (including the US). It's what's best for Canadians, apart from a few who profit off the lack of competition from other countries.
For bonus points, get rid of sales taxes, so there is zero friction importing things to Canada. That's great for consumers, and also great for any business that wants to continue or establish itself in Canada.
I don't understand your point about public opinion in the US. Public opinion here is already strongly against Trump and his foolish tariff policy. Most people here do not want to see Canada acquiesce to "the bear". It only prolongs the madness.
The craziest thing is, that in spite of the obvious, balatant corruption and supreme incompetence of the US govt, Trump still has around 35% approval rating.
That means the hardcore MAGA base is a third of the US population. I genuinely don't know how to reconcile that with the long term future of the United States.
In Pale Blue Dot, Carl Sagan referenced some survey from the 80s in which one of the findings was that ~20% of Americans agreed to the statement "the sun is alive." In trying to find that survey for this comment I instead found this one from Time in the 2000s [0], in which 26% of Americans (N=2200) responded that the sun revolves around the Earth. America is a big and diverse place, full of people that have little attachment to reality.
As a constitutionalist American, I really wish I had an answer for you. The best I have is that two-thirds of the country thinks he's off-base. But I can only agree that's an alarming figure.
It seems like a lot of the governmental structure of this country is predicated on the idea that the People will not elect someone who puts their own interests over those of the nation. And when we do, the whole thing starts to unravel.
Americans love to single out Trump, but he’s just a symptom of an epidemic of civic unfitness that is hollowing out the country. It underscores why the only correct move for the world is de-Americanization. Make them economically and militarily unnecessary and they might even be forced to once again behave correctly, even if out of necessity.
>The craziest thing is, that in spite of the obvious, balatant corruption and supreme incompetence of the US govt, Trump still has around 35% approval rating.
Not to diminish you statement, but you are right.
Something similar can be said about Canada. In your sentence replace:
US with Canada
Trump with Carney/Trudeau/Others
35% with 95%
and the situation can be summarized as significantly worse in Canada.
It's the "crazification factor", which is the idea that 27% of the American population will always vote for the stupidest option. So, that 27% is Trump's true floor. He's pretty close to it.
Looking past the political posturing i cannot even find any objective information about what the terms were. I just wish they could say what was the state of the deal and why it broke down in some detail.
These tariffs will be struck down as unconstitutional just like the ones Trump attempted under the IEEPA were. Any company who paid in the meanwhile will be compensated while consumers will get the short end, so it will be a nice payday for northern importers.
It's Congress who has the power to tax. If Trump wants tariffs he needs to propose a bill that creates them or gives him clear powers. The legal scholars in his cabinet know this, so why has he not proposed a bill?
Regardless of our different readings of the SCOTUS’s recent opinion, statutes are a poor process for imposing tariffs. The legislative process is intentionally slow and difficult. It’s suited to permanent laws, not diplomacy and negotiations.
Statutes can delegate the president tariff powers and appropriately circumscribe them, and that's what both the IEEPA and Trade Expansion Act did - they gave the executive tariff authority in certain circumstances.
Trump is stretching the definition of those circumstances to the limit, in my opinion, especially because protectionism is the fundamental policy being pursued. If we want general protectionist tariffs than the law should be passed that enables the executive to do so, but that hasn't been forthcoming.
How effective are tariffs as a trade negotiation tool if your counterparty believes its likely the courts will take away the big stick?
There is no reason for tariff policy to be made quickly. Indeed, it would be much more effective if it could change only very slowly, because any positive effects tariffs may have rely on businesses having certainty when making decisions with multi year horizons. Only a fool would make a decision about where to build a new factory based on the Trump era of whim based tariff policy.
Just at the right time when China is looking to expand its exports. People said that Trump was Putin's stooge, but he might have been Xi's.
I'm concerned that governments worldwide are finding tarrifs to be a popular (and exciting!) way to exorbitantly increase the size of governments and goverment coffers which are then used for populist aims. We need to re-educate people that tarrifs are bad.
Amazing that in 2026 Canada, Iran, and US Circuit Courts have the same stance: the US federal government cannot be trusted to tell the truth about anything. Fish really rots from the head.
"However, last-minute changes in the U.S. proposed terms were unfair, uneconomic, and called into question the reliability of any deal."
It seems like if the other side agrees to a deal too easily then Trump doesn't think the deal is good enough. He only likes deals where the other side is getting screwed and has to be coerced into signing.
> It seems like if the other side agrees to a deal too easily then Trump doesn't think the deal is good enough.
That's a great observation. So basically everybody should be saying no to him all the time to limit the damage because as long as there's one yes the stupidity will only grow.
I'm so glad there wasn't a single yes, when Greenland popped up.
Trump tries to betray Canadians here. When you make negotiations and then at the last second try to worsen the terms, you are not acting in good faith. This is a consistent theme with Trump: he wants to take advantage of you. This is a de-facto mafia system. The "art of the deal" is the mafia way. You can see this with Iran too - Trump negotiates, then attacks. Then fake-negotiates, attacks again (and loses anyway). The guy is a problem for the whole world.
That should read, Trump betrays Americans. The reality is that he is destroying American credibility on the international stage, which is going to have long term effects on their ability to make agreements with other countries in the future. Standing alone is not in the interest of any nation.
As for betraying Canadians, Trump is not responsible for representing Canadian interests. I wouldn't want him to either. (Speaking as a Canadian.)
It is a good thing canadians are so nice. Dropping US alcohol is a tiny thing compared to some of the weapons canada might deploy. Look at all the back-and-forth deals in recent years and you will see an exemption for oil and potash. Think gas prices are high now? See what happens if canada starts shipping less crude. Think food prices are high? See what happens when there is no fertilizer because canada has restricted potash exports. And what will make Musk's head explode: canada is starting to allow cheap chinese EVs into north america. Canadians will be driving them around the US very soon.
> US mines produce roughly 500,000 metric tons of potash per year, only about 8 percent of the 5.9 million metric tons of apparent annual US consumption. The remaining demand is met through imports, producing a net import reliance of about 92 percent. Reflecting the high concentration of global potash production, most of that supply comes from Canada (79 percent), with smaller volumes from Russia (12 percent) and other producers (9 percent) including Israel.
The sentiment here is that nobody wants U.S. citizens to be negatively impacted by trade restrictions or tariffs. We are figuratively and, in many cases, literally friends and family. (Aside, even if our provincial governments allow southern booze back on shelves, it'll stay there.)
It would be decidedly un-Canadian to leverage electricity, potash, or other commodities necessary for survival in trade negotiations -- despite what Ford may suggest. We're nice, but we won't bow to bullies. Elbows up, eh!
> nobody wants U.S. citizens to be negatively impacted by trade restrictions or tariffs.
As much as it pains me to say it as an American, little will change unless US citizens are negatively impacted. Trump is losing power and support in the US precisely because people are becoming more aware that he's hurting them.
I want them to be negatively impacted. Maybe a couple family members spoke publicly about what’s happening, and the rest remain silent or indifferent. My cousins are too busy with their multi million dollar AI roles to even see us non-millionaires as human.
It's a slow moving train wreck. I hope the consequences of these petulant actions scar the minds of voters for years to come. We're seeing the yield on treasuries creeping up, I think that's one of the consequences.
And what will make Musk's head explode: canada is starting to allow cheap chinese EVs into north america
Another Musk moment: most aluminum in the US comes from Canada. Most of Musk's vehicles are built with aluminum. These tariffs will directly increase Tesla manufacturing cost in the US, making them even less competitive.
People here in Canada have not been sitting still. It is a truely fantastic oportunity, it's almost like 10% of the US market was suddenly transported to another country for free, and all we have to do is fill it.
Canada and EU tightening their relation, pretty sure there are a lot agreements in the making. Will be great for both and appreciated by the people living in EU (and surely Canada as well).
A lot of it has been half-hearted. Basically "wait out this loser and everything will go back to the way it was". A lot of Americans are leaning on this as well.
Like over the last year we (Canada) should have utterly obliterated the US from any element of the Canadian supply chain. Instead everyone just keeps expecting things to return to normal so no one makes the necessary investments to stop it at the border.
Americans voted for Trump, a child-rapist stunningly stupid criminal, twice. It should never return to the way it was.
Negotiating with the Trump administration is completely pointless, and can even result in your own government buildings being bombed while negotiations are still going on.
The only argument bullies understand is being punched in the face.
I wish more countries wiuld have the courage of cutting off ties with the US.
People here in Canada have not been sitting still. It is a truely fantastic oportunity, it's almost like 10% of the US market was suddenly transported to another country for free, and all we have to do is fill it.
There's a good opportunity to use that tariff money and subsidize critical exports to everywhere but USA. Europe gets cheaper minerals and Trump gets left begging China for scraps at insane prices.
If you want political gestures then impose heavy sanctions on Israel and declare that Latinos can get refugee status in Canada because of ICE. That would be an economic win too.
But the Canadian government wants to be the 51st state. They have rapidly defunded social services, expanded fossil fuels and will adopt US style militarization. In fact, purchasing those munitions from the only country that has threatened to take it over.
Sounds like the right move. I can only hope that the rest of us lap dogs see the (common) sense.
The USA is increasingly the source of economic and military destabliisation in the world and it's getting real hard to justify being the best little doggy for them.
I'm not suggesting any action more drastic than calling a shit deal shit, and frankly it's pathetic and embarrassing that this is such a rare occurence.
And yeah, maybe some miracle corrective action will begin with a new president but the thing is, that will necessarily include restoring our "special relationship". You're better off refusing a bad deal outright, rather than trying to reneg later.
The leaks surrounding the deal that was on the table earlier this week did not look promising. e.g. Locking in 15% tariff's on autos made in Canada would have resulted in slow death for the Canadian auto sector, not to mention hamstringing all of NA at a time when their only way to compete with Chinese auto makers is crushing tariffs or outright import bans. Something probably had to move here to get the deal done. Unbelievably, things went in the opposite direction.
Howard Lutnick strolled into the Whitehouse at the eleventh hour and told Trump he thought that they could get an even better deal with Canada than what was on the table[1]. Americans should probably remember this guy. His family runs Cantor Fitzgerald, who has been buying up rights to tariff refunds[2]. Companies hit by tariffs can gamble on them eventually being declared illegal, or they can sell the rights to their refunds for a smaller amount and have some degree of certainty. When tariffs are struck down in court, companies like Cantor Fitzgerald make serious bank. So, here Lutnick is again, whispering in Trump's ear, drumming up more business for his family.
Trump tends to listen to the last person who talked to him, whether it's an economist (This is unlikely, as Trump prefers not to talk to academics) or a bell hop. In this case, Lutnick got in last, Trump decided to move the goal-posts, the talks failed as a result, and now there are more tariffs that will probably be struck down by courts.
Meanwhile, in Canada, people actually seem to be happy that this deal failed. Carney has made multiple concessions over the last year and change while the U.S. has made none and just kept demanding more and more. The general sentiment was that it's time to get tough, even if that means tariffs. Reports are that the latest demands during these talks were for limits on Canada's ability to strike trade deals with other countries, exclusive U.S. access to Canadian critical minerals, and even meddling in Canada's French language laws. Any one of these things would have been seen as a deal-breaker during normal times. With the mood being what it was, they were unthinkable. The American contingent knew this, so we can only conclude they deliberately scuttled the deal.
Interestingly enough, Carney seems to have taken a page out of Trump's book by delaying retaliation until Sept. 8th, giving the Americans a deadline for a change. That leaves room for a couple of TACO Tuesdays. However, the messaging from the PM and premiers has been careful to point out that they are ready to hunker down and wait for Trump to leave office. Carney has solid support for this stance while Trump does not, even among republicans, plus the midterms are looming. Trump increasingly looks like the one without the cards.
now imagine the next level of his destructive crime-spree August 2027
because this is nothing compared to when he starts to feel his loss of power
btw there are reports he's going to use ICE to do actions NEXT to voting centers to get around "no armed agents in voting centers" to force the voting to shutdown
electrocution gloves and all
we're in the US authoritarian era, Supreme Court and Congress let it happen and now there's no undo button
If the democrats don't manage to control both houses on the midterms and IMMEDIATELLY start the impeachment procedure against trump, I will start selling my portfolio and buying gold as fast as I can.
If Trump and his cabal is left unchecked we will be running fast towards something that will make 1929 like child's play.
At some point , looking at all the damage, it becomes hard to dismiss Trump as merely unintelligent and incapable. The other possibility is that the destruction deliberate, and the goal to end US hegemony. Would things proceed any differently if it were?
Much of the self-destruction flowed from the pages of Project 2025. You can't just blame Trump: you have to include the Heritage Foundation and the entire Republican party.
This is not a problem that goes away when Trump ultimately leaves office.
I think Trump is severely misreading his position in the world. It's not April 2025 anymore. There will be consequences for everyone, but I am not sure his own party will support him through this in an election year. Especially now as the last time he publicly stated he backed down because if rising bond yields, which is actually happening already before any trade war. Is he really going to start another one, already in deep trouble because of the mess he made in Iran.
I think he will cave pretty quickly and Canada knows it.
I think they'll support him through the election. If the election goes as bad as it seems likely to, that might upset the apple cart. But it's also possible that it won't, and the Republican party will just be an empty discredited husk when Trump leaves the stage a couple years later.
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.
Question for Americans: do you guys understand what's happening?
The thing to keep in mind is that the current trade agreement was negotiated and signed by Trump himself. He has spent the last 18 months seeing what a terrible deal it is. He does not want a "deal" into conventional sense, that is an agreement that works for both parties. He needs the counterparty to be humiliated and subjugated. CUSMA (the current agreement he promoted and signed) is bad because it works for all parties, it does not subjugate and humiliate the counterparties.
What happened in these particular trade negotiations? Is that the actual negotiators had something worked out earlier in the week, then at the last minute the US made some new demand that was meant to humiliate Canada, and this tanked the negotiations. What exactly did they ask for? It's irrelevant, the point was humiliation.
Actual trade policy, whether you want access to Canadian dairy market, or lumber tarrif rates or whatever, none of that matters.
Is this a common understanding down south?
Edit: after I wrote the above, it came out that the thing they demanded last minute is restricting Canada's ability to trade with other countries. Obviously, no PM would agree to such a thing, it's purpose isn't to have a deal, but as I said, subjugation and humiliation. https://www.cbc.ca/news/world/livestory/us-canada-trade-war-...
As an American, there is a lot of disinformation in the U.S. A lot of people absorb MAGA talking points. The rest of us are in a continuous state of stunned disbelief.
Trump tore down a third of the White House without permission, and somehow it doesn't set off alarm bells. He's supposed to be a steward of the government for 4 years, not a king.
This is so cute, won't bother the US in the slightest, and will be backed down from instantly. It could literally be within days.
Tariffs are the only good thing that Trump has tried to do - really driven by Bessant, the only competent person in the administration.
He's had to react to "Trump's" bizarre decisionmaking, which is really the sum of Israel's and random lobbyist's desires, which has completely thrown off his vision, but "free trade" is bullshit, only benefits big business and the market, only in the short term, and everyone always knew this. It is absolute exploitation of poverty and authoritarian regimes around the world, and ends up in US margins, not in US working people's pockets. Bessant doesn't give a shit about working people, but he gives a shit about shifting the failing US from short-termism into long-termism - and you can't do that when your population is borrowing to buy imports and not working. You are forced into using your military for conquest in order to protect your own supply chains, and your military has been corroded by the same corruption as the rest of your economy, you pay 10x as much for everything, so there was never any need for them to increase production capacity.
The anti-tariff libs are like "it's really taxes!" No shit, Sherlock. Remember when Grover Norquist wasn't the spirit of progressivism? Remember those protest movements that you hollowly ape the language of while openly opposing the policies of - the anti-globalization, anti-free trade movements? Remember how every single thing they predicted came true?
Tariffs are a tax on foreign exploitation and supply chain insecurity. We need to bring that exploitation back onshore. Cheap bullshit is of no benefit if you don't have a job.
Don't be fooled by elites in upper-middle class jobs furiously trying to ban anything that would lower their own incomes for a second - those are the same people who were telling you to learn how to code when your parents got laid off. They're the YIMBY gentrifiers of your neighborhoods. They've got hundreds of thousands or millions of $ in the market and in housing, and it's doubled and tripled while you moved back in with your parents, who can't afford their medication. When housing prices drop, they get mad. Housing prices are dropping right now, and they're getting mad.
Completely unproductive financialized ways of making money are disappearing. They've bet the farm to the tune of trillions on hundreds of giant factories dedicated to word association. If you're a desperate poor person who has made meme-y financial decisions, please sell your bitcoins and your pokemon cards. I'm not even sure if precious metals can save you. You need production to move back onshore. You probably need immigrants gone, because you might have to learn how to pick fruit if you want to be able to eat it - it's the most productive thing the US does.
Also, don't be fooled that there's some sort of economic consensus about how unwise tariffs are because you're online. Most of the people participating in that conversation are foreign elites who sell their own populations to the US for an extraordinarily luxurious living, send their kids here to go to school (and write articles about how that's somehow good for you) drive up your rents, and call you a racist for objecting - when they were literally propelled here on a cushion built by and on the slave classes of their home states. Tariffs are meant to transfer their (the few) success to you (the many) - so you can buy.
They're compradors, and they're propagandizing you for their own benefit.
After the US completely falls, and we're at 90% poverty, 9% comprador, and 1% plutocrat, they'll bring back manufacturing and sell your poverty to the flourishing Chinese middle class - a country that doesn't let the wealthy and foreign interests control its policy.
Yeah no not really because none of the tariffs seem to be tied to human rights or exploitation. Otherwise you wouldn't be putting tariffs on your close, democratic allies.
Your post is kind of anti intellectual and retarded tbh.
Under Trump, the us governments signature might as well be in pencil. This is America’s high water mark. It has lost the trust of the world. And since OpenAI and Anthropic and NVIDIA are the bulk of the hope of the American economy… America is fucked.
Canada walking away from American Bullying will go down in history of the moment the empire’s descent accelerated.
Importantly Canada has committed to matching every American tariff dollar for dollar, which the US already considers unfathomable. Greer repeatedly cites that only Canada and China retaliated, which is such a weird criticism. Is he intending to compliment us?
So expect Trump to start spiralling. Also expect lots of astroturfing about how desperate Canada is and that it has no choice (one of those hilarious slop purveyors appeared below).
Canada should begin the process of withdrawing from USMCA, and the truth is that NAFTA cum USMCA has worsened Canada's lot over the past four decades compared to peers. Trade agreements with the US are worthless, and even negotiating with that Epstein pedo cabal of grifters is useless. It sounds like the Canadian team were foolishly going to give in to many things (any concession of any form always comes back to hurt you), but at the last minute Howard "Epstein Island" Nutlick swooped in and tried to extract even more, undoing it all. Which...thank you Nutlick, you disgusting greaseball. You did us a great favour.
Please have a look at the actual flow of trade between CAD and USA, and its components. The impact is nothing like what you suggest for the US. Canada can bend the knee to Trump, or it must gut its policies on natural resources and become an extractive economy similar to Russia pre-Ukraine war. There's no other option for Canadians and time is not on their side.
The direct impact of the Canadian economy on the US one is small, but thankfully for Canada the broader economic reality is that the US isn't picking a fight just with Canada. America is creating a lot of messes for itself around the world. The effects of any Canadian retaliation will not be felt in isolation.
Carney internally is playing to a domestic crowd that is actually more hardline on US trade policy than he has projected.
The issue with "bending the knee" so to speak is that the hardship is just as bad as the no deal situation, except with the worse outcome that Canada's future prospects for diversification are diminished.
There is hardship down both paths for Canada, but only one of those paths has a long-term future.
You're right that it likely involves a heavier investment in our own resource extraction, but that seems to be precisely what Carney is moving towards.
As for the amusing side-quip about Russia, chances are Canadians will likely look to emulate some other resource-extractive based economies, like the nordics. The issue is less the extraction and more how the wealth from that extraction gets hoarded. And there too, it would manifest as the need to move away from the American/Russian model of a small set of simple-minded, deranged oligarchs siphoning all the wealth in the economy towards themselves.
Ya know, there's not a damned thing I can do about any of this, other than TRY to get citizenship elsewhere and leave this shithole.
And fascism is taking hold lots of other places as well. Canada's a laugh, with Alberta seperatism. And they also had trump trucker caravans.
EU? They're boiling in their own juices with the fact they now need air conditioning due to climate devastation... And many countries make it illegal without health reasons.
Japan and SK are both doing very poorly. China has some of the harshest immigration.
South America is still being fucked with by the CIA and destabilization idiocy.
I understand the tune-out check-out hippie response. There's fuck-all I can do, other than watch.
Id like to suggest that you rethink your opinion on the trucker caravan protest.
It is a reasonable position to frame them as opposing authoritarian government policies and for the governments response to be overreach.
The popularity of the trucker protest made and makes sense. Big anti government movements like that attract all sorts of bad actors and the media and government worked to highlight the worst aspects of that protest.
Mentally reducing the trucker protest to "thus Canada is bad" makes you seem like the type of black and white American fool that has created the political environment in the USA.
> It is a reasonable position to frame them as opposing authoritarian government policies and for the governments response to be overreach.
What a joke. No. These people wanted to illegally take over the government. It was written down in their own damn manifesto. Last I checked, taking over a democratically elected government without an election is exactly fascism.
> The popularity of the trucker protest made and makes sense.
The trucker protest was not popular, it was extremely unpopular. It only made such news because the protesters were harassing and assaulting people and causing severe sleep deprivation. Also, it's an insult to "truckers" to call it a truckers protest. Only a very small minority of truckers actually took part. Most were working.
There is no question it was a bad look on Canada, and our police completely failed to handle it in Ottawa. We can all debate on whether the government acted appropriately, but with the Ottawa police complicit in the occupation I don't know what options there where to end it or at least shift the protest into something that wasn't infringing on the rights of the people there to live without being assaulted and threatened.
> It is a reasonable position to frame them as opposing authoritarian government policies and for the governments response to be overreach.
Well that's a big coded pile of bullshit.
What polices are "overreach"? By what standards? What authoritarian rules are being protested?
Oh that's right. It's all anti-vaxxer and 'cure yourself of Covid with bleach and ivermectin' bullshittery.
I have absolutely no fucking sympathy for a bunch of covidiots. Doubly so, since these chuckle fucks were ALSO pro-Trumpers.
> black and white American fool that has created the political environment in the USA.
And it's hilarious that you wouldn't touch the Alberta seperatism/fascist movement happening right now. You all like to pretend your shit doesn't stink... And well, I smelled it during wildfire season. Turn my sky yellow orange.
But all of this is spoken like a Republican riling shit up on Facebook.
"Our existing free trade deals already provide Canada with preferential access to 1.5 billion consumers, and we are on track to double that market access by the end of this year."
the amount of mental gymnastics needed to believe this is off the charts.
Sure, it would be pretty easy to smuggle small, high-value items, but most of the trade volume is in large items like lumber, steel/aluminum, new vehicles, and potash, and it's pretty hard to sneak a dozen 18-wheelers across the border a day. Electricity and oil are also pretty common exports, but those are even harder to smuggle since they go across in fixed wires/pipelines.
I have not been following the Canada thing but generally have been learning more about trade and Trump's approach seems less chaotic and random than is talked about.
US's largest trading partner is Mexico. The biggest thing we import from them is automobiles & auto-parts and the second largest is computers and electronics.
We all understand the benefits of trade is meant to bring in - such as goods manufactured by countries whose prowess making those goods better to the benefit of all.
So it's interesting to look at this example. Automobiles - does Mexico have a prowess in that segment? A tell tale sign of "no" is that Mexico has no domestic auto brand. In other words 100% of auto exports from Mexico is actually US automaker production that shifted to Mexico is persuit of cheaper labor, weaker unions, and less environmental and other regulations that gets in the way of manufacturing.
I am focusing on this example because it's the largest segment of our trade with our largest partner - literally the biggest thing the US imports is our own shifted auto production.
The second largest segment is also interesting. Mexico isn't known for its computer and electronics brands either. What's going on? Turns out that Asian manufacturers (eg Lenovo) do the very final assembly in Mexico but all the components come from Asia. It's not actually "efficient" to do this except that when assembly happens in Mexico those components magically become a "north American good" by NAFTA terms and can go all over US and Canada with no duties or tarrifs or restrictions.
So the second largest segment with our largest trading partner is Asian manufacturers exploiting a NAFTA loophole.
As an American who inherently is pro trade (I am an MBA...) this is revealing about the obvious disadvantages of how trade has been configured. The auto example is literally NAFTA being used to bypass American labor laws and environmental regulations while maintaining access to our market by American companies themselves. The electronics example is Asian companies bypassing the long standing trade conditions by whitewashing Asian products as north American goods.
It is obvious that trade pre-Trump was not set up in a smart way from American perspective. The auto is a great example: the government simultaneously made it very hard and expensive to manufacture at home, and very easy to shift to Mexico.
I don't know the details with Canada as much but I no longer assume things were working great and US is meddling lens by default.
Canada doesn't have domestic auto companies, yet we manufacture auto parts and assemble automobiles destined for the US. From my understanding, this was negotiated as part of the trade deals. There is no good reason for them to desire cheap Canadian labour, weak Canadian unions, or weak Canadian environmental regulations. For one thing, Canada is known for none of those things. On the other hand, Canada had a lot of things the US wanted: access to the Canadian market and access to Canadian resources. I wouldn't be surprised if something similar happened when trade deals were manufactured with Mexico. While Mexico isn't on the same economic tier as the US, it isn't a third world nation that people like to paint it as.
As for companies looking for loopholes, it may be fun to blame it on Asian manufacturers. I would suggest that Americans take a good long look in the mirror. US companies were outsourcing assembly to Mexico long before Mexico came under the NAFTA umbrella. Quite often, at least with electronics, those US companies were using parts manufactured in Asia. Should Asian companies hold themselves back, should they avoid using the same practices as their American counterparts, just because it isn't fair to Americans? If anything, they have less reason to because Asian countries are responsible to their own citizens, not to Americans.
Your comment sounds like you are arguing with me but you are actually agreeing.
I am not "Blaming Mexico" - I am pointing out that the policy as I described it made no sense from American perspective. You are right that the American manufacturs did assembly in Mexico (form Asian components) before as well but it's the same point - an essential Asian good masquerading and benefiting from being a "north American one"
> I have not been following the Canada thing but generally have been learning more about trade and Trump's approach seems less chaotic and random than is talked about.
Trump imposed tariffs on an island populated only by penguins.
But this was the neoliberal globalist agenda for the past thirty years. Lower trade barriers, export manufacturing to low wage workers with poorer conditions. The result is lower automobile costs for American consumers at the expense of blue collar jobs evaporating.
There's a gap there. The reason automaking is expensive in the US is labor and environmental laws whose intent is to keep Americans employed at high wage and to keep the planet green.
So on one hand it's government regulation that makes us not compative. On the other hand the government doesn't ensure this happens by making it easy to bypass via mexico. So the end result is the environmental protections don't kick in and Americans don't make the high (or any) wages.
So we either drop those laws and open up trade, or we keep those laws and make it harder to bypass. Those are the two non-dumb options.
Canada should grow their population to 100-150 millions. this way it will have decent internal market and be more attractive to make trade deal with the rest of the world. Instead it relies on the US which appears to be very bad idea.
That's my view. The "Century Initiative" is being criticized for suggesting that Canada should reach 100 million by 2100. But you'd never believe it, the criticism is that this is too many people, and not many people criticise this "Iniative" as having an unambitious goal.
The criticism of the Century Initiative is that the extra 60-80 million are going to come largely from countries like India at rates that destablize Canada while further entrenching the kind of inequality that we've seen grow over the past 15 years.
The British did this to almost 20 different colonies, with the same people groups for the same reasons.
Everything the current US administration has done has been an unmitigated disaster. Tariffs are taxes. Manufacturing is still declining, not returning and a man who could not run casinos successfully is not going to change that. His economic and foreign policy are dictated entirely based on who flatters him the most. Add to that continued environmental damage, domestic policy dictated by a regressive religious minority and a lack of interest in performing the duties of the position in favor of caring about only what it can be leveraged for. A failing state operating on grievances and stupidity.
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 Survey Committee.
> “The Manufacturing PMI® registered 55.6 percent in July, 2.3 percentage points above the June figure and the highest reading since May 2022 (55.9 percent). The overall economy continued in expansion for the 21st month in a row.
PMI is a sentiment survey of 400 manufacturing executives. Vibes only.
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.
Every founder I know in manufacturing is thankful for this admin. There is a ton of invested interest in not having tariffs or a pro-manufacturing industrial policy as a lot of people got rich shipping it overseas. For some reason this is all ignored because the president is a very unpopular person (for obvious reasons)
That’s the point. He wants to crash the monetary market and he has allllll the investments in digital currencies, ai, data centers, energy, computation & weapons. Why prop up a system that literally tried to kill him and will wreck havoc on his family after he’s outta office stripped of power. Dude is operating on death ground right now.
> Manufacturing is still declining
Do you have evidence for this?
>His economic and foreign policy are dictated entirely based on who flatters him the most
Are you sure, it seems mostly based on illegal share trading. Murdering foreigners and sending soldiers to die is a lever Trump/his handlers keep pulling because they 'win' $millions every time.
One could call facilitators of his self-enrichment and abuse of office "flatterers".
Hope the voters remember this for the next couple election cycles.
I'm not sure how old you are, but shortly after Obama took office in 2009 there was quite a bit of reporting claiming that the Bush administration had been so disastrous and young people had been so thoroughly poisoned by Republican policies, that it would likely be a generation before the Republicans had the chance to win the presidency again. Remember, Bush left office in the depths of the Great Recession. Instead, it took less than 8 years for us to get MAGA.
They didn't in the last couple. Those elections went 49% vs 51%. I don't hold out a lot of hope for the next couple. They feign surprise, but it isn't like it was a mystery as to what he was going to do. He campaigned on everything he is doing.
The vast majority of voters don’t ever understand why they’re being screwed by economic policies, they just know when they are.
The voters watch Fox. They will not see this.
They won't. I have industrial clients who are financially eating shit from all this and they have posters of Trump hanging on their office wall while extolling his antics. The workers think the same way. We're boned unless these morons wake up (they won't.)
They won't. Hope to be wrong though
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 consciousness into the stars” apparently requires we create CSAM generating machines powered by nitrogen oxide belching gas turbines. Even the folks at non-profit news outlets like Pro Publica have leadership that refuses to understand that it is difficult to prevent AI errors at scale. Nobody reviews drafts with such detail, we make a lot of assumptions, we trust that the person/machine is not feeding us trash.
This is, of course, doesn’t even bring up the fact that a lot of people in the US now get their news—similar to folks in India via WhatsApp (that became such a problem that Meta was forced to curtail the number of forwards you could do in the app)—by passing trash, hate fueling articles around on social media.
I don't think it's helpful to suggest that "both sides" are equal in American politics, but I do think you have to be a least a little understanding that the democrats aren't an attractive alternative to most Americans. I'm afraid a pretty large minority of Americans have landed in the lose-lose position of "if i can't make it better, i might as well make it worse faster".
"But...but...but what about gender equity in high-school sports?" - Voters
You're funny
This is where the democrats need to smarten up. They should be hammering “tax and spend” Trump, 24x7.
The baseline Republican base doesn’t give a shit about the more extreme racist stuff, they don’t care about women being raped, etc they tolerate it. But they hate paying taxes above all else.
Trump closed the stretch IRA loophole in 45, and implemented the largest tax increase in recent history with the tariff regime. Only the really rich people and real estate folks get the big tax breaks.
If someone asks Chuck Schumer what the weather is like, he should say: “It’s a good summer day, but it would be a great one if tax and spend Trump released the Epstein files”
I'd argue more largely that the right is a loose coalition of people with differing goals...whether it's conservatism, lower taxes, anti immigration, religious right, etc. I'm reminded how my econ professor would say that hardened bootleggers and hardcore Christians would pretend to be friends just long enough to vote to keep alcohol illegal.
I feel like the Dems should have an easy time in the next elections if they don't fumble it given the current state of things. On the other hand, they seem to purity test each other in ways that make such a coalition harder to attain.
The Republican base doesn’t give a shit about “tax and spend” either. For all their hand-wringing about deficit spending, Republican administrations have for decades been the party of excessive spending and ballooning deficits.
They’ve demonstrated over and over that their core principles don’t actually exist, and are simply maxims that they have heard often enough that they blindly parrot them back.
The Democrats are not smartening up.
The weak kneed leadership will be getting replaced by the populist message of Trump but coming from the left, people like Mamdani, the DSA candidates, etc.
The people clearly want leaders who will say : we will use political tools to help the economic situation of the poor and middle class.
Everyone from Jon Ossoff to Angie Nixon has some version of this message and its resonating
The Democrats are part of the system.
Huh? Check out the Twitter feeds of your favorite Republican or Republican-aligned personalities. It's racial or nationalistic dog whistles all day every day.
I really don't want people to be left with the impresion that this is Democratic Party incompetence. It is not. They are complicit in pretty much everything the Trump administration has been doing. They know what works. Just do what Obama did in 2008 and run on a populist economic platform. They don't want to do that. It's a choice, not incompetence.
If Chuck Schumer is asked about the weather, he'll first check with Netanyahu.
Just look at what Senatorial campaigns Schumer supports and doesn't. There's a lot of suspicion that Schumer (and the DSCC) is going to leave Abdul El-Sayed out to dry because he's anti-Israel, basically. Mandela Barnes got similar treatment in 2022. And yet you have blockbuster challenges like Jaime Harrison's, which spent $130M to oust Lindsey Graham. He lost by 10. Trump won by 12 so I guess he gained 2? Well done, everybody, the system works.
Oh and what did the DNC do with Jaime Harrison after he spent $130M to lose by 10? They made him the DNC Chair. The Democratic Party loves a loser. Just like Howard Dean.
> The baseline Republican base doesn’t give a shit about the more extreme racist stuff, they don’t care about women being raped, etc they tolerate it. But they hate paying taxes above all else.
Honestly wild opinions to have. Watch 30 seconds of fox news. A significant chunk of their coverage is about protecting women and children from migrants/pedos/trans people. They want a tough on crime executive branch almost as much as they want low taxes.
> Tariffs are taxes.
Taxes are good! China, which is run by some of the smartest technocrats in the world, has a very strong system for controlling the flow of foreign products into the country. Because of the nature of their government, they have more tools at their disposal than just tariffs, e.g., requiring foreign companies to establish joint-ventures with Chinese companies. But the purpose is the same.
> a man who could not run casinos successfully
Trump didn't invent tariffs. The political thread in favor of strong tariffs started with Alexander Hamilton: https://www.gilderlehrman.org/history-resources/spotlight-pr.... Strong tariffs were a core plank of the Lincoln GOP: https://www.abrahamlincolnsclassroom.org/abraham-lincoln-in-....
"Tariff" didn't become a naughty word until the Cato folks took over the GOP in the 1980s.
Tariff is a naughty word because of its proven negative side(main) effects.
Not all taxes are equal. Regressive ones suck.
And how many times did Alexander Hamilton apply tariffs to islands inhabited by penguins while specifically exempting Russia and Belarus?
> Taxes are good!
Add that to the list of things I thought I'd never hear a conservative say.
Say what you will about the man, but Trump's takeover of the mainstream conservertive movement has been thorough, and eerily cordyceps-like.
"regressive religious minority" yes, Israelis and the evangelicals that worship them.
Do people have no shame in attaching a minority group - who by the way by and away opposed Trump from a voting perspective - with ethnicity (the majority are secular) - and with a foreign government - Israel?
In any other normal sane world stuff would get called out, greyed out, and ultimately shot down. In THIS world, the responses (I bet, like this one) are the "greys."
It's a scary world we live in where the Left turns into the Right of the past.
Not absolutely everything. You can make a very strong negative claim without hyperbole, and be a more trusted source in the process.
As a non American, curious to know what has not been a disaster under Trump II specifically
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 renegotiate the bilateral deals whenever he feels like it, forcing the other party to face down the US by themselves - not many can do this, maybe only China. Anyways, I wish the Canadians well and I hope they gain global support
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.
You are both right. The world capitulates more than it should. But the world is also moving away and building contingencies.
The world needs leadership. And Canada is helping with that.
I do not think that reciprocal tariffs are actually the answer though. They hurt both sides and the US is not a rational enough actor to respond like you hope they will. The answer is in shifting trade away from the US and isolating their economy. It takes longer but it is what will work. And even if their behaviour does not change, their power will fade with their economy.
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 running on a 1980s world view.
*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 called out that the whole Weapons Of Mass destruction was a load of bull** . It did not stop others from helping the US.
Yet, now, what we see as "help" is so minimal, and even countries like Spain not just refusing but active blocking. It shows how much relationships have deteriorated.
Trump thinks of Europa like a vassal state, and every time we say no or delay, it drives him nuts. Or our best "yes", if often a "well, we need to have agreement in all the countries, see you in a few years". Do not think its coincidence, its done deliberately.
In the past when the US said something, beyond maybe France, most countries quickly followed. This is gone ... We know the world has changed, and the old order is finished.
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 which put a nail into the American exceptionalism.
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.
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
"Now, the US is simply able to renege or renegotiate the bilateral deals whenever he feels like it, forcing the other party to face down the US by themselves"
This won't last. There are consequences for behavior on all scales. If you prove yourself untrustworthy and treacherous, people will treat you as such. International politics don't move very quickly, especially if coordination is required. But it will eventually move.
"Winning" at all costs has never ever been sustainable and I don't think see why this time will be different, especially with diminishing real power.
"They make it a desert and call it peace(winning)."
There is a Japanese proverb "A thousand years of good reputation is ruined in a single hour."
Trump has burnt up the single most valuable asset any country or person can have. Trust.
>> 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.
India and China have their own trade books.
No one other than close US allies caved.
And even then, they all realize Trump is a mad man and cannot be relied upon.
Absolutely agree; but it's never too late to react. Europe could impose tariffs on US tech or forbid it altogether to bid on government contracts. Etc.
What are we waiting for.
Possibly waiting for a reasonable replacement for US tech. For example, if the US should decide to shut off MasterCard and VISA services to Europe, it would create non-trivial difficulties for the European banking system.
Geopolitics to make sense.
the bilateral deals signed means we (the world, minus the US) is already divided. Got to scrap those deals first, which isn't going to happen. The shark has scattered the shoal and we're all going to get picked off - perpetually signing worse deals, then having to renegotiate again before signing ever worse terms.
tariffs on tech i think is harder than just not accepting US patents and IP, and refusing protections on it
Honestly, if Trump keeps giving intelligence to Ukraine against Russia, then it was worth paying the (idiotic) tariffs.
That was the EUs top priority. The other issue was that each country had its own products they didn't want to lose sales from.
More generally, the EU isn't built for a world of presidential powers exercised at whom, which is becoming more of an issue this decade.
> What are we waiting for.
Responsible governance around something like when and how to retaliate (if at all) against tariffs comes down to one of the most fundamental forces of economics and trade: real leverage. Whether or not the US should exercise its leverage to attain outsized and favorable terms on the economic stage is the peanut gallery conversation that happens on social media. The two worlds couldn't be farther apart. What will actually happen in the end is just a math equation that has never changed and will never change.
>> What are we waiting for.
For Europe to become fully self-sufficient when it comes to defense, for one thing.
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 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.
I said it in another comment, not only did they negotiate that, the resulting negotiation held very little of substance for the US. It was very light on specifics and all for show.
It has been said that when the tariffs started that the Japanese delegates went to Washington to negotiate. The delegates asked them "Since you are trying to negotiate, what do you want of Japan?"
All they got back was "Well, what can you offer?"
Turns out they had started the tariff war with absolute no idea on what demands they wanted to make. Japan used that to their advantage because without any specifics, they were free to write the terms.
lol - so they pled down from 25 to 15 ? What were the tariffs before ?
they carved because most of those places want access to the 'yuuuge' US market.
politics vs reality. they could correct though by selling US treasuries - but that would make the world economy sneeze which might result in pneumonia.
The parent point is that the response should have been done collectively.
USA market is "yuuge", but rest-of-the-world market is much much bigger.
US treasuries sound risky in a sense that if you accumulate them they become a crisis when you choose to sell.
You're forgetting that their president was threatening literal invasion. These things take time.
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.
> 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?
We aren't the ones who are destroying it, and we have a backbone strong enough to say this isn't good enough.
If what you say is true, then the next administration should understand how one sided the damage done to the relationship has been. No economic trade partner should have to tolerate attacks on their sovereignty and unreliable trade negotiators.
> 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?
This was a common attitude 2017-2020, and they got disabused of that notion when Trump won in 2024. I would further argue the muted response during Trump I based on an idea that thing would "return to normal" emboldened Trump II - so that was not a winning strategy. The only country that seemed to have the correct read, and translated it into policy was China. Every other trading partner of the US seems to be floundering still.
What I fear is Trump didn't break any promise done to their electors by starting this trade wars (he did when he failed to stop actual military wars and started more instead, but that's a different point). He was elected by stating that America was the greatest country in the world and that the others were freeriding on US wealth. I'm not sure his successor can entirely overturn this policy, if a majority of the US voters believe this - also because undoing the damage would require brokering deals less favourable than before to show good faith. I live outside of the US so I might be misintepreting the situation, but I'm unconviced that a full u-turn will happen once he's out of the office.
I am not sure how much of it is that, versus a mix of tariffs being paid by the recipient rather than the vendor, versus all his unpredictable behaviour being an inherent non-tariff barrier, versus it not mattering much what a deal with the USA even looks like if we all transition to other trade partners.
The UK's Neville Chamberlain is remembered for saying of an agreement with Hitler, "peace for our time"*, and by this agreement, appeasement; less well known was that he did pursue re-armament and mutual defence agreements while attempting to deescalate.
Hopefully we won't be here in 8 years wondering how the USA got carved up into a Canadian zone, a Chinese zone, a European zone, and an Aztec zone. That last one might be from a TV show I watched as a kid.
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peace_for_our_time
I think such people are delusional, I hope to be wrong and that the next elections are actually democratic, however I do have my doubts.
USA is basically a uniparty with respect to foreign policy. It's not like Biden restored US foreign policy wrt pre Trump tariffs on China...
It's a nice thought, but I wouldn't "bank" on it.
Exactly. You can't assume it's a new normal until Trump is out of office.
They still can of course, all they need to do is collectively start selling off their US treasuries. The US is at a highly vulnerable and precarious point with their potential bond market debt spiral situation, and this is a point of leverage that can be exploited to encourage improved behavior from a bully.
This capital can then be reallocated into domestic investment to continue to decouple from the US. Very similar to how Germany learned the hard way that buying fossil gas from Russia wasn’t going to prevent aggression. Canada has started this with their recently announced energy investment plan, Europe can do this with Eurobonds.
PM Carney announces largest clean energy investment in North American history - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49339577 - August 2026
China and Canada Energy Pact as Canada Aims to Cut Reliance on US - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46640932 - January 2026 (a component of China’s next five year plan includes LNG infra investment to support imports from Canada)
On Eurobonds:
Macron says €300B in EU savings sent to the US every year will be invested in EU - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46722594 - January 2026 (207 comments)
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46708337
(Canada and Europe collective hold ~$9T in US treasury debt, almost 25% of total outstanding debt)
This is a classical problem. In theory it works when majority of the players work together and move in same direction, however everyone being opportunistic here makes in infeasible from long term perspective. Europe itself is in a difficult stage, its dealing with Russia on one end, has trust issues with China and now the its long term partner has gone rouge. The result of all this would be a mandate to be self sufficient aka anti-globalization
Japan did start selling off US treasuries because the yen is fucked. They stopped when the US agreed to buy yen and sell euros. If China starts selling treasuries, US is fucked. But it’s in China’s interest to have this incompetent in power.
Couldn't the US buy back more bonds through QE than any foreign country could sell?
They were not prepared and at least had to mitigate immediate harm, while preparing their economies, security, etc. to be less entangled with the US.
But once they are 'prepared' as best they can, one approach is for other countries to decide / accept that the US is mostly a lost cause while Trump or most other Republicans are in power, which will happen at times. It will affect their economies but they cannot control that. Negotiating with the US only encourages more bad behavior.
The rest of the world could then recreate (or continue) the global trading system, including the WTO, simply excluding countries that violate its rules. This puts the ball in the US's court to participate or not, never slamming the door in the US's face, always welcoming and encouraging them rhetorically, by their rules, and genuinely ('we look forward to our friends in the US joining and enjoying the benefits of doing business with the rest of the world').
In the meantime, global trade rules would be created in the interests of the other countries, without the US having a voice - a great boon after decades of US domination of such rules. This incentivizes the US to join sooner rather than later.
(It seems to me - I have no expertise in this area.)
The world collectively had so much trade barriers for US goods and services and still has. They just weren’t direct like tariffs.
Yes sure. Add it to the pile of contradictory goals:
1. Bring back manufacturing jobs 2. Remove trade barriers 3. Make US rich by collecting huge amount of tariffs
If 1 is true then there is no benefit for countries to remove trade barriers or pay tariffs because now there is no leverage (manufacturing jobs to protect).
If 2 is true then there is no leverage for other things to happen - countries aren't going to voluntary remove trade barriers without keeping the jobs or paying tariffs.
So and so forth.
Having guardrails against diarrhea lettuce is just reasonable policy.
> trade barriers for US goods and services
are the trade barriers in the room with us?
The U.S. also has a huge amount of trade barriers that are indirect against the rest of the world. Don't act like the U.S. is the victim here.
One example: In Canada, there's a vibrant french language film industry, meaning films in french that originate and are made in Canada and then marketed abroad. The english language equivalent is anemic because decades ago, as part of trade negotiations, the Canadian gov't gutted subsidies for english language film production as a trade barrier against Hollywood.
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.
Trump and MAGA have destroyed the good relationships and trust that the US had built throughout the world. Canada's Prime Minister wrote [1]:
"We have recognised from the beginning that America has changed, and that we will not return to our old relationship. Our government understood, before many, that America is altering all its trade relationships. Putting tariffs on its closest allies and charging for access to its vast market."
[1] _ https://www.pm.gc.ca/en/news/statements/2026/08/21/statement...
sorry i am too out of the loop what is trumps beef with canada in the first place.
> All this is going to achieve is pushing Canada much closer to other countries
The world is watching this story just like the world watched Davos.
Last night will encourage further decoupling of the US for nations other than Canada.
idk if Trump 2028 will happen or not. I will say with conviction no matter who is in office by then will not rebuild trust around the world in their tenure. Too much damage is done to the US's reputation.
> I will say with conviction no matter who is in office by then will not rebuild trust around the world in their tenure. Too much damage is done to the US's reputation.
The only way that the US can start rebuilding this trust is that the incoming Democratic President and Congress (assuming we are so lucky) immediately starts by prosecuting Trump and his family (and results in actual jail time, not just fines or small stays), zero out their government contracts, fire most of the people installed in government since 2025, expand the Supreme Court, and remove the fillibuster. I know people think ideas like that are extreme, but really, what else is going to convince the rest of the world that the US has cleaned up their act? It has to start at home first.
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.
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.
What is going to happen is this lack of deal will accelerate the (inevitable) decline of the Canadian car industry, which will reduce objections to the Chinese imports leading to those quotas changing in an ever accelerating feedback loop.
From the US strategic perspective this is moving out of the frying pan and into the fire.
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.
> 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.
There is also the factor that Canada has been propping up unsustainable dead end industries on a massive scale for years, and that this will make any pain from such a situation, deal or no deal, that much worse.
Most obviously Southern Ontario is living in a dreamland where inexplicably ICE autos remain a viable industry ad infinitum.
Some forced reality, by any means, will in the long run prove to be welcome.
As a Canadian, I am willing to suffer if it means long term benefits.
Carney is very popular for a reason.
You can't respect someone who doesn't respect their self. It's a mistake to attribute personality features to countries, but not to their leaders.
Similarly, people who don't have self-respect don't respect others.
I think you're right that this will be more painful for Canada, economically, but I'm not so sure about "way more". But politically, it will be much more painful for the US side of the negotiation than for the Canadian side. The Carney administration is on much firmer political ground than the Trump administration. Time is on Carney's side.
> 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.
It's unfortunate and in some ways unfair. I hope the Canadian economy will move towards more open trade partners and will proposer.
The thing that I really struggle to understand is what the grand vision behind this is. A logical consequence of the tariffs is that Canada, Europe and other American allies focus more on those who are willing to trade with them, including China.
If I put a 2/3y contract in place with an American supplier, there's a fair chance that I might have to deal with 10-50% tariffs at some point during the contract. This does make (long)-term business deals with the US risky.
Perhaps, but Canada will emerge stronger. The US doing to flip Congress by a margin of 2 and just lock in Trump insanity until something really bad pops.
> it's the only thing that this US admin will respect in the long run
They don't respect anything. They stand for nothing. Their only concern is to pay lip service to Trump's crazy ideas.
Trump's crazy ideas
s/Trump.*ideas/Line their own pockets/
For example, the first tariff wave was a huge transfer of wealth from citizens to corporations in the OBBBA. First, the income from tariffs was projected to offset the tax cuts for the rich and corporations. Then, when the Supreme Court found them unlawful, the money had to be returned. But first the corporations let consumers pay the tariffs by increasing product prices, but now it is the same companies who get the tariff refunds. And since they are obviously not going to give the money back to the customer, it lined their pockets.
They stand for Project 2025 and the Maralago Accord, and the ideology behind them. So far they followed both projects quite closely. Trump is a tool they have to manage to reach their goals
Also, of course, extracting as much money from the state as possible
As I’ve said from the beginning, just ask yourself: what would Putin want?
Every baffling, self destructive move Trump makes, basically always aligns to a long stated goal of Russia.
Putin wanted Trump to decapitate the Iranian regime?
Let's be serious, that has nothing to do with the Canadian situation, which has more than enough going on without needing to imagine things.
Edit to add: the extent to which many of you will apparently blame anything and everything on Putin is extraordinary. Just because the sun shines on Putin as well does not mean he made it do so.
I'm confused. Is he a Putin's puppet or Netanyahu's? He can't be both: these two don't align.
Would Putin want Germany to cancel the shut down of its nuclear power plants as Trump urged it to. [1]
The Green Movement in Europe, which Trump opposes, was best thing to happen to Putin.
As far as I can see, where Trump goes wrong is the same place the social democrats go wrong: believing in economic fallacies. In Trump's case that would be the belief that tariffs are beneficial.
He also on rare occasion aligns with very socialist leaning politicians like Elizabeth Warren, like when he sought to prevent private equity from buying up housing — which totally misdiagnoses the cause of the housing shortage. But it's these economic fallacies that makes Trump popular for the same reason social democrats are popular. The vast majority of people don't understand economics.
[1] https://youtu.be/eKEycjREgPE
It’s curious how tariffs are always a bad move for the US, but always a good move for other countries.
This is the way. If the US imposes tariffs, impose tariffs on US goods.
The US administration twists facts to suit their agenda. For example, they often complain about the trade deficit the US has with other countries. However, that deficit often (depends on the country) only exists if you exclude digital goods (Microsoft, Google, Apple, etc.).
If the rest of the world were to restrict the import of those digital goods, in the interest of fairness, the tech lobbyists would swarm D.C. in panic.
Europe/Canada should ban chatgpt/anthropic and say "ok we will use chinese models for our vibe coding I guess" and watch the stock market implode overnight. Remenber when they tried to ban non-US citizens from using Fable? best to remove that sword of damocles now regardless
This has always been an option pre-AI (block MS, block Google, etc). They never done that before why would they do that now?
Heads up, you would want to keep the sword of damocles in that case, no matter how illusory.
Good luck with the Chinese models I’d say. Next they’ll be using Russian ones just because they hate Trump so much haha.
It feels good to say things like the EU and Canada should just ban whatever, but the US can just ban imports of critical goods from Europe too and harm European industries (I’m not in favor of this but it’s certainly an option).
So if the EU can cozy up to China, well we can drop the whole Taiwan issue and cozy up to China too. If Europeans don’t care about democracy in Taiwan maybe we shouldn’t either. Oh and by the way, China is helping Russia prosecute its war against Ukraine (just like Iran and North Korea) but I guess Trump sent some mean tweets so NATO is over, all the alliances are over, the EU and Canada will cozy up to China, and ban all American products. Things that can be easily discarded by both sides aren’t worth much.
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.
Agreeing with your larger point but on the other hand, Trump-voting districts with older industries probably have trade deficits, both with other American districts and especially internationally.
Yeah but this is the point, right? The guy thinks the US is still living in an era before it became a massive service economy
I'm sorry. As an American. The United States has no business treating Canada like some hostile foreign power. We're a grotesque country right now.
Good for Canada, quite a shame the EU folded so easily
He'll be nullifying any agreement within two or three tantrums anyway, eventually we will learn and retaliate.
And maybe the US will learn again, that a great deal is something that people can rely on?
Pity that for such an obvious fact that even peasants like me can easily see, the "elite" European political leaders are still playing ostrich.
No, not good for Canada. Free trade is optimal, even if its unilateral.
The EU should abolish their tariffs and let the clowns in the US do whatever they feel like.
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-tariffing back (with various escape clauses).
While the EU response certainly wasn't a feel-good display of chest thumping, I think it was somewhat effective. He was able to strut around and feel big, and they were able to move on.
The only reason the EU would really want to apply counter tariffs against the USA would be to either make a point, or because they are actually afraid that exports from the USA could outcompete EU products unless tariffed, but this just isn't really the case right now.
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The only form of retailiation I think the EU should actually be pursuing is the equivalent of tariffs on US software. This is the area that the USA is a highly competitive 'exporter', and putting up barriers agaisnt these software services would be a good way to hurt the USA, and protect / stimulate domestic alternatives.
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 currently used directly some high-emission sectors: iron and steel, aluminum, fertilizers, cement, electricity, and hydrogen.
EU importers require granular data on the embedded emissions (both direct and indirect). US companies in these supply chains have had to overhaul how they track and verify carbon intensity down to the sub-supplier level to help their EU buyers comply with strict European reporting standards.
EU will gradually expand CBAM after allowing supply chains to adjust.
Not just software but online services. That would help us a lot and is safer anyway.
> and protect / stimulate domestic alternatives.
I really would love to see this, but the sad truth is that there are no real alternatives for a very big amount of software products. In the end, the eu residents will simply have to pay more for a lot of software products, and that's it :(
Europe/EU are highly reliant on the US military and these issues are linked.
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 access to the product. So that might even mean whole companies going under.
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 practice. And that makes Europe even more dependent on the US (while the complaint was that we could't buy gas from Russia and depend on them).
The EU also stopped enforcing its laws (like DMA and GDPR) against US tech companies.
> The only real concession the EU made was just allowing Trump to tariff them at a certain rate
No. Van der Leyen also promised EU investments into the USA. This is betrayal as well; that money should go into EU countries. Or Canada.
These countries need to grow a spine and make violating American copyright legal, or at least remove their anti circumvention laws.
No need to make violating American copyright legal. Just remove their equivalent of the DMCA.
I can't understand why there isn't a single country that did that.
I think that's how you get the US to declare war :P
Meanwhile in Belgium (EU), company owners are recovering millions from the US government, possibly up to billion dollars for all of Belgium.
Don't assume EU is stupid.
https://www.vrt.be/vrtnws/nl/2026/08/18/voka-invoerheffingen...
No, not good for Canada. Free trade is optimal, even if its unilateral.
Canada should abolish their tariffs and let the clowns in the US do whatever they feel like.
Yanis Varoufakis - aside from being radically left and becoming the finance minister in Greece after their financial crisis hit - is a professor in game theory and economics.
He did a pretty good explanation of the difference between theory and practice in his Rest is Politics Leading podcast interview recently :).
Sticks in my mind and well worth listening.
I guess it has a little to do with your goals. Optimal trade economically or avoiding giving something that looks like a win to this type of politicians with the goal of avoiding re-electing trump. I don’t know what science say here.
Tarriffs will hurt your existing industries, they will lose sales/revenue.
Since you are getting hurt you play tit-for-tat to get the other to knock it off.
So you add export taxes to items they care about (oil/fertilizer/...) and compensate the losses incurred by existing industries.
You also add tarriffs on items that have alternatives, like alcohool.
Maybe add tarriffs on items with elastic prices, say 100% tarriff on digital services. Software services will have to adjust prices so they end up the same after tarriffs since few people will accept youtube or netflix doubling in price.
This hurts both countries but will get a result - either free trade or no trade.
In the meanwhile, Trump's entourage has derivative bets on this and take massive proffits shorting everyone. For them, this is all massively profitable.
it’s a repeating negotiation so that’s not always true, this tit for tat approach may work to make the US lower tariffs.
In a vacuum or thought experiment.
China put tariffs specifically on the sectors that voted for Trump and depended on sales to China.
When the other party is not playing the same game, or not playing in fairness, then the best game theoretical move is to cease cooperation and retaliate.
nah
We are leaving the time when trust allowed trade agreements that went beyond the maximum minimum with the US. Trust allowed countries to make agreements with the US that had obvious potentials for exploitation, but overall they were followed to the greater benefit of both. Trust enabled that. Now the US has decided to break trust and countries know it. That lost premium means a major loss in value to both sides but ultimately the US will be the biggest looser because the other algorithm here is tit for tat. In a world economy, countries that cooperate will thrive and those that exploit will fail. We are seeing completely uneducated, emotion driven, economic policy play out.
I’m interested to see if this spurs other countries to push back on this administration. Once you get a couple of countries to collectively stand firm is when things take a turn. Bullies can only push for so long
I suspect that instead of treating the US as a bully, and pushing back, we are treating the US as a troll, and just looking away instead.
We'll go trade with other countries and stop giving the troll the attention it craves.
The Grey Rock Method, but at the nation state level.
You could also try a bowl of mashed potatoes on Donald’s head.
This was one of the very embarrassing things that happened to Donald as a boy, done by Freddy Trump (his late older brother), when everyone had enough of him.
What Canada is doing is turning to trade with other countries. It is the main solution we have to this issue. It is a long game, but necessary.
Ganging up on the US isn't likely to work well.
Because the US is such a good market at some point “caving” makes it a good deal
Countries have their own self interest in mind
Take the USMCA - Canada and the US at times team up against Mexico and then the pendulum swings, line item by line item - no one has anyone’s back and they all have short memories
A deal with the US when others turns away from them is still a good deal
Pushing back against a US that is at this point economically and militarily dominant does nothing. It might push for cooperations outside the US-sphere.
> It might push for cooperations outside the US-sphere.
BRICS is just that for oil.
The US is not indefatigable. As of March 2026 the nine largest foreign holders of US Treasury securities are Japan, UK, China, France and Canada.
All nations the US is jerking around. If they dump bonds US in big trouble. Oh, and the US is almost $40T in debt.
Are they still dominant? They can't even win their war against Iran. And everyone is slowly moving away from the dollar. The US as world hegemon is counting its days.
It won't. This isn't the first time Canada has had to stand alone against Trump while the rest of the world goes along to get along.
To be fair as a percentage of exports, Canada (and Mexico, in different ways) is at a completely different level of economic integration than pretty much any other country. We have no choice but to take a unique stand. That being said, we are so lucky to have Carney at this moment. Canada hasn’t exactly had flexible, informed, and eloquent leadership in a long time that has been willing to think and work for the long term.
Very interesting speech and Q&A from Prime Minister Carney on YouTube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dx9ExdjaREg .
He provides some details about the last minute demands that the US made including restricting Canada's ability to trade with other countries. He also refers to the US signature as being written in "pencil".
This link to the same video skips the first few minutes of staring at an empty podium before he walks in: https://youtu.be/Dx9ExdjaREg?t=217
My favourite part was the face he made when he was asked about Lutnick's last minute involvement potentially changing the negotiations.
The words were mostly diplomatic. The expression was not.
Nice to see them putting up a fight. Though I assume this will cause pain for everyone.
One note: aren't these sentences strange - like a series of half-thoughts? Especially the 2nd paragraph.
> Our government understood, before many, that America is altering all its trade relationships. Putting tariffs on its closest allies and charging for access to its vast market. > > We have worked in that context. To strike a fair deal that would provide the best access to the U.S. market and greater certainty to Canadian businesses and workers.
> Though I assume this will cause pain for everyone.
Yes, but the pain is likely unavoidable. The alternative is much more pain, but slightly later/more spread out, from repeatedly giving in.
Ever seen the Twilight Zone episode "It's a Good Life"? It's a tough situation when your opponent is an all-powerful preteen. No win scenario: perpetually give in to childish temper tantrums and everyone is worse off forever, or suffer the consequences of opposing the child.
Yeah, quite likely. It is surely for the best to stand up
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.
It's a transcription of a spoken speech. The periods between connected clauses are just where Mark Carney paused for a moment.
Ah! I was not aware that it was a transcription.
Yes, I had the thought that it sounded a lot like speech.
Thanks.
Still. Many of those periods. Should be commas.
The party line for why the US tariffs are bad is that the US tariffs are bad for US customers and won’t hurt the US exporting countries.
Why won’t the same logic apply to Canadian tariffs?
No, it’s just written as speech.
If Alice and Bob strike a deal then Alice must be confident that an acceptable subset of her interests are met and that Bob will stick to the deal.
If Bob shows evidence of not sticking to deals, there's little point in Alice striking any deal.
Alice=US, Bob=Others.
I wonder what would happen if Canada taxed electricity exports to the US, and used the money to directly subsidize other exported goods the US applies tariffs to?
> taxed electricity exports
it is easy to tax exports, but this makes the export less profitable (for the entity making that export). Unless you mean the producer raises prices to cover the new tax - in which case, the export is now more expensive, and less of it gets exported.
It doesn't really help with the tariff situation much in any case - a political problem requires a political solution (such as reciprocal tariffs). Both sides hurt, and there's no good outcome.
Attack dog Doug Ford threatened this last time and the Americans absolutely freaked out. It’s probably still a valuable nuclear option.
> less of it gets exported
Depends whether demand is flexible or not.
Harsh, but same for oil and potash. Other minerals too.
Oil and potash are made in provinces that have had their voter bases successfully propagandized by US Republican interests. They refused to get on-side at a political level.
It might be good to tax exports and use the proceeds to subsidize Canadian consumers. This should snuff out the dependence on export to US pretty fast with little harm to Canadian companies.
The US would then just stop importing that electricity and funnel the power in from domestic sources. The electricity comes in from Canada because it’s cheap, not because the US can’t make electricity. Canada would shoot itself in the foot with this move.
You just outlined what would be the purpose of Canada doing this - to cause power prices to go up in the US.
Where would the US be without cheap electricity?
Won’t work out well for either side, namely citizens and leadership aside.
Wearing my forecasting hat…
Canada holding $200 billion in USA treasuries, one of the largest exporters of oil into the USA, and integrated supply chains for everyday goods. A fast and painful price shock is coming for every average American.
Canada has and will continue to be very dependent on the USA. No amount of new trade partners can change the fact that the largest economy in the world is a 2-hour trip down the road while everyone else is an ocean apart. This has a risk for long-term price pain for decades.
Australian beef is cheaper than Canadian beef, in Canada, the ocean is not the obstacle.
I don’t know offhand what the price of beef is generally these days (I am a vegetarian).
Generally speaking, capital and commerce steer towards efficiency. Goods from Australia will always be “less efficient” than goods crossing between Canada and the USA and Mexico due to geography.
The only way to make up for that difference is if goods are dramatically cheaper to produce (i.e China) to make up for the geographical barriers.
While it may work for beef, it can’t work for everything. So, Canada is generally stuck with the USA until it can find ways to export/import efficiently from other countries, and some things, like produce, can never work.
canadian beef is expensive in canada because canadian beef producers can make a bigger buck selling to the US
It has been shown time and time again that the only thing the US administration respects is brutish headbutting, so I cannot blame the Canadian government for responding with such a stance. It is unfortunate for everyone though that it is happening. Ultimately, these tariffs just tax the consumer for no real gain on either side. I think I speak for many when I say 2028 cannot come soon enough.
The average American suffers being hated for this government and I say this currently sitting in a town filled with fly in rich American tourists to keep it alive. IMO the only retaliatory pain point for Americans to start to care will be taxing discounted oil, electricity, fertilizer, and transits of everything to Alaska. But they’ll just blame rather than support Canada. I don’t like Doug Ford or his policies but hopefully he brings up the electricity thing again as leverage because it won’t happen in the other sectors given AB separatism and SK being, well, SK.
SK catching a stray here undermines the unity we are seeking.
Uranium and potash from SK are huge bargaining chips.
AB separatism is meaningless and it's emphasis and influence is propped up by Canada's adversaries.
What unity? They didn't take American liquor off the shelves during the last round of this mayhem unlike every other province, we have no reason to expect solidarity this time.
Reciprocity, if well designed, automatic and generalized, is a great diplomacy tool.
Politicians tend to not want to do things that display them as directly responsible for eroding their support base’s quality of life.
Art of the deal strikes again.
This administration has a thing for being really vicious with the closest allies.
It really feels strange, odd, yet unsurprising that the US is going from a globalist leadership to selfish nationalism.
Its easier since they have no defenses up and lots of valuables are in reach. It makes sense if you are that ethically challenged.
Trump projects his greed and selfishness onto everyone else. So doesn't understand that there can be such a thing as a win-win relationship.
> the US is going from a globalist leadership to selfish nationalism.
It’s worse than that. This doesn’t suit the US. It suits Trump (or at least, that’s what his addled mind thinks).
The US doesn’t have allies; it has interests.
Very good yesterday, very bad today. I understand completely why nations are not eager to bargain with a petulant child
The problem is more long lasting. The world cannot accommodate 180 degree turns every 4 years in Washington.
So anybody that will follow, regardless of the person's policies won't matter fully, as that person itself will be replaced 4-8 years later.
"That's like a toddler with a harpoon. There's a toddler wandering around in that office with a harpoon." The Thick of It s4e2.
Its nice to see some backbone, but the challenge for Canada is that it’s broadly in a weak negotiating position here. Generally speaking Canadian companies need access to the US market a lot more than US companies need access to the Canadian market.
One would think so, but is that really true? Some numbers I just got:
- the US imports 60-70% of its oil from Canada
- 100% of the natural gas
- 85% of energy imports
- 25% of Uranium
- 20% of all mineral imports, ahead of China
- the Great Lakes hold >80% of the USA's fresh water
- patrolling the almost 9000km border is mostly up to Canada
Despite the size disparities, they run close to a trade equilibrium: US exports $420B, imports $450B. There is a lot on the line for the US.
>- the US imports 60-70% of its oil from Canada
In context, this only applies to oil that the US imports. That number means that of the oil that the US imports, 60-70% of it comes from Canada. The US currently produces more oil than any other nation. Your note should read "the US imports 60-70% of the oil that it imports from Canada"
- 100% of the natural gas
As mentioned above, this means that US imports of natural gas come exclusively from Canada. The US currently produces more natural gas than any other nation too. Your note should read "100% of the natural gas that the US imports comes from Canada"
It makes sense that Canada is sole source for imported natural gas since that is a product that is most efficiently transported in pipelines, like crude oil.
The way your numbers are framed seems to me to imply that the US is a net importer of oil and natural gas when in fact we began to ramp up exports of oil and natural gas (and coal) in 2006-2008 time period. Those exports helped the industry remain a dominant political force and provided a lot of seed money for the corruption that we have seen in the US since.
And Canada has also been passing up an absolutely enormous opportunity for industrial growth by spending generations supporting American industry by remaining a primary resources economy.
Notably, none of the goods you just mentioned about (energy imports, uranium, potash, etc.) have had tariffs applied by the Trump regime because they know all this. And it would be political suicide to apply an export tax on them.
No, instead the Trump tariffs have specifically targeted the regions of Canada that a) elect left of centre governments and/or b) have manufacturing economies.
So Ontario's auto sector, BC's forestry, and Quebec's aluminum and aerospace sectors.
Meanwhile Alberta and Saskatchewan -- which have compliant quite honestly pro-Trump governments -- have only 2% of their exports currently impacted by tariffs.
It has the look of an attempt at regime change, masquerading as economic policy.
This is true somewhat, but keep in mind the 50% tariffs aren’t on all goods. They’re on like 5% of exports.
Plus when one side is an unreliable negotiator (the US) there’s not much rational behind continuing.
>Canada is that it’s broadly in a weak negotiating position here.
That's an understatement. Hypothetically if Canada were isolated from the world, it would regress in the quality of life in 10 years. The most capable Canadians have moved out, mostly to the US. The average Canadian has unwarranted sense of nationalistic pride about them (compared to their neighbors).
Isolate US from the world, and assuming that the govt does not meddle too much with local businesses, in 10 years they will bounce back to being more self sufficient than it is now.
This is a useless hypothetical. Almost every country would regress in quality of life if it were suddenly cut off from the global economy. The options aren’t a bad deal from the US or complete isolation. Canada is making deals with reliable partners abroad.
By definition if you isolate a country from the world it would be more self sufficient that very moment than it is the moment before it is isolated. Isn't that obvious?
> The average Canadian has unwarranted sense of nationalistic pride about them (compared to their neighbors).
If you think Canadians have more nationalistic pride than Americans, you seriously need to get glasses.
Americans literally pledge themselves to their country every day of school.
A few months prior to the midterms is exactly the right time for this sort of action. If the voters keep seeing prices increase because of Trump's tariffs, it increases the odds that the republicans will lose the legislative branch and will be able to act as a check on Trump's power. Ideally some other countries will follow suit.
This will cause some short term pain for Canada, but hopefully they'll have a less insane trading partner after November.
Unfortunately I think the only usable big lever we have as Canadians -- wine/beer liquor imports and people choosing to restrict personal travel to the US -- has already been used. We cannot and will not exercise energy or potash restrictions. And import tariffs are unlikely to be substantially impactful enough for Americans to notice enough that it alters their decisions at the ballot box.
I would however urge my fellow Canadians to continue to or start boycotting goods from the US and travel to there, generally.
And likely encourage Americans to come visit here. Come ski here this winter. You're more than welcome here.
Meanwhile Israel is sucking USA empty and they call out Canada for being not "fair".
What a sick people.
Someone has to fund Israel's universal healthcare.
I get it, but tariffs will only make things more expensive for Canadians, too.
I've got a better idea.
1) Repeal all DMCA-like laws. Make it explicitly legal to break a digital lock to repair a device, run custom code, install third-party parts, or just tinker and hack with your own devices and software.
2) Ban parts-pairing. Prohibit manufacturers (looking at you Apple & John Deere,) from using cryptographic serialization to block independent mechanics and technicians from swapping parts.
3) Legalize "Adversarial Interoperability" (https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2019/10/adversarial-interopera...)
4) Copyright reform.
That's it. This would make things cheaper and better for Canadians. Lutnick and Trump would seethe eternally, but it would be downright excellent for Canada and a shining beacon unto the world.
I love the concept.
I'd be happy to see the solution to consumer pain And economic productivity to pass permanently pro productivity and pro consumer policies.
Anti monopoly stuff. Maybe a growth policy like land value tax.
I'd need to hear from some experts to know which specific policies would be best though. Ideally you choose some policies that are not perceived as going nuclear, or which leave open counters, or which you would want to remove after a deal is made.
In general, going heavier into consumer/data protection laws and proceeding to prosecute both the Canadian and American monopolies would be amazing though.
> In general, going heavier into consumer/data protection laws and proceeding to prosecute both the Canadian and American monopolies would be amazing though.
IMO you don't want lawfare -- but rather you want to remove bad laws like the DMCA (and related), and the life-plus-70 copyright term, and thus foster more innovation and growth.
It's easiest to repeal anti-consumer/anti-commons laws.
Cory Doctorow wrote a piece about DMCA wrt Canada and US tariffs in January [0], "A winning trade war strategy for Canada", which chimes with your position. I admire his work, and thought that you might like to read it, if you've not already done so.
[0] https://pluralistic.net/2026/01/12/disenshittification-natio...
Yeah, my ideas on this basically come from Doctorow. That guy really has it figured out.
I'd love this too, but it is impossible. If you believe it's possible then you fundamentally misunderstand how greatly coupled our countries are.
A rather large amount of Canadian industry is benefiting from these regulations. Adopting policies like these would be tremendously disruptive and cause a lot of short term issues, upsetting manufacturers, foreign owned subsidiaries (who employ a lot of people), unions and retailers.
I'd love to see copyright reform though.
> A rather large amount of Canadian industry is benefiting from these regulations. Adopting policies like these would be tremendously disruptive and cause a lot of short term issues, upsetting manufacturers, foreign owned subsidiaries (who employ a lot of people), unions and retailers.
Why?
This didn't even exist until 2011: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyright_Modernization_Act
And how would something like banning parts pairing "cause a lot of short-term issues"? Existing supply chains would remain intact. They'd simply be broadened, eventually, by new entrants. If incumbents leave the market in a fit of pique, you can rest assured that the gaps will be filled, and that those incumbents may very well be liable for breach of contract if they refuse to service existing Canadian customers.
Also remove all tariffs on Chinese EVs, and remove the vehicle limit cap.
Sales of US vehicles in Canada would approach zero in just a few years.
The problem is that Canada makes ~1.3M cars/year -- and about 1M of those are for Japanese manufacturers like Toyota and Honda. With unbounded Chinese imports at Chinese prices, a sizable fraction of that domestic industry is going to vanish.
Yet what I'd suggest is to go a step further rather than retreat: Subsidize EV production (including from Chinese firms) on the condition that final assembly or some fraction of production is done in Canada. Keep the jobs, make cleaner cars more efficiently, and make them available to Canadian consumers at reduced (subsidized) prices.
...Then export those subsidized vehicles to Europe and wherever else, where they might benefit from favorable EU-Canada or Brazil-Canada trade policies.
> but tariffs will only make things more expensive for Canadians, too.
Yes, there is no war without pain. But I am willing to face the pain.
However, in the long run, the pain might bring good. It might help products from other countries to enter the Canadian market. I hope to see more food, cars and appliances from Latin America, Europe, Asia and Africa in the Canadian market.
Elbows up, at last.
This is on targeted industries, not on 50% of all trade. In particular, the largest industries are
Motor Vehicles, Alcohol, and Dairy per
https://www.newsweek.com/full-list-of-us-trade-tariffs-hitti...
Motor vehicles is funny - tariff the vehicles owned by American companies (GM, Ford, Stellantis). I wonder how the CEOs of those companies react or communicate with the White House their feelings on this.
Great dude thanks for defending the klepto king. Really important work you’re doing.
I’m not defending anything
I’m trying to encourage people to understand the facts in a forum dedicated to intellectual discussion.
Can the US even afford a trade war, they are beginning to find borrowing more money increasingly difficult… currently the debt is around $130k for every man, woman and child in the US.
More difficult is a relative term. More difficult but still easier than other countries so the US remains in a stronger position here. The US can sustain the mess a lot longer than most countries can survive it.
> is a relative term
More "relative" than you think.
Look at the wars the US fought after WWII: Korea, Vietnam, Afghanistan, Iraq, etc. The US suffered a lot less pain than any of those countries and was in a lot stronger position. But those countries were willing to face the pain, the US wasn't. That's why the US lost those wars. The same pattern goes now with Iran. You kill people on those countries, those countries hurt the American voters in their pockets.
In trade wars it might be the same mechanism. For the American people, a trade war is mostly to follow the glorious orange leader. For Canadians it is a matter of national sovereignty.
Gross debt to GDP ratio in the US has fallen from 130% in 2021 to under 125% now. It'll likely tick back up closer to 130, but it's been relatively flat.
Economic growth and inflation have kept pace with gross debt for a long time, and if the US continues to stay on top of the tech industry, the raw numbers will likely continue not to matter.
> Gross debt to GDP ratio in the US has fallen from 130% in 2021 to under 125% now.
Most of that was inflation, so it hurts U.S. citizens. I mean, you could reduce it even further pretty easily, but I'm not sure you would want to pay $1,000+ for a Big Mac.
Remember the halcyon days of “earlier this year” when the Supreme Court ruled these tariffs illegal and unconstitutional?
He's using a different rationale, so this would have to be litigated all over again. It's like whack-a-mole.
The Atlantic has just posted a piece about this [0] in which it argues many points echoed in comments here. Chief among them:
> The Trump administration has one big idea about Canada: The U.S. is larger, stronger, and richer than Canada, so Canada must sooner or later surrender to Trump’s demands. That one big idea is wrong.
> Yes, Trump can hurt Canada more than Canada can hurt Trump. That part of Trump’s thinking is true. But wars are not decided only by the question Who can inflict more pain? Wars are also decided by the question Who can endure more pain? Trump’s failure to accept this truth is why he lost the Iran war—and why he is losing his trade wars.
[0] https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/2026/08/why-us-canada-trad...
Even with rising economic uncertainty within Canada, the LPC is enjoying ever-growing support amongst the Canadian voting public including amongst conservatives.
Premiers are almost united (excluding Alberta's Danielle Smith) in their support for Carney walking away from trade negotiations.
Canada needs to create an "Economic Reparations Fund" to help those workers and companies harmed by trump's tariffs. Its initial funding should come from selling $10B of US bonds (Canada is ~5th largest holder) and a 5% surcharge on oil exported to the US. US already extracts a 12-22% discount off world oil prices from Canada (who's taking advantage of who?) so 5% shouldn't be an issue. As needed to cover damages, more bonds could be sold and the oil surcharge could be raised.
Canada needs to reduce its exposure to the US market, giving resources to the companies harmed by the tariffs doesn't accomplish that
I don’t blame them, even if you cut a deal the president sees something on social media and comes back for more tariffs.
MAGA wanted factory jobs and Trump is providing that. There is nothing wrong. I hope they go and work in factories rather than Going to other countries and murder school children.
Time for War Plan Crimson. https://www.globalsecurity.org/military/ops/war-plan-red-cri...
The Art of the Lose-Lose Deal!
For some perspective about what’s being negotiated:
“What’s at stake in the Canada-U.S. trade deal? How looming tariffs could cost Canada 90,000 jobs”. Trevor Tombe, professor of economics at the University of Calgary
https://thehub.ca/2026/08/20/whats-at-stake-in-the-canada-u-...
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.
We, in the US, might be able to sustain this longer economically, but Canadians can sustain this longer politically.
Well it's 73 days till the midterm elections so we'll see what happens. Signing a bad deal when the political landscape could dramatically change in a few weeks never made sense.
It's not the U.S. which will suffer but individual companies, which will tend to create political pressure to end the tariffs.
https://www.fastcompany.com/91531349/trumps-canada-trade-war...
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.
> Reciprocal tariffs alone don’t make much sense,
In the short run, yes. In the long run we can start replacing American imports with other countries' imports.
I want to see more fruits and vegetables from Mexico, Africa and South America in supermarkets. Give me less "Made in America" on shelves.
You’d have to tariff fruits and vegetables like crazy to make the American varieties more expensive than oceanic shipped produce. That seems a fairly steep price for the Canadian consumer.
Which highlights the problems with tariffs, they are self harming. You have to be willing to give up better alternatives for some other reason, and food is a hard one.
True North, Strong and Free
I've always said that the only way Trump would "Make America Great" would be to show the world how completely hollowed out by kleptocrats we've become.
These moves increase other countries independence of us, lessening our power and forcing us into a more post America world.
If Trump isn't a double agent then he missed his calling. It feels like every decision they are making is intentionally the "wrong" one.
The most ironic part for me is that he has probably now done more to push renewable energy than any other President.
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.
He's just running a kleptocracy, and doing so reasonably well.
He's already got more money than he can spend. As dementia sets in, he's been shifting more and more to pure emotion-based decision making.
> “motivated entirely … to stuff his pockets”
Someone's pockets, must be gnomes:
• PHASE 1: COLLECT UNDERPANTS. (tariff "foreign" goods desired by Americans, collect upon import from companies, clarify spiked prices experienced by consumers ‘entirely’ due to prior admin policies)
• PHASE 2: … (let simmer)
• PHASE 3: PROFIT. ("return" tariff costs to companies)
don’t forget his weak ego
It's worse than that. He is so completely off that he thinks this means US builders will chose to buy US lumber instead and that will work out positively for everyone in the US.
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.
He wakes up and flips a coin. He doesn’t care anyway and there’s no consequences.
and votes
Indeed. Donald Trump is only the visible tip of an iceberg. Below the waterline it's a massive and all encompassing corruption, comprised of an organized multi-national cabal that touches every part of the globe and which has its roots in the world starting well before WWI. The goal of which appears has always been to enrich the people on the inside while sewing chaos. To these figures, war and peril have always been more profitable than making peace.
https://annas-archive.gl/md5/2275fbf2d96f518e54c2b72edf163f8...
Price is set at the margin. If America is physically incapable of supplying 100% of its own lumber needs, then that Canadian lumber is the marginal good, and the price of 100% of lumber will go up, not just the Canadian stuff.
Two things that will prevent that:
- inertia
- it's likely that Canadian lumber before the tariffs wasn't the marginal good, wasn't the highest cost supplier. If Canadian suppliers were making 10% more profit than the previously marginal supplier, the price will go up 40% instead of 50%, Canadian suppliers absorbing that 10%.
Or they'll raise prices by that ten percent and become the marginal supplier. No way they're going to accept a loss. (Many items shipped into the USA of late have tariff related fees.)
I know you're being facetious, but his entire immigration policy is to deport a large part of the construction labor pool, so he was never had a chance to make housing more affordable.
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.
This comment seems exactly like the school room exercise where the teacher hands out a test with a paragraph of instructions that includes the text buried in it: "do not answer any questions below" and students rush through the test and fail because they didn't bother reading the entire comment before ripping off their own because "our" is ambiguous. There is plenty of context in the comment, even for non-North Americans, since its very unlikely "Donald" was referring to famed Canadian-actor Donald Sutherland.
Or would you prefer every comment on HN to begin with: "As a/an $CountryDemonym..." or other requisite bona fides?
As a Canadian, I hope this crisatunity translates into rock-bottom prices for lumber at home.
In reality unfortunately it likely means mills will sit idle or shut down entirely. Prices might come down a little bit hopefully
Amen.
Art of the Deal
His negotiating methods, if one can call them that, are like "single use weapons" that are relationship burning rather than building. If you are doing 100s of one-off deals with counterparties you will never talk to again, and who don't know each other.. it might actually work.
But you burn the ability to make more deals with the same counterparty again.
If you played this game with your neighbor over a fenceline or tree limb dangerously overhanging into your yard.. you would save a few bucks once, and have an antagonistic relationship for the next 10-20 years of living next to them. Good luck getting the benefit of the doubt next time.
Honestly though, it seems like he would rather have everyone lose than take a chance that anyone but him wins.
Even positive reporting of the man makes him out to have a massively fragile ego.
Trump is and always has been a one-trick-pony: Shock and awe with a ridiculously over-the-top threat to shake his opponent and anchor the discussion high, then "accept" a deal that's better than any that could have been achieved with a calm opponent (pure bullying).
His second weapon is throwing a monkey wrench into the works after agreeing to something. Keep the opponent on their back heel.
It works well, until it doesn't. Once you meet an opponent who stands firm no matter what you threaten, you lose your bargaining position. Carney is well-versed in this kind of negotiation.
Right it probably works in real estate if you aren’t dealing with the same trading partners often. It is a business where dirtbag behavior is the norm.
May also explain why he stopped doing actual NYC RE dev and moved onto his licensing model in dozens of cities (new pools of suckers).
But when every threat & walk back is covered in national media, and he is playing the same game with the same big trading partners .. it loses its effect. Similarly he’s quite old and certainly lost any touch he had.
Iran looks to have figured it out too
You gotta think long term. This is going to cause all those lumber companies to plant more forests and 40 years from now when they’re big enough boom, 3 new jobs servicing the autonomous tree harvesters.
Lumber is not part of these tariffs. These are on a narrow set of products.
Lumber is a different long standing trade dispute going back to the 80s unrelated to the industries targeted by the 50% tariffs.
Trump created a 10% Lumber tariff in Sept 2025, but it was already tariffed before that. Canadian lumber today isn’t suddenly 50% more expensive.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canada%E2%80%93United_States_s...
This does not seem to be accurate, from the reporting I've read. Do you have a source?
True but it won’t stop price gouging or as the company uses have been calling it price blending.
I read the article, I don't take away from it that Canadian lumber is suddenly 50% more expensive. It explains that tariffs for some Canadian lumber products was set to 50 percent at some point (or maybe lowered again, and raised, it's hard to tell since the Trump administration has issued 50+ different tariff directives in the last year), and that Canada walked away from negotiations recently.
I tried to do some more research before my coffee finishes in 5 minutes, you're right it's not ALL Canadian products or even all Canadian lumber products.
> Canadian negotiators also hoped to achieve some relief on softwood lumber tariffs that go back decades and were augmented with additional tariffs from Mr. Trump.
https://www.nytimes.com/2026/08/21/world/canada/trump-tariff...
It was already at 45% due to previous art of the deal moves.
That orange shit stain has explicitly said he want to drive housing prices up not down
Idk man I just took a trip to Forks, WA and the amount of lumber they had and were processing up there was insane
The gas truck just came to the gas station on the corner and it's just crazy how big those things are, there's such a surplus of gas right now.
Not sure if you're joking, but I remember noticing the same thing last time I spent time there (2017). Lumber yards tend to have a lot of lumber. It's kind of like when you drive by a feed lot and they have an implausible number of cows (the ones over in imperial valley amazed me). Also there's always tankers by my house in Manhattan Beach. These anecdotes are not economic indicators.
Idk about Washington but Oregon has increased logging a large amount over the last few years.
Yes, everyone know a modern economy statistics work by what you can see with your naked eyes out there on the streets.
Is YC News an American website? It seems like all the comments are advising against American interests with regards to tariffs.
Given how poorly everything is going for the US thanks to these tariffs that certainly is a take. Brace yourself though, it's going to get worse!
Are you not loyal and patriotic if you see your government is bad for the people and you support opposition to it?
US citizen here. Fight back against my government, please, even when the current admin is replaced with another more benign one.
> fight back against my government, please
I don't understand what you mean by this? Fight back against what? Protective tariffs?
You cannot negotiate with a country that doesn’t stand by its word.
All other issues aside, Trump and the Republicans love to boast that they aren’t bound by anything including their own promises. This is the end result of that.
You’d be mad to cut a deal with the US right now. The Trump Admin will just try to take another bite. They are dishonest and unreliable. Making America’s word mean nothing is the greatest long term damage done to the country and the surest indicator of the end of the American Century (80 years but we can round up)
It has to do with how America politically structured. The trade nego change every 1-2 terms. China is much more consistent in this, and will scrap all markets from America in the long term. I simply dont see America able to force a Plaza Accord out of this. Japan fizzled because of that. But China wont. And China now backed by Russia, world powerhouse of fossil and minerals. Russia has way more natural reserve than what Venezuela America and Middle East officially published.
If China is backed by Russia then they are properly fucked.
I think a retaliation for a tariff should be an export tax. Let's say Canada puts a 50% export tax on maple syrup unless the car tariff is withheld
It would be the most effective way to hurt Americans.
But it isn’t politically possible for Canada to do this. The two segments that would be most effective, oil & gas and potash happen to come from provinces that already have significant issues with the federal government. One is even flirting with separation, which would be inflamed by export taxes.
Canada is also very venerable to similar actions by the Americans. Refined oil products, fertilizers and oil & gas pipeline transit all come from the Americans.
It is fun to imagine Canada sticking it to the Americans with export taxes, but it will never happen.
The primary issue they have is not being allowed to become vassal states of US empire quickly enough.
"Western alienation" is created and maintained by American propaganda.
I also had this idea, but it can't be something you can get in another place. But for something like potash it might work.
But I think overall it does not really matter. A war is a war, so there will be no real winners.
Here we go again.
Québec makes 80% of the world’s maple syrup. You pretty much can’t get it anywhere else.
What's wrong with Vermont maple syrup?
I don't know, maybe there's not enough of it?
> Canada supplies the overwhelming majority of U.S. maple-syrup imports.
Quebec alone produces more maple syrup than everywhere else in the world combined, by a wide margin.
Nothing, but they don’t make enough. Unless it claims to be 100% Vermont it’s likely blended with Canadian or entirely Canadian maple syrup.
Make it car exports as well. A small 5-10% export fee, so that the premium Americans pay for the cars is distributed between both countries
Note that these new tariffs are on goods covered by CUSMA, making that treaty inoperative. Pity it’s one Trump signed…
One must stand up to bullies otherwise they’ll keep at it. Until the US population feels the pain the rest of the world has been dealing with, nothing will change.
Oh, we’re feeling the pain. Anyone trying to actually build things in the USA relies on an increasingly unpredictable and expensive global supply chain.
What he’s been doing is only good for his grift game, not the USA.
If you want to bring manufacturing home, you frame a 5-10 year progressive tariff plan with tax incentives, financing, and grants to help build the infrastructure to progressively fill the demand as the tariffs roll in. Commerce thrives in stable environments with predictable changes, not in chaos and broken promises.
I’m curious just how much pain and abuse Americans need to feel before they do something about it. So far it seems to be record-setting.
False. I'm in the trenches on the cross-border trade and issue in general every weekday. Investment, industrial production and migration of CAD businesses to the US is rapidly growing. Nothing Canada can do will reverse this, though several storms on the horizon unrelated to Canada could slow it.
King Charles should just leave the American continent.
It's ironic that the US might currently do better with a (constitutional monarchy) king, to serve as an ethical example of living and governance, and change the role of the president to more of a serving bureaucrat
In the UK we've been lucky with our royalty recently, but with a different roll of the genetic dice we'd have Randy Andy as king instead of Charles.
Anyway, you have kings, you just elect them and call the presidents, but they have basically the same political role and powers as George III did in the 1790s cut-and-pasted across. The USA needs to get itself a decent parliamentary system.
I'd argue almost the opposite: America's governing system (and the political culture of rejecting hereditary rule) is a big part of why it became so successful.
There's arguably a straight line from the Commonwealth's greater deference to inherited authority to today's tolerance of weak borders, stagnant growth, and declining economic mobility. A king seems like more of the thing that caused the problem, not the solution.
Have you read John Steinbeck's "The Short Reign of Pippin IV?" [0] All political sides in France frustrated decide to create a constitutional monarchy. The Communists supported the idea because it would give everyone something to revolt against.
[0]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Short_Reign_of_Pippin_IV
Bad analogy if you're Canadian
Everything you need to know about Canada is on a population density map.
You can get the same knowledge about every country via a population density map, incidentally!
That population density is highest in more temperate regions with the most arable and productive land?
Carney had to take a stand, the last few moves he pulled angered a lot of people. For example he started talking about asking the provinces to put US booze back on the shelves which for us who boycotted prior to the govt saying it was a good idea, is giving up our leverage before any demands were acquiesced. He's playing the same song with the digital media tax and even with the case that made Meta forego all Canadian news outlets.
Basically he was elected to stand up to Trump and as an economist, come up with a strategy. He initially appeared to do that, but given that it largely hasn't swayed Trump, he is now backing off most of it. You could argue it's a strategy worth trying since to buck-for-buck hasn't worked, but you could also make the point that the electorate, without being told what the plan is (duh), feels he is weakening our position.
A lot of the strategy has been to wait it out and expect uproar from the US people which... largely hasn't come.. yet?
If a bear is rampaging around your campsite do you think you have to "take a stand"?
This isn't some sort of status game. Well, maybe it is for Trump, but not for anyone who's not an idiot. Unfortunately, Carney is an idiot, and is in it for himself and his friends, not Canada.
The way to deal with the bear to the south is to first get rid of all the stupid stuff that is bad for Canadians regardless of Trump, like provincial liquor monopolies and dairy supply management. Don't ask for anything in return - Trump's word is no good anyway - but it may help with public opinion in the US. It will also help with better trade relations with other countries. After getting these other countries to open up as much as they're inclined, unilaterally eliminate tariffs on all countries (including the US). It's what's best for Canadians, apart from a few who profit off the lack of competition from other countries.
For bonus points, get rid of sales taxes, so there is zero friction importing things to Canada. That's great for consumers, and also great for any business that wants to continue or establish itself in Canada.
I don't understand your point about public opinion in the US. Public opinion here is already strongly against Trump and his foolish tariff policy. Most people here do not want to see Canada acquiesce to "the bear". It only prolongs the madness.
The craziest thing is, that in spite of the obvious, balatant corruption and supreme incompetence of the US govt, Trump still has around 35% approval rating.
That means the hardcore MAGA base is a third of the US population. I genuinely don't know how to reconcile that with the long term future of the United States.
In Pale Blue Dot, Carl Sagan referenced some survey from the 80s in which one of the findings was that ~20% of Americans agreed to the statement "the sun is alive." In trying to find that survey for this comment I instead found this one from Time in the 2000s [0], in which 26% of Americans (N=2200) responded that the sun revolves around the Earth. America is a big and diverse place, full of people that have little attachment to reality.
0: https://time.com/7809/1-in-4-americans-thinks-sun-orbits-ear...
As a constitutionalist American, I really wish I had an answer for you. The best I have is that two-thirds of the country thinks he's off-base. But I can only agree that's an alarming figure.
It seems like a lot of the governmental structure of this country is predicated on the idea that the People will not elect someone who puts their own interests over those of the nation. And when we do, the whole thing starts to unravel.
That plus the 20% or so that don't care enough to vote.
Maybe the 20% don't want a fucking thing to do with the shitshow.
Americans love to single out Trump, but he’s just a symptom of an epidemic of civic unfitness that is hollowing out the country. It underscores why the only correct move for the world is de-Americanization. Make them economically and militarily unnecessary and they might even be forced to once again behave correctly, even if out of necessity.
>The craziest thing is, that in spite of the obvious, balatant corruption and supreme incompetence of the US govt, Trump still has around 35% approval rating.
Not to diminish you statement, but you are right.
Something similar can be said about Canada. In your sentence replace:
US with Canada
Trump with Carney/Trudeau/Others
35% with 95%
and the situation can be summarized as significantly worse in Canada.
Basket of deplorables
It's the "crazification factor", which is the idea that 27% of the American population will always vote for the stupidest option. So, that 27% is Trump's true floor. He's pretty close to it.
https://kfmonkey.blogspot.com/2005/10/lunch-discussions-145-...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=efxV1-2rQ2o
People who elected this clown are more dangerous
Looking past the political posturing i cannot even find any objective information about what the terms were. I just wish they could say what was the state of the deal and why it broke down in some detail.
They wanted to prevent Canada from signing any trade deals with anyone else (i.e. giving US a veto over deals)
These tariffs will be struck down as unconstitutional just like the ones Trump attempted under the IEEPA were. Any company who paid in the meanwhile will be compensated while consumers will get the short end, so it will be a nice payday for northern importers.
It's Congress who has the power to tax. If Trump wants tariffs he needs to propose a bill that creates them or gives him clear powers. The legal scholars in his cabinet know this, so why has he not proposed a bill?
Regardless of our different readings of the SCOTUS’s recent opinion, statutes are a poor process for imposing tariffs. The legislative process is intentionally slow and difficult. It’s suited to permanent laws, not diplomacy and negotiations.
Statutes can delegate the president tariff powers and appropriately circumscribe them, and that's what both the IEEPA and Trade Expansion Act did - they gave the executive tariff authority in certain circumstances.
Trump is stretching the definition of those circumstances to the limit, in my opinion, especially because protectionism is the fundamental policy being pursued. If we want general protectionist tariffs than the law should be passed that enables the executive to do so, but that hasn't been forthcoming.
How effective are tariffs as a trade negotiation tool if your counterparty believes its likely the courts will take away the big stick?
There is no reason for tariff policy to be made quickly. Indeed, it would be much more effective if it could change only very slowly, because any positive effects tariffs may have rely on businesses having certainty when making decisions with multi year horizons. Only a fool would make a decision about where to build a new factory based on the Trump era of whim based tariff policy.
Just at the right time when China is looking to expand its exports. People said that Trump was Putin's stooge, but he might have been Xi's.
I'm concerned that governments worldwide are finding tarrifs to be a popular (and exciting!) way to exorbitantly increase the size of governments and goverment coffers which are then used for populist aims. We need to re-educate people that tarrifs are bad.
You think the tarrifs proceeds are going in the government coffers?
Trump is officially billions richer since he became president for a second term.
Officially.
I though politics was to be kept out of Hacker News?
Trump grievance is allowed and the comments are extremely low quality.
Amazing that in 2026 Canada, Iran, and US Circuit Courts have the same stance: the US federal government cannot be trusted to tell the truth about anything. Fish really rots from the head.
"However, last-minute changes in the U.S. proposed terms were unfair, uneconomic, and called into question the reliability of any deal."
It seems like if the other side agrees to a deal too easily then Trump doesn't think the deal is good enough. He only likes deals where the other side is getting screwed and has to be coerced into signing.
> It seems like if the other side agrees to a deal too easily then Trump doesn't think the deal is good enough.
That's a great observation. So basically everybody should be saying no to him all the time to limit the damage because as long as there's one yes the stupidity will only grow.
I'm so glad there wasn't a single yes, when Greenland popped up.
Trump tries to betray Canadians here. When you make negotiations and then at the last second try to worsen the terms, you are not acting in good faith. This is a consistent theme with Trump: he wants to take advantage of you. This is a de-facto mafia system. The "art of the deal" is the mafia way. You can see this with Iran too - Trump negotiates, then attacks. Then fake-negotiates, attacks again (and loses anyway). The guy is a problem for the whole world.
He would run a child's lemonade stand into the ground.
Trump attacked iran in the middle of negotiations. It's probably a pattern from the salesmen book he didn't even write.
That should read, Trump betrays Americans. The reality is that he is destroying American credibility on the international stage, which is going to have long term effects on their ability to make agreements with other countries in the future. Standing alone is not in the interest of any nation.
As for betraying Canadians, Trump is not responsible for representing Canadian interests. I wouldn't want him to either. (Speaking as a Canadian.)
It is a good thing canadians are so nice. Dropping US alcohol is a tiny thing compared to some of the weapons canada might deploy. Look at all the back-and-forth deals in recent years and you will see an exemption for oil and potash. Think gas prices are high now? See what happens if canada starts shipping less crude. Think food prices are high? See what happens when there is no fertilizer because canada has restricted potash exports. And what will make Musk's head explode: canada is starting to allow cheap chinese EVs into north america. Canadians will be driving them around the US very soon.
https://www.atlanticcouncil.org/dispatches/how-to-secure-the...
> US mines produce roughly 500,000 metric tons of potash per year, only about 8 percent of the 5.9 million metric tons of apparent annual US consumption. The remaining demand is met through imports, producing a net import reliance of about 92 percent. Reflecting the high concentration of global potash production, most of that supply comes from Canada (79 percent), with smaller volumes from Russia (12 percent) and other producers (9 percent) including Israel.
The sentiment here is that nobody wants U.S. citizens to be negatively impacted by trade restrictions or tariffs. We are figuratively and, in many cases, literally friends and family. (Aside, even if our provincial governments allow southern booze back on shelves, it'll stay there.)
It would be decidedly un-Canadian to leverage electricity, potash, or other commodities necessary for survival in trade negotiations -- despite what Ford may suggest. We're nice, but we won't bow to bullies. Elbows up, eh!
> nobody wants U.S. citizens to be negatively impacted by trade restrictions or tariffs.
As much as it pains me to say it as an American, little will change unless US citizens are negatively impacted. Trump is losing power and support in the US precisely because people are becoming more aware that he's hurting them.
I want them to be negatively impacted. Maybe a couple family members spoke publicly about what’s happening, and the rest remain silent or indifferent. My cousins are too busy with their multi million dollar AI roles to even see us non-millionaires as human.
You do realise it's the citizens that voted trump in?
And you don't have to ban them, just make them more expensive. Your US brethren did vote for tarriffs. With that comes higher prices.
It's a slow moving train wreck. I hope the consequences of these petulant actions scar the minds of voters for years to come. We're seeing the yield on treasuries creeping up, I think that's one of the consequences.
And what will make Musk's head explode: canada is starting to allow cheap chinese EVs into north america
Another Musk moment: most aluminum in the US comes from Canada. Most of Musk's vehicles are built with aluminum. These tariffs will directly increase Tesla manufacturing cost in the US, making them even less competitive.
In 2025 there was a $46 billion trade deficit with Canada.
The U.S. was already buying considerably more Canadian goods than Canada bought from it.
I've had a trade deficit with supermarkets my whole life. Not once has any one of them bought anything from me, yet I keep buying and buying...
How does that justify Canada openly lying?
How do you expect to have a trade balance with a country that is 10% of your population.
How do you expect to have a trade deficit with a country that is 10% of your population?
This reads like a non sequitur to me. What is your point?
Canada's (Carney's) framing is basically propaganda by omission.
People here in Canada have not been sitting still. It is a truely fantastic oportunity, it's almost like 10% of the US market was suddenly transported to another country for free, and all we have to do is fill it.
Canada and EU tightening their relation, pretty sure there are a lot agreements in the making. Will be great for both and appreciated by the people living in EU (and surely Canada as well).
The EU is definitely dragging its feet believing that Trump will go away and "normality" will return.
A lot of it has been half-hearted. Basically "wait out this loser and everything will go back to the way it was". A lot of Americans are leaning on this as well.
Like over the last year we (Canada) should have utterly obliterated the US from any element of the Canadian supply chain. Instead everyone just keeps expecting things to return to normal so no one makes the necessary investments to stop it at the border.
Americans voted for Trump, a child-rapist stunningly stupid criminal, twice. It should never return to the way it was.
Good luck Canada. The economy is already pretty bad and they can't win a tariff war against their largest trading partner.
American can't win a shooting war in Afghanistan. It's not actually a strong country.
Negotiating with the Trump administration is completely pointless, and can even result in your own government buildings being bombed while negotiations are still going on.
The only argument bullies understand is being punched in the face.
I wish more countries wiuld have the courage of cutting off ties with the US.
People here in Canada have not been sitting still. It is a truely fantastic oportunity, it's almost like 10% of the US market was suddenly transported to another country for free, and all we have to do is fill it.
Prepare the distilleries ...
trumps the best thing that could have happened to the rest of the world
There's a good opportunity to use that tariff money and subsidize critical exports to everywhere but USA. Europe gets cheaper minerals and Trump gets left begging China for scraps at insane prices.
If you want political gestures then impose heavy sanctions on Israel and declare that Latinos can get refugee status in Canada because of ICE. That would be an economic win too.
But the Canadian government wants to be the 51st state. They have rapidly defunded social services, expanded fossil fuels and will adopt US style militarization. In fact, purchasing those munitions from the only country that has threatened to take it over.
Sweden? Germany? Last two defense contracts negotiations…
Seems like the only thing more expensive and damaging these days than being an enemy of the US is being an ally!
Wonder how long it’ll be before Trump throws his toys out the pram again. Wouldn’t be surprised if he moans his allies have abandoned him.
Canada is the kind of ally that sends a chinese spy to NATO headquarters.
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cwymk20n0v7o
If we want to be ridiculous, should we talk about Trump sharing intelligence with Russians, causing American allies to limit intelligence sharing?
Sounds like the right move. I can only hope that the rest of us lap dogs see the (common) sense.
The USA is increasingly the source of economic and military destabliisation in the world and it's getting real hard to justify being the best little doggy for them. I'm not suggesting any action more drastic than calling a shit deal shit, and frankly it's pathetic and embarrassing that this is such a rare occurence.
And yeah, maybe some miracle corrective action will begin with a new president but the thing is, that will necessarily include restoring our "special relationship". You're better off refusing a bad deal outright, rather than trying to reneg later.
Canadian here.
The leaks surrounding the deal that was on the table earlier this week did not look promising. e.g. Locking in 15% tariff's on autos made in Canada would have resulted in slow death for the Canadian auto sector, not to mention hamstringing all of NA at a time when their only way to compete with Chinese auto makers is crushing tariffs or outright import bans. Something probably had to move here to get the deal done. Unbelievably, things went in the opposite direction.
Howard Lutnick strolled into the Whitehouse at the eleventh hour and told Trump he thought that they could get an even better deal with Canada than what was on the table[1]. Americans should probably remember this guy. His family runs Cantor Fitzgerald, who has been buying up rights to tariff refunds[2]. Companies hit by tariffs can gamble on them eventually being declared illegal, or they can sell the rights to their refunds for a smaller amount and have some degree of certainty. When tariffs are struck down in court, companies like Cantor Fitzgerald make serious bank. So, here Lutnick is again, whispering in Trump's ear, drumming up more business for his family.
Trump tends to listen to the last person who talked to him, whether it's an economist (This is unlikely, as Trump prefers not to talk to academics) or a bell hop. In this case, Lutnick got in last, Trump decided to move the goal-posts, the talks failed as a result, and now there are more tariffs that will probably be struck down by courts.
Meanwhile, in Canada, people actually seem to be happy that this deal failed. Carney has made multiple concessions over the last year and change while the U.S. has made none and just kept demanding more and more. The general sentiment was that it's time to get tough, even if that means tariffs. Reports are that the latest demands during these talks were for limits on Canada's ability to strike trade deals with other countries, exclusive U.S. access to Canadian critical minerals, and even meddling in Canada's French language laws. Any one of these things would have been seen as a deal-breaker during normal times. With the mood being what it was, they were unthinkable. The American contingent knew this, so we can only conclude they deliberately scuttled the deal.
Interestingly enough, Carney seems to have taken a page out of Trump's book by delaying retaliation until Sept. 8th, giving the Americans a deadline for a change. That leaves room for a couple of TACO Tuesdays. However, the messaging from the PM and premiers has been careful to point out that they are ready to hunker down and wait for Trump to leave office. Carney has solid support for this stance while Trump does not, even among republicans, plus the midterms are looming. Trump increasingly looks like the one without the cards.
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[1]https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/canada-us-tariff-trade-talk...
[2]https://fortune.com/2026/03/07/winners-supreme-court-tariff-...
now imagine the next level of his destructive crime-spree August 2027
because this is nothing compared to when he starts to feel his loss of power
btw there are reports he's going to use ICE to do actions NEXT to voting centers to get around "no armed agents in voting centers" to force the voting to shutdown
electrocution gloves and all
we're in the US authoritarian era, Supreme Court and Congress let it happen and now there's no undo button
If the democrats don't manage to control both houses on the midterms and IMMEDIATELLY start the impeachment procedure against trump, I will start selling my portfolio and buying gold as fast as I can.
If Trump and his cabal is left unchecked we will be running fast towards something that will make 1929 like child's play.
And no, I am not a liberal. Far from it.
At some point , looking at all the damage, it becomes hard to dismiss Trump as merely unintelligent and incapable. The other possibility is that the destruction deliberate, and the goal to end US hegemony. Would things proceed any differently if it were?
He's an agent of chaos. His decision-making process is rashly emotional and based on narcissistic needs.
Much of the self-destruction flowed from the pages of Project 2025. You can't just blame Trump: you have to include the Heritage Foundation and the entire Republican party.
This is not a problem that goes away when Trump ultimately leaves office.
Not to mention an electorate that voted for it after the entire plan was spelled out for them.
Absolutely, Trump is a symptom of the problem. The root of the problem is the moral rot of the Republican Party.
In general any deal with the other party is introducing last minute changes is one to walk away from.
And specifically any deal made with the U.S under Trump has no credibility, just ask Iran.
I think Trump is severely misreading his position in the world. It's not April 2025 anymore. There will be consequences for everyone, but I am not sure his own party will support him through this in an election year. Especially now as the last time he publicly stated he backed down because if rising bond yields, which is actually happening already before any trade war. Is he really going to start another one, already in deep trouble because of the mess he made in Iran.
I think he will cave pretty quickly and Canada knows it.
I think they'll support him through the election. If the election goes as bad as it seems likely to, that might upset the apple cart. But it's also possible that it won't, and the Republican party will just be an empty discredited husk when Trump leaves the stage a couple years later.
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.
Question for Americans: do you guys understand what's happening?
The thing to keep in mind is that the current trade agreement was negotiated and signed by Trump himself. He has spent the last 18 months seeing what a terrible deal it is. He does not want a "deal" into conventional sense, that is an agreement that works for both parties. He needs the counterparty to be humiliated and subjugated. CUSMA (the current agreement he promoted and signed) is bad because it works for all parties, it does not subjugate and humiliate the counterparties.
What happened in these particular trade negotiations? Is that the actual negotiators had something worked out earlier in the week, then at the last minute the US made some new demand that was meant to humiliate Canada, and this tanked the negotiations. What exactly did they ask for? It's irrelevant, the point was humiliation.
Actual trade policy, whether you want access to Canadian dairy market, or lumber tarrif rates or whatever, none of that matters.
Is this a common understanding down south?
Edit: after I wrote the above, it came out that the thing they demanded last minute is restricting Canada's ability to trade with other countries. Obviously, no PM would agree to such a thing, it's purpose isn't to have a deal, but as I said, subjugation and humiliation. https://www.cbc.ca/news/world/livestory/us-canada-trade-war-...
As an American, there is a lot of disinformation in the U.S. A lot of people absorb MAGA talking points. The rest of us are in a continuous state of stunned disbelief.
Trump tore down a third of the White House without permission, and somehow it doesn't set off alarm bells. He's supposed to be a steward of the government for 4 years, not a king.
This is so cute, won't bother the US in the slightest, and will be backed down from instantly. It could literally be within days.
Tariffs are the only good thing that Trump has tried to do - really driven by Bessant, the only competent person in the administration.
He's had to react to "Trump's" bizarre decisionmaking, which is really the sum of Israel's and random lobbyist's desires, which has completely thrown off his vision, but "free trade" is bullshit, only benefits big business and the market, only in the short term, and everyone always knew this. It is absolute exploitation of poverty and authoritarian regimes around the world, and ends up in US margins, not in US working people's pockets. Bessant doesn't give a shit about working people, but he gives a shit about shifting the failing US from short-termism into long-termism - and you can't do that when your population is borrowing to buy imports and not working. You are forced into using your military for conquest in order to protect your own supply chains, and your military has been corroded by the same corruption as the rest of your economy, you pay 10x as much for everything, so there was never any need for them to increase production capacity.
The anti-tariff libs are like "it's really taxes!" No shit, Sherlock. Remember when Grover Norquist wasn't the spirit of progressivism? Remember those protest movements that you hollowly ape the language of while openly opposing the policies of - the anti-globalization, anti-free trade movements? Remember how every single thing they predicted came true?
Tariffs are a tax on foreign exploitation and supply chain insecurity. We need to bring that exploitation back onshore. Cheap bullshit is of no benefit if you don't have a job.
Don't be fooled by elites in upper-middle class jobs furiously trying to ban anything that would lower their own incomes for a second - those are the same people who were telling you to learn how to code when your parents got laid off. They're the YIMBY gentrifiers of your neighborhoods. They've got hundreds of thousands or millions of $ in the market and in housing, and it's doubled and tripled while you moved back in with your parents, who can't afford their medication. When housing prices drop, they get mad. Housing prices are dropping right now, and they're getting mad.
Completely unproductive financialized ways of making money are disappearing. They've bet the farm to the tune of trillions on hundreds of giant factories dedicated to word association. If you're a desperate poor person who has made meme-y financial decisions, please sell your bitcoins and your pokemon cards. I'm not even sure if precious metals can save you. You need production to move back onshore. You probably need immigrants gone, because you might have to learn how to pick fruit if you want to be able to eat it - it's the most productive thing the US does.
Also, don't be fooled that there's some sort of economic consensus about how unwise tariffs are because you're online. Most of the people participating in that conversation are foreign elites who sell their own populations to the US for an extraordinarily luxurious living, send their kids here to go to school (and write articles about how that's somehow good for you) drive up your rents, and call you a racist for objecting - when they were literally propelled here on a cushion built by and on the slave classes of their home states. Tariffs are meant to transfer their (the few) success to you (the many) - so you can buy.
They're compradors, and they're propagandizing you for their own benefit.
After the US completely falls, and we're at 90% poverty, 9% comprador, and 1% plutocrat, they'll bring back manufacturing and sell your poverty to the flourishing Chinese middle class - a country that doesn't let the wealthy and foreign interests control its policy.
> tax on foreign exploitation
Yeah no not really because none of the tariffs seem to be tied to human rights or exploitation. Otherwise you wouldn't be putting tariffs on your close, democratic allies.
Your post is kind of anti intellectual and retarded tbh.
Under Trump, the us governments signature might as well be in pencil. This is America’s high water mark. It has lost the trust of the world. And since OpenAI and Anthropic and NVIDIA are the bulk of the hope of the American economy… America is fucked.
Canada walking away from American Bullying will go down in history of the moment the empire’s descent accelerated.
Fuck all the halfwit racists who voted for trump.
Is it Canadian dollar for US dollar? /s
Importantly Canada has committed to matching every American tariff dollar for dollar, which the US already considers unfathomable. Greer repeatedly cites that only Canada and China retaliated, which is such a weird criticism. Is he intending to compliment us?
So expect Trump to start spiralling. Also expect lots of astroturfing about how desperate Canada is and that it has no choice (one of those hilarious slop purveyors appeared below).
Canada should begin the process of withdrawing from USMCA, and the truth is that NAFTA cum USMCA has worsened Canada's lot over the past four decades compared to peers. Trade agreements with the US are worthless, and even negotiating with that Epstein pedo cabal of grifters is useless. It sounds like the Canadian team were foolishly going to give in to many things (any concession of any form always comes back to hurt you), but at the last minute Howard "Epstein Island" Nutlick swooped in and tried to extract even more, undoing it all. Which...thank you Nutlick, you disgusting greaseball. You did us a great favour.
CUsMA might be convenient re Mexico. They can consider withdrawal once a bilateral deal is reached.
Please have a look at the actual flow of trade between CAD and USA, and its components. The impact is nothing like what you suggest for the US. Canada can bend the knee to Trump, or it must gut its policies on natural resources and become an extractive economy similar to Russia pre-Ukraine war. There's no other option for Canadians and time is not on their side.
The direct impact of the Canadian economy on the US one is small, but thankfully for Canada the broader economic reality is that the US isn't picking a fight just with Canada. America is creating a lot of messes for itself around the world. The effects of any Canadian retaliation will not be felt in isolation.
Carney internally is playing to a domestic crowd that is actually more hardline on US trade policy than he has projected.
The issue with "bending the knee" so to speak is that the hardship is just as bad as the no deal situation, except with the worse outcome that Canada's future prospects for diversification are diminished.
There is hardship down both paths for Canada, but only one of those paths has a long-term future.
You're right that it likely involves a heavier investment in our own resource extraction, but that seems to be precisely what Carney is moving towards.
As for the amusing side-quip about Russia, chances are Canadians will likely look to emulate some other resource-extractive based economies, like the nordics. The issue is less the extraction and more how the wealth from that extraction gets hoarded. And there too, it would manifest as the need to move away from the American/Russian model of a small set of simple-minded, deranged oligarchs siphoning all the wealth in the economy towards themselves.
Ya know, there's not a damned thing I can do about any of this, other than TRY to get citizenship elsewhere and leave this shithole.
And fascism is taking hold lots of other places as well. Canada's a laugh, with Alberta seperatism. And they also had trump trucker caravans.
EU? They're boiling in their own juices with the fact they now need air conditioning due to climate devastation... And many countries make it illegal without health reasons.
Japan and SK are both doing very poorly. China has some of the harshest immigration.
South America is still being fucked with by the CIA and destabilization idiocy.
I understand the tune-out check-out hippie response. There's fuck-all I can do, other than watch.
Id like to suggest that you rethink your opinion on the trucker caravan protest.
It is a reasonable position to frame them as opposing authoritarian government policies and for the governments response to be overreach.
The popularity of the trucker protest made and makes sense. Big anti government movements like that attract all sorts of bad actors and the media and government worked to highlight the worst aspects of that protest.
Mentally reducing the trucker protest to "thus Canada is bad" makes you seem like the type of black and white American fool that has created the political environment in the USA.
> It is a reasonable position to frame them as opposing authoritarian government policies and for the governments response to be overreach.
What a joke. No. These people wanted to illegally take over the government. It was written down in their own damn manifesto. Last I checked, taking over a democratically elected government without an election is exactly fascism.
> The popularity of the trucker protest made and makes sense.
The trucker protest was not popular, it was extremely unpopular. It only made such news because the protesters were harassing and assaulting people and causing severe sleep deprivation. Also, it's an insult to "truckers" to call it a truckers protest. Only a very small minority of truckers actually took part. Most were working.
There is no question it was a bad look on Canada, and our police completely failed to handle it in Ottawa. We can all debate on whether the government acted appropriately, but with the Ottawa police complicit in the occupation I don't know what options there where to end it or at least shift the protest into something that wasn't infringing on the rights of the people there to live without being assaulted and threatened.
> It is a reasonable position to frame them as opposing authoritarian government policies and for the governments response to be overreach.
Well that's a big coded pile of bullshit.
What polices are "overreach"? By what standards? What authoritarian rules are being protested?
Oh that's right. It's all anti-vaxxer and 'cure yourself of Covid with bleach and ivermectin' bullshittery.
I have absolutely no fucking sympathy for a bunch of covidiots. Doubly so, since these chuckle fucks were ALSO pro-Trumpers.
> black and white American fool that has created the political environment in the USA.
And it's hilarious that you wouldn't touch the Alberta seperatism/fascist movement happening right now. You all like to pretend your shit doesn't stink... And well, I smelled it during wildfire season. Turn my sky yellow orange.
But all of this is spoken like a Republican riling shit up on Facebook.
>TRY to get citizenship elsewhere and leave this shithole.
Most of the wisest ones who had the means have already left. My heartfelt sympathies with the one who are still stuck there.
>And many countries make it [aircon] illegal without health reasons.
Name one country that has done this.
https://consumerchoicecenter.org/keeping-it-cool-removing-hu...
How about 29 countries?
"AC penetration stands only at 19% (vs. 90% US, 91% Japan). This is not a cultural inevitability but a regulatory outcome"
And specifically Geneva Switzerland, it requires medical need to install air conditioning. https://www.gazetaexpress.com/en/Why-are-air-conditioners-al...
"Our existing free trade deals already provide Canada with preferential access to 1.5 billion consumers, and we are on track to double that market access by the end of this year."
the amount of mental gymnastics needed to believe this is off the charts.
Total TDS meltdown in Silicon Valley members.
It's like they can't help insult Trump and >50% of US voters any time they get a chance.
No intellectual honesty for the fact that there's a large trade deficit with Canada, and facts are facts.
Meanwhile Trump is pushing to rekindle his love affair with Kim Jong Un.
Don’t forget, it’s the longest land border in the world, largely remote. Feels like it would be easy to work around with minimal effort.
Sure, it would be pretty easy to smuggle small, high-value items, but most of the trade volume is in large items like lumber, steel/aluminum, new vehicles, and potash, and it's pretty hard to sneak a dozen 18-wheelers across the border a day. Electricity and oil are also pretty common exports, but those are even harder to smuggle since they go across in fixed wires/pipelines.
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2025/04/trump-tari...
I have not been following the Canada thing but generally have been learning more about trade and Trump's approach seems less chaotic and random than is talked about.
US's largest trading partner is Mexico. The biggest thing we import from them is automobiles & auto-parts and the second largest is computers and electronics.
We all understand the benefits of trade is meant to bring in - such as goods manufactured by countries whose prowess making those goods better to the benefit of all.
So it's interesting to look at this example. Automobiles - does Mexico have a prowess in that segment? A tell tale sign of "no" is that Mexico has no domestic auto brand. In other words 100% of auto exports from Mexico is actually US automaker production that shifted to Mexico is persuit of cheaper labor, weaker unions, and less environmental and other regulations that gets in the way of manufacturing.
I am focusing on this example because it's the largest segment of our trade with our largest partner - literally the biggest thing the US imports is our own shifted auto production.
The second largest segment is also interesting. Mexico isn't known for its computer and electronics brands either. What's going on? Turns out that Asian manufacturers (eg Lenovo) do the very final assembly in Mexico but all the components come from Asia. It's not actually "efficient" to do this except that when assembly happens in Mexico those components magically become a "north American good" by NAFTA terms and can go all over US and Canada with no duties or tarrifs or restrictions.
So the second largest segment with our largest trading partner is Asian manufacturers exploiting a NAFTA loophole.
As an American who inherently is pro trade (I am an MBA...) this is revealing about the obvious disadvantages of how trade has been configured. The auto example is literally NAFTA being used to bypass American labor laws and environmental regulations while maintaining access to our market by American companies themselves. The electronics example is Asian companies bypassing the long standing trade conditions by whitewashing Asian products as north American goods.
It is obvious that trade pre-Trump was not set up in a smart way from American perspective. The auto is a great example: the government simultaneously made it very hard and expensive to manufacture at home, and very easy to shift to Mexico.
I don't know the details with Canada as much but I no longer assume things were working great and US is meddling lens by default.
Canada doesn't have domestic auto companies, yet we manufacture auto parts and assemble automobiles destined for the US. From my understanding, this was negotiated as part of the trade deals. There is no good reason for them to desire cheap Canadian labour, weak Canadian unions, or weak Canadian environmental regulations. For one thing, Canada is known for none of those things. On the other hand, Canada had a lot of things the US wanted: access to the Canadian market and access to Canadian resources. I wouldn't be surprised if something similar happened when trade deals were manufactured with Mexico. While Mexico isn't on the same economic tier as the US, it isn't a third world nation that people like to paint it as.
As for companies looking for loopholes, it may be fun to blame it on Asian manufacturers. I would suggest that Americans take a good long look in the mirror. US companies were outsourcing assembly to Mexico long before Mexico came under the NAFTA umbrella. Quite often, at least with electronics, those US companies were using parts manufactured in Asia. Should Asian companies hold themselves back, should they avoid using the same practices as their American counterparts, just because it isn't fair to Americans? If anything, they have less reason to because Asian countries are responsible to their own citizens, not to Americans.
Your comment sounds like you are arguing with me but you are actually agreeing.
I am not "Blaming Mexico" - I am pointing out that the policy as I described it made no sense from American perspective. You are right that the American manufacturs did assembly in Mexico (form Asian components) before as well but it's the same point - an essential Asian good masquerading and benefiting from being a "north American one"
> I have not been following the Canada thing but generally have been learning more about trade and Trump's approach seems less chaotic and random than is talked about.
Trump imposed tariffs on an island populated only by penguins.
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cly8xlj0485o
But this was the neoliberal globalist agenda for the past thirty years. Lower trade barriers, export manufacturing to low wage workers with poorer conditions. The result is lower automobile costs for American consumers at the expense of blue collar jobs evaporating.
There's a gap there. The reason automaking is expensive in the US is labor and environmental laws whose intent is to keep Americans employed at high wage and to keep the planet green.
So on one hand it's government regulation that makes us not compative. On the other hand the government doesn't ensure this happens by making it easy to bypass via mexico. So the end result is the environmental protections don't kick in and Americans don't make the high (or any) wages.
So we either drop those laws and open up trade, or we keep those laws and make it harder to bypass. Those are the two non-dumb options.
Canada should grow their population to 100-150 millions. this way it will have decent internal market and be more attractive to make trade deal with the rest of the world. Instead it relies on the US which appears to be very bad idea.
That's my view. The "Century Initiative" is being criticized for suggesting that Canada should reach 100 million by 2100. But you'd never believe it, the criticism is that this is too many people, and not many people criticise this "Iniative" as having an unambitious goal.
The criticism of the Century Initiative is that the extra 60-80 million are going to come largely from countries like India at rates that destablize Canada while further entrenching the kind of inequality that we've seen grow over the past 15 years.
The British did this to almost 20 different colonies, with the same people groups for the same reasons.
Time for Canada to cozy up closer to China, that'll end well for them I'm sure.
Yep, we’re getting low cost EVs, solar panels and a bunch more. We’re stoked.