Trudeau decided to go ahead with retaliatory tariffs even though Trump’s order includes a mechanism to escalate the rates if Canada retaliates against the U.S.
Who isn’t pulling their weight in this trading relationship?
Not how that works. Even with a "trade deficit", a trade relationship must have an element of bilaterality. You're exchanging something for something. The exception would be when one side militarily has their boot on the other side, i.e., sweatshop/imperialist relations. Which the U.S./Canada relationship is not exactly a poster child of.
Except now it will be branded FreedomFlation (TM). This is done to put our glorious Dear Leader and his pals like fElon on a pedestal! Don't worry if you and your kids go to bed hungry and have no idea if you'll keep your home tomorrow...donvict will bask in the glory of a brand new, gloriously golden 'merica.
And no complaining about it to anyone, because there will be donvict colluders to snitch on you for your thought crimes and redhatters hanging around with special uniforms to send you and your family off to glorious reeducation camps, er, centers, so you'll be thinking properly again in no time!
As a Canadian, I’ve already seen my nearest grocery store put up labels on shelves like “made in Canada” and aside from pricing it is gonna make it easier to avoid American products
I wonder how long Trump and his buddies are going to be able to ignore the mess they are making of the stock market now which hurts his businesses world supporters. It certainly is going to hurt US car companies hard.
This is all on purpose to tank the American economy and put the country in such chaos that Trump can call an emergency, suspend the constitution indefinitely and the GOP can stay in power. All the while there will be a mass redistribution of wealth so great to the already rich that everyone else will be destitute.
Don't worry comrade! This is all for the promise of making 'merica great, again! Even if market indicators under Biden were all pointing in fantastic directions, this will be even better, at some unstated time in the future, and you won't have any of that WOKEMINDVIRUS or brown people speaking funny languages or that one trans athlete to deal with no more.
Trump isn't trying to fix things. He is trying to break it all and end up a dictator. He isn't healthy so he wont live long enough to enjoy being a despot like putin. Trump honestly can't see his own death. Few can. That narcissist will die with a surprised look on his face. His father lived a long time but he wasn't a overweight coke head.
We are actually seeing the us get destroyed by a mad king. Never let conservatives forget that they ushered in a man who intentionally tried to destroy their country.
You could argue that in 2016, some conservatives voted based on promises of economic growth, job creation, or an 'outsider' shaking up the system. But at this point, it's clear that a significant portion of the movement isn't just tolerating the consequences—they’re actively embracing them.
Right-wing media outlets like Fox News are already preparing their audience for economic hardship, not by criticizing the policies causing it, but by framing it as a necessary sacrifice to achieve ideological goals—like restricting immigration. That tells us this isn’t about economic prosperity or stability; it’s about prioritizing certain cultural and political victories, even if it means making life harder for everyone.
This isn't just one politician’s recklessness; it's a broader shift in conservative politics. There’s a growing acceptance of government dysfunction, economic decline, and even authoritarian tactics—as long as it’s seen as benefiting their side. That’s what makes this moment different from 2016. It's not just that a 'mad king' is at the helm; it’s that a large segment of his supporters and media ecosystem are celebrating the chaos, rather than trying to stop it.
Yes, yes, but "Daddy's home, you guys! And he has his belt off! Yah-fucking-hoooooo! 'merica gunna be so gud noaw! Egg prices? What egg prices? Everything else is even more expensive, too, but we were for low prices before we were AGAINST them!"
This gives stupid people a real chubby, so we should all have to suffer for their stupid feels.
Not just the Conservatives; there's always a cohort of Democrats willing to side with Republicans to make sure the worst ideas make it across the finish line.
Dema haven't been "on our side" for decades. They're too busy milking the corporate teat.
With absolutely no respect, quit whining about Democrats. The are not the ones doing tariffs. They are not the ones revoking trans people's passports. They are not the ones tossing all mention of gender down the memory hole. They are not the ones trying to amend the Constitution illegally via executive order. They're not the ones allowing unconfirmed, unelected, unvetted, private citizens to take total control of the Treasury.
Apparently, the Democratic party's biggest sin was not being evil enough, since that's apparently what Trump elected.
They should have made it 26%. Trump wouldn't be able to resist upping it to 27%, and they could just spend a day reaching the logical, yet stupid, conclusion to this mess.
If we had a more representative electoral system, people could be free to vote outside the two party system. Then people could vote how they want and their vote could still be counted against the republicans if their preference didn't win.
You do support democracy right? Because democracy is not "vote for my preference or else". That is a hostage situation and should be treated as the crisis it is. Your fellow Americans are not represented by their options in the voting booth. This is a crisis!
Yet the democratic party hasn't done away with the FPTP voting system in most of the blue states they control. They wanted safe states and easy elections with no hard questions to answer. Even if it meant republicans winning it all and then some.
The United States of America is more important then the Democratic Party.
This shit has never been less relevant. Republicans will never go for this and Democrats can't find their own asses let alone win an election. This isn't happening.
Sigh. It's not like most of us don't already know all this. That's a great plan, why don't you work to make it happen? Get a third party that is not a joke and not a set of useful idiots for someone like Putin. Build from the ground up, too, not run once every four years. Start winning local elections and building a party that isn't captured by corporations, and actually is out there fighting for labor and for the middle class and can tell owner-donors to get bent when they try to send in the lobbyists. Try to get ranked order voting passed, etc.
Many of us would LOVE that. However, I don't see anyone seriously doing that. I'd love to see a million Bernies bloom, running as whatever party they unite under. That'd probably bring tears to my eyes.
All I tend to see is useless lectures on how it should be, and how voting for Democrats is "just as bad" as voting for monsters on the right, so we should all just stay home and pout and pontificate about a perfect system while the world burns under donvict. I also see a hell of a lot of single issue voters further splintering the Democratic Party on fringe identity politics stuff and demanding that others should follow them on the way out the door if the Democratic Party doesn't capitulate on some rather fringe stuff.
We only had TWO viable choices last fall. That's it. All the wishcasting in the world was not going to change that.
Kamala would have been at best delaying the inevitable. The DNC is not capable of meaningfully changing fast enough to react to the growing threat of fascism.
If this escalates, wait until Canada decides to stop buying US made weapon systems. It will be expensive and time consuming to retrain, but the US is not a reliable defense partner under the neo-Nazi GOP. The US MIC must see the writing on the wall.
Counter by decriminalizing everything to do with violations of US intellectual property. Ignore all US patents. Let Canadian drug companies make pharmaceuticals without having to pay for a US license. Let repair shops disable the DRM systems that prevent HP printers from accepting any old generic ink. Let Canadian broadcasters show US movies and TV shows without kicking back money to Hollywood. Let Canadian farmers repair their tractors without first kicking back money to John Deere. Allow anybody who wants to to jailbreak iPhones, and sell kits that allow other people to do that. Free Canadians from having to kick 30% of every purchase back to Apple in California.
That was Cory Doctorow's recent take on it too. Trump just threw out the trade agreement with Canada and Mexico he was so proud to say was his accomplishment, after renegotiating NAFTA. They really should say fine, stew in your own mess. Ignore patents, crank out cheap pharmaceuticals, forget about DRM. Nationalize US factories on their soil. Will hurt for a while until new trade is established, but there is the whole rest of the planet to trade with.
I wish this comment (merc's comment) would get bumped to the top of every post related to the tariffs. Tit for tat tariffs is stupid with predictable results. Strategic tariffs and other targeted mean of retaliation are better. Why is there only a 10% tariff on oil? Because the US needs Canada's oil. You fuck with our economy we fuck with the resources we give you at a discounted rate. Look at CUSMA (hehe. or NAFTA or whatever broken trade agreement that was) and target the industries that the (US) wanted to protect.
And for people using the tired fight analogies - just because someone tries to punch you in the face doesn't mean you punch them back in the face. You have already been training to kick them in the fucking balls.
Tit for tat tariffs is just political posturing for weak leadership.
I get what you're saying, but the US being Canada's biggest trading partner would absolutely destroy Canadian economy right together with the US economy
So from the conservative viewpoint, what is the rationale for the tariffs? Are people really supposed to believe it has something to do with fentanyl? Like do conservatives actually believe that or is there some other narrative besides Donald Trump is looking to flex his power?
a) he's intentionally weakening the US economy to both weaken establishment institutions and spread mass discontent. he wants people nice and angry and fearful for the future. so when he takes more extreme actions later on, it doesn't seem as bad. also he's probably preparing for some sort of riot movement that includes political violence in the next couple years. as the establishment gets weaker, he'll be in a better position to essentially ignore them. so for example Supreme Court says something unconstitutional? Maybe he just ignores it and enforces his will regardless
b) in the near future we may see a serious decoupling of the US economy from the world. maybe it's due a planned war or some other circumstance and this is in preparation for that. tariffs tend to cut off the economy from the outside world. it'll hurt less later on if we do some of it now
It's not conservatism, it's fascism. The strongman says jump and those loyal to him say "how high?" even when he's being stupid. There is no analysis of Trump's actions or why people go along with it beyond that.
For the most part it's not getting the kind of attention you might expect, they are seeing this as all "part of the plan" and celebrating their great trade-warrior leader punishing the "bad guys" and the white house has deliberately withheld a LOT of the information about what's going on. Most of the breaking stories we've gotten have been from foreign press. We didn't even hear the tariff schedule until fucking France media issued stories.
There is not going to be the satisfaction we all hope for, not until there's literally a new dust-bowl as we get ravaged by a new great depression, which as bad as it could be, might be our only hope for a more balanced political system going forward. I hate that these clowns have made me into an accelerationist but here are.
Back in 1890, there was no income tax. The federal government was funded through tariffs. With the upcoming rewrite of the tax code, the current administration needs new revenue, and trariffs are one of the few the president cab levy unilaterally.
I think the idea is to let trump continually be the one who escalates, with the hope that the American public notice it's him and not those evil Canadians who are stealing America's trade deficit.
The very best thing that can happen for our future is for these tariffs to have disastrous consequences. It will suck for all of us and people will suffer needlessly, but we're here because people have lost all sense of consequence and think this is all semi-fake WWE roleplay and that their "side" is somehow destined to win some great ideological battle.
If we crash and burn as a nation and hit a new great depression, I like to think that people may generally put more thought into who they elect to represent their needs.
Either way we're cooked, so I would like to see some good come from this.
Stockpile about a month's worth of food and fresh water and get a gun.
No, he's using his imaginary fentanyl-from-Canada crisis to do an end run around that.
It's the same shit he does to his contractors: agree to a deal, then once the work is done find some fake "flaw" that justifies him demanding compensation. There's a reason why nobody in New York was willing to take contracts for his buildings.
I don't think it's void exactly - there's some stuff around visas that's still active. But yeah, as far as being a trade agreement it's pretty worthless.
Personnaly I would put a mirror tarrif. Tax the stuff going out to USA. Canadian economy will slow down, don't make life more expensive for Canadians. And that way Americans might notice it faster if they pay 50 percent more.
The problem here, specifically, is that once imported items go up in price, there needs to be regulations that blocks local manufacturers from just upping their prices to match. Otherwise the imported items are still a viable purchase and tariffs will not work as a counter measure.
If it were an actual shooting war, Canada would have to surrender within days. Virtually the entire population lives within a two hour drive of the border, and the US military is orders of magnitude bigger than the Canadian military.
But, while the US could easily conquer Canada militarily, the guerilla war would be another matter.
The US/Canadian border is the longest land border in the world. The US could do nothing to stop Canadians from entering the US. And, once Canadians were inside the US, there's no way to tell a Canadian from an American. South Park lied, not all Canadians have floppy heads. Once inside the US, guns are freely available to everybody. Plus, the market is so open, it's easy to get what you need to make bombs.
So, imagine the "Troubles" in Northern Ireland, but spread out throughout the entire US. The American psyche is not prepared for that. Americans have been in all kinds of wars, but the last time Americans had a war on home soil was the US Civil War. Just look at the overreaction to a mere 3000 people dying on September 11th. Decades later and the ripples are still being felt.
And, that's not even considering that probably more than half the US wouldn't support an attack on Canada, and a significant fraction would help Canadians with sabotage and other guerilla activities.
As chaotic and norms-breaking as Trump is, I have to think someone would stop him before he actually went into a shooting war with Canada.
I’m so upset at my Canadian family members who supported Trump.
I got an uncle who was constantly saying he supports trump cause he’ll “run the country the country like a business” - i don’t think either trump or him actually understand business all that well.
I hope Canadian-European relations get stronger, and hopefully Canadian-American relations will be rebuilt once this fucker is gone
"Run the country like a business" is the dumbest thing ever. If the government was run like a business they'd raise taxes because what business doesn't want to increase revenue? There would also be an open door immigration policy, because what business turns away potential customers?
Personally I want the government run like a non-profit organization whose goal is to make my life better, but that's just me.
he supports trump cause he’ll “run the country the country like a business”
THIS MOTHERFUCKER BANKRUPTED A CASINO.
People say they want him to run the country like a business, but that man bankrupted a money printing machine, probably because he was doing all kinds of illegal shit and didn't actually run his business like a business. Why would he run a money printing country any different than his money printing business.
My dumbass uncle feels the same way as yours, and I have to bite my tongue so after to remind him that he and trump have something in common: they both embezzled from their company until it died.
"We’ll see what shithead Trump retaliates with tomorrow. The only way to stop the maniac is with a bullet!"
"Have you noticed how shithead has not left the White House since he was sworn in?"
"Trudeau is doing a great job!" (Referring to the presser)
I'm glad I don't have your family OP
Edit - for the kids out there my mum is 74. She's a baby boomer. Some of them are good people. They are not well off. I told my parents with the tariffs coming if they find themselves struggling to let me know because I will help in any way I can.
Does your uncle realize trump was able to bankrupt a casino? Where they can can almost literally print money. And not just one, but three of them. This man is literally one of the most inept businessmen I have ever seen.
Do you tell him that Trump has filed for bankruptcy six times with his companies? What does that say about his business acumen? How often has your uncle filed for bankruptcy?
I'm up in the middle of nowhere Ontario in the north surrounded mostly by trees and lakes and not even remotely close to anything American .... but yet I still have a few friends and family who love your dumb orange beanbag president.
I don't understand the pull that this idiot has on people or the millionaires and billionaires that pour their money into him for some god forsaken reason.
Trump started it, now is not the time to think how this is bad. You need to choose a side and act accordingly with countermeasures, which will likely escalate further.
You would be surprised what people have time to think about while browsing their phone on the throne.
If you think Ukraine consumes 100% of his thoughts then you are not giving puttin enough credit. He isn't infamous because he is dumb, he is infamous because he is cunning, underhanded, and brutal in what he does.
Yes, it's Putin who's totally controlling trump and making him do tarrifs. After all, Putin leads hamas, putin did 9/11, putin killed millions in Iraq, Putin killed millions the middle east, Putin's funding UAE and Israeli genocides against Sudan and Palestine How peaceful the world would be without Putin /s
Now that is a leader! His comments underline the senselessness of these tariffs:
“If President Trump wants to usher in a new ‘golden age’ for the United States, the better path is to partner with Canada not to punish us. Canada has the ingredients necessary to build a booming and secure partnership for the North American economy and we stand at the ready to work together.”
“We will stand strong for Canada. We will stand strong to ensure our countries continue to be the best neighbours in the world.”
How could you not ask for a better friend even when you're (US) being an asshole?
The Trump administration says it put the tariffs in place to force China, Mexico and Canada to stop the spread and manufacturing of fentanyl, in addition to pressuring Canada and Mexico to limit any illegal immigration into the United States.
Can anyone else see any actual logic to this? Do the Trump Republicans really believe this, or are they just saying it? What do they really want to achieve, apart from Trump being able to see himself as a tough guy?
The majority of fentanyl being smuggled into America is being smuggled in by American citizens. It's not like cocaine or cannabis. You can smuggle a huge amount of fentanyl in a tiny bottle. Why risk sending it with an undocumented person?
Saw a policy expert say it's a mixture of 3 things really:
Trump likes to blame outsiders for problems and this is well received by his loyal base and gives off strongman vibes
long term plan to switch from income tax (scales the more you earn) to consumption taxes (the poorer you are the more you pay for for consumption, relatively speaking) which benefits the rich at the expense of the poor. this wealth transfer is easier to sell when the populace is focused on outsiders
Oh god why would you ever switch from income tax to consumption tax when you have fuck all social safety nets and so many people living paycheck to paycheck. Its actually so evil. I hope he gets beheaded.
Lol on the switch from income tax. I haven't heard a peep about that since before the election. Everything is just going to cost more now and I'm still going to be paying income taxes.
They absolutely want to implement a national sales tax. They've been talking about it for a very long time and now they have the power to do it. And it's very much a "fuck the poor" policy.
Tarrifs get paid to the Treasury, the Treasury is getting controlled by Musk and Trump, they can take whatever they want from those funds. Whos going to stop them? The Supreme Court takes bribes which can come from the same pot.
He just needs to keep a bit of support until all angles are secured. So he just spreads lies and blames everything on people here illegally to keep people pitted against each other. The largest source of illegals in this country is from overstaying Visas, the thing they are expanding to higher numbers.... Aka more people to keep blaming shit on while putting on a show of deporting the ones that are already here.
Honestly doesn't look like they'll need much time to accomplish it.
Or they are just thinking of a quick cash grab ... gut the system and get as much wealth out of everything and everyone as fast and as much as possible ... let it all crash then abandon everything with all their money and let someone else fix everything.
A. Enact sales tax on poor people so that they can fund further corporate tax cuts
B. Ruin relationships with the closest American allies as that is a net benefit for geopolitical rivals like Russia, who Trump is demonstrably in bed with
C. Market value collapse let's all the rich cronies that have crawled up Trump's asshole buy out what's left of America's assets at fire sale prices. 10 richest men doubled their wealth during covid. They want that to happen again.
I'mma let you in on a secret: Fentanyl basically is only a meaningful threat to addicts who don't know what they were taking. And if we actually cared about them, we would pump a fraction of a percent of our military budget into rehab and therapy to help them kick the habit and put narcan (sp?) in every emergency first aid kit right next to the defib. Beyond that, it is just an excuse for why a cop beat his wife or murdered a black kid.
As for what they ACTUALLY want to achieve? Saw an analyst hypothesize (on bluesky) that the real goal was the 10% tariffs. Put those on and drop them after vague claims of getting something in return (comparable to South America... fucking earlier this week?). It makes trump look "hard on China" while destabilizing relations between North America and later NATO. And it would result in basically every company jacking up their prices to pass that on to the consumer and then never lowering them because capitalism.
End result? increased profits for the oligarchs who jacked up their "made in America" products even more than the 10% they were now paying on materials and components.'
As for this? I don't like seeing my retirement funds go down the toilet (and am not optimistic they are ever coming back up this time) but fuckin' a. Burn it to the ground. It will hurt the little guy but it will hurt the 0.0000001%ers even more. The world is going to be on fire and have no water by the time I am eligible to take cash out of my 401k without penalties anyway.
That said? I assume he wants his base to believe the reason why groceries are still expensive is because Canada and Mexico just love fentanyl so much and they hate America. And his base will eat it up while the same useful idiots make sure the left is united against the Democrats (who do fucking suck but...).
These tariffs are a way for Trump to tax his population so he can fund whatever he pleases. And the majority of his population don't even understand this 25pct tax is going from their pocket straight into his.
Trump is still butt hurt about world leaders, especially Justin Trudeau, laughing at him and making fun of him behind his back. The tarrifs are a way to generate funds to pay for tax breaks for the rich. It will also allow American companies to raise prices, and profits, without the cheaper Canadian products and with less supply so more demand. It's a bit of him being a bully, a bit of revenge, but mostly, like everything else he is doing, it's about allowing the wealthy to loot the country bankrupt while burning the thing to the ground and enriching himself.
That's just how it's spelled in some places, namely large parts of Canada. Which is likely where this article is from considering the website has Toronto in the name and is talking about the prime minister of Canada.
How so? These would increase demand for things produced in Canada, not really harm America. These are retaliatory tariffs, so the latter is the point here.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but for things that are made in both Canada and the US, if you increase demand for the version made in Canada, your country benefits, while hurting the US, since less is sold, so less money earned. Citizens are the ones paying tariffs anyway
All we need to look up is the fact that Biden kept a lot of Trump's tariffs. That's not a slander on Biden, just fact. Most people don't understand that you can't just shock entire industries overnight with knee jerk trade policies.
Someone explain why he is going after Canada? The US has benefitted from having the safest borders in the world and this dolt wants to jeopardize that.
So from my understanding and the consensus from Reddit/Lemmy when Trump first announced tariffs is this will only hurt consumers because the companies will pass the cost onto the consumer. Now that Canada is doing the same does this means that they are also passing a secret tax to their consumers as well? I'm not Canadian but I thought they were having a hard time with their economy right now so is this the best move to make for the consumer?
Trump is putting tariffs on things Americans buy from overseas that he believes should be made in America. The gamble is that companies that makes those products will choose to open factories/production in the US in response to the tariffs, which will create new jobs and growth in the country.
In comparison, retaliatory tariffs suggested by Trudeau and Sheinbaum are going to impact high demand goods that Americans import that would be very difficult to source in the US (or elsewhere in the world) in the short term. There is unlikely to be significant impact to the Canadian or Mexican economies because Americans must purchase those items and absorb the extra costs.
An example is cars, which can move back and forth across the border many times during assembly. Car manufacturers must simply absorb those extra costs due to the tariffs now.
That's a good question, but it seems Canada tariffs will not be broad-based like US is doing. Instead limited to items that are either not critical consumer items, or can be sourced elsewhere at similar cost.
I imagine you have a fridge, a stove, and know how to cook. Sometimes you cook at home, sometimes you eat out.
Let’s say that you want to stop eating out, or maybe save money, or maybe you do it just because it’s fun: each time you order out, you put 25% of the bill in a jar at home.
Eating out becomes more expensive for you (now that you need to pay the jar), but the restaurant makes the same money. In the long term, the restaurant might loose out on money if you decide that paying the jar is too expensive and you just decide to cook at home. But hey! You have a jar full of money at home. Maybe you’ll do something with it one day.
Replace the jar with tariffs and cooking out with whatever we buy from around the world and you have what’s happening now.
Except the money in the jar doesn't belong to you, it goes to the government.
The thing people struggle to understand about the economy (especially in individualist USA) is that you're not the only one making these decisions.
Imagine the government taxes some restaurants, but doesn't tax others, what would you do? Go to the restaurant that's not taxed because it's cheaper, right? Problem is everyone else does the same thing. The restaurant is too full. Then what happens? That restaurant raises prices because it's in higher demand for what they're selling. Rules of supply and demand. So now you have some restaurants charging more because there's been a tax slapped on them, and the ones that aren't being taxed raising their prices because they can't instantly expand the restaurant to meet the new demand for their products over their competitors.
And will those restaurants expand? Only if they know the government won't remove the tax on their competitors. But is anyone going to make significant investments trusting that impulsive Trump won't change policies in the future? Nope.
So everything is going to cost more. But US businesses will probably make record profits, and that's what really matters, right?