Trump is so horrible he got Americans to side with the country putting retaliatory tariffs on them.
Also it should be pointed out that Trump essentially declared war on an ally because he wanted to seize Canadian land.
Any talk about drug trafficking is silly since the first thing Trump did was pardon one of the biggest drug traffickers in the world, Ross Ulbricht
Wait, the Dread Pirate Roberts got pardoned? How does that fix anything???
It makes Trump more money.
How did it fix anything for the rest? Ha
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.
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.
Oh, look, “both sides bad”, the reason we’re all here.
They are both bad and have a massive overlap. But yes one party is clearly better and at least tries to help however flawed it may be.
Still both Dems and Republicans are ruled by the elite and the interests of the oligarchy. That’s clear and part of the problem. Until we change how our elections work though it’s in everyone’s best interest to vote for the democratic party
Jfc this is the fault of republicans. It’s not always both sides.
I’m sure the Kamala timeline would have been Just As Bad ™.
That’s a nonexistent timeline (hence, why it didn’t happen). She threw the election. This is the Kamala timeline, in that sense, this is how she played the election.
The sooner you people accept that the reason they all support the same genocide is that they’re all working together, the sooner we can start actually solving the problem of our society being absolutely controlled. This big theatrical spectacle of King Trump Destroys The Economy - he is continuing all the same imperial dealings as Biden, because the actual machinery of the empire is sitting there untouched. Netanyahu is his first meeting with a foreign ruler, like what, Tuesday I think?
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.
Delaying the inevitable seems like a much better option than, you know, the inevitable
“we’re all gonna die one day, why delay the inevitable”
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.
Infinite % tariffs?
That is amazing idea
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.
We really should have gone with the Gripen.
The Saab Gripen is one of the best deals available and there should have been more customers.
American here.
Don’t counter with tarrifs. Counter with embargoes. Trump loaded you a gun and handed it to you. Pull the fucking trigger already.
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.
Nationalize US factories on their soil
This is extreme and could warrant an invasion from the US. Wars have been fought for less. Look at what happened to Guatemala when they wanted to take back some of the half off their farmland owned by Chiquita.
Canada is a mid-sized power but not really in a position to flaunt US power like that
I know, it’s a nuclear option. Seriously shouldn’t put that card down right off. And yeah, hasn’t gone well for any central or south american government that the US has destabilized or overthrown due to some large corporation’s interests. But as all this garbage escalates, bringing up the possibility could make owners and shareholders squirm a bit. It hurts them financially, the only thing that would make them care. People who Trump might (might, small chance) listen to. But before that point? Those companies can produce all kinds of things. Doesn’t mean Canada or Mexico have to let those goods go out across their borders. Their trade agreement has been torn up by Trump again. And you know that bureaucracy is complicated, things get held up in customs sometimes, occasionally for very very long times. Paperwork gets lost… When companies here in the US are screaming about their supply lines breaking down again, now because of HIS stupid tariff war, there will be some negative political fallout. Trump’s ego and image are vulnerable things despite all the bluster. He won’t back down, but he could pivot to something else and let this nonsense drop.
the rest of the world is too chicken shit. there is no rest of the world to trade with as the us cries to everyone that they need to embargo nation X.
Counter by giving Luigi Mangione diplomatic immunity.
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.
Sounds like heaven to me
We’re doing both. Both BC and Ontario are cutting off American Booze. That’s gonna hurt American company’s hard.
My hope if Trump keeps it up we cut off the power, and better yet the gas. Although that might make him try to invade or something.
Up next will be him calling Canadians Nazis and trying to annex Quebec.
My hope if Trump keeps it up we cut off the power, and better yet the gas. Although that might make him try to invade or something.
I think US history is clear. Mess with the US oil supply and you get the smoke.
I think US history is clear. Invade Canada and your capital gets the smoke.
Touché. I concede on this point. Let the Americans fear Canada burning down the capital again.
And it burned burned burned. I’ll bet that made them mad!
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
The Canadian economy will be ruined by any kind of half-measures.
Don’t negotiate with a fascist state. Cut them off, recall ambassadors, and cease all joint military operations.
Trump will never do anything to benefit Canada, so why give him an ounce of cooperation?
Because we still need our own economy?
If Canada 100% stops trading with the US it will wreck havoc on the economy. Sure, it’ll hurt the US too, and yes, it’s a fascist state at this point, but you still gotta live, eat, etc…
Brother, your economy is getting gigafucked by Trump either way.
You can slow-roll it, with the impact lasting decades, or the world can sign up for one shitty month that will result in Trump being neutered by Congressional Republicans who are terrified of 2026.
Brother, your economy is getting gigafucked by Trump either way.
If someone shoots at you, you don’t shoot yourself in the foot to spite them. Canada is reliant on US trade. Cutting it off entirely would cause a serious economic shockwave that’s hard to understate.
the world has too many right wing govs currently to handle any fallout form such efforts. they no doubt don’t see benefits; they just have no idea how to actually govern and are just in it for the cash.
You know what’s frustrating in all that? Is that our leaders won’t do jack shit to diversify the economy.
Nothing has changed much during COVID and nothing will change now.
People will suffer and nothing will change.
Countries trade with the countries closest to them because the realities of logistics overpower politics or whatever ideals people might have. There are a few exceptions of course. Cuba doesn’t do a lot of trade with the countries closest to them. But they aren’t doing that well. The UK had an idea about diversifying their trade to be more about trade with non-european countries, but that didn’t go well either.
Geography is a bitch. You can’t physically move a country to another part of the globe, you have to deal with the countries near to you whether you like it or not.
Grow a spine and make it 100 percent. The quicker trumps masters learn it wont work the better.
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.
That’s an emotional response. You don’t win with emotion, you win with a pragmatic strategy.
Don’t push your mental state on me.
Tariffs hurt the country imposing them the most
Go tell that to the idiots who think that the tariffs are paid by the companies exporting the goods.
Nah, keep shtum on that one until people in the US start to flip out
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?
or is there some other narrative
I believe a couple different things
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
He’s talking about Canada being 51st state. So not sure if he wants to just annex Canada.
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.
Tariffs are essentially a shitty sales tax. I’ve read it described as a way to switch the US federal funding from I come tax to a hidden sales tax.
The revenues will also be much much lower, which is why they need to eliminate every federal bureau.
Yeah I’m confused because this is going to ruin American billionaires. Doesn’t maga worship billionaires?
If you have the money to ride it out you can buy the country for pennies on the dollar.
I had to chuckle about this comment. I said that same thing in a rant to family and friends last night including using the words “for pennies on the dollar”
honestly countries affected should just go the nuclear route and embargo the US. in retaliation. Canada especially.
Yes it will fuck both sides, but it’ll get the point across these tariffs are stupid
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.
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.
Does this break/invalidate the existing free trade agreements between the countries? Does this mean that NAFTA and TRUMPFTA are now void?
No, silly, this means America is Great Again. /s
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.
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.
Nobody sid it would only hurt consumers
It would hurt consumers first which is why the majority of the canadian tariffs are delayed 21 days
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?
But a more accurate example for America would replce the kitchen at home with just microwave
America destroyed their manufacturing capacity outsourcing it all and failed to reinvest any of the profit from that move
Factories don’t pop up like in the sims games
Same thing for all the skills. You don’t basically deskill everyone over the decades and expect that to be available again overnight.
True. Microwaves, tv dinners, and hot pockets.
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.
Hopefully this trade war doesn’t devolve into an actual war…
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.
Possibly why he decided not to tax energy.
10% instead of 25% on the US side.
Talk about working to lower prices 🤥
Ah, so America will hardly notice.
How long does it take to reach the US? Couple months?
Didn’t he resign?
He announced he’ll resign as Liberal leader as soon as the Liberals choose a new leader. That could take weeks or months.
Once his party picks a new leader, yes.
Whatever happened to the good old days where rulers would simply abdicate their position and plunge their land into chaos 😡
An interim leader could have been chosen but it would have been disastrous at this point in time.
We also have a very different political system compared to the US.
