The world should've collectively recognised what Liberation Day was and responded together, in lock step, and in kind.<p>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.<p>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.
>> India of course caved and so on,<p>India and US still have not signed any trade deal. Not sure what's the basis of your comment.
they carved because most of those places want access to the 'yuuuge' US market.<p>politics vs reality. they could correct though by selling US treasuries - but that would make the world economy sneeze which might result in pneumonia.
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.<p>What are we waiting for.
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.
> What are we waiting for.<p>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.
Honestly, if Trump keeps giving intelligence to Ukraine against Russia, then it was worth paying the (idiotic) tariffs.<p>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.<p>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.
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.<p>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.<p>As for other countries around the world, the world-wide inflation caused many ruling parties to lose support.
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?<p>Not saying I agree with it, because it sends the wrong signal, but I can understand the reasoning at least.
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.<p>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.<p>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.<p>* <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peace_for_our_time" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peace_for_our_time</a>
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.
Exactly. You can't assume it's a new normal until Trump is out of office.
His re-election suggests we need to. Even if good times return, we can now never be sure the bad are more than one election cycle away, and given the USA's bicameral government and staggered elections, that means 2 years, not 4.
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.<p>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.<p>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').<p>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.<p>(It seems to me - I have no expertise in this area.)
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.<p>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.<p><i>PM Carney announces largest clean energy investment in North American history</i> - <a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49339577">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49339577</a> - August 2026<p><i>China and Canada Energy Pact as Canada Aims to Cut Reliance on US</i> - <a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46640932">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46640932</a> - January 2026 (a component of China’s next five year plan includes LNG infra investment to support imports from Canada)<p>On Eurobonds:<p><i>Macron says €300B in EU savings sent to the US every year will be invested in EU</i> - <a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46722594">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46722594</a> - January 2026 (207 comments)<p><a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46708337">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46708337</a><p>(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
That multipolar world mandate you mentioned is already here today. That was the outcome of the actions of this US federal administration. Trust and cooperation is done for a half decade or more. The world can’t trust this administration for the remainder of the administration, and they can’t trust the US electorate to elect adults for the next administration. Countries can either accept it and take action to manage their risk (redirect investment to continue to decouple, trade deals with rational counterparties) to attempt to achieve a favorable outcome, or not and experience the potential natural consequences.<p><a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43284950">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43284950</a> - March 2025<p>> “How can I decouple from the US as fast as possible?” is what this leads to.<p>> Diplomacy is the art of saying “good dog” until you make it to the rock. The US will apply pressure for short term gain against allies while they move away long term.
Couldn't the US buy back more bonds through QE than any foreign country could sell?
Debasing the currency is equivalent to a soft default, and would accelerate investment away from the dollar and treasuries. Mechanically, certainly, it can be done, but investors won’t do nothing while the US inflates their asset value away. They’ll take the loss (which they’d take anyway from monetizing the debt) and reallocate elsewhere.<p>Part of the reason Ray Dalio was on Bloomberg saying to sell bonds and buy gold or Bitcoin. Treasuries used to be where capital would “flee for safety” and that concept is breaking down.<p><i>Dalio Says Sell Bonds, Buy Gold, Bitcoin as Debt Crisis Looms</i> - <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2026-08-21/dalio-says-sell-bonds-buy-gold-bitcoin-as-debt-crisis-looms" rel="nofollow">https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2026-08-21/dalio-say...</a> | <a href="https://archive.today/jlUBA" rel="nofollow">https://archive.today/jlUBA</a> - August 21st, 2026
The world collectively had so much trade barriers for US goods and services and still has. They just weren’t direct like tariffs.
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'?<p>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.
indeed. i'm sure he's surrounded by some lumber moguls stateside that are going to get very rich from this. very russia coded.<p>i don't doubt deregulation on clearcutting as well as removing land ownership and no logging in national forests & protected lands.... are around the corner with this admin. feel like they attempted that during his last term with attempting to disgrace park rangers over wildfires and saying they didn't rake the leaves on the ground or whatever.
They already started by shrinking national monuments.<p><a href="https://www.npr.org/2026/07/14/nx-s1-5893397/trump-again-shrinks-utah-national-monuments" rel="nofollow">https://www.npr.org/2026/07/14/nx-s1-5893397/trump-again-shr...</a><p>EDIT: Adding a TL:DR, this article explains how the Trump admin reduced the size of two national monuments by 90% and 91% respectively. This is just one example, there are more and most of them are out west in lands untouched for nearly a century. Saved for posterity because once they're gone, they're gone.
This is extremely partisan language, it shouldn't be on Hacker News
I think the clamoring of the aesthetic of impartiality is destroying interesting discussion. The president is currently lining his pockets with tax payer dollars and being an overall bumbling buffoon. It is not partisan when the would view the US as weaker, less intelligent, and less reliable. Its consequences of inaction and bad policy of the current administration
My friend, sometimes the truth is partisan. And in those cases it absolutely belongs on HN.
Oh no! Not the implosion of democracy in real time!
You should try programming language X vs language Y, cloud vs on-prem, Framework A vs Framework B, OOP vs Composition etc., etc. HN is as partisan as it gets.
People still happily buy his tokens though, and then blame China for getting scammed.
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.
> <i>“motivated entirely … to stuff his pockets”</i><p><i>Someone's</i> pockets, must be gnomes:<p>• PHASE 1: COLLECT UNDERPANTS. <i>(tariff "foreign" goods desired by Americans, collect upon import from companies, clarify spiked prices experienced by consumers ‘entirely’ due to prior admin policies)</i><p>• PHASE 2: … <i>(let simmer)</i><p>• PHASE 3: PROFIT. <i>("return" tariff costs to companies)</i>
The underpants gnomes. Well played!
April 2: Trump "liberates" Americans from low-cost goods by placing tariffs at 46% on Vietname<p>May 16: Vietnam approves $1.5B Trump hotel project (<a href="https://apnews.com/article/vietnam-trump-golf-estate-investment-f2aa09af5467654dff4dcf19fcdc25c9" rel="nofollow">https://apnews.com/article/vietnam-trump-golf-estate-investm...</a>)<p>July 2: US lowers tariffs on Vietnam to 20% (<a href="https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/DCPD-202500738/pdf/DCPD-202500738.pdf" rel="nofollow">https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/DCPD-202500738/pdf/DCPD-...</a>)
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.
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There was significant talk about market manipulation - he knows what he's going to tariff and how that'll affect the stock market, so he can buy low and sell high without any risk, because he is effectively the dominant market force right now
> Which one is this? Can you explain? Do his family members own Vietnamese lumber farms or something?<p>Love the see-how-ignorant-I-am type of comments.
Maybe US lumber producers lined his pockets. Probably not.
How it seems to work from his past attempts is that the business pays a bribe to try to lift it
It's true, not everything he does is to stuff his pockets, a lot of it is just to fluff his ego or avenge perceived slights.
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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.<p><a href="https://annas-archive.gl/md5/2275fbf2d96f518e54c2b72edf163f85" rel="nofollow">https://annas-archive.gl/md5/2275fbf2d96f518e54c2b72edf163f8...</a>
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.<p>Two things that will prevent that:<p>- inertia<p>- 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%.
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.
Both an American and a Canadian could reference Donald for the same reason: Donald imposed the tariffs.<p>Canada also participates in trade, is located in the same geographic continent, and is also suffering housing issues.<p>I too struggled to identify which “our” the comment referred to
Do you think Canada doesn’t have 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.<p>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.
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.<p>But you burn the ability to make more deals with the same counterparty again.<p>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.<p>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).<p>His second weapon is throwing a monkey wrench into the works after agreeing to something. Keep the opponent on their back heel.<p>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.<p>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).<p>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.
Lumber is not part of these tariffs. These are on a narrow set of products.<p>Lumber is a different long standing trade dispute going back to the 80s unrelated to the industries targeted by the 50% tariffs.<p>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.<p><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canada%E2%80%93United_States_softwood_lumber_dispute" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canada%E2%80%93United_States_s...</a>
True but it won’t stop price gouging or as the company uses have been calling it price blending.
This does not seem to be accurate, from the reporting I've read. Do you have a source?
This article lists the specific industries. Lumber is not one of them. It lists<p>Motor Vehicles, Alcohol, and Dairy as the largest industries.<p><a href="https://www.newsweek.com/full-list-of-us-trade-tariffs-hitting-canada-from-today-12355633" rel="nofollow">https://www.newsweek.com/full-list-of-us-trade-tariffs-hitti...</a>
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.<p>I tried to do some more research before my coffee finishes in 5 minutes, you're right it's not <i>ALL</i> 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.<p><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2026/08/21/world/canada/trump-tariffs-trade-no-deal-carney-canada.html" rel="nofollow">https://www.nytimes.com/2026/08/21/world/canada/trump-tariff...</a>
These are preexisting trade issues that were being negotiated. The new 50% tariffs are on other industries. Lumber trade issues predate this administration, and aren’t involved in the new 50% that’s put on $20B on other industries.<p><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canada%E2%80%93United_States_softwood_lumber_dispute" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canada%E2%80%93United_States_s...</a>
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.
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
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Idk man I just took a trip to Forks, WA and the amount of lumber they had and were processing up there was insane
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.
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.
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.
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.<p>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]:<p>"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."<p>[1] _ <a href="https://www.pm.gc.ca/en/news/statements/2026/08/21/statement-prime-minister-carney-canada-us-trade-negotiations" rel="nofollow">https://www.pm.gc.ca/en/news/statements/2026/08/21/statement...</a>
I would not call it good relationship, US just stopped pretending, that is all. They were always a global threat. I am happy US delusions finally forced everyone to stop pretending too, because the cost of it got too large. Splendid.
Being a global threat but "pretending" so well to be a good faith actor that people treat you and engage with you as a good faith actor, is literally the same as just <i>being</i> a good faith actor.<p>The US was a good faith actor, especially relative to its power. Now it is not. It is not good for the world's most powerful military and economy to stop "pretending" to be a good faith actor, and it is not something you should find any joy in.
Above all the US was a <i>predictable</i> actor. Sure, its terms of trade were designed to favour US companies and maybe it wasn't <i>fair</i> that you had to be an exceptional diplomat to stay on amicable terms with them if you were at least notionally a radical socialist whilst the brutal dictatorship next door got a free pass on its excesses because it had <i>defeated</i> the radical socialists or was open to US investment and fully committed to keeping the oil flowing, but you knew what they wanted from you.<p>I mean, in a way Trump's tendency to back out of everything, good or bad and base his entire foreign policy relationship with your country based on who he last spoke to <i>is</i> predictable, but predictable in a way the only winning move with US relationships is not to play<p>I'll throw in China, which might want whats best for Chinese influence even more than it wants to sell you cheap consumer goods, but it's also very, very <i>predictable</i> in what it wants from any sort of international agreement with you and these days has an abundance of capital and the ability to sell you most things the US can sell you for less...
Ah yes, Disney's Frozen philosophy. "Let's stop pretending having to much power is a curse."
> All this is going to achieve is pushing Canada much closer to other countries<p>The world is watching this story just like the world watched Davos.<p>Last night will encourage further decoupling of the US for nations other than Canada.<p>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.<p>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.
> 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.<p>Unfortunately, Canada (where I live) will feel way more pain from this than the US. I am not sure Trump will have respect for this at all, but the alternative was to put in a permanent trade deal that significant disadvantaged Canada.
I know that this is insanely complex with everybody protecting their own economies, but I think this is where middle powers working together more strongly could help. Imagine that Canada, the EU, and Britain worked together as an economic NATO, where a tariff attack on one is a tariff attack on all. It would hurt the US much more to bully one of these economies.
Canada and the EU already have a trade agreement since 2016. The UK economy is about 1/5th that of the EU, not enough to move the dial, and they kind of went off in the opposite direction around that same time...
You'd need n^2 "NATO"'s then, because EU has implemented many really shitty policies too and someone would want to fight back against that too. UK may do the same.<p>And we already have an actual NATO example, where one member attacks countries around the world, one of those countries fights back, threathening to attack american bases even in europe if needed... and now other nato members might get involved in a war that was started by one of it's own members, that no one else really wanted, and side on the side of the agressor ( <a href="https://www.aa.com.tr/en/europe/nato-chief-reaffirms-alliance-s-support-for-bulgaria-amid-iran-threat-concerns/4033057" rel="nofollow">https://www.aa.com.tr/en/europe/nato-chief-reaffirms-allianc...</a> ). To turn back into economics, what happens when EU declares an "economic war" against china, china retalites (by eg. banning exports of something we really need)... does canada go along and threathen it's own economy? Or do they form a new "NATO" with "everyone-else except EU"?
As a Canadian, I am willing to suffer if it means long term benefits.<p>Carney is very popular for a reason.
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.<p>Most obviously Southern Ontario is living in a dreamland where inexplicably ICE autos remain a viable industry ad infinitum.<p>Some forced reality, by any means, will in the long run prove to be welcome.
That will continue with only cars made in Canada not having Canadian tariffs. You make 100,000 cars in Canada everything above that amount is subject to tariffs.
The last ~60 years have been a process by which the North American auto industry has been so heavily integrated that there is no such thing as a car made entirely in one country or another, especially in the Detroit–Windsor corridor.<p>Canada has manufacturers that the US doesn't (and won't for at least 5 years) and vice-versa.
Autos are more obvious than the dairy industry, even though Trump claimed a couple of days ago that the reason there was an imminent deal is because Canada allegedly agreed to eliminate dairy tariffs? Trade negotiations have stalled almost certainly because Canada isn't actually willing to give up dairy tariffs.
Plausible.<p>The Quebec PM did say that if the dairy industry wasn't happy they wouldn't put US alcohol badk on the shelves, which would have effectively killed the whole thing.<p>While a factor I doubt this is the whole story though.
<i>> While a factor I doubt this is the whole story though.</i><p>No story can be told in a HN comment. No story can be fully told in words.<p>However, having spent much of my existence around the Canadian diary industry it is clear that it has always been the biggest sticking point in US and Canada relations. Not just today, but that's been the case for my entire life.
The dairy cartel is very strong in Canada (similar to the maple syrup one). They are deeply embedded in the government.<p>It'd be like trying to convince the US to reduce their Corn cartel. Except the corn industry keeps prices low, paid for by the American tax payer and demand mandates, and the Dairy cartel keeps prices high so consumers pay for the lack of competition.
how is this guy downvoted? you have never been able to buy American milk in canada. and Canadian softwood lumber has been tariffed at a high rate for my entire lifetime.<p>these have been points of contention since at least the 80s.
<i>> you have never been able to buy American milk in canada.</i><p>That’s not really true. The US has 5% of the quota, tarrif free. Which they don’t even fully use. But, to be sure, it does get used. You absolutely can buy American milk products in Canada.<p>The problem is that they have to go through the processors to satisfy the processors' own quotas so by and large the meager 5% isn’t worth the operational complexity vs just buying milk locally for the processors. The US wants to be able to go directly to the grocery stores.
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.<p>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 <i>politically</i>, 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.
>The Carney administration is on much firmer political ground<p>I don't think so. Time really isn't on Carney's side either.<p>Carney's new tariffs fall on those who, in aggregate, did not vote for him. The average Carney voter has been very vocal about wanting to pursue this tactic- that's why they elected him. (That average voter is an Eastern retiree whose holdings are generally in real estate, so they don't care about any other economic sector beyond that which keeps their property values high, especially compared to the feel-good Elbows Up stuff.)<p>But Carney's currently having trouble just keeping the country together at this point. That's why he's approving projects he really doesn't want to approve out West, like those oil pipelines, because the West has credibly signaled that that they might just ban Carney and his Eastern voting block from making law and collecting tax from them if development of their part of the country is hindered any further. But if it's not hindered, they'll grow in political power, which is also an inherent threat to Ottawa's power (just not immediately).<p>And yet here Carney is- for the second time now- imposing more economic roadblocks that drive up consumer prices and put more people out of work for no reason other than his voting block wanting it that way. "Just retaliate" might be the least bad option for Carney to pander to that voting block, but every concession to them drives the country closer to separation, and that has time pressure too.
I think you're mistaken about the effect that the Albertan premier's artificially manufactured "independence" campaign is having on the electorate.<p>Outside of the small fringe communities that support it, the reaction of the broader country has been to actually shift MORE into hardline stances against the US, as the effort is seen largely as an American manufactured thing.<p>Additionally, I'd advise to take with caution perspectives from any sources that would characterize the province of Alberta as "the west".
>the broader country<p>Not really, though. Despite what even a good chunk of Canadians (or yourself) might think, the country doesn't end at Toronto.<p>If the government wasn't worried about the effects, they wouldn't be in any hurry to approve the infrastructure projects; they've been in the works for a very long time, stalled out. Urban Easterners claim to believe the planet will explode if they're built, and the governments they elect act accordingly, but it's really just a power thing.<p>Additionally, I'd advise you to not think you know better than the people that actually live here.
This sort of rhetoric leads me to believe you've been enmeshed in the online and more um.. "engaging", rhetoric on this which no doubt paints a very compelling narrative.<p>The government's actions are much better explained by a sudden actual, panicked focus on actual development of the economy towards some combination of diversification and domestic demand - after the governing party's leader was replaced by arguably a much more results oriented PM after having been governed for a while by a much more vibes oriented PM.<p>Opening up the pipeline projects required more than just "conceding" to Alberta, it required negotiating with BC and the native tribes that would have a say in the path and ensuring they got the concessions they needed. Boring work. Not really meme material and doesn't make the headlines.<p>Between all the things the government has been doing - the oil sector work, the acceleration of military procurement, the various bilateral trade agreements, and work on easing internal trade restrictions, acceleration of internal projects - it's easy for some interest or another to cherry pick a particular set of events and use them to paint a narrative.<p>These narratives would be more compelling and maybe work better at other times, but the issue currently is that the American president is just so effective at drowning out any of these. There's nothing quite so unifying as an obnoxious tyrant rambling on about your country in disrespectful terms.<p>The commentary (mistakenly) assuming my nationality could probably have been left out of your response :)
It's all relative. I'm sure you're right that Carney will lose some support because of this, but he'll also gain and solidify some other support. And he has lots of room to give. We haven't had leadership in the US as popular as the current Canadian leadership for over 15 years. Whereas the Trump administration's approval is so low that the only question is whether there is even any room lower to go.
> 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.<p>It's unfortunate and in some ways unfair. I hope the Canadian economy will move towards more open trade partners and will proposer.<p>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.<p>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.
There is no grand vision. Trump has an irrational love of tariffs. He just likes them, they feel right to him. It is entirely that we have a presidential system with an executive that is capable of too much unilateral action, and we elected someone to that office who is unfit for it.
Does the admin’s affinity for tariffs have anything to do with Lutnick? His “former” firm bought tariff credits from companies for pennies on the dollar - huge upside if you knew what was coming.
I'd say that's more effect than cause.
Trumps been talking about tariffs since the 80's <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iEDVdSclDqg" rel="nofollow">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iEDVdSclDqg</a>
When you are forbidden to expand taxation on the people with money, because "ideology" and your country is accruing debt at historic levels, tariffs are about the only revenue source that you have that won't make the oligarchs angry.
<p><pre><code> > The thing that I really struggle to understand is what the grand vision behind this is.
</code></pre>
Religious zealots and the new barons want to go back to the Gilded age. If that means the house needs to burn down first, the house will burn down first. In the mean time, there is lots to gain from crises.<p>This is something so far removed from the way normal, constructive way people (have to) think and behave with each other as a prereq to participate in society that they will inevitably fail to see this parasitical dynamic, because there is no way they can relate to that from their own frames. Even when we learn about this we will instinctively dismiss it. It doesn't fit our frame of reference, so we decide this can't be true.
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<p>They don't respect anything. They stand for nothing. Their only concern is to pay lip service to Trump's crazy ideas.
<i>Trump's crazy ideas</i><p>s/Trump.*ideas/Line their own pockets/<p>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<p>Also, of course, extracting as much money from the state as possible
Had to look up "Maralago Accord": <a href="https://marketwise.com/investing/what-is-the-mar-a-lago-accord/" rel="nofollow">https://marketwise.com/investing/what-is-the-mar-a-lago-acco...</a><p>Wow, a global Great Depression II really does look like it is in the cards.
As I’ve said from the beginning, just ask yourself: what would Putin want?<p>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?<p>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.<p>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.
Biden gets Russia and Ukraine stuck in a quagmire in Ukraine, so Putin retaliates by getting the U.S. and Iran stuck in a quagmire in the Middle East. Wars are won by the countries that stay out of them. The Russia-Afghanistan war played a very significant role in the downfall of the Soviet Union.<p>The irony is that China is the big winner from all of this, simply by staying above the fray and making trade deals with all the countries that more bellicose superpowers start fighting. When your adversary is making a mistake, let him.
But it has turned out positive for Russia. Not enough patriot rockets for Ukraine, sanctions against Russia lifted and higher oil prices.
> Putin wanted Trump to decapitate the Iranian regime?<p>This is impractical. There is a hierarchy of thousands of Mullahs that ascend when you kill off one. There is no "head". It's a distributed hierarchy or hydra, rather than an effective dictatorship. ofc, Trump wanted to appease Bibi and Trump fired most of the advisors who object to his bad ideas, so it was a perfect storm for a global quagmire.
The Iran war is good for Russia. Regime "decapitation" does not harm Russia, oil going up is good for then. America being weakened and stuck there is good for then too.
We have fewer weapons to sell to Ukraine since we have expended a huge amount and are pulling a carrier out of Asia due to the debacle. I'm pretty sure Putin/Xi are happy to see us enter yet another Middle East quagmire.
Putin wanted the US military presence in the middle east to be severely crippled, which it is now.<p>He would also want the munitions stockpile to be depleted, which it is now.<p>Though I do agree, not literally every move Trump does is on a string from Putin and the Iran war isn't one; it sure still is mighty convenient all the same to make the US military look weak and incompetent.
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]<p>The Green Movement in Europe, which Trump opposes, was best thing to happen to Putin.<p>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.<p>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.<p>[1] <a href="https://youtu.be/eKEycjREgPE" rel="nofollow">https://youtu.be/eKEycjREgPE</a>
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.<p>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.<p>From the US strategic perspective this is moving out of the frying pan and into the fire.
It's so obvious that you'd think its intentional.
I think people forget that China is an authoritarian ethno state with a single leader for life.<p>But hey, they have cheap shit, so what better wagon to hitch your country to?
Canada having closer trade ties with China is also a case of "out of the frying pan and into the fire" for Canada.
I'm in the EU and my masters did hand over the car market to chinese cars and this was a very stupid move.<p>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.<p>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 <i>some</i> of our industries.<p>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.<p>If western carmakers had been given a reasonable timeline to switch to EVs and reasonable energy price, the situation would be different.<p>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.
There is a huge difference between breaking partnerships by fast uni-directional policies vs. slow uni-directional or bi-directional policies.<p>EU and even USA should start doing something reasonable. Like introducing quota on how much overall can be imported/exported to protect local markets. Like lets say 40%.<p>Everyone gets a piece of cake.<p>But lets be honest, germany (my country) also never played fair. We gained quite a lot of export strength through the Euro and overall german politics.<p>And its not just the energy prices, it was quite clear what the energy prices going to be but no one really invested into reducing them early or fast enough at all. No one cared. BMW new factory in hungarie though does has a lot more reneablw and was able to continue production despite hungaries energy issue.<p>In China a person makes 500-1000 per month, in germany the same person makes a lot more.<p>China you have raw resources and cheap labor and cheap energy on EVERY SINGLE point of the process. From iron ore to the assembly itself.<p>And it doesn't matter much anyway because with the current and future grade of automatisation, a lot less money is getting directly to the people.<p>We need laws enforcing the rich to pay the taxes and/or invest A LOT more a lot faster and a lot broader.<p>We need real politics and not this garbage happening in germany or in the USA or in Russia.
> not anywhere near the quality of, say, what German cars used to be.<p>To be fair, German cars aren’t anywhere near the quality that German cars used to be, either.
> quality of, say, what German cars used to be.<p>They are 80% there for 30% the price as a consumer it’s a tremendous deal
><i>and reasonable energy price</i><p>Nice Jedi Hand Wave there.<p>That's <i>the</i> issue.<p>China invested in producing cheap energy. Most of the rest of the world did not.<p>At root, economics is about turning energy into goods and services. If the root industrial input of your competitor is cheaper than the cost of that same root industrial input to you, you're gonna need some incredible efficiencies elsewhere in that production pipeline to pull even.<p>At this point, the EU should be all about keeping the other major powers at arm's length, (economically <i>and</i> militarily), while pursuing renewable electrification with all deliberate speed.<p>That should be everyone else' strategy going forward as well by the way. Without cheap energy in the next global economic phase, your nation or bloc is dead in the water.
I have close the zero faith that the EU would be able to make the cultural changes necessary to move to self dependance.<p>Especially with being well behind in the current AI arms race. You need the opposite of a "workers utopia" to do all the things the EU needs to do, and do them fast.<p>They either stay with the US or become a vassal of Xi Jinpeng.
> China invested in producing cheap energy.<p>You mean coal[1][2]?<p>[1] <a href="https://www.carbonbrief.org/chinas-construction-of-new-coal-power-plants-reached-10-year-high-in-2024" rel="nofollow">https://www.carbonbrief.org/chinas-construction-of-new-coal-...</a><p>[2] <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/katharinabuchholz/2026/02/27/chinas-new-coal-power-installations-reach-18-year-high/" rel="nofollow">https://www.forbes.com/sites/katharinabuchholz/2026/02/27/ch...</a>
Did the parent say clean energy or cheap energy? Obviously yes, coal.<p>Though coal has dropped as a percentage of their portfolio fairly dramatically, and in absolute twh has been stable since 2010, with other energy sources growing.
These two things (investment in green energy and coal) can be true at the same time.<p>China dominates global clean energy investment, accounting for more than half of the $1.1 trillion invested worldwide between 2019 and 2025, while the United States contributed approximately $236 billion, representing less than a quarter of the total. - <a href="https://finance.yahoo.com/sectors/energy/articles/china-spent-more-clean-energy-220000038.html" rel="nofollow">https://finance.yahoo.com/sectors/energy/articles/china-spen...</a>
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.<p>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.).<p>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?
The examples you provide are way more integrated into governments and organizations. LLMs are not even in the same country let alone postal code.
The US wasn't, for the most part, treating them as an adversary before
Because they were allies and not in economic war before?
Heads up, you would want to <i>keep</i> 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.<p>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).<p>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.<p>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?<p>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.<p>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.
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?
The guy still has like ~35% approval ratings according to every poll there is, and that’s after weekly displays of outright corruption from him and his family, and “winning” the same war dozens of times already with no end in sight. The number hardly even budged YTD.<p>You’re telling me that this country is capable of learning?
You say it like a 35% approval rating is a good thing. It is not.
That a third or more still support him seems crazy to me.
Still way too high.
35% of US voters is all you need to be President and control the Senate, effectively controlling the US government.
If you wanted a Russian puppet in the oval office, it would do exactly what Epstein's BFF Donald is doing. There are zero reasons to support anything Putin is doing (read: daily war crimes), however, the destruction from within in the US and EU is executed amazingly well.
It is lowest in history in this point of presidency apart from Nixon, who resigned at this point. That 30-35% is the floor, which won’t budge, likely because the hard core Maga Republicans have nowhere to go in US two-party system - which would be not just a surrender of long-held political beliefs, but a complete social death as well. This does not mean that the core Maga is very happy either, but they hope the movement continues after Trump so they can finally get the full Christian Nationalist Fascism they so desire.<p>I doubt that is going to happen. Trump is going keep the strings behind the party, fucking everybody hard, until finally he dies or otherwise implodes. What is left of American democracy when that happens is a whole another thing.
The 65 percent approval rating from GOP voters right now says no, they are happy with immigration, culture war nonsense and trade chaos. Red states and rural areas would need to be targeted specifically and even then all interviews indicate those voters won’t consider choosing the other side, most of that GOP opposition will at best just not vote.
Not in this administration.
Trump believes everything on this planet is zero sum, and the only way you can benefit is if the other party hurts. His entire history on this planet betrays this, where he is an unreliable <i>scumbag</i> to everyone he has ever dealt with, to the point where the guy couldn't find vendors or a bank outside of Russia to deal with him. And then Americans said "this is the guy we should put in charge".<p>It is a particularly interesting position when the US is trying to counter China. The <i>only</i> hope the US had was an alliances with other Western-style nations, but instead it has been nothing but attacks and diminishing.
If only things were zero sum stick-in-bicycle meme decision making would benefit others
> It is a particularly interesting position when the US is trying to counter China.<p>The US put countering China way behind on its priority list, below "owning the libs" and settling old scores. I am convinced that if the Iran decapitation had worked like Venezuela, which seems to have been what they expected, then Cuba would have been next.
I am surprised the USA has not attacked Cuba yet. I am guessing the rundown on missile stocks has eliminated the possibility of a 100 percent air/navy campaign like they failed at in Iran.
It is unfortunately that the choices didn't have counter China in the list. It was status quo or trump. I wasn't happy with either option there.
And then greenland.
Cuba doesn't have oil.<p>The point is to prop up Putin.
If the goal of a presidency was to destroy the country one could not do a better job than trump.
"The only hope the US had was an alliances with other Western-style nations"<p>Maybe Trump bets on his great relations with Putin and Kim instead.
Negative sum, not zero sum.
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.<p>The EU should abolish their tariffs and let the clowns in the US do whatever they feel like.
Nope, the EU should use the trade bazooka against the US.
You're not going to get free trade if it's unilateral, because you've then created an incentive for the other side to protect their own industries knowing you're not going to retaliate, while reaping the benefits of access to your market.
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.<p>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).<p>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.<p>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.<p>___________________<p>The only form of retailiation I think the EU should actually be pursuing is the equivalent of tariffs on US <i>software</i>. This is the area that the USA is a <i>highly</i> 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.<p>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.<p>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.<p>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.<p>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 :(
That's the initial impact, it's exactly the incentive that over time will create native competitors.<p>Yeah, there will be immediate pain but if EU competitors can spring up because the American software giants are disadvantaged it'll slowly erode the reliance on US's software.
Europe/EU are highly reliant on the US military and these issues are linked.
The EU has no real reliance on US military might. Russia has been shown to be a paper tiger and the EU can use Ukraine as a proxy to cripple Russia while keeping their hands relatively clean.
I wish you were right, but look at Ukraine's desperate requests for Patriot missiles and Switzerland letting the US screw them repeatedly to get F-35 and Patriot.
Patriots are a big issue now, but they are also for the US after the Iran war. You now also see European countries starting to European alternatives as a result (e.g. SAMP/T and IRIS-T). While these are also still low(er) volume, the EU controls its own destiny by switching to alternatives to US systems.
Sadly not.<p>Russia went into the war with armed forces that turned out as you say (possibly except the nukes, hard to tell unless they attempt to use one); the war forced them to develop substantial drone and anti-drone capabilities that the EU nations are not yet in a position to counter.
The EU would strongly <i>prefer</i> to have US military support, but does not fundamentally need it. In the miltiary domain, but also lots of other domains, the EU is using these fake promises they made to Trump as a mechanism to buy time while they quietly work on removing US dependencies, and reducing US leverage.
For what? Defense against Russia?<p>I suspect that if my country gave Putin what we give to the US - military bases where they can do whatever they please no questions asked, real-time intelligence access, unofficial favored supplier status for anything that might be control-relevant, quiet veto power over any national policy decision deemed "strategic" - then we wouldn't have to worry about invasion - from Russia anyway. Why invade what you already own?<p>I think that price is a little too steep, though. Not to mention that the US would then be at least as willing to topple governments/invade as Russia currently is.
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.<p>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.
The US sells software to the EU. To me is constantly amazing that US citizens and US gov thinks it can just pull the plug without consequence to itself.<p>You pull the plug the money stops rolling in. I don't know if you've ever tried to sell something vs buying something but buying is a ALOT easier than selling.<p>You can easily choose where to buy but choosing to sell is a lot trickier. Pull the plug on AI and the EU will switch to Chinese models. Trade negotiations and relations are very fragile and difficult to curate and maintain. Very easy to rip up.
You seem to ignore the fact that changes take time.<p>There are entire governments in the EU with workflows built around Microsoft products that have no real 1:1 alternatives. If a governmental procedure stipulates that a ministry uses Windows w/ Office365, it uses Windows w/ Office365, no room for an argument. If anybody pulls a plug here, the consequences will be unimaginable.<p>It's nice that a single German state has switched to LibreOffice, but the rest of Germany, or the remaining 26 countries might take years, if not decades, to certify and permit someone else's solution.
If the plug is fully pulled, the EU could confiscate some European Azure/Office365 servers and 'put the software on the market'. Windows is even easier, I'm sure in such a situation the EU would be happy to limit the restrictions on reverse engineering to block license verification. I'm sure that there are some hard drives on European territory with the full Windows source code as well.
France would like a word:<p><a href="https://www.techradar.com/computing/windows/france-has-ditched-windows-11-for-linux-on-2-5-million-government-pcs-heres-why-microsoft-should-worry-that-millions-more-could-follow-by-the-end-of-2026" rel="nofollow">https://www.techradar.com/computing/windows/france-has-ditch...</a>
There are so many things that can happen. Since tariffs are percentual, Microsoft could lower prices to avoid that companies will migrate to European alternatives.<p>In an all-out economic war, anything could happen. The source code of Microsoft products probably exists somewhere in Europe (since they have European offices) and definitely binaries, since it's run on European servers. Once nobody plays by the rules anymore, all bets are off.<p>That said, a trade war would hurt both badly and it would be an epic fail on the side of the US administration. (Since the EU would not start such a trade war by itself.)
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.<p>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).
There is plenty of gas in the EU; we decided that it was undesirable to extract. Honestly pathetic; strategic autonomy and energy security is much more important.
Russia killing hundreds of EU citizens should be enough to stop buying gas from them.
Yes, the EU does rely on buying US gas as an important part of its energy mix. But that is true independent of whatever deal the EU struck with Trump. The EU simply does not have control of who its gas importers buy from (other than sanctions)<p>But this is also why the EU is aggressively pursuing and building up alternatives, including investments in Canada's ability to export LNG, but also buildouts of solar, wind, and batteries.<p>Solar and batteries come with their own dependencies on China, but at least those are a different sort of dependency than fossil fuels. If China stops exporting solar / batteries, the ones we have will still keep functioning for decades while alternatives are built up.
> But this is also why the EU is aggressively pursuing and building up alternatives<p>Unfortunately, this couldn't be further from the truth:<p><a href="https://cleantechnica.com/2026/07/12/head-of-iea-roasts-europe-for-slow-electrification/" rel="nofollow">https://cleantechnica.com/2026/07/12/head-of-iea-roasts-euro...</a><p>Here are some specific numbers:<p><a href="https://ember-energy.org/app/uploads/2025/06/many-building-renewables-few-electrostates.png" rel="nofollow">https://ember-energy.org/app/uploads/2025/06/many-building-r...</a><p>The EU is heavily investing in renewables, but mainly to phase out coal rather than gas, and it's absolutely not electrifying its economy.<p>You can see this in the EU Emissions Trading System. It covers about 40% of all emissions, but leaves out buildings (dominated by gas) and transportation (dominated by oil). Since electricity is covered, it actually encourages oil and gas over electricity.<p>Furthermore, member states like Germany are resistant to taxing gas higher than electricity:<p><a href="https://www.euronews.com/my-europe/2026/08/17/germany-warns-eu-electricity-tax-plan-threatens-national-sovereignty" rel="nofollow">https://www.euronews.com/my-europe/2026/08/17/germany-warns-...</a><p>Despite the wars in Ukraine and Iran, gas is still encouraged over electricity in many European countries.<p>China and some other Asian countries have adopted the opposite approach. They aim to replace oil and gas by all possible means, including coal (although it's not the preferred choice).
While I agree I wish this would happen faster, it certainly is happening, and it's happening pretty quickly. Saying it "couldn't be further from the truth" is just silly hyperbole.
The EU also stopped enforcing its laws (like DMA and GDPR) against US tech companies.
They paused some investigations while the negotiations happen, but most of those are back on track now.
You mean how they fined Google for 890 million under the DMA on July 23, 2026? Or how the Dutch AP just fined Uber for 825 million a few days ago under the GDPR?
> The only real concession the EU made was just allowing Trump to tariff them at a certain rate<p>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.
That was kind of an estimated sum of investments european companies planned to make anyway. It is not like eu started to build up im us.
That's what I was talking about with the false promises.<p>The EU has no mechanism to make those investments in the USA, and no mechanism to force any member state or company to make investments.<p>They literally just made up a number and said "oh yes, we'll make a bunch of investments" with zero intention of doing anything to make it happen.
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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.<p>I can't understand why there isn't a single country that did that.
Europe: here is a tome of regulations you need to follow to do business here.
its kind a big deal.
Also Europe: we don't care about copyright.<p>how did you dream this up?
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.<p>Don't assume EU is stupid.<p><a href="https://www.vrt.be/vrtnws/nl/2026/08/18/voka-invoerheffingen-terugbetalingen-oproep/" rel="nofollow">https://www.vrt.be/vrtnws/nl/2026/08/18/voka-invoerheffingen...</a>
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Why put Zohran in the same bag as trump? From what I can see NYC is running pretty well
Zohran is not a demagogue. He ran on a platform of fixing real problems that no one else was bothering to fix. And he’s actually doing things.
Democracy is failing because people you don't like are being democratically elected. The opposite would indeedn be failure.
> Populist demagogues from Trump to Zohran are getting elected.<p>That is quite the comparison. It also doesn't seem correct at all. What world are you living in where Zohran is a populist demagogue?
Capitalist progressives unfortunately do view anything toward the left as (false) populism. Steven Pinker and the like. Even the main Democrat party does too, look at what they framed Bernie as. They manufacture such truths. As elites.<p>N.b. if you look up 'populism' on Wikipedia a huge portion of the page explains the contested term is sociologically vague and did not have the negative connotation it does in mainstream discourse. Most people are not aware of this.
i like this comment.
> Trump to Zohran<p>Pointless, incredibly bad faith bothsideism. Zohran was the only one in the NYC mayoral race to believe in actual democracy. Cuomo's whole campaign was "elect me because the other guy is a muslim, and I won't do anything during my mandate, like the previous mayor". Zohran did actual campaigning on issues the electorate cared about, and so far has delivered on his promises.
No, not good for Canada. Free trade is optimal, even if its unilateral.<p>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.<p>He did a pretty good explanation of the difference between theory and practice in his Rest is Politics Leading podcast interview recently :).<p>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.<p>Since you are getting hurt you play tit-for-tat to get the other to knock it off.<p>So you add export taxes to items they care about (oil/fertilizer/...) and compensate the losses incurred by existing industries.<p>You also add tarriffs on items that have alternatives, like alcohool.<p>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.<p>This hurts both countries but will get a result - either free trade or no trade.<p>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.<p>China put tariffs specifically on the sectors that voted for Trump and depended on sales to China.<p>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
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.<p>We'll go trade with other countries and stop giving the troll the attention it craves.
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.<p>Ganging up on the US isn't likely to work well.
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.<p>BRICS is just that for oil.<p>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.<p>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.
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.
Nice to see them putting up a fight. Though I assume this will cause pain for everyone.<p>One note: aren't these sentences strange - like a series of half-thoughts? Especially the 2nd paragraph.<p>> 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.<p>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.
Explain how “Canada’s economy grows rapidly” if we accept a bad deal from a stronger economy. The goal for Canada is a return to the free trade agreement covering ~98% of goods that existed before this chaos, which allowed for close integration and long term planning for businesses on both sides of the border. Rolling over and dying gets us further away from that goal.
Well, a lot of the things people lump into the bad deal category are things like allowing us competition in our protected oligopoly industries: banking, telecoms, airlines, dairy, poultry…
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.<p>Why won’t the same logic apply to Canadian tariffs?
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.<p>Yes, I had the thought that it sounded a lot like speech.<p>Thanks.
Still. Many of those periods. Should be commas.
No, it’s just written as speech.
I wonder what would happen if Canada taxed electricity <i>exports</i> to the US, and used the money to directly subsidize other exported goods the US applies tariffs to?
> taxed electricity exports<p>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.<p>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 <i>freaked out</i>. It’s probably still a valuable nuclear option.
> less of it gets exported<p>Depends whether demand is flexible or not.
Harsh, but same for oil and potash. Other minerals too.
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.
Reciprocity, if well designed, automatic and generalized, is a great diplomacy tool.<p>Politicians tend to not want to do things that display them as directly responsible for eroding their support base’s quality of life.
This is on targeted industries, not on 50% of all trade. In particular, the largest industries are<p>Motor Vehicles, Alcohol, and Dairy per<p><a href="https://www.newsweek.com/full-list-of-us-trade-tariffs-hitti" rel="nofollow">https://www.newsweek.com/full-list-of-us-trade-tariffs-hitti</a>...
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.
Is YC News an American website? It seems like all the comments are advising against American interests with regards to tariffs.
Won’t work out well for either side, namely citizens and leadership aside.<p>Wearing my forecasting hat…<p>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.<p>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.
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:<p>- the US imports 60-70% of its oil from Canada<p>- 100% of the natural gas<p>- 85% of energy imports<p>- 25% of Uranium<p>- 20% of all mineral imports, ahead of China<p>- the Great Lakes hold >80% of the USA's fresh water<p>- patrolling the almost 9000km border is mostly up to Canada<p>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<p>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"<p>- 100% of the natural gas<p>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"<p>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.<p>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.
This is true somewhat, but keep in mind the 50% tariffs aren’t on all goods. They’re on like 5% of exports.<p>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.<p>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).<p>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 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.
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.
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.<p>The only argument bullies understand is being punched in the face.<p>I wish more countries wiuld have the courage of cutting off ties with the US.
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.<p>These moves increase other countries independence of us, lessening our power and forcing us into a more post America world.<p>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.
I get it, but tariffs will only make things more expensive for Canadians, too.<p>I've got a better idea.<p>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.<p>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.<p>3) Legalize "Adversarial Interoperability" (<a href="https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2019/10/adversarial-interoperability" rel="nofollow">https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2019/10/adversarial-interopera...</a>)<p>4) Copyright reform.<p>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.<p>I'd be happy to see the solution to consumer pain And economic productivity to pass permanently pro productivity and pro consumer policies.<p>Anti monopoly stuff. Maybe a growth policy like land value tax.<p>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.<p>In general, going heavier into consumer/data protection laws and proceeding to prosecute both the Canadian and American monopolies would be amazing though.
> <i>In general, going heavier into consumer/data protection laws and proceeding to prosecute both the Canadian and American monopolies would be amazing though.</i><p>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.<p>It's easiest to repeal anti-consumer/anti-commons laws.
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.<p>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.<p>I'd love to see copyright reform though.
> but tariffs will only make things more expensive for Canadians, too.<p>Yes, there is no war without pain. But I am willing to face the pain.<p>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.<p>Elbows up, at last.
For some perspective about what’s being negotiated:<p>“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<p><a href="https://thehub.ca/2026/08/20/whats-at-stake-in-the-canada-u-s-trade-deal-how-looming-tariffs-could-cost-canada-90000-jobs/" rel="nofollow">https://thehub.ca/2026/08/20/whats-at-stake-in-the-canada-u-...</a>
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.
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.<p>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.
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<p>More "relative" than you think.<p>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.<p>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.
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.)<p>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.
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.<p>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”.<p>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,<p>In the short run, yes. In the long run we can start replacing American imports with other countries' imports.<p>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.<p>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.
> You’d have to tariff fruits and vegetables like crazy to make the American varieties more expensive than oceanic shipped produce.<p>Bullshit. I already see in the supermarket (Canadian Superstore) oranges from South Africa, lemons from Morocco, broccoli from Mexico, mangoes from Malaysia, fish from the Philippines, coconut from Vietnam, kiwis from Italy, etc.<p>Yes, oceanic shipping adds to the cost. But most of those countries already have cheaper labor, and that partially offsets the extra cost.
Mangoes and South Asian fish don’t grow close to you no matter what. You don’t think bull shipping Mexican tomatoes via the ocean isn’t going to cost more than the same tomato shipped by the US land route?<p>If you were going to take that tariff money to build up a local tomato industry it might make sense, Canada already has a growing hot house industry. But don’t kid yourself, tariffs cost the consumer and for low margin highly seasonal and subject to going bad goods like produce is about the worst case scenario.
True North, Strong and Free
The Art of the Lose-Lose Deal!
Note that these new tariffs are on goods covered by CUSMA, making that treaty inoperative. Pity it’s one Trump signed…<p>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.<p>What he’s been doing is only good for his grift game, not the USA.<p>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.
Unfortunately, it became so impossible to do business in the USA for many companies (where there isn’t a monopoly and you have to compete globally) that we left.<p>I moved ops to a Caribbean nation where we can get parts, (it’s simply not possible to source many parts and services within the USA) and iterate at a competitive speed. It became like swimming in molasses to try to innovate in the USA, and way too unpredictable to even sign contracts with suppliers, with random tariffs creating 2x cost uncertainty. You simply cannot plan or make long term contracts when the uncertainty is so high with no predictable pattern. Ironically, we also cannot sign even with US suppliers, because they don’t know if they will have ongoing tariffs to protect buildout or if they will evaporate, so they also cannot risk expanding production.<p>It’s a total shitshow and the only reason it exists is to power the grift train. If a company is big enough, some shady deal goes down and suddenly they magically qualify under de minimus or some other supposedly dead exemption. I would not be surprised to see that you could correlate these exemptions with purchases of shitcoicins or similar shady wanker-works. The trade shenanigans do nothing to help US businesses, and drive innovation out of the USA like rats off a sinking ship.
What do you mean by "do something about it"? The elections are in November and the new Congress will be seated a few months later.<p>Our system progresses in two year increments, by design.
It's like Americans are on a train and some of them are being rowdy, rude, aggressive. They find a few passengers to harass. One they lock in a lavatory. Another they throw off the train for not being the right kind of American. Some have opened windows and are actively throwing their feces at whoever they're passing by. And the strongest response mustered by the other passengers is to avoid catching attention, and a meek self-soothing utterance of, "a station is coming up soon and we can vote to kick them off." Except this is the fourth two-year cycle that they've just gotten back on, broken up only by a four-year period underscored by a loud and somewhat violent insistence that their right to throw feces from the train shall not be abridged.
I don't find analogies like this helpful for thinking about this, because they don't illuminate anything about what is being suggested. In your analogy, I could come up with some ideas about what the "passengers" could do prior to reaching the next stop, but that wouldn't tell us anything about what we should do in the real situation.<p>So I ask again, what would you propose?
What John Lewis tried to suggest to you all. Good trouble. Necessary trouble. If you in good faith need someone else to tell you what other options you have, ho buddy have you guys lost the trail. My original point is that Americans won't do this until they hit a tipping point of discomfort. And for Americans, that tipping point is a <i>very high</i> mark. They will tolerate an enormous amount of fecal frenzy so long as they can just look the other way and plug their nose.
What good trouble would you suggest that would be more effective than seating a new Congress?<p>I'm a big fan of the civil rights movement, but a lot of this kind of stuff like your comment that I see strikes me as nostalgia that doesn't seem to understand what made that movement effective. It was effective because they thought, concretely, about their goals and about what concrete steps they could take that they thought would make progress toward those goals. That concreteness always seems (to me) to be lost in these contemporary discussions, replaced with "do something" and sloganeering.<p>Another difference, in my view, is that John Lewis was trying to figure out how to change a system in which there was no hope that the next election, or the one after that, or the one after that, ad infinitum, would itself affect the desired change, because both parties were opposed to the policy he desired. In my view, that's not the current situation. This thread started out being about the Trump administration's tariff policy (which I think is awful and stupid). But the next Congress, which will be seated quite soon - certainly much sooner than any kind of civil disobedience campaign would be able to bear fruit - can write laws that change that policy. And the more people are mad about the current policy, and the more they vote for the opposing party because they are mad about the status quo, the more likely that new Congress is to write those new laws.<p>There are times when it makes sense to lose faith in normal electoral politics, but in my view, the eve of an election where the incumbent powers are about to get routed is a weird time to suggest it.
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.
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.<p>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.<p>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.<p>It is fun to imagine Canada sticking it to the Americans with export taxes, but it will never happen.
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.<p>But I think overall it does not really matter. A war is a war, so there will be no real winners.<p>Here we go again.
What's wrong with Vermont maple syrup?
Quebec alone produces more maple syrup than everywhere else in the world combined, by a wide margin.
I don't know, maybe there's not enough of it?<p>> Canada supplies the overwhelming majority of U.S. maple-syrup imports.
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.
Scarcity is not really the problem—it is price competitiveness. Many, possibly most, maple syrup producers in New England do not sell to national grocery store chains. You go to the sugar house and buy a jug which is typically much more expensive than what you’d find in a grocery store. But you also have more choices, since you can buy from a person who sells different grades. I rarely see more than one grade for sale in a US grocery store. I don’t mind paying a little extra for something I use in such small quantities to support a neighbor.
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
People who elected this clown are more dangerous
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.
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.<p>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.
> decent parliamentary system.<p>Isn't that an oxymoron? Parliaments have their democratic shortcomings compared to powerful presidents. And vice-versa. Nations with parliamentary rule are plagued by having heads of state and ministers which weren't in any way, shape, or form elected by the population. A president is at least a democratically elected ruler to represent the people.
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.<p>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.<p>[0]<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Short_Reign_of_Pippin_IV" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Short_Reign_of_Pippin_IV</a>
Bad analogy if you're Canadian
The craziest thing is, that in spite of the obvious, balatant corruption and supreme incompetence of the US govt, Trump <i>still</i> has around 35% approval rating.<p>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.<p>0: <a href="https://time.com/7809/1-in-4-americans-thinks-sun-orbits-earth/" rel="nofollow">https://time.com/7809/1-in-4-americans-thinks-sun-orbits-ear...</a>
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.<p>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.
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.
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.
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.<p>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.
"However, last-minute changes in the U.S. proposed terms were unfair, uneconomic, and called into question the reliability of any deal."<p>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.<p>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.<p>I'm so glad there wasn't a single yes, when Greenland popped up.
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.<p>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.<p>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.<p>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.<p>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.<p>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.<p>So the second largest segment with our largest trading partner is Asian manufacturers exploiting a NAFTA loophole.<p>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.<p>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.<p>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.<p>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.
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.<p>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.
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.
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.<p>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.<p>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"?<p>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.<p>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.<p>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.
"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."<p>the amount of mental gymnastics needed to believe this is off the charts.
trumps the best thing that could have happened to the rest of the world
In 2025 there was a $46 billion trade deficit with Canada.<p>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 do you expect to have a trade balance with a country that is 10% of your population.
This reads like a non sequitur to me. What is your point?
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.<p>As for betraying Canadians, Trump is not responsible for representing Canadian interests. I wouldn't want him to either. (Speaking as a Canadian.)
Trump attacked iran in the middle of negotiations. It's probably a pattern from the salesmen book he didn't even write.
Seems like the only thing more expensive and damaging these days than being an enemy of the US is being an ally!<p>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 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.
Good luck Canada. The economy is already pretty bad and they can't win a tariff war against their largest trading partner.
now imagine the next level of his destructive crime-spree August 2027<p>because this is nothing compared to when he starts to feel his loss of power<p>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<p>electrocution gloves and all<p>we're in the US authoritarian era, Supreme Court and Congress let it happen and now there's no undo button
Sounds like the right move. I can only hope that the rest of us lap dogs see the (common) sense.<p>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.<p>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.
Question for Americans: do you guys understand what's happening?<p>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.<p>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.<p>Actual trade policy, whether you want access to Canadian dairy market, or lumber tarrif rates or whatever, none of that matters.<p>Is this a common understanding down south?
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.<p>If Trump and his cabal is left unchecked we will be running fast towards something that will make 1929 like child's play.<p>And no, I am not a liberal. Far from it.
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.<p>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.
In general any deal with the other party is introducing last minute changes is one to walk away from.<p>And specifically any deal made with the U.S under Trump has no credibility, just ask Iran.
YES! YES!<p>Elbows up, finally!<p>This is will be painful. But it is what we need.<p>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.
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?<p>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).<p>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 <i>worthless</i>, 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 (<i>any</i> 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.<p>Carney internally is playing to a domestic crowd that is actually more hardline on US trade policy than he has projected.<p>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.<p>There is hardship down both paths for Canada, but only one of those paths has a long-term future.<p>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.<p>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.
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What do you propose to make Canada great again?
Is this some sort of weird AI slop? Like, what even is this nonsense?<p>"~70% of Canadian exports go to the US"<p>If you remove oil[1], Canada has a trade <i>deficit</i> with the US. And strangely the US has never said an iota about tariffing or restricting oil, and on the contrary keeps trying to increase it. Like Trump's big celebration was about hoping to revive a pipeline.<p>The vast majority of Canada's economy is internal, and rapidly non-US. We replace what we buy from the US. Somehow lots of countries on this planet don't rely upon being a subjugated feeder to the US.<p>>Unemployment, business investment, and the CAD are all deteriorating far more deeply and rapidly than any impact on the USA<p>Canada has fielded better employment numbers than the US. Business investments are at an all time high (lol, slop purveyor now claims that actually no, that's bad too!). The CAD has been <i>gaining</i> over the past few weeks.<p>Stop writing hilariously stupid slop on here.<p>[1] The US actually makes hundreds of billions of dollars processing and exporting Canadian oil, and it was yet another foolish decision of Canada not to process in country. But don't worry, exports to other destinations are rapidly increasing.
Why would you remove oil? And, Canada is emphatically NOT a internal economy. First, it imports most of its cars, industrial machinery and hardware. Second, its experiencing an FDI flood due to M&A activity that has key business being acquired and then relocated or repositioned to supply the US market.
I'm fairly certain it's AI, yeah. Downvote and move on.
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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.<p>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.<p>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.<p>Japan and SK are both doing very poorly. China has some of the harshest immigration.<p>South America is still being fucked with by the CIA and destabilization idiocy.<p>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.<p>It is a reasonable position to frame them as opposing authoritarian government policies and for the governments response to be overreach.<p>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.<p>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.
>And many countries make it [aircon] illegal without health reasons.<p>Name one country that has done this.
<a href="https://consumerchoicecenter.org/keeping-it-cool-removing-hurdles-for-air-conditioning-availability-in-europe/" rel="nofollow">https://consumerchoicecenter.org/keeping-it-cool-removing-hu...</a><p>How about 29 countries?<p>"AC penetration stands only at 19% (vs. 90% US, 91% Japan). This is not a cultural inevitability but a regulatory outcome"<p>And specifically Geneva Switzerland, it requires medical need to install air conditioning. <a href="https://www.gazetaexpress.com/en/Why-are-air-conditioners-almost-banned-in-Switzerland/" rel="nofollow">https://www.gazetaexpress.com/en/Why-are-air-conditioners-al...</a>
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.
<a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2025/04/trump-tariffs-smugglers/682303/" rel="nofollow">https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2025/04/trump-tari...</a>
All the Canadians work in the United States and about 300k of their wealthiest live and work in San Francisco.<p>If you guys really wanna boost your economy - go home.
Time for Canada to cozy up closer to China, that'll end well for them I'm sure.
"50% of High Income Canadians Have Fled to the US" <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cNSi9mJ8xRE" rel="nofollow">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cNSi9mJ8xRE</a>
And people say there are no positives to trade wars. With some luck the other half will pack up and leave asap
We'll see how long they stay after the US midterms (either after the Democrats win or Trump and Hesgeth start shooting civilians).