And you get a tariff! And you get a tariff! Everyone gets a tariff!
February 2, 2025 6:34 AM   Subscribe

 
There are whispers of further retaliatory measures, mostly regarding the gas and oil as Canada provides 60% of the US's supply. Also, Ontario/BC/Quebec provide hydroelectricity to many states so raising those rates is not off the table either.
posted by Kitteh at 6:38 AM on February 2 [10 favorites]


Justin Trudeau getting it exactly right as he announced retaliatory tariffs:
"From the beaches of Normandy to the mountains of the Korean peninsula, from the fields of Flanders to the streets of Kandahar, we have fought and died alongside you during your darkest hours," Trudeau said. "We've built the most successful economic, military and security partnership the world has ever seen...We're always there, standing with you."
posted by Dashy at 6:43 AM on February 2 [82 favorites]


Trudeau’s speech was pretty good I must say. I hope everybody holds a strong line against this insanity.
posted by whatevernot at 6:43 AM on February 2 [17 favorites]


I mean, Trump utterly fucking the pooch in re: to US/Canada relations should serve to remind everyone of this: he does not want alliances, he wants subordinates.
posted by Kitteh at 6:46 AM on February 2 [102 favorites]


Canada is the world's main supplier of sterilized wood pulp for medical applications.

Mexico supplies a lot of plastic consumables for medical uses.

As does China.

Get your n95s. Get canned food and other supplies so you can stay the fuck at home when H5N1 starts.
posted by ocschwar at 6:49 AM on February 2 [28 favorites]


The world appears better prepared versus Trump 1.0. IIRC it took more than a few hours for the EU to place tariffs on Harley Davidson and other red state products when Trump did his tariffs last time around...

...but I have a feeling we're going to go far beyond tariffs on products coming out of red states this time.

I've posted this in another thread but the discussion is already about banning US software products. This will be, I think, pretty massive. I hope we move quick on that (I'm in the EU, don't know about Canada). It's ridiculous that Musk is at showing up to campaign for fascist parties in Europe while his propaganda platform is allowed to operate here. We need to shut down that garbage asap. Why are we allowing him to do business here?

Scrolling through my news feed I already see company after company declaring they'll no longer purchase US products, specifically Musk's. But Zuckerberg and the rest showed up at the Trump events so it's not like they're better. It'll be good for EU businesses anyway, to rid ourselves of a few of these monopolies.
posted by UN at 6:53 AM on February 2 [23 favorites]


what does this have to do with the price of eggs? [wattpoultry]
posted by HearHere at 7:01 AM on February 2 [3 favorites]


Get your n95s.

Jeesh, good thinking. I'd love to hear any other advice to prepare ahead of time. (I still don't know what to do about fresh vegetables--it seems like all our produce comes from Canada and Mexico!)
posted by mittens at 7:03 AM on February 2 [5 favorites]


My Canadian friends, all I can say is… fuck us up, fam. We deserve it.
posted by azpenguin at 7:09 AM on February 2 [70 favorites]


It's been heartening to look at things on reddit about retaliatory tariffs or hockey fans booing the American anthem and seeing the predominant American reaction be "Yeah, fuck us up!"
posted by GCU Sweet and Full of Grace at 7:10 AM on February 2 [28 favorites]


Trump doesn’t have Covid to distract him this time around. He’s also looking like he’s bringing his A game to the table, doubling down and really focusing on running the country like it’s a business.

I hate that we have to deal with this and I love the fact that despite the squabbling between parties, provinces and the feds, everybody has come together on on this with regards to retaliation.

I hate Trump and even more, I hate the fact that his party is supporting him. It’s going to be a long 4 years, or longer if he gets his way and decides that he can run for a third term. I hate to say it but a heart attack can’t happen soon enough.
posted by ashbury at 7:10 AM on February 2 [12 favorites]


Wow, look at me cheering on Doug Ford. It’s a topsy-turvy world!
posted by ThatCanadianGirl at 7:16 AM on February 2 [49 favorites]


Dougie has the remarkable ability to be that stopped clock that’s right twice per day - and when that clock actually right when it counts we’ll take it. But man I wish we in Ontario had someone better and I didn’t have to console myself with “at least he’s not Danielle Smith or Scott Moe.”
posted by eekernohan at 7:23 AM on February 2 [11 favorites]


As a Canadian who has spent many years benefiting from ease of access to American goods and services (but at premium prices) along with easy cross-border travel, this feels like the end of an era. The United States can no longer be seen as an ally. It is, in fact, a bully and has been one towards Canada for years. This is just the culmination of a policy of treating Canada like a mythical place that exists to be taken advantage of.

Our politicians were bribed, excuse me, lobbied to allow US companies to buy up our media companies and other major industries at sweetheart prices. Now your government thinks we should be forceably annexed and put to heel and made to accept your Manifest Destiny delusions.

These tariffs are going to tank the Canadian economy hard. Like 500-600k people out of a job in a week hard just in the province I live in. I am a software developer for a US company that helps folks find deals for online purchases. If your economy tanks, I am out of a job and as a software developer in his mid fifties a lot of things are stacked against me in terms of employment opportunities.

I have many many American friends and travel there multiple times a year. I’m pretty sure that is over now. Why should I visit a place that is now, by government policy, actively hostile towards me because of the accident of where I was born?

Like someone else said online, it is impossible to talk about how bad tarrifs are for the US economy to people who believe plane crashes happen because air traffic controllers are not heterosexual white men.

So, yes, I hope the Canadian government punishes the US via tariffs while working to reorganize our own economy to be less reliant on an incredibly unstable neighbour.
posted by grmpyprogrammer at 7:24 AM on February 2 [54 favorites]


What will be the impact of a North American trade war?
Carmakers, food producers and construction will be worst hit

beer, wine, bourbon, fruit, fruit juices, perfume, clothing, shoes, household appliances, sports equipment, lumber and plastics



‘A trade war on steroids’: Trump ushers in new age of US protectionism

Trump is gambling that he can pressure US trading partners to comply with Washington’s wishes without triggering another damaging acceleration of inflation, at a time when the cost of living remains the top concern of many Americans.


// FT links work with javascript turned off but there's nothing majorly new in here beyond my snippets
posted by infini at 7:28 AM on February 2 [2 favorites]


The world appears better prepared versus Trump 1.0.

Other countries thought he was a fluke, and accident of a weird electoral system. He'd be gone in 4 years, if not sooner. There were career government officials saying this would blow over, he would get distracted, sanity would return. No need to blow up long-standing relationships. This time? Not so much.
posted by Garm at 7:36 AM on February 2 [12 favorites]


"Begun, the Trade War has."
posted by bryon at 7:42 AM on February 2 [22 favorites]


I kind of wish that Trump had put the 25% tarriff on oil. That would have blown up the U.S. economy (and thus ended this) much faster. Failing that, I wish Trudeau had put a 15% export tax on oil exported to the U.S. The U.S. exports more oil to other countries than it imports from Canada, based on my Googling, so if they stop buying Canadian oil, hopefully other countries would have our back and buy from Canada instead of the U.S. (yeah the fact that much of that is exported via pipeline which is easier and less environmentally risky than ships is an issue, but I image it's also an issue that would make the U.S. prefer to keep importing from Canada

I am annoyed that I will have to start going to the supermarket again, which I haven't done since the pandemic. I've been happily using instacart.
posted by If only I had a penguin... at 7:50 AM on February 2 [4 favorites]


I’ll just opine that Canadians will suffer more from not having American whiskey than Americans will suffer from not having Canadian whiskey.

In matters of whiskey, I am a patriot.
posted by Lemkin at 7:53 AM on February 2 [3 favorites]


Don't forget that the whole premise of fentanyl and migrants is that an 'emergency' may be declared and the tariff issued under Executive Order and not via congress. Part of this is wrapped-up in TFG playing 'big boy boss' and is simply a domestic power grab.

I'd normally be glib and say this is an opportunity for Canada to open Province-hood to disgruntled states, but I live in Alberta and there's a 50-50 chance the province would opt to go the other way. :\
posted by mazola at 7:56 AM on February 2 [11 favorites]


Trump doesn’t have Covid to distract him this time around. He’s also looking like he’s bringing his A game to the table, doubling down and really focusing on running the country like it’s a business.

While the effects are essentially the same, I have zero belief that he knows his ass from his elbow. Every single horrific things he says or writes or claims, is something that was put into his ear, or written by, one of these angry white supremacists or oligarchs bribing their way into policy with easily lapped up flattery that he is the smartest guy around. He thinks they respect him, and all the world can see him for just exactly the bumbling, dangerous fool that he is. It would be hilarious if he wasn't intent on blithely killing or endangering millions of people, both out of malice and out of ignorance of the consequences.

./end of rant. (I deleted half of it.) I realize these are not original ideas. I'm trying to decide if I feel better after getting that out.
posted by Glinn at 7:58 AM on February 2 [37 favorites]


If Ned Beatty's Network speech[Youtube], is how the world works then the market should correct and tell Trump to reverse this policy, at best Liz Truss him.

OTOH if he persists, then trusting the market is out, so it's all just media control and Nazi-ism?

If the auto-market in Canada tanks, is it feasible to pair with the Europeans? Do we drop tariffs on China/BYD?

A commenter on CBC prior to Trudeau's speech had a biting jab, paraphrasing here, "Ontario exports a lot of electricity. Superbowl weekend is next weekend, you need electricity to watch the game".

Feb 11 1933, Nazis start trade wars on allies[mastodon].
posted by ecco at 7:58 AM on February 2 [12 favorites]


Failing that, I wish Trudeau had put a 15% export tax on oil exported to the U.S.

It is my impression that putting heavy tariffs on oil/gas and electricity is a nuclear option if you will. I don't think it's off the table but I do feel that the Canadian government would really rather not. But if you have a petulant idiot man-child at the helm, they may do so.
posted by Kitteh at 7:59 AM on February 2 [8 favorites]


Trump doesn’t have Covid to distract him this time around. He’s also looking like he’s bringing his A game to the table, doubling down and really focusing on running the country like it’s a business.

Well, we pray that he won't have worse-than-COVID to distract him. Birds and viruses may disagree over time.

"Like a business" is a loaded term in and of itself, as there are millions of businesses whose top priority isn't active predation that harms their own bottom line in the process. Businesses form cooperative arrangements all the time that benefit both companies, rather than the stronger entity draining all of the weaker ones dry and destroying them simply because they can.

The playground bully mentality, on the other hand, demands winners and losers without any gray areas at all times. Status relies upon dominance. To allow an inferior to prosper or negotiate reduces you to their level, as they're not simply obeying your notion of how the world should be. If you lose face, the best way to regain it is to pick out a small fry you're sure you can dominate and kick the hell out of them, to show off how big and mighty you are and cow all the others into wary submission.

His reasoning in this fiasco is that the US can set itself and other nations on fire via tariffs and they will be forced to flinch first, because we can do without them but they can't possibly do without us. Both of those conditions are debatable at best.
posted by delfin at 7:59 AM on February 2 [15 favorites]


My understanding was the Canadians are keeping the oil and gas export tax (as well as electricity) in their back pocket as a method of escalation.

This fucking sucks on every level and I wish I had not lived in such “interesting times”.
posted by saturday_morning at 8:00 AM on February 2 [8 favorites]


I still don't know what to do about fresh vegetables--it seems like all our produce comes from Canada and Mexico!

Honestly, I thought it went the other way around. Most of our fresh produce (especially this time of year) comes from the US, California in particular. According to this report from 2020 the US was the number 1 source of fruit and vegetable imports into Canada, followed closely by Mexico. But this is the thing right? Our economies are so highly interconnected that this is going to be economically punishing in lots of baroque ways.
posted by selenized at 8:01 AM on February 2 [16 favorites]


Pledge for Canada
This website is intended as an invitation to Canadians to reflect on the current challenges Canada faces and what we can all do to respond to the risks and to contribute to building a more resilient Canada. We invite you to sign on to the Pledge for Canada (below) if you agree that the principles set out represent a useful starting point for encouraging the solidarity we need and for urging our leaders to work together to develop a whole of Canada approach. At the bottom of this page, you will find instructions on how to add your own name in support of the Pledge.

Launch Committee, the Pledge for Canada: Charlie Angus (MP for Timmins-James Bay), John Cartwright (Chairperson, The Council of Canadians), Esi Edugyan (Writer), Alex Himelfarb (Former Clerk of the Privy Council), Anne Lagacé Dowson (Communicator), Craig Scott (Professor, Osgoode Hall Law School), Jean Teillet (Writer), and Mark Tewksbury (Athlete).
posted by mazola at 8:01 AM on February 2 [4 favorites]


Can… Can trucks drive from Mexico through the US to import produce into Canada without incurring the American tariffs? I have no idea how this actually works. Do we need a pipeline for our avocados?
posted by saturday_morning at 8:02 AM on February 2 [10 favorites]


I enjoy whiskey, but am not sure a $20 vs $25 would affect my drinking choices much.

I had been thinking about lumber and how much of it will be needed in Rebuilding Los Angeles. Do US mills have excess capacity and the supply chains to get it here?

The supply chains for Canadian oil are also designed for supplying US. Can’t just flip a switch to export through Vancouver or the St Lawrence seaway.

My families favorite cereal is Life. Every single store brand I have seen is made in Canada. Also lots of my produce comes from Mexico, and actually many mushrooms and grape tomatoes I get this time of near are Canadian greenhouse grown.

This whole thing will have wide-reaching impacts and is politically senseless
posted by CostcoCultist at 8:04 AM on February 2 [7 favorites]


I’ll just opine that Canadians will suffer more from not having American whiskey than Americans will suffer from not having Canadian whiskey.

So I started to type this....The other side of that coin is: American whiskey sellers will lose more when they can't sell to Canada than Canadian whiskey sellers lose when they sell less to the U.S.

Then I looked it up. It looks like Canada sells about 2.5B worth of whiskey to the U.S., but imports only $76M of U.S. Whiskey. Both numbers from Distilled Spirits Council of the United States.

I don't know how it will matter that the sales of Canadian Whiskey are driven by "super-premium" brands. I don't know if the price for people paying for premium product would be more elastic or less.
posted by If only I had a penguin... at 8:04 AM on February 2 [5 favorites]


I kind of wish that Trump had put the 25% tarriff on oil. That would have blown up the U.S. economy (and thus ended this) much faster.

Still a 10% tariff on energy is still a kick to the balls to the places that really, really need gas. The average person probably won't notice 10% change on 20 gallons of gas because it fluctuates that much over a year anyways, but if you're filling up a semitruck with 150 gallons of fuel, or a diesel-electric train's 5,000 gallon tank, that is a huge change in cost caused by one singular event. Transportation of goods has far more impact on the economy and is a cost without a lot of margin to make up for it.
posted by AzraelBrown at 8:05 AM on February 2 [9 favorites]


Trump wants war and civil unrest. He wants martial law and the Insurrection Act. That is why Musk is gutting the core of our government's fiscal apparatus. He wants an excuse to bomb our neighbors, which is why tariffs. We are in very dark times and there is no way at this point to protest our way out of it. It only ends when people materially revolt or a foreign country invades and deposes him.

I am glad Canada is standing its ground. We need our allies to be strong.
posted by grumpybear69 at 8:08 AM on February 2 [33 favorites]


So, when the trade war turns into a regular war, are we all gonna run for the hills and dig-in right away? Or should we "greet them as liberators", and then get 'em while they're sleeping.
posted by mrjohnmuller at 8:09 AM on February 2 [5 favorites]


As I said before, maybe Canada should consider burning down the White House again
posted by Kitteh at 8:19 AM on February 2 [23 favorites]


We knew something was coming. Threats, bluster, beating the ground and thumping the chest prior to a new round of trade negotiations. Well, ok, assholes gonna asshole, we've been here before, we got through that before.

But seeing how this one has dropped, and the other noises with it - the whole Manifest Destiny "51st state" schtick, the absolutely empty lies used as justification. So now we Canadians don't just have to fear some economic pain; our closest friend is now threatening to roll over our country? It's the Putinization of the US. A couple of egotistical autocrats wanna play RISK with the world. I'm gutted, friends.

I haven't yet got up to speed on all the tariffs and counter tariffs. I'm hoping that Canada will look hard at small but disruptive actions that cause short sharp attention-getting pains. Like delaying/blocking steel shipments long enough to cause US auto plants to shut down briefly, or to lay off shifts. Blocking softwood shipments to cause pain in the US construction industry. Temporary pipeline closures that cause US refineries to run dry and US gas prices to spike. Might be useful to briefly block shipping at international bridges.

I wonder if any of our allies would consider threatening some restrictions or closures of US bases on their territory?

Maybe a short exchange of economic blows, a little world condemnation, some secret negotiating, and this will again blow over into a renegotiated trade deal. Otherwise, the future's looking bleak. What a fucking year.
posted by Artful Codger at 8:31 AM on February 2 [17 favorites]


My understanding was the Canadians are keeping the oil and gas export tax (as well as electricity) in their back pocket as a method of escalation.


Taxing electricity will mainly punish New England and New York.

And at this point, yes, please make distinctions. Please punish the red states.
They put my corner of the US in physical danger during covid. Fuck'em.
posted by ocschwar at 8:32 AM on February 2 [12 favorites]


Blame Go Canada!

Hopefully, Mexico is ready to jump right on it.
posted by JustSayNoDawg at 8:32 AM on February 2 [4 favorites]


My other takeaway at the moment is that Trudeau gets it. It's not that America and Canada are now mortal enemies engaged in a death-struggle tug-of-war that will send one or the other into an abyss, and that America is now evil and Americans are evil and Canada will not rest until they have destroyed the infidel. Instead, it's a tone of "We apologize for the inconvenience, decent Americans, but you seem to be held hostage at the moment by an idiot who just slapped us across the face."

Canada is not the problem here. Canada is not the bad actor. Canada is not actively seeking to punish Americans. Remind people in your life of that as this progresses, and be prepared for the Angry Uncle Who Yells At You Across The Thanksgiving Dinner Table to recoil when he sees Canadian bacon in your fridge that has not been sourced from Arkansas and relabeled as Freedom Bacon.
posted by delfin at 8:34 AM on February 2 [56 favorites]


Honestly, I thought it went the other way around. Most of our fresh produce (especially this time of year) comes from the US, California in particular.

I won’t pretend to really understand it, but there’s a weird crisscrossing of produce over the continent. I once visited a greenhouse in Ruthven, Ontario where they said their tomatoes pretty much all went to the US, where most of what I saw in my home grocery store was from the US or Mexico. So I’m really not sure how that will all shake out in terms of what we all see on our respective shelves.
posted by eekernohan at 8:35 AM on February 2 [6 favorites]


I work in the BC Government's massive liquor warehouse. We've been talking about this for the last few weeks and tariffs on Mega Juice and pulling American products from government stores won't have too much of an impact on our sales.

What will have an impact will be the 1000s and 1000s of job losses because America can't get its shit together.
posted by Phlegmco(tm) at 8:39 AM on February 2 [8 favorites]


Taxing electricity will mainly punish New England and New York.

True, but the temperature of the country right now is: if the US doesn't make distinctions for us, why should we make them for you?

Canada is not the problem here. Canada is not the bad actor. Canada is not actively seeking to punish Americans. Remind people in your life of that as this progresses, and be prepared for the Angry Uncle Who Yells At You Across The Thanksgiving Dinner Table to recoil when he sees Canadian bacon in your fridge that has not been sourced from Arkansas and relabeled as Freedom Bacon.

I think a lot of Americans--especially Trump supporters--do not understand how closely our economies are tied, for good or ill. But they are about to find out.
posted by Kitteh at 8:45 AM on February 2 [19 favorites]


Taxing electricity will mainly punish New England and New York.

...yes, please make distinctions. Please punish the red states.


That's not possible or reasonable. Why would you expect that? Are NY and NE going to openly defy their federal government and NOT impose tariffs or other restrictions on trade between them and Canada?

Canada needs for ALL Americans to be angry or unsettled enough to push on their federal government to stop the foolishness.
posted by Artful Codger at 8:54 AM on February 2 [17 favorites]


I think a lot of Americans--especially Trump supporters--do not understand how closely our economies are tied, for good or ill. But they are about to find out.

Hard agree, unfortunately. The cascading effects are going to be appalling. Same with our new, insane approach to infection disease, among other things. Most people are just too young to remember the days before everything was so interconnected.
posted by cupcakeninja at 8:58 AM on February 2 [8 favorites]


The nice trick, though, is how he’s imposing 25% tariffs on our hemispheric, democratic trading partners (one of which is a NATO ally), while the dictatorship across the Pacific only merits a 10% hit.

Like all bullies, Donald Trump isn’t too keen on the idea of taking on the strong. He perceives Mexico and Canada as being much less dangerous, for obvious reasons.
posted by robbyrobs at 9:02 AM on February 2 [15 favorites]


Trump doesn't want anything. He just want the tariffs. He's convinced they can raise vast sums of money that will let him enact tax cuts later this year, and he likes that. That's it. There's no theory of the case. There's no underlying rationale. There's no 4-D chess. He just wants the money, and he either doesn't know or doesn't care that he's raising it from Americans, not foreigners.

And why Canada, Mexico, and China? For the same reason Willie Sutton robbed banks: because that's where the money is. Those three countries account for nearly half of all US imports, so they're the ones that got held up.
posted by robbyrobs at 9:02 AM on February 2 [43 favorites]


The one suggestion that somebody in my close circle has--and that I haven't heard discussed elsewhere--and that I think is a brilliant one is this: threaten to nationalize Tesla's supercharger network.

In a lot of ways it makes sense. If these tariffs were supposedly put in place for "national security" (drugs and migrants) reasons, and if the US can force ByteDance to sell off the American portion of TikTok for national security reasons, then we're equally justified in claiming "national security" for taking one of Musk's toys away from him. We'd be nationalizing an important piece of infrastructure, we'd be supporting our net-zero efforts by taking it and building upon it and expanding it. And most importantly, we'd be hitting a key Trump ally right where it hurts. If Trump and Co. want to play dirty, well, we'll give as good as we get.

We should also be ramping up the court challenges for the CUSMA violations (nope, I'm not using the American preferred order--if they can rename the Gulf, we can stick with that version of the name).

We should also do something about guns. That's our national security reason, and we should be hitting back twice as hard on it as the Americans are on "fentanyl".
posted by sardonyx at 9:03 AM on February 2 [23 favorites]


This is US exceptionalism taken to its logical extreme

The rules do not apply consistently, then one day the rules simply do not apply. Naked power, it just took a while. Canada is about to learn that cute metaphors about elephants and mice aren't so cute when you literally cannot move away from the bully.

I do hope most or at least many of us go down fighting

The energy piece will be the wedge issue, just watch. It might even be the point.
posted by ginger.beef at 9:09 AM on February 2 [7 favorites]


From David Moscrop, Confessions of a Reluctant Nationalist:
My reluctant nationalism boils down to thinking there’s something good here that could be made much better. It’s driven by a desire to preserve our sovereignty so we can work out for ourselves how to do better and, in the process, to fight for those within our borders to live how they wish to live. Last week, I signed the Pledge for Canada, which includes five principles for defending the country and puts things rather succinctly and nicely in the end: “Canadians will decide Canada’s future and place in the world.”

We must will resist Trump’s attack. I will. I know I’ll do so with millions of others who join this national potluck with their own particular dishes in hand, their own varieties of nationalism, of patriotism, of whatever you wish to call it. In the end, we’ll be drawn together for many reasons and with many aims, some compatible, some not. We’ll fight the external threat and then we’ll sort out our own house on our own terms. That’s how it should be.

Now is a time to rally in for this country. It’s time to fight to protect workers, and those who cannot work, from economic devastation. It’s time to fight to preserve a border that doesn’t exist for its own sake, but for the purpose of delineating the boundaries of a way of living that we prefer, prefer to keep, and will fight for — gloves off.
posted by lookoutbelow at 9:14 AM on February 2 [15 favorites]


Honestly, I'm more worried about Musk - he's effectively becoming a fourth branch of government with zero authorization or oversight. Whether or not that's really the case, I can't say - but it sounds like he is and I've heard nothing to counter it.

It bothers me that people still continue to work for Musk's companies. Feeding your family is important but at some point you have to realize you are working for a right-wing racist, don't you? Everyone at Boring, Neuralink, SpaceX and Tesla (among others) is complicit. I realize that's sort of the Silicon Valley techno-supremacist mindset, but dang, guys, where's the limit?
posted by JustSayNoDawg at 9:25 AM on February 2 [19 favorites]


We shouldn't forget, as Canadians and North Americans, that this trade war will hurt Mexicans far more than it will hurt Canadians. Mexico is much more economically dependent on exports to the US than Canada is and obviously so many more Mexicans are economically on the edge or unable to meet their basic needs already. People being laid off from export-focused industries is going to hurt so much more in Mexico than in Canada.

And everyone seems to be characterizing this as a strong response from Canada, but it seems pretty weak to me. It's an immediate tariff on less than 10% of goods imported from the US, with maybe one-third affected after a 21 day comment period. It seems like phasing in the tariffs slowly and only applying them to a minority of imports is just not going to hurt in the way it needs to hurt to be effective.
posted by ssg at 9:27 AM on February 2 [11 favorites]


threaten to nationalize Tesla's supercharger network.

sardonyx, I've been wondering if something like this would be possible here in the UK and in the rest of the world as well (when we get the inevitable tariffs). That so much of Musk's net worth is tied up in stock in companies mainly valued for their future potential might make it fairly easy to target retaliation in a way that hits the inner circle of Trump pretty hard. Block Twitter, deny SpaceX overflight rights of you're a Caribbean country, force a sale of Tesla infrastructure at cut rate prices... none of these would hurt normal people that much and would tank Musk's net worth. It would also be nice if we could convince the UK government to stop sharing NHS data with fricking Palantir.
posted by nangua at 9:28 AM on February 2 [14 favorites]


Trump doesn't want anything. He just want the tariffs. He's convinced they can raise vast sums of money that will let him enact tax cuts later this year, and he likes that. That's it. There's no theory of the case. There's no underlying rationale. There's no 4-D chess.

The tariff revenue is of course part, but not all. From the way he's tearing up alliances and leaning again into expansionism like buying Greenland, or repeating the "the 51st state" bullshit, TFG is testing the waters for a new US imperialism. The world is now a plaything for strongmen. Putin's getting himself some, Xi Jinping wants some (mainly Taiwan), Netanyahu is clearing out Palestinians. Trump wants some conquests too.

Zillionaires are at the table like it was roulette. They're staking or betting on smaller despots, and buying influence with the power players.
posted by Artful Codger at 9:30 AM on February 2 [13 favorites]


Let them drink maple syrup...
posted by Czjewel at 9:35 AM on February 2 [2 favorites]


I am not typically a huge fan of Ezra Klein but I found his podcast (with text) today interesting and helpful in understanding the time we live in now. Not specifically focused on Canada and the tariffs (Justin Trudeau's speech was excellent- I love you Canada!) but a perspective on the overall picture of what they are doing.
posted by bluesky43 at 9:35 AM on February 2 [3 favorites]


My understanding was the Canadians are keeping the oil and gas export tax (as well as electricity) in their back pocket as a method of escalation.

Pure speculation, but it may also be that Danielle Smith (who has been very eager to lick Trump's boot) couldn't be brought on board with an oil & gas export tax included.
posted by ssg at 9:36 AM on February 2 [3 favorites]


As to economic rationalizations, how many Mark Carneys to the average Canadian? You show Wayne Gretzky bending the knee, add the Danielle Smith knee benders, it's pretty clear TFG has lots to work with as far as internal divisions
posted by ginger.beef at 9:39 AM on February 2 [2 favorites]


Personally, I'm envisioning lots of "the courts have made the law, now let them enforce it" in the coming days.
posted by beaning at 9:40 AM on February 2 [7 favorites]


I don't know how it will matter that the sales of Canadian Whiskey are driven by "super-premium" brands.

The WhiskyCast podcast will be a good source of coverage.

Here is their print reporting so far.
posted by Lemkin at 9:40 AM on February 2 [1 favorite]




Stupid Galen Weston probably has such a boner right now
posted by Alvy Ampersand at 9:45 AM on February 2 [2 favorites]


American friends - I suspect it’s not as well understood south of the border how existential this is for us. We’re a small, open, trade focused country next to a partner 10x our size. Our economies are deeply, deeply integrated. A 25% tariff will destroy the auto industry in Ontario, one of our largest industries, for example.

Yes, we will fight back tit-for-tat. But there is no denying how asymmetric the economic relationship is, and how much economic vulnerability we’ve allowed due to 100 years of deep economic cooperation.

This looks like it might be Trump trying to bankrupt a country of 40 million people. Its closest ally. Because he can. Because he’s venal and stupid and thinks this will get him on Mount Rushmore.

This could hurt us a lot. Staggeringly.

I’m a lucky engineer working for a well known us software company, driving an American car, with American relatives, supporting American independent media.

It’s not about bourbon choices. It’s a lot bigger than that to us. America is threatening to drive us into the ground. Impoverish our families. This feels a lot different than anything else I’ve experienced.
posted by ~ at 9:45 AM on February 2 [82 favorites]



...yes, please make distinctions. Please punish the red states.

That's not possible or reasonable. Why would you expect that?


Your leaders already are striving to make distinctions. I should in theory not support that, but like I said. My corner of the US was subjected to active malice in 2020, and people I know were physically endangered by it. So I'm not going to object to something in theory I should object to.
posted by ocschwar at 9:45 AM on February 2 [1 favorite]


Nationalizing Tesla's network in Canada would be satisfying but would probably just trigger Elon to remotely disable any car being charged at an "unapproved" network in Canada, with some fig leaf about "safety reasons".

Canada makes whisky, not whiskey.

One of the psychopathologies at work here is that Trump and his circle seem to see multilateralism, treaties and so on as a kind of DEI policy on a global scale, one that has "unfairly" allowed otherwise "undeserving" smaller countries like Canada, Mexico etc to expect to be treated with respect and as equals. Hence the absurd insistence that the US is being ripped off.
posted by senor biggles at 9:56 AM on February 2 [8 favorites]




Californian here to apologize for whisky vs whiskey as I may have been the source of that. I will drive my Fiat-Chrysler/Stellantis vehicle ( made in Windsor, Ontario) out later to my favorite German-owned grocery chain to load up on my Canadian breakfast cereal and may stop by a liquor store as well
posted by CostcoCultist at 10:11 AM on February 2 [7 favorites]


I'm sure energy exports could be slashed without any official actions like an export tax. Unifor could work-to-rule on safety concerns, methane emissions, etc, causing longer term shutdowns for pipelines that cross the border.

Trump's threats reveal the trouble with Canada's pipelines running through the U.S.

Also, Canada should minimize invasion risks by being prepared to destory energy infrasturure. In particular, they should ready whatever well-kill techniques look most irreversible.
posted by jeffburdges at 10:12 AM on February 2 [3 favorites]


Our president is a Russian asset. Full stop.

And it doesn't even need to be literal. Their aims only have to align for that to be true. Trumpski wants power; Putin wants to rip out the core of of the western alliance. As long as Don the Con continues down this path he is an asset to Russian aims.
posted by los pantalones del muerte at 10:14 AM on February 2 [24 favorites]


Going to be a LOT of distinctions drawn between made in Canada and other products in shops. A shitload of maple leaf stickers. I can’t imagine the panic at the grocery stores.
posted by seanmpuckett at 10:22 AM on February 2 [2 favorites]


Two things come to mind after the events of the last 24 hours.

First:
My understanding was the Canadians are keeping the oil and gas export tax (as well as electricity) in their back pocket as a method of escalation.

This should have been #1 on the list. You're going to tariff us 25% on everything but oh, you really still need oil so you'll only tariff that 10% so it looks like you're doing something but won't blow up your economy. How about we fix that for you with a 15% export tariff to go with your 10% import tariff? There, now everything is on an even keel.

Second:
People keep referring to Trump running the country as a business. I'm wondering if he has it in mind that mergers and acquisitions is the next step. If it is, then this tariff BS is just saber-rattling to deflect attention, or maybe an outright attempt to lower the cost of acquisition.

And as someone pointed out about job losses in Canada and the ease of finding work when you're over 50... Yeah, i'm in that boat too. My job is likely safe, but the clients we work for are likely going to be hurt hard. Which means it'll trickle back to us, and we literally *just* got out of a slow year where we had hours cut back to 50% for 8 months. A layoff in the near future would likely force some downsizing at home.

F*ck Drumpf and the N*zi horse he rode in on.
posted by Snowflake at 10:25 AM on February 2 [8 favorites]


I’m just so sad, you guys.
posted by saturday_morning at 10:29 AM on February 2 [23 favorites]


Same. I've been unable to focus or really accomplish anything for weeks. I'm just glued to the anxiety-rectangle.
posted by mrjohnmuller at 10:31 AM on February 2 [11 favorites]



This should have been #1 on the list. You're going to tariff us 25% on everything but oh, you really still need oil so you'll only tariff that 10% so it looks like you're doing something but won't blow up your economy. How about we fix that for you with a 15% export tariff to go with your 10% import tariff? There, now everything is on an even keel.


Would Canada be able to do that without Alberta breaking ranks?

This is the real weird thing about Canada, the way provinces can set tariffs and trade policy. American states don't have that authority at all.
posted by ocschwar at 10:32 AM on February 2 [2 favorites]


On preview, los pantalones del muerte anticipates my lead in here, but it is worth spelling out.

It sounds tired at this point, but it's important to remember that Trump has been Putin's creature from the beginning. His threats to annex Canada, Greenland and the Panama Canal, for example, are insane until you put them in the context of normalizing Russia's invasion of Ukraine. Similarly, destroying the economies and in particular the economic trust of trading partners that forms a greater part of the West's geopolitical strength is a massive strategic victory for Russia.

I will also once again note that as far as I know (I do not subscribe, and only sparingly read) all of this continues to be sane-washed and normalized by the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, the Atlantic and other organs of the American WASP elite. There is something very strange there. One would think that the Wall Street financial houses would be more concerned about an open ended, hyper aggressive trade war, tinged with irrational military adventurism. Not to mention the curtailing of some portion of the 20% or so of the American economy that is directly driven by federal government spending. But for now they remain quite sanguine. I am very interested to see if they remain so as economies tumble back into high levels of inflation and rising unemployment, presumably with some degree of civil unrest, or if there is a pivot point where the elite see some impact on their lives and start to show some kind of anxiety and/or urgency about the wholesale destruction of the interconnected global economy that is in large part their great work of the last 75 years or so.
posted by Smedly, Butlerian jihadi at 10:34 AM on February 2 [28 favorites]


I am so glad my partner works for the Canadian Federal government. I feel so bad for everyone in the private sector right now. Fuck.
posted by seanmpuckett at 10:36 AM on February 2 [6 favorites]


Our president is a Russian asset. Full stop.

I've been thinking a lot about that the last 24 hours, so much that I fell into a bit of an internet rabbit hole. I am pretty amazed at how Trump has managed to shut down the investigations and also the discussion in the media.

Russia does not have the military strength to take on NATO. But if it can disrupt the whole liberal order, it can still win. And with Trump as an asset, this is a real possibility.
posted by mumimor at 10:38 AM on February 2 [10 favorites]


"Meat and edible offal, of the poultry of heading" is doing a LOT of heavy lifting in that list Kitteh... What nonsense. How stupid.
posted by Windopaene at 10:40 AM on February 2 [2 favorites]


or maybe an outright attempt to lower the cost of acquisition.

This is exactly what I've been thinking. Trump's wild-ass behavior often fizzles out for one reason or another (thank God), but not always. Weakening a smaller or less powerful country (especially a neighbor) until they are forced to accept your "help," "guardianship," or worse, is not exactly a geopolitical novelty. I think a U.S. military coup is at least as likely as the U.S. armed forces attacking Canada, but reaching a point where either would happen is a terrible prospect for all of North America.
posted by cupcakeninja at 10:43 AM on February 2 [5 favorites]


ocschwar, That's why Canada should not impose an export tax directly, which represents an escalation, but instead energy workers should just turn the energy flow into a trickle. Alberta government could do nothing against union workers slowing things down, while the RCMP pats those workers on the back.

You need Trump to burn through the 714 million barrels in the strategic petroleum reserve (SPR) thought, which represents about 160 days. That's why it should start now, without any fanfare. Ideally Trump draws upon the SPR for a while, without making bigger economic moves, invasion, etc. If Trump invades, then kill the wells so the flow stops entirely.
posted by jeffburdges at 10:47 AM on February 2 [5 favorites]


If Trump follows the Putin playbook, my guess is that he won't just order US troops into Canada right away. First, they'll coordinate with insurrectionary fascist groups on our side of the border, arm them, and encourage them to seize territory. Then, after Canada responds to those incidents, US fascists will make a big stink about how Canada is a dictatorship, and the US needs to invade in order to "dewoke-ify" us.
posted by mrjohnmuller at 10:48 AM on February 2 [3 favorites]


Cmon, no, there will be no hot war with the US.
posted by seanmpuckett at 10:51 AM on February 2 [11 favorites]


This is the real weird thing about Canada, the way provinces can set tariffs and trade policy.

How could Danielle Smith prevent the feds from putting an export tax on oil? She may kick and scream, but what provincial powers exist to prevent such a tax or any kind of tariff?

More broadly, interprovincial trade barriers certainly exist, but provinces have no power to stop any kind of federal tariff.
posted by ssg at 10:52 AM on February 2 [4 favorites]


This is the real weird thing about Canada, the way provinces can set tariffs and trade policy. American states don't have that authority at all.

Provinces don't have any authority to set foreign tariffs or trade policy; those are exclusively federal prerogatives. The federal government has pulled this punch for a different reason: national unity. The governments of Alberta and Saskatchewan would treat this as a hostile act.
posted by senor biggles at 10:52 AM on February 2 [4 favorites]


Cmon, no, there will be no hot war with the US.

Oh cool, thanks! Good to know. My mind is now fully at ease.
posted by mrjohnmuller at 10:52 AM on February 2 [13 favorites]


Cmon, no, there will be no hot war with the US.

I think it sounds bananas. Like utter nonsense, and let us hope that it is! Tariffs and trade wars come and go, but (not to U.S.-center things) things feel weirdly unhinged down here right now. And there are a whole lot of things that I would never have believed could happen ten years ago that have happened. I'm not trying to be alarmist or a jackass, just saying that I feel like we're in new, bad territory.
posted by cupcakeninja at 10:54 AM on February 2 [13 favorites]


Even if there was military action against Canada, you have to keep the domestic economy going before and while taking action. Cheeto Benito just gave up on that part. Can't do a fight-thing without the supply lines. This is really basic, like Sun-Tzu level shit.
posted by mrgoat at 10:57 AM on February 2 [3 favorites]


For one thing, Celine Dion would pull all her Christmas albums, and how would you celebrate without them?
posted by seanmpuckett at 10:57 AM on February 2 [9 favorites]


New Zealander here. We're expecting tariffs on our exports to the US because our farmers can supply good food to Americans for a lower price than US farmers.

I guess enough of those Americans would rather vote for that fucking guy instead of having healthy affordable food.

But eh, we have other buyers.

Ten years ago our exports to the US were about the same amount as our exports to China. Now we export almost three times as much to China as to the US.

That's true globally - the US share of global trade has been heading down for decades. The US used to be the world's largest exporter. You were 20% of global trade in the 1950s. In 2002 your share was down to 12%. Now it's 8%.

You can't win a trade war if your trade isn't that important.
posted by happyinmotion at 10:58 AM on February 2 [29 favorites]


Canada becoming part of the U.S. would require a constitutional amendment*. I feel like no Canadian old enough to remember 1987 or 1992 is worried that will ever happen. And unlike those, this one would have to be unanimous.

*yes, if there is a literal military annexation without any respect for the constitution we would end up being Ukraine. But even now that seems very far-fetched.
posted by If only I had a penguin... at 11:00 AM on February 2 [2 favorites]


The US cannot stand alone against China. And there's a very real possibility that NATO will collapse and our allies will replace us with China.
posted by constraint at 11:01 AM on February 2 [4 favorites]


One would think that the Wall Street financial houses would be more concerned about an open ended, hyper aggressive trade war, tinged with irrational military adventurism. Not to mention the curtailing of some portion of the 20% or so of the American economy that is directly driven by federal government spending. But for now they remain quite sanguine.

posted by Smedly, Butlerian jihadi at 10:34 AM on February 2 [3 favorites +] [⚑]


It probably won't make you feel any better, but the most popular Opinion article right now on the Wall Street Journal site is entitled The Dumbest Trade War in History (gift link).
posted by Kibbutz at 11:04 AM on February 2 [12 favorites]


i'm american in my late 40s and just started a new job 3 weeks ago, the first real job i've ever had as an adult (i actually will get benefits for the first time ever in a couple more weeks!). this is the best job i've ever had and at this point probably the best job i ever will have. it is very technical and complex, with a lot to master about stuff not in my background, and i have 9 more weeks to learn it before they shove me off the deep end to sink or swim. we have clients all over North America and the mind reels trying to consider what might happen.

i just found out 5 days ago that i'm getting shoved out of my illegal apartment, with the excuse of the landlord is renovating. this is the second time in 9 months i've been forced out of a home due to landlord greed. if i go with the place i've found so far, that would mean my rent has doubled in 9 months from where i used to live.

there are no savings, there haven't been any savings for a long time. i already live in one of the cheapest cities in the region. i've been skating by on CCs with the balances growing every month. it's a bit whack-a-mole, i can only seem to zero one by temporarily transferring a balance or using a different account for a while.

2 weeks ago i really thought i was starting to see the light at the end of the tunnel, because the new job will pay well and my rent was relatively cheap. i had the concept of a plan to actually start paying off debts and eventually in a year or two move my net worth into positive territory for the first time ever. now all that feels like it was a silly dream. the rugpull that is 2025.

oh, the job, right so also they just announced that the couple-hundred-person company i just started out at is "merging" with a couple-thousand-person company, and who knows how all that will go but it's an extra dose of chaos on top of everything else, and the wisdom seems to be that the smaller company is that one that takes the most lumps in a merger. i'm literally the last person to ever be hired by company X, as hiring has been frozen while company Y absorbs us. i will do the best i can to learn my new position's requirements but i've seen too many merger stories about how retaining one's position following a merger can have zero to do with skill, ability, or perhaps anything really. the modern necromancy that is the corporation literally has no heart or soul. MCA Thanos for you comic book movie fans.

i don't know really where i'm going with this but all of it is to say, great fuck, this is a terrible time we are all facing. it is very difficult to imagine good outcomes these few days; seems like we've really hit The Jackpot. if you have some security then cherish it and do what you can to protect it.

i'm personally trying to ratchet my temporal viewport down even further than before: one day at a time becomes one hour at a time, etc. the tea steeps so very quickly now.

oligarkhía delenda est. ✊
posted by glonous keming at 11:04 AM on February 2 [31 favorites]


Cmon, no, there will be no hot war with the US.

Quoting this for posterity. And hoping against bad odds right now that you're right.
posted by Snowflake at 11:05 AM on February 2 [3 favorites]


Is there any polling yet on how Americans feel about this (before the economic hit comes)? I’ve been trying to avoid the usual media suspects.
posted by saturday_morning at 11:09 AM on February 2


I've been wondering if secession is a real possibility for blue states.

NY, MA, VT, CA, WA ... That alone moving to Canada would be an absolute body blow.
posted by constraint at 11:09 AM on February 2 [3 favorites]


The risk of the US invading Canada is tiny or even non-existent. I think Trump even said so himself. I'd be very worried if I were Mexican, though. Not that Trump wants to annex a country full of brown people, of course he doesn't. But he wants to terrorize a neighboring country pour encourager les autres.
posted by mumimor at 11:09 AM on February 2 [6 favorites]


Cmon, no, there will be no hot war with the US.

Sean, I don't think it's very likely either, but what gives YOU absolute confidence here?

The waves of bombers in this invasion would be trade actions, sanctions, blockading maybe, to wreak economic havoc. The intent would be to induce internal crises and hardships, sow dissention, and provoke Canadians into rioting and battling other Canadians. Is that hot enough to qualify?

Endgame would be to break Canada enough to become an ungovernable mess like Haiti, at which time the US will cite security requirements for sending in their forces to "secure" Canada and access to vital energy and resources. Do you believe that there wouldn't be at least SOME armed resistance to this, from whatever of Canada's forces can be still be mobilized, or from the population at large engaging in guerilla action against occupiers, acts of sabotage, etc? Sounds pretty hot to me.

For those more willing than me right now to wallow in Canada-US wargaming, Richard Rohmer wrote a two-book saga ("Ultimatum" and "Exxoneration") in the early 70s, at the height of anxieties over energy, depicting a takeover attempt. I read the set when they came out.
posted by Artful Codger at 11:18 AM on February 2 [6 favorites]


I must be living on some completely different planet than everyone, because I am incapable of seeing all these constant threats to annex Canada and then going on to think that the risk of an invasion is "tiny or even non-existent". To me, the risk feels extremely present.
posted by mrjohnmuller at 11:19 AM on February 2 [12 favorites]




The one upside of all this is that Trump is probably going to inadvertently prevent Canada from electing a conservative government which is kind of hilarious. Pierre Poilievre would have been Trump's Yanukovych. Instead he'll probably have to deal with someone further to the left than JT.
posted by srboisvert at 11:19 AM on February 2 [26 favorites]


New Zealander here. We're expecting tariffs on our exports to the US because our farmers can supply good food to Americans for a lower price than US farmers.

I ate so much frozen NZ lamb while in England even though on every train ride I saw sheep everywhere. The economics of global trade are wild.
posted by srboisvert at 11:26 AM on February 2 [11 favorites]


If Trump tries to invade (and you know that's crossed his diseased ferrety little mind at least once), is there a means by which I can join a Canadian Resistance (from Texas)?

Look, I'll even live in Saskatchewan afterwards, if necessary. Thunder Bay would be cooler, though.

Or Guelph (I just like that name).
posted by JustSayNoDawg at 11:29 AM on February 2 [6 favorites]


How is this new trade war being viewed on the ground in Texas? Or elswhere, especially in red states?

Guelph is lovely. I bet you'd like it. I grew up in Thunder Bay. Mmmm, I prefer Guelph, though TBay has access to great camping/canoeing/boating/skiing, so might be the choice for the outdoorsy type.
posted by Artful Codger at 11:31 AM on February 2 [1 favorite]


If America ever gets a chance to have elections that matter the first test of whether or not the incoming non-Trump government takes anything seriously will be to see if they terminate the ability of the President to unilaterally impose tariffs.

Sorry Canada, Mexico, you deserved better of us than this.

On Truth Social, Trump admits his tariffs will hurt America, and also threatens to impose even harsher tariffs if Canada and Mexico retaliate so we're likely to see this get worse on Tuesday.
posted by sotonohito at 11:31 AM on February 2 [3 favorites]


Look, I'll even live in Saskatchewan afterwards, if necessary. Thunder Bay would be cooler, though.

You'll live in Findlater or Forget and you'll like it. (Also, Thunder Bay's a hole)
posted by Alvy Ampersand at 11:35 AM on February 2 [4 favorites]


I must be living on some completely different planet than everyone, because I am incapable of seeing all these constant threats to annex Canada and then going on to think that the risk of an invasion is "tiny or even non-existent". To me, the risk feels extremely present.

The reason I think the risk is tiny or non-existent is that no matter what, he'll start with somewhere else he thinks is easier, like Greenland, Panama or Mexico. And then he'll discover, like every other American president who has waged wars since 1945, that it is damn hard. Even when the country is small and unarmed. And since Trump is not Hitler, but a stupid old orange mess, he will give up on wars. There is obviously the risk that his successor is stupider and more dangerous, but I don't see that right now.

The reason I think Mexico is first up is that he Trump administration has already taken steps to declare the drug gangs terrorists, thus creating a "legal framework" for declaring war.
posted by mumimor at 11:39 AM on February 2 [4 favorites]


If I were NATO, I would preemptively step away from the US and tell China "You want to have it out, good luck and go to it. Washington is right there (point at map)."
posted by JustSayNoDawg at 11:41 AM on February 2 [4 favorites]


Greenland would be more of a clear example for a Putin-inspired US invasion. It's small and economically weak. It's on the periphery, not many pay attention to it. It has a strong independence movement (the Prime Minister even manages to make a statement that Greenland is not to be ruled by the US or Denmark in response to Trump's aggression).

It's the Moldova or Georgia for Trump. Canada would be more like Ukraine.

So if Trump is doing it by the book, it's Greenland first. if the US annexes Greenland, you're already too late I'd I'm you haven't been preparing for the worst.

I'm also deeply unknowledgeable as to what an annexation of Greenland would mean for NATO. Will Denmark consider it as an attack on itself? If so does it call up NATO-minus-US, bringing Canada in?

[Sorry for the unpleasant thoughts here. I don't think this can be called doomerism since the US is making these veiled threats.]
posted by UN at 11:45 AM on February 2 [4 favorites]


My job involves importing stuff from China. No one makes these products in the US -- last Trump term, some people in our industry moved to India and Mexico to avoid the China tariffs. We moved some stuff to Vietnam, but ultimately if you're making electronic bits-and-bobs it's hard to beat China for price and reliability. Also...we like and trust the people we work with in China. So it's complicated to do, and more expensive, and now these Mexico and Canada tariffs are just so nonsensical...like, what's the point? There no guarantee you won't end up moving your supplier to a new country that some guy at Mar-a-Lago hates and randomly starts a tariff on in a month. And I know it's not top priority for the country, but I'm so mad I have to worry about this stuff again.
posted by grandiloquiet at 11:45 AM on February 2 [8 favorites]


I've been wondering if secession is a real possibility for blue states.

I will now remind everyone once more (not to lecture or to scold, but just to remind) that there ARE no solid red or solid blue states. There are Democrats, lefties, centrists, politically-disconnected folks and other good people in every town in every county in every state -- yes, even Oklahoma -- in the United States. There are Republican bigots, racists, greed-heads, Bible-thumpers, xenophobes and malcontents everywhere as well.

A counter-culture in an otherwise largely homogenous area can do amazing work and a lot of good for their community. I'm neither inclined to abandon those people, fighting the good fight behind enemy lines, nor watch them leave and witness their former country sliding further and further into fascism because other lefties no longer get to vote there.

How is this new trade war being viewed on the ground in Texas? Or elswhere, especially in red states?

Another thing to remember right now is that we are seeing the saber-rattling and the sanctions and the counter-sanctions; we are not yet seeing the actual effects of those sanctions. People are still insulated from what is happening and what is in the works. The time when opinions will matter more is when people's daily lives are being crippled by a pointless trade war and they're NOTICING that crippling, and even then the media will provide more reasons than H&R Block why it's all Biden's fault, it's Obama's fault, it's the Democrats' fault, it's Canada's fault, it's Hollywood's fault, it's the remaining cast of SCTV's fault that anything bad has happened and it's really not so bad and the bad people are getting it worse, they assure you.
posted by delfin at 11:46 AM on February 2 [24 favorites]


There are no winners in this, but it feels like China will come out better than the US, Canada, or Mexico.

Chinese imports to the US only get a 10% tariff (compared to 25% for imports from our North American neighbors), so they won't be impacted as badly. And I doubt domestic manufacturing can grow to replace more than a fraction of Chinese imports, so US consumers are largely just going to bite the bullet and pay the tariff anyway.

Meanwhile, as Canada and Mexico face reduced access to US markets, they’ll need to increase trade elsewhere, and China stands to gain there, too.
posted by mbrubeck at 11:47 AM on February 2 [8 favorites]


I've been wondering if secession is a real possibility for blue states.

No, because secession requires a Constitutional amendment which must be ratified by 2/3 of the states. That's like 33 states. Never gonna happen.
posted by cooker girl at 11:52 AM on February 2 [4 favorites]


Just out of curiosity, because I have yet to see a cogent, rational, deliberate explanation - what the fuck does Trump think he's going to get out of this? Not hand-wavy (I think) he must want division and etc... something... divide-conquer ... But had he simply stated, anywhere, what he hopes to accomplish? I've been asked this three time in the last couple days and I have not the faintest clue. It strikes me as a lamentable case of self-harm.
posted by From Bklyn at 11:56 AM on February 2 [5 favorites]


I must be living on some completely different planet than everyone, because I am incapable of seeing all these constant threats to annex Canada and then going on to think that the risk of an invasion is "tiny or even non-existent"

It's possible but unlikely, but if it were to happen there's buggerall I could do to stop it, so why subject myself and my family to that tsuris? I have some anxiety issues that fortunately have waned as I get older and more tired, but what helps me is basically triaging shit according to probability and my ability to control it; "US Invasion" is above "Meteor Striking Earth", but waaay below "Kid's Handwriting Is Bad", "Job Is Annoying", "Foundation Is Leaky", and "Aging Parents".
posted by Alvy Ampersand at 11:56 AM on February 2 [4 favorites]


With the unsurprising exceptions (Danielle Smith and Scott Moe), the mood of Canada is pretty much "Fuck the US." Even our grossest citizens are onboard. I guess it takes Trump's idiocy to unite a country.
posted by Kitteh at 11:56 AM on February 2 [12 favorites]


Canada should consider burning down the White House again

Let's all remember that general anti-US sentiments expressed by Canadians are a propaganda gold mine for Trumpist media outlets.

It would be logical for pro-Trump troll farms to provoke the intensity of this, at the same time they are provoking anti-Canada sentiment down south. This two-sided pincer attack helps to dehumanize Canadians while building consensus down south for escalating retribution.

Let's keep the criticism aimed directly at the Trump administration and not at the US and it's infrastructure in general. Let's not fall into the emotive trap of doing Trump's work for him.

it feels like China will come out better than the US, Canada, or Mexico

Of course. The tariffs against China are only symbolic, to continue to obscure the fact that they are Trumps ally.
posted by CynicalKnight at 11:56 AM on February 2 [6 favorites]


There no guarantee you won't end up moving your supplier to a new country that some guy at Mar-a-Lago hates..

Large companies can and probably will just move the entire operation to somewhere outside the US.

The thing about Trump is he has lived a life where he never had to face consequences for anything, so naturally it never occurs to him that the things he does might have consequences.
posted by Lanark at 11:57 AM on February 2 [8 favorites]


Kibbutz, thank you, yes, that is something of what I am looking for. I do very much believe the tenor of coverage in the establishment press is something worth tracking.

I've been wondering if secession is a real possibility for blue states.

As things move further into chaos, I believe some degree of "soft" balkanization is a real possibility. I read somewhere or other that governors are often the first line of response to crisis, and that in fact several Democratic governors have already been talking about how to mitigate some of the draconian implications of Trump admin policy. This will not happen quickly or lightly, but I do recommend keeping an eye on increased regional cooperation between all the West Coast states, or all the New England states, for example (and keep in mind what's about to happen to the economies of Maryland and Virginia). Colorado is quite land locked, but I know that Jared Polis has been a leader already.

To be clear, I don't think anyone is going to join up with Canada, or overtly secede (at least, not any time soon). But there is real tension here, and Governorships are a real locus of power that the Trump administration in general is probably weaker against than most others. To the extent that the Trumpers start losing the support of the financial elite (see the WSJ piece Kibbutz linked to), Governors are a political power bloc that disaffected financial interests already have very strong existing ties with. There will be increasing pressure and support to do *something* to protect regional economic interests.
posted by Smedly, Butlerian jihadi at 12:00 PM on February 2 [8 favorites]


Canada cannot fight a hot war against the US, seanmpuckett, but they should make themselves an uninviting target, primarily by being able to disable the energy resources for some extended period. It's primarily preparation by oil & gas workers.
posted by jeffburdges at 12:02 PM on February 2 [2 favorites]


doubling down and really focusing on running the country like it’s a business.

As idiotic as this usually is running a country like a Trump business is a big foot bullet moment.

The U.S. exports more oil to other countries than it imports from Canada, based on my Googling, so if they stop buying Canadian oil, hopefully other countries would have our back and buy from Canada instead of the U.S.

It's more complicated. The US exports light crude. It imports heavy crude and has many refineries dedicated to that. Those refineries can't readily switch to light crude and there is more money in the way it is currently set up.

if you're filling up a semitruck with 150 gallons of fuel, or a diesel-electric train's 5,000 gallon tank, that is a huge change in cost caused by one singular event.

Long term I wonder if we see CP having a tank car acting as a tender with enough fuel to transit the USA without refilling.

Do we drop tariffs on China/BYD?

Sure would be nice to be able to buy some cheap Chinese EVs


posted by Mitheral at 12:02 PM on February 2 [4 favorites]


Disrupting Greenland is indeed very much textbook putinism, but more like Moldova than Georgia.

Independence has been underway for a long time, but currently there are a lot of radical populists with some more or less insane ideas about what the US can and will provide for an independent Greenland. This can be gamed and is being gamed by all sorts of external forces, though right now only about 10 % of Greenlanders want to join the US.
On the other hand, you don't really need to invade Greenland, there is already an American base. You just have to convince enough gullible Greenlanders that an association with the US will provide a higher standard of living and more respect than the current deal with Denmark. If Greenland wants to join the US or make some sort of association with the US, they are free to do so.

Regarding NATO, which is more relevant for Canada. NATO as a whole does not seem to have a clue about how to deal with the current situation. France doesn't trust the US, Germany has its own huge problems with the AfD, Italy supports Trump and the UK has its head under a thick blanket with its fingers in its ears screaming "special relationship" to drown out the fears. Poland is a strong force for good, but hasn't yet built up the leadership role it deserves after years of far right insanity. The smaller countries are just really worried. I have a feeling that Canada knows that it can't rely on NATO help right now.
posted by mumimor at 12:04 PM on February 2 [12 favorites]


Chinese imports to the US only get a 10% tariff (compared to 25% for imports from our North American neighbors), so they won't be impacted as badly. And I doubt domestic manufacturing can grow to replace more than a fraction of Chinese imports, so US consumers are largely just going to bite the bullet and pay the tariff anyway.

Trump already imposed a bunch of 10-25% tariffs during his last term, which Biden never revoked. And Biden added tariffs on some things, too. So the additional 10% is not great!
posted by grandiloquiet at 12:05 PM on February 2 [7 favorites]


what the fuck does Trump think he's going to get out of this?

I was watching the news last night and one commentator was saying ignore the ostensible reasons immigration, fentanyl the border security. That's an just an excuse .
It's that Trump actually believes in tariffs. He believes that by building a large tariff wall around the US he will make a great deal of revenue. Enough to pay for tax cuts and infrastructure .T here's Canada and Mexico now but the EU won't not far behind.
Putin must be laughing

Trump is not very bright and he's very ignorant.
I can't imagine the last time he read a book.
His wealth has isolated him and insulated him from any consequences
Any trade war will not impact him personally in the slightest
He's woefully ignorant of history,
posted by yyz at 12:12 PM on February 2 [24 favorites]


Trumps Trade Counselor is Peter Navarro:

He has called for increasing the size of the American manufacturing sector, setting high tariffs, especially towards China, and "repatriating global supply chains." He is also a vocal opponent of free trade agreements such as the US–South Korea Free Trade Agreement, NAFTA and the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement. Navarro has written books including The Coming China Wars (2006) and Death by China (2011).
posted by vacapinta at 12:17 PM on February 2 [4 favorites]




I must be living on some completely different planet than everyone, because I am incapable of seeing all these constant threats to annex Canada and then going on to think that the risk of an invasion is "tiny or even non-existent". To me, the risk feels extremely present.

Trump and his "brain" trust are nothing if not poker players. So yes, it's entirely possible that they're bluffing, also that they're not, also that they're fucking fools playing a strong hand very poorly. Bottom line: in poker, you can't really know for sure until the cards get played (or not if somebody folds). So yeah, these threats could be very real. They also could be tiny or even non-existent. We are where we are. And we do lose big time if we buy too credulously into any imagined scenario.
posted by philip-random at 12:22 PM on February 2 [1 favorite]


> Let's all remember that general anti-US sentiments expressed by Canadians are a propaganda gold mine for Trumpist media outlets.

Buddy, I'm a lifelong progressive, peace-marching community-minded left winger with an instinctive discomfort with nationalism and militarism.

But do not ask me to censor my anti-US sentiment while the US is threatening my community and way of life, because you're going to be disappointed.
posted by ~ at 12:25 PM on February 2 [43 favorites]


But at least the fentanyl crisis will be solved, right?
posted by mazola at 12:25 PM on February 2 [2 favorites]


what the fuck does Trump think he's going to get out of this?

First, as yyz said, he actually believes in tariffs, no matter what every economist told him in 2017. (I was working in DC at the time and involved.)

Second, Trump is happy to create lose-lose situations if he thinks you will lose more than he will. Also important to add into the equation is that hurting the US does not "hurt Trump" - he is only affected by things that impact him personally.

Third, there is the whole strategy of creating so many outrages that the opposition can't respond to them all, then grabbing what is least defended.

Fourth, declaring economic security emergencies enables legal fictions for a bigger power grab in multiple areas, not just the ones directly claimed.

And we haven't even started thinking through Elon's takeover of the US Treasury payment processes and how that might impact trade flow economics.
posted by sabraonthehill at 12:28 PM on February 2 [24 favorites]


Trump’s Tariff Strategy Can Be Traced Back to the 1980s

That tracks--most things about Trump can.
posted by box at 12:28 PM on February 2 [10 favorites]


the mood of Canada is pretty much "Fuck the US."

I think this is a little strong. I think it would be more accurate to say the mood is pretty much "Fuck Trump." I even hesitate to include those who voted for him en masse right now because i'm seeing a lot of Trump supporters going WTAF about all this. I don't think it's what they signed on for, even if they should have known better.

I think the American people, as a group, do not support starting a trade war along their northern border.
posted by Snowflake at 12:31 PM on February 2 [6 favorites]


I think the proportion of Canadians who aren’t aware of how impactful these tariffs could be probably maps pretty closely to the percentage still tailoring their ire to the president alone.
posted by ~ at 12:37 PM on February 2 [2 favorites]


what the fuck does Trump think he's going to get out of this?

People's failure to understand Trump's deeply disordered personality is what brought us here. (His dumb cult certainly doesnt understand he doesn't care about them either.)

He and musk are sociopaths on a rampage. Trump plans on never leaving office, of course. (Again, I am amazed this is not discussed.)

He could be deliberately harming people, like most everything he does, because he gets off on it.

And he could also have a stupid person's hubris that he's right about this action, and will be regarded as a hero. It's win-win for a psychopath.
posted by NorthernLite at 12:38 PM on February 2 [17 favorites]


Speaking purely for myself, I don't care how remorseful Trump voters, or vote-wasters are. I will never forgive any of them, and I wish only the worst for them all going forward.
posted by mrjohnmuller at 12:38 PM on February 2 [19 favorites]


>I will now remind everyone once more (not to lecture or to scold, but just to remind) that there ARE no solid red or solid blue states. There are Democrats, lefties, centrists, politically-disconnected folks and other good people in every town in every county in every state -- yes, even Oklahoma -- in the United States. There are Republican bigots, racists, greed-heads, Bible-thumpers, xenophobes and malcontents everywhere as well.

Nth-ing this. Washington is always considered a "blue state," but that's only because the greater Puget Sound area has a much larger -- much larger -- "blue" population than the rest of the state. The state votes blue, but you don't have to go too far south, west, or east (especially east) of King/Pierce/Snohomish/Kitsap counties to find Trump country.
posted by lhauser at 12:42 PM on February 2 [6 favorites]


Thunder Bay might be a hole, but the name implies a sweet guitar riff every time you say it.

As for the view in Texas - probably not a huge concern here, sorry to say. Canada is kind of a non-entity, sadly, because we don't get a noticeable amount of Canadians or Canadian products here.
posted by JustSayNoDawg at 12:45 PM on February 2 [2 favorites]


I think the proportion of Canadians who aren’t aware of how impactful these tariffs could be probably maps pretty closely to the percentage still tailoring their ire to the president alone.
We'll see. But we all know that at the core of this is Trump's hubris. Nothing more.
posted by Snowflake at 12:52 PM on February 2 [1 favorite]


So the additional 10% is not great!
Ah, thanks for the correction. I missed that it was on top of the existing tariffs.
posted by mbrubeck at 12:53 PM on February 2


It's that Trump actually believes in tariffs.

TFG seems to actually believe that it's exporters who pay import tariffs.

The risk of the US invading Canada is tiny or even non-existent. I think Trump even said so himself.

These things have a tendency to get out of hand especially when one of the decision makers is a nepo man baby. First it's stupid saber rattling and then it's the US moving troops to the boarder and Canada has to move some people there. Then some jackass shoots archduke Ferdinand and oops, Americans are pouring over the border and Canadians are burning down the Whitehouse.

I believe there is a small but real chance America gets in a shooting war involving their home turf in the next 25 years and for Canada's sake I hope it's Civil War 3 and not Canada playing Poland to the US's Nazi Germany. The recent emboldened fascists around the world and in the US specifically isn't taking the edge off the Poland option.
posted by Mitheral at 12:55 PM on February 2 [4 favorites]


I think the proportion of Canadians who aren’t aware of how impactful these tariffs could be probably maps pretty closely to the percentage still tailoring their ire to the president alone.

I don't know what you're trying to say here. Knee-jerk anti-Americanism isn't going to be helpful, though it will certainly build the longer the trade war continues.... but don't most Canadians deserve some credit for not yet taking that stance?

A fish rots from the head...
posted by Artful Codger at 12:56 PM on February 2


As for the view in Texas - probably not a huge concern here, sorry to say. Canada is kind of a non-entity, sadly, because we don't get a noticeable amount of Canadians or Canadian products here.

Do you get U.S.-grown food farmed with canadian potash and trucked around with Canadian gas?
posted by If only I had a penguin... at 12:59 PM on February 2 [5 favorites]


As for the view in Texas - probably not a huge concern here, sorry to say. Canada is kind of a non-entity, sadly, because we don't get a noticeable amount of Canadians or Canadian products here.

Do you have Trader Joes in Texas? Read your labels on your next haul and be surprised eh.
posted by srboisvert at 1:02 PM on February 2 [12 favorites]


More obviously many of the pickups Texans buy are built in Canada or depend on parts built in Canada (or Mexico of course). What with how JIT auto manufacturing is a shock to truck pricing is imminent if not actual supply problems.
posted by Mitheral at 1:04 PM on February 2 [3 favorites]


Art, I think there’s a real chance that even if the tariffs get scrapped in a week, uncertainty about the JIT supply chain might already have killed the Ontario auto industry. I mean, I’m no car lover but that’s 11(?) figures of gdp and more than 100k people employed.

It feels to me like he just wants to hurt my country. And he’s making moves, bigly moves, to do so.

Call it “knee-jerk anti-Americanism” if you like, but I’m already taking action to divert as much of my commercial life away from the US as I can, and not just the red states.
posted by ~ at 1:10 PM on February 2 [4 favorites]



He could be deliberately harming people, like most everything he does, because he gets off on it.


Last go around with the fucking guy there was a lot of discussion here about Sado-Populism.
posted by srboisvert at 1:14 PM on February 2 [2 favorites]


There goes US liquor in Quebec as well.

This will be so horrible, especially for people who are already having difficulties with the cost of living. Rent and groceries are a stretch for so many.

I am fascinated to see what it does for Canadian nationalism, particularly within Quebec. Or maybe it will help with the nationalist cause in Quebec. I would much rather be fascinated from a distance, like reading a history textbook, not living in the middle of it.
posted by Cuke at 1:21 PM on February 2 [3 favorites]


because we don't get a noticeable amount of Canadians or Canadian products here.

I'll be charitable and assume you're pointing out that it's not on the radar because trade with Canada is not really visible to the average Texan consumer going to the grocery or clothing store.

But Texas imports about $37 billion worth from Canada annually (and about a third of that is automobiles).

Canada is also Texas' 2nd biggest export market, worth about the same amount.

Tariffs will hurt everyone, it might just be more surprising to some.
posted by Kabanos at 1:22 PM on February 2 [18 favorites]


Even though we rely on many things from Canada, I don't think you realize how myopic Texans are. That's not short-selling your importance to our economy, it's a criticism of Texas and our inability to think beyond our own border. I would bet money that the average Texan couldn't name one product used here that is produced in Canada.

Guaranteed we know a few produced in Mexico, though. And part of me thinks that some those products will be strangely unaffected by tariffs.
posted by JustSayNoDawg at 1:23 PM on February 2 [6 favorites]



I will now remind everyone once more (not to lecture or to scold, but just to remind) that there ARE no solid red or solid blue states.


When the war broke out in 1775, there were no solid whig or tory areas in the colonies either.
We've already been going through a Great Sort the last few decades. I fully expect MAGAts in my area to be encouraged to leave.
posted by ocschwar at 1:26 PM on February 2 [2 favorites]


Canadians buy American beer?!

Good grief, why?
posted by Marky at 1:42 PM on February 2 [12 favorites]


Smoke and mirrors. There is a good chance that this is merely a diversion.
posted by epo at 1:44 PM on February 2


I’m hoping for a 100% tariff on Tesla cars to replace the bullshit one we put on Chinese electrics to appease the Americans.
posted by fimbulvetr at 1:44 PM on February 2 [4 favorites]


The "I'm not going to throw the red states under the bus" line ends somewhere.

For me it ended when there became a very real possibility of my trans husband losing his passport and potentially his medically necessary hormone treatments.

This is "my family's physical safety is under direct threat", and that means that I will throw anyone under the bus if they stand in the way of me protecting that.
posted by constraint at 1:44 PM on February 2 [9 favorites]


> Canadians buy American beer?! Good grief, why?

Depending on who's judging, most of the world's best beers are American. And a lot of the best of those are brewed pretty close to Canada.

Are those the ones Canadians buy, as opposed to the macro brews? Can't say, but shitting on American beer is like 30 years ago.
posted by Turd Ferguson at 1:50 PM on February 2 [8 favorites]


America wins the World Series again!
posted by lucidium at 2:01 PM on February 2 [3 favorites]


Canadians buy a lot of "American" beer (Bud, Coors) but that's actually brewed in Canada. We import more beer from the Netherlands than from the US.
posted by ssg at 2:02 PM on February 2 [4 favorites]


I fully expect MAGAts in my area to be encouraged to leave

Yeah, but they'll take a bunch of Canada with them.


not ask me to censor my anti-US sentiment

"Fear is the mind-killer. Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration" - not to mention front page coverage on OAN. "Canadians really do want us dead! Trump is always right!".

If we check back in with the New Madness that is Naomi Wolfe, for example, we find the following:

"Pearl Harbor was the second attack on our homeland since the War of 1812; 9/11 was the third; and the Battle of Los Angeles is the fourth."

"The purchasing of farmland by China (and by its proxy, Canada) and China’s purchasing of farmland near 19 of our military bases in what The New York Post calls an “alarming” threat to our national security"

So, the historical revisionism and dehumanization is already well under way among the batshit brigade. With once-fringe propaganda outlets now filling the Pentagon, it's only a matter of time before that content follows Great Replacement Theory into general discourse.

It's helping them, not fighting them, when people piloted by emotion unwittingly provide them with screenshots and links to angry generalized rhetoric.
posted by CynicalKnight at 2:03 PM on February 2 [1 favorite]


Call it “knee-jerk anti-Americanism” if you like, but I’m already taking action to divert as much of my commercial life away from the US as I can, and not just the red states.

Well, sure. Me too. I just didn't understand your comment that seemed to imply that Canadians placing the most blame on TFG were somehow naive.
posted by Artful Codger at 2:06 PM on February 2


I was at the LCBO (Ontario's liquor store) this afternoon, and the shelves hadn't been emptied of American whiskey yet.

And there was one guy who was buying it, sheepishly hiding it. Really, dude? One entire wall of whiskey and switching to another brand is too much of a sacrifice?
posted by Capt. Renault at 2:07 PM on February 2 [5 favorites]


I was just at the liquor store. (toronto suburb, provincially conservative, federally liberal)
They haven't taken the American booze out yet,
They will tomorrow after closing.
People were pissed off.
Talking loudly about "that cretin" and "why is that American shit still here ? We can do without."
Poor cashier remained friendly through out.
No one was stocking up on US booze
Quite remarkable. really,
To anger friendly ,rather conservative leaning suburban dwellers
posted by yyz at 2:09 PM on February 2 [9 favorites]


Again, I'm surprised about that! I figured our own conservatives would admire Trump regardless, but I am being surprised left and right about the unity across party lines.
posted by Kitteh at 2:11 PM on February 2 [1 favorite]


and the shelves hadn't been emptied of American whiskey yet.

I don't drink a lot of whisky but I always keep a bottle in the home. Almost never American, almost always Scottish. What have I been missing?
posted by philip-random at 2:12 PM on February 2


I never have drunk the brown liquors.

But Bourbon is totally American, and the Tennessee whiskies like Jack Daniels. Sure there are others that I am unaware of.
posted by Windopaene at 2:17 PM on February 2


Fuck Trump. Bless Jack Daniels.
posted by Keith Talent at 2:26 PM on February 2 [1 favorite]


Apologies, Art. Public anger is something of a new mode for me.

My experience does differ from yours though. I’m seeing a lot of anger directed at the US, not just Trump. My hunch is the interest in drawing a fine line between TFG and the US wanes as people think more about study, work, or retirement plans going up in smoke, or being unable to pay for our health system.

Of course I hope I’m just pessimistic, but it’s getting hard to sustain optimism here.

(Feel weird not saying this yet, but of course all of the same concern for folks in Mexico.)
posted by ~ at 2:27 PM on February 2 [3 favorites]


Just out of curiosity, because I have yet to see a cogent, rational, deliberate explanation - what the fuck does Trump think he's going to get out of this?

Bud Fox: But why do you need to wreck this company?
Gordon Gekko: Because it's *wreckable*, all right? I took another look at it, and I changed my mind.
Bud Fox: If these people lose their jobs, they got nowhere to go! My father has worked there for 24 years! I gave him my word.
Gordon Gekko: It's all about bucks, kid. The rest is conversation... Hey, Buddy, you're still gonna be president, all right? And when the time comes, you're gonna parachute out, a rich man. With the money you're gonna make, your dad's never gonna have to work another day in his life.
Bud Fox: So tell me, Gordon: when does it all end, huh? How many yachts can you water-ski behind? How much is enough?
Gordon Gekko: It's not a question of enough, pal. It's a zero-sum game: somebody wins, somebody loses. Money itself isn't lost or made, it's simply, uh, transferred from one perception to another. Like magic.

Wall Street (1987)
posted by Omon Ra at 2:30 PM on February 2 [5 favorites]


and this just in from a friend who works at a local liquor store (Vancouver, BC)
posted by philip-random at 2:32 PM on February 2 [5 favorites]


Wall Street yt (1987)

and a few years later ... DONALD TRUMP & GORDON GEKKO GET A HAIR CUT
posted by philip-random at 2:34 PM on February 2


This looks like it might be Trump trying to bankrupt a country of 40 million people. Its closest ally. Because he can. Because he’s venal and stupid and thinks this will get him on Mount Rushmore.
"For those who don't know, I'm [Prof. David Honig] an adjunct professor at Indiana University - Robert H. McKinney School of Law and I teach negotiations.

Okay, here goes. If you've read The Art of the Deal, or if you've followed Trump lately, you'll know, even if you didn't know the label, that he sees all dealmaking as what we call "distributive bargaining."

Distributive bargaining always has a winner and a loser. It happens when there is a fixed quantity of something and two sides are fighting over how it gets distributed. Think of it as a pie and you're fighting over who gets how many pieces. In Trump's world, the bargaining was for a building, or for construction work, or subcontractors. He perceives a successful bargain as one in which there is a winner and a loser, so if he pays less than the seller wants, he wins. The more he saves the more he wins.

The other type of bargaining is called integrative bargaining. In integrative bargaining the two sides don't have a complete conflict of interest, and it is possible to reach mutually beneficial agreements. Think of it, not a single pie to be divided by two hungry people, but as a baker and a caterer negotiating over how many pies will be baked at what prices, and the nature of their ongoing relationship after this one gig is over.

The problem with Trump is that he sees only distributive bargaining in an international world that requires integrative bargaining. He can raise tariffs, but so can other countries. He can't demand they not respond. There is no defined end to the negotiation and there is no simple winner and loser. There are always more pies to be baked. Further, negotiations aren't binary. China's choices aren't (a) buy soybeans from US farmers, or (b) don't buy soybeans. They can also (c) buy soybeans from Russia, or Argentina, or Brazil, or Canada, etc. That completely strips the distributive bargainer of his power to win or lose, to control the negotiation..."
via
posted by Thella at 2:35 PM on February 2 [17 favorites]


I am taking exactly one measure of cold comfort in all this, which is that Pierre Poilievre probably has a tummyache today.
posted by saturday_morning at 2:41 PM on February 2 [6 favorites]


Fuck Trump. Bless Jack Daniels.

The company that owns Jack Daniels ended their DEI policies after posts from Twitter "activists."

So, Fuck Trump, and Fuck Jack Daniels too.

(as far as I know, my preferred Maker's Mark is still OK.)
posted by dnash at 2:41 PM on February 2 [13 favorites]


Canadians buy American beer?!

Good grief, why?


Because American beer is good. Not Budweiser and the mainstream bullshit but the hundreds of micro craft breweries. America is the paradise of beer options today.
posted by Liquidwolf at 2:42 PM on February 2 [3 favorites]


I order a lot of specialized electronic and mechanical parts into Mexico.

A majority is made in China, for the rest I like to order stuff made in the USA or the EU.

For the Chinese stuff I used to be able to order from warehouses in China, Europe, or the USA. I would almost always pick the USA warehouse. It costs a bit more, but shipping is faster, and I get better technical support and easier returns. For most of the USA stuff I would happily pay the default 17% import tariff, just to save a couple weeks of shipping.

I was surprised today when I went to place an order and found out that almost all the Chinese suppliers have the option for warehouses in Mexico, with stuff in stock, 2 day delivery, and no dealing with customs.

It is hard to believe that specialty Chinese suppliers set up warehouses in Mexico and stocked them in 2 weeks. They must have been preparing since the election.

No more made in the USA stuff for me, it suddenly became more expensive and slower than buying from China. China and the EU win this one.

I am interested to see what will happen with Tesla Motor’s motors. Tesla claims they build all their own motors, but I know for a fact that important components are made in Queretaro, Mexico. Will they get an exemption?
posted by Dr. Curare at 2:54 PM on February 2 [17 favorites]


the hundreds of micro craft breweries. America is the paradise of beer options today

There are decent craft options within 200km in every direction I turn, multiply that by dozens before I leave the province, and literally 100s of premium craft options coast to coast to coast w/o crossing national borders. Not counting excellent but 2nd tier options.

This talk of whisky and beer is fun but unserious. If Canadians aren't simply ignoring US options in the liquor store like, 24 hrs ago, then fuck Canada already. Of all the dumb things
posted by ginger.beef at 2:54 PM on February 2 [2 favorites]


This video lays out the playbook (from the Reddit link 100+ comments ago). I think people need to see this.
posted by St. Peepsburg at 3:06 PM on February 2 [3 favorites]


Tesla claims they build all their own motors, but I know for a fact that important components are made in Queretaro, Mexico. Will they get an exemption?

Another fun fact that hasn't been mentioned yet is that tariffs create great opportunities for politicians and other officials who are interested in corruption and extortion.
posted by mumimor at 3:06 PM on February 2 [9 favorites]


Yeah, the bourbon thing will indeed hit Kentucky and Tennessee, but Canadians will simply switch to another brand. Something like 10% of the population buys 90% of all the booze, and those folks aren't that picky. No one's gonna slow down. Canadian whiskey will likely get a bump in sales.

As far as micro brews, this might lead to an increase in Canadian small labels. There's nothing special about climate or terroir that affects beer making. Lots of good clean water in Canada, too.
posted by SoberHighland at 3:14 PM on February 2 [1 favorite]


Things like that can have long term effects. People get shamed into switching; find they like the new choice or at least isn't worse; and never end up switching back after the tariffs are dropped.
posted by Mitheral at 3:28 PM on February 2 [3 favorites]


Canadian whiskey will likely get a bump in sales.

And fuck the "Great One" label. I am a sucker for corny shit like that, I know full well Wayne Gretzky's talents began and ended on the ice but I'd still buy the occasional wine, spirits, and cream liqueur under that label. Allow me to introduce Cabot Trail maple cream liqueur, but fucked if I know if it's still made in Canada. Quebec, last I checked.
posted by ginger.beef at 3:28 PM on February 2 [2 favorites]


one guy who was buying it, sheepishly hiding it. Really, dude?

Well at least he was sheepish about it, as opposed to former Manitoba politician John Reyes who showed off his Kentucky Bourbon stash. Same guy posted a photo of his wife shovelling the driveway after a 12 hour hospital shift during pandemic, he’s great at reading the room.
posted by Alvy Ampersand at 3:30 PM on February 2 [4 favorites]


Whew man all whiskey and scotch tastes like witch hazel to me. Maybe I have something analogous to the cilantro gene. Plus it’s expensive! Ok please enjoy the stress release of Usians and Canadians alike piling onto me.

Also what’s going to happen at the NHL 4 Nations tournament that starts in Montreal on Feb. 12? I’ll sort of enjoy seeing Gary Bettman uncomfortable when the US gets booed.
posted by caviar2d2 at 3:44 PM on February 2


I don't drink a lot of whisky but I always keep a bottle in the home. Almost never American, almost always Scottish. What have I been missing?

I am an American and considering enacting my own personal budgetary penalties against things made in red states to the extent that it is possible, but Wild Turkey (made in TN) is an excellent midprice bourbon. My go-to for many years when I was still the kind of person that had a go-to bourbon.
posted by reedbird_hill at 3:47 PM on February 2


I enjoy the occasional bourbon, and yes Wild Turkey is preferred. Gonna miss it, I guess.

I will buy a fresh bottle of Wild Turkey, and raise a glass in thanks to my American friends, just as soon as this madness is somehow resolved, probably with another renegotiation of the Canada - US - Mexico pact, or similar.
posted by Artful Codger at 3:56 PM on February 2


Canadian whiskey will likely get a bump in sales.


SO, actually visiting Canada lets you spend money in Canada without paying this fucking tariff.
That's my plan for the summer now.
Montreal, here we come.
posted by ocschwar at 4:04 PM on February 2 [6 favorites]




ANd wow, this song aged poorly.

(Canadian song that criticizes NAFTA)
posted by ocschwar at 4:12 PM on February 2


Glad to see so many Americans pulling for us. Of course, this will hurt us more than it will you. A lot more.
See, the way I look at it, your problem is that Joe Yank is the toughest kid on the block. Now I know you're pretty friendly with him -- him being your cousin and all -- but someday he's gonna say, 'Johnny Canuck, my boot is dirty. Lick it.'
Now then are you going to get down on your knees and lick or are you going to say, 'Suck ice, Billy Yank'? Because if you do say 'Suck ice', he's going to kick you in the nuts. And either way, you're going to lick those boots. It just depends on how you want to take it.
Ray Smith, Cape Breton Is the Thought Control Center of Canada
posted by CCBC at 4:30 PM on February 2 [4 favorites]


This is all going to suck, but no. Canadians will not be licking boots.
posted by ocschwar at 4:34 PM on February 2 [7 favorites]


> Just out of curiosity, because I have yet to see a cogent, rational, deliberate explanation - what the fuck does Trump think he's going to get out of this?

Regime change?

I mean, Trudeau was doing just fine ushering the Liberals out of the office but maybe Trump decided to be helpful to his little buddy Pierre and establish himself formally as his patron?

I grew up in Canada and I know that the single greatest element of Canadian identity is "not American." But I wonder how well that identity will weather the economic disruptions to come.
posted by Sauce Trough at 4:36 PM on February 2


Also what’s going to happen at the NHL 4 Nations tournament that starts in Montreal on Feb. 12? I’ll sort of enjoy seeing Gary Bettman uncomfortable when the US gets booed.

I’m so uninterested by that tournament that I managed to miss it was in my hometown. Only shit the US anthem is already being booed, it’ll be off the charts. It’ll reach Bettman level of booing (we all hate that guy so much).

I’m still digesting the tariffs… I wished we strike harder from the get go, no point holding back its not like we’re dealing with a reasonable person. Canada can’t make the US budge by not buying whisky and Harley’s, Trump will only relent if we humiliate ourselves. So we’ll have to make gas more expensive too everybody (due to how it works it’ll go up in Canada too), and hope that the blowback knocks Trump off instead of knocking us off.

The nano silver lining is that all that bullshit has completely taken the wind of PP’s sail.
posted by WaterAndPixels at 4:44 PM on February 2 [5 favorites]


Regime change?

I mean, Trudeau was doing just fine ushering the Liberals out of the office but maybe Trump decided to be helpful to his little buddy Pierre and establish himself formally as his patron?


Um no. First, notice the lift that Duggie Ford has got from being pugnacious about the tariffs. Second, the open patronage of TFG would most likely damage PP. Much better would be a faux animosity followed by TFG doing a fake rollover and "woah Pierre, you're tough and I respect that."
posted by Artful Codger at 4:47 PM on February 2


Ugh. I hate all of this, so so much. I can't believe we're here again and I fear for the years ahead and the damage the second Trump administration is about to cause.

But let me add to the whisky sideline. There's more Canadian whisky in the US than you think. A large number - maybe even a majority ? - of the bourbons and US whiskeys contain imported Canadian (mostly Albertan) rye. It's has become a staple for blending and crafting consistent high quality spirits. Your Jim Beam and Maker's Mark use Alberta rye... Whiskey Advocate.
posted by bumpkin at 4:47 PM on February 2 [11 favorites]


> Much better would be a faux animosity followed by TFG doing a fake rollover and "woah Pierre, you're tough and I respect that."

maybe the idea is to position PP as "The Canadian Who Stood Up To Trump?"

That's a powerful angle.
posted by Sauce Trough at 4:50 PM on February 2


Please, Americans, come visit Canada! I cannot attest to it (having only had the unpleasant reverse experience) but I am sure that buying something that has the same listed price as at home but actually costs you far less must spark joy.
posted by lookoutbelow at 4:54 PM on February 2 [2 favorites]


You're giving these people too much credit.

They overplayed their hand, and now they lost Canada.

The same way they overplayed their hand with Yanukovich and lost Ukraine.

They had 50% of Ukraine's population in 2004 with the same shitty identity politics. Then they lost it. They lost Canada. Now to make sure they lose the USA.
posted by ocschwar at 4:54 PM on February 2 [5 favorites]


If there's any Conservative getting "Stand Up to Trump" airtime, it is embarrassingly not the leader of the PC, it's Doug Ford. He and his stupid hat have been getting airtime even on US news channels. Unlike PP, it's clear Doug Ford is comfortable in front of the camera. If anything, PP should be furious that no one cares what the fuck he thinks, and if they do, he was not their first pick for a soundbite or interview. Right now, it looks like Doug Ford leads the Conservatives on the stage. He's been willing to be mouthy and loud where the federal party hasn't been.
posted by Kitteh at 5:02 PM on February 2 [13 favorites]


I mean, from a strategic, not moral perspective.....surely if you don;'t want trump - the originator of these tariffs - to succeed, you want to punish

i) SWING states so they move blue in midterms and beyond; trump's name is mud there.
ii) people trump needs to be happy NOW

I mean revenge on red states is great and all but "a sack of corn could be elected as a republican in kentucky" etc.
posted by lalochezia at 5:29 PM on February 2 [2 favorites]


I don't get it. Psychotic Americans are already treating Canada like an enemy nation and some people here are actually urging Canadians to be polite to them just to not make it any worse?
posted by Cpt. The Mango at 5:48 PM on February 2 [4 favorites]


ANd wow, this song aged poorly.

Moxy Fruvous aged poorly thanks to Jian Ghomeshi. And if I wanted to listen to silly shit I'd stick to the Arrogant Worms

Here's one
posted by ginger.beef at 5:54 PM on February 2 [5 favorites]


PP should be furious that no one cares what the fuck he thinks, and if they do, he was not their first pick for a soundbite or interview.

Who knows anything these days

I will say, PP keeps hammering on resuming parliament. The Liberals do that and e.g. introduce legislation on an aid package for affected workers, targeted stimulus spending, etc. and get voted out (non-confidence) then the Liberal Party is heading to the polls w/o properly establishing a leader

What a perfect shistorm, Randy
posted by ginger.beef at 6:09 PM on February 2 [1 favorite]


I miss quoted the SPR above. It's still much lower after the huge drop in 2021 and 2022.

At a guess, Trump might shift from slowly refilling to spending the SPR, especially if oil prices rise, because this'll boost the economy short-term, and longer-term his people believes in drill-baby-drill.

Anyways US oil import look like Canada 60%, Mexico 10%, Saudi Arabia 7%, Iraq 4%, Colombia 4%.
posted by jeffburdges at 6:20 PM on February 2 [2 favorites]


Tariffs are taxes on imported goods and services, the tariffs are reflected in costs to the consumer. It seems to me that this is a regressive tax, that it shifts the burden from income taxes, which are a little bit structured towards Make More, Pay a Higher %, to something much more like a sales tax, which is regressive, hurting low income workers much more because they spend a higher percentage of their income on consumer goods. So this is another gift to the wealthy and disproportionately harms working people.
posted by theora55 at 6:38 PM on February 2 [11 favorites]


Especially when PP is saying money collected via tariff should be returned as tax cut (!). Um, nope maybe put toward a social safety net to protect those impacted by this?
posted by mazola at 6:51 PM on February 2


i) SWING states so they move blue in midterms and beyond; trump's name is mud there.


Hate to say this, but on second thought you have a point. The electricity weapon can hit PA and OH hard, and that could make things interesting in the midterms.
posted by ocschwar at 7:04 PM on February 2


I don't think the idea behind targeting red states is that those electorates will vote differently in two or four years, it's that members of Congress will hear from businesses in their districts that the Canadian tariffs are hurting them, then will be more likely to push back against the US tariffs, either in the open or in backrooms. Despite how he's acting, Trump was not elected emperor and Congress does still have power.

Canada knows Trump doesn't care, but they're hoping that others can be influenced. I think targeting anywhere with R representatives nature sense in that context. Might not work, but I think it has a better chance of working than targeting swing states exclusively.
posted by ssg at 7:15 PM on February 2 [6 favorites]


I think the point of hitting the red states is to have people put pressure on sitting Republican house representatives and senators. The Republican congress people are the ones who actually have power right now.

Swing states logic won't do any good for four years. It's been TWO WEEKS. Can you imagine another ~3.95 years?

That said I think broad hit-it-all strategy is good too. If power in the northeast goes down during the super bowl are advertisers going to demand partial refunds from the network/NFL?
posted by If only I had a penguin... at 7:20 PM on February 2


Stock futures are looking pretty ugly. Tomorrow is gonna be a crazy day in the markets. I give it a 1 in 4 chance that Trump walks back the tariffs, because he’s obsessed with the Dow.
posted by azpenguin at 7:25 PM on February 2 [2 favorites]


If power in the northeast goes down during the super bowl are advertisers going to demand partial refunds from the network/NFL?


Funny thing to conceive, but as an EE, I can say: not fucking going to happen. Canada has enough market power in the electricity markets to make the price soar and scare the living shit out of people, but nobody doing grid operations on either side of the board will do anything to destabilize the grid.

Especially on the Canadian side because the people involved on that side of the border wear iron rings and have taken the oath.
posted by ocschwar at 7:30 PM on February 2 [5 favorites]


Moxy Fruvous aged poorly thanks to Jian Ghomeshi.

I cant listen to Moxy Fruvous anymore and that makes me sad because I was a fruhead and I still like their music (musically...I just find the idea of listening to it gross).

But let's not throw out the other babies with the bathwater. Mike Ford has written and recorded four albums based on Canadian history including a whole album about The War of 1812 and of course a song about Nafta.
posted by If only I had a penguin... at 7:36 PM on February 2 [4 favorites]


Especially on the Canadian side because the people involved on that side of the border wear iron rings and have taken the oath.

Can you clarify? As far as I know the oath you take to get the iron ring is about safety not anything else. Are you saying it would be dangerous somehow for Canada to stop electricity exports? Because it would require physically disconnecting maybe or something else?
posted by If only I had a penguin... at 7:40 PM on February 2 [1 favorite]


Swing states have Republican representatives, and the Republicans only have a two-seat majority in the House. PA has ten. MI has seven. You’d need to move three of those seventeen. So swing states should absolutely be targets for pressure in order to create action today, not merely for the 2026 elections.
posted by chimpsonfilm at 7:49 PM on February 2 [4 favorites]


Yes. You do not make sudden unannounced moves on the Eastern Interconnect without putting hardware at risk, including transformers and nuclear power plants. That in turn puts hospitals at risk of blackouts.

If you want to make a move on the grid as a flex, you need to put in at least 48 hours notice.
At which point you're just changing power prices, not blacking out the superb owl.
posted by ocschwar at 7:52 PM on February 2 [4 favorites]



Stock futures are looking pretty ugly. Tomorrow is gonna be a crazy day in the markets.


Early-day results in Asia:
"Hong Kong's Hang Seng Index was down 1.3%, Japan's Nikkei 225 was 2.4% lower, South Korea's Kospi tumbled 3% and Australia's ASX 200 was 1.8% lower. Markets in mainland China remained closed for the Lunar New Year holiday."
posted by Kabanos at 7:53 PM on February 2 [2 favorites]


Lords of the Iron Rings: "One does not simply make sudden unannounced moves on the Eastern Interconnect."
posted by Kabanos at 7:56 PM on February 2 [4 favorites]


Because American beer is good

100% agree - there’s a bar here called Portland Craft that used to focus on, as you might expect, Oregon and West Coast US craft brews, which are fantastic. Last time I went there were 0 US beers there, and this was pre-tariff. Margins are already so tight that the weak Canadian dollar had killed imports making sense, I expect, this will just be another nail in the coffin. Good thing Canadian beer is pretty much as good, but I’ll miss the option.
posted by Jon Mitchell at 7:59 PM on February 2


Stupid Galen Weston probably has such a boner

Yeah This Hour has it right.

Pierre Poilievre probably has a tummyache today.

Poor guy tho, there is not a lot that rhymes with tariff.
posted by Ashwagandha at 8:13 PM on February 2


some people here are actually urging Canadians to be polite to them

Not polite, just ignore them. Bullies feed from reactions, we all know that. Now it's also profitable.

Consider the number of political ambivalents who will side with Trump when they see Canadians shit talking the US as a whole. Look at how the same antagonism has united Canadian liberal and conservative alike.

Focus on the Trump admin, not the country! Don't enrich the trolls!
posted by CynicalKnight at 8:16 PM on February 2 [1 favorite]


Sheriff
posted by ashbury at 8:16 PM on February 2


I hope the silver lining is this will make it toxic for any Conservatives that would have been inclined to toady up to Trump.
posted by RobotHero at 8:30 PM on February 2 [5 favorites]


If only I had a penguin... - the oath taken by Canadian engineers relates to the ethical practice of the profession. It goes something like this:

I am an engineer, in my profession I take deep pride. To it I owe solemn obligations. Since the stone age, human progress has been spurred by the engineering genius.

Engineers have made usable, nature’s vast resources of material and energy for humanity’s benefit. Engineers have vitalized and turned to practical use the principles of science and the means of technology. Were it not for this heritage of accumulated experience, my efforts would be feeble.

As an engineer, I pledge to practice integrity and fair dealing, tolerance, and respect and to uphold devotion to the standards and the dignity of my profession, conscious always that my skill carries with it the obligation to serve humanity by making the best use of earth’s precious wealth.

As an engineer, I shall participate in none but honest enterprises. When needed, my skill and knowledge shall be given without reservation for the public good. In the performance of duty and in fidelity to my profession, I shall give the utmost.




The Sons of Martha are not going to ramp down energy supply to people who will suffer harm as a result.
posted by Combat Wombat at 8:38 PM on February 2 [8 favorites]


I would impose a huge tariff on Canadian trash imported by Michigan. roughly 20% of Michigan landfills is filled with Canadian trash when I think about it, I'm sure 20% of Canadian landfills are filled with American trash.

It's like searching couch cushions for change.

so there's like a hundred and twenty billion difference between Canada and US import trade and 25% of 120 billion is what.

so, politically he can slap the 25% on our neighbors, slip in the 10% for China then walk back the 25% on the neighbors and keep the 10% on China.

this f****** guy.
posted by clavdivs at 9:31 PM on February 2


tonight, outside the venerable Penthouse, one of Vancouver's more notorious strip joints
posted by philip-random at 10:58 PM on February 2 [2 favorites]


various responses:

I won’t pretend to really understand it, but there’s a weird crisscrossing of produce over the continent. I once visited a greenhouse in Ruthven, Ontario where they said their tomatoes pretty much all went to the US, where most of what I saw in my home grocery store was from the US or Mexico.

It all comes down to how to buy tomatoes (or whatever) the most cheaply. In winter, Canadian stores mostly buy cheap tomatoes from the US/Mexico because the labour costs of the tomatoes are, ahem, lower. American stores buy tomatoes from Canada in winter because the exchange rate makes them cheaper than buying American tomatoes or shipping Mexican tomatoes. Free trade, et cetera.

Can… Can trucks drive from Mexico through the US to import produce into Canada without incurring the American tariffs? I have no idea how this actually works.

Tariffs are paid by purchasers, not transporters: to continue the tomato example, the tariff on Mexican tomatoes gets paid by the American company buying the tomatoes, not the Mexican tomato farm. Because free trade, Mexican truckers can absolutely drive Mexican tomatoes through the USA and into Canada without having to pay customs fees on the tomatoes. At least until the Dipshit-in-Chief decides that this is a Crime Against America, anyway.

And everyone seems to be characterizing this as a strong response from Canada, but it seems pretty weak to me. It's an immediate tariff on less than 10% of goods imported from the US, with maybe one-third affected after a 21 day comment period.

It's clearly structured so that, after Trudeau's speech, if Trump wants to back off with a "they said they'd work on the border stuff, so I won," he can do that, and to give markets a heads up that the bomb is coming so investors can drive down American stocks and the dollar, which gives Trump additional incentive to back off, while doing only a small amount of immediate damage.

I don't think Trump is going to back off, but that's pretty obviously the plan here: give him as many opportunities to take the off-ramp before shit gets real, because when shit gets real everybody's going to get hurt, and one of the problems facing Canada in any trade war is that blue states will get hurt worse than red states will, and Canada especially doesn't want to hurt the blue states because they're obvious allies on the American front of all this.

The one upside of all this is that Trump is probably going to inadvertently prevent Canada from electing a conservative government which is kind of hilarious. Pierre Poilievre would have been Trump's Yanukovych. Instead he'll probably have to deal with someone further to the left than JT.

If Poilievre doesn't win, it'll be because Mark Carney does, and Carney isn't "further to the left" than Justin Trudeau is.

A 25% tariff will destroy the auto industry in Ontario, one of our largest industries, for example.

Absolutely true, but it'll also destroy the auto industry in the USA. Cars mostly don't get made in one place any more: you have factory A which builds engine widgets in Ontario which ships the widgets to company B in Michigan who uses them to build engine pistons which then ships them back to Ontario and corporation C which builds the engine who in turn ships the engine to factory D in Michigan where they're actually building the cars, and this process gets repeated a whole lot for all parts of the car, and it's the same with Mexico and the southern carmakers. And the tariff will hit each time parts cross the border.

When Trump's tariffs hit on Tuesday, there's essentially a clock for the entire auto industry in North America; it simply becomes economically unfeasible for most of the cars in North America to get built at all. I've heard auto union officials say furloughs could start in as little as a week, and nobody who thinks they can keep working for more than a month. (With the possible exception of Tesla, which buys some components from Canada and Mexico but only redundant ones, so far as I know, so they can keep making shitty e-cars and Cybertrucks, and don't think this fact hasn't crossed my mind repeatedly as to why Elon is just fine with the tariffs.)
posted by mightygodking at 11:41 PM on February 2 [17 favorites]


"UK is out of line. But I'm sure that one, I think that one, can be worked out, Prime Minister Starmer has been very nice."

Who is betting that "can be worked out" means "call a snap election or I impose tariffs", so that Trump's friend Musk can give Farage the $100M he's offered to Reform?
posted by Major Clanger at 2:10 AM on February 3 [2 favorites]


Musk is, I believe it is safe to say, behaving in a manner that contravenes the best interests of the majority of people.

I have the distinct feeling that what little hair I do still posses has, while still on my scalp, combusted - resulting in my running around, frantic, discombobulated and increasingly distraught.
posted by From Bklyn at 2:54 AM on February 3 [2 favorites]


And the tariff will hit each time parts cross the border.

I have worked with the export / import side of multi stage manufacturing in several countries and trade agreements (Mercosur in South America, EUFTA in Europe and Africa, various ASEAN free trade agrements in Asia) and they all have provisions for duty drawback for intermediate non originating goods. That is, if you paid a $5 tariff bringing a component into the country, you get the full $5 refunded when the end item gets exported with the component in it.

It's a basic mechanism designed to incentivize local jobs and local production which would not have been viable otherwise, a quick Google shows the US does have a similar program.

Not disputing the main point that the auto industry is going to be heavily impacted, most automakers have an EBIT between 6% and 12% so a 25% tariff immediately makes the import business non-viable.

There are certainly people in the US who have been unhappy that well paid union automotive jobs got offshored to Mexico and Canada under NAFTA and feel the US was getting shafted.... (and local automakers reaped those profits through lower cost). I've been uncomfortable with this as I've seen it happen over the past 20 years as plants get shut in the US only to pop up in Mexico and have always felt a day of reckoning was coming... there is no free lunch forever...
posted by xdvesper at 3:12 AM on February 3 [8 favorites]


It's funny this thread forcused upon beer, like the one product the US does well, after first outlawing alcohol and then pushing garbage beer, but by now everyone has good local beer.

Apple designs nice laptops too, but they have a world spanning supply chain, and Apple ships them from China directly to the consumer in the US. lol

"U.S. goods and services trade with the European Union totaled an estimated $1.3 trillion in 2022. Exports were $592.0 billion; imports were $723.3 billion. The U.S. goods and services trade deficit with the European Union was $131.3 billion in 2022."

About $372.59 billion was imported goods, which leaves $220 billion in services. I doubt engineering features too heavily there, so you'd expect mostly financial and management services being forced upon the EU, maybe patents too.

We'd love any excuse to reduce that number. In particular, we'd love to revoke EU–US Privacy Shield formerly Safe Harbor by making US technology companies host EU users' data within the EU. It's likely Trump fucks up US financial regulations too, so the EU must insulate themselves from US financial rules anyways.

I'd hope the EU reduces that $38 billion in pharmaceutical imports too, maybe enforce generics more effectively, restrict some unecessary patented medications, and ideally break some other patents. lol

It's really the $109 billion in "mineral fuels, oils, distillation products" where Trump could hurt the EU by raising prices, but imho that'd benefit the EU long term, by making us adapt. I think he claimed he wanted to expand that sector too, so maybe unlinkely.

Also, these month-by-month numbers say the "Netherlands was the largest importer of goods from the United States and Germany was the largest exporter of goods to the United States in 2023," but mostly the EU cares little.
posted by jeffburdges at 3:50 AM on February 3 [5 favorites]


His reasoning in this fiasco

assumes facts not in evidence
posted by flabdablet at 4:34 AM on February 3 [3 favorites]


We'd love any excuse to reduce that number. In particular, we'd love to revoke EU–US Privacy Shield formerly Safe Harbor by making US technology companies host EU users' data within the EU.


Who's the we here?
A lot of EU restrictions on US products are because the US products are unsafe (food, pharmaceuticals), or not practical in an EU context (cars and other vehicles). If I were living in the US, as I once was, I'd rather have safe food and smaller, more efficient cars.
US chain stores don't comply with EU planning restrictions.
US fast food chains are quite popular here, but they have to comply with EU labor legislation (everyone gets a living wage), and food legislation. So a Big Mac and a soda is a different meal here, but they show everyone else that it can be done.

Nobody is actually stopping the US from making and selling products that comply with EU laws. You can just do it. And bring all the knowledge back home.
posted by mumimor at 4:58 AM on February 3 [9 favorites]


Yes of course, but you quoted my remarks on services: I argued that services exported by the US wind up harmful remarkably frequently. We & everyone else should clamp down upon them anyways.
posted by jeffburdges at 7:30 AM on February 3


Well, the retalitory tarriffs come into effect on Tuesday, which will doubtless drive Trump mad with rage and he'll increase his tariffs right back.

I thought I might do a sort of fuck you by going far out of my way to replace the things I normally buy with Canadian, Mexican, or Chinese products but I don't think I'd be able to afford that even if I could devote the mental runtime it'd take to implment a goal for such a petty reason.

Frankly, I'm not sure I can pay my rent and buy groceries this month given the likely price hikes.

lookoutbelow re: paying the price actually listed.

I am horrified and flaberghasted to report that in the USA almost everyone I have ever spoken to has pushed back HARD against the idea of prices including sales tax and has argued tenaciously for the position that it is utterly absurd to think that it might be a good idea. Usually they have it wrapped up in some crap about how since sales tax varies by location it is TOTALLY IMPOSSIBLE for labels printed in stores to accurately reflect the real price. Even though the cash register knows the real price.

I think most Americans are just so used to being abused that they have come to make that abuse part of their self image and identity. To contemplate changing things so the abuse ends would be to threaten their own sense of self.
posted by sotonohito at 7:56 AM on February 3 [3 favorites]


Tariffs on Mexico paused for a month

Mexico's President Claudia Sheinbaum wrote on X:

Sostuvimos una buena conversación con el presidente Trump con mucho respeto a nuestra relación y la soberanía; llegamos a una serie de acuerdos: 1.México reforzará la frontera norte con 10 mil elementos de la Guardia Nacional de forma inmediata, para evitar el tráfico de drogas de México a Estados Unidos, en particular fentanilo. 2.Estados Unidos se compromete a trabajar para evitar el tráfico de armas de alto poder a México. 3.Nuestros equipos empezarán a trabajar hoy mismo en dos vertientes: seguridad y comercio. 4.Se ponen en pausa los aranceles por un mes a partir de ahora.

My translation:

We had a good conversation with President Trump with much respect to our relationship and to our sovereignty; we have reached a series of agreements:
1. Mexico will reinforce the northern border with 10,000 members of the National Guard immediately, to prevent drug trafficking from Mexico to the United States, particularly fentanyl.
2. The United States is committed to working to prevent the trafficking of high-powered weapons to Mexico.
3. Our teams will begin working today on two fronts: security and trade.
4. Tariffs will be paused for one month from today.
posted by vacapinta at 8:03 AM on February 3 [5 favorites]


They overplayed their hand, and now they lost Canada.

The same way they overplayed their hand with Yanukovich and lost Ukraine.


I doubt this reaction was unexpected.

The unpleasant foreshadowing built into that analogy: look where Ukraine is now.


Tariffs will be paused for one month from today.

This I did not expect. Time will tell if Trump is sincere. Hard to see what evil scheme this serves.
posted by CynicalKnight at 8:21 AM on February 3 [2 favorites]


In matters of whiskey, I am a patriot.

in matters of whiskey I shudder to think of the day we're going to have a trade war with UK/Scotland because don't they dare make Glenfiddich cost more than it already does
posted by numaner at 8:32 AM on February 3 [1 favorite]


An extremely cynical part of me thinks that he privately agreed to relatively reasonable proposals to Mexico. A few weeks or months later, he'll privately reneg on his promises/actions and/or accuse Mexico of not following through Mexico's proposed actions, probably in an uncharitable interpretation of their agreement). Then, Trump will publicly accuse Mexico that they did not follow the agreement and threaten tariffs again, and threaten other actions against them. his supporters will eat it( his talking Points) up and think he's a great businessman playing hardball with the countries and not letting the usa be bullied anymore.
posted by fizzix at 8:34 AM on February 3 [1 favorite]


Matt Stoller on the tariffs:

What did Trump Just do on Tariffs?

He writes from a legal and economic perspective and tries for a nonpartisan tone so I like to read him for balance, because the USA is so polarized that it's easy to lose track of the justifications the "other side" uses to rationalize these crazy actions.

Anyway, the sane washing explanation is that these maybe aren't the final tariffs but a negotiating tactic. But even that explanation seems pretty far-fetched. Trump is an idiot who thinks the USA can annex Canada or he's being petty about Trudeau laughing in his face about the 25% tariff or he's an easily manipulated senile idiot falling for the lies of Russian agents - one of those seems like the most likely explanation for this madness to me, especially taken together with the threats against Greenland (blowing up NATO) and Elon's attempts to dismantle the government.
posted by subdee at 8:36 AM on February 3 [4 favorites]


maybe aren't the final tariffs but a negotiating tactic

A distinction utterly lost on any thinking Canadian

A majority of our voting neighbours elected a criminal and bully who repeatedly calls for annexation. Just the dumbest and worst timeline and steadily diving
posted by ginger.beef at 9:16 AM on February 3 [5 favorites]


1. Mexico will reinforce the northern border with 10,000 members of the National Guard immediately, to prevent drug trafficking from Mexico to the United States, particularly fentanyl.

Now Trump is going to think he can convince Canada to station troops on the border as well. The helicopters are bad enough already.
posted by ssg at 9:20 AM on February 3 [2 favorites]


Given the state of things with our southern neighbour, I am not against Canadian troops at the border right now.
posted by fimbulvetr at 9:36 AM on February 3 [14 favorites]


I'm enough of an adult that if there's some bone that Canada can throw at TFG (like Canadian troops at the border) so that he can do his his little victory dance and walk back the tariffs, then throw that bone and let's move on.
posted by Artful Codger at 9:46 AM on February 3 [5 favorites]


Now Trump is going to think he can convince Canada to station troops on the border as well.

You're assuming Trump cares about actual results. I don't think he does, I think he got what he wanted: Mexico did something because he threatened tariffs. That's all the win he wants, and I wouldn't be surprised if he thought Canada would do the same. And we could. It would be easy to have a call, agree on some future measures that make Trump look strong, and then quietly ignore implementation, or set up a few Potemkin military patrols and film them.

I'm reasonably sure this is understood in Ottawa, and they're choosing not to because this means 1) propping Trump up, 2) doing it every couple months, and 3) Canada is in a position in this trade war to blame it all on Trump, make domestic political hay out of it, and cause more visible suffering in the US than we have to endure. It's already neutered the federal conservatives (though Doug Ford's snap election will likely be a landslide for him because of this)

I'm enough of an adult that if there's some bone that Canada can throw at TFG (like Canadian troops at the border) so that he can do his his little victory dance and walk back the tariffs, then throw that bone and let's move on.

I'm genuinely unsure whether this is better. If we do that, there'll be a separate blowup in a couple months. Canada standing firm in a trade war now galvanizes opposition to Trump and shows that Trump isn't invulnerable to pushing back. We're choosing short term pain over long term pain, hopefully for the best. It also lends support to segments in the US who are pushing back domestically on the DOGE boys and ICE. Trump picking a lot of fights works when everyone placates Grandpa; it stops working when everyone pushes back hard.
posted by fatbird at 10:06 AM on February 3 [6 favorites]


if there's some bone that Canada can throw

We threw a $1.3 billion dollar bone. In Manitoba, RCMP are monitoring the border with Black Hawks and Conservation officers have been reassigned from Conservationing to assisting in border security, presumably similar has happened in other provinces.

It's all good though, Reuters reports the White House is now saying "Canadians appear to have misunderstood the plain language of the executive order and they're interpreting it as a trade war," so I guess everything's cool now.
posted by Alvy Ampersand at 10:09 AM on February 3 [8 favorites]


2. The United States is committed to working to prevent the trafficking of high-powered weapons to Mexico.

If/when Canada does arrive at an agreement with the cheeto, I hope there is a line item in there about illegal gun trafficking as well. The issue for Canada is minuscule in scale compared to Mexico, but it's good to have it listed to show criminal behavior originates on both sides of the Canada/US border (and that gosh, a border is a shared obligation).
posted by Kabanos at 10:42 AM on February 3 [3 favorites]


About that strip club marquee? Cited on Xitter for hate speech [cbc.ca].
posted by porpoise at 11:12 AM on February 3 [2 favorites]


from Catherine Rampell:
Any news outlet reporting Mexico conceded anything to Trump to get him to delay tariffs has not done its homework.

Trump boasts he got Mexico to commit to stationing 10K troops at our border. Apparently he didn't realize Mexico already has 15K troops deployed there.
From Medhi Hasan:
Mexico’s president got Trump to agree to gun control (!) and people on the right think it’s a win for Trump. LOL.
posted by Dashy at 11:20 AM on February 3 [9 favorites]


Failing that, I wish Trudeau had put a 15% export tax on oil exported to the U.S.

I want this, but that's because I want Canadian oil production to just stop. It would be painful and I would totally subsidize and support everyone who would lose their livelihoods - but our oil -especially the tar sands - is some of the most polluting on the planet and we need to leave it in the ground to save us all.

Keep selling the hydroelectricity, stop all the oil.
posted by jb at 11:23 AM on February 3 [9 favorites]


51st State by New Model Army (via r/CollapseMusic)
posted by jeffburdges at 11:37 AM on February 3 [1 favorite]


My best friend in DC sent me this text:

doug ford going absolutely feral up there
posted by Kitteh at 1:01 PM on February 3 [2 favorites]




During his memo-signing press conference today, Trump was banging on against how unfair it was that US banks aren't allowed to operate in Canada. So that's the next demand. And then he was on about dairy, so that's number two. Who knows what's next? (Aside from the 51 state stuff again and again/) We can't throw him a bone because the demand will be never ending.

He's also now extorting Ukraine for its "rare earth" and saying the country needs to put up access guarantees in exchange for anything the US has already provided during the fight against the Russian invasion.
posted by sardonyx at 1:35 PM on February 3 [2 favorites]


It's already neutered the federal conservatives

What?? I missed the neutering here.
posted by warriorqueen at 1:49 PM on February 3 [2 favorites]


Trump was banging on against how unfair it was that US banks aren't allowed to operate in Canada.

He's lying again.
U.S. banks can and do operate in Canada

The Office of the Superintendent of Financial Institutions lists Amex Bank of Canada, Citibank Canada and J.P. Morgan Bank Canada on Schedule II, all having U.S. parent companies.

Just have to follow Canadian law.
posted by yyz at 1:53 PM on February 3 [10 favorites]


Apparently Canada's tariffs are on pause too...

https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/trudeau-trump-speak-trade-war-1.7448805

Waiting to hear the details, hopefully we didn't do anything humiliating to get that.
posted by WaterAndPixels at 1:53 PM on February 3 [3 favorites]


I'd say Ukraine finds itself in a different situation than Canada. Ideally, they'd make official promisse that maximize the future conflict between Trump and Putin, but without risking too terrible a deal.

As a simple example, Ukraine could directly grant some limited term licenses for whatever exists in the Donbas region claimed by Russia.

As a more complex example, Ukraine could create some nascent resource directorate, modeled upon the the Norwegian Petroleum Directorate, which famously extracts a good deal from oil contractors, but promise some right to bid for American companies.
posted by jeffburdges at 1:57 PM on February 3 [1 favorite]


Now Trump is going to think he can convince Canada to station troops on the border as well.

Mounties, surely
posted by Apocryphon at 1:57 PM on February 3 [2 favorites]




The angle we need to work on (and that's a worldwide issue I'd reckon) is how to break big tech, or at least contain big tech damages to the US.

We need to grow some backbone and put in place strong measures to protect against the extractive foreign corporations that keep on trying to syphon all the world's money by using network effects to extract fees on what are local transactions.
posted by WaterAndPixels at 2:11 PM on February 3 [5 favorites]


Waiting to hear the details, hopefully we didn't do anything humiliating to get that.

We didn't. We "agreed" to the $1.3 billion investment in border security we'd already agreed to previously, and to appoint a "fentanyl czar" which in practice will just mean giving someone who was already working on the issue a new title, and to list the Mexican cartels as terrorists which was not even remotely a big ask.

The story here is that Canada and Mexico threatened retaliatory tariffs and Trump backed down the moment the markets started to panic.
posted by mightygodking at 2:17 PM on February 3 [31 favorites]


When the Toronto Sun ( a right wing tabloid) says

Trump is a lunatic, ... He’s a kamikaze pilot, flying all of us into the side of a cliff. The guy whose businesses have gone bankrupt six times, controlling the world economy: That’s a story that was never going to have a happy ending.
Justin Trudeau’s Sunday night speech was excellent
And we don’t need an election in the middle of this crisis,

--
That's like Fox news endorsing AOC
posted by yyz at 2:20 PM on February 3 [31 favorites]


A silver lining?

Dark times will inspire some people to dig in and fight back. Pay attention: some people are still disengaged, maybe aware just enough to drop a zinger in their Facebook. Some people are angry, like surprisingly angry. And some can't wait to capitulate.

We see you, Danielle Smith
posted by ginger.beef at 2:33 PM on February 3 [2 favorites]


The reality is that it doesn't MATTER what the reality is.

Trump got calls from the leaders of Mexico and Canada, he can spin those calls as those nations submitting to his will, and he will go on from here to brag about how brilliant he is, how tariffs are great and Democrats are stoopid for opposing them, and so on.

It literally doesn't matter if the actual phone call went:

Tredaue: Fuck you dude, just fuck you so hard.

Trump: Lulz k, thx, bye!

Liike Trump ordering two dams to open in norther California, the fact that it has nothing at all to do with water in southern California simply doesn't matter. At absolute most the mainstream corporate media will do some mealy mouthed BothSides(tm) reporting, and FOX et al will sing the priases of Dear Leader Trump, and in a month all anyone except people like us will remember is that Trump got Canada and Mexico to stop abusing America and he saved California from itself.

Right this second FOX News has the headline:

"WIN FOR AMERICA" followed by an op ed about how opponents of tariffs are stupid and bad.

That's what the Trump voters will remember. Brave and Strong Leader Trump stood up against Mexico and Canada to save America after wimpy Biden let them take advantage of us.

Meanwhile, CNN isn't even talking about the Congresspeople demanding answers at USAID, or the protests in LA and other cities against Trump's deportation scheme.

Corporate media is all in on Trump, even if they pretend not to be, Twitter used to be an alternate source but now is owned by the enemy, and Bluesky isn't really all that common yet.

If you're not on Bluesky, you should probably get on Bluesky.
posted by sotonohito at 2:34 PM on February 3 [11 favorites]


The story here is that Canada and Mexico threatened retaliatory tariffs and Trump backed down the moment the markets started to panic.

Well, I do hope the media picks that angle up instead of uncritically accepting the administration's spin the way they all-too-often seem to.

Like, the exact same thing happened in Colombia. We pushed the envelope (an unannounced military flight instead of the utterly routine civil deportation flights we usually do), they pushed back, we agreed to return to the status quo, and the media just lapped up the notion that since planes (civil flights, the exact same kind we already had before the dust-up) were landing again it was a "victory" when really our attempt at power projection failed abjectly with a return to the status quo ante.
posted by jackbishop at 2:36 PM on February 3 [5 favorites]


Mexico’s president got Trump to agree to gun control (!) and people on the right think it’s a win for Trump. LOL.

There are​ only two gun stores in Mexico. Throughout the enormous country, which takes three full days to cross by car from top to bottom if you don’t stop, the only places you can legally buy a gun are a shop on a military base in the capital and a shop on another military base in the large northern city of Monterrey.

On the Iron River
posted by Omon Ra at 2:41 PM on February 3 [6 favorites]


That's like Fox news endorsing AOC

I got a 403 and didn’t see that but I’m not sure I consider PP defanged.
posted by warriorqueen at 2:58 PM on February 3 [1 favorite]


Mexico’s president got Trump to agree to gun control (!) and people on the right think it’s a win for Trump. LOL.

Does anyone sincerely believe that Trump is going to do anything at all to slow the flow of guns from the US into Mexico? The win for Mexico here is just Trump admitting that it's a problem, but I'm sure that's as far as it goes.

Trump boasts he got Mexico to commit to stationing 10K troops at our border. Apparently he didn't realize Mexico already has 15K troops deployed there.

Mexican news are reporting it as a deployment of 10k troops, suggesting they are additional troops. But who knows.
posted by ssg at 3:10 PM on February 3 [2 favorites]


Well, this was predictably dumb. I will echo the other Canadians in the thread - threats of annexation have made people mad in a way I haven't seen in a long time. Like, long enough to stop being mad at other pointless things we are told to be mad at. This will be interesting.
posted by the uncomplicated soups of my childhood at 3:38 PM on February 3 [15 favorites]


(Much of what Trump announced re Canada was announced by Canada back in December.)
posted by box at 3:45 PM on February 3 [2 favorites]


Truly, this is the Art of the Deal, brought to fruition before our very eyes.
posted by wabbittwax at 3:48 PM on February 3 [1 favorite]


The story here is that Canada and Mexico threatened retaliatory tariffs and Trump backed down the moment the markets started to panic.

I hope you're right. To me it looks like an extortion racket. 30 days from now he'll be back with another, bigger demand, and Canada will have to give him another, bigger concession. It seems to me that he can keep this up indefinitely as long as he never actually imposes the tariffs, because until he does, Americans won't suffer the consequences and he won't face any pushback from his base. Meanwhile Canada cedes a little more sovereignty with every concession. What will next month's "compromise" on banking deregulation look like?
posted by Gerald Bostock at 4:13 PM on February 3 [5 favorites]


I got a 403 and didn’t see that but I’m not sure I consider PP defanged.

They seem to have scrubbed the article warriorqueen
Funny . I thought I was through the looking glass reading that lol
I found an archive link to it though
From the Sun it's very surprising reading
posted by yyz at 4:16 PM on February 3 [1 favorite]


Yeah whatever, that horse has left the barn. People are seething here, it’s all anyone was talking about all weekend. Everyone I know is canceling stuff left and right. I’ll continue not buying US stuff for the foreseeable future.
I’m So Bored Of The USA
posted by chococat at 4:24 PM on February 3 [13 favorites]


I do consider this a volley in a potential attempt to disrupt our ability to be a sovereign nation and I hope our leaders (govt, business) put 30 days of planning in so we’re ready. It would be nice, too, to get the EU trade deal done.
posted by warriorqueen at 4:51 PM on February 3 [3 favorites]


To me it looks like an extortion racket.

This is my worry as well. I suspect, though, that the second or third time it comes up, the willingness to inflict some real pain also goes up.
posted by fatbird at 4:51 PM on February 3 [3 favorites]


warriorqueen: i don't think PP is "defanged", by any means, but his polling is slipping hard already, and if Trump keeps saber-rattling, he's probably at best going to be able to win a minority government. Canadians seem to be mad, and unlike Americans, have at least some object permanence.
posted by adrienneleigh at 5:16 PM on February 3 [14 favorites]


What will next month's "compromise" on banking deregulation look like?

Are they trying to get Carney elected or what? Dude is like the perfect opponent to carry that ball against Trump in Canada.
posted by WaterAndPixels at 5:21 PM on February 3 [1 favorite]


Well, this was predictably dumb. I will echo the other Canadians in the thread - threats of annexation have made people mad in a way I haven't seen in a long time.

Yep. I'm cancelling Prime, my audible subscription, netflix, and disney plus. I have alreadyvstarted to go to the supermarket again (i havent been going since the pandemic) so i can make sure i'm not buying American. I need new jeans. I was houng to order from bloomchic because theyre cheap and fine, but on found a UK company not ad cheap but hopefully equally fine. I had Miss Vicki's with my lunch tiday instead of lays.

Im sorry I'm not going to be able to find a way to see the new Dexter series, but if they world is still here when the madness stops, I'll watch them then. I encourage other Canadians to continue doing what we can individually to diversify Canada's trade relationships.

I really hope all those BC companies continue to look into new export markets. I hope other countries will have our back and look for opportunities to buy from Canada instead of the U.S. or sell to us instead of the U.S. If they want to isolate, let them.
posted by If only I had a penguin... at 5:27 PM on February 3 [9 favorites]


And I hope those bottles stay of the LCBO shelves until tarrifs are cancelled, not paused.
posted by If only I had a penguin... at 5:31 PM on February 3 [3 favorites]


I really hope all those BC companies continue to look into new export markets

I'm reminded of a cliche that's probably been used in a ton of books and movies, it's like a woman who eventually, finally, rids herself of a shitty abusive partner and at the end thanks him for giving her the gift of self-reliance.
posted by Alvy Ampersand at 6:27 PM on February 3 [3 favorites]


I will echo the other Canadians in the thread - threats of annexation have made people mad in a way I haven't seen in a long time.

I was so enraged over the weekend I seriously feared for my blood pressure.

Today while I was driving the CBC was playing Trump’s “51st state” comments from his speech today and I literally slapped the car radio off in anger because I could not stand to listen to him sneer at my country, tell lies, and glorify his own bullying.
posted by hurdy gurdy girl at 6:57 PM on February 3 [12 favorites]




Im sorry I'm not going to be able to find a way to see the new Dexter series

Hello old friend

Five bucks per month.
posted by flabdablet at 9:31 PM on February 3 [2 favorites]


I can't pretend I'm not delighted by the pathetic walk-back by TFG having extracted as a concession... absolutely nothing.

But the boycott does not end. The fight goes on. This goon wins nothing, gets nothing.
posted by ~ at 9:33 PM on February 3 [6 favorites]


I cannot entirely boycott all travel to the US since I've got my mom and my sister in South Carolina, but I can boycott leisure travel. Shepherd and I were going to go to San Francisco in November for the Dia de Muertos celebrations, but hell, we can go to Mexico instead. We've canceled any US-based subscriptions we have and gone with Canadian carriers instead (hi Crave! hi CBC Gem!).

As noted by others, the 30 day reprieve hasn't made anyone less angry at the US. We know Trump will try to wear us down because he's a bully. I don't go in much for patriotism in either country, but it is wild to see just how angry Canada is right now.
posted by Kitteh at 4:46 AM on February 4 [7 favorites]


That SUN piece that was taken down is from Warren Kinsella, a former Liberal insider who is somewhat outspoken (ok, a full-on, take-no-prisoners, fire-breathing earth scorcher) in his political opinions and observations. He's had a big hate on for Trudeau since the beginning of the Dauphin's reign. Often a good read if you're into Canadian politics. The SUN gives him a regular column.

Here's an updated version of that column.
posted by Artful Codger at 6:22 AM on February 4 [2 favorites]


It will be interesting to see how the "Move Fast and Break Things" ethos goes over in China.
posted by effluvia at 7:27 AM on February 4




I like how China focused on coal. That should get Kentucky's attention. I hope they nationalize their China based Tesla operation.
posted by effluvia at 8:05 AM on February 4 [4 favorites]


The National Post, desperately searching for something to blame Trudeau for: Sheinbaum's approach to Trump's tariffs got results in one call. Trudeau rang twice
posted by ssg at 9:02 AM on February 4 [4 favorites]


The Post: “Man always rings twice”
posted by mbrubeck at 9:13 AM on February 4 [13 favorites]




I knew there was a Postman Always Rings Twice joke in there!
posted by ssg at 10:46 AM on February 4 [2 favorites]


We need to pay attention to how this crisis is being exploited by the political/business class in Canada. They're talking about "interprovincial trade barriers" which has historically been code for privatization and deregulation (picture Alberta suing BC over preferential treatment of renewables). They're talking about building more pipelines to export more fossil fuels. BC is fast-tracking mining and natural gas projects -- what happens to environmental assessments and consultation with First Nations under these conditions? These are shock-doctrine tactics.
posted by Gerald Bostock at 11:52 AM on February 4 [7 favorites]


The US media has to stop giving this fucker any credit. He blew up longstanding trade agreements for concessions that both Mexico and Canada had already made (Canada in December and Mexico under Biden).

Maybe he thought he could get more, but settled for the flash-bang drama of it all, and press he could spin for his base to show he is "doing something".

It will be the same when prices inevitably go up due to the trade war with China and pause on wind energy: the prices will go up, so that he can magically "bring them down" later (to what they currently are). And distracted Americans with absolutely no memory, aided by the complicit media, will fall for the ruse.
posted by subdee at 1:08 PM on February 4 [3 favorites]


We need to pay attention to how this crisis is being exploited by the political/business class in Canada. They're talking about "interprovincial trade barriers" which has historically been code for privatization and deregulation (picture Alberta suing BC over preferential treatment of renewables). They're talking about building more pipelines to export more fossil fuels. BC is fast-tracking mining and natural gas projects -- what happens to environmental assessments and consultation with First Nations under these conditions? These are shock-doctrine tactics.

On the one hand you are right.

On the other hand, I would love to be able to buy great, small business made, wine, beer and whiskey produced in other parts of Canada more easily and more legally than buying American, European, and UK products.
posted by Dalekdad at 1:51 PM on February 4 [4 favorites]


The US media love Trump and has since 2016. Remember when Clinton was delivering a real speech and all the corporate media was showing video of a staircase in Trump Tower where they thought (wrongly) Trump MIGHT make a speech later? Yeah.

The media will never show Trump as he is, it's always going to be sanewashed and held up as a spectacle for ratings.
posted by sotonohito at 1:54 PM on February 4 [5 favorites]


So for now, we're fine, things are on hold, but we know that won't last. Now, it's time to start planning for the next time. Personally, I think if Trump can use the excuse of fentanyl and immigration, we should use guns--and they won't even be an excuse!

The next time they try something, and we all know there will be a next time, I think we should threaten to impose a fines on the US government for every illegal American gun that is confiscated in this country--guns that they let slip through their border. And it should be some number that represents the true cost of dealing with that gun--the police services and the increased insurance from property crime and personal injuries, etc. It should be some ridiculously high figure--$100,000 or $500,000 or $1 million per gun. I'm sure there is some sort of accounting number that can be applied and accurately accounts for all of the costs, just as the same way traffic tickets have victim impact charges attached to them.

That should be the action we demand--we need a real solution to the gun problem. It's not a made-up excuse like Trump's have been. And it would show that we're not backing down and that we have our own concerns and demands, and we're not just reacting to Donald's latest whim.

Is it an entirely legal approach Probably not as I've proposed it, but there should be some way of making it mostly legal, or much more legal. Or at least legal enough to wield as a stick.

We've got four years of this regime. We need to start being creative with how we deal with it.
posted by sardonyx at 2:00 PM on February 4 [5 favorites]


Get ready for H5N1. (i.e. stock up your home with necessities and sehelf stable foods)

Get ready for a wildfire (i.e. a go bag).

If you're ready for those two, you're also ready for a general strike.
posted by ocschwar at 2:02 PM on February 4


Sheinbaum gave Trump something, nothing too problematic, and maybe she got something bigger, but she still gave him something. Trudeau gave him nothing real, just pasting his name over saome Biden deal, right?
posted by jeffburdges at 2:48 PM on February 4




Good grief, talk about losing the younger generations;

The suspension – which took effect immediately – appears likely related to the latter, and is expected to have significant impact on US consumer orders from retailers including Amazon. In 2023, a US government report said 30% of small packages coming into the US were from two Chinese e-commerce companies, Shein and Temu, alone. The USPS declined to answer further questions. [grauniad]
posted by porpoise at 12:49 AM on February 5 [1 favorite]


I live in NZ, design open source hardware, build in China and ship from there - my US customers are screwed.

My guess is that this is because Trump has lowered the number above which people have to pay tax from $800 to $0 (aka 'de-minimus') - suddenly the USPS is tasked with collecting duty on each and every package that enters the country - setting that up will take ages, Americans aren't going to like having to go down to the post office to pay ir duty to get their packagesthe

Some big companies (AliExpress for example) seem to have their own shipping infrastructure, air-ship containers and then unpack them in target countries then mail them locally, they will likely be able to spin up pre-paying duty on checkout (here in NZ our customs duty is the same as local sales tax, we pay it on big overseas orders from lots of countries, and it's collected by those big companies like AliExpress and EBay)
posted by mbo at 2:01 AM on February 5 [2 favorites]


Soneone blinked because that jeffburdges link to the USPS now reads:emphasis mine
UPDATED INFORMATION: International inbound mail and packages from China and Hong Kong Posts

Effective February 5, 2025, the Postal Service will continue accepting all international inbound mail and packages from China and Hong Kong Posts. The USPS and Customs and Border Protection are working closely together to implement an efficient collection mechanism for the new China tariffs to ensure the least disruption to package delivery.
posted by achrise at 6:10 AM on February 5 [4 favorites]


We'll need some sebsite that catalogs all these, mabye trumpedcaved.lol or whatever.
posted by jeffburdges at 6:25 AM on February 5 [1 favorite]


Wow, closing de minimus... i would really like to see the numbers: the dollar amount of tariffs/taxes/duties that will now be collected, minus the cost to process all the little shipments, stepped-up border scrutiny, etc. And what else might be lost by ending all this frictionless commerce?

I'm not a fast-fashion person, but over the last decade I've averaged between $500 and $1k a year in small electronics and tool purchases from AliExpress etc. Mostly parts, subassemblies, development boards, etc. Much of these don't have North American suppliers, or they themselves were sourcing from Asia and just marking up.

With the legacy postal arrangements, shipping costs were near zero. I know that ultimately this was too good to last and things would eventually level out. But still, I can't help but think they're throwing out more than a few babies with this bathwater.

Yes I know the implementation is now on hold... but one must assume the worst, with this administration.
posted by Artful Codger at 7:01 AM on February 5 [1 favorite]


killing the cheap hobbyist parts/tools pipeline from china is yet another Own Goal from the dumbest people on the planet; so much north american innovation relies on that shit now.
posted by seanmpuckett at 7:20 AM on February 5 [8 favorites]


...an efficient collection mechanism for the new China tariffs...

'efficient' probably means a $10 handling fee on top of the Tariff.
posted by Lanark at 7:39 AM on February 5 [1 favorite]


Introducing “X-pedited Customs”, where premium X subscribers get free duties 🤔🙄
posted by funkaspuck at 9:23 AM on February 5 [1 favorite]


The USPS absolutely doesn't have the personnel to do this shit, they certainly know it, and they're not under Trump's direct control because of their weird quasi-governmental status. (Customs absolutely doesn't have the personnel either.) My guess on the actual sequence of events here, although it's only a guess, is:

1. The new rule abolishing de minimis exemptions went into effect;
2. the USPS decided on their own that, given the absolute metric fuckton of extra work being created by that edict, the only way to do their jobs was to suspend some service temporarily;
3. the outcry from that decision reached someone in the Trump administration and they flipped shit and demanded a reversal.

The actual facts on the ground here, however, are that regardless of whether USPS is officially accepting packages from China & Hong Kong or not, those packages are likely to be extremely delayed in getting to their destinations. Like, i wouldn't expect to get anything you order from China in less than three or four months, right now.
posted by adrienneleigh at 1:08 PM on February 5 [1 favorite]


Anand suggests Canada's interprovincial barriers could crumble within a month: Provinces and Ottawa have been talking for decades about removing internal trade barriers [CBC]
Anand has previously said that removing existing barriers could lower prices by up to 15 per cent, boost productivity by up to seven per cent and add up to $200 billion to the domestic economy.

Eliminating interprovincial trade barriers between now and Trump's 30-day deadline on the pause for new tariffs would be a remarkable accomplishment and the culmination of work that's been ongoing for decades.
posted by mazola at 2:00 PM on February 5 [4 favorites]


Wow, closing de minimus... i would really like to see the numbers: the dollar amount of tariffs/taxes/duties that will now be collected, minus the cost to process all the little shipments, stepped-up border scrutiny, etc.

It seems like this creates a hell of an opportunity for malicious compliance on the part of Temu /Shein/AliExpress: Remove the minimum order size for free shipping and give a 10% discount on all orders under $5. And if someone orders a cart full of goods, consider how many separate packages you can send it in. If they're doing "ship it all to the U.S. and then mail it" then presumably they pay by the container so the added cost would be primarily the extra packaging.
posted by If only I had a penguin... at 3:19 PM on February 5 [1 favorite]


I think I'm going to throw up.

Also, a friendly reminder that Thompson-Reuters is a Canadian-owned news source.
posted by If only I had a penguin... at 1:38 PM on February 7 [1 favorite]


Also, a friendly reminder that Thompson-Reuters is a Canadian-owned news source.

All of the major Canadian media are Canadian-owned, with the notable exception of the National Post / Postmedia / Sun. So being Canadian-owned is a pretty low bar. Not being owned by very wealthy families would be nice too.
posted by ssg at 2:00 PM on February 7 [1 favorite]


Ian Bremmer's TED talk on videwing the tech companies like a global superpower
I'm dubious tech companies would escape government control inside China, but I've not followed those issues lately.
posted by jeffburdges at 4:24 PM on February 7


Trump temporarily reinstated the de minimis exemption this morning. I presume he got an earful from all the rich people he was pissing off by fucking with supply chains and package traffic.
posted by adrienneleigh at 4:59 PM on February 7 [2 favorites]


(The EO says the exemption will be removed again as soon as there's sufficient capacity to handle and inspect all the affected packages, but i expect that to be approximately never, soooo…)
posted by adrienneleigh at 5:02 PM on February 7 [2 favorites]




Well, yeah. They like tighter production because it means higher profits.
posted by sotonohito at 8:21 AM on February 8 [1 favorite]


The USPS absolutely doesn't have the personnel to do this shit

Not even if Elon gives them his Work Harder, Not Smarter motivational speech?
posted by flabdablet at 8:58 AM on February 8 [1 favorite]


A pizza party would probably do the trick!
posted by sotonohito at 11:09 AM on February 8


Just fyi, tromper is a verb in French that means to cheat, deceive, mislead, fool, delude, or betray, which I really should've mentioned way back when folks discussed his like 4000 lawsuits. lol
posted by jeffburdges at 4:37 AM on February 9




Trump L'Oeil
posted by box at 9:18 AM on February 9 [2 favorites]


“Trudeau, who was overheard telling business leaders that, yes, Trump really would like to take over Canada."

"Apparently, the U.S. president made a cryptic comment in his Monday afternoon phone call with Trudeau about having read a 1908 treaty setting the Canada-U.S. boundary and finding it interesting.”


Canada, Mexico, Panama, and others should really focus on unofficail actions that cause economic damage, like refining oil elsewhere. Also poision pills, like legalization of more drugs or whatever.
posted by jeffburdges at 10:05 AM on February 9 [5 favorites]


It's Monday. Let's start the week off with some nice new tariffs on steel and aluminum.
posted by Artful Codger at 3:03 AM on February 10 [3 favorites]


US markets: shrug

(seen this before, my friend)
posted by Dashy at 10:17 AM on February 10


I only discovered Bruce Cockburn recently, apropos pissed off Canadaians.
posted by jeffburdges at 10:44 AM on February 10 [1 favorite]






well, now we know what the problem with the writers is - they're cartoon writers
posted by pyramid termite at 10:18 AM on February 11 [1 favorite]


"Red, White, and Blueland"

Savannah, come get your boy, he's been into grandma's pills again.
posted by mittens at 10:58 AM on February 11 [2 favorites]


why he's got as many stupid ideas as carter's got pills
posted by pyramid termite at 11:56 AM on February 11


I ready thought that was a joke. It wasn't a joke.

Unbelievable.
posted by Artful Codger at 12:29 PM on February 11 [3 favorites]




Satire is dead, buried and cremated.
posted by flabdablet at 10:07 PM on February 11 [2 favorites]


he's been into grandma's pills again

Not too hard, given that he's her supplier.

What the fuck are they about to do that calls for a Hey! Squirrel! as potent as this one?
posted by flabdablet at 10:12 PM on February 11 [3 favorites]


Inflation driven by unfundable tax cuts?
posted by jeffburdges at 5:45 AM on February 12






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