Canada should just cut off non-vital trade to America until we have a new trade policy
My coworker loves Trump loudly and obnoxiously. But she’s mad about the tariffs and votes for the NDP here, but says he’s “doing good things for his country”, but can’t identify what. She doesn’t know anything about weaponized disinformation, Russian troll farms, or dark money, and I very gently explained these things to her today, and saw this dim light turning on behind her eyes. So many people don’t know how badly they’ve been suckered by weaponized disinformation and dark money.
It hurts itself in its confusion
I love seeing that video of a journalist asking trump about what he said about some tariffs and him responding “I think the other countries pay them”. He truly doesn’t know how they work.
In all fairness, a fringe economist told him that. Navarro still hasn’t been able to successfully explain to anyone why tariffs won’t raise prices. He gets as far as “they can’t raise tariffs on the largest market in the world” as if there weren’t high tariffs on the us before.
He may be dumb but not as much as the people who voted for him
Trump: “Fuck framing lumber. All my homies hate imported timber for house framing.”
Governor? It’s he really referring to the Canadian prime Minister as though he is the governor of a state? And they said Biden was losing his grasp on reality.
It’s deliberately disrespectful. He has said that Canada should become a US state. This is convicted felon Trumps way to belittle both PM Trudeau and the sovereign nation of Canada
The funny thing is this is Trump’s way of trying to insult Canada and our PM, but he comes off sounding like an idiot who doesn’t know Trudeau’s proper title.
Like, come on USA. Your grandfather is wandering down the street with his pants off again. Can you come get him?
Can you come get him?
I don’t think we can. Not yet anyway. Cut off the power and throw enough tariffs to piss off US corporations we might be able to get people out in the streets.
That doesn’t make it less stupid and fanciful and that was my point dude.
Just skip to the end and stop all imports and exports between both countries, see how well that goes.
God I’m exhausted.
At this point, we just need to cut it all off completely. Oil shipments, electricity, lumber, aluminum. All of it.
I know that that’s a hard ask for those industries that are affected, and if it means the federal goverment has to temporarily raise the deficit in order to subsidize those industries it’ll be crazy expensive and inflation will shoot up. But I’m convinced that that would be only a short amount of time that that would actually be needed.
Let the United States go one week without our stuff. 100%…fuck 'em. They’ll last one week. Maybe two. And when they quit their bullshit, make it clear that we are diversifying our business partners making it easier to pull it from them again anytime they let Trump open is fucking mouth.
Hold our resources hostage against them.
I mean, if we play all our cards at once, we have no cards left for the next thing, and in the process that might raise enough American political to invade for real.
It should be and I think is all on the table, though, and I have no problem with it if they want to escalate, because we also need to raise political will to sever our ties for good.
we have no cards left for the next thing,
That’s the game, he’s bleeding you for cards.
If he’s going to attack you, he’ll bleed you first. There is no appeasing him permanently.
We have a deep deck (which is part of why playing the whole thing at once would be kinda nutty). Like every day someone mentions a new way to screw with them I hadn’t thought of. Cutting off power, cutting off water, taking their stuff and not paying, ignoring their intellectual property, cutting off Alaska…
Nobody is talking appeasement anymore, even Danielle Smith is getting muted about it. The question is how to help Trump ruin himself the best, politically and economically.
Who gives a damn about the deficit. When did that ever really matter?
Economical MAD is not the answer here. It’s a very complex subject that is difficult to solve.
It’s a very complex subject that is difficult to solve
In a sane world, I agree with you. But we’re dealing with a man who himself doesn’t realise its complexity and only understands strategies that are “blunt and absurd”.
We can use as nuanced and soft-toed strategies all we want and he’ll never get it through his orange head.
Yes, we’re dealing with a madman. You’re suggesting we act just like him. No, harming more people voluntarily is not the answer.
(not canadian, or american; take that as you will)
not acting like him: acting in retaliation with measures that hurt the US more than canada… things like IP and copyright protections, digital services, etc
his blanket measures don’t take into account trade that’s largely beneficial to US companies - they’re stupid blunt instrument crap because thought is too hard… trump hurt himself in his confusion
retaliating in precise ways can extract value from the US without harming the canadian economy nearly as much
As I saw someone link yesterday, John Bolton (noted warmongering piece of shit) said he was in the room during Trump round one when people were trying to explain tariffs to him. Bolton says he was unable to comprehend.
absolutely… and in those hands they can still be a damaging weapon, but they’ll never be as powerful as someone who knows how to wield them correctly. brains can win, or at least provide a formidable fight… but no matter what, both sides will feel pain
It’s not Mutually Assured Destruction though. It’s not even retaliatory. If Canada were to immediately stop all exports to the US and pivot to an EU/China based economy the fallout would disproportionately affect the US. The key to this is that Canada is the smaller and more insular trading partner.
Case in point
The destruction is mutual, but not assured and total (total just didn’t make it into the acronym). Nuclear war isn’t a good analogy.
Basically, do we want to continue relying on the US, or not? Not doing so has a cost, but we might not have a choice. Canada can survive without the US, if in a slightly poorer form.
Canada still has decent friends to trade and work with. Can’t say the same for the Fascist States.
I worry that Canada will not be able to export efficiently due to lack of port infrastructure, especially on the Pacific Coast. Massive industrial ports are expensive and take years to bring online.
Y’know, if you’re willing to make a few small concessions on who is ultimately in control of your country, I know this great authoritarian dictatorship that’s been investing in new port infrastructure projects all around the world.
Yes, me too. It’s really hard to find information on how much extra capacity there is, although I’ve seen indications it’s not zero.
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Fucked up Beyond All Repair.
All this could have been avoided if one guy had slightly better aim.
Time travelers can’t do anything right…
People were thinking about that probably a lot in the 30s and 40s
I think about this a lot actually. So close
Looks like the Governor of the 47th Oblast is throwing another hissy fit.
Bankrupting his country like he did with all his businesses, including a casino. Notoriously difficult to bankrupt.
Don’t forget his secondary handler FElong and how he tanked Twitter.
It’s all going to be used as an excuse to invade us. Oh look at Canada they made your lives more expensive. It’s Canada’s fault and once the people believe it, they’ll have their support and invade us.
It would be an uphill battle. Yes Americans are overall less educated because they don’t invest in education and let their media spread lies unchecked but invading Canada is a big leap (for now).
they’ll have hell on their hands after an invasion, good luck defending that border or stopping the insurgency with so much wilderness.
it would be Vietnam and Afghanistan rolled into one, but with easy strikes into their homeland.
Let them try it, we will spur the collapse of their fascist empire
The Geneva conventions need references to write new rules
The US military would never be able to recruit another volunteer again. Nobody hates Canada.
Speech from Trudeau gave me “we’re at war” vibes.
It’s incredible at which speed things are falling apart.
They’re only falling apart because trump took a wrecking ball to them.