So from the conservative viewpoint, what is the rationale for the tariffs? Are people really supposed to believe it has something to do with fentanyl? Like do conservatives actually believe that or is there some other narrative besides Donald Trump is looking to flex his power?
Personnaly I would put a mirror tarrif. Tax the stuff going out to USA. Canadian economy will slow down, don’t make life more expensive for Canadians. And that way Americans might notice it faster if they pay 50 percent more.
The problem here, specifically, is that once imported items go up in price, there needs to be regulations that blocks local manufacturers from just upping their prices to match. Otherwise the imported items are still a viable purchase and tariffs will not work as a counter measure.
Does this break/invalidate the existing free trade agreements between the countries? Does this mean that NAFTA and TRUMPFTA are now void?
I don’t think it’s void exactly - there’s some stuff around visas that’s still active. But yeah, as far as being a trade agreement it’s pretty worthless.
Hopefully this trade war doesn’t devolve into an actual war…
Possibly why he decided not to tax energy.
10% instead of 25% on the US side.
Talk about working to lower prices 🤥
Ah, so America will hardly notice.
How long does it take to reach the US? Couple months?
Why does this say 25 per cent instead of 25 percent?
Here you go.
That’s just how it’s spelled in some places, namely large parts of Canada. Which is likely where this article is from considering the website has Toronto in the name and is talking about the prime minister of Canada.
25 per hundred. 25/100. 25 per centum.
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It means you pay 2500 on the dollar. Get tariffed bitch
As an American, I’m rooting for Canada.
But this all feels very by design of Putin to fracture US alliances.
both Canadian and American retirement portfolios will suffer. i don’t know why anyone would root for such a thing at all
Trump started it, now is not the time to think how this is bad. You need to choose a side and act accordingly with countermeasures, which will likely escalate further.
I honestly think Putin is too busy throwing millions of young citizens into his meat grinder to give a shit about the USA at this point.
You would be surprised what people have time to think about while browsing their phone on the throne.
If you think Ukraine consumes 100% of his thoughts then you are not giving puttin enough credit. He isn’t infamous because he is dumb, he is infamous because he is cunning, underhanded, and brutal in what he does.
I’m so upset at my Canadian family members who supported Trump.
I got an uncle who was constantly saying he supports trump cause he’ll “run the country the country like a business” - i don’t think either trump or him actually understand business all that well.
I hope Canadian-European relations get stronger, and hopefully Canadian-American relations will be rebuilt once this fucker is gone
He will run the country like he does all of his businesses; into the ground.
He even failed at running a casino. Except this time he will likely be burying thousands of Americans along with the country.
he supports trump cause he’ll “run the country the country like a business”
THIS MOTHERFUCKER BANKRUPTED A CASINO.
People say they want him to run the country like a business, but that man bankrupted a money printing machine, probably because he was doing all kinds of illegal shit and didn’t actually run his business like a business. Why would he run a money printing country any different than his money printing business.
My dumbass uncle feels the same way as yours, and I have to bite my tongue so after to remind him that he and trump have something in common: they both embezzled from their company until it died.
The “run government like a business” crowd gets to me. I’d like to see business run like a government. Owned and controlled by the workers.
It’s one of the dumbest perspectives I’ve heard that continues to irk me. Why the fuck would you want something that’s supposed to do X to do Y instead?
My mum last night on text.
“We’ll see what shithead Trump retaliates with tomorrow. The only way to stop the maniac is with a bullet!”
“Have you noticed how shithead has not left the White House since he was sworn in?”
“Trudeau is doing a great job!” (Referring to the presser)
I’m glad I don’t have your family OP
Edit - for the kids out there my mum is 74. She’s a baby boomer. Some of them are good people. They are not well off. I told my parents with the tariffs coming if they find themselves struggling to let me know because I will help in any way I can.
I appreciate your mom. My old man is a crass Appalachian boomer and speaks in a similar tone and diction with respect to Trump.
“Have you noticed how shithead has not left the White House since he was sworn in?”
I guess she hasn’t noticed shithead was back on the golf course a week after he was sworn in.
Cut her some slack she’s 74 lol
Does your uncle realize trump was able to bankrupt a casino? Where they can can almost literally print money. And not just one, but three of them. This man is literally one of the most inept businessmen I have ever seen.
He is incompetent, confused and weak. Just what Putin wanted.
Yep. Of course. And SO easily manipulated and too dumb to even realize it.
3 casinos. Trump bankrupted 3 casinos.
That’s the fallacy that I thought was learned back with Ross Perot. You don’t run a country like a business. It’s a government.
I’m pretty sure that people who say they want to “run the country like a business” just think it sounds good but haven’t put 2 braincells worth of thought into it. Businesses exist to make money. Government exists to serve citizens.
Do you want firefighters showing up to your burning house and asking for a credit card before they put out the fire? Or maybe have the post office decide that it’s not profitable enough to service entire states? The whole idea is moronic.
And it’s dumb, because, in the end, where is all that profit supposed to go?
The answer obviously is, to improve the country and the quality of life of its citizens, so we’re back to square one anyway
Also the USPS is too busy delivering papers full of ads and junk mail, rather than investigating mail theft.
I mean, America already charge their citizens for healthcare, so they’re not that far off from your hypothetical
How was it learned and when. Where I can lear more? Wikipedia didn’t have any clear answers
It wasn’t learned. He was a 3rd party presidential candidate that ran on being a business man not a politician. He came in third.
Do you tell him that Trump has filed for bankruptcy six times with his companies? What does that say about his business acumen? How often has your uncle filed for bankruptcy?
That doesn’t work. The hardcore Trump supporters think bankruptcy is a genius life hack to get out from having to repay debts.
They actually believe it’s smart to borrow money, hide them in other businesses and personal accounts, then declare bankruptcy to keep the money. To the rest of the world, that’s called “embezzlement.”
Don’t forget the inflate the value of your assets so you can borrow even more money, but declare them as a lesser value on your taxes.
Those kind of people generally answer that he bankrupted « because of Biden ».
I’m up in the middle of nowhere Ontario in the north surrounded mostly by trees and lakes and not even remotely close to anything American … but yet I still have a few friends and family who love your dumb orange beanbag president.
I don’t understand the pull that this idiot has on people or the millionaires and billionaires that pour their money into him for some god forsaken reason.
It is actually perfectly simple.
Mr. Trump gives people easy answers to extremely complex problems, the fact that he is rich means that people just assume he is right about it.
People want easy answers that don’t blame them, Trump has perfected the style of of talking where he is ambiguous enough that people fill in the blanks themselves.
It is classic fascism speech.
I’m not rooting for anyone. This all hurts everyone. Trump is f’ing over the US though.
So say we all.
Yes, it’s Putin who’s totally controlling trump and making him do tarrifs. After all, Putin leads hamas, putin did 9/11, putin killed millions in Iraq, Putin killed millions the middle east, Putin’s funding UAE and Israeli genocides against Sudan and Palestine How peaceful the world would be without Putin /s
Very peaceful. Putin’s a busy man, with his hands pulling a lot of strings.
I mean, at the very least, the man could take his dick out of the Ukraine.
Now that is a leader! His comments underline the senselessness of these tariffs:
“If President Trump wants to usher in a new ‘golden age’ for the United States, the better path is to partner with Canada not to punish us. Canada has the ingredients necessary to build a booming and secure partnership for the North American economy and we stand at the ready to work together.”
“We will stand strong for Canada. We will stand strong to ensure our countries continue to be the best neighbours in the world.”
How could you not ask for a better friend even when you’re (US) being an asshole?
Stupid Flanders!
I wouldn’t be surprised if people voted for drump because he’s like Homer Simpson (except he’s not loyal to his wife)
Trump is like Homer Simpson mixed with Mr Burns with a whole lot of adultery thrown in.
Wouldn’t a subsidy or tax incentive for things produced domestically be a more beneficial way to combat tariffs?
How so? These would increase demand for things produced in Canada, not really harm America. These are retaliatory tariffs, so the latter is the point here.
Correct me if I’m wrong, but for things that are made in both Canada and the US, if you increase demand for the version made in Canada, your country benefits, while hurting the US, since less is sold, so less money earned. Citizens are the ones paying tariffs anyway
It also hurts every other exporter instead of just USA, so it’s pissing everyone off.
One problem is that a lot of manufacturing has left Canada. So, with an increase in demand for Canadian products, it would take a while to ramp up production. Most likely what will happen is that we would just import more from other countries (most likely China). And, then, much like what happened after the government injected cash into the economy during the pandemic, we’ll suffer more inflation than what is healthy for Canada.
If we had the manufacturing capacity to be self sufficient (oil refinement and gasoline production is a big one that we let USA do), then your idea might work.
However, I don’t think that Canada’s purchasing power (on an individual consumer level) is strong enough to put a dent into USA manufacturing sales… Our population is only approx 1/10th that of the USA.
The thing is: It’d be too roundabout to have the desired effect or message. Subsidies and tax incentives are good tools for strengthening your economy and lessening your dependence on exports, but they’re not really going to create the kind of sharp downward curve on sharesholders’ graphs that’d be considered retaliation.
The Trump administration says it put the tariffs in place to force China, Mexico and Canada to stop the spread and manufacturing of fentanyl, in addition to pressuring Canada and Mexico to limit any illegal immigration into the United States.
Can anyone else see any actual logic to this? Do the Trump Republicans really believe this, or are they just saying it? What do they really want to achieve, apart from Trump being able to see himself as a tough guy?
Saw a policy expert say it’s a mixture of 3 things really:
- Trump likes to blame outsiders for problems and this is well received by his loyal base and gives off strongman vibes
- long term plan to switch from income tax (scales the more you earn) to consumption taxes (the poorer you are the more you pay for for consumption, relatively speaking) which benefits the rich at the expense of the poor. this wealth transfer is easier to sell when the populace is focused on outsiders
- Trump doesn’t understand basic economics
Lol on the switch from income tax. I haven’t heard a peep about that since before the election. Everything is just going to cost more now and I’m still going to be paying income taxes.
They absolutely want to implement a national sales tax. They’ve been talking about it for a very long time and now they have the power to do it. And it’s very much a “fuck the poor” policy.
Tarrifs get paid to the Treasury, the Treasury is getting controlled by Musk and Trump, they can take whatever they want from those funds. Whos going to stop them? The Supreme Court takes bribes which can come from the same pot.
He just needs to keep a bit of support until all angles are secured. So he just spreads lies and blames everything on people here illegally to keep people pitted against each other. The largest source of illegals in this country is from overstaying Visas, the thing they are expanding to higher numbers… Aka more people to keep blaming shit on while putting on a show of deporting the ones that are already here.
Honestly doesn’t look like they’ll need much time to accomplish it.
Or they are just thinking of a quick cash grab … gut the system and get as much wealth out of everything and everyone as fast and as much as possible … let it all crash then abandon everything with all their money and let someone else fix everything.
I think in that scenario it’s more likely that they would “buy the dip” then that they would up and leave. Some of the billionaires also want to found their own techno-fashist fiefdoms. This could be a good catalyst for that.
Won’t someone think of the ultra wealthy?
I swear he wants to bring aristocracy to the US
Did you hear his inauguration speech? Where he lamented the poor downtrodden billionaires who were now homeless because of the fires in LA?
I swear he wants to bring aristocracy to the US
He wants to further entrench the oligarchy, I think. And it seems to be working.
There’s no logic to it at all. It’s absolutely not about that.
Almost no fentanyl is getting into the US from Canada. A vanishingly small amount of illegal immigration occurs through the Canadian border.
It’s just fascism and imperialism.
The majority of fentanyl being smuggled into America is being smuggled in by American citizens. It’s not like cocaine or cannabis. You can smuggle a huge amount of fentanyl in a tiny bottle. Why risk sending it with an undocumented person?
One would think there would be some talk about precursors… But nope just tax it 25 % that will be sure to get producers to stop. Pure idiocy
They have to say this in order to get around the provisions in the free trade agreement HE signed last time he was in office.
Unfair… Trade deficits…
His words… About his own trade deal
I’mma let you in on a secret: Fentanyl basically is only a meaningful threat to addicts who don’t know what they were taking. And if we actually cared about them, we would pump a fraction of a percent of our military budget into rehab and therapy to help them kick the habit and put narcan (sp?) in every emergency first aid kit right next to the defib. Beyond that, it is just an excuse for why a cop beat his wife or murdered a black kid.
As for what they ACTUALLY want to achieve? Saw an analyst hypothesize (on bluesky) that the real goal was the 10% tariffs. Put those on and drop them after vague claims of getting something in return (comparable to South America… fucking earlier this week?). It makes trump look “hard on China” while destabilizing relations between North America and later NATO. And it would result in basically every company jacking up their prices to pass that on to the consumer and then never lowering them because capitalism.
End result? increased profits for the oligarchs who jacked up their “made in America” products even more than the 10% they were now paying on materials and components.’
As for this? I don’t like seeing my retirement funds go down the toilet (and am not optimistic they are ever coming back up this time) but fuckin’ a. Burn it to the ground. It will hurt the little guy but it will hurt the 0.0000001%ers even more. The world is going to be on fire and have no water by the time I am eligible to take cash out of my 401k without penalties anyway.
That said? I assume he wants his base to believe the reason why groceries are still expensive is because Canada and Mexico just love fentanyl so much and they hate America. And his base will eat it up while the same useful idiots make sure the left is united against the Democrats (who do fucking suck but…).
A. Enact sales tax on poor people so that they can fund further corporate tax cuts
B. Ruin relationships with the closest American allies as that is a net benefit for geopolitical rivals like Russia, who Trump is demonstrably in bed with
C. Market value collapse let’s all the rich cronies that have crawled up Trump’s asshole buy out what’s left of America’s assets at fire sale prices. 10 richest men doubled their wealth during covid. They want that to happen again.How much lower can the taxes on them go? Warren Buffet already says he pays almost nothing.
You can always subsidize.
“Almost nothing” != “Nothing”
Besides, why stop at zero? Why shouldn’t our benevolent job creators have a negative tax rate?
These tariffs are a way for Trump to tax his population so he can fund whatever he pleases. And the majority of his population don’t even understand this 25pct tax is going from their pocket straight into his.
It feels like he’s trying to accomplish the kind of hostile take over you see in business. That doesn’t really work with a country though…
Businesses cannot effectively function when the government is clowning around like this.
Canada would have to go back to adding items to that one particular list they made for us.
Trump is still butt hurt about world leaders, especially Justin Trudeau, laughing at him and making fun of him behind his back. The tarrifs are a way to generate funds to pay for tax breaks for the rich. It will also allow American companies to raise prices, and profits, without the cheaper Canadian products and with less supply so more demand. It’s a bit of him being a bully, a bit of revenge, but mostly, like everything else he is doing, it’s about allowing the wealthy to loot the country bankrupt while burning the thing to the ground and enriching himself.
Trump needs a fight, he cannot function without an enemy.
Did he just pick the only two other countries he could find on a map?
It’s just a special operation to route out Nazis. It’s 15 cases going down to 0. It’ll be gone by Easter.
Getting a win even though it’s for something that wasn’t an issue in the first place.
Tat, meet Tit.
I order a decent amount of coffee from Canada and am pretty miffed about this on a personal level not to mention a philosophical one.
This is what we get now that prats are running the US economy on adolescent IQs and emotions.
The “women are too emotional to be leaders” crowd are running the show with the mentality of a grade school bully
As an American, I don’t see a choice. This is a trade war, shots were fired. I hope it’s a short war.
These trade wars are seldom short, they are easy to start but hard to stop. Look up Chicken Tax (started in 1960s)
All we need to look up is the fact that Biden kept a lot of Trump’s tariffs. That’s not a slander on Biden, just fact. Most people don’t understand that you can’t just shock entire industries overnight with knee jerk trade policies.
Begun, the Bullshit Wars have.
Someone explain why he is going after Canada? The US has benefitted from having the safest borders in the world and this dolt wants to jeopardize that.
His goal is not to benefit America.
Honestly I think he just hates Trudeau, that’s literally the reason
He’s salty about America’s trade deficit with Canada, which as the other guy said is madness.
Madness.
It’s like “ok fine, we won’t buy shit off eachother”
Last I checked US has a bunch of stuff they try to sell.
