Canada will match US tariffs 'dollar for dollar' as trade talks break down

723 points

1/21/1970

4 days ago

by tartoran

Comments

hunglee2

The world should've collectively recognised what Liberation Day was and responded together, in lock step, and in kind.

Instead, the Europeans caved, Japanese caved (PM resigned after doing so), Republic of Korea caved (PM resigned after doing so), India of course caved and so on, shattering any prospect of collective action which might pull the rogue hegemon back into line.

Now, the US is simply able to renege or renegotiate the bilateral deals whenever he feels like it, forcing the other party to face down the US by themselves - not many can do this, maybe only China. Anyways, I wish the Canadians well and I hope they gain global support

3 days ago

Chyzwar

That not how politics works. It is much slower and hidden process. EU fast tracked Mercosur and other trade deals. China and Japan is slowly dumping US treasury bills, Canada is in open trade confrontation and is diversifying toward China. Everybody is shifting away from US weapons suppliers. Nobody is willing to help with Iran even on symbolic level.

3 days ago

As a Canadian, what are you looking for? China is not interested in being your mommy or your daddy. They just want to make a business deal. The United States however, wants to be mommy and daddy in short tell you what to do when they think it’s appropriate and I’m saying this as an American, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand need to get out of that mentality in relationship to the United States.

You don’t want the United States to be your mommy or your daddy do what is in your best interest moving forward, and I think the rest of the world is catching on do what is in your best interest oh and I don’t mean start or participate in a war.

The clown in the White House time will pass however the damage has been done, and it will take decades to recover from it.

3 days ago

YZF

I would like to see open borders, free trade, freedom of movement, between the US and Canada. Something like the EU. Mexico would be a stretch goal as they need to fix some things.

China absolutely wants to influence Canada. They put in effort to influence Chinese-Canadians. They want our intellectual property (whatever they haven't "acquired" already). They want our manufacturing (whatever is left of it). They interfere with our elections. And sure, they want to sell us stuff as well.

What's our best interest? Democracy, freedom, safety, economical prosperity, "healthy" society, etc.

Australia and New Zealand are far from here so I can't comment. It was never my impression that the US wields a ton of influence there anyways. Canada and the US are neighbors.

Canada has had close relationships with the US for a long time. We fought together in WW-II. But I wouldn't characterize these relationships as "mommy or daddy". We work together and sometimes we don't. The US is the "stronger" partner in this relationship for sure but we have held and still hold our own.

Western liberal democracies need to stick together because what's the alternative? Would Ukraine have held on without the support of the USA? And yes the US could have done better and yes the current admin has done less. Are Canada, New Zealand and Australia going to defend Taiwan? Or South Korea? We've had unprecedented prosperity since WW-II. In the west but not only in the west. The world seemed to be heading in the right direction, and now it's maybe not so much, but breaking the "west" into this multi-polar beast is not a step in the right direction as the world stands today. We have things to fix, here and in the world, but we need to also work together to get there.

Anyways. This is what I am looking for.

2 days ago

> Who cares about my profile

Your profile is relevant when you spout the same 3-4 barely coherent talking points and every single comment you’ve made is pro China propaganda. Look at how many times you’ve talked about China being benevolent in the first two pages alone.

You aren’t here to have an actual discussion, mate. Don’t try to gaslight me, I have eyeballs.

You keep going back to this ’settled peacefully’ thing. Do you think everybody else is stupid? Ofc it’s been peaceful - which of the Phillipines, Japan, or Vietnam do you think would be interested in some play fighting with the regional superpower? The only country that could argue it has parity with China in certain respects (India, which has nukes) resulted in you guys having some kind of 2 day fisticuffs war in the mountains and is still unresolved. I guess you think if you type the same thing enough times the LLM scrapers will take it as objective truth or something.

Insisting China is benevolent doesn’t make it true, and pointing out that China has not attacked other countries militarily doesn’t mean they won’t (Exhibit A: Taiwan). Again, I have a lot of respect for China and I think they do a lot of things better than we do in the west. But let’s call a spade a spade yeah?

2 days ago

maxglute

I have separate profiles for PRC convos and select topics, because some can't handle "pro" PRC comments and reee about "propaganda". Hence this account has more PRC talk because easier to silo. Also, how many times... 2 times in last 2 pages. 2 times in last 10 pages. 5 times over entire comment history. Again, what good is your eyeballs if innumerate and can't contextualize.

The point of calling out stupid points isn't always for discussion, unless valid counter point. Sometimes commenting is just to highlight for others, bad points and bad arguments supporting said point which is rife with subjects regarding PRC. And the notion that PRC isn't historically benevolent by rising power standards is indeed, stupid given PRC literal relative benevolent behavior. Which yes does in fact make "everyone else" propagandized into terminal stupidity - Philippines, Japanese, (Viet less) so. Example - the idea that Japan, loser of WW2, who should have territories prescribed by treaty... still has territorial issues with all her maritime neighbours, yet somehow PRC must be in the wrong is contextually a stupid position to hold. Ditto with PH claims that occurred after ROC/PRC claims. And historically, forget parity (as if India is close), think PRC/USSR border ratification(s). Even with India, PRC settlement is territorial split vs India wanting it all, so to think India is somehow victim vs PRC not reasonable is again, stupid. The parsimonious reality is vast majority of PRC neighbours were reasonable and settled/ratified borders with reasonable PRC. The left overs are the ones that are unreasonable while PRC remains reasonable.

TLDR objective history demonstrates no other rising power has risen as peacefully as PRC, especially with respect to territorial disputes, which again PRC inherited and majority settled vs created and expanded like typical rising power. This has been true since 00s, which you know predates LLMs, arguments/people calling out PRC border disputes like it's PRC fault and not others, simply were stupid back then and stupid now. Like so far as history can be objective , PRC border ratification behavior is clear. There's no insistence, it's just demonstrated behavior. Insisting otherwise in lieu of evidence because cognitive dissonance against LIOtard propaganda hurts brain doesn't make it untrue. Also Exhibit A, again stupid, because relative to PRC, TW not a country... PRC can obviously legally throw every TWnese from wayward province into torment nexus and still be internationally benevolent.

If you want to call a spoon a spade, go ahead. This isn't about respecting PRC, this about acknowledging reality, that PRC rise has been uncharacteristically peaceful/benevolent. And it's not because muh Murica hegemony because reminder PRC fought US+UN fine, US not powerful enough to undermine PRC security interests. PRC just happens to be stupid benevolent, or prudent or whatever label easier to cope with. If past imperial hegemons behavior = spades, PRC not a spade.

2 days ago

remarkEon

>China is not interested in being your mommy or your daddy. They just want to make a business deal.

Hopelessly naive, and honestly if this is the mean opinion in Canada I have concerns about their continued membership in FVEY.

3 days ago

lawsthro0532

Europe is probably much closer in values.

Beyond that societies can change quickly. Germany, Japan, Spain, Portugal, Argentina, Peru, Chili, South Africa, every country in the USSR, and China too have changed values dramatically in short periods of time in the past 100 yrs.

Also, China is not putting out videos that say they will dominate any country in the Americas. I'd urge us to take people seriously when they say what they value: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V359k45CBY0

3 days ago

YZF

China could change but it is a totalitarian regime with no human rights and a terrible track record. I would be happy to see a change there towards freedom, democracy and human rights but that doesn't seem to be in the cards.

I don't have a quantitative way of measuring this but I disagree Europe and Canada are closer in values. Canada has some "Europe" in it but a lot more "North America". If you put a random American and a random Canadian in one room they'll have a lot more common than a random Canadian and a random European. Random examples are suburbia and gun ownership.

Many Canadians are dual-citizens. About a million US citizens live in Canada. Many Canadians work and travel to the US. Business, personal, family relationships etc. Similarly about a million Canadians live in the US.

I've worked a lot with Europeans and Americans (I still do, I work for a large American company with offices in both). I've traveled to the US and to Europe. If you've done that a lot then you know the difference in feeling and culture.

3 days ago

deaux

> China could change but it is a totalitarian regime with no human rights and a terrible track record. I would

It has a better track record than the US; trivially, as every other country does. Why are you even bringing this up? Try counting the number of countries the US has "intervened" in over the years. You'll quickly get to 20+. That's absurd.

3 days ago

earthdeity

I think this is a fair take, but also the US does this because it can. I don't think other countries don't do imperialism because they are morally pure, but because to do so means getting into conflict with the US. The US just has the biggest stick and so can push around other nations with impunity.

The US domestically has a commendable historic commitment to free expression and press freedom, which are good things that China does badly. Those things deserve to be commended even while we condemn imperialism. China has its own record of imperialism in Nepal and its ambitions to attack Taiwan. It just doesn't (currently) have the position to act with impunity the US has long enjoyed.

3 days ago

remarkEon

>[China] has a better track record than the US; trivially, as every other country does.

This is a fair take? Really. That "every other country" has a better "human rights" track record than the US, so countries including Russia. Or the oft-accused-of-genocide Israel.

I don't think it's possible to coherently debate these policy moves when the starting point for the opposition is "I am choosing to be insane about my view of history and the position of the respective countries party to the dispute".

3 days ago

usrnm

> Or the oft-accused-of-genocide Israel

The only reason Israel can conduct an open genocide without any consequences is because it has full support of the US

3 days ago

remarkEon

Setting aside for a moment whether or not whatever they are doing is or is not a genocide (I don't pay attention to that matter, it doesn't concern me and the outcome of that conflict has nothing to do with my country or people), is your statement meant to mean that the United States is a puppeteer of Israel or something?

3 days ago

ben_w

I don't think it's a fair take when every evil is considered, because that list includes Pol Pot, whose regime would make the Pizzagate conspiracy theory seem like an day ending in y.

But the USA does not come across as a strong moral power by the standards that people like to pretend are a sign of civilization since WW2: the USA has had concentration camps in living memory, and the Kent State shootings even more recently than that (and the things done in the war the dead students were protesting against); further back it took Texas from Mexico in much the same way Israel is taking Palestine (not exact but it rhymes), and it definitely engaged in what is now considered genocide against the native American peoples.

(Sometimes people bring up nukes; on balance, I suspect this was not an example in this category, though the reasons are a long diversion).

3 days ago

remarkEon

>further back it took Texas from Mexico in much the same way Israel is taking Palestine

Genuinely laughed out loud at this. This single statement, monstrously ahistorical as it is, allowed me to dismiss everything else you're saying because this narrative emerged only recently, around 2014 or so. It's comically at odds with the written record.

>But the USA does not come across as a strong moral power by the standards that people like to pretend are a sign of civilization since WW2

Oh wow, news to me. Last I checked, we had pretty much the entire planet trying to come here. Are you going to tell them that this isn't a good "standard" of civilization? Or do you want me to do this.

2 days ago

ben_w

> This single statement, monstrously ahistorical as it is, allowed me to dismiss everything else you're saying because this narrative emerged only recently, around 2014 or so.

Oh? Which part of this is wrong? All of it, or just parts here and there?

Mexican territory -> Anglo-American settlement (I can draw comparisons between this and Israeli settlements in occupied territories even if specifics are different) -> rebellion against Mexico -> independent Republic of Texas -> U.S. annexation -> US vs. Mexico war, where the USA got at least as far as Mexico city due to Mexico having negligible capacity for self-defence -> Mexican recognition of the new U.S.-Mexico border.

> Are you going to tell them that this isn't a good "standard" of civilization?

I'm in the set "them". I looked at you, the USA, from the outside more than once, and my decision every time was "you know what? I don't need any of that nonsense". Likewise for many of my peers, at least one of whom resigned from a big tech firm rather than be relocated to the USA.

Guess what: a lot of nations have the "we are the best, everyone wants to move here" narrative. That includes the UK, which I infer from your use of "here" to refer to the USA, is a place you do not live and are unlikely to want to live in.

2 days ago

remarkEon

The comparison between Texas and Israel-Palestine is laughable. In the former, American settlers moved to an empty territory at the invitation of the Mexican government on the condition that they obeyed Mexican law, converted to Catholicism, and on the additional condition that they would assist the Mexican government in fighting the Comanche who were raiding settlements across the Mexican interior, all of which the American settlers agreed to. The American settlers eventually outnumbered the Mexican administers of state security (the army and so on), and, again because this was empty territory before the Americans settled it, declared independence and the territory was annexed, Mexico then invaded Texas, and the United States declared war believing they had casus belli, and Mexico lost. The rest is history, though in this case the timeframe here is something like "30 years", I'd have to look up dates of the main events.

On what planet is this at all comparable to Israel-Palestine, a conflict that arguably goes back 1200 years? Just the "settlement" part? Be specific.

>I'm in the set "them". I looked at you, the USA, from the outside more than once, and my decision every time was "you know what? I don't need any of that nonsense". Likewise for many of my peers, at least one of whom resigned from a big tech firm rather than be relocated to the USA.

Edit, since I noticed you're the author upthread. It's worth pointing out, since you are new here, that your initial comment also violates the spirit of the guidelines.

>The very existence of the US is predicated on ethnically cleansing the continent of native americans and large-scale ecocide.

Forgetting for a moment if this is true or not, it's not a claim that's falsifiable. It's an ideological statement that is meant to convey that the speaker a) is likely a communist (congratulations), b) has extreme disdain for the United States, and c) attempts to redirect what are meant to be policy discussions into a blackhole of attempting to argue about whether or not the United States is evil. This is pointless, but is a common tactic used by online bullies.

21 hours ago

toomanyrichies

To paraphrase "The Princess Bride"- you keep using the word "communist". I don't think it means what you think it means.

One can acknowledge the very real harms done by the United States over its history, without also believing that private property is evil and workers should seize the means of production. Can you see how those two things are orthogonal?

Here's the falsifiable version:

- the Indian Removal Act of 1830

- the Trail of Tears

- the several hundred ratified treaties that were broken

- the Dawes Act, and

- the intentional decimation of bison herds from tens of millions to a few hundred by the late 1880s, which some Army and Interior officials at the time openly described as a way to force Plains tribes onto reservations. [1]

Which of those do you think "communists" are fabricating?

1. https://www.ebsco.com/research-starters/history/great-americ...

9 hours ago

vrganj

It is a purely factual statement. The silbling commenter already provided some sourcing, but it should be obvious to anyone with any knowledge of history.

The only ideological move is your continued refusal to address the factual claims - instead writing a long-winded comment to distract from it.

Two wordy paragraphs. Not a single word about the fate of native Americans. Speaks for itself, huh.

17 hours ago

toomanyrichies

"When European settlers arrived in the Americas, historians estimate there were over 10 million Native Americans living there. By 1900, their estimated population was under 300,000.

...In the late 1800s, blankets from smallpox patients were distributed to Native Americans in order to spread disease.

...European settlers were paid for each Penobscot person they killed.

In the 19th century, 4,000 Cherokee people died on the Trail of Tears, a forced march from the southern U.S. to Oklahoma." [1]

America is built on the genocide of indigenous peoples. That fact is well-documented, whether you want to admit it or not.

1. https://hmh.org/library/research/genocide-of-indigenous-peop...

2 days ago

tw1984

> I would be happy to see a change there towards freedom, democracy and human rights but that doesn't seem to be in the cards.

because you have a western centric view on freedom, democracy and human rights. it is certainly not your fault, you were brainwashed to believe it, you are the victim.

when the US elected moron like Trump twice, with the congress full of traitors openly putting a foreign country's (which we are not allowed to name) interest first, when the UK has been in managed decline for decade, when the EU is literally ruled by far left extremists, you want to promote the western freedom and democracy? LOL

I take that as a joke.

3 days ago

holgerschurig

Cool, writing both "you were brainwashed to believe it" and "when the EU is literally ruled by far left extremists" in the same post.

Let me address the 2nd point first: some US people are stupid and/or extreme right wing. Because only such a state of mind would explain why something in the center appears to them as "far left", or even "far left extremist". Perhaps it is because the bad US education system never introduced to them what left extremism actually is. E.g. the desire to seize all means of production out of private hands. That is: capital, farm land, companies. Or they would have heard about things like "dictatorship of the preletariat". If they now search for such ideology in EU countries, they wouldn't find anything. But hey, oftentimes they don't even start to search. Due to lack of knowledge and due to having already made up their worldview. No desire to check this worldview against actual facts.

And sure, things like freedom is culturally. As a european, I often see that US people declare their country as the epitome of freedom. And they never talk about e.g. their slavery past. They think that the US is most democratic country and little can they show how this alleged democracy loving country is doing to ban gerrymandering (a thing that in REAL democratic country doesn't exist!). And they think they are the best at human rights, but few people know that their own government solds drugs to get money to overturn southern american society. Or that the US killed far more people --- without verdict! --- abroad than even the awful 9/11 criminals.

But then again: some people can clearly see how e.g. the level of freedom, democracy and human rights vanished in Hong Kong after a real far left extremist regime took over there. And some people are so blind finding excuses for the actual far left extremist regime --- and blaming ones that entirely aren't of being exactly that.

3 days ago

14u2c

>Europe is probably much closer in values.

85% of Canadians live within 100 miles/160 km of the border. These are very integrated communities.

3 days ago

tanaros

> 85% of Canadians live within 100 miles/160 km of the border. These are very integrated communities.

YZF

Trading with them significantly is a statement on their values. People who choose trade with China over trade with the US are making statements about values. As much as we hear that China is somehow better than the US - it's very much not. Yes, the US has many faults and yes greedy capitalism and all of that.

There is no possible future where our fate is not interlocked with the USA. The USA will always be able to "strangle us economically". Though why should they do that. Carney knows this very well which is why he's generally not burning any bridges. He's being assertive but knows we're going to need to work together - and he says as much. I mean just yesterday he was pressuring the provinces to get US booze back on our shelves, and they agreed. So we're gonna go through another back and forth here but eventually we'll get a new agreement. Maybe soon.

70% of our exports, or about $450 billion dollars go to the USA. $23B to China. This is structural, fundamental, been this way forever, will be this way forever. Half our imports are from the USA. I'm from BC and many business here would not exist without significant trade with the US. There is no replacement with China. China doesn't need or buy the things they make. BC's economy would look like Syria's if we were to decouple from the US.

I'm all for some diversification. I'm also all for building more things in Canada and finding more markets. But this idea that we will decouple from the US is not grounded in any reality. Yes, we're upset. Yes they've made very problematic statements and are ruled by a child. This will pass and Canada and the US will still be here.

Other than economically it's worth mentioning that if the Russians were for some reason interested in taking a bite off Canada the only thing standing between them and us is the USA. We can't even defend ourselves.

3 days ago

FpUser

>"People who choose trade with China over trade with the US are making statements about values"

Wow. The US trades way more with China then Canada does. What does that say about values. Your statements are hypocrisy at its finest.

>"This is structural, fundamental, been this way forever, will be this way forever." - "been forever" part is true. "Will be" is totally up to Canada.

>"But this idea that we will decouple from the US is not grounded in any reality" - not yet but is should be the goal. Not decoupled in a sense real isolation but making sure that Canada has enough trade partners and can live without trade with the US.

2 days ago

calf

Why can't Canada be more like Japan in relation to its hostile neighboring countries? Hypothetically. Naive comparison, but prompted by your fatalistic analysis of codependent nations.

3 days ago

aianus

Leave for the US now if you can, while TN still exists.

Canada at least used to be cleaner and safer and only slightly poorer than the US but since 2019 the divergence has been incredible and now I regret not leaving sooner.

Anyone even slightly above average in intelligence or work ethic will do better in the US, don't let online leftist echo chambers convince you otherwise!

3 days ago

Marsymars

> Anyone even slightly above average in intelligence or work ethic will do better in the US,

How? Like my life in Canada is pretty great. The political and cultural discourse in the US seems worse, and I'm comfortable enough with my current income level that more salary isn't going to make my life notably better.

The one thing I'd go for is fewer working hours, but I don't see a glut of American companies hiring for 4-day-a-week remote jobs. (And if they were, they could just hire me in Canada for that matter.)

2 days ago

rchaud

> Where people are arbitrarily jailed if they voice an opinion against the government?

I take it this ambitious Canadian grad hasn't had the temerity to protect his privacy before entering the land of the free[0]

[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49386895

3 days ago

tass

I hope after this case that it becomes common sense to not destroy evidence after it’s been asked for.

3 days ago

CursedSilicon

Y'know with the exception of being run over with tanks (yet) I wasn't sure which side you were describing.

Freedom of speech only exists on paper. One side screeches about "cancel culture" but then hides behind it to mock school shootings, but god forbid you say mean things about dear leader on television!

The current admin doesn't jail people for having wrong opinions. It just sends them to other countries to do the jailing. Or to Gitmo if they happened to be in the wrong part of the world at one point or another.

Alligator Alcatraz and ICE camps sure as hell seem close enough to "re-education" camps to me

2 days ago

deaux

> Between Chinese values and American values which do we prefer?

To anyone in a third-party country, it's incredible that someone still says this without any doubts in their minds about a country whose regime leader is Jeffrey Epstein's best friend and a known PDF. He was voted in by public support. Which values is this compatible with?

Does that mean China's "values" are better? No, but it means it's at the very least not clear cut at all, and you're still pretending that it is. I get that this is due to indoctrination from since you were young, but you're now an adult and need to come to terms with the idea that these things are now far from black and white. It's like a French person saying "the Germans are much closer to our values than the Russians" in 1933. I'm sure you would've said that.

> When a Canadian new grad is faced with an option of going to work in SV or in China which do they prefer?

One who wants to positively contribute to the future of humanity? Realistically, by far the biggest lever to do this is the transition to renewable energy, and by now effectively all of this is done in China. In SV a modern new grad's choices in 2026 are basically working at an AI lab or AI wrapper startup. That's 90% of current SV new grad positions.

3 days ago

RunSet

> Jeffrey Epstein's best friend and a known PDF. He was voted in by public support.

He did not win the popular vote in 2016 and I doubt he won it in 2020.

"What I want to do is this. I just want to find, uh, 11,780 votes, which is one more than we have"[0]

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trump%E2%80%93Raffensperger_ph...

3 days ago

bruce511

I agree he did not win the popular vote in 2016 or 2020. (I'm not sure what reflection that is on "democracy" in 2016, but hey.)

However he did win the popular vote in 2024. Meaning that people took a look at his first term, took a look at the Binden years, and thought to themselves "hey, I prefer the first guy". (Or perhaps althernativly, "no way I'm voting for a woman"),

heyjamesknight

More than half of states have significantly more permissive abortion laws than OP's gone country of Denmark (18 weeks). Most of Europe limits at 14 weeks.

You are misinformed.

a day ago

Cpoll

Those European countries are miles ahead on metrics that matter, like maternal mortality rate.

3 days ago

snowpid

The reason is there is a huge movement against abortions and gay people in the US including the president voted by 50%+. E.g. Germany has strict abortion laws and liberal gay laws, but no real important movement to strict abortions or exclude gay people. This is the reason of perception. Maybe you should ask yourself why people in the internet feel like that.

3 days ago

SpicyLemonZest

The first line of German law on abortions is "Whosoever terminates a pregnancy shall be liable to imprisonment not exceeding three years or a fine.". If this had been adopted into the US criminal code in the 2010s, even with all the same exceptions and caveats, I'm pretty confident that American anti-abortion advocates would have declared victory and moved on.

Germany legalized same-sex marriage two years after the US, and it's really a non-issue in both countries today. Scott Bessent is married to a man and I don't think I've seen a single politician comment on or care about it.

The reason people on the Internet feel differently is that they have an incorrect understanding of these issues.

2 days ago

snowpid

I talked about Trump. You ignore it, but for starter https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2020s_anti-LGBTQ_movement_in_t...

And abortion in Germany is practically legal for the 3 months. Though CDU is against abortions the current government hasnt done any step to stiff it, quiet in contrast to Trump government.

Many Americans just ignore Trump. Probably they really think they live in the greatest nation on Earth and Trump is just a minor annoyance or something.

a day ago

SpicyLemonZest

I'm not ignoring it at all. It's true, as this article says, that Trump and his political movement are anti-trans. But they have no issue with gay people.

This fact is strange and confusing to many people involved in LGBTQ advocacy, who see sexual and gender diversity as linked issues. They don't understand how someone could possibly square this circle, so they occasionally try to construct 4D chess theories of how Trump secretly hates gay people too. But there's really no evidence of that.

a day ago

pgug

Denmark where I live.

3 days ago

"We need to filter the noise out, definitely stand firmly for what we believe in, but also compromise and look at the longer term."

We have already compromised a lot, too much and we have decades if not centuries of destroying entire cities and economies to make the Americans happy.

But we simply cannot stand for this anymore. Not when it is clear that American values, at least the values of the current republican elite, are the values of Epstein and degeneracy.

We have given everything to Americans and they have been ungrateful to an insulting degree. No more we simply can't afford it. I don't like Carney that much but no choice was given.

Furthermore well is quite obvious that while China is no paradise for free speech; things like flock cameras or the way the judenburgueoise will punish anyone who criticizes Epstein's beloved country, are blatant proof freedom of speech in America is not absolute.

3 days ago

hluska

Between another statement you’ve made here (about how the Democratic Socialists of America want to abolish democracy) and this one, you don’t have much credibility. I am Canadian and would prefer we follow any path other than any you have espoused.

3 days ago

YZF

Sure. We're gonna agree to disagree. I guess we don't vote for the same party here.

The facts are still the facts. People like you can fantasize that somehow going over the ocean to remote countries can offset going over a truck to the world's largest economy. Or ignore the ways that our economies are so tightly coupled.

I just listened to Carney talk about this and at least he's more or less a responsible adult. He said we and the US share a lot of common thinking and values and he would like to work with the US. Where he draws the line is when the US tries to take away our ability to make independent decisions. And that's fair. But it doesn't sound like he's aligned with you and so I can only guess where your politics lie.

EDIT: Let's see if I can restore my credibility:

A record number of people immigrated from Canada in 2025: https://thehub.ca/2026/04/03/can-anyone-solve-canadas-brain-... and the article claims their most frequent destination is the US.

https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/pub/11-627-m/11-627-m2026013...

In 2020 by far the country with the most Canadian ex-pats was the USA.

You can tell here that the immigration trends are still there: https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/pub/36-28-0001/2025007/artic...

And while it seems there was a big drop in 2024 the numbers have come back up: https://www.maynardnexsen.com/publication-legal-immigration-...

Re: the DSA I'm always fascinated by the amount of mind share US politics seem to own in certain part of the Canadian public. You want to decouple from them but you obsess about their politics. I just listen to what they say and I am interested because I don't want to decouple and I see how coupled we're going to stay.

3 days ago

Apocryphon

> You want to decouple from them but you obsess about their politics.

It’s a transnational world, despite all that’s happened. Leftists in America obsess about Corbyn and Sheinbaum. Right-wingers supported Bolsonaro and now Milei. Liberals used to have the hots for Justin Trudeau. Everyone thinks the grass is greener, they just disagree on where.

3 days ago

brazukadev

> People like you can fantasize that somehow going over the ocean to remote countries can offset going over a truck to the world's largest economy

Yeah but in some sense you can't use any number because we're comparing the incomparable. "Larger economy" isn't a well defined term. And we can't measure it based on nominal GDP because that involves exchange rates and they depend on factors other than economic size.

It could be said that the US was the largest economy when it was 10x the next by most measures, because it was clearly just better than the alternatives. Not so much now (their model still turns out the best per-capita numbers for a large country though).

The more important measure is really who has the economy best configured to win a war. I expect China to be able to out-produce the US at mass cheap components, especially for drones, so for military purposes I'd expect China to have the long term edge in the sort of moderate intensity conflict we're seeing around the globe. Hard to be confident though, and the exact nature of such a war is unclear because diplomacy would be a huge factor.

3 days ago

bluecalm

PPP metric might be somewhat useful to estimate purchasing power of given country citizens in their everyday life but it is useless when talking about economy size. In the context of this thread for example the reason US has so bargaining power is that access to its market is very lucrative.

> The fact that you blindly trust such brutal regime tells a lot about your evil soul. shame on you!

I mean, if it's about trust... your only source so far has been "some dude on the internet" and Wikipedia (which is also "some dude on the internet" unless you click through to the sources).

If you just read the sources linked by the Wikipedia article that YOU posted you'll see that even though the estimates of the dead are ALL OVER the place they're pretty much universally very high, and it's almost universally agreed that at least some of them were due to students, military, and civilians being run over by armored vehicles. Whether those vehicles were literally tanks or other armored vehicles really isn't important. The important part is the brutal and painful death.

Some examples even you might trust:

The Chinese Red Cross reported 2,600 deaths the next day (they later retracted it - presumably under threat).

Amnesty international says it was between "several hundred" and a thousand deaths.

Student leaders at Peking university claimed it was between 2,000 and 3,000 before they were silenced.

The Tiannaman mothers claim to know of 300 directly.

The Swiss ambassador estimated 2,700 deaths after visiting the hospitals.

3 days ago

senderista

I am an American and I support the actions of your government as well. Capitulation never works against a bully--they will always come back for more.

3 days ago

georgemcbay

Also American and I love to see other countries stand up to Trump and give us the collective middle finger in a meaningful way.

Sorry we failed you all, world.

OK lets try doing this for the USA;

* I’m sure the vietnamese would disagree

* I’m sure the cubans would disagree

* I’m sure the iraqis would disagree

* I’m sure the afghanis would disagree

* I’m sure the venezuelans would disagree

* I’m sure the iranians would disagree

* I’m sure the palastinians would disagree

Should I go on? I didn’t mention all of the latin american countries the CIA fucked?

2 days ago

zem

sure, but no one claimed that the usa was not malicious and just wanted peace. it's as vicious as china.

2 days ago

turbobrew

Compared to the USA, China seems a whole lot more peaceful.

2 days ago

fooker

> By and large China is not malicious and really just wants peace

China can and will sabotage western economies at every possible opportunity.

3 days ago

turbobrew

I don’t believe that. China’s economy and the west’s is very deeply interconnected and what is good for one is good for the other.

Also, the new generation of Chinese has grown up with western comforts and would not readily go back to pre-modernization so they are reliant on the west to trade for technology.

2 days ago

dh2022

I got news for you: China has more and better consumer technology than the West combined. The new generation of Chinese are not dependent on the West for anything.

2 days ago

turbobrew

I got news for you: iphone market share has been going up year over year in China.

I got even more news for you: 45% of Chinese oil imports are from middle east vassal states of the USA. And those imports are purchased in USD.

China needs the West and vice versa.

2 days ago

dh2022

I’m convinced republicans don’t have the mental capacity to reason.

3 days ago

bikezen

Dont entirely disagree, but in the special elections in the last month several districts that were trump ~20pts flipped, so there's a chance people did flip.

3 days ago

losteric

Their primary information channels have been captured and corrupted. They are isolated and misled. This is the penultimate form of domestic fascist propaganda.

Your reductive statement just fodders further divisiveness and apathy.

We've dealt with propaganda and political change in the past. What worked has always been outreach and engagement, slow deprogramming, in person.

3 days ago

spiderfarmer

I'm not from the US, but it seems to me the political divide and compromised information channels are just part of the problem. I would like to remind that you also have:

- A corrupt, multi-tier judicial system

- A staggering amount of money in politics

- A woefully misguided superiority complex

- Acceptance that the people have no power anymore

- A complete lack of willpower to go out and protest

- An underfunded and underperforming education system

You guys need a guy like Zohran Mamdami as president.

3 days ago

bikezen

It was hard enough to deprogram people hooked into Fox news. Now try it with people who have an even worse form on their phones via twitter and/or facebook.

3 days ago

dh2022

the GP is not a reductive statement. 40% of Republicans think Trump is doing a great job - right now with all the Iran war, all the inflation. When you realize that 20% of American electorate are lunatics you will see the US political system differently.

2 days ago

muddi900

I think people disregard how economically massive the US is. China will have to grow it's overall GDP 3 times to get on the same level as US GDP per capita.

US is the world's consumer. If you make something anywhere in the world, US is the "final boss". Because Americans consume so much.

It is not just easy to just do reciprocal tariffs. America does not export all that much stuff.

There is a nuclear option of taxing services, where the US does have a surplus. But that would plunge the global economy into further chaos. Such that the Iran war effects will look quaint.

They can also do something wild like not honoring US IP protections, but that idea is way out there.

2 days ago

Didn't Japan rapidly dump US treasury bills because of the oil crisis (which the US caused), forcing the Fed to do its first currency exchange intervention in decades to avoid a complete meltdown of US currency, which still might not have been avoided?

2 days ago

crossroadsguy

UK - India (almost; sort of) free trade deal. For a country like India even talking on this topic is like not a different railway track, but going on sea route from a train route - it's that day and night. But I do agree with the OP that the protest/retaliation is scattered and slow and poor.

3 days ago

benjiro29

*Nobody is willing to help with Iran even on symbolic level*

Most people do not realize how much of a shift that is.

In the past there was always a ton of EU countries helping the US out, in whatever crap the US started. And a lot of European soldiers died. Those soldiers did not help Europe but the US, because of being allies.

Even when some European countries got called names for not helping in Iraq because they called out that the whole Weapons Of Mass destruction was a load of bull** . It did not stop others from helping the US.

Yet, now, what we see as "help" is so minimal, and even countries like Spain not just refusing but active blocking. It shows how much relationships have deteriorated.

Trump thinks of Europa like a vassal state, and every time we say no or delay, it drives him nuts. Or our best "yes", if often a "well, we need to have agreement in all the countries, see you in a few years". Do not think its coincidence, its done deliberately.

In the past when the US said something, beyond maybe France, most countries quickly followed. This is gone ... We know the world has changed, and the old order is finished.

3 days ago

ColdStream

Credit to France, Charles de Gaulle was the first to realize that the US should be blindly trusted. Macron is also a firm believer in this as well as he is well versed in Gaulle's ideas.

As for the rest of the world, yes the silence in regard to helping the US is deafening. You can see the diplomatic frustration of politicians when they have to talk about Trump and the admins actions. They cannot dismiss them but they really don't want to support them either.

3 days ago

cudgy

[flagged]

3 days ago

8note

europe understood the same thing all the previous presidents have - that war with iran would massively disrupt energy and thus the global economy.

europe wanted to keep the jcpoa after the US left it

3 days ago

crote

Why would they? Iran has been fairly harmless for decades, and the downsides of starting a war with Iran are pretty obvious. What's next, starting a war with Egypt or Panama, just for funsies?

Pre-Trump, some European countries might've let themselves be dragged into another one of America's pointless unwinnable no-reason wars. But with America itself all but declaring war on its European "allies"? Not a chance. Unless Iran starts sending rockets to Europe (and why would they?), they'll just stay out of it and let America clean up its own mess.

If anything, the Ukraine situation has made Europe more pro-war, with countries significantly increasing their defense budgets. If Iran had been a "post-9/11 Afghanistan invasion" scenario under another President, 2026 Europe would happily jump in to help.

3 days ago

inigyou

Animats

That's 2023 data, pre-Trump. Now look at the 2005 data.[1]

The Trans Mountain Expansion pipeline reached the Vancover area in 2024. That made exporting oil to China in large volume possible, and that's happening.

[1] https://www.ualberta.ca/en/china-institute/policy-analysis-s...

2 days ago

dismalaf

We sell $170 billion of O&G per year. China rising to $9 billion as per your link means it's still within the range I mentioned (I am aware they increased since that report, but it's small compared to total exports).

2 days ago

ColdStream

Exactly, the move away from the US is both fast and slow. Fast on the things that could be swapped for an alternative straight away/short term. Slow in that there are something that will take decades to move away from and are actively being worked on but quietly.

This is the problem of the 2nd Trump admin, the first time was considered a fluke incident and didn't pan out so bad as there was a lot of longer term folks keeping things sort of in check. The 2nd time, it was apparent that there is a significant enough faction of the US population that will ensure this kind of power structure keeps coming back. Trump is but the first of many to operate like he does. There will be more like him.

I must warn some people, who knows which side of politics that will come from. Don't think 'your side' is above it, this kind of rhetoric and rot and creep in a lot quicker than one would think.

3 days ago

lowbloodsugar

3 days ago

8note

i think canada has found that its been less difficult than we thought it would be

ultimately the US is buying stuff, but its the stuff thats actually valuable and not the USD you get from it. its even easier to move when you cant even buy oil from the gulf anymore, whether in USD or otherwise.

the supply chain problem arrived in trump 1's covid disaster, and hasnt exactly been solved for getting stuff to the US again

3 days ago

ColdStream

I was very impressed at the pace at which Canadians got behind the move away from US goods. Turns out threatening to annex a country and NOT having those making the threats get punished/thrown out does that. It shows a significant enough part of the US would support the move. That portion might only be 10-30% (who knows exactly) but it is enough that it cannot be ignored and it will keep coming back.

There are still more fundamental materials markets that will take years/decades to move away from but that is already happening.

3 days ago

ColdStream

Long term it is a very tough position for the US. They need to run a trade deficit to keep the power of the US dollar, if that goes so does a lot of their world power.

More broadly however, the question that I think everyone should ponder on is, "If the US falls as the world super power, do you think the alternative will be better?"

A huge part of the US's spending is on the military and that is used to stabilize global trade, that is so that the USD is still THE major currency. But recent moves looks like they are trying to keep that while also kicking out the struts that hold up the entire system. It is very illogical, maybe there is a bigger plan but somehow I don't think there is.

3 days ago

jurgenburgen

> More broadly however, the question that I think everyone should ponder on is, "If the US falls as the world super power, do you think the alternative will be better?"

The US is already behaving the way we expected China would if they become the king of the hill.

Pax Americana used to guarantee peace, prosperity and nuclear nonproliferation for the countries participating in it. Now we get threats of invasion, threats of being left to fend for our selves, cozying up to a country that is literally trying to conquer our neighbors.

I don’t think it’s anymore a question of _if_, the old world is gone and not coming back.

3 days ago

bluegatty

No, not remotely. They are showing hints of it.

The WH is running 'wars by executive order' - neither the population nor Congress support it.

I don't think he could every in a million years justify invading anywhere.

Only 'doing stuff from afar, with the air force and special operations' - at most.

We'll have to find out if he loses Congress in a few months, that may make things nary impossible.

The 'real test' for this entire thing is 'what happens after'.

Does the US go back to something recognizable?

Forever MAGA?

Remember - this stuff is not historically abnormal, granted, it took 2 world wars to get us to behave.

It depends on the 10 years after Trump is gone.

It could get worse, it could get better.

3 days ago

bawolff

> If the US falls as the world super power, do you think the alternative will be better?

Perhaps not, but if you just accept every abuse thrown at you, pretty soon the USA will be just as tyrannical as China. Sometimes having the self-respect to stand up for yourself is more important than the costs.

At the very least, if the US falls as a super power, it seems like we are heading to a tri-polar world (china, EU, USA), at least in the near to medium term. Its not like someone else is going to take over as the sole super power.

3 days ago

don_esteban

This is very west-centric view.

The countries of the south on the receiving end of US/western 'help' have been disabused of viewing US as 'a shining city on a hill' by their own experience, long time ago.

They saw Carney's Davos speech recognizing the hypocrisy of 'rules-based international order' as just another hypocrisy: you were quiet while those rules suited you, now you squeak, when you are on the receiving end.

But yes, the people in the west are waking-up.

I have gone through the fall of communism. From years when most people actually believed in it (I did not live through that, too young), to years where people knew the system is a sham, but things looked unshakeable, to years where 'something' was in the air, but a real change was unimaginable, to the sudden and very real fall.

We are in 'something is in the air' with the current western system. The problem is that for the communist countries, there was an alternative - the western system (yes, the west's soft power of jeans & coca cola worked). And the communist elites lost their will to power (or had already pre-planned path to oligarchy). Nowadays, there is no clear alternative, and the western elites seem determined to keep the system at all costs (see all the surveillance technology, the push for AI is also relevant). So, the change will be much messier and possibly bloodier than the fall of communism.

3 days ago

sfn42

> renege or renegotiate

Are those different things?

2 days ago

toomuchtodo

They still can of course, all they need to do is collectively start selling off their US treasuries. The US is at a highly vulnerable and precarious point with their potential bond market debt spiral situation, and this is a point of leverage that can be exploited to encourage improved behavior from a bully.

This capital can then be reallocated into domestic investment to continue to decouple from the US. Very similar to how Germany learned the hard way that buying fossil gas from Russia wasn’t going to prevent aggression. Canada has started this with their recently announced energy investment plan, Europe can do this with Eurobonds.

PM Carney announces largest clean energy investment in North American history - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49339577 - August 2026

China and Canada Energy Pact as Canada Aims to Cut Reliance on US - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46640932 - January 2026 (a component of China’s next five year plan includes LNG infra investment to support imports from Canada)

On Eurobonds:

Macron says €300B in EU savings sent to the US every year will be invested in EU - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46722594 - January 2026 (207 comments)

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46708337

(Canada and Europe collective hold ~$9T in US treasury debt, almost 25% of total outstanding debt)

3 days ago

sandeepkd

This is a classical problem. In theory it works when majority of the players work together and move in same direction, however everyone being opportunistic here makes in infeasible from long term perspective. Europe itself is in a difficult stage, its dealing with Russia on one end, has trust issues with China and now the its long term partner has gone rouge. The result of all this would be a mandate to be self sufficient aka anti-globalization

3 days ago

toomuchtodo

That multipolar world mandate you mentioned is already here today. That was the outcome of the actions of this US federal administration. Trust and cooperation is done for a half decade or more. The world can’t trust this administration for the remainder of the administration, and they can’t trust the US electorate to elect adults for the next administration. Countries can either accept it and take action to manage their risk (redirect investment to continue to decouple, trade deals with rational counterparties) to attempt to achieve a favorable outcome, or not and experience the potential natural consequences.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43284950 - March 2025

> “How can I decouple from the US as fast as possible?” is what this leads to.

> Diplomacy is the art of saying “good dog” until you make it to the rock. The US will apply pressure for short term gain against allies while they move away long term.

3 days ago

lunatuna

I think this is where Carney landed. Trust is gone. Further, the US and the world would have a precedence in dealing with Canada. Accepting a bad deal would maintain an illusion that this was good enough and to continue on in this direction. Once Trump is gone the negotiations could restart but at a much less valuable position to Canada.

Canada has had a long term investment and productivity challenge with too much focused on North and South. I suspect that this is now the catalyst for East and West investment.

I think the calculation was that no deal and the natural consequences are not that much worse than the deal on the table short term. And taking into account the future of the above it was going to be worse.

3 days ago

toomuchtodo

https://www.youtube.com/shorts/Oj4wIC7a8vI

“We take the world as it is, not as we wish it would be.”

3 days ago

toomuchtodo

Google and Apple comply with EU law for some reason. Probably because they want to sell phones.

2 days ago

ulrikrasmussen

What law gives a developer the right to be published on app stores? And why would it make a difference if the US administration sanctions the EU?

2 days ago

inigyou

The Digital Markets Act, thank you for asking.

Did you know other countries are other countries and don't have obey the US's corporate supremacy principle?

2 days ago

hahn-kev

Except that's a very different threat than with Credit cards. Sure Google could do that, but Europe could even just make their own android fork if they wanted and that would be far easier than replacing the whole credit card system. And I doubt they would even need to fork Android, they could side load, or just make their own app store and require it to be installed on phones sold in the EU.

3 days ago

ulrikrasmussen

It's not a trivial task, but yes, they could and should. They could also just officially start supporting existing android alternatives such as GrapheneOS by requiring banks and government ID apps to be independent of Play Integrity, which can be done today for very little money and effort.

Sideloading is not at option from 2027 since it will be made much much more difficult than it is today, requiring users to enable it via developer options and wait 24 hours.

3 days ago

whyagaindavid

Let them do it once. Please. Even if there a hint of threating to shutdown -that would make EU leaders act. Otherwise they dont act or react.

The SAAB + Bombardier (Swedish + Canadian) GlobalEye AWACS already exists (in service in the UAE) and is superior to the US alternatives.

3 days ago

dinfinity

> There is world-wide a lot of interest in the European defense sector, but South Korea and Israel have also interesting defense sectors.

I think Israel has become politically just as toxic as the USA (or moreso even). It seems incredibly unwise to make your defense industry dependent on a currently openly warmongering genocidal state.

3 days ago

bawolff

How much you like a country is a privilege of peace time. The more realistic the threat, the more appealing arms that have proven themselves on the battlefield are.

I also think there is a huge difference between america's political toxicity, where the concern is directly about things the USA might do to the country in question vs Israel where unless you are in the middle east its more indirect concern for a third party. When times get tough, its easy to forget about third parties, you can't forget if you are the one who is the victim.

Which is probably why you see a lot of Israeli arms deals are with countries that are nervous about their neighbours. e.g. Greece just bought a 4 billion dollar missile defense system from Israel. Presumably because they are nervous about Turkey's increasingly aggressive stance.

3 days ago

exceptione

You are getting downvoted, but yes, this is something which can be observed already. The Israelian state has become a world-wide pariah state and that has repercussions for its own industry. Not in the USA, but I think this will quickly change even there. Germany is the exception here.

3 days ago

nozzlegear

> The Israelian state

Israeli?

edit: why was this downvoted lol, am I missing some meme about "Israelian"? That's not a word.

3 days ago

Yes, and thank god we Europeans got to be born in pax americana and not before, because there were wars nearly all the time for centuries, if not millenia.

3 days ago

[deleted]

3 days ago

ColdStream

Personally there are two sides to this that conflict.

Firstly, yes Europe and its allies are rapidly becoming more capable and are now funding said capabilities.

Secondly, it sadness me to see people cheering on the growth of the war/defense sector.

Tao Te Ching - Chapter 46

When the Way governs the world,

The proud stallions drag dung carriages.

When the Way is lost to the world,

War horses are bred outside the city.

3 days ago

anon291

They have everything but the will power. As annoying as I find Trump he is correct that everyone expects American boys and girls to be willing to die on their behalf while doing basically nothing to prevent war.

For example, Germany now expects America involvement in Ukraine despite Germany funding the war against Ukraine for years with their purchase of Russian oil

The world seems unhappy unless American kids are dying for them. Their own children are unwilling to do so, but little Jimmy from iowa is supposed to.

If you want to know why Americans support trump it's because Americans of my generation knew American kids who died fighting for foreign countries. Nothing radicalizes a population more.

2 days ago

defrost

Sadly blinkered US centric PoV on full.

The US couldn't be talked down from its Desert War follies, Gulf War (1990) was a 42-country coalition which runs counter to "Their own children are unwilling to do so, but little Jimmy from iowa is supposed to".

The follow up, post 9/11, was US led misplaced revenge stupidity with a weaker coalition of the essentially unwilling doing their insufficient best to talk an enraged bull on steroids down - the Afghanistan chapter was more pure "US way is the only way" own goal.

Now that you've elected Trump, he's the made a world less safe for all, US citizens included.

2 days ago

anon291

God forbid an American have a US-centric PoV. The use of these sorts of cliches to shut down debate is exactly the reason why even Americans who are not fans of Trump are just kind of 'meh' about the entire thing. If anything, Trump has revealed his initial accusations of the world taking America for granted to basically be true. -

> the Afghanistan chapter was more pure "US way is the only way" own goal.

Yes, the US way is the only way. If you don't want that to be the case, stop begging America to fight all your wars. As much as I dislike nations like China, Iran, Russia, and as much as I don't see eye-to-eye with nations like India, at least I can respect those nations for fighting their own battles. Europe, Australia, Canada, Japan, etc are simply vassal states and ought to recognize that fact or figure it out.

> Now that you've elected Trump, he's the made a world less safe for all, US citizens included.

You're right all the crazy maniacs of the world are Trump's fault. I am very smart.

a day ago

tick_tock_tick

What are you joking Canada has nothing. Seriously look what they actually export they're a natural resource depot for the US. They don't even refine their own products.

3 days ago

defrost

> They don't even refine their own products.

Sure, they were the world's largest producer of raw uranium ores until 2009, since which they've run second.

codedokode

ok.ru ("classmates") is a social network with web UI and an app, so you do not need to download anything. Also, foreign movies are shown in cinemas (unofficially) regardless of copyright owner opinion.

3 days ago

disgruntledphd2

Honestly, if Trump keeps giving intelligence to Ukraine against Russia, then it was worth paying the (idiotic) tariffs.

That was the EUs top priority. The other issue was that each country had its own products they didn't want to lose sales from.

More generally, the EU isn't built for a world of presidential powers exercised at whom, which is becoming more of an issue this decade.

3 days ago

lokar

There some sense that the structure of the EU is predicated on a stable rules based international order.

3 days ago

bawolff

I dont think this is true. I imagine the designers of the EU were fully aware that foreign govs might renege on deals and built mechanisms to deal with that.

For the most part, the rules based international order is built around the idea that following it is in everyone's best interest and going against it will have negative consequences. That is why it has lasted so long.

3 days ago

inigyou

Huh? There has never been a rules based international order, only the superficial appearance of one.

2 days ago

bawolff

Yes, that is what people mean by a rules based international order.

Its not literally followed rigidly, but there are certain norms that are followed 90% of the time, and that makes things more predictable which is a good thing.

How often are diplomats executed to send a message to there home country? Basically never. That is the system. Its far from perfect, definitely not comprehensive, but does do some good every now and then.

2 days ago

inigyou

To repeat myself: that doesn't exist. Only the appearance of it.

2 days ago

womble2

So you think diplomats are executed to send a message, there is just the appearance of them not being?

> In that sense some choices are more worthwhile than others, even when they involve concessions to a bully. So, despite recent Gallup poll showing that majority of Ukrainians are for negotiated end of the conflict a.s.a.p. https://news.gallup.com/poll/711992/ukrainians-sour-washingt..., it is worthwhile for European powers to give concessions to Trump, to achieve what? To bleed Russia more and hope that it somehow collapses (or suddenly decides to give up)? Despite the very real (bloody!) costs to Ukraine?

3 days ago

ShadowOfThePit

Europe is willing to fight to the last Ukrainian, or something.

a day ago

k33n

> What are we waiting for.

Responsible governance around something like when and how to retaliate (if at all) against tariffs comes down to one of the most fundamental forces of economics and trade: real leverage. Whether or not the US should exercise its leverage to attain outsized and favorable terms on the economic stage is the peanut gallery conversation that happens on social media. The two worlds couldn't be farther apart. What will actually happen in the end is just a math equation that has never changed and will never change.

3 days ago

bambax

That's just not true. Geopolitics isn't maths, never has been, never will be. Maths is an input amongst many, and doesn't decide the outcome.

3 days ago

k33n

If you want to have the peanut gallery conversation, then you’re more than welcome to have it. It’s just not interesting. Leverage is all that matters here.

2 days ago

k33n

[flagged]

3 days ago

coolandsmartrr

Japanese here. Caved is not an accurate expression. After intense negotiations with Trump, Lutnick, and Bessent, Minister Akazawa managed to reduced the tariff from the proposed 25% to 15%. His story of flying weekly to the States on commercial aircraft became legendary.

PM's resignation stemmed from unpopularity not due to tariff negotiation, but diminished ability to pass laws after the ruling party lost significant number of seats in elections for upper and lower houses.

As for other countries around the world, the world-wide inflation caused many ruling parties to lose support.

3 days ago

ColdStream

I said it in another comment, not only did they negotiate that, the resulting negotiation held very little of substance for the US. It was very light on specifics and all for show.

It has been said that when the tariffs started that the Japanese delegates went to Washington to negotiate. The delegates asked them "Since you are trying to negotiate, what do you want of Japan?"

All they got back was "Well, what can you offer?"

India has stood up the most to the US even in the face of >50% sanctions for buying Russian energy. The fact that there is no trade deal between the India & US as we speak is testament to this.

Your characterization that India has caved is factually incorrect and seems to be driven either by ignorance or by mischievous intent.

3 days ago

theplumber

The politics are about compromises. China “caved” as well but that’s just one battle “lost”.

In the long term the world will adjust to the new reality. As a simple example take the oil crisis from 1970s. The U.S adjusted and now is the world’s biggest producer.

It will take time but in 30 years I would be surprised if Europe would still buy U.S weapons, let U.S tech services rule EU digital markets and so on.

3 days ago

armada651

Everyone is banking on the current trade policy simply being temporary and whoever replaces Trump in the White House next will restore bilateral trade to normal. Why would you destroy your trade relation with the U.S. for decades to come when you can just ride out a bad deal for a few years?

Not saying I agree with it, because it sends the wrong signal, but I can understand the reasoning at least.

3 days ago

Breakthrough

> Why would you destroy your trade relation with the U.S. for decades to come when you can just ride out a bad deal for a few years?

We aren't the ones who are destroying it, and we have a backbone strong enough to say this isn't good enough.

If what you say is true, then the next administration should understand how one sided the damage done to the relationship has been. No economic trade partner should have to tolerate attacks on their sovereignty and unreliable trade negotiators.

3 days ago

overfeed

> Why would you destroy your trade relation with the U.S. for decades to come when you can just ride out a bad deal for a few years?

This was a common attitude 2017-2020, and they got disabused of that notion when Trump won in 2024. I would further argue the muted response during Trump I based on an idea that thing would "return to normal" emboldened Trump II - so that was not a winning strategy. The only country that seemed to have the correct read, and translated it into policy was China. Every other trading partner of the US seems to be floundering still.

3 days ago

Moldoteck

because the next one might be vance? and vance again? and afterwards another similar rep?

EU should really have a plan to ditch US collective monopoly in all sectors, especially tech. Just like China we should have our own payment systems, mobile OS-es with mandatory bank support, own app stores, own cloud systems and so on... Call it gaulism or any other catchy phrase but US leverage should be reduced to minimum - EU should be able to threaten US with full ban on a subset of it's companies/trade. Now such thing is plain impossible to imagine

3 days ago

ben_w

I am not sure how much of it is that, versus a mix of tariffs being paid by the recipient rather than the vendor, versus all his unpredictable behaviour being an inherent non-tariff barrier, versus it not mattering much what a deal with the USA even looks like if we all transition to other trade partners.

The UK's Neville Chamberlain is remembered for saying of an agreement with Hitler, "peace for our time"*, and by this agreement, appeasement; less well known was that he did pursue re-armament and mutual defence agreements while attempting to deescalate.

Hopefully we won't be here in 8 years wondering how the USA got carved up into a Canadian zone, a Chinese zone, a European zone, and an Aztec zone. That last one might be from a TV show I watched as a kid.

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peace_for_our_time

3 days ago

p91paul

What I fear is Trump didn't break any promise done to their electors by starting this trade wars (he did when he failed to stop actual military wars and started more instead, but that's a different point). He was elected by stating that America was the greatest country in the world and that the others were freeriding on US wealth. I'm not sure his successor can entirely overturn this policy, if a majority of the US voters believe this - also because undoing the damage would require brokering deals less favourable than before to show good faith. I live outside of the US so I might be misintepreting the situation, but I'm unconviced that a full u-turn will happen once he's out of the office.

3 days ago

goatlover

A majority don't believe. A plurality voted for Trump in 2024 because of inflation and Biden not leaving Harris enough time to run a proper campaign. It's only the MAGA voters who don't understand how global trade is good for the US economy. But Trump's even losing some of their support with how badly the administration is running things for anyone but the very wealthy.

3 days ago

8note

i dont think you can really move the blame from voters wanting trump's policies onto biden.

trump won the primary and then the election

republicans who didnt want his policies and could see that the inflation was in a large part the result of trump's handling of covid would have put somebody else up for president

3 days ago

Grombobulous

I agree with you partially, although there’s some irony in the sense that a lot of what Trump’s voters want on paper is closer to the Democratic Party’s policy agenda.

Look into the policies and results the Biden administration had on American manufacturing versus the contraction in American manufacturing caused by tariff implementation. Biden even invested heavily in infrastructure in red states just because it was good positive ROI policy.

Now we see Democratic Socialist politicians like Zohran Mamdani doing things like cutting permitting red tape on small businesses and it’s the exact kind of thing the Republican Party claims it stands for.

The Tax Cut and Jobs Act actually raised taxes for lower wage Americans and increased the budget deficit, the exact opposite of typical Republican talking points on those subjects.

We have to remember that in a lot of cases, policy is not the same as messaging. This is especially pertinent in personality cults. This something the US hasn’t really experienced in the US presidency in quite some time if at all, and that has made it a…unique…experience. The idea of consistent policy is currently meaningless, because it’s all about whatever is on the demagogue’s mind today.

3 days ago

pvaldes

> whoever replaces Trump in the White House next will restore bilateral trade to normal

UncleMeat

The size of the court is set by statute. It would be pretty wild, even for this batshit court, to find a law increasing its size to be unconstitutional.

2 days ago

vkou

"John Marshall has made his decision; now let him enforce it."

3 days ago

k33n

I’m just glad that’s never going to happen tbh.

3 days ago

Moldoteck

trump is just a reflection of voters. He'll be out but another one will come, be it vance, be it rubio, be it even jo rogan. The overall direction of american society wishes is clear

3 days ago

[deleted]

3 days ago

ColdStream

As many have said, Trump is a symptom of a deeper issue.

Once is an accident, twice is a pattern. It isn't that Trump specifically is the problem it is that there is a sizable enough part of the US population that will actively vote in that kind of governance.

Trump will leave, either via election, being ousted or via the Grim reaper. But the things that got him to that position are still very much in place and potentially even stronger than ever.

I said it before he even got elected the first time, he is an echo of the future that is coming. A prototype of something that will be handled more competently in future for better or worse.

3 days ago

dfxm12

USA is basically a uniparty with respect to foreign policy. It's not like Biden restored US foreign policy wrt pre Trump tariffs on China...

It's a nice thought, but I wouldn't "bank" on it.

3 days ago

ColdStream

Terrance McKenna once said that the worst US President is the current one regardless of the time. That is because they always seem to just accept what has come before and just stack more things on top.

Biden didn't remove the Trump Tarrifs on China for instance. But this goes across party lines and back for decades. Neither side is interested in tearing down the surveillance state stuff is a good example.

3 days ago

qlte

Pretty revealing how you had to hand wave away the entirety of "Liberation Day" tariff policy (literally the topic of this thread) that Biden did not do in office to do the perennial low-info voter "uniparty" observation, just because of China hawkishness.

The uniparty foreign policy blob that always does identical stuff regardless of party like: signing the JCPOA with Iran / killing the JCPOA and starting War with Iran, or rejoining UNESCO and paying back due obligations / re-leaving UNESCO and WHO... etc.

3 days ago

inigyou

It's a uniparty on Israel and Mexico. It's not a uniparty on Canada or Denmark.

2 days ago

Zylokloto

You underestimate how much more investment is happing in EU to be more independent of the USA.

The parent point is that the response should have been done collectively.

USA market is "yuuge", but rest-of-the-world market is much much bigger.

3 days ago

8note

the market is bigger but doesnt necessarily have more USD to sownd on stuff

3 days ago

fifilura

I don't understand.

3 days ago

2OEH8eoCRo0

To be fair, EU standards prevent the sale of lots of US products so that point, while misleading, is not entirely incorrect.

3 days ago

xorcist

But it's not really a trade barrier if it applies equally for everyone, including domestic products, is it? Then it's just a safety regulation barrier, which also the US has plenty of.

It's something else entirely to point to a specific country and say that "anyone who imports from there is going to get taxed an extra 15%". That's a specific barrier to a specific trade.

3 days ago

ben_w

It is still a barrier even just by being different. The British drive on the left side of the road, all domestic manufacturers make cars which are left side drive. If you are from the majority of the world which is right hand drive, you can't just directly export your default car in bulk to the UK and expect it to sell. This makes it a barrier to imports into the UK, and also exports from the UK. It is a non-tariff barrier to trade.

EU and US egg safety rules are mutually incompatible.

3 days ago

Frieren

> prevent the sale of lots of US products

Not only USA products. Most countries with low safety standards and known for dangerous products are barred from trading with the EU, or at least many of their products. Recently, even big Chinese on-line shops are being targeted for selling dangerous products and lying on the description on that products.

I understand that quality and safety is a diminishing goal for the USA. But I hope that other countries keep the care for their citizens as a achievable goal.

> is not entirely incorrect

In the softwood lumber dispute that's been going on for decades, the US raised (legitimately) the point that in Canada, land is granted by permit to loggers for only nominal fees; in the U.S. loggers have to pay significant amounts for rights to log. This is effectively a gov't subsidy to Canadian loggers by comparison with American loggers, allowing Canadian loggers to sell softwoods at a lower price.

This is the difficulty with discussing "trade barriers": things that are simply handled differently in different countries can be (arguably) economic factors that discriminate against one side or the other, hence they're trade barriers. Complicating it further, one can create barriers that have plausible deniability, or point to unrelated factors and scream "TRADE BARRIER".

I know someone who was involved for a while in the softwood lumber discussions. Just an absolute snake pit trying to suss out what are real barriers, intended barriers, relevant inputs... and all of this in the context of negotiations over the same, so everything is also "does he mean this or is he distracting us from something else or just building up a talking point to surrender later?"

3 days ago

8note

trade courts did not find the US complaints legitimate, and repeatedly rule in canada's favour. the end root of the difference in cost is that canada is really big with a lot of forest and doesnt have better things to do with forested land.

the logs in canada are just worth less than the ones in the US. Differential advantage is a real thing that exists.

If the US government really beleives it to be a canadian government subsidy to loggers, it should be more than happy to give the tariff money to the canadian government, making canada's taxes and fees exactly what the US thinks they should be.

3 days ago

fatbird

Agreed, but my point was that these things are hideously complicated and there's an endless source of details to hold up and say "NOT FAIR!" and it's ultimately about finding an agreement, not about the course of natural justice.

BTW, I'm Canadian. IIRC, the trade courts didn't find that the complaint about fees wasn't legitimate, it was that American logging companies had other, offsetting economic benefits, so the bottom line was that they weren't disadvantaged. So the U.S. simply refused to abide by the ruling and didn't pay the fine it was supposed to, so that receiving the fine or some portion thereof, became another thing to negotiate in the next round. Unbelievably hairy stuff.

3 days ago

mthoms

Unless you can explain why the American stumpage fees are inherently "correct", this is simply a case of one country having a bigger supply of something and therefore being able to offer it much cheaper. You know... Capitalism working exactly as intended.

Isn't that kind of America's thing?

"No, not like that!"

All the rest of this is designed to distract from the real issue: Americans love Capitalism, except in the rare cases where they don't come out on top. Then everyone else is being mean and unfair.

It's funny. When European governments charge high fees, Americans deride them as socialist and anti-capitalist. When the American government does it (as it does here)? Why, it's the natural order of things! Our fees are the "correct" fees. It's everyone else that's wrong!

Please.

3 days ago

anon291

I mean, yes. An easy one that is omnipresent is that Canada mandates Canadian radio stations to play a certain amount of Canadian content giving advantage to Canadian artists

Of course this is fine... Countries should protect their industries..just don't get on your moral high horse when America does it

To be clear, I am against Trump's approach, but all the pearl clutching is exhausting.

2 days ago

expedition32

Trump just went directly after Canada's sovereignty. Nobody else has done anything even remotely similar since I don't know China's occupation of Tibet.

America has just unmasked itself and shown what they really think of Canadians.

2 days ago

anon291

Trump is nuts, but he is broadly correct that the world expects the benefits of American statehood without the responsibilities and reduction in autonomy. Yes, I realize this arrangement benefits the United States, but on the other hand, these other countries have gotten too used to it. People made fun of Vance and Trump for the Zelensky interaction, but I think a lot of Americans felt heard for the first time in a long time.

Canada can do what it likes, but people shouldn't expect America to come to their rescue. Trump explicitly warned Germany about Russian oil, and the Germans quite literally laughed at the UN because of their hubris.

a day ago

rjrjrjrj

> Canada can do what it likes, but people shouldn't expect America to come to their rescue.

What specifically are you referring to here?

NATO Article 5 has been invoked once, and that resulted in soldiers from Canada (and other allies) losing their lives responding to an attack on America. Not the other way round.

a day ago

anon291

I'm responding to the general expectation that America will deploy resources . You cite article 5. America is expected to intervene whether article 5 is involved or not

a day ago

rjrjrjrj

Pretty handwavy. Surely you can come up with something more specific?

a day ago

anon291

NATO contributions

a day ago

ben_w

> are the trade barriers in the room with us?

Yes. And I'm saying this in the EU.

e.g. Ein Beispiel ist die verschiedene Sprache.

Although perhaps German is one of the stranger cases, given that I've seen the English phrase "Made in Germany" on some political posters around here: https://www.cdu.de/aktuelles/cdu-deutschlands/mainzer-erklae...

This is also a problem for trade between EU member states.

There's other examples of course, e.g. the Cybertruck is not road legal in the EU. Though I can hardly say that's "in the room" given how unpopular the vehicle is even in the USA.

3 days ago

blitzar

Foreigners not speaking American is unfair?

Honestly if that is the best you can come up with, please try a lot harder.

3 days ago

8note

its a government choice to not properly train americans to read and speak german, while it does for english.

that is a subsidy to american businesses and a barrier against german ones, when germany trains its Citizens in both german and english

it silly, but it is a barrier with a measurable dollar spend related to it

3 days ago

ben_w

Unfair? I didn't say unfair, I said it was "in the room" with us. Most NTBs aren't unfair, but also most don't fit in a room and unlike language are abstract in ways most people don't engage with.

The local jobs market is currently demanding a lot of C1 German. This does not seem unfair to me. Does make it challenging to sell services to Germany if you can't provide it at that level.

Or, to put it another way, imagine my response had been:

  Hör mal, Kumpel, wenn du glaubst, du kannst deine Dienstleistungen in einem Land verkaufen, dessen Landessprache du nicht sprichst, dann glaub mir als jemandem, der es gerade versucht: Das ist verdammt schwer.

You can only get so far with Google Translate in a business setting; I know, 'cause that's where I started, and it took me a long time to work up to "eh, you'll do".

3 days ago

tensegrist

france has "made in france" too

3 days ago

dpc050505

Having guardrails against diarrhea lettuce is just reasonable policy.

3 days ago

kube-system

Unfortunately, systematically and illegally dismantling the organization responsible for protecting us against diarrhea lettuce is a setback to that goal.

3 days ago

thisisit

Yes sure. Add it to the pile of contradictory goals:

1. Bring back manufacturing jobs 2. Remove trade barriers 3. Make US rich by collecting huge amount of tariffs

If 1 is true then there is no benefit for countries to remove trade barriers or pay tariffs because now there is no leverage (manufacturing jobs to protect).

For Canadians, the alternative is the death of a language.

3 days ago

polski-g

[flagged]

2 days ago

christofosho

Hey Polski,

This comment is extremely prejudicial[1]. Not only is language a part of people's heritage and culture, which in itself provides value, but also what you've said is incredibly biased and also simply incorrect. For example, both Mandarin and Spanish have more first-language speakers than English[2]. Almost 40 languages have over 50 million speakers, each.

1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linguistic_discrimination 2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_languages_by_total_num...

2 days ago

inigyou

Chinese is the most spoken language. All languages except Chinese should die.

2 days ago

parkuman

This is quite possibly the most hacker news comment I’ve ever read and ever will read.

2 days ago

BowBun

Hard disagree. It is not standard in many parts of the world, it is the cultural identity of many places, and the costs and logistics of changing everything around the world would be asinine. Language is also sovereignty.

On a more personal note, most of the great classics in all forms of art are not in English.

> The negotiations are because Canada taxes US cultural exports (movies, etc.) and gives that money directly to their Canadian competitors.

Canada subsidizes U.S film production to incentivise the companies to use Canadian labour. It's the opposite of a tax, but there is a consumer digital services tax that's only been a thing recently.

2 days ago

bradley13

This is the way. If the US imposes tariffs, impose tariffs on US goods.

The US administration twists facts to suit their agenda. For example, they often complain about the trade deficit the US has with other countries. However, that deficit often (depends on the country) only exists if you exclude digital goods (Microsoft, Google, Apple, etc.).

Don't most (all?) such models have homepages with free interfaces?

https://www.kimi.com/en

ericmay

[flagged]

3 days ago

bad_haircut72

the advantage US labs have is that we use them. If chinese labs got 1 years worth of usage from everyone else as their daily driver, they would catchup if not overtake the US based firms - assuming you even think that they're truly behind anyway.

3 days ago

ericmay

Ok. Don’t use them and then we’ll just leverage China’s models too. What’s the problem? Why does the US need to lead in AI if Europe (and everyone else) prefers to partner with China? We can just partner with them too. They can have Taiwan. We can pull out of NATO and bring our troops home from overseas bases around the world. It’ll save us a lot of military spend and then we don’t have to play these games anymore.

Besides we can just distill Chinese modules and release open weights like they do now.

3 days ago

bad_haircut72

I mean this would be great haha, America voluntarily ceding its position as the supreme global power without bloodshed. Its the best we could hope for. Now watch the US show that this is the one course they will never take.

3 days ago

ericmay

[flagged]

3 days ago

cyberpunk

Russia dominates "Europe"; what, that Russia who can't even beat Ukraine? That can't even make ball bearings anymore? That has to pull North Korean troops in? We're fucking terrified man.

I think Poland alone could defeat Russia, if it even still exists in the current form in a few years -- add the finances of France and Germany and it's even more one sided.

3 days ago

ericmay

[flagged]

3 days ago

8note

you are very optimistic about keeping your standard of living when you will have to sell stuff to china in order to have access to global capital.

losing that #1 status also means you have to work for a living, rather than just printing dollars and debt. see: britain

everyone in the west except the US already has to deal with that, so we'll be fine

3 days ago

ericmay

That doesn’t make any sense. The US has access (and is the source) of global capital because of our markets, laws, and strength of our economy. China won’t supplant the US because it’s a communist dictatorship that disappears people which means folks including the Chinese don’t want to keep their capital in China.

Second the OP said “no longer #1” which can take many forms including still being the dominant reserve currency. Also UK isn’t doing too bad see: UK not doing too bad.

3 days ago

8note since I cant reply to you directly as the thread is too long - ok, maybe I should have used "release the Epstein files" or "bring down the national debt"

3 days ago

inigyou

Click on the comment's timestamp to open that specific comment and have a reply button.

2 days ago

refurb

Canada's tariff's will be meaningless.

Canada's GDP is 32% exports. Of that, 75% goes to the US, or ~25% of Canada's GDP or $1 out of every $4.

US exports to Canada are 11% and 16% go to Canada or around 1.7% of US GDP.

If both countries decide to start ramping up tariffs, one of them is going to collapse and one won't even notice a difference.

3 days ago

bruce511

I think there's a notion that the imposition of tarifs will ultimately affect the amount the country imports. However that stick only kinda-sorta works.

As a reference - in the country I live in, exports to the US rose in the year after "liberation day". Because of 2 things; Americans like to buy stuff and tarifs imposed on everyone doesn't cause importers to source elsewhere - it's just business as usual.

Take for example something as mundane as coffee. Do tarifs mean Americans drink less? (perhaps not). Do they grow more locally (well, no, not least because of ramp-up time to new production.) Tarifs are just a local tax on consumerism.

So take your example above. 25% of the Canadian GDP goes to the US. The question then becomes how much of that is going to be sourced elsewhere instead? And can Canada find an alternative market to make up the difference?

About 30% (of that 25% above) is oil & gas etc. That's easilly sellable on the global market. Not that they'll need to, the US customer will simply pay more. The next 21% is car parts, machinery etc. US Auto makers are already dependent on external parts - maybe they can get them from somewhere else? Somewhere without already higher tarifs?

Other big chuncks are Consumer, Forestry and Industrial goos (15%), Metas (12%) and agriculture (10%). None of these are easily sourced (cheaper) elsewhere.

In other words, tarifs make for good headlines. And there will inevitably be some winners and losers. But the effect on Canada's GDP will be minor. I'm not even sure that Canada needs to reciprocate - Canadian consumers are very good at simply not buying American products. No govt can force the Canadian people to buy Budwizer....

>> If both countries decide to start ramping up tariffs, one of them is going to collapse and one won't even notice a difference.

hluska

1.) The word you’re looking for is tariffs. Tariff’s would be possessive.

2.) The casual way that you talk about the collapse of my country is offensive. But we’ll be good - thanks for your concern.

3 days ago

drunkan

You completely missed the point - these retaliatory tariffs are being rolled out strategically to protect vulnerable industries from one way tariffs not with the primary goal of hurting the us. You notice one is defensive and one is aggressive - different goals.

It is 100% how trade works. Free trade for both sides = good for both sides. Lopsided deals where one side gets the free flow of trade but the other side gets protectionism = exploitative.

What is the category error here? Where is the misunderstanding?

If you really believed what you wrote, why do you think trade deals exist in the first place? What function do you think they serve?

3 days ago

neom

I'd guess that they're saying is, the point of trade, from a country's perspective, is to get imports. Exports are what you give up to obtain them (comparative advantage). So, when the US puts tariffs on Canadian goods, the main people who eat that cost are American consumers and firms buying those goods...basically, it's a tax Americans pay to Americans. Canada loses some export markets, however, the US isn't "extracting" anything...both sides just get less of a mutually beneficial thing.... So, In that faming, "one side gets free trade, the other gets protectionism" is in theory, a situation where the protectionist country is mostly shooting itself in the foot, not beating its partner. By the same theory, retaliating by taxing your own citizens purchases of American goods doesn't undo the damage... it adds to it. Also fwiw, a trade deal isn't a swap of comparative advantages, it's a bundling where each side concedes in sectors it can politically afford to lose in, inorder to win in sectors it cares more about. For example Canada protects dairy and gives ground on autos.

3 days ago

bawolff

> I'd guess that they're saying is, the point of trade, from a country's perspective, is to get imports.

I'm not sure why you would think that. It is not what I said and not what i believe.

2 days ago

neom

I'm saying: that is what the person you responded to, savanaly, is using as the basis of their reply. I'm not saying that is what you said or believe.

2 days ago

savanaly

>If you really believed what you wrote, why do you think trade deals exist in the first place? What function do you think they serve?

In an ideal world, we would have free trade between nations and no trade deals. In the real world, for various reasons, we have trade barriers. But those who wish to see more trade can fight fire with fire by carving out exceptions to trade barriers in the form of trade deals and making trade more free in that way. It's all political horse trading, none of it creates new economic value that wouldn't be there in a free trade regime.

But the important thing to note is that both imports and exports are good for your country; think of them both as technologies that convert between products at a favorable exchange rate. [0] Just because another country dampens the effectiveness of this technology in one way, why would you then respond by throwing out the technology altogether?

[0] Think I was first exposed to this idea of thinking of trade as a technology in that way by https://tradef20.classes.ryansafner.com/readings/Krugman-199..., section II/

2 days ago

bawolff

> But the important thing to note is that both imports and exports are good for your country

Of course. I think that goes without saying.

>Just because another country dampens the effectiveness of this technology in one way

Because the costs created don't apply equally to the parties.

hluska

The Port of Vancouver just did 24.4 million metric tonnes and that’s just going to rise. Thanks for your (fake) concern but we’ll be fine.

3 days ago

jmyeet

Which is just over 10% of Canada's oil exports. How does that invalidate my point?

Also, I explicitly said "energy". That includes electricity (you can't export that anywhere else really) and natural gas (almost all of which is used domestically or exported to the US).

3 days ago

theluketaylor

This will catalyze efforts to build more east-west energy infrastructure here in Canada, both oil and electricity. The last time the US made a serious run at Canadian sovereignty we built the Canadian Pacific rail to connect the country end to end. The same thing will happen this time, with pipelines and HVDC grid connections.

Short term the US needs the energy we sell as they don’t have sources to replace it with. Long term the pieces are already moving into place for more O&G exports via the pacific and selling electricity to ourselves with stronger grid connections.

Our reliance on US trade will diminish slowly, then all at once.

3 days ago

Fumblenuts

Last I've checked Canada had some oil pipelines built + new ones being built to the east coast and west coast. It's something that's been in the works for years before trump.

Also your comment implies that Canada's only export to the US is oil. Canada also exports lumber and agricultural goods, as well as electricity, amongst other things.

And the reason why Canada can't just cave is that Trump will just continue to increase his demands, amongst other reasons. Even in this series of negociations when they finally came close to something the US added demands remove Canada's requirement for French on their packaging (even though French is 1 of Canada's 2 official languages) and separate trade ties with other countries.

Is shit gonna suck for the next while for Canada? Yes, but there is literally nothing they can do to prevent it other than give up their autonomy as a country and become a US puppet, which a vast majority of Canadians are adamently against except for a tiny minority in Alberta.

3 days ago

jmyeet

This is a real pancakes and waffles moment. God, the Internet sucks some times. Where did I say "only"?

As best as I can tell ~40% of Canada's exports to the US are energy, making it the most dominant export sector by far. One estimate I see is ~$160 annual value [1].

By comparison, lumber accounts for ~$6B. That's a rounding error.

Energy is the most significant Canadian export and it's deeply tied to the US (unfortunately).

loloquwowndueo

You say it like a 35% approval rating is a good thing. It is not.

4 days ago

sethammons

That a third or more still support him seems crazy to me.

4 days ago

AngryData

Yeah but you can get 30% of people to support almost anything once you get them hooked. Some people are always going to be dumb or too stubborn to ever admit they were wrong.

3 days ago

steve_adams_86

goatlover

We'll see if that's true come the midterms. I have doubts Republicans can keep enough seats with that sort of approval, given it's much worse with independents, and the Republican candidates seem to be a lot weaker than their Democratic opponents in a number of key races, like Texas. Only thing I'm less sure of is the huge amount of Super PAC money Republicans have to spend on tight races.

3 days ago

Hugsbox

Still way too high.

4 days ago

[deleted]

3 days ago

[dead]

3 days ago

beernet

If you wanted a Russian puppet in the oval office, it would do exactly what Epstein's BFF Donald is doing. There are zero reasons to support anything Putin is doing (read: daily war crimes), however, the destruction from within in the US and EU is executed amazingly well.

3 days ago

stevenwoo

The 65 percent approval rating from GOP voters right now says no, they are happy with immigration, culture war nonsense and trade chaos. Red states and rural areas would need to be targeted specifically and even then all interviews indicate those voters won’t consider choosing the other side, most of that GOP opposition will at best just not vote.

4 days ago

airstrike

Thankfully 45% of people currently identify as independent so his approval among Republicans doesn't have the same impact you'd think it does.

https://news.gallup.com/poll/700499/new-high-identify-politi...

4 days ago

It has no effect on me but the fact that residents of DC and Puerto Rico have to pay income tax but get no vote of consequence (and small less populated states have so much power) is one big example of inequities baked into system that I just groan when people brag about American exceptionalism.

a day ago

linohh

Not in this administration.

4 days ago

voidfunc

Not with 50%+ of the country supporting this administration.

> Not with 50%+ of the country supporting this administration

That's not even close to an accurate number now. There are many sources e.g. (1)

It's a shame that people mostly learn the hard way, and forget easily. But that's not the support now.

https://www.reuters.com/world/us/trump-approval-falls-33-low...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t3fRIleMK-8

4 days ago

dudefeliciano

> That's not even close to an accurate number now.

that wasn't even accurate on the day he got elected, considering a third of the country did not vote at all.

4 days ago

koolba

> It’s the people that are the problem. These policies and politics will outcast Trump because middle Anerica and The South are filled with morons.

What a sad and tired take. Trump won both the electoral and popular vote. Discounting the opinions of over half the country as morons is exactly the type of behavior that got him elected.

3 days ago

ImPostingOnHN

> Discounting the opinions of over half the country as morons is exactly the type of behavior that got him elected.

This is the exactly the same sad, tired take one hears from republicans whenever you disagree with them on any issue. Pick a random issue, you'll find a republican claiming "this is why donald won" etc.

How have elections been going for donald and the GOP since then? How about approval ratings? Seems like it's way less than half the country now. Less than a third, even. We The People are speaking, let's listen. After all, ignoring Americans is exactly the behavior that caused the GOP to lose elections and the people's approval.

3 days ago

koolba

My complaint is not with the approval numbers. Those go back and forth.

__s

If only things were zero sum stick-in-bicycle meme decision making would benefit others

4 days ago

pjc50

> It is a particularly interesting position when the US is trying to counter China.

The US put countering China way behind on its priority list, below "owning the libs" and settling old scores. I am convinced that if the Iran decapitation had worked like Venezuela, which seems to have been what they expected, then Cuba would have been next.

4 days ago

“Winning” in Cuba would also be very difficult. Sure Venezuela looked cool but what really changed?

a day ago

splicebot

They've been farming the Cuba thing since the boomers were children. Every election there are bitter Floridian descendants of Cuban exiles to court. It would be insane for them to permanently resolve the issue, and any actual resolution would inevitably be a disappointment to them.

3 days ago

4 days ago

soperj

Cuba doesn't have oil.

The point is to prop up Putin.

4 days ago

ben_w

> The point is to prop up Putin.

Attacking one of Russia's few allies and weapon suppliers is counterproductive to such a goal, even if higher oil prices also help the Russian state finances.

4 days ago

llm_nerd

This ill-conceived, Kegsbreath-run operation depleted weapons stocks, gave enormous levels of intel on its systems (which both Russia and China are loving), burned through hundreds of billions in spend, and made Ameirca look like an impotent pathetic joke.

Yes, the Iran operation 100% served Russia and China. It could not have gone better for them.

And of course it helped Russia make hundreds of billions more on oil. Win win win.

4 days ago

microtonal

I think it is equally likely that Benny convinced the administration to attack Iran, emboldened by the 'success' in Venezuela.

4 days ago

ben_w

> Yes, the Iran operation 100% served Russia and China. It could not have gone better for them.

China yes, Russia no.

> And of course it helped Russia make hundreds of billions more on oil. Win win win.

For this to be intentional, the USA would have needed to intend Hormuz to be closed, rather than surprised and upset by it.

(Not that it matters much, but estimates I see say about $50bn, which is closer to the destruction of Wildberries than it is to $100bn).

3 days ago

[deleted]

3 days ago

[deleted]

4 days ago

sagarm

Trump is the avatar of a segment of Americans that believe that all transactions are zero sum at best. They simultaneously believe they're "pro-capitalism."

How are those two things squared? Capitalism to these people isn't about free markets, it's about privatized gains and socialized losses.

3 days ago

inigyou

Not "to these people". Capitalism isn't about free markets. It's about privatised gains and socialised losses.

Capitalism and free markets, in fact, cannot coexist.

2 days ago

enoint

The proof is trying to tell their solutions apart from socialism:

- when the executive branch owns 11% of Intel. Can I get in line for them to buy 11% of my company, cash?

- when “maybe the children will have two dolls instead of 30 dolls” can come from both Trump and Sanders, about the government manipulating consumer choices.

3 days ago

lukan

"The only hope the US had was an alliances with other Western-style nations"

Maybe Trump bets on his great relations with Putin and Kim instead.

4 days ago

k33n

[flagged]

3 days ago

llm_nerd

What a bizarre comment. You seem to suffer some hysterical Trump derangement syndrome.

I'm describing Trump's entire lifetime of actions, and it requires no reading of minds. He is famous for stiffing contractors and constantly changing the "terms" after other parties have delivered on their end of the bargain. It's why this rugpull barking clown grifter -- man, his act actually words on some hilariously stupid people -- failed in almost everything he ever did, and was only lifted by the lifts all boats of NY real estate.

Trump is a pedophile rapist, is incredibly stupid, and by all evidence he is an utterly garbage human (the guy and his family stole from a charity. Jesus would hate that man, or anyone so vile they would support him). That he still has weird cultists like you is amazing.

Like, do you guys not realize he has failed catastrophically at everything? Hey, remember when the economy was going to take off like a rocketship in the Q4 of 2025? LOL, that did not happen, and things have turned from bad to worse. Remember that the deficit would be eliminated, and hell it'll pay off the debt too! ROFL. $40 trillion. Debt rates spiralling, and things are looking dire. Now they're trying to make lemonade out of lemons and are talking up how great it'll be to no longer be the reserve currency...which, rofl. Enjoy being a fallen shithole.

Cool beans, buddy.

You guys are bizarre. It's like you've constructed some profoundly stupid delusion about this festering, rotten bag of shit.

No, not good for Canada. Free trade is optimal, even if its unilateral.

The EU should abolish their tariffs and let the clowns in the US do whatever they feel like.

4 days ago

vidarh

You're not going to get free trade if it's unilateral, because you've then created an incentive for the other side to protect their own industries knowing you're not going to retaliate, while reaping the benefits of access to your market.

4 days ago

eru

Unilaterally not hitting you head against the wall is bad, because you remove the incentive for the other side to stop hitting their head against a wall?

> while reaping the benefits of access to your market.

Huh, what? Trade is a win-win situation: you and your people benefit from imports, too.

3 days ago

vidarh

Your analogy is flawed, because there is no benefit to hitting your head against the wall, but your domestic businesses benefit from reduced competition.

And that also answers your second objection - if governments never gave preference to business interests over people, the world would look very different.

2 days ago

eru

> [...] but your domestic businesses benefit from reduced competition.

And the rest of your domestic businesses and consumers suffer.

You can also tax all right-handed people and give the proceeds to all the left-handed people in your country.

2 days ago

vidarh

None of which changes what I wrote.

18 hours ago

Tepix

Nope, the EU should use the trade bazooka against the US.

4 days ago

xdennis

The trade bazooka was an empty threat. This is somewhat similar to the trillion dollar coin[1]. It's a tool used for negotiations, not a real thing. If the trade bazooka was real, wasn't this the best opportunity to use it? What else could it be saved for?

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trillion-dollar_coin

3 days ago

8note

the trade bazooka was made to threaten china, not the US. its just conveniently placed at the moment

3 days ago

eigenspace

The EU didn't really fold, they blew him off. It was just a bunch of "yeah sure Donny, here's a bunch of meaningless promises we have no ability or mechanism to actually enforce". For example they promised to buy a bunch of gas, but the EU has no mechanism to make companies or even member states buy gas.

The only real concession the EU made was just allowing Trump to tariff them at a certain rate, and not counter-tariffing back (with various escape clauses).

While the EU response certainly wasn't a feel-good display of chest thumping, I think it was somewhat effective. He was able to strut around and feel big, and they were able to move on.

The only reason the EU would really want to apply counter tariffs against the USA would be to either make a point, or because they are actually afraid that exports from the USA could outcompete EU products unless tariffed, but this just isn't really the case right now.

___________________

The only form of retailiation I think the EU should actually be pursuing is the equivalent of tariffs on US software. This is the area that the USA is a highly competitive 'exporter', and putting up barriers agaisnt these software services would be a good way to hurt the USA, and protect / stimulate domestic alternatives.

4 days ago

u1hcw9nx

To add into what you said. EU’s Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism (CBAM) already affects the United States, though its impact varies depending on the sector. CBAM is big permanent change, and that will be rolled in smoothly below all this.

Of course, because Russia spends 7+% of its GDP on its military, and Italy 1.6%. It does say something about the relative capacity though. Russia probably cannot sustain this level of spending forever, and European countries could (continue) raising it if needed.

3 days ago

throw0101a

> Note that GDP does not directly translate into a number of tanks and missiles produced. I doubt Italy has more weapon than Russia.

Not wrong, but GDP is a rough metric of economic and industrial capacity. So if Italy wanted to, it could convert its economy to produce tanks and missiles at a similar rate as Russia is doing. And Italy is just one member of NATO:

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Member_states_of_NATO

3 days ago

AlexandrB

If the economic capacity is in "the service sector" it's going to be just about meaningless in a war.

3 days ago

owebmaster

> Not wrong, but GDP is a rough metric of economic and industrial capacity. So if Italy wanted to, it could convert its economy to produce tanks and missiles at a similar rate as Russia is doing.

Italy can make more expensive tanks that would amount to a bigger GDP. It doesn't mean it'll make more and better tanks.

3 days ago

throw0101a

> Italy can make more expensive tanks that would amount to a bigger GDP. It doesn't mean it'll make more and better tanks.

Just because Italy is making one kind of tank now does not preclude them making another type of tank later on. If a design change needs to be done, the important part is that there is some kind of tank building capability around, and the rest can be adjusted as needs arise.

2 days ago

owebmaster

Chinese tanks costs 5x less than Italian ones. Same GDP, different amounts of real assets. In the past people would use the quality excuse but that's not the case anymore, the Chinese ones are probably better.

a day ago

[deleted]

3 days ago

bethekidyouwant

yes all those guys selling drinks on the beach can just take a bus to the tank factory.

3 days ago

throw0101a

> yes all those guys selling drinks on the beach can just take a bus to the tank factory.

Exactly. (What do you think happened during WW2? When war broken out everyone learned to make tanks (and planes, and machine guns, and…). In Ukraine a whole bunch of people learned how to make drones that never made one before. )

2 days ago

paganel

> ity. So if Italy wanted to, it could convert its economy to produce tanks and missiles at a similar rate as Russia is doing.

This is pure NAFO-oid cope, which it shouldn’t surprise me seeing the technical audience here (no Svechin stans on HN, that’s for sure, knowing your Svechin doesn’t ever bring any VC money nor big-tech employment), but still. Back to arrr stupidpol for me.

3 days ago

8note

it doesnt, but it does speak to an ability to invest in tank production

dunno why youd want tanks and not drones though, when even russia's new tanks with anti-drone defenses can be taken out by 30ish drones

3 days ago

[deleted]

4 days ago

eigenspace

You are not very informed on the EU's artillery shell production capabilities.

If anything, the major gap is the EU's lack of cheap drone manufacturing, but even that is starting to make progress with help and integration from Ukraine.

4 days ago

paganel

> You are not very informed on the EU's artillery shell production capabilities.

> In 2025, Russia produced an estimated 7 million artillery shells,

vs.

> Germany has rapidly scaled up artillery ammunition production, led by defense giant Rheinmetall. Output targets have surged from roughly 70,000 shells per year prior to 2022 to a projected 1.1 million to 1.5 million rounds annually by 2027–2030,

so now vs. "projected" and Russia still heavily outnumbers the former Nazis.

They would just stand some suffering, but for sure 500 millions of motivated people can build more and faster than 100 millions of a Russia tied by deliberate anti-efficiency rules build to please oligarchs. The only question is how much damage could Russia do, before Moscow and St Petersburg are reduced to ashes as retaliation if they dare to try the final solution.

The hybrid war is the real problem. Russia can sponsor still many street "Syrian" terrorist attacks in Sweden, or cause a train wreck here and there, or burn Malibu for basically peanuts. They can do this for years and years.

3 days ago

realusername

You are deluded, the EU is an industrial powerhouse compared to Russia, what's missing is just the political will

4 days ago

I think that consumers will try to avoid the pain, and use vpns and fake addresses to get around the tariffs etc. The whole problem is that the EU is not providing an environment where software vendors can go as fast as the vendors in the US. This is not just a matter of regulations. It's the whole mindset that is too conservative to go fast. The whole 'throw 1000 things at the wall and see what sticks' is not something we europeans are used to.

3 days ago

piva00

> This is not just a matter of regulations. It's the whole mindset that is too conservative to go fast. The whole 'throw 1000 things at the wall and see what sticks' is not something we europeans are used to.

It's also a matter of two advantages the USA has:

1. being a homogeneous market culturally-linguistic, there are dozens of countries with very different cultures and languages in Europe, it's not as easy to scale continent-wide as it is to scale country-wide in the USA.

microtonal

Yes and no. A lot of the drones are developed by Ukraine in cooperation with companies in EU countries and production facilities are being opened quite rapidly in European countries (e.g. VDL in NL, Innokas in Finland). The EU is pumping a lot of money into Ukraine and we learn a lot from Ukraine.

3 days ago

eigenspace

The EU would strongly prefer to have US military support, but does not fundamentally need it. In the miltiary domain, but also lots of other domains, the EU is using these fake promises they made to Trump as a mechanism to buy time while they quietly work on removing US dependencies, and reducing US leverage.

4 days ago

vintermann

For what? Defense against Russia?

I suspect that if my country gave Putin what we give to the US - military bases where they can do whatever they please no questions asked, real-time intelligence access, unofficial favored supplier status for anything that might be control-relevant, quiet veto power over any national policy decision deemed "strategic" - then we wouldn't have to worry about invasion - from Russia anyway. Why invade what you already own?

I think that price is a little too steep, though. Not to mention that the US would then be at least as willing to topple governments/invade as Russia currently is.

4 days ago

tokai

Like a big naval base maybe? That should keep them from coming for you.

If you don't get it, I am talking about the Russian naval base on Crimea that helped directly in taking over Crimea.

3 days ago

vintermann

Russia invaded Ukraine because Ukraine tried to leave Putin's sphere of influence, pretty much everyone agrees on that.

3 days ago

Muromec

Did not help Armenia for some reason

3 days ago

8note

it wasn't russia that invaded armenia

3 days ago

If the plug is fully pulled, the EU could confiscate some European Azure/Office365 servers and 'put the software on the market'. Windows is even easier, I'm sure in such a situation the EU would be happy to limit the restrictions on reverse engineering to block license verification. I'm sure that there are some hard drives on European territory with the full Windows source code as well.

3 days ago

inigyou

Copyright is a sacred cow to EU politicians. Just look at how they resp9nded to the Stop Killing Games petition. No chance they make it legal to pirate anything.

2 days ago

s_dev

Tech is super important but it's not energy or food. The threat of a 'Microsoft Famine' would only lead to the EU being forced to send that money to China and develop it's own tech sector more thoroughly. The US was powerful precisely because of its allies supporting it. Threatening those same allies isn't going to get the US further ahead than it already is in the world. Yes, there would be massive disruption and lead to emergencies but the US wants to change the world order where it was already number 1 it is free to do so.

3 days ago

givinguflac

France would like a word:

https://www.techradar.com/computing/windows/france-has-ditch...

3 days ago

microtonal

There are so many things that can happen. Since tariffs are percentual, Microsoft could lower prices to avoid that companies will migrate to European alternatives.

In an all-out economic war, anything could happen. The source code of Microsoft products probably exists somewhere in Europe (since they have European offices) and definitely binaries, since it's run on European servers. Once nobody plays by the rules anymore, all bets are off.

That said, a trade war would hurt both badly and it would be an epic fail on the side of the US administration. (Since the EU would not start such a trade war by itself.)

3 days ago

tgsovlerkhgsel

The EU also stopped enforcing its laws (like DMA and GDPR) against US tech companies.

4 days ago

eigenspace

They paused some investigations while the negotiations happen, but most of those are back on track now.

4 days ago

Phelinofist

I agree with your top-level-ish reply - the response by the EU was certainly smart and there are some really interesting things going atm that will loosen the dependency on the US. But just for _feel good_ I would've liked at least a bit more of a fight.

But re:DMA see the most recent Apple app store post on here. Kinda feels like the EU folded too easily there as well.

3 days ago

eigenspace

We still haven't seen what the EU's reaction is to Apple's latest app store stunt.

This would not be the first time that Apple unilaterally claimed something was DMA compliant, and then the EU had to come out and say "no, that's clearly not"

3 days ago

Phelinofist

“The Commission welcomes the changes made by Apple to its commercial terms,” commented a spokesperson for the European Commission. This announcement, the spokesperson continues, is “the result of close dialogue between the Commission and Apple,” after the tech giant was found in April 2025 to have breached the rules of the Digital Markets Act (DMA) and ordered to take the necessary corrective measures. In light of these developments and the changes to be introduced, “the Commission will monitor Apple’s effective implementation of the new conditions.”

https://www.eunews.it/en/2026/08/18/tracking-and-new-commerc...

Not sure how credible this is though

3 days ago

eigenspace

Oh wow, I missed that they had spoken out on this. Yes, if that's real, it is truly disappointing.

3 days ago

microtonal

You mean how they fined Google for 890 million under the DMA on July 23, 2026? Or how the Dutch AP just fined Uber for 825 million a few days ago under the GDPR?

3 days ago

tgsovlerkhgsel

The very fine you mentioned should have already been issued in March according to https://www.heise.de/news/Stopp-von-Google-Strafe-Schwere-Vo... (Heise is one of the most reputable German IT news platforms).

Apple recently received a very favorable settlement instead of serious fines and enforcement actions for blatantly refusing to follow the DMA for the entire time it was in force.

In November 2025, they were working on gutting GDPR; I don't know what exactly actually passed so far.

3 days ago

shevy-java

> The only real concession the EU made was just allowing Trump to tariff them at a certain rate

No. Van der Leyen also promised EU investments into the USA. This is betrayal as well; that money should go into EU countries. Or Canada.

4 days ago

watwut

That was kind of an estimated sum of investments european companies planned to make anyway. It is not like eu started to build up im us.

4 days ago

myko

True, though the prudent move would be to stop investing in the US entirely

4 days ago

eigenspace

That's what I was talking about with the false promises.

The EU has no mechanism to make those investments in the USA, and no mechanism to force any member state or company to make investments.

They literally just made up a number and said "oh yes, we'll make a bunch of investments" with zero intention of doing anything to make it happen.

4 days ago

shimonabi

[flagged]

4 days ago

mytailorisrich

If Europe does't buy gas from Russia then that leaves Qatar and the US. Qatar does sell a lot to Europe (hence you'll notice how "friendly" Europe is towards Qatar) but is vulnerable to instability in the straight of Ormuz.

The US are making a fortune on gas at the expense of Europe an it's not that the promise to buy gas is meaningless because unenforceable within Europe, it's that it was already happening in practice. And that makes Europe even more dependent on the US (while the complaint was that we could't buy gas from Russia and depend on them).

4 days ago

Fordec

Norway, the North Sea via the UK and Algeria are right there as ready suppliers. All of which today supply more than Qatar. https://www.consilium.europa.eu/en/infographics/where-does-t...

Not to mention current EU stated goals is to reduce consumption by 50% by 2030. Which is coincidentally pretty US and Russia imports combined sized, and timed pretty well with the expiration date of the EU/US trade deal.

3 days ago

mytailorisrich

Good graph that shows how imports from the US have exploded since Russia invaded Ukraine...

The UK is the same as the rest of Europe. They don't leverage their gas reserves and have a shambolic renewables and nuclear strategy (or lack thereof...)

3 days ago

Fordec

UK has the seventh largest wind energy production per capita in the world and is 30% of their electricity and another 15% is nuclear. Have disagreements sure, but to say they lack a strategy says more about you than them.

> But this is also why the EU is aggressively pursuing and building up alternatives

Unfortunately, this couldn't be further from the truth:

https://cleantechnica.com/2026/07/12/head-of-iea-roasts-euro...

Here are some specific numbers:

https://ember-energy.org/app/uploads/2025/06/many-building-r...

The EU is heavily investing in renewables, but mainly to phase out coal rather than gas, and it's absolutely not electrifying its economy.

You can see this in the EU Emissions Trading System. It covers about 40% of all emissions, but leaves out buildings (dominated by gas) and transportation (dominated by oil). Since electricity is covered, it actually encourages oil and gas over electricity.

Furthermore, member states like Germany are resistant to taxing gas higher than electricity:

https://www.euronews.com/my-europe/2026/08/17/germany-warns-...

Despite the wars in Ukraine and Iran, gas is still encouraged over electricity in many European countries.

China and some other Asian countries have adopted the opposite approach. They aim to replace oil and gas by all possible means, including coal (although it's not the preferred choice).

4 days ago

eigenspace

While I agree I wish this would happen faster, it certainly is happening, and it's happening pretty quickly. Saying it "couldn't be further from the truth" is just silly hyperbole.

3 days ago

mytailorisrich

You are missing the point.

The EU has been massively increasing its imports of gas from the US since the war in Ukraine started.

Promising to buy US gas is not a false promise it is primising to do something that is already reality.

I think you also underestimate the links between government and energy companies when it comes to import policy, even if perhaps there nothing formal at EU level. On the other hand, you are also implicitly acknowledging those links when you mention pursuing alternative suppliers.

The only thing that Europe is "aggresively" doing is failing again and again on strategic issues.

3 days ago

jonkoops

There is plenty of gas in the EU; we decided that it was undesirable to extract. Honestly pathetic; strategic autonomy and energy security is much more important.

3 days ago

mytailorisrich

Yes. Strategically Europe keeps getting things wrong while, e.g., China keeps getting thingss right: they leverage their domestic coal reserves while going all in on nuclear and renewable, and they do it comprehensively with battery tech, solar panels tech, and EVs, too, as you can't lower dependency on foreign oil if all your cars run on petrol. But in fairness they didn't have the lobby of a powerful "legacy" auto industry (another textbook case of innovator's dilemma?)

3 days ago

chadgpt3

These countries need to grow a spine and make violating American copyright legal, or at least remove their anti circumvention laws.

4 days ago

palata

No need to make violating American copyright legal. Just remove their equivalent of the DMCA.

koonsolo

Meanwhile in Belgium (EU), company owners are recovering millions from the US government, possibly up to billion dollars for all of Belgium.

Don't assume EU is stupid.

https://www.vrt.be/vrtnws/nl/2026/08/18/voka-invoerheffingen...

3 days ago

kstenerud

Each bloc is handling Trump in their own way according to their needs and circumstances. This isn't a pissing contest, and public perception of them "folding" or not is largely irrelevant (which is why we have actual experts handling this and not the public).

Europe can afford to kick the can down the road and wring as much out of the remaining trade as possible while forging replacement deals with others in the meantime. They know how to buy time with Trump using flattery and sleight-of-hand, and are doing a pretty decent job of it given the rush.

Canada has no such luxury, because Trump already views Canada as weak and exploitable, and so his assaults and "we've decided to change the deal" will never end. That requires a different response tactic, even though it will cause a lot of short-term pain.

You'll also note the veiled threat in Carney's speech yesterday: "Canada fuels American growth: supplying 99 per cent of their natural gas imports, 85 per cent of their electricity imports, 60 per cent of their crude oil imports. I don’t think they want us to stop sending any of that energy."

Timing an energy war to November would be brutal.

3 days ago

It's crazy how bad media coverage is. All I can find are naked hitjobs by zionist rags and corporate news siding with Amazon over NY delivery subcontractors, that Mamdani is currently seeking to make into actual Amazon employees.

In short: he has balanced the city budget with a 2% tax increase on millionaires, matching New Jersey. He's moving to give every family free childcare. He has frozen rent for rent-controlled housing, and planning the construction of 200,000 more such apartments. He's fixing potholes (that part went viral, for some reason). And more.

Support is up in every demographics, including Jewish New Yorkers, that corpo dems were insisting would be threatened under Mamdani, in a cynical attempt at instrumenting islamophobia to win the election for their do-nothing candidate instead. Crime is down.

3 days ago

andsoitis

[dead]

3 days ago

natsucks

i like this comment.

4 days ago

eru

No, not good for Canada. Free trade is optimal, even if its unilateral.

Canada should abolish their tariffs and let the clowns in the US do whatever they feel like.

4 days ago

wood_spirit

Yanis Varoufakis - aside from being radically left and becoming the finance minister in Greece after their financial crisis hit - is a professor in game theory and economics.

He did a pretty good explanation of the difference between theory and practice in his Rest is Politics Leading podcast interview recently :).

Sticks in my mind and well worth listening.

4 days ago

eru

There's a reason his position ain't exactly the economic orthodoxy.

3 days ago

plufz

I guess it has a little to do with your goals. Optimal trade economically or avoiding giving something that looks like a win to this type of politicians with the goal of avoiding re-electing trump. I don’t know what science say here.

4 days ago

mittensc

Tarriffs will hurt your existing industries, they will lose sales/revenue.

Since you are getting hurt you play tit-for-tat to get the other to knock it off.

So you add export taxes to items they care about (oil/fertilizer/...) and compensate the losses incurred by existing industries.

You also add tarriffs on items that have alternatives, like alcohool.

Maybe add tarriffs on items with elastic prices, say 100% tarriff on digital services. Software services will have to adjust prices so they end up the same after tarriffs since few people will accept youtube or netflix doubling in price.

This hurts both countries but will get a result - either free trade or no trade.

In the meanwhile, Trump's entourage has derivative bets on this and take massive proffits shorting everyone. For them, this is all massively profitable.

3 days ago

eru

Import tariffs and export tariffs have approximately equal influence on your economy. That's known as Lerner Symmetry. (A very narrow version of this can be proven in a mathematical sense, but the empirical effect is broader.)

For bilateral trade it doesn't matter much whether country A imposes import tariffs or country B exposes export tariffs.

Basically, the whole talk about retaliatory tariffs is silly.

3 days ago

mittensc

> Basically, the whole talk about retaliatory tariffs is silly.

Why?, retaliatory - in response to US, tarriffs - taxes, whether on export or import, as you noted, doesnt matter much. Effect depends on who needs to either sell or buy the tarrifed items the most.

3 days ago

eru

I'm saying that the retaliation imposes basically the same costs on you that you are trying to avoid by getting the other guy to lower their tariffs.

Just cut the crap, and unilaterally remove your tariffs and refuse to play the game. If the US wants to tax their importers, that's their own domestic silliness.

3 days ago

intended

In a vacuum or thought experiment.

China put tariffs specifically on the sectors that voted for Trump and depended on sales to China.

3 days ago

bhouston

What Canada is doing is turning to trade with other countries. It is the main solution we have to this issue. It is a long game, but necessary.

3 days ago

make3

3 days ago

LeBit

Not sure what your argument is.

Ukraine is keeping its head out of the water despite Trump doing everything it can to help Russia. It shows how much Ukraine is resilient and innovative with drones.

Trump has depleted the ammo needed by Ukraine and Taiwan.

Imagine if he had helped Ukraine by forcing Musk to provide Starlink connections reliably and provided Patriots as needed.

3 days ago

Pxtl

It won't. This isn't the first time Canada has had to stand alone against Trump while the rest of the world goes along to get along.

> Though I assume this will cause pain for everyone.

The party line for why the US tariffs are bad is that the US tariffs are bad for US customers and won’t hurt the US exporting countries.

Why won’t the same logic apply to Canadian tariffs?

3 days ago

fidotron

This was totally the right move, if for no other reason than it's the only thing that this US admin will respect in the long run.

Being in Canada though this does look v. short sighted of the US. All this is going to achieve is pushing Canada much closer to other countries, particularly China, which at least superficially these negotiations were meant to prevent.

4 days ago

heresie-dabord

Trump and MAGA have destroyed the good relationships and trust that the US had built throughout the world. Canada's Prime Minister wrote [1]:

"We have recognised from the beginning that America has changed, and that we will not return to our old relationship. Our government understood, before many, that America is altering all its trade relationships. Putting tariffs on its closest allies and charging for access to its vast market."

[1] _ https://www.pm.gc.ca/en/news/statements/2026/08/21/statement...

3 days ago

3 days ago

speed_spread

Ah yes, Disney's Frozen philosophy. "Let's stop pretending having to much power is a curse."

3 days ago

TheSkyHasEyes

> All this is going to achieve is pushing Canada much closer to other countries

The world is watching this story just like the world watched Davos.

Last night will encourage further decoupling of the US for nations other than Canada.

idk if Trump 2028 will happen or not. I will say with conviction no matter who is in office by then will not rebuild trust around the world in their tenure. Too much damage is done to the US's reputation.

3 days ago

gWPVhyxPHqvk

> I will say with conviction no matter who is in office by then will not rebuild trust around the world in their tenure. Too much damage is done to the US's reputation.

The only way that the US can start rebuilding this trust is that the incoming Democratic President and Congress (assuming we are so lucky) immediately starts by prosecuting Trump and his family (and results in actual jail time, not just fines or small stays), zero out their government contracts, fire most of the people installed in government since 2025, expand the Supreme Court, and remove the fillibuster. I know people think ideas like that are extreme, but really, what else is going to convince the rest of the world that the US has cleaned up their act? It has to start at home first.

3 days ago

8note

That still will not convince anyone to trust the US. At any moment a new US president and congress can come in and do the same thing.

a de-nazification program similar to germany post-WW2, combined with a shredding and full rewrite of the US Constitution by western allies to bring it in line with estonia's as an example, in addition to clearing house with the Trumps is the kinda thing that would start building trust

3 days ago

Grosvenor

Why bring the constitution in line with Estonia's? What's special about them?

3 days ago

irishcoffee

I can just about garuntee you that civil war will happen in the US before it allows other to write its constitution. That is a hell of a take.

3 days ago

unethical_ban

I think the above person is correct, and you are on the right track.

I'm not hopeful for a full Constitutional Convention, but every possible effort by any means must be made to put into law every "unwritten norm" that the Trump administration took advantage of.

Impeachment is the mechanism to remove a rogue president, and the entire GOP is party to a "soft coup" against the Constitution of the United States. I agree it will take a complete societal rejection of MAGA and the Unitary Executive theory for allies to ever trust the US again.

3 days ago

HEmanZ

There is absolutely nothing that will end American democracy faster than jailing Trump. The moment it becomes clear that the cost of losing is personal jail time for you and your family, every politician in the game has to start playing for blood, and everyone with power has to chose rubicon or jail.

If Trump goes to prison, that’s when I leave, because that will be the moment historians point to as “no going back”.

3 days ago

krapp

The United States isn't a monarchy, we fought a whole war to establish that. Our leaders aren't meant to be above the law. If our "democracy" can't survive putting even a President in jail for their crimes than it doesn't deserve to survive.

and do other countries really put their criminal official in jail? do they establish any kind of restitution to the victims?

can you really point to a single government where they dont illegally communicate outside of logged channels, or any such things, to scam the voters? or where they intentionally promise something they have zero intention of keeping, or lying about whether its possible. and of course some such things are not considered crimes because the very people who would then be violating the law would be the ones who MAKE the law.

mullingitover

> He’s seen by at least 50% of the population as completely valid.

This is laughable.

He never hit 50% in the popular vote, and that doesn’t count the ‘none of the above/don’t care’ non-voters. That was at the peak of the oligarch-funded campaign that saw record-smashing spending and advertising to gin up support.

His popularity immediately fell after the election and has been sliding the entire time he’s been in office. A majority of voters supported his impeachment shortly after he started the Iran war in back April and he’s even more unpopular now.

3 days ago

krapp

> If you only support democracy when your side wins then you are just an authoritarian who wants democratic cover.

Yeah, no. Obviously not what I said, or what my comment implied, and you're not even trying to respond in good faith.

3 days ago

HEmanZ

No sorry I’ll be more nuanced.

Unless Trump does something egregious enough in the coming years that the case against him is rock solid, black and white, and heavy, any move to jail him and those around him is impossible to distinguish from political targeting. I have not seen evidence of something out of line enough, no matter what Reddit hive mind thinks.

So with the knowledge I have, I’d say any serious push to jail him and his team would be terrifying. If we get crystal evidence of bribery that holds up in court and is clear enough to sway a large swath of Republicans, then that’s great. Still a worse outcome than there not being something black and white to nail him with, but I think that case democracy survives. But not “trumped up” charges.

His approval rating is somewhere between 30%-35% depending on the poll. So no it's not 50%.

> You’re just as bad as Trump.

No, Trump's 2nd term is in the running for most corrupt administration in American history. Even what Nixon did would just be another scandal for this administration that would leave the news cycle in a couple weeks.

He, or at least his officials and family need to be held accountable. That is the right, just and Constitutional thing to do.

3 days ago

8note

democracy is already dead of you cant jail trump when he does crimes

3 days ago

gWPVhyxPHqvk

Right, we've already crossed the parent commenter's "no going back point" if we can't hold our leaders accountable. We instead have a king with a different title.

3 days ago

tene80i

The cost of losing is only jail time for criminals. Your alternative is a carte blanche for any number of crimes in office.

3 days ago

HEmanZ

My point isn’t “president should be above law”. My point is that, if Trump and admin go to prison on charges that are not so strong that it sways a large portion of the public and republicans, we’re fucked. Regardless of the underlying truth of the case, regardless of what I think is just or unjust, we’re fucked. Because unless it’s convincing enough that republicans also agree, then it’s death spiral.

So I’m hoping the justice department either doesn’t have enough of a case to convict, or has enough of a case that the whole country falls in line. The in between, it’s time to get out. Because shit will go downhill very fast.

3 days ago

justin66

> Because unless it’s convincing enough that republicans also agree, then it’s death spiral.

So what you're saying is that the Republicans would become an angry party consisting of those who embrace impunity for their politicians regardless of the brazenness with which they break the law.

I really cannot imagine what that would be like.

3 days ago

unethical_ban

Then the republic of already dead, because republicans will never believe their eyes.

3 days ago

kashunstva

It’s reasonably clear to anyone paying attention that Trump has been systematically engaging in various flavours of corruption. Prosecuting the man for illegal activities isn’t predicated on his party losing an election; it would be a matter of law. If you cannot support upholding the law because of some fear that MAGA would revolt, then the downfall you predict isn’t a remote event, it’s already here.

3 days ago

tremon

> The moment it becomes clear that the cost of losing is personal jail time for you and your family

That has always been clear, seeing how it is the default mode of operation for empires throughout history. The solution here is separation of powers: the ruler itself is bound by rules and institutions that provide a check on their power, and in turn those institutions protect the ruler after stepping down.

It is Trump and the Republican party that chose to abandon that solution. There already is no going back from that choice.

3 days ago

01100011

The US admin is basically Trump. Saying Trump will respect Canadian strength shows you are making the same mistake other people keep making in thinking Trump is somehow like them or is consistent enough to predict. I don't think Trump is a rational actor. He is a collection of ephemeral positions lacking coherence accumulated from random sources.

3 days ago

andrewflnr

I think the Trump admin is more complicated than just Trump, if only because he doesn't have enough marbles left to run the whole thing. That said, power, pain, and dominance are the one thing he does actually understand, and that's what Canada is showing him. It's as close as we can get to a signal that will reach him and the varying grades of fool he surrounds himself with.

3 days ago

rifty

I would too argue it wouldn't be respect but he responds to lines when it's forced upon him for sake of making things difficult in the face him chasing easy wins. You need to prove to him that the reality and consequences you propose exist and are material. Does it guarantee better behaviour from him? No. Because he also has a vindictive side for which he will exercise if he sees a chance to be. But likely you'll experience different approaches despite chasing similar ends.

But the audience of this transaction isn't just the microcosm of Trump in the world at large and time at long. Canadian's supporting their government standing on doing things the right way will set the right expectations for others when dealing with them.

3 days ago

bhouston

> This was totally the right move, if for no other reason than it's the only thing that this US admin will respect in the long run.

Unfortunately, Canada (where I live) will feel way more pain from this than the US. I am not sure Trump will have respect for this at all, but the alternative was to put in a permanent trade deal that significant disadvantaged Canada.

4 days ago

microtonal

I know that this is insanely complex with everybody protecting their own economies, but I think this is where middle powers working together more strongly could help. Imagine that Canada, the EU, and Britain worked together as an economic NATO, where a tariff attack on one is a tariff attack on all. It would hurt the US much more to bully one of these economies.

4 days ago

ricardobeat

Canada and the EU already have a trade agreement since 2016. The UK economy is about 1/5th that of the EU, not enough to move the dial, and they kind of went off in the opposite direction around that same time...

3 days ago

ajsnigrutin

You'd need n^2 "NATO"'s then, because EU has implemented many really shitty policies too and someone would want to fight back against that too. UK may do the same.

And we already have an actual NATO example, where one member attacks countries around the world, one of those countries fights back, threathening to attack american bases even in europe if needed... and now other nato members might get involved in a war that was started by one of it's own members, that no one else really wanted, and side on the side of the agressor ( https://www.aa.com.tr/en/europe/nato-chief-reaffirms-allianc... ). To turn back into economics, what happens when EU declares an "economic war" against china, china retalites (by eg. banning exports of something we really need)... does canada go along and threathen it's own economy? Or do they form a new "NATO" with "everyone-else except EU"?

3 days ago

fifilura

UK used to have that kind of protection up until a few years ago, but they decided it was not worth it.

3 days ago

timbit42

They were tricked into throwing it away.

13 hours ago

fidotron

There is also the factor that Canada has been propping up unsustainable dead end industries on a massive scale for years, and that this will make any pain from such a situation, deal or no deal, that much worse.

Doesn't that make dairy an especially poor food to weather conflict as it is, generally, quite hard to keep from spoiling? Your case might be stronger if we were talking about wheat or something like that which can sit idly in bins for long periods of time, but there is no such protections on it or anything else other than poultry and eggs which are also hard to maintain.

3 days ago

I-M-S

Food is much more important on Maslow's hierarchy than taxis.

3 days ago

Is anyone else getting that feeling about hearing the world "deal" so much that it's losing any meaning whatsoever?

What exactly does this word mean? It definitely doesn't mean a stable set of agreements that can be relied upon to ensure a stable future business environment. That's not in the cards.

You can't respect someone who doesn't respect their self. It's a mistake to attribute personality features to countries, but not to their leaders.

Similarly, people who don't have self-respect don't respect others.

4 days ago

sanderjd

I think you're right that this will be more painful for Canada, economically, but I'm not so sure about "way more". But politically, it will be much more painful for the US side of the negotiation than for the Canadian side. The Carney administration is on much firmer political ground than the Trump administration. Time is on Carney's side.

3 days ago

qball

>The Carney administration is on much firmer political ground

I don't think so. Time really isn't on Carney's side either.

Carney's new tariffs fall on those who, in aggregate, did not vote for him. The average Carney voter has been very vocal about wanting to pursue this tactic- that's why they elected him. (That average voter is an Eastern retiree whose holdings are generally in real estate, so they don't care about any other economic sector beyond that which keeps their property values high, especially compared to the feel-good Elbows Up stuff.)

But Carney's currently having trouble just keeping the country together at this point. That's why he's approving projects he really doesn't want to approve out West, like those oil pipelines, because the West has credibly signaled that that they might just ban Carney and his Eastern voting block from making law and collecting tax from them if development of their part of the country is hindered any further. But if it's not hindered, they'll grow in political power, which is also an inherent threat to Ottawa's power (just not immediately).

And yet here Carney is- for the second time now- imposing more economic roadblocks that drive up consumer prices and put more people out of work for no reason other than his voting block wanting it that way. "Just retaliate" might be the least bad option for Carney to pander to that voting block, but every concession to them drives the country closer to separation, and that has time pressure too.

3 days ago

kannanvijayan

I think you're mistaken about the effect that the Albertan premier's artificially manufactured "independence" campaign is having on the electorate.

Outside of the small fringe communities that support it, the reaction of the broader country has been to actually shift MORE into hardline stances against the US, as the effort is seen largely as an American manufactured thing.

Additionally, I'd advise to take with caution perspectives from any sources that would characterize the province of Alberta as "the west".

3 days ago

teunispeters

I'm so tired of Albertan exceptionalists grabbing attention. They annoy their neighbours no end (including far too many Albertans I know).

3 days ago

qball

>the broader country

Not really, though. Despite what even a good chunk of Canadians (or yourself) might think, the country doesn't end at Toronto.

If the government wasn't worried about the effects, they wouldn't be in any hurry to approve the infrastructure projects; they've been in the works for a very long time, stalled out. Urban Easterners claim to believe the planet will explode if they're built, and the governments they elect act accordingly, but it's really just a power thing.

Additionally, I'd advise you to not think you know better than the people that actually live here.

3 days ago

kannanvijayan

This sort of rhetoric leads me to believe you've been enmeshed in the online and more um.. "engaging", rhetoric on this which no doubt paints a very compelling narrative.

The government's actions are much better explained by a sudden actual, panicked focus on actual development of the economy towards some combination of diversification and domestic demand - after the governing party's leader was replaced by arguably a much more results oriented PM after having been governed for a while by a much more vibes oriented PM.

Opening up the pipeline projects required more than just "conceding" to Alberta, it required negotiating with BC and the native tribes that would have a say in the path and ensuring they got the concessions they needed. Boring work. Not really meme material and doesn't make the headlines.

Between all the things the government has been doing - the oil sector work, the acceleration of military procurement, the various bilateral trade agreements, and work on easing internal trade restrictions, acceleration of internal projects - it's easy for some interest or another to cherry pick a particular set of events and use them to paint a narrative.

These narratives would be more compelling and maybe work better at other times, but the issue currently is that the American president is just so effective at drowning out any of these. There's nothing quite so unifying as an obnoxious tyrant rambling on about your country in disrespectful terms.

  > The thing that I really struggle to understand is what the grand vision behind this is.

Religious zealots and the new barons want to go back to the Gilded age. If that means the house needs to burn down first, the house will burn down first. In the mean time, there is lots to gain from crises.

This is something so far removed from the way normal, constructive way people (have to) think and behave with each other as a prereq to participate in society that they will inevitably fail to see this parasitical dynamic, because there is no way they can relate to that from their own frames. Even when we learn about this we will instinctively dismiss it. It doesn't fit our frame of reference, so we decide this can't be true.

3 days ago

Spooky23

Perhaps, but Canada will emerge stronger. The US doing to flip Congress by a margin of 2 and just lock in Trump insanity until something really bad pops.

3 days ago

pluc

The problem is they're also stifling trade with China. We still have quotas on Chinese cars so that they don't flood the market with affordable cars to preserve our (yours and ours) inferior car industry.

It's basically what Canada is doing to the US with dairy, except with Chinese cars.

4 days ago

fidotron

What is going to happen is this lack of deal will accelerate the (inevitable) decline of the Canadian car industry, which will reduce objections to the Chinese imports leading to those quotas changing in an ever accelerating feedback loop.

From the US strategic perspective this is moving out of the frying pan and into the fire.

4 days ago

jbm

I don't understand this and would like a clarification.

There are zero Canadian automobile assemblers; they are Canadian subsidiaries of American companies, with some parts manufacturers being here.

Assuming American companies (and companies from subordinates like Japan) leave, what would be the problem in having a similar relationship with China? Is it because their manufacturing is more integrated?

3 days ago

bardak

The American, and other auto makers, only manufacturers in Canada because the Canadian and American auto markets have been integrated for over 80 years. Removing Canada's access to the American market basically makes Canadian auto manufacturing uncompetitive since Canada isn't a big enough market to sustain a domestic auto market.

3 days ago

turbobrew

> There are zero Canadian automobile assemblers; they are Canadian subsidiaries of American

timbit42

In my mind, the goal isn't to replace the US with China, but to lean into many countries, China being necessary due to being the only place to get many things. In the end, the goal isn't trade with China with as high a percentage as our trade is with the US but to use China to help us move away from the US which is currently more hostile than China, at least unless/until China becomes more hostile, but never allow any country to have more than perhaps 20% of our trade. Ultimately I would like to see Canada stay away from China as much as possible due to its lack of human rights, freedoms, democracy, etc. just as with all other countries with these issues, but we can't do it in only a few years.

10 hours ago

TacticalCoder

I'm in the EU and my masters did hand over the car market to chinese cars and this was a very stupid move.

Some EU carmakers are fighting back but it's very hard when politicians managed to have energy price in the EU being about 7x higher than those carmakers in China do pay.

I'm not for tariffs but China is dumping and if we don't all want to end up being vassals of China, we should at least protect some of our industries.

And as "good" as chinese EVs are, I'm sorry but they're not anywhere near the quality of, say, what German cars used to be.

If western carmakers had been given a reasonable timeline to switch to EVs and reasonable energy price, the situation would be different.

EU carmakers may be saved by people preferring to buy cars from their own continent but that remains to be seen. The latest BMW EVs, for example (once you remove the spying / remote control issues: but that affects chinese EVs doubly so), are apparently very fine machines.

3 days ago

sokoloff

> not anywhere near the quality of, say, what German cars used to be.

To be fair, German cars aren’t anywhere near the quality that German cars used to be, either.

3 days ago

bilbo0s

>and reasonable energy price

Nice Jedi Hand Wave there.

That's the issue.

China invested in producing cheap energy. Most of the rest of the world did not.

At root, economics is about turning energy into goods and services. If the root industrial input of your competitor is cheaper than the cost of that same root industrial input to you, you're gonna need some incredible efficiencies elsewhere in that production pipeline to pull even.

At this point, the EU should be all about keeping the other major powers at arm's length, (economically and militarily), while pursuing renewable electrification with all deliberate speed.

That should be everyone else' strategy going forward as well by the way. Without cheap energy in the next global economic phase, your nation or bloc is dead in the water.

3 days ago

AlexandrB

> China invested in producing cheap energy.

You mean coal[1][2]?

[1] https://www.carbonbrief.org/chinas-construction-of-new-coal-...

[2] https://www.forbes.com/sites/katharinabuchholz/2026/02/27/ch...

3 days ago

forestrywat

Did the parent say clean energy or cheap energy? Obviously yes, coal.

Though coal has dropped as a percentage of their portfolio fairly dramatically, and in absolute twh has been stable since 2010, with other energy sources growing.

3 days ago

Supermancho

These two things (investment in green energy and coal) can be true at the same time.

3 days ago

8note

you dont really need to get involved in the ai arms race though. a late comer will still benefit from better designed at higher volume lower energy chips, and good enough open weight models.

3 days ago

Flamkuchlo

There is a huge difference between breaking partnerships by fast uni-directional policies vs. slow uni-directional or bi-directional policies.

EU and even USA should start doing something reasonable. Like introducing quota on how much overall can be imported/exported to protect local markets. Like lets say 40%.

Everyone gets a piece of cake.

But lets be honest, germany (my country) also never played fair. We gained quite a lot of export strength through the Euro and overall german politics.

And its not just the energy prices, it was quite clear what the energy prices going to be but no one really invested into reducing them early or fast enough at all. No one cared. BMW new factory in hungarie though does has a lot more reneablw and was able to continue production despite hungaries energy issue.

In China a person makes 500-1000 per month, in germany the same person makes a lot more.

China you have raw resources and cheap labor and cheap energy on EVERY SINGLE point of the process. From iron ore to the assembly itself.

And it doesn't matter much anyway because with the current and future grade of automatisation, a lot less money is getting directly to the people.

We need laws enforcing the rich to pay the taxes and/or invest A LOT more a lot faster and a lot broader.

We need real politics and not this garbage happening in germany or in the USA or in Russia.

3 days ago

sagarm

I haven't previously heard the claim that China can make vehicles cheaply primarily because of energy costs.

What percentage of European automotive manufacturing costs come from energy?

3 days ago

vachina

> quality of, say, what German cars used to be.

They are 80% there for 30% the price as a consumer it’s a tremendous deal

3 days ago

lowbloodsugar

Ask why does China have cheap energy. Indeed, why was China able to save Trumps ass by halving its oil imports and preventing a catastrophic meltdown of oil-driven economies?

3 days ago

chrisjj

> that this US admin will respect in the long run.

Thankfully this US admin has ensured it won't have a long run.

3 days ago

spiderfarmer

> it's the only thing that this US admin will respect in the long run

They don't respect anything. They stand for nothing. Their only concern is to pay lip service to Trump's crazy ideas.

4 days ago

microtonal

Trump's crazy ideas

s/Trump.*ideas/Line their own pockets/

For example, the first tariff wave was a huge transfer of wealth from citizens to corporations in the OBBBA. First, the income from tariffs was projected to offset the tax cuts for the rich and corporations. Then, when the Supreme Court found them unlawful, the money had to be returned. But first the corporations let consumers pay the tariffs by increasing product prices, but now it is the same companies who get the tariff refunds. And since they are obviously not going to give the money back to the customer, it lined their pockets.

4 days ago

dgellow

They stand for Project 2025 and the Maralago Accord, and the ideology behind them. So far they followed both projects quite closely. Trump is a tool they have to manage to reach their goals

Also, of course, extracting as much money from the state as possible

4 days ago

JKCalhoun

Had to look up "Maralago Accord": https://marketwise.com/investing/what-is-the-mar-a-lago-acco...

Wow, a global Great Depression II really does look like it is in the cards.

3 days ago

spiderfarmer

Those people always assume like the US can do stuff in a vacuum. And they always underestimate how smart other economies will respond to the chaos. Most big economies are in a better position than the USA.

3 days ago

dgellow

FWIW it’s what Vance has been hinting at multiple times in recent public statements, and what Bessents seems to be following

3 days ago

tw04

As I’ve said from the beginning, just ask yourself: what would Putin want?

Every baffling, self destructive move Trump makes, basically always aligns to a long stated goal of Russia.

3 days ago

fidotron

Putin wanted Trump to decapitate the Iranian regime?

Let's be serious, that has nothing to do with the Canadian situation, which has more than enough going on without needing to imagine things.

3 days ago

luke5441

Yes, it has that effect. It is just IMO unlikely that this was planned and steered by Putin. If he was that smart he either would not have started the war with Ukraine or would have won the war with Ukraine.

The war with Ukraine is currently doing huge damage to Russia. Maybe Putin wants to be more securely in charge of a diminished Russia. IMO again, I doubt that.

3 days ago

But Russia and Putin can end the war at their earliest convenience. Your perspective discounts the agency of the aggressor, places all agency in weaponry (as opposed to the will of the defenders) and doesn't acknowledge that the Biden approach offered a continuous off-ramp that should have been taken. I'm not sure how allowing Russia to not suffer defeat means that they must continue their barbaric war against Ukraine.

3 days ago

nostrademons

They can't, really. Putin's domestic power base will not let him suffer a defeat. His power is predicated on seeming all-powerful; once he doesn't, then other internal threats within Russia which have been kept at bay by fear will be emboldened, and the Russian state collapses. This is a worse security outcome for the U.S. than having a hostile dictator in charge of Russia; with the status quo, at least the enemy is visible, we know who has the nuclear launch codes, and his future actions can be reasoned about, while if a nuclear-armed state descends into anarchy we have no idea who the threat is and they have no incentive not to launch.

The mistake here is in seeing this as a clash of two nation-states that are each unified actors. Humans have agency; states are social constructs. It is quite possible for a state to disintegrate if the ideas holding it together are proven false. The Soviet Union did just that 35 years ago, and it could easily happen again this generation.

a day ago

timcobb

> Putin's domestic power base will not let him suffer a defeat.

Too bad though, don't start wars man. No one is going to throw you a bone if you start a war that no one else wants happening. If you star a war, you need to be able to finish it. It's like that Seinfeld line about the car reservation, except wars. You don't get points for being scary, you get points for winning.

> This is a worse security outcome for the U.S. than having a hostile dictator in charge of Russia;

I disagree... bigger picture we don't want this kind of thing festering, it never works out well. It's not managable, despite people acting like these things can be managed. They can't, and that's why we're seeing this situation. Similar to Hamas in Gaza. It was left to fester, thought it had more clout and power than it did, and look what happened. Nothing good.

> The Soviet Union did just that 35 years ago, and it could easily happen again this generation.

Russia is going to fall apart, we're going to be left with Muscovy, God willing.

a day ago

whatisthiseven

Putin wanted the US military presence in the middle east to be severely crippled, which it is now.

He would also want the munitions stockpile to be depleted, which it is now.

Though I do agree, not literally every move Trump does is on a string from Putin and the Iran war isn't one; it sure still is mighty convenient all the same to make the US military look weak and incompetent.

3 days ago

maratc

I'm confused. Is he a Putin's puppet or Netanyahu's? He can't be both: these two don't align.

3 days ago

geoka9

> He can't be both: these two don't align.

They could be both pulling at the strings, often in different directions with varying success. It could even be tracked by the people going in and out of favor with the admin: MTG, Carlson, Gubbard riding high? Russia's pull is stronger. Them becoming pariahs reduced to criticizing the Iran war from the peanut gallery? Israel has taken over.

3 days ago

maratc

My actual argument is that the theory that he's a puppet being pulled is not a serious one. Much like a chocolate for hunger, it's just an intellectually lazy explanation for people who look for intellectually lazy explanations.

3 days ago

geoka9

3 days ago

kjellsbells

If Alice and Bob strike a deal then Alice must be confident that an acceptable subset of her interests are met and that Bob will stick to the deal.

If Bob shows evidence of not sticking to deals, there's little point in Alice striking any deal.

4 days ago

dennis_jeeves2

[flagged]

3 days ago

cdrnsf

Everything the current US administration has done has been an unmitigated disaster. Tariffs are taxes. Manufacturing is still declining, not returning and a man who could not run casinos successfully is not going to change that. His economic and foreign policy are dictated entirely based on who flatters him the most. Add to that continued environmental damage, domestic policy dictated by a regressive religious minority and a lack of interest in performing the duties of the position in favor of caring about only what it can be leveraged for. A failing state operating on grievances and stupidity.

3 days ago

brightball

I get that statistics can be manipulated but...

https://www.ismworld.org/supply-management-news-and-reports/...

> Economic activity in the manufacturing sector expanded in July for the seventh consecutive month, say the nation’s supply executives in the latest ISM® Manufacturing PMI® Report.

> The report was issued today by Susan Spence, MBA, Chair of the Institute for Supply Management® (ISM®) Manufacturing Business Survey Committee.

  > it's not like china they making cars or batteries or chips by hand

That was true a while back but less so now. Chinese companies are moving to "dark factories", which can function autonomously without humans (hence no need for lighting).

https://www.reddit.com/r/ArtificialInteligence/comments/1jci...

3 days ago

[deleted]

3 days ago

tialaramex

I think you've misunderstood the sense of the comment you're quoting

They mean it is not the case that in China they make these things by hand.

3 days ago

michaelt

> Manufacturing has never really declined in US, not in absolute terms.

Is a factory making 2GB RAM chips twice as productive as one making 1GB RAM sticks?

Because if manufacturing output is merely constant while chipmakers’ output has skyrocketed (on paper, as PCs went from 32MB RAM to 32GB over a few decades), other manufacturing output must have fallen a great deal.

3 days ago

edgyquant

[flagged]

3 days ago

driverdan

What are they manufacturing? It must not involve any metal. Due to the tariffs on metals manufacturing costs have increased significantly for anyone using them.

3 days ago

lobsterthief

It must not involve electrical components either, or any of the other inputs the US cannot produce at the scale or price-point of other countries.

3 days ago

MisterTea

As someone who grew up in a machine shop, still in manufacturing, and have my own hobby shop, its gross how much raw materials cost. I can get finished parts shipped from China cheaper then I can buy the raw material here in the US. I almost wept looking at over $500 for a simple 2x4 foot sheet of 1/2 inch thick 6061 aluminum.

Inconel is through the roof and I know a few aerospace clients who are MONTHS behind due to shortages and bonkers material costs. Like holding up the military supply chain which is ludicrous. This admin is brain dead.

3 days ago

sandworm101

It is going to get worse. Iron/steel and aluminum are some of the most common elements on the planet. They are literally everywhere. The cost is in the energy for production, and to a lesser extent transport. But energy is not only going to become more expensive but actually hard to get (thank you again AI). Canada has energy, from empty land for wind/solar/hydro, to oil, to enormous piles of uranium ore. That is not an enemy worth making.

3 days ago

nine_k

I remember people taking about smelting aluminum as a way to put overproduced solar electricity to a good use. Would come in very handy now.

3 days ago

sandworm101

> They still voted for Trump but they can't deny the cause and effect.

I'm sure fox news will give them some Olympic tier training in mental gymnastics and they'll be blaming - with certainty and conviction - brown people, democrats, trans people and/or women in no time.

> I don't understand how they manage to deal with the cognitive dissonance.

A family friend recently sent me this and it's been helpful to wrap my head around some of the naked hypocrisy:

``` The reason they aren’t more bothered by Q constantly getting things wrong, why they aren’t more bothered by the extreme inconsistencies and outright contradictions, by the claims that are just materially wrong, is because it gives them power over others who are bound by something as weak and flimsy as reality.

They claim to be against corruption while hanging their hopes on an openly corrupt man, and that naked hypocrisy is the point.

They will effortlessly carve out an exception because it makes them exceptional. They engage in wild hypocrisy as an act of domination, adhering to something demonstrably untrue out of spite, because they believe that power belongs to those with the greatest will to take it, and what greater sign of will than the ability to override truth?

Their will is a hammer that they are useing to beat reality itself into a shape of their choosing, a simple world where reality is exactly what it looks like through their eyes, devoid of complexity, devoid of change, where they are right and their enemies are silent.

They are trying to build a Flat Earth. ```

3 days ago

deeg

I think it's simpler. He hates the same people they hate and he's willing to ignore the constitution to bring pain to those people. As long as that's true they'll put up with the corruption.

3 days ago

shoopadoop

Well said. It's a psychological defense mechanism to cope with the anxiety of their existence. It makes no sense because it comes from the amygdala.

3 days ago

specialist

Which in turn largely forms identity.

3 days ago

switchbak

I think you’re ascribing malice where stupidity would suffice. Raw tribal stupidity.

And of course there’s those that know exactly how wrong and awful this is, but support it out of self interest anyway (eg: Marco Rubio). That’s even worse.

3 days ago

specialist

Probably the same reason as everyone else (voting for Trump).

Why Farmers Voted for Trump https://youtube.com/watch?v=badGHJLDpP8

Followup https://youtube.com/watch?v=rZQxCvbLG6U

3 days ago

Tanoc

Spite for others can overpower any self interest. If the person has been shaped by past experiences to rely on spiteful actions as a coping mechanism they will struggle to do anything else. The reward centers in their brain respond more to the disadvantage their actions have caused the other party rather than any advantage they create for themselves. Rebecca Kazinka's actually been doing studies on this for a few years now if you want some reading.

3 days ago

Terr_

I'm certainly not alone in trying to make sense of it all without completely destroying my faith in averaged-out humanity.

A hypothesis: The "spite" is secondary to their insecurity and fear of not belonging to a "safe" group, in a world they assume has vicious and unavoidable hierarchies or cruelty. Having the out-group hurt (or even just baffled) occurs in service of that.

Professing and supporting stupid beliefs is "loyalty", an expensive (and therefore prominent) signal of membership. Like tattooing Dear Leader's name on one's forehead. It's less an opinion one holds and more a song they sing to fit in with the flock.

I find that focus on insecurity and loneliness and fear—versus the reward of belonging—a bit more comprehensible than spite as its own reward.

3 days ago

specialist

Preach.

AKA shibboleths

Further, the rhetoric creates a permission structure which allows (enables?) people to be their worst selves.

3 days ago

lobsterthief

What’s your sample size? Unless it’s 30+ politically-neutral manufacturing founders, you’re citing anecdotal evidence.

3 days ago

dominotw

why aren't these comments on top comment on this post saying this with no evidence "Manufacturing is still declining, not returning and a man "

3 days ago

solid_fuel

Probably because manufacturing is still declining, not returning.

3 days ago

thiht

> Every founder I know in manufacturing is thankful for this admin

Who exactly is this ill mannered counterpart to Trudeau? Please tell me you’re not talking about Trump here?

Trudeau was a colossal cluster f of a prime minister, but he’s nowhere in the same ballpark.

3 days ago

gyanchawdhary

really ? one resigned after turning his country into a dumping ground through disastrous immigration policies .. while the other restricted immigration .. put his own citizens first .. and generally shook up a complacent West .. and you think ther are not in the same ballpark? Let me ask you, in what ballpark would you put Trump in ? up there wkth Hitler ? Stalin ? You would wouldn’t you ?

3 days ago

fluidcruft

Tariffs end up being worse than taxes. They get collected, passed on to consumers, overturned by courts, and then handed to the companies that raided prices.

3 days ago

ajmurmann

They are worse in other ways as well. They reduce incentive for local businesses to be competitive. They also make it harder to be competitive because access to top manufacturing equipment becomes harder. To get incompatibility similar to Galapagos effect as tariffs remain.

Argentina and Brazil should be a warning example to everyone. The paper Argentina Paradox by Taylor gives good insights into how trade barriers played a fundamental role in hurting this once very prosperous economy.

3 days ago

throwitaway222

I think they proved last year that most of the tarrifs were not going to consumers. It actually worked as an excellent business tax that did not get passed on. High tariffs are leftist ideology.

3 days ago

narmiouh

Reference?

Here is an article from the newyorkfed with an excerpt which isn't in line with what you are claiming. And it is quite likely that even those that didn't raise prices initially, aren't going to keep absorbing those costs forever (no such thing as free-lunch), these studies were done only 3 months into the tarriffs.

https://libertystreeteconomics.newyorkfed.org/2025/06/are-bu...

"Consistent with textbook economics, tariffs generally resulted in higher prices to customers. Indeed, roughly half of businesses reported raising prices of goods directly subject to tariffs. Interestingly, a significant share of businesses also reported raising the selling prices of their goods and services unaffected by tariffs. Many businesses indicated they increased prices to cover other rising costs such as wages and insurance, though it is possible that in some cases, businesses were taking advantage of an escalating pricing environment to increase prices. For example, something similar happened in 2018-19 as firms increased their prices on dryers when tariffs rose on washing machines from China, even though dryers were not subject to tariffs."

3 days ago

throwitaway222

Liberals had forever been linked to unions and Unions are linked to making products in the United States. All of the unions have shifted to the right because they're now the ones making the tariffs. Clinton sold them out.

Ever visit Alibaba and learn that the importers are still paying $1200 for 12 washing machines and then reselling it to you with a Maytag logo on it for $1200 EACH?

5 hours ago

solid_fuel

Oh you think they did, huh?

I'm not sure how old you are, but shortly after Obama took office in 2009 there was quite a bit of reporting claiming that the Bush administration had been so disastrous and young people had been so thoroughly poisoned by Republican policies, that it would likely be a generation before the Republicans had the chance to win the presidency again. Remember, Bush left office in the depths of the Great Recession. Instead, it took less than 8 years for us to get MAGA.

3 days ago

BeetleB

I don't know how old you are, but the MAGA movement is an offshoot of the Tea Party movement which, although begun under Bush, became massively popular under Obama.

Sure, lots of people were not happy with Bush dragging the country into two wars, but most Republicans remained Republicans, and the angst (based on facts or otherwise) against Obama is what made the Tea Party Movement so big.

(Of course, there was the whole social media thing that became huge around the same time, but the design of social media doesn't favor one side over another...)

3 days ago

cco

In 2024 Trump got some of the youth vote, still not a majority. Trump never won Gen X (or at least Millennial) and below.

So the prediction sounds right? The Republicans have burnt the youth vote pretty badly and have never really recovered.

3 days ago

jcranmer

In the 2024 election, Trump's strongest margins appear to have been with Gen X, where he was roughly +10% over Harris, even stronger than his results among the Baby Boomers.

(See, e.g. https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/2025/06/26/voting-patte... and https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2024-elections/exit-polls. Annoyingly, the polls don't cleanly break down into generations; Gen X would be the ~44-60 crowd for that election.)

3 days ago

cco

Thank you for the correction! Does seem a little bit unclear given those age buckets but definitely enough to walk back my previous claim.

a day ago

fhdkweig

They didn't in the last couple. Those elections went 49% vs 51%. I don't hold out a lot of hope for the next couple. They feign surprise, but it isn't like it was a mystery as to what he was going to do. He campaigned on everything he is doing.

3 days ago

edgyquant

The last few elections have been the most active in history, especially in 2020 essentially everyone voted.

3 days ago

XorNot

Which should inform the credibility of anyone declaring one issue or another would definitely motivate voters to come out and vote for whatever policy they want to say is a winner: the last two elections, despite enormous new voter activation, the split in preference followed polling trends anyway.

esseph

> been trained to disregard (and disrespect) nuanced factual information

> What is the hook for them?

They like the way his administration has been terrorizing brown people. Dig in with any of these ~simpletons~ undecided voters and it’s literally that simple.

3 days ago

inigyou

They will never say that, though - you have to infer it from their behavior and what they do say. Which requires a lot of observations. Meanwhile they can quickly refute it by having a black friend.

2 days ago

gensym

It's all cultural. It's pretty bonkers that you can tell who someone voted for in 2024 with a high degree of accuracy just by the shape of their sunglasses lenses.

3 days ago

turbobrew

Now, I’m curious. What side wears which sunglasses?

3 days ago

esseph

Example:

https://x.com/TheZackLethal/status/1270823526178664449

2 days ago

turbobrew

So aviators and oakleys I guess?

2 days ago

the_gastropod

Straight arms (no curve around the ear), 95% chance the wearer is a Trumper.

3 days ago

MisterTea

They honestly believe Trump is telling the truth, is doing the right thing by America, trying to help them. IMO, the problem is a lot of these people are well intended, and in many ways good people, but they lack critical thinking (I'm being nice here.) I certainly think they can be changed but it takes a very careful, gentile approach. No one likes being told they're wrong -- you have to let them come to that conclusion, not beat them over the head with it.

I despise this current administration. Yet, when I talk to people, I treat them with the same respect as I would my own parents -- don't matter who they are. I have had fun conversations with near toothless factory workers, literal walking stereotype caricatures of MAGA guys, who really aren't bad. They're just trying to live life and keep their lives together yet here's the world, changing all around them. Then this big mouth assures them it will be all right if you vote for him. They get worked up about things like DEI, LGBTQ, foreigners, etc. Sure it sounds stupid but it is what it is, you deal with it using tact. And here I am, born and raised NYC who was a minority at my public high school (may time the only white kid in class), dated the rainbow, and have a lot of experience with a lot of culture. I usually have a hard rock/heavy metal look so I fit in and they feel comfortable. I just tell them fun or funny stories about cultures and all variety of people I knew. These stories help to clear up misconceptions. Like literally the dentally challenged MAGA fellow I mentioned before told me on my way out that he enjoyed my stories and that he learned something new about people. That's the magic -- story telling and gentile nudging of opinions. Rome wasn't built in a day.

I'm actually hopeful in my own way, but the current political environment is being shaped by adult aged children on both sides and it just gets worse. Though they always say, it gets worse before it gets better. Keep nudging that knowledge.

3 days ago

noja

The voters watch Fox. They will not see this.

3 days ago

He also signed Obamacare, a bill written by Republicans, approved by Democrats and then watered down by Republicans who held a majority. All Obama did was sign it as he was legally required to.

2 days ago

rayiner

Democrats had almost an 80 House seat majority and 57 Senate seats when Obamacare was enacted.

2 days ago

ethbr1

That's the prime example of why casting Obama as a radical is ridiculous.

Having the power to ram something more partisan-palatable through and choosing to negotiate with the opposition to find a more mutually-tolerable consensus is the antithesis of radicalism.

2 days ago

rayiner

I don’t think Obama is a radical. But he had radical people in his orbit from his “community organizer” days.

2 days ago

ethbr1

I can't see much of their agenda that made it through into radical policy. Are there specific examples I'm missing?

2 days ago

rayiner

It made it into the street level advocacy, which was my point above.

20 hours ago

rayiner

My mom watches CNN and liked Obama as President. But my parsing of her comment—I haven’t talked to her about it, just saw it pop up when my aunt responded “me too, sister”—is that she views Obama as the patriarch so the buck stops with him to police the party messaging.

This is maybe an odd view for an American but it makes sense within a Bangladeshi social context. And democrats are the ones who chose to cultivate an electoral map based on immigrants like my mom in states like Virginia and Michigan.

3 days ago

runako

> Obama as the patriarch so the buck stops with him to police the party messaging.

Sanders is not a member of the party. AOC didn't run for office until Obama had been retired a few years.

3 days ago

MisterTea

andrewflnr

Part of that is because progressives also hate the Democrats for being hypocritical and/or ineffective. Doesn't mean they're going to vote for an R, though.

3 days ago

phatskat

This is definitely a problem the dems seem unable to rectify, and for good reason. I'm very left, and i think the democrats are awful at their jobs - or good, if it benefits them right? And that's the rub, most leftists don't like the democrats because they tend to align with business interests and their own enrichment. It very much feels like "well of course we do that, everyone (with a D or R) does it!" and that's pretty deflating for people who want _better politicians_.

I want to vote for someone who sticks to their plan, who is as honest as possible, who actually cares about Americans instead of saying some catchy phrases and looking good on camera while shaking hands with lobbyists and harmful industries - it's ludicrous!

I agree with the sibling comment that the dems rank lower because their base is made of people who begrudgingly vote for them when the time comes and spend the rest of the time being frustrated that it's our best option.

3 days ago

goatlover

Not based on the special election results the past year, and primary turnout along with gains in polling numbers of Democrats compared to their Republican counterparts. Just look at Texas, Maine, Ohio, North Carolina, Alaska, Iowa, even Kansas. Bunch of red seats in play.

3 days ago

the_gastropod

What are some of these unpopular policies that “they” refuse to back down from?

3 days ago

sleepyguy

Your comment is spot on. Don't know why you're being junked.

-Independent..

3 days ago

coliveira

Here's the problem: as bad as republicans are, democrat governments have the tendency to let most everything they did in place, and even add more as a way of playing a "bipartisan" game. The result is that democrat governments don't change the economy in any substantive way that can give a reason for people to support them.

"But...but...but what about gender equity in high-school sports?" - Voters

3 days ago

edgyquant

Social issues are just as important to voters as the economy and attacking them for caring about this issue, one that very clearly the people have asserted their opinion on, is dumb. If dems would stop dying in the hill of unpopular social policies they’d be winning more elections.

3 days ago

afavour

Anyone voting on the basis of the issue is the dumb one, sorry.

It’s a manufactured controversy with only a handful of trans athletes (usually at high school level) in the entire country. It does not make the slightest difference to the lives of the vast, vast majority of voters. If you let it outweigh factors that actually affect your life then you’re a dumb voter.

3 days ago

ipaddr

It affects woman and parents of girls. It's seen as men taking things women had to struggle to get and safety issues. I can see how it would affects women in general but I agree has little affect on those men who do not watch sports and are not pro women.

3 days ago

afavour

“It’s seen as”

Is the crucial statement there. Not “it is”.

> It affects women and parents of girls

No it doesn’t. It’s a new boogeyman to demonize that isn’t actually a factor in almost anyone’s lives. Not to mention that the people pushing this issue are proposing things like genital inspections to ensure the boogeyman never arrives:

https://www.newsweek.com/kansas-republicans-pass-bill-genita...

As the parent of a girl I’m a hell of a lot more concerned about that than I am of a trans kid wanting to play sports.

3 days ago

blikn

No-one is asking for "genital inspections". This is a claim invented for the purpose of sidestepping the fairness argument.

3 days ago

esseph

Oh really?

There is no fairness argument, only ignorance. For amateur sports, giving even a little bit of a shit is just pathetic. The risk of accusing cis girs/women of being trans is obviously extremely damaging. And discouraging trans folks from participating in amateur sports is also incredibly cruel.

For professional or top-tier competitive sports, virtually every sports organization has had rules in place to handle this for decades. The IOC started using testosterone levels as the barometer for fairness in 2003. The entire right-wing apparatus works by feigning ignorance, pretending nobody has ever thought about the fairness of trans folks in sports, all to infuriate easily suggestible rubes. It's beyond absurd.

2 days ago

blikn

You have demonstrated another method of sidestepping the fairness argument, which is to pretend it doesn't exist and claim that no-one should care anyway.

2 days ago

ipaddr

The genitals inspections are a result of trans issue. Not concerning yourself with one issue that creates the issue you dislike is shortsighted.

I agree with "seen as" vibes think of the children era being foolish but its what liberal parents are talking about. Mega followers never accepted trans in sport or life so this doesn't change viewpoints.

3 days ago

CamperBob2

The genitals inspections are a result of trans issue. Not concerning yourself with one issue that creates the issue you dislike is shortsighted.

The "issue" is only an "issue" because some people on Fox News told you it was an "issue." Ask what you're being distracted from.

3 days ago

the_gastropod

What are you even talking about? Trans folks didn’t suddenly pop into existence in 2014 or whatever, and force conservatives to recognize them. There’ve been trans people since the beginning of human civilization. As with so many of these culture war topics, this outrage was just pulled from nowhere one day to rile up Fox News viewers after they’d adequately calmed down about Obama’s tan suit.

Suddenly, not wanting trans folks to participate in civilization, Conservatives have gone all in on the transvestigation bullshit that includes genital inspections, accusing conventionally less feminine-looking cis women of being men, etc.

These people are just bigots.

3 days ago

solid_fuel

Since you supposedly care about women so much I’m sure you can tell me how many trans women were playing in college and professional sports in 2020 versus today. Go ahead. Give me numbers.

3 days ago

blikn

[dead]

3 days ago

afavour

Honestly that site proves the absolute unseriousness of these objections. 1,152 athletes at all age ranges in the entire world? And we’re supposed to be deciding who we vote for based on such an embarrassingly small rounding error?

Not to mention, I don’t even understand how these are substantiated. I clicked through to the source link for some of the results cited and they’re just results tables? What does that “prove” the athlete is trans? Who vets this stuff?

2 days ago

blikn

So given the small numbers of these males, it should be an easy win for the Democrats to say: of course we don't agree with male athletes in female sports, as it is obviously unfair to female athletes, and we will support bipartisan measures to make it unlawful for organizations to do this.

Polling shows that most people across the political spectrum would consider this a reasonable approach.

And then, the Republicans lose most of their attack lines on this topic, and the Democrats don't have to worry as much about having to defend foolish beliefs.

2 days ago

[deleted]

2 days ago

[deleted]

2 days ago

[deleted]

2 days ago

SadErn

[dead]

3 days ago

goatlover

It's such a small fraction though and it completely ignores the needs of trans and non-binary athletes. They're not all going to be able to compete on the men's side.

3 days ago

ipaddr

[flagged]

3 days ago

CamperBob2

If dems would stop dying in the hill of unpopular social policies they’d be winning more elections.

silisili

I'd argue more largely that the right is a loose coalition of people with differing goals...whether it's conservatism, lower taxes, anti immigration, religious right, etc. I'm reminded how my econ professor would say that hardened bootleggers and hardcore Christians would pretend to be friends just long enough to vote to keep alcohol illegal.

I feel like the Dems should have an easy time in the next elections if they don't fumble it given the current state of things. On the other hand, they seem to purity test each other in ways that make such a coalition harder to attain.

3 days ago

Spooky23

Don’t bike shed. Tax and spend Trump is making your gas more expensive and allowing you Latin American burgers to out American farmers out of business.

3 days ago

ethbr1

The current US right is a hodgepodge in terms of what they love, but for Trump's victories was unified by who they hate.

3 days ago

stouset

The Republican base doesn’t give a shit about “tax and spend” either. For all their hand-wringing about deficit spending, Republican administrations have for decades been the party of excessive spending and ballooning deficits.

They’ve demonstrated over and over that their core principles don’t actually exist, and are simply maxims that they have heard often enough that they blindly parrot them back.

3 days ago

naijaboiler

Their core principles do exist. It’s really racism

3 days ago

aorloff

The Democrats are not smartening up.

The weak kneed leadership will be getting replaced by the populist message of Trump but coming from the left, people like Mamdani, the DSA candidates, etc.

The people clearly want leaders who will say : we will use political tools to help the economic situation of the poor and middle class.

Everyone from Jon Ossoff to Angie Nixon has some version of this message and its resonating

3 days ago

8note

DSA are democrats.

clearly they are smartening up

3 days ago

aorloff

Unfortunately, I have to disagree.

Smartening up would have been the Democratic Party ejecting Swalwell because he was a known creep. Instead he was the front runner for the CA Governor until like a couple months before the election when scandal, NOT the party cleaning house, took him out.

2 days ago

weakfish

DSA is its own party; DSA affiliated candidates only run as democrats because the US system basically all but disallows third party success. I guarantee you that DSA members would not associate themselves with neoliberal Democrats at all, given the choice.

3 days ago

stackghost

How is that different than the Tea Party republicans?

3 days ago

weakfish

I didn't say it was.

throwitaway222

While many people find the Leftist route of saving the country, the right route makes more sense to me. Reduce taxes to near zero - eliminate minimum wage - it's a recipe for starting companies. The left's answer is to destroy all companies. People think a company will exist in a leftist controlled world, but they're dead wrong.

3 days ago

YZF

[flagged]

3 days ago

[deleted]

3 days ago

andersonpico

> replace it with some "workers will decide" socialist mumbo-jumbo.

Isn't it clear to you that you're misrepresenting DSA's position?

3 days ago

YZF

I don't think so. I'm not an expert and I'm not an American. I did read their web site, I listen to what their candidates are saying and doing. I could very well be wrong. But when they say "socialism" there are two or three options. The first is they don't understand what that word means. The second is they do understand what that word means. The third is they've redefined this word. We already had a word for what people want, it's social-democratic, not socialism. So if they called themselves social-democrats and not socialists I would support them and we wouldn't be having this discussion.

"We want a democracy powered by everyday people. The capitalist class tells us we are powerless, but together we can take back control."

What are they not saying? They are not saying things like we should raise taxes to fund social programs so we can be more like Europe. Europe is capitalist. Europe has free markets. DSA opposes capitalism. DSA wants to, in their words: "We want to collectively own the key economic drivers that dominate our lives, such as energy production and transportation.".

What am I not understanding? Barrack Obama wanted accessible healthcare for all, he was not DSA. That's an awesome idea for the US that Democrats rallied behind and partly failed. Show me in DSA's words, material and action, how they are really social-democrats who just want more vacation, healthcare, worker protection while still maintaining capitalist free markets - like Europe. I mean they want all that but not in that way.

3 days ago

zthrowaway

This 100%.

I think most of us want a moderate Democrat. I hope populism dies with Trump/MAGA in the coming years. We don’t need to match them with our own distasteful populism.

3 days ago

worik

From the other side of the world looking at you, what you need are moderate Republicans

The republican party has become extreme, and they are wrecking your republic

3 days ago

mrbombastic

moderate corporate democrats are repeatedly getting trounced in elections and the DSA crew are starting to win so citation definitely needed

3 days ago

andersonpico

How is DSA populist? The United States is a country famously opposed to socialist, I don't think they could've picked a more controversial position.

3 days ago

eastbound

CHAZ was an idealistic symptom of applying John Lennon's Imagine to a neighborhood of Seattle, and it wasn't the only city tempted by this endeavor (if only it didn't finish with an arms dealer taking leadership of the locality);

"Defund the police" was a campaign slogan at last election.

I'm looking from Europe and I'm often impressed how extreme american leftists are. If it's not socialism, it sure shares the same conclusions. And yet "The most extreme left in the US is the most extreme right wing for Europe" is a common belief.

3 days ago

Arodex

>> Have you studied the DSA agenda in depth?

> Yes

Respectfully, you may have skimmed some material or watched a couple of minutes of MSNOW, because you wouldn't come to the conclusion that the DSA just wants free public transportation otherwise. Key aspects of the DSA's goals and the actual policy implementation actions of elected DSA-aligned politicians that are quite well aligned with the position of a person holding communist and other relatively extremist sympathies:

- state-controlled grocery stores [0]

- public ownership of the largest corporations and essential industries [1]

- abolition in full of police and prisons ("cut police budgets annually toward zero") [1]

- ending sanctions on states backing terrorist activities [1]

- permitting open, uncontrolled immigration [2]

- disregarding the existence of Israel ("democratic secular state [Palestine], from the river to the sea") [3]

- giving voting rights to noncitizens and prisoners [4]

[0] https://edc.nyc/program/nyc-groceries (a city headed by a DSA-aligned mayor)

[1] https://program.dsausa.org/

[2] https://www.dsausa.org/democratic-left/using-power-builds-po...

[3] https://www.dsausa.org/statements/on-the-ceasefire-in-gaza/

[4] https://program.dsausa.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/DSA_WD...

anonymars

I'm guessing it's more about "abolish the Senate"

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/2026/07/senate-representat...

Incidentally, if I wanted to sabotage a movement, I'd probably try to convince it to adopt ideas I know would be controversial with the wider public

3 days ago

Arodex

>The DSA wants to abolish the existing US democratic process.

You misspelled "Trump".

There is only one party making it harder for people to vote, and it is the Republican party.

3 days ago

mittensc

They are part of the democratic party so they are democrats.

As for their agenda, you are wrong.

3 days ago

YZF

I'm going to believe what they say:

https://www.dsausa.org/

"The Democratic Socialists of America is the largest socialist organization in the United States, with over 100,000 members and chapters in all 50 states. We believe that working people should run both the economy and society democratically to meet human needs, not to make profits for a few."

"Capitalism is a system designed by the owning class to exploit the rest of us for their own profit. We must replace it with democratic socialism, a system where ordinary people have a real voice in our workplaces, neighborhoods, and society."

"democratic socialism" is an oxymoron. socialism conflicts directly with democratic values. At the very least there is no pre-existing example of democracy and socialism working side by side. All previous socialist "experiments" were not democracies.

3 days ago

ordersofmag

If 'democratic values' are everyone having an equal voice in how the systems of a country are arranged. And if those people, through a democratic process, decide that the systems of their country shouldn't support the exploitative elements of capitalism, then it would definitely be democracy in action to make that come true. Anything counter to that would be, by definition, anti-democratic.

When you say "socialism conflicts directly with democratic values" I genuinely have no idea what "democratic values" you're talking about.

3 days ago

mittensc

> "democratic socialism" is an oxymoron

No it's not, check out Europe, mostly northern countries, it's working just fine.

> At the very least there is no pre-existing example of democracy and socialism working side by side.

Again, northern europe screaming at you.

So you're wrong...

AnimalMuppet

"We want to collectively own the key economic drivers that dominate our lives, such as energy production and transportation."

From the linked website. Now, that's not quite "the means of production", explicitly stated. It's just "the key economic drivers", so most of the means of production.

You are wrong.

The term you are looking for is communism, not socialism.

Nordic countries are practicing Democratic Socialism.

DSA is not communist.

Why are you spreading this crap when it takes 2 neurons and a few searches to find out you are wrong?

3 days ago

vladgur

You are mistaking Democratic Socialism (of DSA fame) for Social Democracy practiced by Nordic countries.

Different beasts as I explained in https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49404166

3 days ago

mittensc

Social Democracy and Democratic Socialism are the same thing

3 days ago

vladgur

Really?

So tell me how Social Democrat parties of Denmark or Sweden views on capitalism same thing as DSA views on it stated in DSA sites I linked elsewhere?

Do these social democrats also want to replace capitalism?

3 days ago

mittensc

nobody wants to replace capitalism, you're being absurd

3 days ago

vladgur

I’m observing a pattern - you don’t like to answer questions, provide evidence or context.

Youre statements peak at a single sentence with minimal signal. You’re not interested in conversations or debates

3 days ago

mittensc

You make outrageously wrong claims with no intention of debate, I'm returning your profound deference in kind.

Skimming through your comments, your only goal is to demonize DSA because they go against your views with respect to Israel.

It doesn't matter to you if what you're saying is true or not, you are not looking for a debate.

2 days ago

vladgur

I reference direct statements by DSA made on their own websites that they aim to

* replace capitalism [0]

* own means of production [0]

I state the fact that Scandinavian/Nordic countries are Social Democracies (embracing capitalism) and Not Democratic Socialist countries.

You state that Social Democracy and Democratic Socialism is the same.

I ask you "tell me how Social Democrat parties of Denmark or Sweden views on capitalism same thing as DSA view" [1]

And your response is "nobody wants to replace capitalism, you're being absurd reply" inspite of official DSA statements that i linked to in [0]

My 2 points stand:

* DSA is pretty clear about its desires to replace capitalism [0] and own means of production [0]

* Nordic countries are Social Democracies. THey embrace capitalism, not aim to replace it (as its stated on DSA's own site). Your statement is factually wrong, unless you can find it in your heart to prove me wrong.

I dont know why you felt that bringing Israel discussion about clear socialist goals of DSA will help your argument whatever that is, but try to keep focus about systematic issues with DSA, not geo-political.

[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49404545

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49405182

2 days ago

mittensc

[flagged]

2 days ago

db48x

They themselves literally say out loud that they want to abolish our existing institutions. If you want to debate that point, go debate the DSA candidates themselves.

3 days ago

mittensc

You're wrong again.

3 days ago

delusional

> he populist message of Trump but coming from the left, people like Mamdani, the DSA candidates, etc.

Leading but honest question: Are those candidates the same as Trump? I do not see how they share anything other than strategy and spin, and those things don't make policy.

3 days ago

aorloff

Strategy and spin don't make policy ?

Wag the Dog (movie) came out like 3 decades ago

3 days ago

Conservatives, above all else, assume everyone in government is corrupt and terrible, hence wanting smaller government. That they can't reconcile that with their love of social security is a matter of self preservation, not malice.

3 days ago

naijaboiler

But they keep voting governments that spend more than even democrats

3 days ago

BobbyJo

Because they need SS and medicare, which is most spending at this point. The only choice in the last 40 years, that would have actually decreased spending, was Rand Paul, and he got crushed.

3 days ago

unethical_ban

I do know several, including my dad, who when talking to him about life, love, poetry or movies is a nice guy, and doesn't wish harm on the people he meets.

But he lacks empathy for groups of people he's never interacted with, and ultimately, if they vote for Donald Trump or his enablers, they either believe a lot of lies told to them by media claiming to be on their side, or they aren't as good of people as they themselves think they are.

Respectfully, my quote and your rebuttal have nothing to do with each other. Nice people can be hypocrites and ignoramuses, which is what one must be to willfully support the GOP in almost any race in the country at this critical time.

edit to add some stories:

---

I'm in Texas.

My relative tried delta 8 and liked it. He doesn't drink alcohol much anymore because of headache and urinary stuff. He took a little and he laughed more, relaxed, and enjoyed some movies. My mom took it for her body aches and she said it helped with pain and made cooking dinner a little more fun.

Now they'd both be felons. I told my relative that they would be felons for having any, and that I too would be one for using this cheap, safe drug. I joked that maybe he could at least vote Dem for Texas Lt. Gov. to kick out the moronic criminal who pushed the new law.

He said "No, I'll never vote Democrat". He talks about trans people being a problem. He's never knowingly met one. He says they should be left alone, but shouldn't in sports or adopt kids.

He has no idea what kinds of laws are being created to wipe trans people from legal existence across the country, and he's fine supporting felons and criminals and people who want me to be in jail for using delta-8. When I told him about one of Trump's proven criminal acts (taking $500 million from the UAE buying stock in his cryptocurrency clearinghouse) he said he didn't believe it. When I talk about Trump's sex trafficking scandals and Epstein, he's silent. When I ask about the Iran war, he's silent.

He would rather his nephew be a felon for a safe and decade-long-legal drug than vote for a Democrat, because of lies and hatred he watches on Fox news from his middle-of-nowhere plot of land where he interacts with about five people a year for the last two decades.

I could go on about how he rants about socialism as he considers using Meals on Wheels, or how his wife got Medicare-funded palliative care for almost no money out of pocket, or any other number of things. But he, living in rural Texas, mentions Mamdani's "communism" for considering opening a few publicly-operated grocery stores in a city of 10 million people.

---

I have to re-iterate: I know many GOP people are good people. I certainly don't hold them to the same individual responsibility for the ongoing coup of the federal government for which I hold the elected politicians. Many are duped by Fox News, and many more are checked out of the daily updates of crimes committed and norms broken. But that's what's happening, and I refuse to acknowledge any merit of an argument for supporting Republicans in elections until the threat from Trumpism is eliminated, the government repaired and patched against the vulnerabilities exploited, and the Democrats screw up royally somehow again.

3 days ago

jmyeet

I really don't want people to be left with the impresion that this is Democratic Party incompetence. It is not. They are complicit in pretty much everything the Trump administration has been doing. They know what works. Just do what Obama did in 2008 and run on a populist economic platform. They don't want to do that. It's a choice, not incompetence.

If Chuck Schumer is asked about the weather, he'll first check with Netanyahu.

Just look at what Senatorial campaigns Schumer supports and doesn't. There's a lot of suspicion that Schumer (and the DSCC) is going to leave Abdul El-Sayed out to dry because he's anti-Israel, basically. Mandela Barnes got similar treatment in 2022. And yet you have blockbuster challenges like Jaime Harrison's, which spent $130M to oust Lindsey Graham. He lost by 10. Trump won by 12 so I guess he gained 2? Well done, everybody, the system works.

Oh and what did the DNC do with Jaime Harrison after he spent $130M to lose by 10? They made him the DNC Chair. The Democratic Party loves a loser. Just like Howard Dean.

3 days ago

peter422

The vast majority of sitting Democratic senators voted against funding for Israel this year.

The DSCC funding is a drop in the bucket of the overall funding in these races, and they have their own goals which may or may not be aligned with the party as a whole.

If your single issue is Israel funding (which it probably shouldn’t be but that is your choice), the Democratic Party and presidents did far more to reign in Israel’s behavior than republicans.

3 days ago

ethbr1

I think parent's broader message was the Democratic party leadership being out of touch with potential Democratic voters.

Support for Israel's current government (elections in October 2026) being but one example.

3 days ago

jmyeet

You need to realize just how performative most votes in Congress are. The Democrats, for example, will vote for all sorts of progressive policies when they know they won't pass. For example, Kamala Harris was a co-sponsor on a Medicare for All Bill. She didn't run on that in 2024. What's the difference? Well if she won in 2024, she might have to deliver on it. In 2019, Trump was in the White House so there's zero chance it would pass.

Republicans do this too. Two of the seats they're at most risk of losing are Maine and Alaska held by Susan Collins and Lisa Murkowski (respectively). They currently have 53 votes (well, 52 with Mitch McConnell MIA). That means they can pass things with 50 votes (and JD Vance's tie break) on anything that can get past or doesn't require cloture (eg approving judicial nominations, reconcilation). So, every time you have a controversial nomination or bill, you'll often find Collins and Murkowski vote no because their votes aren't needed. The leadership is insulating them from attack. But when their votes are needed, they're there (eg Collins's required vote to confirm Brett Kavanaugh).

As for the number of Democratic senators who voted against weapons for Israel, it is significant because it never would've happened 5 years ago, but it's also mostly performative because there's no way it was going to pass.

As another example, Democrats did a rare move to invoke the filibuster last year to stop ICE funding. This resulted in a government shutdown and important programs being punitively defunded (eg there was a reserve fund for food stamps that was intentionally not tapped). What happened? The Republicans needed 60 votes to force a vote. There were 52 votes. 8 Democratic senators crossed the floor to vote with Republicans. That's so weird. It's the exact number required. What a coincidence. Whatever that number was, 1, 5, 8, 12, it doesn't matter. There will most of the time be that number of exact senators requried. This, by the way, is part of the rotating villain role within the Democratic Party.

This is how calculated it was. All 8 of those who crossed the floor were either retiring or they weren't up for re-election in 2026 so the voters couldn't punish them. John Ossoff, the current liberal darling, was going to be one of the 8 but he's facing re-election this year so Chuck Schumer whipped another vote to replace him.

Another classic example was the Epstein transparency act. Trump threatened members who signed the discharge petition. Mike Johnson actually shut down the House for 7 weeks to try and get those that did to change their vote. yet when the discharge petition got 218 votes (the minimum required), suddenly the votes in the House and Senate were almost unanimous. Well, if support was almost unanimous, why not just have a vote to begin with?

Mitch McConnell can really be credited with pioneering a new era of obstruction in the Senate. He realized there was a political cost to some votes. Some things were popular and he didn't want to pass them so he'd just make sure they never made it to the floor for a vote.

So my point is that imagine the Democrats control the House, the Senate and the White House in 2029 and that same Israel funding bill came up. Will all those Senators and House representatives vote for it when it might pass and become law? Nope.

3 days ago

rayiner

[flagged]

3 days ago

chermi

Tariff is a naughty word because of its proven negative side(main) effects.

Not all taxes are equal. Regressive ones suck.

3 days ago

win311fwg

Tariffs are only regressive on the collection side. The redistribution side can be as progressive as you want, more than offsetting regressive collection if you wish.

3 days ago

chermi

I didn't say tariffs were necessarily regressive, my (poorly made) point was that renaming tariffs taxes doesn't really change the problem with them.

Edit- but I would be shocked if the net effect of Trump's tariffs weren't regressive.

Edit 2- " redistribution side can be as progressive as you want, more than offsetting regressive collection if you wish." That's an infinite money glitch if true. Tariffs increase input costs that effect many downstream things, in addition to their direct price effects.

3 days ago

coderenegade

Tariffs are a tax that buys you (at least) three things, all of which are difficult to quantify, and usually overlooked by economists:

1. Security. You make your own bullets. You're able to make and maintain your own military hardware. When another country cuts supply lines in their own self interest, you have options to advocate for yours, either through trade, making it yourself, or, yes, even force.

2. Economic opportunity for your children and grandchildren. And no, not just "factory jobs" as is commonly sneered, but a community of experience and expertise. An engineer that gets to interact with the products they design in that kind of environment is a better engineer. A country that gets to see and interact with the products it makes has a sense of pride and better social cohesion.

3. Social buy-in and consequences for companies. A Chinese car manufacturer doesn't give a shit if cutting costs killed your grandfather. A local company has to, because the executives and workers are all members of the community. I was in Germany during dieselgate, and the sense of disgust at the company was obvious. They felt that.

These things are, imo, important to the health of any country, but they can only really be valued in retrospect. So yeah, tariffs are a tax, but some things are worth paying for even if what's being purchased isn't necessarily obvious or easy to quantify.

3 days ago

chermi

Yes those are all good things. Tariffs aren't the only and almost never are the most sustainable long-term way to get them. I'm not old enough to remember the protections against japanese cars, but I know they didn't solve the problems with US auto industry, for example.

I would guess the optimal course to those ends would include some targeted tariffs. I am damn near certain that the optimal course isn't tariff-centric. Every option in a global economy (or any economy) is coupled and never limited to the first-order obvious effect.

As a very simple example that I see ignored often on here: High paying jobs are good, but increase the cost of the ouput. Consumers are also people, they benefit from lower prices. You can never turn one dial independently. There are pretty magical dials though, like education and trade. Some dials are better than other. All dials treated coarsely are worse than dials treated as the multidimensional optionalities they are.

I generally favor increasing productivity and QoL via net-positive interactions. I default to disliking fixed-pie-slicing until convinced otherwise. With all of the caveats to this position as above.

3 days ago

coderenegade

The only repeatable path to industrialization and the benefits thereof is the combination of protectionist policies -- be they tariffs or subsidies -- with a focus on exporting goods and competing in the global market. This is historically true, essentially without exception. You need both, because without global exports, protectionism makes companies lazy, and without protectionism, you risk exposing strategic national assets and supply chains to what is essentially unfair competition.

I mean, I admit that I'm not competitive with people desperate enough to work 12 hour days, 7 days a week, while the grandparents raise the kids in a 10 person household. But I'm probably capable of more sophisticated work due to my education and ability to specialize. Removing all barriers to trade essentially forces companies to offshore and train up nations that may not have your sovereign interests at heart in order to compete and provide a return for investors. It's a short term sugar hit that erodes the nation-state. This is why we strictly limit offshoring for certain strategic industries, but the truth is that all manufacturing industries are strategic to some extent, because they form part of a logistical web.

As for whether or not such a system is sustainable, it's worked for the world's manufacturing powerhouses for decades. The reason they're all falling to China now is because enough of the global supply chain has shifted there that it's now impossible to compete. Assuming those nations don't want to become services-based economies (which has been a disaster for Australia and the UK, neither of which can manufacture a tin of beans), protectionism is the only path forward. And indeed, China is utterly diligent in protecting it's own industries. This isn't fixed-pie-slicing, it's just pragmatic recognition that a government really does want to be able to fix the fighter jets when it needs to, and at some point, that means having enough industry in place to train the guy who does it. And economists, who don't really believe in or care about the problems of nation-states, probably aren't the right people to listen to when that's a concern.

3 days ago

chermi

I don't see how any of this works unless the rest of the world agrees to be less productive in the meantime. Apply what you want for the US to every country in the world. If your policy is the solution, then I'd assume all countries would copy it, and we'd have no one to export to. Or if they follow what I consider a more reasonable policy, they will quickly find cheaper places to buy shit, take advantage of basic things like comparative advantage vs. the protectionist (1) US, again leading to no exports.

The US is great, don't get me wrong, but the 1950-70s were based on an extremely fortunate combination of circumstances. It was almost certainly an exception rather than a norm to revert to. The resulting economy and middle class and mobility is aspirational, not easily reproducible. And I am certain not by pure protectionism. I mention this because you said repeatability, which I guess I assumed meant of this time that seems most aligned with what you want.

Edit- just re-read and you agree staying global competitiveness is important. Ok, how? I don't see any route there (in manufactured goods) without going hard on automation. I'm guessing (sorry) you basically think automation is bad because manufacturing jobs. Maybe we actually align here though?

I recommend to too many people the book "how the world got rich" https://a.co/d/0ehTVbK4. It's short, it's about what the dominant, generalized correlates with growth are. My insertion is that economic growth is good for everyone and explains without much exaggeration all good societal progress. Just as one concept from here that explains an enormous fraction of global economic dynamics, look up " catch up growth". Sorry if this comes across as you not already knowing about this, I recommend it because I personally found it such a good resource.

(1) This is me inserting a projection, I don't know for sure. I would need a lot of convincing that protectionism and isolationism makes us more competitive overall. I completely understand all of your arguments about skill and knowledge and that other good stuff I already agreed was good. What I don't agree with is that your approach leads to us being to compete in a global market, especially given domestic political reality. It seems your system relies entirely on being able to export. The one thing we do export btw is services, the thing you shit on. And again, I wish we weren't so dominantly service based. I want all the good things you want that come with manufacturing and more domestic self-reliance. I just don't think you can will into existence of a manufacturing dominant prosperous middle class 60s economy that survives global competition, which your export driven plan requires.

Edit- as another aside, I believe economics is increasingly a captured field. So I probably distrust economists on policy at least as much as you, in general. But when they all agree going back a while with data to back it, I weigh it higher. I also feel bad for economists because historically the actual policy they want isn't what makes it through, to the point the preconditions for their policy to work no longer apply. So again this is perhaps something we agree on. But this doesn't invalidate a bias toward free trade is wrong. Implementation matters. See: the parts I agreed on wrt international trade policy what feels like 20 replies ago.

Edit2 - one counter to my position is that with protectionism and manufacturing we can rely more on internal market demand more because we cover more of the market needs, like China is trying to do. Just thinking out loud trying to figure where I'm wrong. A lot of the good times were driven by internal markets. And this at first glance seems more consistent with protectionism. But you want export driven so I'm not sure.

a day ago

chermi

I just remembered this essay that kind of explains some of my thoughts on how to judge economic policy http://bastiat.org/en/twisatwins.html. Not super relevant but kind of just in case you hadn't read it. Not just the broken window fallacy but the idea of diffuse benefits vs. visible downsides.

a day ago

coderenegade

Sure, if every country did this for every technology, it wouldn't work. But in reality, they don't. Even ongoing industrialization isn't a given once it's been achieved, because the bar for what constitutes "developed" is always changing, and it takes effort to maintain. We even see deindustrialization, both historically and in the present. There will always be someone to sell to.

You're focusing on the US, when what I'm saying is historically true for essentially every nation that ever industrialized. Many of those countries are still industrial powerhouses today. The US had a great run from the 50s to the 70s, but it was the world's largest exporter by 1914 thanks to WWI, and didn't relinquish that spot until 2003. Similarly, Japan and Korea didn't have any such luck and still managed to both develop and maintain high living standards even through economic hardship, thanks to their industrial foundations. Taiwan uses its chip industry, again heavily export based, as a shield. China is following the same playbook today, first during China shock 1.0 20 years ago, and now with higher value goods. The only real exceptions to this rule are Singapore and Hong Kong, both of which exploited the fact that they were strategic waypoints in global shipping. Even then, Singapore is one of (if not the) largest oil refiners in the Asia Pacific region, and exports a tremendous quantity of refined petroleum products. Singapore isn't strictly protectionist, but it makes heavy use of cheap Asian laborers who will never, ever be citizens, and it engaged in massive skills transfers from other nations during the 80s and 90s (my own family was part of that wave). And of course, the major European powers all built themselves on the back of protectionism and exports. The erosion of that directly resulted in the crises we see today.

I have no issue with automation, and I agree that investors and business will always want to exploit cheaper economic conditions elsewhere. What I'm saying is that any government that wants to preserve living standards and maintain an industrial base needs to have the backbone to tell those interests "No". They are part of the social fabric of a country, and the backbone of it's defense. Investors will make less money, but I don't see that as a bad thing. They would actually have to allocate money more effectively within a country to turn a profit.

I'm not shitting on services, they're necessary. But services can't manufacture bullets when you need them, and countries always need them eventually. Not to mention, we live in a time when even services being offshored, so what's left? We build houses and make coffees for one another, while banks and mega corporations that are beholden to no border lord over us?

For what it's worth, I agree with you that economics is a captured discipline, and I applaud your devotion to testing your own ideas. But the stuff I'm pointing out isn't economics, it's history -- things that actually happened. In my opinion (and it is just that) any economic theory that is at odds with history is straight up garbage.

a day ago

cdrnsf

And the feckless executive of a lame duck administration applying them on a whim will accomplish this?

3 days ago

[deleted]

3 days ago

coderenegade

Where did I say anything about politics? My only beef is with the notion that tariffs and protectionism are inherently bad.

3 days ago

afavour

Thing is, absolutely none of what you’re saying applies to Trump’s tariffs. Because he’ll remove them two weeks from now if the right person flatters him the right way.

So there will be no build out of manufacturing capacity. You’d be a fool to spend tens of millions on that when at literally any moment the market will revert back to the norm.

This administration’s policy making is insane. I’m surprised folks are still trying to sanewash it.

3 days ago

coderenegade

I didn't say anything about politics. Whether or not industry believes this is a permanent state of affairs, or destined to end with this administration, has no bearing on whether or not tariffs can be a useful tool. My issue is with trivially wrong economic dogma.

3 days ago

rayiner

It's not "proven." At the 10,000-foot view, the magical market theory folks implemented their ideas about free trade since Reagan. And who is happy with the result? Tariffs were a core policy of the United States from Alexander Hamilton through Lincoln to the early 20th century and, empirically, they worked pretty well!

3 days ago

chermi

Ok cool let's go back to then and cut the budget to match. Sounds like a decent tradeoff to me I guess. I would prefer a more incremental experiment though.

I'm not a free market fundamentalist. I also don't think we ever had a free market. Implementation details always matter. My standing policy is basically small informed perturbations around free trade, included targeted tariffs. Everything has tradeoffs. Restricting lumber from canada and fucking Americans? Not smart. Letting China openly steal from us? Asymmetric trade policies hurting the US? Also not smart.

3 days ago

rayiner

Nobody likes free trade. Democrats can only get away with it because they are so much better on healthcare. They can cobble together a coalition of big businesses and service workers whose jobs can’t easily be shipped to China. But healthcare is carrying to whole weight of that compromise.

3 days ago

win311fwg

Sweden relies heavily on regressive consumption taxes. Moreover, the top 20% accounts for 60% of personal consumer spending. (And that’s not artificially inflated because it’s not like Jeff Bezos spends a million times more on consumer goods.)

You’re confusing party rhetoric with actual voter ideology. Look at the Senate map from 2006 and tell me there hasn’t been a reshuffling: www.electionresources.org/us/maps/senators.php?election=2006

3 days ago

jascination

This is such a weird hill to die on dude. People are angry and it's been an embarrassing disaster filled with fraud on the highest scale, jumping on the fact that 1 out of 500 of his policies hasn't been bad just makes you look like you've completely missed the point

3 days ago

chermi

I don't like false statements, fuck me right? Accurate models of reality matter. If you stick to the belief that 100% of trump presidency is negative, you will eliminate from your options the policies that were positive.

3 days ago

mhandley

I wonder what would happen if Canada taxed electricity exports to the US, and used the money to directly subsidize other exported goods the US applies tariffs to?

4 days ago

chii

> taxed electricity exports

it is easy to tax exports, but this makes the export less profitable (for the entity making that export). Unless you mean the producer raises prices to cover the new tax - in which case, the export is now more expensive, and less of it gets exported.

It doesn't really help with the tariff situation much in any case - a political problem requires a political solution (such as reciprocal tariffs). Both sides hurt, and there's no good outcome.

4 days ago

Waterluvian

Attack dog Doug Ford threatened this last time and the Americans absolutely freaked out. It’s probably still a valuable nuclear option.

3 days ago

tgsovlerkhgsel

> less of it gets exported

He (or the "smarter" people he surrounds himself with) is attempting to drive a wedge in Canadian unity.

Danielle Smith is, btw, totally onside with playing this to her advantage to get things.

Export tax, as just as it might be in these circumstances, would be used as pretext for wholesale foreign interference and domestic disruption on a level we have never seen in this country. It would end up being a profound self-own

3 days ago

THX1137

The referendum is a hypothetical while federal power is real and spelled out in the constitution. All I hear about Alberta and Saskatchewan's leverage is that we ought to fear their willingness to invite a foreign power to dismember Canada. It certainly leaves a bad taste in my mouth.

3 days ago

Pxtl

Apparently according to downthread that's a "Reddit opinion" to notice what their re-elected political leaders and all their pundits keep saying.

3 days ago

jbm

This is such a Reddit opinion.

If you are in Alberta or Saskatchewan, the government is decided before your election is done. There is no Senate, like in the US, to balance your needs vs others.

Despite this unbalance, there is a clear majority of Albertans who are anti-independence. (I agree that the government, run by a radio entertainer is shameful and disgusting.)

3 days ago

8note

im in alberta and want an oil export tax that brings albertan exports up to market oil prices. match it to brent crude

this is consistently a self criticism in alberta that we arent actually getting our money's worth from our oil

3 days ago

Pxtl

> the government is decided before your election is done

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/saskatchewan/australian-beef-...

3 days ago

ndyg

I'm a dual Australian / Canadian citizen. I'm disappointed Australia hasn't been more active in their support for Canada. Commonwealth countries should be sticking together.

a day ago

ElProlactin

Art of the deal strikes again.

4 days ago

epolanski

This administration has a thing for being really vicious with the closest allies.

It really feels strange, odd, yet unsurprising that the US is going from a globalist leadership to selfish nationalism.

4 days ago

Paradigma11

Its easier since they have no defenses up and lots of valuables are in reach. It makes sense if you are that ethically challenged.

4 days ago

Is it?

How is America going to project its power without the ability to use overseas air bases? Is it going to do Falklands-style bombing runs to the Middle East, with 15 tankers to get a single small bomber to its target?

Is it going to accept an even higher defense budget, without the NATO's near-compulsory purchases from American weapons manufacturers?

When I'm creating a hypothetical to explain my viewpoint.

3 days ago

exceptione

  > We don't need war to grow stronger.

Indeed. But you have to project power to enforce a rule-based order, free trade and all that. This made America wealthy while its allies financed (practically forced to) huge chunks of the military industrial complex.

With America isolated, the world becomes a 'might makes right' order. State level maffia. In that model, it is eating the other or getting eaten, zero sum. Now the extremist ideologists believe that in that order America will shine and will dominate everything in its sphere of influence, as will China do. That's why you keep hearing the claims on Greenland, Canada and South American countries. These aren't jokes, but when people cannot fit information in their frame of reference, they will put that information aside. A very human trait, but also a tragic weakness.

The conservative ideologues' thinking is that the USA will have local clashes with China over who will claim Africa's and Europe's resources. So no, it won't have to be a full out war, but lots of local wars around the world. If you want to have an idea where might makes right leads to, look at Russia which has been perpetually involved in colonial wars and wars of conquest.

3 days ago

epolanski

You must have been living under a rock if you didn't notice how much did the US has thrived in the globalist world, and how much did it thrive more than the rest of its allies.

3 days ago

benfortuna

That just sounds like greed. It's not enough to be winning, I need to be winning as much if not more than everyone else.

4 days ago

charcircuit

[flagged]

4 days ago

Arodex

Where is Trump pushing for a "more fair" deal? State what is his metric and demonstrate it is "fair" for both sides.

Do you? Do you listen to his speeches?

Rose Garden

11:19 A.M. EDT

THE PRESIDENT: Thank you. Thank you very much. Please sit down.

It’s really great to see everybody on this beautiful, beautiful day in Washington, D.C. Some people say “the swamp,” but I will not say that today. (Laughter.) I refuse. This is too important, what we’re doing. One of the most important deals, and the most important trade deal we’ve ever made by far.

I want to thank Senator Joni Ernst for being here — Joni, thank you very much — of Iowa, and I’ll be there very soon. (Applause.) We’ll be doing something very important in Iowa. But this is maybe more important than all of it put together. Right, Joni? So I want to thank you for being here.

Congressman Holding, Congressman Roe, Congressman Newhouse, and Congressman Meadows, thank you all for being here. We very much appreciate it. You’ve been very instrumental. Thank you. (Applause.)

I am thrilled to speak to the American people to share truly historic news for our nation, and, indeed for the world. I want to thank Vice President Pence for joining us this morning. It is my great honor to announce that we have successfully completed negotiations on a brand new deal to terminate and replace NAFTA and the NAFTA trade agreements with an incredible new US-Mexico-Canada Agreement, called “USMCA.” It, sort of, just works: USMCA. (Applause.)

USMCA. That’ll be the name, I guess, that, 99 percent of the time, we’ll be hearing: USMCA. It has a good ring to it.

I have long contended that NAFTA was perhaps the worst trade deal ever made. Since NAFTA’s adoption, the United States racked up trade deficits totaling more than $2 trillion — and it’s a much higher number than that — with Canada and Mexico. It lost vast amounts of money, and lost 4.1 million manufacturing jobs, and 1 in 4 auto jobs. Lost about 25 percent of our auto jobs — even more than that.

Throughout the campaign, I promised to renegotiate NAFTA, and today we have kept that promise. But, for 25 years, as a civilian, as a businessman, I used to say, “How could anybody have signed a deal like NAFTA?” And I watched New England, and so many other places where I was just — the factories were leaving, the jobs were leaving, people were being fired, and we can’t have that.

So we have negotiated this new agreement based on the principle of fairness and reciprocity. To me, it’s the most important word in trade because we’ve been treated so unfairly by so many nations all over the world. And we’re changing that.

We just signed a much better deal with South Korea. We had a horrible, horrible deal, and we just signed that at United Nations. And that’s worked out well. And they’re happy; we’re happy. It’s good for jobs. Good for a lot of things.

When that deal was signed, they said 250,000 jobs will be given be — by signing this transaction, and they were right. I’ve said it before. They were right: 250,000 jobs to South Korea, not to the United States. So that’s changed and very much for the better. And this one is a brand new deal.

The agreement will govern nearly $1.2 trillion in trade, which makes it the biggest trade deal in the United States’ history.

I want to congratulate U.S. Trade Representative Bob Lighthizer who has worked — nobody understands how hard he’s worked. (Applause.) No matter when you called him, he was in the office or he was in somebody else’s office doing the same thing. Bob Lighthizer is great; I’ve heard it for years. I said, “If I ever do this, I want to get Lighthizer to represent us,” because he felt the way I did.

And the entire team at the USTR, standing behind me, and some right here in the audience: I want to thank you all. Fantastic job. (Applause.) Peter Navarro, everybody. Thank you all. Thank you. Fantastic group of people. They love our country.

I also want to thank you Secretary Mnuchin, Secretary Ross, Secretary Nielsen, Secretary Perdue, Jared Kushner, Peter Navarro, and United States Ambassador to Canada, Kelly Craft. Thank you. Thank you, Kelly. Thank you. (Applause.)

I also want to thank President Peña Nieto of Mexico, who — we had a few disagreements, but I really like him a lot. I think he may like me, I’m not sure. (Laughter.) But I think he’s a terrific person. And he’ll be leaving soon, but he’s really done a good job and — a wonderful, wonderful person. And the Mexican President-elect López Obrador, who has given his support to this agreement, and we’re developing a really good relationship which I think is very important for our country, frankly, and for Mexico.

And so they worked together on this. This was done by both. I said, “Look, I don’t want to sign an agreement, and then a new President comes in, they don’t like it, and we have difficulty.” They worked very much together on it, and I appreciate it from both.

I have to, certainly, give my highest regards to Prime Minister of Canada, Justin Trudeau. A lot of stories came out about Justin and I having difficulty together, and we did over the trade deal. But I’ll tell you, it’s turned out to be a very, very good deal for both; and a very, very good deal for all three. It puts us in a position that we’ve never been in before.

It’s very good when you look at the world and what the world is doing and what — when you look at the unfair trade practices that countries are using against the United States, this is a terrific deal for all of us.

Once approved by Congress, this new deal will be the most modern, up-to-date, and balanced trade agreement in the history of our country, with the most advanced protections for workers ever developed.

If you look at the reviews, people that would normally not, under any circumstances, say good things — because automatically they have to say bad. Even some Democrats say, “That’s amazing.” We had some — they haven’t been given the soundbites yet, I guess, Mike. But actually, you had some Democrats say, “This is really amazing if he really got all of that.” But by tomorrow, I would suspect they’ll change their tune. But that’s okay, because people know how good it is. It’s an amazing deal for a lot of people.

Likewise, it will be the most advanced trade deal in the world with ambitious provisions on the digital economy; patents — very important; financial services; and other areas where the United States has a strong competitive advantage.

Mexico and Canada have agreed to strong new labor protections, environmental protections, and new protections for intellectual property. So important.

This new deal is an especially great victory for our farmers. Our farmers have gone through a lot over the last 15 years. They’ve been taken advantage of by everybody. Prices have gone way down. And we’re working on some other deals that are going to make them very happy also.

But this is a very, very big deal for our farmers. Mexico and Canada will be opened up a lot more than they are now. And I think there will be a better spirit between the three countries, which is important for our farmers.

The agreement will give our farmers and ranchers far greater access to sell American-grown produce in Mexico and in Canada.

The deal includes a substantial increase in our farmers’ opportunities...

Blah, blah, blah, blah...

3 days ago

epolanski

Wait, how is he not right? /s

It's absolutely fair to count how much lumber and oil and cars you're importing-exporting while ignoring how much services in technology, IT, space, software, cloud, finance, etc, you're exporting. /s

3 days ago

lostlogin

> the US is going from a globalist leadership to selfish nationalism.

It’s worse than that. This doesn’t suit the US. It suits Trump (or at least, that’s what his addled mind thinks).

4 days ago

cumshitpiss

The US doesn’t have allies; it has interests.

4 days ago

conartist6

Very good yesterday, very bad today. I understand completely why nations are not eager to bargain with a petulant child

4 days ago

epolanski

The problem is more long lasting. The world cannot accommodate 180 degree turns every 4 years in Washington.

So anybody that will follow, regardless of the person's policies won't matter fully, as that person itself will be replaced 4-8 years later.

4 days ago

jjav

> So anybody that will follow, regardless of the person's policies won't matter fully, as that person itself will be replaced 4-8 years later.

That is the fundamental problem. The only way out, is to make changes to the constitution to specifically prohibit the executive branch from having any of this power to arbitrarily change things on a whim. That is the only way international peer could in the future trust an agreement made with the USA.

3 days ago

AnimalMuppet

Congress moves a lot slower, though. Congress isn't going to change tariffs every 24 hours. It takes a lot longer to get anything through Congress.

I mean, you still have the "every 4 years", or worse, "every few months". It's not at the pace that Trump changes things, though.

3 days ago

imightbebatman

There is absolutely 0 reason for tariffs to need to change every 24 hours. It is economically suicidal to do so. In fact.

2 days ago

stevenwoo

Trump is using a few very specific laws. Congress could replace them if it were functional, and not ossified by Senate rules sometime allowing even 1/3 + 1 vote bloc a blocking veto.

3 days ago

mschuster91

> So anybody that will follow, regardless of the person's policies won't matter fully, as that person itself will be replaced 4-8 years later.

There is only one chance the US has - they need to do what us Germans were forced to post-1945, rearchitect everything.

The US and UK are the only major countries that didn't undergo some sort of revolution, war or other reset of their constitution and legal systems and it shows everywhere.

If we Europeans (or anyone else) are supposed to ever trust the US again, we demand they properly fix their shit and prevent another madman's rise for good.

4 days ago

epolanski

Americans absolutely love winner-takes-all narratives. They love it and they dread our "beta" democracies that cannot achieve anything.

They'd rather fall into Russian models of government where a single person can promise you the world and you give it the power to do so, rather than bother with things like "compromise" or "representation".

Re-electing somebody who openly attacked the institutions, instead of taking what happened on Jan 6th as a wake up call is the clear sign.

3 days ago

ed_elliott_asc

I fear this is just the beginning, I’ve seen nothing to say the voting American public are any less into divisive politics than they have been for the last decade

[edit autocorrect changed divisive to decisive]

4 days ago

AnimalMuppet

That's going to take a level of responsibility and statesmanship that the Democrats haven't shown in a long time.

Why do I single out the Democrats? Because after Trump, they're going to have the first chance to fix this so that it can't happen again.

3 days ago

benj111

You do realise that Germany had a shiny new constitution, and then went on to elect that Austrian painter. And that's after the prior new and shiny constitution leading into ww1

Afghanistan had a new constitution and legal system when the US pulled out.

As a Brit, my take away is that having a nicely laid out constitution doesn't matter if you don't have the culture there to back it up. The US did manage to deal with one term of Trump, so that's something.

4 days ago

crote

Germany came into being in 1871, and was in essence a monarchy until 1918. The Weimar Republic was its first attempt at a proper democracy, and it included an explicit "in case of emergency, we can revert back to totalitarianism" clause. It was a democracy with a giant built-in escape hatch - which as we all know was immediately used by a certain Austrian painter to turn it into a dictatorship.

Germany's first two constitutions quickly failed because they weren't democratic enough. The US constitution - despite its obvious flaws - has somehow managed to make it 250 years without causing huge issues, but it is now becoming quite clear that there should probably be a revision to prevent another giant mess like the current one from happening.

3 days ago

mschuster91

> The US did manage to deal with one term of Trump, so that's something.

Trump caused a lot of suffering and damage even in his first term, his second term (especially "thanks" to DOGE) was orders of magnitude worse.

A good democracy can survive one direct hit, maybe two, but anyone with a working brain cell left can clearly see the cracks in the foundation one needs to exploit to become President - and there will be such exploitation attempts, unless by a huge wonder the next President will be a Democrat, have a majority in both chambers of Congress and prosecutes everyone involved in the Trump administrations.

4 days ago

toast0

At least the timing of the turns is predictable... I imagine working with countries with snap elections is harder, especially when they have trouble forming a government.

4 days ago

epolanski

No, why would that be?

That's the reality of most mature democracies from UK to Germany to Italy.

If anything, that makes change slower and based on coalition consensus, not a single winner-take-all individual mood.

Which means that there isn't much to "work" as previous arrangements keep holding and they hardly change.

I would never exchange our democracy for a king electing one like in US, Turkey or Russia.

I'd rather have our democracies slower, the governments more unstable, but representative.

4 days ago

com

Deliberative and hopefully self-stabilising. Real directional change happens over the span of a decade, not a few months. All arms of government (including non-kingship executive) brought to a rough consensus of choice and consequences.

4 days ago

biorach

You might think. The UK would be the most prominent example and in fact has been a much more predictable and consistent trading and negotiating partner than the USA

4 days ago

mschuster91

> The UK would be the most prominent example and in fact has been a much more predictable and consistent trading and negotiating partner than the USA

European here: Oh hell no. The Brexit breakup drama was years of chaos with each of the braindead Prime Ministers somehow managing to make things worse.

4 days ago

benj111

It still is.

We still aren't doing border checks on EU imports.

Still, Boris Johnson wasn't as bad as Trump.

4 days ago

Normal_gaussian

That's quite a take.

The EU-UK negotiations were mired in issues of EU maximalism; attempting to force each PM to agree a worse deal knowing not agreeing to it would cause short term pain for that PMs political situation. Its quite the thing that the UK managed to hold on as much as it did.

The UK was on the back foot in all negotiations having been forced into the Brexit outcome.

For all the nonsense printed in the UK and Continental presses, the UK had a surprisingly consistent position through the entire thing with clear threads of staff and policies still running to today.

4 days ago

vrganj

The EU position was consistent from even before the referendum: Either in or out of the single market, no cherry picking.

Each PM in the UK's neverending parade gained power by telling their electorate "I have this genius plan that'll totally let us cherry pick" only to be deflated when the EU held to its clearly stated position.

The problem with Brexit was that the Brits wanted something that was never on the table, they voted for Brexit under false pretenses and then got mad when they couldn't get what they wanted.

4 days ago

crote

There were no real negotiations, and there were never going to be. This has always been painfully obvious to anyone with even the slightest interest in EU foreign relations. The options on the table have always been the same:

You can be like Norway and join the EEA: full access to the single market, but having to make a financial contribution, accepting most EU laws, and with free movement of people. You get an exemption on some laws, but you don't get a say in any of the rules of the single market.

You can be like Switzerland and join the EFTA: partial access to the single market (notably not the banking sector), still have to contribute, only have to follow EU laws when it comes to trade, and still free movement of people.

You can be like Turkey: a customs union meaning no tariffs apply to EU trade, but you have to apply EU tariffs on all other trades and have no say over them.

You can be like Canada: a comprehensive free-trade deal which covers the majority of goods, but it means having to follow EU standards and requirements without having a say in them, and it probably won't cover services.

The EU was never going to give every Briton a magical gold-shitting unicorn, no matter how much the UK was going to plead and beg for it. It was more than happy to negotiate a deal on any of the options like those above, but it was up to the UK to decide what Brexit was going to look like.

But the Brexiteers promised the voters they could have their cake and eat it - "Brexit means Brexit", after all. Everyone invented their own personal idea of a Brexit, and the various interpretations were always going to be fundamentally incompatibly with each other! The negotiations went so horrible because the UK had absolutely no idea what it wanted, and any option was going to be wildly unpopular as it did both too much and too little at once. And all of that is before you take Northern Ireland into consideration, where the wrong move would result in a literal civil war...

Brexit wasn't a negotiation. It was a therapy session to help the UK find itself.

3 days ago

mschuster91

> The negotiations went so horrible because the UK had absolutely no idea what it wanted

Well, there was one thing that was crystal clear and consistent across the entire Brexit shitshow: out with the migrants.

Well, they got their wishes, and ended up with fruit rotting on the fields.

3 days ago

Arodex

>the UK had a surprisingly consistent position through the entire thing

Please state the official "consistent" position regarding the main problem caused by your own decision to leave: the Irish border.

4 days ago

benj111

What?

"Forced into the Brexit outcome"

Cameron stepped down after he shat the bed, every PM was a Tory.

And yeah, the position was consistent. Before it was 'we could have all the benefits of being in the EU, with none of the down sides'. We could have soft Brexit, or the less popular hard Brexit.

Teresa Mays position was "Brexit means Brexit" and non of the others had a clue either. Because they promised everything to everyone. In the event we got a harder Brexit than the hardest Brexit discussed before the vote.

You didn’t say it and it may not occur to you, but you are correct, the UK is among the many sham democracies, which is arguably the primary objective of “democracies”; an illusion supported by a concept called choice supportive bias, i.e., if you believe the outcome of something was due to your own action, choice, or agency you’re prone to accept it, defend it, not question it, and ignore its detrimental effects.

It’s a rather diabolical form of control, democracy. “You have fake choices and you like … nay, you love what you choose”, quite literally. You have to love it, because you have to believe it’s true. And that’s where they latched onto your mind.

It’s quite ingeniou.

4 days ago

expedition32

Countries realise that trade agreements are too important for politics.

They are usually negotiated by a nation's crack team of experts. America just does not take any of this seriously anymore.

4 days ago

JKCalhoun

True. But a fundamental reshaping of the laws of the U.S. (who gets to set economic policy for example) could help.

In short, attenuate executive power.

3 days ago

rich_sasha

But we’re talking 180 degrees every… 2 weeks?

4 days ago

sandworm101

"That's like a toddler with a harpoon. There's a toddler wandering around in that office with a harpoon." The Thick of It s4e2.

4 days ago

DyslexicAtheist

"He's so dense that light bends around him"

4 days ago

[deleted]

4 days ago

A_D_E_P_T

I get it, but tariffs will only make things more expensive for Canadians, too.

I've got a better idea.

1) Repeal all DMCA-like laws. Make it explicitly legal to break a digital lock to repair a device, run custom code, install third-party parts, or just tinker and hack with your own devices and software.

2) Ban parts-pairing. Prohibit manufacturers (looking at you Apple & John Deere,) from using cryptographic serialization to block independent mechanics and technicians from swapping parts.

3) Legalize "Adversarial Interoperability" (https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2019/10/adversarial-interopera...)

4) Copyright reform.

That's it. This would make things cheaper and better for Canadians. Lutnick and Trump would seethe eternally, but it would be downright excellent for Canada and a shining beacon unto the world.

3 days ago

adverbly

I love the concept.

I'd be happy to see the solution to consumer pain And economic productivity to pass permanently pro productivity and pro consumer policies.

Anti monopoly stuff. Maybe a growth policy like land value tax.

I'd need to hear from some experts to know which specific policies would be best though. Ideally you choose some policies that are not perceived as going nuclear, or which leave open counters, or which you would want to remove after a deal is made.

In general, going heavier into consumer/data protection laws and proceeding to prosecute both the Canadian and American monopolies would be amazing though.

3 days ago

A_D_E_P_T

> In general, going heavier into consumer/data protection laws and proceeding to prosecute both the Canadian and American monopolies would be amazing though.

IMO you don't want lawfare -- but rather you want to remove bad laws like the DMCA (and related), and the life-plus-70 copyright term, and thus foster more innovation and growth.

It's easiest to repeal anti-consumer/anti-commons laws.

3 days ago

xyzzy_plugh

I'd love this too, but it is impossible. If you believe it's possible then you fundamentally misunderstand how greatly coupled our countries are.

A rather large amount of Canadian industry is benefiting from these regulations. Adopting policies like these would be tremendously disruptive and cause a lot of short term issues, upsetting manufacturers, foreign owned subsidiaries (who employ a lot of people), unions and retailers.

I'd love to see copyright reform though.

3 days ago

A_D_E_P_T

> A rather large amount of Canadian industry is benefiting from these regulations. Adopting policies like these would be tremendously disruptive and cause a lot of short term issues, upsetting manufacturers, foreign owned subsidiaries (who employ a lot of people), unions and retailers.

Why?

This didn't even exist until 2011: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyright_Modernization_Act

And how would something like banning parts pairing "cause a lot of short-term issues"? Existing supply chains would remain intact. They'd simply be broadened, eventually, by new entrants. If incumbents leave the market in a fit of pique, you can rest assured that the gaps will be filled, and that those incumbents may very well be liable for breach of contract if they refuse to service existing Canadian customers.

3 days ago

timbit42

What about export tariffs instead?

7 hours ago

diego_moita

> but tariffs will only make things more expensive for Canadians, too.

Yes, there is no war without pain. But I am willing to face the pain.

However, in the long run, the pain might bring good. It might help products from other countries to enter the Canadian market. I hope to see more food, cars and appliances from Latin America, Europe, Asia and Africa in the Canadian market.

>- the US imports 60-70% of its oil from Canada

In context, this only applies to oil that the US imports. That number means that of the oil that the US imports, 60-70% of it comes from Canada. The US currently produces more oil than any other nation. Your note should read "the US imports 60-70% of the oil that it imports from Canada"

- 100% of the natural gas

As mentioned above, this means that US imports of natural gas come exclusively from Canada. The US currently produces more natural gas than any other nation too. Your note should read "100% of the natural gas that the US imports comes from Canada"

It makes sense that Canada is sole source for imported natural gas since that is a product that is most efficiently transported in pipelines, like crude oil.

The way your numbers are framed seems to me to imply that the US is a net importer of oil and natural gas when in fact we began to ramp up exports of oil and natural gas (and coal) in 2006-2008 time period. Those exports helped the industry remain a dominant political force and provided a lot of seed money for the corruption that we have seen in the US since.

3 days ago

cmrdporcupine

This is all true but the story is a bit more complicated because of the nature of the refinery configurations means that many of the refineries in the US are specifically geared for / dependent on the heavy crude that comes from Canada and are not set up for the light crude that comes from US domestic oil.

Major pipelines (e.g. Enbridge / Mainline / Line 5 etc system) also cross the border back and forth. Same for natural gas etc.

Like auto parts/auto manufacturing -- the whole system has been assumed in the past by economic decision makers to be a continent-wide system.

Trying to break that apart now is just trying to jam toothpaste back in the tube.

It would be an incredible multi-year economic disruption if Canadian oil and gas were to be turned off tomorrow. The bullshit "we don't need anything from Canada" line is beyond insane.

2 days ago

doodlebugging

Thanks for fleshing out another part of the situation. All of our energy production and processing capacity is dependent to some extent on products that are not domestically sourced. Our Gulf of Mexico refineries were originally built to use heavy Venezuelan crude. Citgo is basically the 100% state-owned Venezuelan oil company PDVSA. It is chartered in the US as a Delaware corp headquartered in Texas as PDV Holdings which owns 100% of Citgo Holdings shares. Even with instability in the region and strained relations, the Citgo operation was critical to US production of refined products. Canadian tar sands production began ramping up after 9/11 as in-situ production using steam injection became a big driver over open mining operations. There was consolidation in the industry during that period as the industry rebounded from low crude prices a few years earlier (as low as ~$11.50/bbl) In a few short years the prices had stabilized above $50/bbl so that it has remained economical to produce. Before that, the heavy crude, tar-like products almost all came from Lake Maracaibo.

2 days ago

Waterluvian

And Canada has also been passing up an absolutely enormous opportunity for industrial growth by spending generations supporting American industry by remaining a primary resources economy.

3 days ago

cmrdporcupine

... by choice/design of its own leadership :-(

Man, I remember watching the '88 election debate as a young teen. So many people were saying this then. Look at us now.

3 days ago

steve_adams_86

I was only 2 in ‘88, but the story is the same from my perspective. I think so much about how to get my city to incentivize more manufacturing industry. The small amount we do have is the most lucrative use of the space in the municipality on a square foot basis, yet the city makes it far more difficult than is necessary to start these types of businesses. Worse still is that this type of space, relative to population, is decreasing when it should be increasing.

We have SO MUCH potential in Canada. It’s incredible. The only thing stopping us is ourselves.

What drives me nuts too is that my kids find work in places like tourist traps and Tim Hortons. When I was a kid I got to learn to build things, use tools and machines, use my body, plan projects (albeit very menial ones in my teens), and figure out what the hell all this abstract stuff in school was really for. I was applying math, drafting simple designs, writing to customers about orders, and using skills I hadn’t found real-world uses for up until that point. They’re missing out so much. But our city is, too. My kids are worth far more than serving coffee and frying fish and chips for tourists. And they’d be worth even more in ten years if real opportunities existed here. They’d have knowledge and skills they’ll never find in those places.

It really drives me crazy. So much wasted potential. We can do better, but we need policies that enable us to do it.

2 days ago

cmrdporcupine

Notably, none of the goods you just mentioned about (energy imports, uranium, potash, etc.) have had tariffs applied by the Trump regime because they know all this. And it would be political suicide to apply an export tax on them.

No, instead the Trump tariffs have specifically targeted the regions of Canada that a) elect left of centre governments and/or b) have manufacturing economies.

So Ontario's auto sector, BC's forestry, and Quebec's aluminum and aerospace sectors.

Meanwhile Alberta and Saskatchewan -- which have compliant quite honestly pro-Trump governments -- have only 2% of their exports currently impacted by tariffs.

It has the look of an attempt at regime change, masquerading as economic policy.

3 days ago

softwaredoug

This is true somewhat, but keep in mind the 50% tariffs aren’t on all goods. They’re on like 5% of exports.

By definition if you isolate a country from the world it would be more self sufficient that very moment than it is the moment before it is isolated. Isn't that obvious?

3 days ago

Peaches4Rent

Just so you know, I think comments like these are just unproductive.

3 days ago

cindyllm

[dead]

2 days ago

sandworm101

It is a good thing canadians are so nice. Dropping US alcohol is a tiny thing compared to some of the weapons canada might deploy. Look at all the back-and-forth deals in recent years and you will see an exemption for oil and potash. Think gas prices are high now? See what happens if canada starts shipping less crude. Think food prices are high? See what happens when there is no fertilizer because canada has restricted potash exports. And what will make Musk's head explode: canada is starting to allow cheap chinese EVs into north america. Canadians will be driving them around the US very soon.

https://www.atlanticcouncil.org/dispatches/how-to-secure-the...

> US mines produce roughly 500,000 metric tons of potash per year, only about 8 percent of the 5.9 million metric tons of apparent annual US consumption. The remaining demand is met through imports, producing a net import reliance of about 92 percent. Reflecting the high concentration of global potash production, most of that supply comes from Canada (79 percent), with smaller volumes from Russia (12 percent) and other producers (9 percent) including Israel.

4 days ago

thangalin

The sentiment here is that nobody wants U.S. citizens to be negatively impacted by trade restrictions or tariffs. We are figuratively and, in many cases, literally friends and family. (Aside, even if our provincial governments allow southern booze back on shelves, it'll stay there.)

It would be decidedly un-Canadian to leverage electricity, potash, or other commodities necessary for survival in trade negotiations -- despite what Ford may suggest. We're nice, but we won't bow to bullies. Elbows up, eh!

4 days ago

bluealienpie

I want them to be negatively impacted. Maybe a couple family members spoke publicly about what’s happening, and the rest remain silent or indifferent. My cousins are too busy with their multi million dollar AI roles to even see us non-millionaires as human.

4 days ago

JohnFen

> nobody wants U.S. citizens to be negatively impacted by trade restrictions or tariffs.

As much as it pains me to say it as an American, little will change unless US citizens are negatively impacted. Trump is losing power and support in the US precisely because people are becoming more aware that he's hurting them.

3 days ago

Pet_Ant

I see the same thing in Russia. It seems like there is no such thing as a civilian target because getting your opponents citizens to uprise and while yours to support you is the key strategy now.

It’s Vietnam Hearts and Minds all over again.

3 days ago

stevenwoo

Except i think the American heart and minds campaign in Vietnam was lip service to a campaign that was measured by body count, and dead non combatants can’t litigate their combat status, so McNamara was befuddled the USA was “winning” and losing every square inch where there were not American soldiers in force. That there was no equivalent to insurgent Viet Cong embedded in North Vietnam says everything.

3 days ago

benj111

You do realise it's the citizens that voted trump in?

And you don't have to ban them, just make them more expensive. Your US brethren did vote for tarriffs. With that comes higher prices.

4 days ago

thangalin

> You do realise it's the citizens that voted trump in?

When electing a candidate, not everyone endorses every specific policy of that candidate; casting a ballot does not imply total ideological alignment (nor even full knowledge of all policies), especially in a two-party FPTP electoral system. Many people vote based on broad messaging, loyalty, economic sentiment, or identity instead of in-depth platform analysis. To wit, Latino voters did not realise how helping to push ice-cold reds into power would affect their lives. They simply didn't know or understand. Now they do. Canada's next actions, counter-tariffs, and burgeoning global economic ties I hope will further open the eyes of mislead citizens.

Harris lost the popular vote by 1.5%, which does not a landslide make.

3 days ago

thijson

It's a slow moving train wreck. I hope the consequences of these petulant actions scar the minds of voters for years to come. We're seeing the yield on treasuries creeping up, I think that's one of the consequences.

4 days ago

contingencies

And what will make Musk's head explode: canada is starting to allow cheap chinese EVs into north america

Another Musk moment: most aluminum in the US comes from Canada. Most of Musk's vehicles are built with aluminum. These tariffs will directly increase Tesla manufacturing cost in the US, making them even less competitive.

4 days ago

TMWNN

[flagged]

3 days ago

Teever

America will not be annexing Canada. Now or ever.

What a vile and predictable comment.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43485649#43487443

3 days ago

TMWNN

I forgot to add that, reading over the entire discussion as opposed to the subthread you linked to, about 0% of the hysterical nonsense people talked about actually happened. Canadians were not "hoovered" up en masse in the US and the US economy did not collapse (while Canada entered into a recession (sorry, "technical recession") in Q2). As for visits to the US, as of March 2026 <https://www.trade.gov/i-94-arrivals-program> (I haven't checked since), Canadian visits to the US were down yoy, but overall visits to the US are up 4% yoy for the month and are flat yoy ytd. So the rest of the world never did share in "elbows up".

3 days ago

Teever

Annexation is illegal and will not occur. A charitable interpretation of your comment is that you intended to use the word accession.

Accession was the likely inevitable outcome up until the reelection of the current President but after the American people expressed their continued support for a systemically corrupt gerontocracy and all that this entailed this kind of willing and amicable outcome has been taken off the table and likely will be for several generations. I get a sense that the general sentiment that Canadians are feeling regarding American attitudes and actions right now is outright betrayal and condemnation.

As for annexation it's important to keep in mind that this would be an illegal act of aggression against a peaceful ally and that it runs counter to everything that America claims to stand for. I'm skeptical that it would even be possible at this point, and I don't see a way that it could be done without military action.

Annexation is a pretty drastic thing to suggest too, how are you thinking it will unfold? Are you talking about something impending by the end of this decade or a multi-decade sort of thing? What happens if Canada resists? And what about other countries?

Something that I think is often overlooked is that there is a true appreciation in Europe for the Canadian sacrifices made in the World Wars and that these sacrifices have tied our countries together. I also think that you've underestimated the resolve of the Canadian people and how much they are incensed by these recent actions taken by America.

I'm sure you have a really neat and clean geopolitical analysis for why annexation is inevitable that factors in the geographic realities and economic / military disparities between the two countries and I'd love to read it but I'm quite certain that's likely to be just one big McNamara Fallacy.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McNamara_fallacy

3 days ago

TMWNN

[flagged]

3 days ago

TMWNN

[flagged]

3 days ago

TitaRusell

Everyone talking about trade but this is about sovereignty. America wants to take over Canada.

All countries on this planet at some point were faced with a similar choice: capitulate or fight to the death. Ironically those who chose the latter are the ones who survived.

3 days ago

andy_ppp

Can the US even afford a trade war, they are beginning to find borrowing more money increasingly difficult… currently the debt is around $130k for every man, woman and child in the US.

4 days ago

cmiles8

More difficult is a relative term. More difficult but still easier than other countries so the US remains in a stronger position here. The US can sustain the mess a lot longer than most countries can survive it.

4 days ago

diego_moita

> is a relative term

More "relative" than you think.

Look at the wars the US fought after WWII: Korea, Vietnam, Afghanistan, Iraq, etc. The US suffered a lot less pain than any of those countries and was in a lot stronger position. But those countries were willing to face the pain, the US wasn't. That's why the US lost those wars. The same pattern goes now with Iran. You kill people on those countries, those countries hurt the American voters in their pockets.

In trade wars it might be the same mechanism. For the American people, a trade war is mostly to follow the glorious orange leader. For Canadians it is a matter of national sovereignty.

3 days ago

[deleted]

3 days ago

Schiendelman

Gross debt to GDP ratio in the US has fallen from 130% in 2021 to under 125% now. It'll likely tick back up closer to 130, but it's been relatively flat.

Economic growth and inflation have kept pace with gross debt for a long time, and if the US continues to stay on top of the tech industry, the raw numbers will likely continue not to matter.

3 days ago

Motor vehicles is funny - tariff the vehicles owned by American companies (GM, Ford, Stellantis). I wonder how the CEOs of those companies react or communicate with the White House their feelings on this.

3 days ago

bix6

Great dude thanks for defending the klepto king. Really important work you’re doing.

3 days ago

softwaredoug

I’m not defending anything

nativeit-net

4 days ago

lemoncookiechip

Someone has to fund Israel's universal healthcare.

4 days ago

throwaway384638

[flagged]

4 days ago

exceptione

Please switch off Fox News and fetch real world updates. Europe's dependence and weapon system fragmentation is by USA design; Europe has allowed the US to have this advantage as part of the security architecture, alongside other goodwill handed to the US. Europe is rapidly rearming while the American mil. complex is throwing tantrums, but you can't have your cake and eat it too.

3 days ago

water-data-dude

A few months prior to the midterms is exactly the right time for this sort of action. If the voters keep seeing prices increase because of Trump's tariffs, it increases the odds that the republicans will lose the legislative branch and will be able to act as a check on Trump's power. Ideally some other countries will follow suit.

This will cause some short term pain for Canada, but hopefully they'll have a less insane trading partner after November.

3 days ago

cmrdporcupine

Unfortunately I think the only usable big lever we have as Canadians -- wine/beer liquor imports and people choosing to restrict personal travel to the US -- has already been used. We cannot and will not exercise energy or potash restrictions. And import tariffs are unlikely to be substantially impactful enough for Americans to notice enough that it alters their decisions at the ballot box.

I would however urge my fellow Canadians to continue to or start boycotting goods from the US and travel to there, generally.

And likely encourage Americans to come visit here. Come ski here this winter. You're more than welcome here.

3 days ago

hmokiguess

True North, Strong and Free

4 days ago

ModernMech

Amazing that in 2026 Canada, Iran, and US Circuit Courts have the same stance: the US federal government cannot be trusted to tell the truth about anything. Fish really rots from the head.

4 days ago

jt2190

For some perspective about what’s being negotiated:

“What’s at stake in the Canada-U.S. trade deal? How looming tariffs could cost Canada 90,000 jobs”. Trevor Tombe, professor of economics at the University of Calgary

https://thehub.ca/2026/08/20/whats-at-stake-in-the-canada-u-...

3 days ago

arendtio

Can't all the countries that are hit by US tariffs try to lower the barriers to trading with each other? Not a quick fix, but a signal to the US that they are losing its position in the long term.

2 days ago

Argonaut998

This is definitely going on in the background. Mercosur and another EU trade deal with India. Canada and China (which was struck down but I imagine it will be rekindled with this). Just wait for some EU + Canada deal soon enough.

2 days ago

duxup

I don’t blame them, even if you cut a deal the president sees something on social media and comes back for more tariffs.

3 days ago

iNerdier

Reciprocal tariffs alone don’t make much sense, it’s just making things for Canadians more expensive with an adversary that’s larger and can sustain them longer (although how long remains to be seen with guilt yields rising.)

If they really want to hurt them start making it legal to circumvent DRM on American products and allow build meaningful replacements.

3 days ago

sanderjd

We, in the US, might be able to sustain this longer economically, but Canadians can sustain this longer politically.

3 days ago

morkalork

Well it's 73 days till the midterm elections so we'll see what happens. Signing a bad deal when the political landscape could dramatically change in a few weeks never made sense.

Whatever man...

If you want people to buy stuff from you Americans then just try to stop pushing forward American imperialism down into everyone's throats. This isn't just about money, it is about my country's sovereignty.

3 days ago

kasey_junk

That’s a reasonable reason to apply tariffs. But don’t assume it’s _us_ paying that tax. It’s you.

We get to get taxed on the other side by paying more for Canadian goods.

3 days ago

diego_moita

> It’s you.

Only if I buy "Made in America".

Whenever possible, it won't happen.

3 days ago

kasey_junk

Nope. Not how prices work. If you have a replacement good that would be cheaper but you artificially inflate it with a tax you are forcing that tax on every transaction.

Again, if you think that tax is valid, feel free but tariffs costs are born by the consumer in the tariff applying country, ask us how we know…

3 days ago

jjtwixman

It's not about economics, it's about politics. The free world hates you. You just don't realise it yet.

3 days ago

kasey_junk

Sadly most of us do realize it. But this is why tariffs are so pernicious. Because you hate me, you are going to tax yourself. It’s a negative sum world view. It’s bad enough that Trump believes the nonsense, he’s been able to export it.

3 days ago

_whiteCaps_

New Zealand apples are literally the same price as the US ones around here in BC.

3 days ago

kasey_junk

New Zealand is having a bumper apple crop this year. Literally one of the best in 30 years. And umm American apple season hasn’t started yet.

He's just running a kleptocracy, and doing so reasonably well.

4 days ago

rjzzleep

People still happily buy his tokens though, and then blame China for getting scammed.

3 days ago

bdangubic

Not China’s fault but Biden’s :)

3 days ago

[deleted]

3 days ago

trueno

indeed. i'm sure he's surrounded by some lumber moguls stateside that are going to get very rich from this. very russia coded.

i don't doubt deregulation on clearcutting as well as removing land ownership and no logging in national forests & protected lands.... are around the corner with this admin. feel like they attempted that during his last term with attempting to disgrace park rangers over wildfires and saying they didn't rake the leaves on the ground or whatever.

3 days ago

TehCorwiz

They already started by shrinking national monuments.

https://www.npr.org/2026/07/14/nx-s1-5893397/trump-again-shr...

I've noticed pretty heavy partisanship here on [flat earth] vs [spherical earth].

He doesn't give a shit about US lumber or US builders.

If he isn't stuffing his pockets, he's leveraging the populist playbook. In this case, 'scapegoating'.

But let's be honest, he likely has a huge amount of debt. Before he came into office he almost certainly fixed the interest on that debt knowing he could blow inflation through the roof and inflate it away.

3 days ago

dboreham

The "make more money" rationale is way too logical vs how this guy's brain operates. It's better understood as being like Pro Wrestling. Except the "ring" is the world economy.

3 days ago

pkulak

He's already got more money than he can spend. As dementia sets in, he's been shifting more and more to pure emotion-based decision making.

3 days ago

Terretta

> “motivated entirely … to stuff his pockets”

Someone's pockets, must be gnomes:

• PHASE 1: COLLECT UNDERPANTS. (tariff "foreign" goods desired by Americans, collect upon import from companies, clarify spiked prices experienced by consumers ‘entirely’ due to prior admin policies)

• PHASE 2: … (let simmer)

• PHASE 3: PROFIT. ("return" tariff costs to companies)

3 days ago

estearum

April 2: Trump "liberates" Americans from low-cost goods by placing tariffs at 46% on Vietname

May 16: Vietnam approves $1.5B Trump hotel project (https://apnews.com/article/vietnam-trump-golf-estate-investm...)

ekabod

Maybe US lumber producers lined his pockets. Probably not.

4 days ago

Avicebron

I don't cutting down our forests either but the stated goal of the whole exercise is to improve the US's businesses and self reliance on local industry...

4 days ago

estearum

"The stated goal" is stupid as fuck, especially when it comes to our literal immediate neighbor who has been a steadfast ally for the last 100+ years.

3 days ago

And the unstated goal is to satisfy a senile crook stuck in the 70s (maybe the 1870s)...

3 days ago

realusername

How it seems to work from his past attempts is that the business pays a bribe to try to lift it

4 days ago

wat10000

It's true, not everything he does is to stuff his pockets, a lot of it is just to fluff his ego or avenge perceived slights.

3 days ago

qwhag17

[dead]

3 days ago

Teknomadix

Indeed. Donald Trump is only the visible tip of an iceberg. Below the waterline it's a massive and all encompassing corruption, comprised of an organized multi-national cabal that touches every part of the globe and which has its roots in the world starting well before WWI. The goal of which appears has always been to enrich the people on the inside while sewing chaos. To these figures, war and peril have always been more profitable than making peace.

https://annas-archive.gl/md5/2275fbf2d96f518e54c2b72edf163f8...

3 days ago

bryanlarsen

Price is set at the margin. If America is physically incapable of supplying 100% of its own lumber needs, then that Canadian lumber is the marginal good, and the price of 100% of lumber will go up, not just the Canadian stuff.

Two things that will prevent that:

- inertia

3 days ago

xxs

Geography as in softwood forests, instead of the iconic maple leaf. In no way Canada would be importing 30%+ of its construction timber from the US. Canada is a major softwood timber exporter.

3 days ago

uxp100

Do you think Canada doesn’t have housing issues?

3 days ago

Carney's speech yesterday was masterful:

His negotiating methods, if one can call them that, are like "single use weapons" that are relationship burning rather than building. If you are doing 100s of one-off deals with counterparties you will never talk to again, and who don't know each other.. it might actually work.

But you burn the ability to make more deals with the same counterparty again.

If you played this game with your neighbor over a fenceline or tree limb dangerously overhanging into your yard.. you would save a few bucks once, and have an antagonistic relationship for the next 10-20 years of living next to them. Good luck getting the benefit of the doubt next time.

3 days ago

3 days ago

debo_

Criticizing someone's mischaracterization of a book while acting like a meme isn't particularly interesting. If you're going to be smug, at least be creative about it.

3 days ago

ozim

Most of people just move on, as I don't see more comments or downvotes.

So there must be something specifically interesting for you I suppose.

3 days ago

Loughla

Honestly though, it seems like he would rather have everyone lose than take a chance that anyone but him wins.

Even positive reporting of the man makes him out to have a massively fragile ego.

4 days ago

3 days ago

WarmWash

Like I said in my earlier post, the richest group of Americans is not the 1%. It's middle/upper middle/upper class suburbia.

It's crab bucket mentality. Poor Americans think if they just fuck over enough other people things will magically improve for them. But that's not how it works.

The cost of living skyrocketing is bad for blue collar workers. They suffer the most, actually, because proportionally more of their income is eaten. Salary-paid workers eat the cost much better. The wealthy, even better.

Wages are not increasing fast enough to replace the cost of food and materials. Materials matter because they make up everything. In the interim, hourly-paid employees are suffering.

3 days ago

WarmWash

You cannot increase wages without the money to do so. The factories are broke too. Manufacturing has these fundamental deficits that make it very capital punishing compared to software or finance, or consulting.

Britain is a better example of this because it's much smaller. The country is pretty much London with wealthy desk workers, and then the rest of country with hollowed out industry that is borderline 3rd world.

Naturally the economy wants to kill inefficient businesses, and let the workers fall off the societal wagon. So the question is how do you stop that.

The right says protect industry so they can have jobs, the left says tax rich people so they can have handouts.

3 days ago

preg_match

This is true, but the problem is accelerated with poor fiscal policy like everything the Trump administration does. Tariffs ultimately hurt manufacturing, not desk workers. The idea was solid: implement tariffs to encourage domestic manufacturing. Except, domestic manufacturing requires materials, which are now tariffed. And the tariffs are so volatile that any capital investment, outside of maybe datacenters and some others, is suicide.

The right says give them jobs, but in reality, their policy destroys jobs. It doesn't help that GOP fiscal policy also implodes the deficit further than it already is, so now you can't even use that money to stimulate businesses. We're stuck in a corner. It will take decades to fix this fiscal mess, and in the meantime a lot of people are going to suffer.

3 days ago

WarmWash

It's too embattled for me to comment on Trumps execution. I'm just speaking to the theory.

Tariffs have been used to protect industry for centuries by every country in the whole current debacle.

Again I'm just speaking about what the wrench does, not how the guy wielding is working.

3 days ago

jjtwixman

Have you even been to the UK? Or are you one of those terminally online experts on the "UK understanders" who just makes hyperbolic statements about the place? A bit like that guy Musk.

3 days ago

3 days ago

dpkirchner

Before engaging, let's get this settled: do you believe that the US economy operates on a zero sum basis?

3 days ago

Avicebron

No it's not zero sum but it can also not be benefiting a ton of people. Which is what I said..

3 days ago

dpkirchner

Here's what I don't get about this: Trump's main campaign promise was to raise prices for American consumers (via tariffs) and to harm the lowest wage earners the most (tariffs as sales taxes are regressive).

Going against "business as usual" resulted in higher prices, as predicted and promised.

Nearly everyone here benefited from lower prices afforded by reduced trade barriers. This isn't some obscure hidden fact.

3 days ago

[deleted]

3 days ago

calf

The mistake here is letting the word benefit do all the heavy lifting. You cannot define benefit in a superficial way and expect things to make sense. Notions like "let them eat cake", or trickle-down-economics, also abuse and distort the notion of benefit. "System X benefitted all Americans in a trivial way" smacks of that kind of false reasoning.

3 days ago

g8oz

Progressive taxation.

Lumber is not part of these tariffs. These are on a narrow set of products.

Lumber is a different long standing trade dispute going back to the 80s unrelated to the industries targeted by the 50% tariffs.

Trump created a 10% Lumber tariff in Sept 2025, but it was already tariffed before that. Canadian lumber today isn’t suddenly 50% more expensive.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canada%E2%80%93United_States_s...

4 days ago

sanderjd

This does not seem to be accurate, from the reporting I've read. Do you have a source?

3 days ago

softwaredoug

This article lists the specific industries. Lumber is not one of them. It lists

Motor Vehicles, Alcohol, and Dairy as the largest industries.

https://www.newsweek.com/full-list-of-us-trade-tariffs-hitti...

3 days ago

bamboozled

The new duties are in addition to existing tariffs on Canadian steel, aluminum and lumber.

According to your own article lumber is included already You’re wrong. It was already 45%!

3 days ago

albedoa

That quote supports the claim being made by the person who you are calling wrong.

3 days ago

softwaredoug

Yes the average is currently 45%. But that’s been like that since Sept 2025, when Trump increased it 10% with section 232 tariffs. Here’s the executive order

https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/full_text/html/202...

The new 50% tariffs don’t suddenly make Canadian lumber more expensive. It was already expensive.

This was all being negotiated together between Canada and US, but it’s not part of the new tariffs.

3 days ago

I've always said that the only way Trump would "Make America Great" would be to show the world how completely hollowed out by kleptocrats we've become.

These moves increase other countries independence of us, lessening our power and forcing us into a more post America world.

If Trump isn't a double agent then he missed his calling. It feels like every decision they are making is intentionally the "wrong" one.

tensor

> A lot of it has been half-hearted. Basically "wait out this loser and everything will go back to the way it was". A lot of Americans are leaning on this as well.

Absolutely not what's been happening. At the speed that Canada is signing new trade deals in a decade the entire balance of trade power will look different. And unlike the unreliable US deals, these deals are much more likely to endure and expand. The only reason Carney felt comfortable taking this position on Friday is because he feels confident that in the long run our diversification efforts can solve our issues. I suspect he figures that we can weather the pain until the new trade deals come to bear fruit.

3 days ago

andsoitis

> Trump, a child-rapist

In 2016, an anonymous woman filed a federal lawsuit alleging that he raped her in 1994 when she was 13 years old. The lawsuit was voluntarily withdrawn that same year, before the allegations were adjudicated. No court found that he committed the alleged assault.

3 days ago

morkalork

I guess just ignore some certain files not fully being released, his name being purged for them and all that drama. But hey, let's keep this discussion on topic, this guy is the commerce secretary and was directly involved in tanking the trade talks:

https://www.politico.com/news/2026/05/06/howard-lutnick-comm...

I wonder if he tanked those discussions on purpose, his sons now at his former company, profited wildly from the last round of tariffs:

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/meet-quiet-winners-supreme-co...

3 days ago

[deleted]

3 days ago

samizdis

The Atlantic has just posted a piece about this [0] in which it argues many points echoed in comments here. Chief among them:

> The Trump administration has one big idea about Canada: The U.S. is larger, stronger, and richer than Canada, so Canada must sooner or later surrender to Trump’s demands. That one big idea is wrong.

> Yes, Trump can hurt Canada more than Canada can hurt Trump. That part of Trump’s thinking is true. But wars are not decided only by the question Who can inflict more pain? Wars are also decided by the question Who can endure more pain? Trump’s failure to accept this truth is why he lost the Iran war—and why he is losing his trade wars.

[0] https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/2026/08/why-us-canada-trad...

3 days ago

QGQBGdeZREunxLe

Even with rising economic uncertainty within Canada, the LPC is enjoying ever-growing support amongst the Canadian voting public including amongst conservatives.

[deleted]

3 days ago

MrSkelter

You cannot negotiate with a country that doesn’t stand by its word.

All other issues aside, Trump and the Republicans love to boast that they aren’t bound by anything including their own promises. This is the end result of that.

You’d be mad to cut a deal with the US right now. The Trump Admin will just try to take another bite. They are dishonest and unreliable. Making America’s word mean nothing is the greatest long term damage done to the country and the surest indicator of the end of the American Century (80 years but we can round up)

4 days ago

Haven880

4 days ago

dragon-hn

It would be the most effective way to hurt Americans.

But it isn’t politically possible for Canada to do this. The two segments that would be most effective, oil & gas and potash happen to come from provinces that already have significant issues with the federal government. One is even flirting with separation, which would be inflamed by export taxes.

Canada is also very venerable to similar actions by the Americans. Refined oil products, fertilizers and oil & gas pipeline transit all come from the Americans.

It is fun to imagine Canada sticking it to the Americans with export taxes, but it will never happen.

4 days ago

jappgar

The primary issue they have is not being allowed to become vassal states of US empire quickly enough.

"Western alienation" is created and maintained by American propaganda.

3 days ago

locallost

I also had this idea, but it can't be something you can get in another place. But for something like potash it might work.

But I think overall it does not really matter. A war is a war, so there will be no real winners.

Here we go again.

4 days ago

philistine

Québec makes 80% of the world’s maple syrup. You pretty much can’t get it anywhere else.

4 days ago

locallost

Sure, but I am also not sure it's really that essential. People can grumble and either pay or not buy. Potash cannot really be not used in modern agriculture.

3 days ago

mint5

Except the USA has its own supply. Vermont would be strongly pro Canadian syrup export tax

3 days ago

3 days ago

jleyank

Note that these new tariffs are on goods covered by CUSMA, making that treaty inoperative. Pity it’s one Trump signed…

One must stand up to bullies otherwise they’ll keep at it. Until the US population feels the pain the rest of the world has been dealing with, nothing will change.

4 days ago

K0balt

Oh, we’re feeling the pain. Anyone trying to actually build things in the USA relies on an increasingly unpredictable and expensive global supply chain.

What good trouble would you suggest that would be more effective than seating a new Congress?

I'm a big fan of the civil rights movement, but a lot of this kind of stuff like your comment that I see strikes me as nostalgia that doesn't seem to understand what made that movement effective. It was effective because they thought, concretely, about their goals and about what concrete steps they could take that they thought would make progress toward those goals. That concreteness always seems (to me) to be lost in these contemporary discussions, replaced with "do something" and sloganeering.

Another difference, in my view, is that John Lewis was trying to figure out how to change a system in which there was no hope that the next election, or the one after that, or the one after that, ad infinitum, would itself affect the desired change, because both parties were opposed to the policy he desired. In my view, that's not the current situation. This thread started out being about the Trump administration's tariff policy (which I think is awful and stupid). But the next Congress, which will be seated quite soon - certainly much sooner than any kind of civil disobedience campaign would be able to bear fruit - can write laws that change that policy. And the more people are mad about the current policy, and the more they vote for the opposing party because they are mad about the status quo, the more likely that new Congress is to write those new laws.

There are times when it makes sense to lose faith in normal electoral politics, but in my view, the eve of an election where the incumbent powers are about to get routed is a weird time to suggest it.

3 days ago

testing22321

A general strike is often proposed.

If even 50% of people just stopped going to work and spending money, things would change veeeery quickly.

A few weeks of inconvenience for decades of a better future? Sign me up.

3 days ago

9x39

If you're going to start a war, don't lose. Things in the US are not to the point the people needed would defect to the strike.

It brings up the 1940s struggles of labor, industry, and .gov, and labor lost and had its back broken. Could labor outmaneuver industry and the state today if we ran it back?

3 days ago

testing22321

> Things in the US are not to the point the people needed would defect to the strike.

Not yet. But it’s coming.

3 days ago

sanderjd

Ok but a general strike is both way less likely to be successfully organized and way less likely to change Trump's tariff policy than just electing 51 Democrats to the Senate in a couple months.

I do appreciate the concrete suggestion rather than the vague "do something", but another attribute of the civil rights movement was that their goals were modest and their "good trouble" targeted at achieving those goals were things they could actually organize. I'm sure John Lewis would have always loved there to be a general strike to achieve his desired policy, but he and his movement understood what they could and couldn't actually organize.

3 days ago

testing22321

No doubt it’s going to be difficult and require hard work to get rid of him.

But the internet makes organizing a general strike exponentially easier than it was in the past.

If you don’t like the general strike idea, what is your suggestion?

I think you’ll need to revisit this in a few months when he finds a way to make the election ineffective, and/or just keeps doing what he’s doing regardless.

And again in 2029 when he doesn’t leave the White House.

3 days ago

sanderjd

This comment uses a very odd tense. As if this is a thing that is going to happen. It isn't.

My suggestion is to vote for and otherwise help the opposition win a Senate majority.

If the current administration finds a way to steal or override the election, I will be willing to entertain different ideas. I was worried this might be the reality, but now I think the administration is way too unpopular and discredited to pull anything off. So now I think it's just going to be like the last two years of W. Bush. Just incredibly sad and embarrassing with everyone jockeying for control over what comes next.

3 days ago

howmayiannoyyou

False. I'm in the trenches on the cross-border trade and issue in general every weekday. Investment, industrial production and migration of CAD businesses to the US is rapidly growing. Nothing Canada can do will reverse this, though several storms on the horizon unrelated to Canada could slow it.

4 days ago

mrleinad

King Charles should just leave the American continent.

4 days ago

7373737373

It's ironic that the US might currently do better with a (constitutional monarchy) king, to serve as an ethical example of living and governance, and change the role of the president to more of a serving bureaucrat

4 days ago

simonh

In the UK we've been lucky with our royalty recently, but with a different roll of the genetic dice we'd have Randy Andy as king instead of Charles.

Anyway, you have kings, you just elect them and call the presidents, but they have basically the same political role and powers as George III did in the 1790s cut-and-pasted across. The USA needs to get itself a decent parliamentary system.

4 days ago

carlosjobim

> decent parliamentary system.

Isn't that an oxymoron? Parliaments have their democratic shortcomings compared to powerful presidents. And vice-versa. Nations with parliamentary rule are plagued by having heads of state and ministers which weren't in any way, shape, or form elected by the population. A president is at least a democratically elected ruler to represent the people.

3 days ago

simonh

Parliaments are democratically elected to represent the people, and every member of parliament is equal before it. The UK prime minister is answerable to the people via parliament at all times, must face questions from MPs regularly, and can lose power from a majority vote at any time. We can all see that the impeachment process in the USA is fatally flawed, it just can’t function as intended.

The kind of powers Kinge George III had and exercised in the 1780s and 90s were a quirky historical accident of a constitutional system in flux. Freezing that structure in place in the US, even with a democratic mandate and other admitted improvement, is another historical accident.

Look at all the presidential systems in the rest of the Americas, they're all mega fucked and third world. Of course the USA Empire is also currently collapsing.

Parliamentary democracy has a better track record, for sure.

3 days ago

dataviz1000

Have you read John Steinbeck's "The Short Reign of Pippin IV?" [0] All political sides in France frustrated decide to create a constitutional monarchy. The Communists supported the idea because it would give everyone something to revolt against.

[0]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Short_Reign_of_Pippin_IV

4 days ago

pluc

Bad analogy if you're Canadian

4 days ago

maxglute

Times need to get less interesting.

3 days ago

gsky

People who elected this clown are more dangerous

3 days ago

klm127

[deleted]

3 days ago

radford-neal

If a bear is rampaging around your campsite do you think you have to "take a stand"?

This isn't some sort of status game. Well, maybe it is for Trump, but not for anyone who's not an idiot. Unfortunately, Carney is an idiot, and is in it for himself and his friends, not Canada.

The way to deal with the bear to the south is to first get rid of all the stupid stuff that is bad for Canadians regardless of Trump, like provincial liquor monopolies and dairy supply management. Don't ask for anything in return - Trump's word is no good anyway - but it may help with public opinion in the US. It will also help with better trade relations with other countries. After getting these other countries to open up as much as they're inclined, unilaterally eliminate tariffs on all countries (including the US). It's what's best for Canadians, apart from a few who profit off the lack of competition from other countries.

For bonus points, get rid of sales taxes, so there is zero friction importing things to Canada. That's great for consumers, and also great for any business that wants to continue or establish itself in Canada.

3 days ago

badc0ffee

> The way to deal with the bear to the south is to first get rid of all the stupid stuff that is bad for Canadians regardless of Trump, like provincial liquor monopolies and dairy supply management.

When I think of the things holding us back as a country, it's not provincial liquor boards, dairy supply management or sales taxes. In fact, those don't matter ant all. Instead I think of our risk-averse culture, our insane housing costs in BC and Ontario, and our open-ended "Indigenous consultation" for infrastructure projects.

2 days ago

sanderjd

I don't understand your point about public opinion in the US. Public opinion here is already strongly against Trump and his foolish tariff policy. Most people here do not want to see Canada acquiesce to "the bear". It only prolongs the madness.

3 days ago

radford-neal

Public opinion is not a binary. It could certainly move further against Trump, and just as significantly, it could move in the direction of free trade, whose opponents include plenty of people other than Trump.

What's madness is continuing policies that antagonize other countries, and which are bad for Canada, just to make yourself feel better about having "elbows up".

3 days ago

sanderjd

That is not why the Carney administration made this choice. You are more focused on the immediate term situation, whereas they are more focused on the future steady state. They are taking an immediate term hit, with the belief that it will lead to a better steady state later.

The future is unknowable, so that might be the wrong bet. But in my view, it is the right one, in no small part because the political situation is on their (that is, the Carney administration's) side. Political support is what determines the ability to withstand pain. In Canada there is currently far more solidarity with the administration's stance on standing up to US bullying than there is in the US for the Trump administration's (many) price-increasing policies.

If the political situation were reversed, this would probably be a bad idea for Canada! But it isn't, so it isn't.

3 days ago

Bleedblood

Everything you need to know about Canada is on a population density map.

3 days ago

morkalork

That population density is highest in more temperate regions with the most arable and productive land?

3 days ago

THX1137

You can get the same knowledge about every country via a population density map, incidentally!

3 days ago

candlemas

"However, last-minute changes in the U.S. proposed terms were unfair, uneconomic, and called into question the reliability of any deal."

It seems like if the other side agrees to a deal too easily then Trump doesn't think the deal is good enough. He only likes deals where the other side is getting screwed and has to be coerced into signing.

4 days ago

scotty79

> It seems like if the other side agrees to a deal too easily then Trump doesn't think the deal is good enough.

That's a great observation. So basically everybody should be saying no to him all the time to limit the damage because as long as there's one yes the stupidity will only grow.

I'm so glad there wasn't a single yes, when Greenland popped up.

4 days ago

khriss

The craziest thing is, that in spite of the obvious, balatant corruption and supreme incompetence of the US govt, Trump still has around 35% approval rating.

That means the hardcore MAGA base is a third of the US population. I genuinely don't know how to reconcile that with the long term future of the United States.

3 days ago

andrew_eu

In Pale Blue Dot, Carl Sagan referenced some survey from the 80s in which one of the findings was that ~20% of Americans agreed to the statement "the sun is alive." In trying to find that survey for this comment I instead found this one from Time in the 2000s [0], in which 26% of Americans (N=2200) responded that the sun revolves around the Earth. America is a big and diverse place, full of people that have little attachment to reality.

0: https://time.com/7809/1-in-4-americans-thinks-sun-orbits-ear...

3 days ago

beej71

As a constitutionalist American, I really wish I had an answer for you. The best I have is that two-thirds of the country thinks he's off-base. But I can only agree that's an alarming figure.

3 days ago

dennis_jeeves2

>The craziest thing is, that in spite of the obvious, balatant corruption and supreme incompetence of the US govt, Trump still has around 35% approval rating.

Not to diminish you statement, but you are right.

Something similar can be said about Canada. In your sentence replace:

US with Canada

Trump with Carney/Trudeau/Others

35% with 95%

and the situation can be summarized as significantly worse in Canada.

3 days ago

[deleted]

3 days ago

josefritzishere

At some point , looking at all the damage, it becomes hard to dismiss Trump as merely unintelligent and incapable. The other possibility is that the destruction deliberate, and the goal to end US hegemony. Would things proceed any differently if it were?

3 days ago

metabagel

He's an agent of chaos. His decision-making process is rashly emotional and based on narcissistic needs.

3 days ago

atmavatar

Much of the self-destruction flowed from the pages of Project 2025. You can't just blame Trump: you have to include the Heritage Foundation and the entire Republican party.

This is not a problem that goes away when Trump ultimately leaves office.

3 days ago

Jordan-117

Not to mention an electorate that voted for it after the entire plan was spelled out for them.

3 days ago

atmavatar

I'm willing to give his base some benefit of the doubt, given how heavily propagandized they are via Fox News, OAN, Newsmax, Sinclair Broadcast Group, etc.

On the campaign trail, Trump disavowed any connection to Project 2025 when it was leaked, and I suspect most of his base took him at his word. To anyone not trapped inside the right-wing media bubble, that is somewhere between naive and insane, of course, but people inside the bubble don't live in the same reality as the rest of us.

I think Trump is severely misreading his position in the world. It's not April 2025 anymore. There will be consequences for everyone, but I am not sure his own party will support him through this in an election year. Especially now as the last time he publicly stated he backed down because if rising bond yields, which is actually happening already before any trade war. Is he really going to start another one, already in deep trouble because of the mess he made in Iran.

I think he will cave pretty quickly and Canada knows it.

4 days ago

sanderjd

I think they'll support him through the election. If the election goes as bad as it seems likely to, that might upset the apple cart. But it's also possible that it won't, and the Republican party will just be an empty discredited husk when Trump leaves the stage a couple years later.

3 days ago

g8oz

In general any deal with the other party is introducing last minute changes is one to walk away from.

And specifically any deal made with the U.S under Trump has no credibility, just ask Iran.

3 days ago

guessbest

Is YC News an American website? It seems like all the comments are advising against American interests with regards to tariffs.

3 days ago

Tariffs in and of themselves might make sense, but the process has been arbitrary and illegal. There needs to be some sort of a plan to these things, and there is no apparent plan here.

3 days ago

metabagel

Trump doesn't have the legal authority nor the mandate to enact arbitrary tariffs. His previous attempt ended with the Supreme Court declaring his tariffs illegal. This was the President of the U.S. willfully breaking the law, and he's doing it again. The law is not meant to be stretched into whatever shape Trump wants.

And Trump has given no thought to his tariffs. There is no analysis underlying it. It's just him acting out like a child and trying to get some kind of "win" that he can sell as a personal triumph.

3 days ago

[deleted]

4 days ago

seydor

Just at the right time when China is looking to expand its exports. People said that Trump was Putin's stooge, but he might have been Xi's.

I'm concerned that governments worldwide are finding tarrifs to be a popular (and exciting!) way to exorbitantly increase the size of governments and goverment coffers which are then used for populist aims. We need to re-educate people that tarrifs are bad.

4 days ago

LeBit

You think the tarrifs proceeds are going in the government coffers?

Trump is officially billions richer since he became president for a second term.

Officially.

3 days ago

timbit42

They said, 'governments worldwide'.

4 hours ago

martythemaniak

Question for Americans: do you guys understand what's happening?

The thing to keep in mind is that the current trade agreement was negotiated and signed by Trump himself. He has spent the last 18 months seeing what a terrible deal it is. He does not want a "deal" into conventional sense, that is an agreement that works for both parties. He needs the counterparty to be humiliated and subjugated. CUSMA (the current agreement he promoted and signed) is bad because it works for all parties, it does not subjugate and humiliate the counterparties.

What happened in these particular trade negotiations? Is that the actual negotiators had something worked out earlier in the week, then at the last minute the US made some new demand that was meant to humiliate Canada, and this tanked the negotiations. What exactly did they ask for? It's irrelevant, the point was humiliation.

Actual trade policy, whether you want access to Canadian dairy market, or lumber tarrif rates or whatever, none of that matters.

Is this a common understanding down south?

Edit: after I wrote the above, it came out that the thing they demanded last minute is restricting Canada's ability to trade with other countries. Obviously, no PM would agree to such a thing, it's purpose isn't to have a deal, but as I said, subjugation and humiliation. https://www.cbc.ca/news/world/livestory/us-canada-trade-war-...

3 days ago

metabagel

As an American, there is a lot of disinformation in the U.S. A lot of people absorb MAGA talking points. The rest of us are in a continuous state of stunned disbelief.

Trump tore down a third of the White House without permission, and somehow it doesn't set off alarm bells. He's supposed to be a steward of the government for 4 years, not a king.

In a way, it's nice that Trump is giving such a good, practical demonstration of why being a bully never works out the way you think it will. A good education for those who need it. Just sucks that we all have to pay for it out of pocket.

3 days ago

gla67890543

MAGA wanted factory jobs and Trump is providing that. There is nothing wrong. I hope they go and work in factories rather than Going to other countries and murder school children.

3 days ago

diego_moita

YES! YES!

Elbows up, finally!

This is will be painful. But it is what we need.

It is more than time for Canada to learn the lesson that Navajos, Comanches, Apache and Cherokees learned too late: Americans lie, cheat, betray and steal. We shouldn't be cozy with them.

3 days ago

hereme888

In 2025 there was a $46 billion trade deficit with Canada.

There's a good opportunity to use that tariff money and subsidize critical exports to everywhere but USA. Europe gets cheaper minerals and Trump gets left begging China for scraps at insane prices.

If you want political gestures then impose heavy sanctions on Israel and declare that Latinos can get refugee status in Canada because of ICE. That would be an economic win too.

4 days ago

bluealienpie

But the Canadian government wants to be the 51st state. They have rapidly defunded social services, expanded fossil fuels and will adopt US style militarization. In fact, purchasing those munitions from the only country that has threatened to take it over.

4 days ago

jleyank

Sweden? Germany? Last two defense contracts negotiations…

4 days ago

bambax

Negotiating with the Trump administration is completely pointless, and can even result in your own government buildings being bombed while negotiations are still going on.

The only argument bullies understand is being punched in the face.

I wish more countries wiuld have the courage of cutting off ties with the US.

3 days ago

jarym

Seems like the only thing more expensive and damaging these days than being an enemy of the US is being an ally!

Wonder how long it’ll be before Trump throws his toys out the pram again. Wouldn’t be surprised if he moans his allies have abandoned him.

4 days ago

throwaway85825

Canada is the kind of ally that sends a chinese spy to NATO headquarters.

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cwymk20n0v7o

3 days ago

dragon-hn

If we want to be ridiculous, should we talk about Trump sharing intelligence with Russians, causing American allies to limit intelligence sharing?

3 days ago

throwaway85825

Vote for who or what exactly? Both parties are completely corrupt. I'd vote for the guy running for Senate in Michigan. But I'm not stupid. The Democratic Party is identical to the Republican Party for anything that matters. Ultra fast imperialism or just fast imperialism. Hopeless situation.

3 days ago

joshdavham

> The Democratic Party is identical to the Republican Party for anything that matters.

Well they're at least not identical when it comes to tariffing your friends!

3 days ago

techteach00

That's a good point.

3 days ago

BLKNSLVR

Voting has always been about the lesser of two evils.

3 days ago

joshdavham

In the last Canadian election, I actually largely liked what I was seeing from our two major parties. It fortunately didn't feel like the choice between two lesser evils, but rather a choice between two greater goods.

(I don't say this arrogantly, I actually did like both candidates and platforms).

With that being said, I do lament that we Canadians and Americans live in two-party states, which is terrifyingly close imo to a sort of one-party state.

3 days ago

techteach00

I think I'm a communist now. I believe both liberalism and conservatism have failed to address the needs of Western populations. Wasn't always like this. The post war system was never going to last forever.

3 days ago

BLKNSLVR

I think most all -isms can work, in the absence of massive corruption.

But this may just be another way of saying that most all -isms cannot work.

Strengthening of anti-corruption rules and powers under any system of government should work to strengthen that system of government. I don't know what it would look like though. Any sufficiently powerful entity is just more prone to corruption, so it could move the corruption into different places, as opposed to stamping it out.

3 days ago

3 days ago

Arodex

We'll see how long they stay after the US midterms (either after the Democrats win or Trump and Hesgeth start shooting civilians).

3 days ago

LowTechHN

[flagged]

3 days ago

pessimizer

This is so cute, won't bother the US in the slightest, and will be backed down from instantly. It could literally be within days.

Tariffs are the only good thing that Trump has tried to do - really driven by Bessant, the only competent person in the administration.

He's had to react to "Trump's" bizarre decisionmaking, which is really the sum of Israel's and random lobbyist's desires, which has completely thrown off his vision, but "free trade" is bullshit, only benefits big business and the market, only in the short term, and everyone always knew this. It is absolute exploitation of poverty and authoritarian regimes around the world, and ends up in US margins, not in US working people's pockets. Bessant doesn't give a shit about working people, but he gives a shit about shifting the failing US from short-termism into long-termism - and you can't do that when your population is borrowing to buy imports and not working. You are forced into using your military for conquest in order to protect your own supply chains, and your military has been corroded by the same corruption as the rest of your economy, you pay 10x as much for everything, so there was never any need for them to increase production capacity.

The anti-tariff libs are like "it's really taxes!" No shit, Sherlock. Remember when Grover Norquist wasn't the spirit of progressivism? Remember those protest movements that you hollowly ape the language of while openly opposing the policies of - the anti-globalization, anti-free trade movements? Remember how every single thing they predicted came true?

Tariffs are a tax on foreign exploitation and supply chain insecurity. We need to bring that exploitation back onshore. Cheap bullshit is of no benefit if you don't have a job.

Don't be fooled by elites in upper-middle class jobs furiously trying to ban anything that would lower their own incomes for a second - those are the same people who were telling you to learn how to code when your parents got laid off. They're the YIMBY gentrifiers of your neighborhoods. They've got hundreds of thousands or millions of $ in the market and in housing, and it's doubled and tripled while you moved back in with your parents, who can't afford their medication. When housing prices drop, they get mad. Housing prices are dropping right now, and they're getting mad.

Completely unproductive financialized ways of making money are disappearing. They've bet the farm to the tune of trillions on hundreds of giant factories dedicated to word association. If you're a desperate poor person who has made meme-y financial decisions, please sell your bitcoins and your pokemon cards. I'm not even sure if precious metals can save you. You need production to move back onshore. You probably need immigrants gone, because you might have to learn how to pick fruit if you want to be able to eat it - it's the most productive thing the US does.

Also, don't be fooled that there's some sort of economic consensus about how unwise tariffs are because you're online. Most of the people participating in that conversation are foreign elites who sell their own populations to the US for an extraordinarily luxurious living, send their kids here to go to school (and write articles about how that's somehow good for you) drive up your rents, and call you a racist for objecting - when they were literally propelled here on a cushion built by and on the slave classes of their home states. Tariffs are meant to transfer their (the few) success to you (the many) - so you can buy.

They're compradors, and they're propagandizing you for their own benefit.

After the US completely falls, and we're at 90% poverty, 9% comprador, and 1% plutocrat, they'll bring back manufacturing and sell your poverty to the flourishing Chinese middle class - a country that doesn't let the wealthy and foreign interests control its policy.

3 days ago

jjtwixman

> tax on foreign exploitation

Yeah no not really because none of the tariffs seem to be tied to human rights or exploitation. Otherwise you wouldn't be putting tariffs on your close, democratic allies.

solenoid0937

Reddit is an incredibly easy website to bot/psyop, especially if you have older accounts.

4 days ago

howmayiannoyyou

[flagged]

4 days ago

jappgar

What do you propose to make Canada great again?

3 days ago

llm_nerd

Is this some sort of weird AI slop? Like, what even is this nonsense?

"~70% of Canadian exports go to the US"

If you remove oil[1], Canada has a trade deficit with the US. And strangely the US has never said an iota about tariffing or restricting oil, and on the contrary keeps trying to increase it. Like Trump's big celebration was about hoping to revive a pipeline.

The vast majority of Canada's economy is internal, and rapidly non-US. We replace what we buy from the US. Somehow lots of countries on this planet don't rely upon being a subjugated feeder to the US.

>Unemployment, business investment, and the CAD are all deteriorating far more deeply and rapidly than any impact on the USA

Canada has fielded better employment numbers than the US. Business investments are at an all time high (lol, slop purveyor now claims that actually no, that's bad too!). The CAD has been gaining over the past few weeks.

Stop writing hilariously stupid slop on here.

[1] The US actually makes hundreds of billions of dollars processing and exporting Canadian oil, and it was yet another foolish decision of Canada not to process in country. But don't worry, exports to other destinations are rapidly increasing.

4 days ago

howmayiannoyyou

Why would you remove oil? And, Canada is emphatically NOT a internal economy. First, it imports most of its cars, industrial machinery and hardware. Second, its experiencing an FDI flood due to M&A activity that has key business being acquired and then relocated or repositioned to supply the US market.

3 days ago

sanderjd

I'm fairly certain it's AI, yeah. Downvote and move on.

3 days ago

cindyllm

[dead]

4 days ago

hereme888

Total TDS meltdown in Silicon Valley members.

It's like they can't help insult Trump and >50% of US voters any time they get a chance.

Id like to suggest that you rethink your opinion on the trucker caravan protest.

It is a reasonable position to frame them as opposing authoritarian government policies and for the governments response to be overreach.

The popularity of the trucker protest made and makes sense. Big anti government movements like that attract all sorts of bad actors and the media and government worked to highlight the worst aspects of that protest.

Mentally reducing the trucker protest to "thus Canada is bad" makes you seem like the type of black and white American fool that has created the political environment in the USA.

3 days ago

tensor

> It is a reasonable position to frame them as opposing authoritarian government policies and for the governments response to be overreach.

What a joke. No. These people wanted to illegally take over the government. It was written down in their own damn manifesto. Last I checked, taking over a democratically elected government without an election is exactly fascism.

> The popularity of the trucker protest made and makes sense.

The trucker protest was not popular, it was extremely unpopular. It only made such news because the protesters were harassing and assaulting people and causing severe sleep deprivation. Also, it's an insult to "truckers" to call it a truckers protest. Only a very small minority of truckers actually took part. Most were working.

There is no question it was a bad look on Canada, and our police completely failed to handle it in Ottawa. We can all debate on whether the government acted appropriately, but with the Ottawa police complicit in the occupation I don't know what options there where to end it or at least shift the protest into something that wasn't infringing on the rights of the people there to live without being assaulted and threatened.

3 days ago

nekusar

> It is a reasonable position to frame them as opposing authoritarian government policies and for the governments response to be overreach.

Well that's a big coded pile of bullshit.

What polices are "overreach"? By what standards? What authoritarian rules are being protested?

Oh that's right. It's all anti-vaxxer and 'cure yourself of Covid with bleach and ivermectin' bullshittery.

I have absolutely no fucking sympathy for a bunch of covidiots. Doubly so, since these chuckle fucks were ALSO pro-Trumpers.

> black and white American fool that has created the political environment in the USA.

And it's hilarious that you wouldn't touch the Alberta seperatism/fascist movement happening right now. You all like to pretend your shit doesn't stink... And well, I smelled it during wildfire season. Turn my sky yellow orange.

But all of this is spoken like a Republican riling shit up on Facebook.

3 days ago

dustbunny

Calm down. This aggressive response to having your ideas challenged is exactly the type of thinking you resent in your political opponents.

> Trucker protest is _all_ pro trump anti vaxxer / ivermectin

This is black and white "us vs them" thinking. This is fundamentally false and your inability to parse truth out of your political opponents positions will make your positions meet more resistance, ultimately you personally less influential and less useful to your team. Perhaps even net negative.

> Wouldn't touch the Alberta separatism

I am from Alberta. Alberta separatism is far less relevant or popular than the media makes it out to be. Im not sure how to make sense of the difference between CBC's reporting and my lived experience on the ground in Alberta, but everyone around me here is pro Canada and against separating. Even the rural conservatives. I have literally never met someone who actually wants to separate from Canada.

3 days ago

jappgar

Take this style of discourse back to reddit please and thank you.

3 days ago

https://consumerchoicecenter.org/keeping-it-cool-removing-hu...

How about 29 countries?

"AC penetration stands only at 19% (vs. 90% US, 91% Japan). This is not a cultural inevitability but a regulatory outcome"

And specifically Geneva Switzerland, it requires medical need to install air conditioning. https://www.gazetaexpress.com/en/Why-are-air-conditioners-al...

3 days ago

elmer2

Good luck Canada. The economy is already pretty bad and they can't win a tariff war against their largest trading partner.

3 days ago

jappgar

American can't win a shooting war in Afghanistan. It's not actually a strong country.

3 days ago

xyzelement

I have not been following the Canada thing but generally have been learning more about trade and Trump's approach seems less chaotic and random than is talked about.

US's largest trading partner is Mexico. The biggest thing we import from them is automobiles & auto-parts and the second largest is computers and electronics.

We all understand the benefits of trade is meant to bring in - such as goods manufactured by countries whose prowess making those goods better to the benefit of all.

So it's interesting to look at this example. Automobiles - does Mexico have a prowess in that segment? A tell tale sign of "no" is that Mexico has no domestic auto brand. In other words 100% of auto exports from Mexico is actually US automaker production that shifted to Mexico is persuit of cheaper labor, weaker unions, and less environmental and other regulations that gets in the way of manufacturing.

I am focusing on this example because it's the largest segment of our trade with our largest partner - literally the biggest thing the US imports is our own shifted auto production.

The second largest segment is also interesting. Mexico isn't known for its computer and electronics brands either. What's going on? Turns out that Asian manufacturers (eg Lenovo) do the very final assembly in Mexico but all the components come from Asia. It's not actually "efficient" to do this except that when assembly happens in Mexico those components magically become a "north American good" by NAFTA terms and can go all over US and Canada with no duties or tarrifs or restrictions.

So the second largest segment with our largest trading partner is Asian manufacturers exploiting a NAFTA loophole.

As an American who inherently is pro trade (I am an MBA...) this is revealing about the obvious disadvantages of how trade has been configured. The auto example is literally NAFTA being used to bypass American labor laws and environmental regulations while maintaining access to our market by American companies themselves. The electronics example is Asian companies bypassing the long standing trade conditions by whitewashing Asian products as north American goods.

It is obvious that trade pre-Trump was not set up in a smart way from American perspective. The auto is a great example: the government simultaneously made it very hard and expensive to manufacture at home, and very easy to shift to Mexico.

I don't know the details with Canada as much but I no longer assume things were working great and US is meddling lens by default.

4 days ago

II2II

Canada doesn't have domestic auto companies, yet we manufacture auto parts and assemble automobiles destined for the US. From my understanding, this was negotiated as part of the trade deals. There is no good reason for them to desire cheap Canadian labour, weak Canadian unions, or weak Canadian environmental regulations. For one thing, Canada is known for none of those things. On the other hand, Canada had a lot of things the US wanted: access to the Canadian market and access to Canadian resources. I wouldn't be surprised if something similar happened when trade deals were manufactured with Mexico. While Mexico isn't on the same economic tier as the US, it isn't a third world nation that people like to paint it as.

As for companies looking for loopholes, it may be fun to blame it on Asian manufacturers. I would suggest that Americans take a good long look in the mirror. US companies were outsourcing assembly to Mexico long before Mexico came under the NAFTA umbrella. Quite often, at least with electronics, those US companies were using parts manufactured in Asia. Should Asian companies hold themselves back, should they avoid using the same practices as their American counterparts, just because it isn't fair to Americans? If anything, they have less reason to because Asian countries are responsible to their own citizens, not to Americans.

3 days ago

xyzelement

Your comment sounds like you are arguing with me but you are actually agreeing.

I am not "Blaming Mexico" - I am pointing out that the policy as I described it made no sense from American perspective. You are right that the American manufacturs did assembly in Mexico (form Asian components) before as well but it's the same point - an essential Asian good masquerading and benefiting from being a "north American one"

3 days ago

II2II

I think it is a bit more complex than that, since how Asian those goods were varied a lot across time.

Early on, it may have included semiconductors designed in the US, with manufacturing outsourced to Asia. That outsourcing may have been to a facility owned by an American company or to a foreign owned company. Then the semiconductors may have been shipped to Mexico where another company was manufacturing consumer products. Under such circumstances, can such a product be described as essentially Asian?

Of course, things changed. Asian companies took more control over product development and manufacturing. When they ran into labour and regulation making manufacturing in their own country more expensive, perhaps due to tariffs or perhaps due to their own citizens demanding better, they used the same playbook.

You're right in that it made no sense from an American perspective, but that isn't because it suddenly became cheaper to manufacture in the US. It did not make sense because they lost control of the playbook, because others could do it better.

On the whole, I agree with your point about trade being used to bypass labour laws and environmental regulations. I'll be more blunt with how I phrase it: the practice is exploitative and causes more harm than good. That said, the current American response appears to be driven by the demand for trade on their terms exclusively. Never mind that other countries may want something in exchange for their resources.

3 days ago

metabagel

> I have not been following the Canada thing but generally have been learning more about trade and Trump's approach seems less chaotic and random than is talked about.

Trump imposed tariffs on an island populated only by penguins.

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cly8xlj0485o

3 days ago

iand

But this was the neoliberal globalist agenda for the past thirty years. Lower trade barriers, export manufacturing to low wage workers with poorer conditions. The result is lower automobile costs for American consumers at the expense of blue collar jobs evaporating.

3 days ago

xyzelement

There's a gap there. The reason automaking is expensive in the US is labor and environmental laws whose intent is to keep Americans employed at high wage and to keep the planet green.

So on one hand it's government regulation that makes us not compative. On the other hand the government doesn't ensure this happens by making it easy to bypass via mexico. So the end result is the environmental protections don't kick in and Americans don't make the high (or any) wages.

So we either drop those laws and open up trade, or we keep those laws and make it harder to bypass. Those are the two non-dumb options.

3 days ago

bethekidyouwant

"Our existing free trade deals already provide Canada with preferential access to 1.5 billion consumers, and we are on track to double that market access by the end of this year."

THX1137

Is that what it said in the Century Initiative? That it would come "largely from countries like India"? Show me where it says that I'm open to it.

3 days ago

tredre3

Century Initiative obviously doesn't specify from which countries, it merely mentions skilled immigration as its primary source of growth.

However if you take a step back and wish to argue in good faith, and look at where people did come from when Trudeau decided to open the flood gates 10 years ago, you'll find that India represents roughly 40% of immigrants. I'd say that can be described as "largely", and there is no reason to believe that opening the gates even wider would change those proportions.

3 days ago

THX1137

And if you argue in good faith, you would admit that that the past is not the future before making that argument. You would admit that Trudeau's policies are not necessarily other people's policies or policy preferences. You also would not in good faith use words like "floodgates" when speaking about human migration.

3 days ago

petermcneeley

I think you are a bit confused about the world so let me help you out.

Most of Canada is difficult to live in. There are multiple geographic issues (cold/less sun). This is why a vast majority of Canadians live very close to the US border. So while Canada looks like a very large country it is in fact rather small when it comes to habitable space. You are probably not aware of how miserable the east coast is.

Next Canada is a poor country. The richest part of Canada is that part that sells the oil. The rest of Canada is poorer than the poorest US state. Canada GDP capital is not doing well. Mostly going down. Not a good trend. Food inflation etc. On top of that housing in Canada is very expensive. Canada has no ability to expand.

Canada has virtually no companies. All our companies are either banks or like mining companies. No tech and soon no manufacturing. Taxes in Canada are very high but they mostly go into a giant black hole of corruption.

Trudeau wasnt really in charge of the country. He is literally a nepobaby Carney was his adviser for years. The cabinet of Trudeau actually has some of the same people. This is continuity of the same group of elite.

Canada finds it very difficult to grow which is why all the new immigrants ended up in the large cities. These cities are poor and corrupt so they cant grow either. So everything ends up super crowded.

Now focusing on the rather silly things you have said:

" But you'd never believe it, the criticism is that this is too many people, and not many people criticise this "Iniative" as having an unambitious goal"

Were people criticizing it for lack of ambition if not then this is just a red herring. Ambition does not make a project or idea good.

"you would admit that that the past is not the future before making that argument. "

I mean all argumentation and prediction relies on looking at the past and trying to guess how the future will turn out.

In conclusion: Try to understand the nature of the world in a more clear fashion. Look around you. Look at data. Avoid the rhetoric and the politics.

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/business/article-out-of-nowh...

3 days ago

THX1137

Most of that rant is not about data, it is a set of value judgments which which I do not agree. For some people the economy is everything and you're one of those people. Luckily for society not everyone is like you.

3 days ago

petermcneeley

It is all facts my friend.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_largest_companies_in_C...

https://countryeconomy.com/countries/compare/canada/usa?sc=X...

https://www.remitly.com/blog/en-ca/travel/weather-in-the-uni...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Canadian_provinces_and_...

https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/carney-trudeau-cabinet-mini...

https://jhyndman.info.yorku.ca/files/2017/01/Size.pdf

I would recommending giving it a good hard think. What is it that you really think? Where do those thoughts come from?

3 days ago

THX1137

Thanks, but as I said I do not share your value judgments about what is and is not important in this matter so this data is not relevant to my consideration of the matter.

2 days ago

petermcneeley

I think we do share the goal of a better richer Canada. Under my leadership we can set a new course.

Can I count on your vote next election?

2 days ago