I mean it’s just a fact that free trade has devastated many communities in the United States. Your middle class is disappearing. Whether people like it or not, campaigning on tariffs was a smart move. Unfortunately it’s very hard in the short run to implement tariffs.
Thats why all of what he is doing is basically performative nonsense that will mostly just cause economic damage of the most meaningless kind.
Trump may be about to retreat a bit on Canada and US tariffs? Nothing like a little stock market correction to catch his attention. He has a low pain threshold. All he has to do is lower the tariffs and declare victory.
https://www.politico.com/news/2025/03/04/lutnick-tariff-reduction-mexico-canada-00212127
Manufacturing is never coming back at scale to the US.
You can do protectionism (basically subsidise existing manufacturing) but its never going to get larger because where are you going to export the excess production to?
Thats the other end of the equal sign that Trump supporters from left behind areas never seem to understand.
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For now his policy makes no sense because it’s not going to achieve what it’s supposed to. It’s merely a sales tax on americans who are already complaining about inflation.
Protectionism isn’t a subsidy. You’re just paying certain people more than you want to. So all the people working in services will have to pay more for stuff made by people who work in factories.
What happened is that working class people in USA lost all leverage due to the threat of foreign workers replacing them.
What Trump is trying to do is re-industrialize the United States. It’s very project 2025.
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I think Canada is going to get screwed in the long run. it’s a lot harder to develop technology than it is to cut down trees, extract oil, etc. So in that sense, I think free trade with the United States isn’t optimal for Canada.
I have never argued that the US should be the dominant trading partner for Canada. Au contraire, I believe Canada needs many trading partners.
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You can do that without tariffs.
Its actually pretty easy. Focus industries on repairing and upgrading US Infrastructure, which in many cases is in very poor shape.
What he is currently doing will accomplish the complete opposite because the tariffs are broad-based, and not pin point accurate.
What you will see now is the US industrial base contract as they lose clients.
You guys need to seriously think about joining the EU in some capacity.
Its the only way to protect yourselves long-term. Size matters immensely in these type of economic issues.
That’s certainly something we need to think about.
Looking forward to un-ies and deux-ies.
In a parliamentary system, such as Canada’s or the UK, the party leaders have to be good speakers and debaters to survive the back and forth of debates in Question Period in the House of Commons.
Justin Trudeau is an excellent speaker in both official languages. His dad was smarter but also more sarcastic when he spoke. He would have attacked Trump more viciously if he had given today’s speech.
Well I don’t know. I think there is a lot of high end manufacturing that could be done in the United States. You just have to be willing to put tariffs and pay workers a fair wage. Just look at the debate about chinese EVs.
If we could join the EU I would be all for that. Very different from becoming the 51st state of the USA.
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It may, unless you are taking about the scale of employment. Robotics may make proximity and cheap power the determinant over labor costs.
Fox News explaining how Trump’s tariffs will turn this $80,000 truck into a $100,000 truck, among other increases:
Interesting that Fox of all places is specifically pinning this to Trump’s tariffs.
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Was referencing scale of employment.
You could potentially retrain a % of people for more modern manufacturing, but the problem of they want the factories and jobs to come to them (in economically depressed areas) remains.
I just don’t see it moving the needle much.
I expect Trump has been receiving many calls from Republicans complaining that the tariffs are hurting their district or state. The tariffs declared on Monday will be modified soon and Trump will declare victory. So much winning.
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Trump: I’m going to put up tariffs until you fix the fentanyl problem at your border
Canada: Our border is <1% of your fentanyl, but sure we’ll continue our plans to work on that, and we’ll keep catching your drugs coming north too
Trump: The tariffs are continuing
Canada: Okay then, we’re doing the same
Trump: I’ll meet in the middle
???