This has been the case with just about every US war since WW2. The other side suffers far more in objective terms. But they’re willing to hang in the fight long enough that the US response to their own losses makes them pull out.
Sucks for the other country until they reach that point, but it’s still ultimately a victory.
I’m trying to find a major US news outlet that’s taking Trump’s side on this. Even Fox news (if you can find any coverage of the trade war) is saying that the tariffs will hurt US businesses and consumers, there was no actual threat or anything from Canada and Trump didn’t need to do this, and that given Canada’s ability to specifically target states with vulnerable Republicans he’s picking a fight that will hurt his ostensible political allies more even if Canada’s economy takes the bigger hit.
WSJ called this “the dumbest trade war in history” (referring to Trump, not anyone on the Canadian side).
Please stop pretending you don’t know the USA tried to put in provisions to reduce our say in our domestic affairs.
The extent of US dependence on Canadian electricity has to be clarified; it’s being ridiculously overblown.
The US is NOT dependent on Canadian power. It’s less than two percent of what they use. They absolutely, without any doubt could replace it essentially immediately by increasing domestic production. A few small New England states might suffer a few brownouts as power is rerouted. Of course, so might we; power flows both ways.
The US doesn’t buy Canadian electricity because they desperately need it; they buy it because it’s cheaper than theirs.
It requires a shit-ton of electricity to produce aluminum. Importing aluminum is a form of importing electricity. Seems like the US is trying really hard to build data centers and more electricity to produce same. Ipso facto, curtailing the import of Canadian aluminium is the same as increasing demand on the short supply of electricity in parts of the US.
You simply cannot reduce trade to a single datapoint.
Sure, stop pretending that it’s an attack on our sovereignty. When one day we say China is the biggest threat to us and we agree to block their Spyware vehicles and the next we are making deals for the new world order that allow those same vehicles in, the US can rightly ask us to stop it and allow them to make the deal contingent on compliance.
It’s no different than a prenup agreement, ffs.
“oh no! They’re attacking our sovereignty!”
But… Trump graduated from Wharton with a Bachelor of Science in Economics!
(Granted, he did not do Econ 101, Wharton apparently calls it Econ 2100. Still, I suspect some money changed hands between Trump and/or his family and fellow students for his coursework, and Trump and/or his family for his eventual degree from the University.)
Meanwhile, on the other side of “Lake America”, Carney graduated with a bachelor’s degree in economics from Harvard University, and both a master’s degree and a doctorate in economics from the University of Oxford.
No, I assume this because you accuse us of “TDS”, because you constantly deflect from the very real malfeasance of Trump and his administration, because you keep insisting this is all about “insults” instead of the very real damage Trump is doing to America and keeps trying to do to Canada. You pretend that the Trump administration is acting in good faith and can be reasoned with or negotiated with on that basis when it is patently clear to all but you that they are not.
This has been pointed out to you over and over and over again and yet you persist in doing it. The evidence is all there.
And you would have been foolish to do so, because staying to negotiate would give credibility to the American position. You can negotiate with someone also willing to negotiate. Continuing the talks as they were would have been akin to wrestling a pig.
The US is on track to grow gdp 2.5%. Canada used to be at the same level as the US, but it’s now 30% lower and it’s expected to have the lowest growth in the oecd. That happened while the liberals were in power and continues to happen while they remain in power. Most of that had nothing to do with Trump. So I really don’t care what Trump does as he isn’t what is causing the damage to Canada.
If your marriage partner dictates who you can associate with and how, that’s not a “pre-nup”, that’s an abusive relationship.
The US demanding the right to dictate who Canada can or cannot enter into trade deals with is exactly an attack on Canada’s sovereignty. Note also that this wasn’t a reciprocal condition.
This is a spectacular goalpost move and one not even based in reality. The US economy is an absolute shitshow right now in a whole lot of ways, so using it as a basis for comparison is weird. The reason Trump has not done more damage to Canada is because the liberals have refused to capitulate to his ridiculous terms.
And I note that you have once again deflected from the fact that our criticisms of Trump and his intentions for Canada are based on very real issues, not just “insults”. Because you “don’t care”. Well, many of us do.
Canada is not a US state, of course, but sometimes, I think the US forgets that.
Hey, Americans! Canada is a charter member of the UN, has diplomatic missions, consulates, and embassies around the world, and fields its own Olympic team. We are a totally independent country in the community of nations. You think we’re somehow a vassal state of you, when we’re not?
Fuck you, USA!
ETA: I hope this puts paid to Canada’s “No” to Trump declaring that “Canadians would love to be the 51st State.” This Canadian would not, nor would anybody I know in Canada. We would hate being part of the United States.
I used to respect the United States, and looked at them as a friend. Now, I’m not so sure.
Listen, Americans, just get rid of this bastard already, willya? Yeah, I get it, you can’t do it until the next election, but there are other means. Love to see what happens in the midterms, for example.
How can it be a goalpost move when it was you who brought it up? I answered that the American economy by most measures is doing well and is far better than Canada’s. No goalposts were moved. That is just deflection.
You care about what Trump is doing to Canada, when by all measures he has done far less damage than the leaders we elected have done. He is the shiny bauble that the liberals are using to distract Canadians from what they have done. It’s like the 9-11 scene in Family guy except use ‘Trump’ instead of 9-11.
I was pointing out that the US economy is crashing under Trump, something you keep ignoring. Your cherrypicking of one data point out of context doesn’t refute that at all, nor is it relevant to Canada.
And it is absolutely a deflection from your ongoing assertion that criticism of Trump is entirely superficial, which is the context it was in. So yes, very much a goalpost move. And, notably, another offhand defense of Trump.
So yes, you are just moving the goalposts again.
And as I pointed out already, this is largely due to the efforts of the leaders you keep claiming aren’t doing anything. Trump’s inane policies have already damaged Canada materially, and the ones Carney rejected would have been absolutely disastrous for the Canadian economy. But you “don’t care” because admitting so would detract from your anti-Carney narrative.
And right back to the same strawman. This remains patently false. And ironic, coming from the person who does the same thing with Carney he accuses others of doing with Trump.
Trump’s economic policies are horrible but our economy isn’t crashing. There’s way too much noise with short-run economic performance to draw straight lines to this or that leader.
I will grant that -27.5% GDP growth is catastrophic.
Yet. This escalation in the tariff war might do it, though.
Exactly this. The idea we would cut it off is daft. It would seem better to simply up the price slightly. Cheaper than spinning up new local capacity, but more than it was before.
Besides doing stupid shit like suddenly cutting power where the loss of electricity can not be known like in hospitals, or air traffic control or a home with a dialysis machine is morally repugnant. If you want to change the supply of something so critical like that you do it in a decent manner.
The US did exactly that with USAID, which has led to the deaths of hundreds of thousands of people, so we kind of deserve it, if Canada wants to cut off our electricity.
Hospitals and airports have back-up power generation.
Where I live, homes losing power due to storms happens a couple times a year, and AFAIK people with end stage kidney disease do not die.
Also, I have to accept RickJay’s previous post about Canadian power not being a big enough factor to potentially force U.S. outages.
Maybe toilet paper is a more plausible pain point: