Sorry. I either made a mistake, or my hyperactive correction did.
I agree Trump does not seem to enjoy negotiating with women, and Chrystia clearly did well for Canada. Would she do so now? The American negotiators seem to disagree with each other, and while previous negotiations had challenges, there was still a sense of good faith and mutual respect for agreements and the rule of law.
Well, if she would do so now is moot; she is not part of government. The Halcyon days of yore are long past, now it’s not Freeland, with her (checks notes) Harvard education, multiple election wins (granted, in Rosedale, which is going to go Liberal) oh, and a masters from Oxford.
Those carefree days are gone, and now The Donald has to deal with…Carney.
Yes: there was a line in the article where she mentions that the Americans tended not to have any women at their negotiating table.
I think she is the foremost reason Canadians were originally labelled nasty and difficult. I love that for her!
And, I feel her better deal could well be part of why he walked away from Cuzma.
He couldn’t let a woman get a good deal!
Yes, her work on CUSMA was a masterclass in manipulating Trump by letting him win on one of his stupid little obsessions, while nailing him to the wall on something more important, that he can’t see because he’s too focused on his stupid thing. We gave him a small bump in tariff-free dairy exports, and got a pretty good deal on automobiles, and a few other concessions on some things we wanted.
(Sorry, editorial cartoon from globe wouldn’t transfer.)
Oh Noes! Trump has discovered our program of having the US on Double Secret Probation Tariffs!
Secret tariffs? How the fuck does that even work? “Okay, buddy, I’m going to have to ask you to pay an extra 10% for that, but don’t tell, okay?” “Sure buddy!”
Apparently, and this was new to me, one of the sticking points for a deal involved French language laws, which the Trump administration wanted eased. Canada said no.
The administration, of course, is denying this.
Yes, that was widely reported here (in Canada) as one of the main sticking points, added at the last minute. That and “you can only be friends with who I say you can be” is one of the other big ones (I don’t recall the third). This is alleged by Carney, denied by Trump. It’s rather a toss up who to believe (this is…said rather dryly).
Reportedly, they wanted us to automatically copy any of Trump’s Tariffs.
Also there were reports that the tariff relief the US was offering for the auto sectors wouldn’t include medium- and heavy-duty trucks.
Right! That was the big one. The trucks issue. It was a a bad deal.
I thought the biggest sticking point was Trump’s idiotic “demand that would have restricted Canada’s sovereignty to pursue independent trade deals with other countries.” (from google AI)
Since Canada walked away citing the lack of coherency on the US side, they turned to Mexico to make a trade deal but, according to the Wall Street Journal, Lutnick whooped in AGAIN to derail the talks on the Mexican side too.
Progress toward a U.S.-Mexico tariff deal has stalled after opposition from Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, people familiar with the talks said, the second time that he has had a hand in upending advanced negotiations with a North American partner.
The U.S. and Mexico had been zeroing in on a deal that would reduce U.S. levies on steel, aluminum and automobiles in exchange for a series of concessions from Mexico
This is what he derailed, because he didn’t want to lower the tariffs.
None of these people actually understand the idea of a “deal”. I wish they’d just stop with this bullshit “negotiating” and just start openly threatening us if we don’t give them everything they want. It would suck, but at least it would be honest.
I think Sheinbaum is a fantastic leader, and really respect her. But she is in a very difficult position. It is hard to negotiate with people who don’t really want a win-win deal because of how they view the world. It’s hard to negotiate with people who sign their deals in pencil, as some wise man once described it. And it is hard to negotiate with people constantly changing the terms and a team that doesn’t seem to really agree with each other on general goals.
I read an article tonight talking about the dubious legal nature of tariffs and the many, many changing arguments used to justify them - national emergency, fentanyl, concern for human rights, discriminating against US goods somehow, lack of respect, buying US securities instead of products… these articles often say “reasonable people might disagree on tariffs”… but while economists famously disagree on everything, 88% of US academic economists think they are a terrible idea as a general policy or method of fundraising while allowing they could have a role protecting nascent industries or when dumping genuinely occurs.
And on that note, he’s being sued again. An American cheese importer explains exactly why his new tariffs against Canada are bullshit.
Eta:
Trump, and by extension, his followers, continue to believe that tariffs are a tax imposed on the exporting countries, in exchange for the privilege of being able to export goods to the United States. Of course, we, and most reasonable people know that the tariff costs are borne by the importing country and its consumers—i.e., Americans. Neither Trump nor anybody else in his administration, can affect a foreign country’s export tax policy. On this, all economists agree.
Yet Americans wonder why prices are going crazy high. The answer is easy. It’s Trump’s tariffs that are costing Americans money.
This is a small thing. It is not a disagreement with your larger point. There ARE (arguable) uses for tariffs. Protecting a local industry from unfair competition, strategic resources, retaliation when one country decides to be a pain in the neck to the entire world, stuff like that.
People who say that should phrase it as “there may on occasion be uses for tariffs, but uh, not like this”, with the general heuristic that “nothing before the word ‘but’ counts.”
It’s a statement used to prevent an attack against absolutism; the pathetic argument where you get someone to agree that, in this instance, this might, maybe be true, we can extrapolate from there.
The Charlie Kirk kind of argument goes like this
Economist: Tariffs are always bad.
CK: What about protecting a vitally security interest?
Economist: there might be an argument for that, yes.
CK: So, you agree tariffs are good?
It’s a stupid argument, but it is one that works. When you hear “reasonable people might disagree on tariffs” they are acknowledging maybe…sometimes…we could argue about it with the other person about their limited utility.
There is no intersection at all between this and what Trump is doing, as Doug Ford rather famously managed to point out.
Sure. As I said, “88% of US academic economists think they are a terrible idea as a general policy or method of fundraising while allowing they could have a role protecting nascent industries or when dumping genuinely occurs.”
This was not meant to be a complete list of reasons many economists would sometimes consider tariffs to be of value.