My plan would have been to negotiate right from the start so we never reached this point. But then I’m not the ‘trump whisperer’ PM. It’s his strategy that counts, not mine.
No, now that we’re here, there needs to be a plan to move forward? More of MOU’s with countries that we’ll have minimal trade with? More MOU’s with provinces to allow them to actually build the infrastructure to move products overseas (no actual shovels in the ground, but in 10 years we might see something, so I guess that’s a start). Really, now that the bully has been insulted into submission (heh), what is the plan?
“Why didn’t Carney agree to things that weren’t remotely being offered and were never going to be?” is a question that kind of answers itself.
Turning down a spectacularly poor trade deal made in bad faith is what a sensible leader does. “Insulting the bully into submission” has nothing to do with it, and presenting it as such involves either a gross misrepresentation or a gross misunderstanding of the situation.
Exactly what he’s doing. Indicate that Canada will not be forced into a deal massively detrimental to its interests, put in place reciprocal tariffs that will impact the US without irreparably damaging Canada, and continue to find other trade partners who don’t pull this bullshit.
“So Alfred, now that you’ve refused to pay the Danegeld, what is the fricken plan?”
I can’t speak for Carney but it’s pretty obvious:
In the short term: wait Trump out, presumably reason will come back to power in the U.S.
In the long term: Trade with rational countries as much as humanly possible and diversify from depending so much on the U.S.
My understanding is that Canada can’t really impact the US economy too much without disproportional damage to the Canadian economy because of the relative sizes of the economies. For that reason, Carney should basically do as little as possible. Just throw a 25% tariff (to avoid the obvious retaliation of Trump raising the Canadian tariffs to the same percentage) on the most politically sensitive items in the most important swing states.
Maybe say something about how internal trade improvements will help offset the damage to give the Premieres something to do besides troll Trump.
A lot of assumptions here. We haven’t seen the deal, only what Carney has told us. We already know he is a liar from the bridge deal.
“Insulting the bully into submission” has nothing to do with it, and presenting it as such involves either a gross misrepresentation or a gross misunderstanding of the situation.
Deflection. Just read the thread. Not one person has any criticism of their leader for not doing the actual job he himself said he’d do. It is entirely Trump and the duplicitous Americans.
I guess that is a plan if your plan is poverty.
Trump is in power for at least another 2 years and you are hoping that the person replacing his is more conducive to us. By that time industry will have fled and won’t come back if nothing changes. Likely CUSMA will be toast as well.
We don’t have the infrastructure to trade significantly with other countries. Nor the willingness to build it, and even if that somehow magically changed, the capability to do so. No one will invest in Canada to do so.
Most of our external trade is with the US, 71%. That is 100’s of billions of dollars. What market in the world is capable of picking that up even if we had a way to get products there?
We are nothing if not hypocritical in our internal dealings with each other. Good luck with that.
Just a google search and likely pre-new tariffs, but interesting: The Economic Cost Paradox
It is amazing to me what very different worlds people can live in. The Canadians and Americans were working very hard on a deal. A small number of powerful Americans, for reasons of Trump, scuppered the works and made dealing impossible. Carney walked away, which will make us all poorer.
Sovereignty is worth it. It’s clear that certain posters do not understand or don’t care, but the stakes are really high here and sometimes it’s about more than making money. We will wait this out and mitigate and get through the tough times. Avoiding them all together is just not possible.
When, as always, negotiating with Trump is a farce, walking away and keeping your guard up is the only honorable action. Trump knows extortion and how to say “tariffs”. He doesn’t understand how tariffs work, but he somehow has the authority to apply them. Dear Canada, the party that you were negotiating with does not operate in good faith, and does not care about your well being in any small way.
(By the way, what the fuck needed to be negotiated in the first damn place?)
Well, there was that terrible deal that the Americans agreed to a few years back, some replacement for NAFTA. Some terrible negotiator agreed to the deal on America’s behalf, so of course Trump had to go in and change it.
More seriously, USA, Canada, and Mexico really should agree to the equivalent of the Common Market, with goods and services flowing unhindered from one country to the next. That would be good for all three countries and make us all much stronger on the world market.
Its obvious that the deal was souring due to how restrictive it was for Canadian businesses. However the inject of 11th hour poison pills were most likely a negotiating tactic that Carney’s team were expecting.
Trump’s strategy.
Create a time crunch by dictating a wild 50% tariff and a artificial deadline (one month).
Announce an early success to the agreement, to cement Canadian investment in finishing the deal
Add last minute wild demands (veto power over third country trade deals, and French language carve outs) to offend the Canadians.
Offer less extreme alternative demands once the extreme demands have moved the overton window.
Carney simply sidestepped step 4, and used the bait-n-switch of the step 3 as a rallying cry for why he walked away. “Trump’s team is not serious. They do not speak with one voice. They made unacceptable demands on our sovereignty. etc.”
I think the Carney’s team was expecting a last-minute bait and switch. Once Trump announced that a 3 day extension was given THEN an early press round cheering that a deal was made,… Carney was sharp in saying that “its not done yet”. He was not going to invest in ANY deal unless it was REALLY TRULY all on paper and signed.
Canadians are 76% in lockstep with Carney. Across the board support, coast-to-coast-to-coast. Carny planted his flag on a solid issue. Sovereignty. Its not economics which allows for folding. What will people do to remain sovereign from an offensive foreign orange fascist? The Ukrainians are bleeding. They have been for YEARS. Are Canadians willing to undergo relatively limited economic hardship? The polls say YES.
Poverty is a given, Trump is not going to accede to any deal that does not subjugate you, the point is if you are going to let him take it easily or if you are going to fight.
Article 32.10, commonly known as the “Non-Market Economy” clause (or informally, the “China Clause”) within CUSMA. Pretty much gives the US the capability to kick Canada out for making deals like the one with China. It already existed. Carney is lying again if he says this cratered the deal as in reality, it could crater CUSMA, and the US would be justified in doing it as that is the deal that CANADA is violating.
French language carve outs. The US doesn’t want its digital providers such as, Netflix, Youtube and Spotify, to have to figure out how to prioritize the french language when those services are presented in Quebec. Those services claim that media isn’t always tagged correctly as to language to meet Quebec’s requirements. Again, Carney is lying as this is not about sovereignty while the US is claiming that a government is dictating how a platform should be programmed. It seems like an issue that could be easily negotiated or at least not scupper negotiations.
Maybe don’t take Carney’s word, a proven liar, as gospel. When will the left hold their leaders to account for gaslighting them?
Yes, they are both liars. Why take one’s word over the other? Frankly, what I wrote above about Netflix etal, could be entirely wrong or incomplete. I acknowledge that. But if correct it certainly isn’t an attack on sovereignty.
Because at this point it’s clear that Trump cannot be trusted, If Carney lies he does so within normal parameters, Trump is in his own league of untrustworthiness.