Having all four under the same command is apparently necessary for the continuity of deterrence.
I was thinking more in terms of an extended courtesy tour of the Atlantic seaboard to include the aircraft carrier group, and maybe some joint exercises with the Danes and Icelanders.
Nah, send them to Halifax on a Friendly Tour. We’ll “get the crew drunk enough” that it’s never safe for them to leave.
Why no, we’re not giving Canada a bunch of our nukes, why would you ever think such a thing? Hey, have you checked out Durty Nelly’s? First round is on us!
For the sake of the information, below is the text of an explanatory note from one of our international carriers and customs agents regarding exports into the US
Tariffs start today and guess, what? Looks like they will shoot up to 100% quickly. Trump just typed this out:
Please explain to Governor Trudeau, of Canada, that when he puts on a Retaliatory Tariff on the U.S., our Reciprocal Tariff will immediately increase by a like amount!
Oh, even before that I fully expected tariffs to be increased soon. Trade will be pretty much cut off this year.
The intention is not to correct some trade unfairness, it’s to conquer Canada and subjugate Mexico. That’s where Trudeau was wrong, in saying this is dumb. It’s not, when you realize what the real goal is. If he can crush the economy, he can make it weaker and easier to invade.
This man knows his Argyle st. pubs. Cheers.
I disagree with this analysis.
Trump has a long, long history of stubbornly misunderstanding trade imbalances, and thinking that trade deficits are the most horrible things ever. This is one thing where he actually has principles - completely ignorant, misinformed, and counterproductive principles, but principles nonetheless. This one of the very few parts of his political platform which he truly believes in. Almost all of the culture war stuff he just pretends to adopt, but this he actually cares about.
The tariffs are not about softening up Canada for annexation. I don’t think he’s particularly fixated on annexation. He gets angry reactions when he talks about it, and he loves that, so he keeps doing it. Oh, he’d follow through in a heartbeat if there were an easy way to do it, but I think you vastly overestimate how serious he is about it. (Note: it’s not actually a bad thing to take his threats more seriously than he means them, given the stakes.) But the tariffs are truly about fixing the bad, horrible, evil trade imbalance resulting from the Canadians so unfairly selling things that the Americans want.
I think, somewhat optimistically, that Trump will back off if the stock market tanks really badly. Like trade deficits, stock market indexes are something Trump truly cares about. Fortunately, the stock market is also something that doesn’t give two shits about Trump’s agenda. It only cares about ROI and next quarter’s profits, and no amount of ideology will substitute for those things. If Trump continues to escalate tariffs beyond 25%, they will tank like it’s 1929. At that point, he’ll take whatever fig leaves are being offered by Canada and Mexico, declare them the greatest victories ever, and back off on tariffs to the point where Wall Street isn’t having a conniption. That might not be status quo ante bellum, but it’ll be something that doesn’t cripple the US economy. Probably it’ll get rolled into USMCA renewal negotiations that are set for the near future anyways.
It might actually be to Canada’s benefit (ignoring the short term pain) if Trump does go way past 25%, because the market shock will be much more severe than if he stays at 25%, and therefore more likely to impact his decision-making.
I believe this is correct. I think it may also be true that Trump, petulant man-child that he is, will further increase tariffs in response to Canada’s retaliation. But that matters relatively little because, as analysts have pointed out, 25% is already such an outrageous amount that it effectively stops most cross-border trade.
Current message on LCBO website (Liquor Control Board of Ontario):
Our site is temporarily unavailable while we remove U.S. products in response to U.S. tariffs on Canadian goods.
Fittingly, the two countries with which the LCBO now refuses to do business are Russia and the United States, but I’m sure they’ll soon be doing plenty of business with each other.
Reminds me of the infamous thread about a conveyor belt and a starting aeroplane. We may be able to finally find out whether it takes off or creates a black hole.
That’s all well and fine but his party is lining up behind him with no visible opposition AT ALL. And you can’t tell me they ALL can’t understand this.
Well, some. It depends on the product.
This will devastate the automotive industry. Even at 25% it will not much alter the market for things like oil or minerals. In non automotive manufactured goods it… depends. In some cases, companies will just grit their teeth and bear it for at least some period of time.
25% is astronomically expensive in JIT auto manufacturing. In some industries an American company might say “fuck this will suck but it’s hard to find an alternative, maybe it’ll go away in a few months.”
No matter which of the scenarios it is, money is lost and jobs are lost. TNSTAAFL.
This has been baffling to me since 2017 when Trump initiated tariffs then. Surely, I thought, various contingents beholden to big business will put a stop to this. I continue to be baffled by the mega-rich donor class, whose wealth depends on an efficient economy, standing by idly while Trump throws wrenches into the gears. Lots of the politicians are afraid of being primaried, but that obviously doesn’t apply to guys like Sheldon Adelson or Charles Koch. I have no explanation.
Nonetheless, none of that changes my analysis. Trump’s primary motive for the tariffs is a true belief in the importance of trade imbalances.
People in that class already have more money than they could ever conceivably use. As far as they are concerned if they lose one third of their money, it’s no big deal. If all the rest of us lose half of ours, they are still living well, and their relative status has increased.
Donald Trump gives them so many other things that they like:
Their arc of the pie is getting bigger, even if their piece is getting smaller. For many of them, that’s the key.
Also - don’t forget ideological reasons. Bill Ackman and Miriam Edelson (Sheldon passed on a few years ago) are all in for the defense of Israel, and are rich enough that tariffs aren’t going to make a bit of difference. Plenty of rich evangelicals are motivated similarly by any number of culture-war issues.
Simple: in a recession, when a lot of people lose everything, they’re willing to sell cheap. The mega-rich can weather the storm and go on a buying spree, only to emerge even richer when things get back to normal.
Assuming the people who lose everything don’t use their free time to learn the history of the guillotine, of course.
That does not at all comport with any rich person I’ve ever known or what people who work with them universally say: they are OBSESSED with increasing how much money they have.
A Republican senator from Iowa is pleading for an exemption for potash if U.S. President Donald Trump triggers a trade war by imposing steep tariffs on Canadian imports.
Chuck Grassley’s agriculture state could be hammered if Trump ultimately moves forward on his plan to impose 25 per cent across-the-board tariffs on all Mexican and Canadian imports, with a lower 10 per cent tariff on Canadian energy.
The 91-year-old Republican blamed inflation under the Biden administration for a 20 per cent increase in farmers’ input costs. A steep levy on Canadian potash — a key component of fertilizer — could be devastating for those farm operations.
“Given these already-high input costs, President Trump should work to protect family farmers by ensuring Canadian potash and other fertilizer products aren’t subject to the threatened 25 (per cent) tariffs,” Grassley said in a statement emailed to The Canadian Press.
Farmers are a solid Red bloc- or were anyway. The Farm state republicans will not like their constituents being hammered like this.
trump wants a budget with a tax cut for the rich. He needs the House. The GOP has a razor thin majority. All it takes is for a half dozen farm state Republicans to vote Present, and no tax bill.
Ideally, you’d be correct. In MAGA-land? I do not think this is the case. Any Republican now knows that opposing Trump = certainty in losing their position, power and prestige, which is what being an elected official is for, natch (/s)? On the other hand, sure there’s the possibly being blamed by their voters, and maybe loosing their position, but probably not if they’re good on the blame game (“if those darn Canadians weren’t commies, this wouldn’t happen, they didn’t have the RIGHT to tariff Good Americans”).
They can’t oppose him publicly until they are convinced that the MAGA brand of the GOP is politically weak enough to challenge. It’s even more complicated than that. They have post-government careers to consider, and for that, they need as much access to the core of MAGA’s political ecosystem as they can get. That’s what happens when money becomes speech and when mass media becomes Balkanized and one half the country is brainwashed by decades of Fox propaganda.
This exact same thing was said the last time Trump was in office. They got screwed then, and farm bankruptcies jumped, and they voted for him again, because Brown Woman Bad.
But then, even Elmo has left farmer welfare alone.