To the discussion in this thread on Canada obtaining nuclear weapons, let me just add my agreement that it would not be feasible. However, combining potash (see appropriate thread, “What the hell is potash?”) with sulfur is a popular way to make low level explosives in India. Both chemicals are used in agriculture, and the process is simple. It is used to make bangs for celebrations, crude varmint extermination devices, and sometimes to settle squabbles. A quick look online suggests it is particularly effective in blowing limbs off the homestyle manufacturers. So, not without its risks, but Canada does have a lot of potash, and a lot of sulfur from the oil processing industry, if people were serious about made in Canada deterrents.
That is a nice combination of poster name and exortation to apply accion revolutionaire directe in best anarchist tradition.
But I am sure that Canada, should the need arise, is capable of manufacturing much better and more potent explosives that this crude concoction you propose. A concoction to which I would suggest to add finely grind charcoal. Then you have the classical gunpowder.
I’m not advocating it, thus my warning about the medical literature on self-injury. But various “American invasion” scenarios have been talked about in this and other threads, with people suggesting Canadian resources, ranging from uranium to vast space, could be utilized in defence. Suggestions about training up in civil disobedience and non-violent resistance have evoked little interest, but the potash thread was lively and so I thought, “well, we do have a lot of the stuff, so let’s throw it out there and see what pops up,” mostly tongue in cheek.
But I hear that even disabled Canadians can band together to covertly resist American annexation. Or at least I read a book about that once.
So Trump has now announced Tariffs which will affect the entire world economy. There’s the 25% tariff on all vehicle imports and then a baseline tariff which appears to start at 10% for every world country (although I can’t see Israel in the list).
A few examples:
Europe:
- European Union - 20%
- Kosovo - 10%
- Switzerland - 31%
- United Kingdom - 10%
- Norway - 15%
- Ukraine - 10%
- Liechtenstein - 37%
- Serbia - 37%
Asia:
- China - 34%
- Vietnam - 46%
- Taiwan - 32%
- Japan - 24%
- India - 26%
- South Korea - 25%
- Thailand - 36%
- Malaysia - 24%
- Cambodia - 49%
- Bangladesh - 37%
- Singapore - 10%
- Philippines - 17%
- Pakistan - 29%
- Sri Lanka - 44%
- Myanmar - 44%
- Laos - 48%
EDIT: I can’t find Russia in the list either!
However I’m using the list posted by the US govt on X, so not sure if it’s an exhaustive list or not… (and I will not link to that site)
And yet, somehow Kosovo found its way in there.
I’m going to guess that Serbia will be removed.
The Heard and McDonald Islands are on the list. They’re uninhabited apart from seals and penguins.
I didn’t see a Pit thread, so I am going to rant here a little.
My LinkedIn feed is absolutely full of threads of people celebrating these tariffs. In my industry, most people have postgrad degrees and are well-paid, so I was a bit taken aback by this (my feed is not limited to only people in my industry of course, but mostly).
They were all convinced that the tariffs would:
Bring back the jobs (unemployment is still close to historic lows right now, bumped only a bit probably thanks to the government lay-offs, so…do they want people to quit office jobs to go work in factories again)?
Are only reciprocal to the same value of tariffs on the US (false)
Will get the national debt down (I guess technically possible if that’s what the money was being spent on and it had no negative effect on the economy)
It’s really frustrating, but hey, these people have got what they wanted, and we’ll all see the effects.
Canada has been spared the new reciprocal tariffs, but the only ones still remain, with exceptions for goods covered under the USMCA, though it appears that in spite of this, cars will be tariffed, but only with respect to non-American content. The whole tariff situation with Canada is becoming really messy and complicated. Which also has the effect of making any responses by Canada equally complicated. One can only hope that weak US stock markets and inflationary pressures will put an end to this madness, which risks sinking not just the US economy but the global economy.
I sympathize @Mijin, but obviously IMHO, these people are cheering because what they’ve been told is, well, different.
They’ve been told this will bring back manufacturing jobs, and given long enough (like decades in build up) it could…
And second point, they’ve been told the economy is terrible, and it has it’s problems, but as you point out, unemployment wasn’t one of them. They were especially concerned with some retail prices, though it was a combination of greed, fear and gasp free market influences that were driving them!
They’ve been told that other countries have been cheating on tariffs, unfair prices, etc. so this is just payback (a key word in Felon47’s playbook).
They’ve been told that the national debt will be paid down but really have no idea how it works in the first place.
As usual (and I bet I’m preaching to the choir, you did say this was rant adjacent) they have been lied to for almost a decade now (just counting MAGA, longer in truth) and have internalized those lies. So of course they believe the “solutions” they’ve been told will fix the problems will work, and of course blame someone (nasty, dirty furriners or Democrats) if they don’t.
The S&P futures market is not limited to 9-5 trading, and after Trump made his announcement it fell 3%, so this is in the cards tomorrow.
This ain’t the 1950s. Manufacturing will never be as prominent as it once was. Much of the American economy depends on selling services. The free market is very good at organizing itself. High wages and benefits make manufacturing in the US expensive for some things. Tariffs usually will not solve this problem. They will just make foreign things more expensive and the price of domestic things will rise to almost as much because companies can now charge that. Inflation and prices will go up a lot. Once that hits home, reality will hit those cheering for tariffs and who have more faith in Trump than seems warranted.
In addition, Trump has alienated most of the world at the same time. Since American producers often make more stuff than they can sell in the US, the other 96% of global population are potential customers. But retaliatory tariffs are politically inevitable. And sufficiently annoyed countries might stop using the USD as a reserve currency, or even investing in the US if they smell discrimination or think the US dismantling of consumer and investor protections means they no longer respect the rule of law.
The EU purchases $400 billion of US goods and is likely to retaliate both in punishing services, reducing intellectual property protections, and buying less. Canada purchases $500 billion of US goods and people are pissed - visits to the US are substantially down, alternatives to US goods will often be actively sought when possible.
Russia, North Korea, Cuba escaped tariffs as it was said existing sanctions mean minimal business.
China at 34%, with Taiwan at 32%, will enormously disrupt American businesses and trade. More so if enormous docking fees for Chinese ships are instituted. This will put a lot of American companies out of business and incentivize China to retaliate in many ways. Big US companies will probably lose some access to the market. Many neutral countries will turn to China for loans and investment, more so given the dismantling of USAID. Countries in the expanded BRICS were often badly hit - not Russia or Brazil at 10%.
This will not raise anywhere close to enough revenue to justify $5 trillion in tax cuts, but these will proceed on the fiction that they will.
Arghh!! I meant to say “… but the older ones (introduced last month) still remain …”
Australia has copped the standard 10% rating, not sure if I should be pleased or ticked about that.
Then 45/47 starts talking about supplementary tariffs on US beef imports (the US is AUS’s largest market for beef) because AUS prohibits imports of US beef, live cattle and ruminant by-products.
It’s a biosecurity issue. Distance and consequent disease free status has long been a part of marketing our agricultural products. That disease free status is fiercely protected. The US had an outbreak of bovine spongiform encephalopathy (mad cow disease) in 2003 and haven’t been able to demonstrate protocols are in place to prevent further transmission. The recent burst of trumpian deregulation of institutions on top of the avian bird flu outbreak (and the corollary of the spike in egg prices) ain’t helping your cause either.
Another impact is with US corn, which is almost all GMO. The US EEP insists on exporting bulk whole corn i.e. viable/fertile seeds rather than as milled or broken grain. If a country imports viable US corn then the importing country’s GMO-free status is placed at risk
This (IMHO) will be the price the US will end up paying for the disruption, angst caused and wantonly burning of soft power. And the impact on the US’s capability to raise and fund debt when you can’t just print more USD will be a doosie.
I caught only a bit of Trump’s ranting but didn’t he say that he raised /collected hundreds of billions of dollars as a result of tariffs on Chinese goods? Where do these numbers come from?
Trump doesn’t understand anything but cash. You mentioned eggs, and the current mess shows why Canada insists on protecting our domestic supply chain. It would be easy for the US to swamp us with eggs, and run Canadian farms out of business, and had we let them do that, we’d be just as bad off as they are right now.
But Trump doesn’t get that. He thinks it’s all about Canada trying to “screw the US.”
From a particular portion of his anatomy.
Assassins Fateuils Rolents?
Similarly the notion of these “reciprocal” tariffs being only “half” of the tariffs that those countries apply to the US.
For example, with the EU, most items from the US have no tariff. Some things like cars have a 10% tariff. So how to get to 34%? Well, apparently by multiplying by the trade deficit, or something:
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/04/02/business/economy/trump-tariff-rates-calculation.html
So something has finally prompted some resistance in Congress: the prospect of economically ruinous tariffs taking effect. The Senate voted to undeclare Trump’s preposterous fentanyl emergency declaration underlying the Canada tariffs. Article. Article. Article.
GOP Senators Susan Collins, Mitch McConnell, Lisa Murkowski and Rand Paul joined all Democrats in a 51-48 vote to end the national emergency.
Speaker Mike Johnson was already blocking floor votes in the House of Representatives on ending national emergency declarations for tariffs. However, Rep. Gregory Meeks (D, NY) said he would “soon introduce a privileged resolution to force a vote on ending the made-up national emergency Trump is using to justify these taxes.”