30 day pause on the Mexican and Canadian tariffs announced:
We now have a better idea. Maybe, in a few days, we will have an even better idea, but as of tonight:
The China ten percent was meant to be real.
The Canada and Mexico rates were just meant for mau-mauing. Eventually there will be tariffs on goods imported to the U.S. from Canada and Mexico, but the rates will be lower and with exemptions.
Ideally, the courts will knock all of this down because Trump’s is declaring phony emergencies to gain dictatorial power. But I have little confidence there.
That was a real Canadian thing to do.
Sadly, that’s likely to be a continuing hit to this country long after Trump is gone. Why should anyone ever trust our government’s word again?
Another reason for LIKE buttons.
So Canada is supposed to put 10.000 troops guarding the border to the US. One every kilometre at least. If tariffs are about enforcing fairness in trade and relations and such. Will there now be 100,000 US troops guarding that border on the US side? If one complains that the other is not doing enough. Then do as much percentage wise. The smuggling of things has always been more US to Canada. Well, except during prohibition. So step up US. Canada is promising more than one guard per kilometre of border. US, proportionally should put one every 100 meters? Nary a bunny will sneak across.
I do wonder how many troops Canada will have left to do other things.
If Trump is going to make an imaginary crime, there’s no real reason not to make an imaginary patrol force.
Seems Canada might make do with cycling reservists through border patrol. 27,000 of them. At least on paper.
So much real taxpayer money is spent on imaginary things…
That was Mexico’s agreement, not Canada’s.
Is that a decimal point or a comma? Ten guards might be okay if it’s Liechtenstein
It’d be overkill for the Duchy of Grand Fenwick.
Realistically, very little is.
Nearly all US money is spent on social security, health care for the poor and elderly, and the military. The remainder is just a few percent of what you pay in taxes.
Granted, you could say that the military exists largely to defend against imaginary invaders. But, on the day that someone actually comes to try it, the invaders do stop being imaginary…
Hit the wrong key. Comma.
It is a fuzzy wording. But from CBC.
“A few hours later, Trudeau posted to social media that the tariffs on Canadian goods are also paused, pointing to an updated border strategy. He said 10,000 front-line personnel who “are and will be” working on protecting the border and committed to appointing a new fentanyl “czar” who will lead Canada’s efforts to crack down on fentanyl, a chief concern of Trump’s.”
Some actual current data and math is required as to " are and will be ". What they will actually be doing and where they are procured from. Pencil pushers or actual boots on the ground doing interdiction.
No idea if I’m in the minority or not, but I’m actually kinda pissed that Trudeau is giving tRump anything. Reportedly, most of what was announced was actually already agreed to under Biden. The “fentanyl czar” BS is new…so the “party of small government and the shrunken state” is demanding that Canada create a new government office. That tracks. Back in reality, U.S. border patrol siezed 43 pounds of fentanyl coming going acress our shared border last year, compared to 21,148 pounds coming from Mexico. Obviously, we need to make it our priority.
Yesterday, Ontario Premier Doug Ford, who was a fan of TFG until, like, last week, said he was ripping up the province’s $100M contract with Elon Musk’s Starlink/SpaceX. As soon as this 30-day pause was announced, he backtracked. So my provincial tax dollars will still be heading to Musk’s pocket. Wunderbar.
I’m furious because FOTUS and Fox Nation will spin this as a victory for him. Honestly, I think we could live with a bit of privation, or being forced to buy more non-USian products for a few weeks, if it gives the Mango Mussolini an economic black eye. The optics of this seem like we buckled and Did What He Told Us To Do. And when he comes back in 30 days and demands that Canada declare ANTIFA to be a terrorist origanization? If he decides that a half-percent dip in Exxon’s stock price justifies an emergency declaration and he invades the Alberta oilsands? You can’t give an inch to a bully; we just gave him 30 more days and good press.
I completely understand smaller countries preferring to stroke Trump’s ego than put their own people in a recession but he’s just going to keep pulling this crap. Canada is not at fault at all but I don’t know where this ultimately leads to. Hopefully people can just keep coming up with face-saving concessions until the clock runs out (if it does).
I’m of two minds about this. On one hand, I agree that this could set a nasty precedent of us (Canada) willingly following Trump’s arbitrary and whimsical bouncing ball, and being the wounded puppy that gets kicked and keeps happily bounding back for approval, only to get kicked again and again and again, for the next four years. But I am fortunately in an economic situation in which my wife and I could suck up costs more than many.
On the other hand, I - a former naval officer for 30 years - do sincerely believe that we done close to jack-shit for our own defence because we have had a friendly, and super-powerful neighbour to our south.
If one compares Canada-like countries’ militaries to our own, the difference is stark. Until now, we’ve lived in a nice, safe neighbourhood. Looking at Australia, with a population 68% the size of Canada’s, they have a comprehensive military, including their own AWACS capability and modern fighters. The RAN is also more capable and much more comprehensive that the RCN (our submarine acquisition story alone is an embarrassment with some inherent, literal, tragedy).
So, though I loathe Trump and his uneducated, ignorant, low-life followers, if this forces us to take the world seriously, then that’s a good thing.
My understanding is that Trump being an asshole managed to get Canada to agree to do what they had already agreed to do and nothing else new of any actual substance. Is that right?
Face-saving for us, not him. I remember in TFG’s first term, reports of his phoning the Mexican President and well-nigh begging for him to pay for The Wall, because he’d promised it so much and his failure to deliver was making him look bad. No, we give him nothing to salvage his promises, make it all on him.
And I agree that we shouldn’t have been letting things slide, as it were, with regards to our military. This is one of the more frustrating parts of FOTUS’s era…those two times a day when his stopped clock is actually right about something (shot through with his usual systemic misunderstandings), all the bluster and bullshit he covers it with almost make me take a contrarian position instinctively. Yes, European countries should be devoting more energy and resources to defence (maybe not quite as obvious before the Ukraine invasion), but to do it as a direct result of a gasbag pumpkin yelling lies about it at the NATO summit doesn’t make anyone look good.
I don’t think appointing a “fentanyl czar” was part of what was already settled with Biden, but I could be wrong. And I don’t know if we’d officially labeled the drug cartels as “terrorists.” Beyond that, I think most of it was already in the works.