Friends #1: cancelled their annual three-week vacation in Florida. They are going to Thailand instead.
Friends #2: cancelled their annual (driving) trip to Myrtle Beach. Instead - they will spend a couple of weeks in Victoria BC.
Canada should declare economic war on the US. The US is attacking scientists and undocumented immigrants. Scientists have been among the biggest drivers of economic growth in the US for about 90 years. Undocumented immigrants who work in construction are, frankly, the only people moderating the wildly growing housing costs in the US. Canada also has a housing shortage and I’m sure they could figure out how to benefit from some scientific knowledge.
If the US is going to tariff construction materials, Canada should rejigger its economy to reduce exports of construction materials by going on a building boom. Canada should embark on a program of construction of housing, laboratories, and universities to attract America’s best and brightest. It should openly solicit the immigration of the US’s construction force (documented or otherwise) and its engineers and scientists. Hit 'em where it will hurt.
Sidebar curiosity, does PEI still get a lot of Anne of Green Gables-related Japanese tourists? I’ve heard that the Japanese flippin’ love that character and have made pilgrimmages to the Island because of her.
I typically only cross the border for comicons a couple of times a year, to Detroit and to Columbus (OH). I’m not sure I can do that for the foreseeable future, which saddens me, because those events both get guests that I just never see up here.
I’m feeling that way myself, and I’m American. One of those ‘parasite losers’ who has worked for the federal government and could be labeled as ‘DEI’. Stupid me, for making the mistake of thinking that serving my country and helping my fellow countrymen was a good idea.
As you know, I live here.
I feel like sitting at the Peace Arch with a sign that says ‘I didn’t vote for him.’
I am in my late 60s, and all our Social Studies books seem to be about Canada and South America. No kidding, we barely touched on the US. I suppose that was a remnant of the Good Neighbor policy or something? Or the Cold War, in that we would need to know where our ICBMs would need to cross to get to Russia? Education was kind of goofy in the 60s.
“You don’t need to be a Weather Man
To know which way the wind blows.”
Sounds like a Dr. Phil quote.
Often confused with he Bob Dylan.
Do not do that! “DR” Phil is an idiot and grade A asshole. If it was really him, the quote would be “stuck my finger up my ass and I think it tastes like taco Tuesday”.
I was feeling good about starting to visit the US again after Covid, and had planned to attend a couple of scale model conventions (AMPS and IPMS-USA) this year, while several of my game group regularly attend US gaming conventions. None of that will be happening now, and likely not resuming for several years, if at all.
I’m glad we managed to get my mother to sell her condo in Florida - first because it was just in time to avoid the Covid travel restrictions and now because of the political chaos.
As a matter of national pride, and if Trump goes through with something approaching his threat for next month, it seems unavoidable. But it will be almost impossible to do it in a way that doesn’t make the damage to the Canadian economy greater.
Also, the smartest sanctions against the U.S. are probably the ones that individual Canadians are already taking, such as canceling vacations.
Add me to the list. There may be a wary “trust” enough for eventual travel, if the country changes its government a lot, but I’ll never fully trust the USA again.
I have a good friend who moved there for work, and he’s invited us to visit him many times. I sadly had to tell him that it won’t happen for a very long time. I’m proud of him and his career, I’m glad he’s happy, but I morally cannot make myself spend money under the current circumstances. It’s a red state, too. My friend is considering citizenship; it’s his life and he can do what he wants, but I’m saddened to hear it. I don’t think there’s any job, for any salary, that I’d accept to move to the States for, even the solid blue ones.
It hurts for sure.
To the credit of the Canadian government, their list of threatened tariffs are highly targeted, rather than an idiotic blanket tariff, and are either specifically designed to hurt Republican states and/or are targeted at individual products and product types where there exists an obvious substitution. Things like “no American booze in liquor stores” has a direct impact on American manufacturers but is the mildest inconvenience and price effect to Canadians.
My best friend lives in California. I have explained to him I cannot visit until the USA stops threatening us. He is quite understanding and plans to come up this way instead.
I love visiting the USA. New York City, Las Vegas, and the aforementioned California are some of my favourite places in the world. I absolutely will no longer do so unless an American company is paying me for my services, and then strictly for business; I would not even stay one extra day for tourism and won’t spend a penny more when I’m there than I have to. And almost everyone I know is doing the same.
I actually do have a short business related trip coming up next month but every damn penny is being paid for by my company. I don’t intend to do anything touristy except maybe walk around and look at things. It’s to a liberal state, to a city that almost certainly didn’t vote Trump, but I don’t care. All of America needs to fix their shit, and then maybe I’ll buy tourist swag.
Speaking as an American, I think it’s only good sense that other nations not trust it. It has demonstrated too many times that its word is worth nothing and that it can’t even be trusted to follow its own self interest. Its behavior isn’t just amoral, or immoral; it’s outright irrational.
It is axiomatic in macroeconomics that smaller economies benefit more from trade than larger economies. The corollary to that is that things that impede trade hurt the small economy more. It’s why the US can maintain sanctions against several countries across the world without any real impact on its wellbeing but can impose real hardship on the other countries.
But Canada is a special case. Our trading with them is enormous. Although Canada would be hurt worse by a trade war, the US would also be badly damaged.
And, I wasn’t proposing a trade war. I was proposing that Canada change the battlefield from trade in goods to trade in human capital. Canada looks a lot more appealing as a place to live for the people who are suddenly finding America very unwelcoming. Canada could win that battle.
It’s not just the magnitude of the bidirectional trade, it’s also about how integrated it is, particularly in the auto sector, where some components go back and forth across the border in various stages of completion. This integration was long recognized in the Canada-US Auto Pact, which long preceded NAFTA and the USMCA. Trump is too ignorant to understand that his proposed tariffs would do major damage to the auto industry on both sides of the border. Of course Musk is probably fine with that.
I don’t think Musk cares anymore about what his actions are doing to Tesla’s business. Otherwise he wouldn’t be doing half the crap he’s doing.