Newly re-elected Premier Doug Ford doubled down Monday on his threat to cut off electricity flowing from Ontario to several American states if the U.S. moves ahead with tariffs.
“If they want to try to annihilate Ontario, I will do anything, including cutting off their energy — with a smile on my face,” Ford said during his first news conference since winning a third majority last week. Ontario is a major electricity exporter to New York, Michigan and Minnesota.
“They need to feel the pain. They want to come at us hard? We’ve got to go back twice as hard,” Ford continued.
I’m not surprised by your reaction. I’m basically an across-the-board liberal, yet there’s something I like about Doug Ford even though it’s apparently fashionable for liberals to hate him, He has conservative ideologies that I don’t agree with, but he’s also basically a common-sense guy who’s done a lot of good things for Ontario, and is a stark contrast to his late crack-head brother.
That’s because the only answer to that can’t be factual, since there are no facts to justify it. It’s all about Trump’s vanity and exercise of power – “I’m gonna do this because I can, and my sycophantic troglodytes love it”. It’s nothing more, and, just like his other tariffs against Canada, it won’t last long as the consequences set in on both sides of the border, just like they did with his previous tariffs.
We can only hope that the Orange Narcissist will be forcibly informed about the failing economies on both sides and find a reason to claim glorious victory and stop the madness.
I recall being ignored, previously, when discussing Brexit and sanctions but - in general - this sort of thing is a long haul. Companies will soak up losses for a while hoping that the government will change course, warehouses might take months to deplete of raw resources, the government can send checks to prop up companies, etc.
If Ontario turns off the lights in Minnesota, obviously, that’s going to be pretty quick and obvious. But for most of the harms, it might not happen on a dime. it might be a slow, multi-year, gentle nose dive. Messaging that, come Wednesday, demons are going to be hopping out of cracks in the Earth is just what you need to say, to let MAGAs claim that y’all never knew what you were talking about.
On the whole, it’s liable to be a slow crawl down into a swamp, not a sudden drop off a cliff into crashing waves.
That’s encouraging, but I wonder how long it would take before consequences serious enough to cause such reconsideration would occur.
A question I have, that was raised by some of the discussion in this thread: If Ford shuts down electricity to American states that purchase Ontario’s power, what states would be affected? And doesn’t Quebec also export power to the US? Is it also considering a shutdown?
I don’t see how cutting off power to the northern states will help anything. They’re mostly on our side on this. Trump will just use it as a pretext to cut off our food or embargo our ports.
The potential drawback that is immediately obvious to me is that Trump will take an electricity shutoff as an attack. NATO Article V doesn’t do Canada much good if Trump invokes it on us.
Instead, jack up the price of electricity. And stop booing the anthem, take a knee instead.
More news from a client that they’re making the list of people to lay off. They don’t want to but whaddya gonna do?
Another client, my Montreal client, plans on laying off everyone on second shift. They could move SOME production to their Rochester subsidiary. They refuse to do so because they don’t trust American governments.
We NEED MONEY. So… why not just raise the prices of things like power and oil? The elasticity of demand is very low so it’ll be a windfall of money we desperately need.
There’s a story (link, but paywalled) in The Boston Globe today about how the tariffs on various energy imports from Canada will hit New England hard. No doubt that will please Felon 47.
Almost every day, trucks from Fred’s Energy trundle north across the border into Canada to pick up loads of home-heating oil, diesel, kerosene, and propane for the company’s customers in northern Vermont.
Starting Tuesday, those customers will pay a premium on such products, with President Trump confirming Monday that he would impose 10 percent tariffs on energy imported from Canada starting at midnight.
…
Canada supplies a significant portion of the electricity, refined petroleum, and natural gas used in New England. Customers who live near the border are particularly dependent on Canadian energy, while farther south in Massachusetts, ratepayers are dealing with soaring utility bills that the tariffs would only exacerbate.
… According to the business council, New England imports 80 percent of its gasoline and diesel fuel from Canada. About 9 percent of electricity came from Canada and New York last year, according to the regional power grid. And natural gas from Canada remains essential to New England, particularly in cold winter months.
There is no way we respond to Trump’s bullshit that doesn’t hurt us, as well as hurting Americans who don’t deserve it. That’s just reality.
We have to take the hurt, pass through it, and hope it’s worth it in the end. This is our World War II. Those guys didn’t want to go “over there” and bleed and kill and die, but they did it because it was necessary.
This is true, but most auto-manufacturers inparticular are using integrated JIT supply chain management and now have their inventory holdings measured in hours.
I do not fully understand your post. But this may have real-world implications. If Rochester New York is losing potential jobs because of how Trump is treating Canada, that’s the kind of helpful finding which can get into the New York Times, or at least local Rochester news, if someone were to make a few calls.
Are you are saying that if a more reliable and consistent, but still despicably nationalistic, American caudillo was doing the tariffs, then the jobs lost in Montreal would be going to Rochester? In that case, I’m not sure publicizing this would help much.
You mean “in direct contravention of the free trade agreement signed by President Trump”. He’s harpooning his bigliest trade agreement which at the time of signing was the bestest thing ever.
WHAT THE FUCK?!?!
This administration is going to hurt nearly everyone. Universities are fucked. Federal workers are fucked. Farmers are fucked. Manufacturers are fucked. Lower and middle class people are fucked. Non-white people are fucked. Non-cis-people are fucked.
Ultra-rich I assume are the only ones that will be dancing in the streets until the people revolt.
Trump could still reverse the 25 percent tariff in the next two hours, but I guess it is looking like it will go into effect.
No one knows what happens afterwards. But I think he’ll want to keep up the drama, and, even more, the focus on himself, with further actions.
So, having demonstrated that he really has rule by decree power to do what he wants, I suspect, he’ll, later this month, dial back either the tariff percent, or what it covers.
If the stock market crashes hard enough tomorrow, or those JIT supply chains result is lots of immediate U.S. worker layoffs, he’ll dial it back this week.