I think the large drop in the US stock market in response to this is a big reason Trump backed down. How much are Canadian and Mexican governments and countries invested in the US stock exchange? If there’s enough investment to move markets, this might be another form of leverage for those countries.
And yes, keep hitting us in the wallet. A majority of us voted for this insanity. We need to face the consequences. You piss off the moose, the moose stomps all over you.
A majority of voters voted for this insanity. Democratic voters either thought that their sates were locks for Harris so they didn’t need to vote, or they just couldn’t be arsed to vote.
If Canada wins, will you please annex Washington? Oregon and California too, but I live in Washington.
The correct response would not be shooting at the invading Americans as they roll in, but preparing a guerrilla resistance AFTER, which should mostly be fought in the USA. The USA is, at least for now, a free country with no internal security of any consequence, and Canadians could get in and be undetectable very easily (hell, a huge number are already there) Military and state targets abound.
That’s why the Canadian government needs a plan to get weapons and equipment into the hands of CF personnel to take away, get a government in absentia up and running in the UK or some other democratic country, and coordinate the war from there. Kill and destroy nonstop.
With some luck we could get some of our warships and planes to safety in friendly countries, but we couldn’t realistically use them in the resistance, just save them.
The inter-provincial trade barriers are really more frictions than something like tariffs.
For example Quebec language laws, differences in weight allowances for trucks, building codes, job certifications etc.
According to Global News, the $100,000,000.00 deal between the Ontario government of Doug Ford and Elon Musk’s “Starlink” is now back on. After Musk exceeding his civilian authority on the weekend and running USAID ‘through the wood chipper’ (his words), I wouldn’t trust him with a lemonade stand, let alone access to our telecommunications networks!
I would, however, really enjoy seeing Elon Musk put through the wood chipper, preferably feet first.
Trump was reckless to gamble with the trust other counties place in the American greenback and signed deals, especially given the markets are near all-time highs and when $250 billion in building supplies are needed in Los Angeles.
However, it could lead to some positive actions. Some of the concessions made were things that sound very reasonable to me. It has brought Canadians together, to a degree, and focus to number of economic priorities much neglected. These matter, since thirty days means little and mutual trust has been much diminished. Canada has an enormous amount of work to do. Would that there were governments better placed to help. Trudeau does deserve credit for a graduated and reasonable response, but this will not save his government and his performance on many other files is underwhelming.
None of these appeasements are going to work, he’ll just move the goalposts. That this will hurt Americans is part of his plan. He needs both sides to be pissed, after being jerked about, a delay, change the wants, etc. whenever it finally boils over, he’s got a reason to invade. He’ll tell the world, ‘He had to do it to stop the conflicts!’
Sure, try appeasements, but don’t be surprised when it’s no good, it’s not what he’s after I think. He’s being really up front about what he wants. Nobody wants to believe it’s true for some reason. But he’s not hiding it.
So you could watch his expression?
Exactly correct. Trump doesn’t give a shit about fentanyl.
I think in the case of Canada and Greenland, Trump just wants to be the President who made the USA into the biggest country of all. I asked ChatGPT and here’s what it gave me:
Yes, if the United States, Canada, and Greenland were combined into a single country, it would be the largest country in the world by land area.
Here’s how the land areas compare:
- Canada: ~9.98 million km²
- United States: ~9.37 million km²
- Greenland (an autonomous territory of Denmark): ~2.17 million km²
Total: ~21.52 million km²
For comparison:
- Russia (currently the largest country): ~17.1 million km²
This hypothetical North American superstate would be significantly larger than Russia, making it the largest country in the world by a wide margin.
I’m pretty sure Trump’s logic goes no further and no deeper than this.
I think Canada has the edge here. Have you ever heard of Kinder Eggs? They are chocolate eggshells around a plastic toy. They are illegal as hell in the US. We feed these things to our children in Canada. We are clearly made of sterner stuff. And let’s not even mention the North American House Hippo…
I would be surprised if Trump even knows what fentanyl is. He knows nothing about it beyond someone having told him that it is bad. He probably also thinks that the Silk Road guy he just pardoned sells actual silk.
Oh he knows those things. By all accounts, in person, Trump is much sharper and personable that you expect.
What he is, though, is a sociopath who doesn’t care about consequences beyond his own ego and power. Pardoning the Silk Road guy briefly let him impress some assholes. Saying he’s fighting fentanyl lets him impress some other assholes. That’s all that matters to him.
Saying he is fighting fentanyl allows him to declare an emergency.
Trump is the rich kid on the block who keeps telling everyone else that if they don’t play by his rules, he’ll take his ball and go home.
However, all the other kids have learned that he’s so stupid, he keeps demanding they play by the rules that already exist, but that he thinks he just made up. “We’re going to play soccer, but you only get a point if the ball goes in the goal!” “Okay, sure, whatever you say…”
I was at the grocery store tonight doing the week’s groceries.
I’ve been hearing on this Board about the price of eggs skyrocketing in the States, so meant to check out the price of eggs here, but I forgot.
When I was at the till, the cashier commented on how pricey the green grapes were that I was buying, which reminded me. I asked her how the price of eggs was doing.
“Oh, about normal,” she said. “Cheaper than usual, probably.” She looked puzzled why I was asking, since I wasn’t buying any.
“I was just curious,” I said. “I’ve heard that the price of eggs in the States has really shot up recently and they’re sometimes even hard to find.”
She looked me square in the eye. “Good,” she said. “Let them suffer.”
This. Prior Congresses have surrendered too much latitude of action to the Executive for declaring emergencies and for deciding what to do about it when there is an emergency.
One thing I was thinking about regarding the eggs issue, that I haven’t seen anyone else discuss, is that this is a good example of why Canada (and other countries) have limitations on how much other countries can access our various food markets. Had we let US producers sell as many eggs as they’d like in Canada, they’d have quickly taken over most of the market by overwhelming the smaller Canadian producers. And then we’d be in the same boat as them - eggs costing a bundle, if you can even find any on the shelves.
Same thing with dairy. Any Canadians here want to buy US milk after RFK, Jr. gets done with making “raw milk” the de facto standard in the US?
It’s also a good example of why food producers should be limited in size, and companies in other critical industries. Canadian egg farms are one quarter the size of US ones, according to something I saw online (sorry no cite). That limits the impact of problems at a single producer to the whole supply chain. IMO, Canada is smart to have more, but smaller, egg farms.
In case anyone still thinks Trump is just posturing or joking about annexing Canada, our Prime Minister is recorded at an Economic Summit telling the nations business leaders that the threats are real.
Zbigniew Brzezinski’s advice to Russia comes to mind:
“Russia can be either an empire or a democracy, but it cannot be both.”
With the US threats to take over Greenland, Canada, Panama, and Gaza, it seems clear which option is in mind.