We've already seen some huge, positive structural changes to our economy and a down-and-out, bleeding US will have nothing but positive effects for the rest of us.
I'd have some sympathy but this is an entirely self-inflicted wound and Americans could collectively use a bit of humility.
If the US economy is in recession, it likely means less spending in general and so less spending on Canadian goods which is likely a problem for the Canadian economy. I'm sure there would be some benefits for Canada as well, but in a connected world economy, when one major country suffers, it's negative for most other countries.
That said, yeah it'd be nice if we (US) learned a lesson here, but we don't seem to be quick learners.
You're not wrong in who imports the most Canadian goods. Or on how we're all interconnected globally. But just for the record, if you take away oil, we import more from the US, than the US from Canada.
And our imports from the US are waaaay down. Funny thing, but when the US talks about annexing Canada, or applying tariffs until we "capitulate and join the US", we get a annoyed. Everywhere I go, especially for groceries, each price tag now has a Canadian or provincial flag on it. They didn't before, but they sure do now. And the outcome is obvious.
And really, it's buying from Canada or what... Middle East dictatorships? Or of course drilling more in US territory, which is fine, but hardly Canada's fault. And the funny thing is, we sell our oil at a massive discount to the US.
Like our copper. And iron. And 100 other things, all typically at a discount compared to world market pricing.
A funny thing has already started to happen, in fact the following video is 2 months old. Instead of trading with the US, and the US trading with the world? We're all just trading with each other instead. When this video was made, Canadian exports were up world wide, and down to the US. And overall?
Exports were just up.
Right now we're feeling some pain from recent tariffs on steel. But we'll just weather it, and bypass the US, like has happened with everything else:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gCwQfSbAyeQ
I believe the end result is the rest of the world will just trade with each other, not with the US, resulting in little difference for everyone else. And disaster for the US. Long term of course.
The weirdest part of all of this is, the US specifically wanted more integration. Forced us to take on the FTA then NAFTA in the 80s and so on. Told us we'd be screwed if we didn't comply. And every year since, our real world earnings have gone down per capita, as the US absorbs us economically.
And then some guy shows up and tries to claim we're taking advantage. Huh?! What? You made us take on free trade, forced us to integrate economically, we were worse for it, but.. we're taking advantage??
We're basically more than happy to use these opportunities to cut financial ties with the US, because they current arrangement wasn't working out well anyhow.
That's great for you. We (US) messed up worse than I realized.
Your economy will clearly turn out better after this mess (perhaps already), which is great... neighbors helping neighbors and all that. (I don't think we can claim a 3d chess victory of helping the world economy by shooting ourselves in the foot though) I think you would still be better off when the US is not in recession though...
But our economy won't be better off. And even when we eventually return to sanity, we won't be able to return to where we were.
Maybe we can import ketchup and all dressed chips when relations normalize!
> And then some guy shows up and tries to claim we're taking advantage. Huh?! What? You made us take on free trade, forced us to integrate economically, we were worse for it, but.. we're taking advantage??
Yeah... the US clearly benefits from free trade and I don't understand how he thinks we're being taken advantage of by most countries. Like OK, maybe China but it's complicated. Blanket tarrifs are madness, especially when a lot of imports can't be sourced domestically.
Picture Trump sitting in his office. A concerned, confused look is on his face. Clearly his mind is dwelling on an issue, a problem.
After a while, he picks up the phone and dials a number. The phone connects and a person wearing a headset, at a call centre answers.
"Support!", they say, "How may I help you?"
Trump replies "Hi. My tariffs aren't working. Can you tell me what's wrong?"
Support answers "Have you tried turning them off and on again?"
Makes as much sense as anything.
e.g. just like the tariffs which are hurting Canada much more than the US.
None of this is good for working Canadians right now. The shit is about to hit the proverbial fan in this country in the next few months. And as bad as things might get in the US they're likely to be worse here.
Maybe in the long run we'll be on a stronger footing but it could also just lead to even more entrenched monopolies in the Canadian economy, and a victimized Canadian consumer.
The success of the initiative still remains to be seen: it is definitely not a failure, but many things can derail it, both inside and outside of China. In either case I see very little desire from the China to throw its non-economic might around outside of what they consider to be part of the Greater China territorial area (Taiwan, South China and Philippine seas). My 2c.
China takes in immigrants in numbers so tiny they might as well not have an immigration program. Either Korea is an authoritarian nightmare no one wants to immigrate to. Europe, and to a lesser extent Japan, takes in immigrants, fails to integrate them, and then engenders a bunch of far-right nutjobs calling for revocation of citizenship and other Hitlerwords. As a double irony, those immigrant communities also trend far-right, and the argument between the two is just big and little endianism[0].
The US was special in that it was the world's "backup democracy". Nobody is equipped to replace it.
OK, but why doesn't China just fix the demographic issue instead of papering over it with immigration? Well, we already know the fix: uninvent birth control and trick horny kids into having lots of teen pregnancies. That's the circumstances of life in places with high fertility rates. Except that it unambiguously sucks to live life in a human breeding farm. Having a bunch of kids with absentee parents is extremely destabilizing to the social fabric of a country. That's the shit Nixon did to the Black community to spark a crime wave. That's why there's so many people emigrating from countries with high birth rates. And if you're thinking of further rules to prevent that, well, congratulations. You've just reinvented medieval Christian sexual mores.
The cure is worse than the disease.
[0] As in, the factions from Gullivers' Travels, not the byte order of CPUs
Unfortunately starting the rebalancing often requires a crisis. I hope the next one will lead to a world with several stronger, independent and competing clusters, not a weaker, beaten up version of the current setup.
I am not as optimistic as the parent comment, about a US recession being of benefit to the rest of the world. I think we're all various degrees of fucked if it all falls apart, though it is probably true that other countries will benefit in the long run.
Canadians aren't buying it now. The last election just made us shake our heads, and the crap that came after, the threats to us about which 90% of Americans treated as either "YEAH!" or "Oh, that's just trolling".
Just over the border outside of Buffalo I see red all over. Even the bluest of states like Vermont have areas that went Trump last election.
Sorry, it's just bleak to watch and when your nation makes war on our economy, there's no need for us to differentiate "baddies" from "goodies". We have no voice in your elections and we can't march on your streets to protest your broken regime.
But you do. Go fix it. So far I'm not impressed by the domestic opposition.
Repeated '51st state' blather. Threats of using tariffs until we capitulate and join. Talk of re-drawing the border because someone thinks it "looks weird". and stealing our land and water by force.
If someone wants to add tariffs to imports, it's silly, dumb, misguided, but well.. the US is free to do that. But try to take our identity away? Our home? Our nation.
This will not be put aside for decades
When you get stabbed by a random nutjob, it hurts, but whatever. When you get stabbed in the back by a friend, a brother? The hurt and pain is like a nova. It will never be forgiven, never put out of mind.