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Comment by Pet_Ant | Hacker News Reader

Considering all of Trump’s shenanigans it’s impressive it’s just that. With Hormuz, tariffs, and America first, this is the equivalent of a fender dent after spinning out on black ice.

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We are of course still spinning, so I'm not overly confident we haven't just glanced off a guardrail on the way to the ditch (to belabour your analogy).

Given canada has so much oil,is the hormuz situation really a net negative for canada ecconomically? Like obviously its terrible in general, but id expect higher oil prices to help starve off a recesion.

Global market for oil. If the oil intensity of your economy is high, higher oil prices impacting all goods/services will outweigh increased oilel revenues.

Only if you insist on passing on global prices into your domestic economy. Not doing this is very difficult if you're a net importer but very much possible if you're a producer. This "leaves money on the table" but it is very much a choice (with different consequences), just one that rarely occurs to people who have grown up in highly capitalist economies.

This is also why historically companies have preferred being vertically integrated to avoid having their supply chains exposed until American economists and brokerages started pushing the cult of specialization. Outside of the US, big conglomerates still operate this way.

> Only if you insist on passing on global prices into your domestic economy. Not doing this is very difficult if you're a net importer but very much possible if you're a producer. This "leaves money on the table" but it is very much a choice (with different consequences), just one that rarely occurs to people who have grown up in highly capitalist economies.

They tried this before [0], and calling it controversial would be an understatement. Probably not a great idea to try it again right before the Alberta succession referendum [1].

[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Energy_Program

[1]: https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/edmonton/alberta-separation-r...

Do Canadian industries use a large percentage of petroleum products refined from Canadian oil or is it refined from blends produced in other areas of the world, such as the United States and the Middle East?

Canada has minimal refining capacity.

Well population grew significantly so it’s a bigger decline in per capita terms.

Notably this was even though AI systems got decent enough, supposedly, to do simple tasks and answer simple questions correctly.

That's not true. The population shrunk in the first quarter, so the GDP actually grew by 0.2% on a per capita basis.

Oh yes once you include non permanent residents the total number has gone down.

Even without Trump, US-Canada trade was on track to hit choppy waters. Even in the Biden admin (whose alums would have ended up in a Harris admin) there was an openness to armtwist Canada [0] into acquiescing [1]. China did the same [2] with Canada [3][4] until they acquiesced [5]. Heck, even the EU has been slowrolling the ratification of the EU-Canada CETA [6] to protect their (primarily French and Italian) industry.

Sadly, it's difficult for a country that is Canada's size to push back when faced against these sized economies.

[0] - https://ustr.gov/about-us/policy-offices/press-office/press-...

[1] - https://www.canada.ca/en/department-finance/news/2025/06/can...

[2] - https://www.reuters.com/markets/commodities/china-commerce-m...

[3] - https://www.reuters.com/business/autos-transportation/trudea...

[4] - https://www.reuters.com/world/china-tells-canada-it-should-c...

[5] - https://www.reuters.com/world/china/canada-china-set-make-hi...

[6] - https://carleton.ca/tradenetwork/research-publications/ceta-...

What’s funny is that Q1 per capita GDP growth in the U.S. was about 1.4% annualized (within the normal range) while Canada was only at 0.1%. Trump is the bull in the china shop but it’s not his China he’s breaking.

Much of the capex that was invested thanks to IRA and CHIPS subsidizes is starting to go operational and trade barriers enacted during both Trump 1 and the Biden admin remain in action, so it wasn't that surprising that much of the output that was unlocked from that era is continuing.

That said, tariffs and trade barriers did help. Heck, I'm a Dem but even I argued that we needed to build trade and non-trade barriers to protect capex that was unlocked via industrial policy.

I think Biden was an industrial policy guy at heart and it’s a shame he was so old by the time he got a chance to execute on his ideas.

Yep. That said, much of the stimulus and industrial support packages that were pushed thru in the Obama admin were thanks to the political cover Biden provided as Veep - he was Obama's senate whisperer.

That said, industrial policy has bipartisan support at this point now. As you know working DC BigLaw, professional networks are stronger than partisan biases.

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