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Comment by ericmay | Hacker News Reader

> And Canada is taxing you back

This seems illogical. You can't simultaneously claim that the US is paying higher prices for Canadian goods because of US-imposed tariffs and then turn around and say only that Americans are paying a tax on buying Canadian goods on Canadian-imposed tariffs. Both countries are either paying higher prices or paying higher taxes. Canada's tariffs must also be viewed as America is taxing Canada back, or else neither can be viewed that way.

Separately you can go back prior to 2024, for example, and discuss monopolization of Canadian companies and import duties on American products which also must be treated in the same fashion for this analysis - Canadian imposed tariffs on dairy (I don't care about dairy other than it being an obvious example) would have to be claimed to be an American tax on Canadians for this to be consistent.

Whatever claim you would levy here, equally applies to Canada minus the dollar volumes depending on which country imports more and what products are imported since Canada is also implementing additional (because they've had tariffs for a while) tariffs on specific goods/services.

View on HN

If you're going to talk about canadian dairy tariffs, please note that (a) this was originally negotiated by trump the last time he was in office, and (b) the tariff only applies when the total imports exceed a limit, which iirc has never actually been exceeded.

It's never been exceeded because who's going to bother shipping dairy to Canada when you'll be taxed to hell the moment you sell any real volume.

Nah because none of us will buy it

Someone else shared this article [1] and I was reading a quote I thought was interesting:

  “[Canada] has a large dairy producing constituency that it wants to protect, so they put a cap on imports that can be accessed at a competitive rate. That's what we call a ‘TRQ’ (tariff rate quota),” says Becky Rasdall Vargas, senior vice president of trade and workforce policy at the International Dairy Foods Association. Under the TRQ, Canada accepts a certain amount of dairy products duty-free, without tariffs.

  "Rather, Rasdall Vargas blames the dispute on “a systemic set of failures” by Canadian administrators that intentionally prevent American dairy exports from reaching the import cap. These protectionist measures are intended to support Canadian dairy farmers. One rule, for example, requires that Canadian dairy processors be the primary recipients of American dairy products.

  “If you’re a U.S. exporter, you're going to want to sell to your customers, not to a competitor,” she says. “Another one is that retailers aren't eligible to obtain an import license quota in Canada. There are layers upon layers of rules that ultimately prevent U.S. exporters from being able to fill those quotas.”

So I'm not sure the quota is as straightforward as many folks are making it out to be and there's more nuance there. This, assuming it is accurate, is really interesting and helps explain why US producers don't even meet the quota that was set.

[1] https://www.farmprogress.com/farm-policy/the-real-story-behi...

The main reason the Dairy Supply quota is in place is to stop US dairy producers from dumping dairy into Canada.

That's why the USA has never reached the tarriff limit. The big producers there would just dump 20 million litres at once if they could. They aren't interested in 1 or two.

And if they were able to do that, the Canadian producers would go under. So its kinda simple, the Dairy Supply system is there to protect the Canadian Dairy industry. If it was removed, we would be flooded with cheap, low-quality US milk.

The entire Canadian dairy industry produces less milk than Wisconsin alone. Why does the US need the Canadian market? A: They don't, they just want it anyways.

The broader context is that approximately any country that wants a healthy, stable dairy industry (often regarded as a component of national security) has to provide government support to their farmers one way or another. “Stable” is particularly important for dairy because recovery when lots of dairy cattle are culled is expensive and takes years.

The US and Canada use different, incompatible means for accomplishing this, so you can arbitrarily paint either as “cheating” the other by saying “well (Canada/The US) does X to the tune of (a dollar amount) and the other does zero of that, they’re cheating!”, i.e. by lying by omission.

Because of the way the US subsidizes theirs, Canada could be vulnerable to dumping. So there are protections in place. This is not remotely a big deal so long as both sides are competent and operating on something resembling good faith…

The main reason for the dairy supply quota is to protect a politically powerful cartel, everything else is justification

> The main reason the Dairy Supply quota is in place is to stop US dairy producers from dumping dairy into Canada.

Yet the same rules apply to European cheese: limited quantities that can only be imported through an established dairy cartel member. Anti-Americanism is a convenient marketing tool, along with the nostalgic myth of the independent family farm. The reality is oligarchs like https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saputo_Inc.

I’m dumb and misread the comment. Please ignore.

It sounds like you misread my comment.

Sorry, I did. I thought you were accusing American companies (which they can be) of being oligarchies. You’ll have to forgive me, I’ve been doing the lord’s work defending the United States a bit here and trying to clear up confusion that others have with respect to trade.

I didn't know the US had royalty... You should consider moving to the EU if you want to do work for lords and ladies.

That doesn’t make any sense. But happy to answer any questions you may have!

It follows then that the USA also wants to protect its industries, such as timber, oil and gas, and maple syrup, from Canadian producers that are happy to dump their stuff south of the border for cheaper than US competition.

The US sets the price it pays for Canadian oil, a discount from the market price.

I don't know about timber, but the US maple syrup industry is healthy, just unable to keep up with demand. I think that's a consequence of geography and the time investment required to get mature trees, not Canada undercutting.

Canadians don't negotiate when selling their oil? US just sets the price? Amazing.

I don't really know how the discount is built into the price, but it's a result of the fact that only about 10% of the oil Canada produces can make it to a port to be sold to non-US buyers.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Western_Canadian_Select

The price is “discounted” as in “it's cheaper than the global market price”, because of the shipping difficulties, but it's not a “discount” in the sense of “americans get a discount because we're nice neighbours and they have a coupon”.

A common point of political contention up here are various pipeline issues, precisely because it potentially permit access to more markets, improving the sale price. (However it would also raise the price of gas in Canada for the same reason, with all the implications that comes with that).

> […] from Canadian producers that are happy to dump their stuff south of the border for cheaper than US competition.

The USD and CAD are not 1:1, as the CAD is 'lower value', so of course stuff made in Canada will generally be less expensive. (The trade off is that imports are more expensive for Canadians.)

The US has the same on dairy imports into the US for the same reason.

>So its kinda simple, the Dairy Supply system is there to protect the Canadian Dairy industry. If it was removed, we would be flooded with cheap, low-quality US milk.

Flooded? Cheap? Yes. Low quality? Doubtful. If quality were the sticking point, you'd expect this would be amicably resolved with equal standards for both domestic and imported milk.

Ok, if not blanket-ststement lower quality, it's definitely less regulated than CDN dairy.

>it's definitely less regulated than CDN dairy.

Again, if that were the sticking point that can be fixed with rules around imports. The fact that these negotiations always end with quotas and/or tariffs strongly suggests the reason is political (ie. lobbying).

It's not wild to imagine Canada wants to protect a domestic food producing industry.

Same how all countries, including the US, heavily subsidize and protect their agricultural sector.

I'd call this strategic, not political (although ofc it involves lobbying, again, like in every other country including the US)

>It's not wild to imagine Canada wants to protect a domestic food producing industry.

It's still protectionism, even if it's for a "good cause". During the mercantilist era protectionism was considered the obvious thing to do. After all, why would you want to make yourself poorer and enrich your enemies in the process? That doesn't mean it wasn't protectionism.

>I'd call this strategic, not political (although ofc it involves lobbying, again, like in every other country including the US)

For every policy that benefit some interest group there's almost always a fig leaf "strategic" justification for it. Jones act? It's to protect domestic ship building. Banning discounted medicines from abroad? They aren't been certified safe by the FDA. Tariffs on sugar? Food security and American Jobs™, of course!

The US dairy industry is heavily subsidized. Countries generally don't let another country dump heavily subsidized products into their economy if it competes with local industry (provided they have any choice).

Pray tell, what's with the whining about Chinese overproduction then?

Maybe it's obvious, but you left out subsidized. US dairy production is extremely subsidized compared to Canada's. It's not in any sense "free trade". The subsidies would allow the US dairy industry to destroy Canada's (it might even without the subsidies, but the subsidies guarantee it). Once the local industry was destroyed, the US producers/government would be free to increase the price. No country wants that, which is why things like staple foods are subsidized and tariff-protected anywhere in the world where not doing so would give a large neighbor/bloc leverage over them.

That's just a convenient talking point for our government. The model in Canada is effectively a regressive tax on consumers in the checkout line. It conveniently allows for our government to talk about how they don't subsidize farmers, and have a clean budget on that front, but I would prefer to see a model that was actually funded by government taxes such that it could be a progressive tax born more by wealthier Canadians rather than lower income ones being hit hardest.

I also have doubts that our current model is the best way of achieving the goals we had in mind when the programs were created in the 1970s. I know the error bars are quite sizeable, and it's not quite apples to apples, but recent studies that suggest our supply chain management in dairy, eggs, and poultry, costs approximately $244pp per year in higher costs. That's over $10billion per annum Canada wide, equivalent to 2% of the federal budget! I have been discussing this with someone in another thread for days, and the more I look into it, the more I feel like we really need to take another look at the implementation of this program. Dollar amount breaks my brain.

The elephant in the room is that the government is legally required to buy back the quota if change were to happen, and that is an estimated $50 billion dollar bill. Which actually doesn't sound so bad compared to your $10 billion per annum figure, but the $10B is hidden so it is easy to let it be ignored. A one time $50B payout will stick out like a sore thumb and no politician wants to attach their name to that.

When they did it for tobacco back in 2009 it was only around $300 million on the table which isn't nearly as mind boggling and thus much more easily forgotten. Not to mention that very few Canadians realized that tobacco was ever supply managed to begin with so it easily few under the radar. Anything that affects dairy will be headline news.

Yeah, I know that's a colossal elephant to deal with. I mean, I would hope that whatever reforms could lower costs enough that if you did a model similar to Australia, and had a temporary levy to pay for the buyout, the end cost to consumers, even with the levy, was lower prices than prior to the change. That was the case in Australia.

And I know nothing about the market, but I can't imagine it's overly liquid, the fact that all farmers would receive cash for their quota, would definitely be attractive to most. It's already heavily financialized and borrowed against.

And then, you could even do something like NZ did where all the dairy farmers got together and created a coop for processing, NZ is now the largest exporter of dairy in the world! If some of the quota levy went to getting this off the ground, you'd help the farmers retain a bigger piece of the pie with vertical integration of the supply chain. And, hopefully also compete globally and become net exporters, increasing the size of the pie.

I dunno, I have no idea what the fucking solution is, but after spending a bunch of time in the weeds of this shit over the past couple days, I am like, we have created a monster, this can't be the most effective way to achieve the underlying goals of the program.

> dairy farmers got together and created a coop for processing

That isn't going to go over well with the big three (Saputo, Agropur, Lactalis) who own ~75% of the processing quota. I suspect if you dig even deeper you will find it is they who hold the political capital that props up the dairy supply management system. If it were only farmers involved it would have been gone ages ago.

Agreed on all fronts. But, if we're entering an era where we have to be less reliant on our trade relationship with the US, we need innovation to compete, and the status quo of Oligopolies in so many fucking industries really needs to be confronted imo. Doubt it'll happen, but it's an increasingly ugly situation.

Protecting your own country's production capacity and industry doesn't come without cost. It likely would absolutely be cheaper if we allowed our core industries to fail and be replaced wholesale with American exporters, but that's not what the majority want for the country.

As we're seeing with this trade war as a whole, tightening economic integration with an asymmetric partner puts your sovereignty at risk as well. If we have no industries of our own, and are utterly dependent on a single unreliable superpower, then we lose the freedom to decide on our own future as the rug could be pulled out from under us at any time. The only way to mitigate that risk is to diversify trade and ensure self-sufficiency in our own industries.

Yes. I am well aware of this. I just find it hard to believe that dairy, poultry, and eggs are some special snowflake type of farm that requires the quota and supply chain management, while every other type of farm, we can manage with direct subsidies.

For reference, there are about 190k farms in Canada, 8% of those farms are dairy, poultry, and eggs whose viability is ensured with supply chain management. The other 92% of farms, are managed with direct government assistance (AgriStability, AgriInsurance, AgriInvest, and AgriRecovery). The latter costs the government $1.5-$2 billion most years. While the recent report on supply chain managed farms suggests the cost born by Canadians to be around $10 billion. Even if that number is off by an order of magnitude, we're looking at $1 billion for 8% of farms, and $1.5-$2 billion for the other 92% of farms.

All I'm saying is it seems like the solution to help ensure viability in dairy, egg, and poultry farming is wildly inefficient and merits a look from first principles. Is there a solution to achieve the same outcome at a lower cost? The world has changed drastically since the policies were implemented in the 1970s.

I admit I am far from an expert, but I have spent an inordinate amount of time reading about this shit out of curiosity in the past couple days. Broke my brain when I saw the numbers around the costs born by canadians in the checkout aisle due to supply chain management.

I am not sure if this factors into it but an interesting difference between dairy and eggs and most other types of farms is that those are highly perishable. Grain can be stored and released gradually to even out market gyrations but dairy is just lost if they don’t match supply closely with demand in real time.

Yeah, that's a fair point but it still seems like a huge delta.

And my rabbit hole over the last couple days has led me to spend a bunch of time looking into Fonterra, which is the farmers processing Coop that happened in NZ when they got rid of their quota system. It's turned NZ into the largest milk product exporter on earth, and their whole strategy is processing milk into more shelf stable products. Cheese and Butter is about 20% the remainder is skim milk powder, whole milk powder, whey protein, and caseins.

Anyhow, all of this is to say, that there are solutions that ensure no milk goes to waste by processing it into more shelf stable ingredients, all of which have massive demand on the global markets. Whether we do much of this in Canada, I am not sure, but, feels like a missed opportunity if not, and likely partially caused by a lack of necessity to innovate due to the artificial moat.

Eggs, haven't looked into but presumably similar to milk in that it can be processed into shelf stable powders.

But, on the poultry front, beef, pork, etc, are all in the 92% of farms group, managed by subsidies, so, while chickens have a shorter lifespan, I don't see why we can manage cow and pork farms with subsidies, but not chicken.

> Anyhow, all of this is to say, that there are solutions that ensure no milk goes to waste by processing it into more shelf stable ingredients […]

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Government_cheese

It should also be noted that Canada does not permit dairy products produced with Bovine Growth Hormone, which makes our industry less competitive that American where the practice is widespread.

> does not permit dairy products produced with Bovine Growth Hormone

It should also be noted that this is misleading. The dairy products are permitted to be produced with rBGH and you will almost certainly find some on the shelves as not all dairy products in Canada come from Canadian cows. What isn't permitted is giving it to cows in Canada as it is concern for reasons of animal welfare.

I know you already know that, but the audience needing your message doesn't and they are prone from messaging like that to think there is some reason to be afraid of the milk even though it perfectly satisfies Health Canada concerns. It wouldn't be allowed across the border if it were deemed dangerous. It is worth reminding that Canada happily allows all and every drop of American milk across the border as long as someone is willing to pay the tariff.

Isn't growth hormone in your milk a bad thing? Isn't that a loophole that should be closed?

Not to the extent that you consider your milk good. Cows cannot produce milk without the hormone. That is the reason why a recombinant version works. What loophole would you close, exactly?

I guess giving cows extra growth hormone

That has the effect of producing more milk, so the concentration in the milk remains the same. It makes no difference to the milk.

It does affect the wellbeing of the cow, though, which is why it is against the law to give it to them.

I probably wouldn't want to drink milk from an unhealthy cow though

I am Canadian. Never, ever would i knowingly buy any dairy products from the USA , at any price.

We have cows too, and farmers.

I strongly support buying local where possible, especially for agricultural and farming products. My general algorithm goes: buy in my local area -> city -> region -> state -> country -> western-aligned. I try to buy a lot of American made products in general because of that but even for things like dairy you can find high quality producers that, while more expensive, at least aren’t Big Dairy (for milk), whether that’s Canadian or American or otherwise.

It’s one thing for the government to create protectionist policies, it’s another to have folks like me or perhaps you who practice it in person with our daily economic choices.

Do you never have Philadelphia cream cheese? Just wondering.

Philadelphia is seen as a cheap product in Canada, similar category as Cheese Wizz etc.

In Canada It’s made with Canadian milk.

There’s also other brands of cream cheese.

I have one rn in he fridge. It's "cream cheese product" because probably cannot put "cream cheese" in the name. It's made from Canadian milk, not imported.

In Canada Philadelphia is made from Canadian milk.

However i try to avoid ultra-transformed products like cheez-whiz and philadelphia. Those are not even allowed to be called "cheese" here, they must have some qualifier in front or after the word.

So, here is one of the major problems with having a US administration run by liars, crooks, and bullies: your arguments lose all credibility.

I'm a Canadian who is pretty unhappy with our protectionist dairy lobby, and thinks there probably is a bunch of unfair trade barriers erected on our side by the dairy lobby.

I'm probably more open to this line of argument than the majority of Canadians. However, when I see an American who has literally anything to do with their federal government start making these arguments, I more or less have to assume it's either a lie, or at best a truth that's going to be twisted, blown out of proportion, and used to undermine the sovereignty of my country.

The furthest I would go right now would be to support a relaxation of our dairy protections in dialogue with the EU, and then whatever scheme we arrive at can then be applied to trade with the USA at a later date (including requiring dairy imported from the USA to meet EU-level food safety standards).

The USA simply cannot be trusted to be anything like good-faith negotiators.

The limits are often covered pretty misleadingly. If you were to just order a truckload of American butter and import it, you'd be subject to the over-quota tariff regardless of whether the cap was reached. In order to get the preferential rate, you have to file a formal application to use the quota (https://www.international.gc.ca/trade-commerce/controls-cont...), which is subject to all kind of restrictions and limitations. In particular, grocery stores aren't allowed to use the butter quota at all, so if you have some fancy butter you'd like to convince Loblaws to stock you'll always have to pay the higher rate.

(I would emphasize that I don't think this is bad in some cosmic sense, and Canadians have every right to keep the shelves stocked with Canadian butter only if they would like.)

Canadian here…we also just dont want US milk

I think the idea is that tariffs cut both ways. They increase prices for foreign goods as well as reduce demand for imports causing job losses in the exporting country. The original tariffs increase prices and the retaliatory tariffs reduce demand for American products causing job loss.

Yes but since Canada is also initiating new tariffs (they've had existing ones for specific products and industries already) so anything said here applies to Canada as well.

For example Canadian tariffs increase prices and their retaliatory tariffs also reduce demand for Canadian products leading to job losses.

They are willing to bear some pain in order to hit back at the US administration. And they're pretty united - Doug Ford for instance is not on the same team as Mark Carney - but has been very vocal about striking back.

It's really a singular achievement to piss off such a good neighbor so badly.

And don't forget the Greenland threats, those for us Europeans, and in European foreign affairs are a line of non return.

Other administrations will not be able to repair the damage, because what was exposed really is that the US system allows for each administration to destroy and 180 whatever the previous one did.

They can be repaired - but if you think they can't be, then the US should act accordingly which would mean yea go ahead and take over Greenland, withdraw forces from Europe, &c. because as you say they can't be fixed so we might as well do whatever we think we want or need to do - that's the chain of reasoning that this theory of unrepairable relations sends us down.

But we've had challenges and issues before. The US has tried to obtain Greenland in the past. There are plenty of examples of such things throughout history ranging from the Suez Crises, to French withdrawal from NATO, to, well, 2 World Wars caused by Europe, and more and all was forgiven, if not forgotten.

We sometimes think that things in the moment are perhaps more important than they are. The news wants us to believe the world is ending to get clicks. Europe still lets Russian tourists in and houses Russian billionaires and their families despite this existential threat from Russia, as an example.

The news isn't threatening allies, offending/mocking them, charging tariffs, subverting the very institutions that have been built together. A human in charge is.

In any case, they cannot be repaired without a change in the US political system to a representative and stable (in foreign policy) democracy.

As long as the system allows for complete 180 degree turns every 4 years making any arrangement bears little value.

Business and friendship is built on long term horizons of stability. If that's not possible, we can only adapt.

> The news isn't threatening allies, offending/mocking them, charging tariffs, subverting the very institutions that have been built together. A human in charge is.

No but they're getting you to click on every article where Trump is SLAMMED and Marcon is TOASTED and Canada RETALIATES or whatever.

> As long as the system allows for complete 180 degree turns every 4 years making any arrangement bears little value.

That's not true and nobody has ever really treated it as such. The entire history of the United States has pretty much operated by making changes every 4 years. I'm not sure the US has really executed 180 degree turns, but even so sometimes it's necessary to make abrupt changes because acting too slowly could be very dangerous. For whatever it's worth I'd hate to see Donald Trump elected to, idk, some 20-year term as president in the name of not making changes every 4 years.

Aside from that, this cuts both ways. You can't throw everything away after decades of helpful, and peaceful cooperation just because of 8 out of 12 years being annoying. There is no stability in that - it's just "agree with me or I go away" which isn't good for long-term relationships.

> In any case, they cannot be repaired without a change in the US political system to a representative and stable (in foreign policy) democracy.

To be clear we operate a representative and stable democracy in the United States. Other countries may not like our actions, but suggesting that US action == destabilization implies that any action that any entity takes is also destabilizing. Things don't happen in a vacuum.

> To be clear we operate a representative and stable democracy in the United States.

We most certainly do not, the system is just nicely setup to make us believe that this is the case. In 2020 for instance, we were given an amazing choice to choose between a senile grandpa and the most vile and corrupt human being ever to walk the earth. all us elections boil down to this, the establishment decides who their 'best one' is at any given time and you get to choose A vs. B. there isn't a single other country on the planet where this is the case that calls itself a democracy. it is one step removed from china and russia, we just get one more choice than they do :)

Well, in that case I’d say our version of Democracy is just the better one and European democracies are just one step away from Russia/China and are very unstable and unrepresented in comparison to the US because of the EU.

We have only 720 members of the EU parliament representing over 600 million people. In the US we have more people representing fewer people, ergo we are more representative.

How is the president of the EU chosen? Is it a direct election across all citizens of the EU?

Don’t mistake gigantic bureaucracies for representative democracy.

EU is not a country :)

I didn’t claim that it was n_n

sure you did, you are comparing EU and US throughout your entire comment...

> We have only 720 members of the EU parliament representing over 600 million people. In the US we have more people representing fewer people, ergo we are more representative.

> How is the president of the EU chosen? Is it a direct election across all citizens of the EU?

> To be clear we operate a representative and stable democracy in the United States.

It's not a representative democracy.

A representative democracy is one where all voters are represented in a branch of government.

The US system is exactly the opposite. It's a winner-takes-all democracy. At all levels. And worse, the executive represents only the half that voted him, the other half don't exist.

There's many other flaws in presidential and semi presidential republics but they are beyond the topic of representative democracies.

And no, the US is clearly not stable on foreign politics.

> You can't throw everything away after decades of helpful, and peaceful cooperation just because of 8 out of 12 years being annoying.

It's a decision that's been made in Washington to revert decades of successful cooperation. We're merely reacting to the new reality.

> That's not true and nobody has ever really treated it as such.

That's a very US-centric way of looking at this. American exceptionalism is cultural, it's not tied to a specific administration.

> I'm not sure the US has really executed 180 degree turns, but even so sometimes it's necessary to make abrupt changes because acting too slowly could be very dangerous.

You don't build international and economic relations with abrupt changes.

Business and diplomatic relations require predictability, stability, trust.

Also, be careful thinking that "acting slowly" is the worst that can happen in a mature democracy.

Giving individuals the capability of acting fast and with little limits might be the most dangerous one. Each presidential republic is merely waiting for the right Erdogan, Trump or Putin to break it.

I'd rather keep our slow and inefficient European democracies where prime ministers have to win the trust of the parliament and their own party every single day with all the bad that comes with it, if the alternatives are what I see around the world.

> It's not a representative democracy. It's a winner-takes-all one. In US the executive is one single individual representing only those who voted him. Sometimes it's even a minority vote like in Trump #1.

The US is literally a representative democracy as a matter of fact and definition. Winner-take-all in contested elections does not make the US not a representative democracy.

> And no, the US is clearly not stable on foreign politics

No country is then.

> It's a decision that's been made in Washington to revert decades of successful cooperation. We're merely reacting to the reality.

Ok then we should just do whatever we want and who cares about alliances or whatever. Withdraw troops, normalize trade relations with Russia, take over Greenland, whatever. All the decades of successful cooperation are nearby reverted and so we can now take different actions with that in mind.

> That's not how you build stable relations, trust and business.

In that case any time a country or bloc takers abruptly actions they now no longer are building stable relations, trust, and business. For example if the EU takes an abrupt action we can make this same claim.

> Also, I really don't agree with your view of the "acting slowly".

What is my view that you disagree with?

> We don't need big changes, but small compounding ones.

Maybe. Sometimes you need big changes. Like climate change. We need to make big changes (at least in my view) to address it because small changes won’t save us in time.

> They can be repaired - but if you think they can't be, then the US should act accordingly which would mean yea go ahead and take over Greenland, withdraw forces from Europe, &c. because as you say they can't be fixed so we might as well do whatever we think we want or need to do

That is a very black and white view of the world. There is actually a very large area between acting as a close ally and acting as an imperialistic adversary.

GP is saying that the close ally bit is out the door. I think we can become close allies again if the situation requires it, but definitely won't if it does not. The USA has proven to be highly volatile, highly unreliable, and highly unreasonable.

> 2 World Wars caused by Europe, and more and all was forgiven, if not forgotten.

With all due respect, but claiming USA victimhood in the World Wars at the hands of "Europe" is a pretty fucked up and incorrect way of framing this bit of history. Pearl Harbor wasn't exactly the doing of the Belgians.

> That is a very black and white view of the world.

> The USA has proven to be highly volatile, highly unreliable, and highly unreasonable.

Right, black and white haha. Well if we are highly volatile, highly unreliable, and highly unreasonable why would we do anything besides whatever we decide to do? Can’t trust us, can’t reason with us, and can’t rely on us. In that case, who gives a shit about alliances with Europe?

> With all due respect, but claiming USA victimhood in the World Wars at the hands of "Europe" is a pretty fucked up and incorrect way of framing this bit of history. Pearl Harbor wasn't exactly the doing of the Belgians.

European wars started by Europeans. The Japanese may well have bombed Pearl Harbor anyway (don’t forget, the US alongside anglosphere allies liberated Western Europe at the same time Japan was being fought) but that war takes on a whole different character if simultaneously all the European powers weren’t initiating another round of their petulant and childish wars.

> don’t forget, the US alongside anglosphere allies liberated Western Europe at the same time Japan was being fought

Let's not forget the Soviet Union, who did most of the actual heavy lifting of liberating Western Europe. If D-Day had never happened, the Soviets would have rolled right through Germany and then occupied France and the low countries. The Nazis would still have lost, but all of continental Europe would have been behind the iron curtain for the Cold War.

The anglosphere allies didn't defeat Germany so much as stop the Soviets from occupying Western Europe.

> "If the United States had not helped us, we would not have won the war. One-on-one against Hitler's Germany, we would not have withstood its onslaught and would have lost the war. No one talks about this officially, and Stalin never, I think, left any written traces of his opinion, but I can say that he expressed this view l several times in conversations with me."

> - Nikita Khrushchev, political commissar overseeing Red Army generals during the Battle of Stalingrad and later the leader of the Soviet Union, as written in his memoirs.

> "People say that the allies didn't help us. But it cannot be denied that the Americans sent us materiel without which we could not have formed our reserves or continued the war. The Americans provided vital explosives and gunpowder. And how much steel! Could we really have set up the production of our tanks without American steel? And now they are saying that we had plenty of everything on our own."

> - Georgy Zhukov, Marshal of the Soviet Union and the Conqueror of Berlin (AKA the guy who got Hitler to blow his final thoughts out all over a wall), as overheard by a KGB monitoring device in 1963.

@Sensei_of_Philosophy, Reddit, https://www.reddit.com/r/HistoryWhatIf/s/z7gcaTaxy9

In addition, the UK and loose European merchant fleets repeatedly ran the gauntlet of German Navy, ice, and bad seas to deliver that material - so much so that

World War Two: Russian medals for last Arctic Convoys veterans - https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-wales-51726647

yeah, they were heroes and I don't think I could have done that in the face of those odds.

fair points, but it still doesn't add up to "the USA beat Germany" or even "the anglosphere beat Germany". The Soviets beat Germany and we helped.

I wrote that the Anglosphere liberated Western Europe, I didn’t write that the USA beat Germany nor did I write that the Anglosphere beat Germany. I chose those words carefully precisely because to say “they beat Germany” while true in some ways would be misleading and would discredit the Soviet’s contributions.

With that being said, the Soviets allied with Germany to help kick this whole thing off, so while yea maybe they get credit for not losing to Germany they also reaped what they sowed.

> Right, black and white haha. Well if we are highly volatile, highly unreliable, and highly unreasonable why would we do anything besides whatever we decide to do? Can’t trust us, can’t reason with us, and can’t rely on us. In that case, who gives a shit about alliances with Europe?

So, what's the plan? The USA imperialistically conquers land of former allies and rules the world forever with force? All countries are forced to trade with the USA? Or will the USA just operate as an island? How is this gonna work?

I don't think you realize how bad things have already gotten. We're not at the level of Europeans or Canadians burning American flags and chanting "death to America" in the street yet, but we are definitely speedrunning towards that. According to polling a large majority of the countries in the world now see the USA as the biggest threat to world peace [0]. A lot of people have also come to simply really, really hate (most) Americans. The complacency and impotence in stopping the utter madness and stupidity (or worse, doubling down on it) are damning. I wish it were different.

[0] https://www.niradata.com/global-pulse-2026 ("Global threat" section)

shrug

If people feel that way then there’s no reason to do anything besides whatever we want. We are untrustworthy, unreliable, highly volatile (anything else we should add?) and every Canadian/European is proudly chanting death to America. At that point, who cares?

It reminds me of those abusive relationships where some girl (EU/Canada) hates the boyfriend (America) but keeps coming back to him despite all these flaws. You’re untrustworthy! You’re bad! And then you just keep hanging around because deep down you know you need us. That’s why you have to keep saying the same thing over and over again - you need us and want us to act in a way that best suits your interests.

What an incredible way to miss the points and what an incredible bit of logic.

"Sure, I am an abusive asshole. But you need me, so I'm going to continue to be an abusive asshole. Why wouldn't I? You need me."

At this point I'm just going to assume you're trolling. Well done, I guess.

> At this point I'm just going to assume you're trolling. Well done, I guess.

Every accusation is a confession.

> "Sure, I am an abusive asshole. But you need me, so I'm going to continue to be an abusive asshole. Why wouldn't I? You need me."

Well, then why are, idk what to call some folks, I guess anti-American pro-EU? still trying to convince us of anything?

It's like you keep repeating "we don't trust you", "we don't like this or that", "the relationship will never be the same"! Ok got it, we've moved on and we're flying solo now, why haven't you moved on?

> Every accusation is a confession.

That doesn't make sense. Are you accusing me of trolling? Based on what?

> Well, then why are, idk what to call some folks, I guess anti-American pro-EU? still trying to convince us of anything?

The option "the USA stops being an abusive asshole" is really not on your radar, is it?

Because that would be the obvious and best way out of the current situation, like in the abusive relationship analogy you so aptly described. You do realize in that scenario the boyfriend is unequivocally the bad guy, right?

> Ok got it, we've moved on and we're flying solo now

The USA hasn't "moved on" and is not "flying solo". It is being petty, reneging on previously made agreements and actively significantly hurting and threatening to hurt the other parties in their (ex-)relationships constantly. It's like a couple with kids where one of the parents suddenly starts behaving like the biggest piece of shit on earth. Even after the divorce that is going to be a massive shit show for all parties involved.

If the USA wouldn't be dragging the rest of the world down with it, we wouldn't care. But you are. Spectacularly and moronically badly.

> That doesn't make sense. Are you accusing me of trolling? Based on what?

I'm not accusing you of anything, but if you are going to accuse me of trolling then I'll assume you are admitting to trolling instead.

> The option "the USA stops being an abusive asshole" is really not on your radar, is it?

It's not - that's why my analogy made sense. We're abusive, relationships unrepairable, never to be trusted again, highly volatile, you name it. You implicitly or explicitly (and others) have made these claims, not me. I think we can absolutely still work together, and there is a lot of room to repair things and frankly they're not as bad as the internet people make them out to be.

But if all you are going to do is sit there and repeat these feel-good phrases: "can't trust, can't redeem, highly volatile, &c" then ok sure yea we're all those things and there's no interest in talking or trying to repair anything because you've already declared it's over.

The USA hasn't "moved on" and is not "flying solo". It is being petty, reneging on previously made agreements and actively significantly hurting and threatening to hurt the other parties in their (ex-)relationships constantly. It's like a couple with kids where one of the parents suddenly starts behaving like the biggest piece of shit on earth. Even after the divorce that is going to be a massive shit show for all parties involved.

If the USA wouldn't be dragging the rest of the world down with it, we wouldn't care. But you are. Spectacularly and moronically badly.

How have we not moved on? I don't understand. You and online Europeans have said we're all these really bad things, no hope in repairing the damage, &c. so we have to be moved on now that we're no longer together. Maybe Europe hasn't gotten over it? I'm not sure. The US has though - we're flying solo and moving on when it comes to trade.

If someone said all of those things to you, allegedly wanted nothing to do with you, can't trust you, you're horrible, you're a destabilizing force - what exactly would you think the relationship is like? It's impossible to suggest that we haven't moved on unless you're suggesting Europe hasn't moved on and that these allegations of irreparability are just sensationalized bullshit (they are).

It is being petty, reneging on previously made agreements and actively significantly hurting and threatening to hurt the other parties in their (ex-)relationships constantly.

Ok so I'm right, these are former relationships, can't be trusted, we've moved on, etc. ?

Has your ex "moved on" if they regularly threaten to steal your shit, harass you, vandalize your neighborhood and your car?

Don't feign innocence. You're not fooling anybody. It is so very obviously not "just lil guy USA chillin' in the corner minding their business and not bothering anybody".

Idk, my ex (the EU) keeps coming around asking me for stuff, bothering me, then getting mad when I decide what kind of trade policy I want to have as is my right to decide.

But either way, the relationship is irreparable, it's all over, all that stuff so the EU and the online EU folks should just accept the new status quo and stop complaining.

I think this comparison has run its course anyway. At the end of the day these relationships are repairable and will be repaired and changed if we all decide to, and no amount of sensationalized doomsaying from people on the Internet will affect that. Trump will be gone, we'll elect some Democrat, they'll do some things, France might elect Marine LePenn, the'll do something, and on and on it goes.

Y'all've enjoyed the benefits of the relationship with your ex for so long you've given into the illusion of living in a garden and forgotten that you actually live in the jungle.

When something needed killing--and sometimes when it didn't--your ex was always there to do the dirty work. You weren't always happy with what he got up to, but you were always happy to have a seat at the table and a free lunch.

Now that he's your ex you suddenly realize: Ain't nobody innocent in the jungle and your ex is a predator, too. If you aren't at the table you're on the menu.

I hope that you and epolanski are wrong and ericmay is right. The relationship was better for both of you; I hope it can be repaired. But if it can't, don't expect anything but self-interest maximization.

> When something needed killing--and sometimes when it didn't--your ex was always there to do the dirty work. You weren't always happy with what he got up to, but you were always happy to have a seat at the table and a free lunch.

"Dirty" is exactly the right adjective here. Former allies and their peoples now see exactly what the USA has been up to for all these decades, perpetually shit-stirring far away from home, securing access to resources, projecting military power and keeping regional powers from sorting themselves out. Looking back at the last century and the current state of the world, an awful lot of theaters and countries would very probably be more stable today if the USA had not spent decades financing factions, propping up regimes and otherwise meddling from the other side of the planet.

As for free lunches: the USA military industrial complex has profited heavily off allied countries. Also, the only country ever to invoke Article 5 of the NATO treaty was the USA. Many allied soldiers fought and died in ridiculous, extremely counterproductive US-led wars. I'm so very, very happy that we mostly decided to say fuck you to the USA when they tried that bullshit again with Iran.

You make it sound like the USA is the only actor with agency. USSR then RU, PRC, DPRK--just to name a few--have all been playing dirty. Hell, DPRK is propping up regimes and meddling in European affairs as we chat. Yet European vitriol is aimed at the USA, not DPRK. Funny.

Besides, plenty of theaters and countries are absolutely more stable today thanks to US efforts. I'm pretty sure Europeans are largely pleased with the results of a certain American meddling in European affairs a bit over 80 years ago. And I'm personally quite pleased with the results of French meddling in American affairs some 250 years ago. Welcome to the game.

> the only country ever to invoke Article 5 of the NATO treaty was the USA

Totally false. It was in fact certain European NATO members and staff who were pushing to invoke Article 5 while US military leaders were dismissive of the idea. The relevant Wikipedia article lays it out pretty well: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2001_NATO_Article_5_contingenc...

"I don't have the time to become an expert on the Danish Air Force". -Gen. Tommy Franks

"I think it's safe to say that we won't be asking SACEUR to put together a battle plan for Afghanistan". -Anonymous 'Senior Official'

> Many allied soldiers fought and died in ridiculous, extremely counterproductive US-led wars.

Well, more than one soldier died, I suppose. But not really that many. Counterinsurgency in the sandbox isn't exactly high-intensity peer-on-peer combat. In any case the contribution was more symbolic than anything; allied forces were not determinative of any outcome.

> I'm so very, very happy that we mostly decided to say fuck you to the USA when they tried that bullshit again with Iran.

I'll be happy when USA rescinds export licenses this winter for LNG and refined fuels to countries that gave USA the finger but still expect USA to protect their supply lines and sell them the energy they need to survive the winter. Fuck you right back.

Well done proving how the USA is acting like an abusive asshole. Our previous deaths and support don't matter and you'll fuck over your own economy just to hurt us because we didn't want to help you in yet another retarded (unilaterally started!) war.

It also makes sense that you compare the USA with North Korea and Russia (whom your dear leader clearly loves). You're partially right: those are terrible regimes as well and they are widely and vocally hated in Europe. To think that Russia who is actively waging war on us isn't just shows your utter typically American self-centered myopic ignorance.

> Well done proving how the USA is acting like an abusive asshole.

Refusing to sell its energy to rich allies who consistently refuse to secure their own energy supplies, and who got themselves in this predicament despite the US's admonitions--that's just reciprocity, not acting like an abusive asshole. You won't help the world with their energy problem; why should the US help you? Especially when you wouldn't have an energy problem at all if you'd listened to the US in the past?

But if you want to see an abusive asshole, keep up the good work alienating the US. The Russians love their "We can do it again" bumper stickers. Pray that mentality does not rise in the US. Or else with a Europe openly antagonistic to both the US and Russia, they just might do it again...

> Our previous deaths and support don't matter

Nor, apparently, do USA's matter to you.

USA WWI combat deaths: 53,402

USA All-cause WWII military deaths in European theater: 250,000

European NATO member (excluding Turkey) soldiers killed in Afghanistan: 897

European NATO member (excl. Turkey & UK) soldiers killed in Afghanistan: 440

Now tell me again who's ungrateful for blood shed in defense of whom.

> you'll fuck over your own economy just to hurt us

No, selling oil and refined fuels to Europe raises prices in the US. Stopping those sales would bring prices down and help the US economy. Shareholders in O&G companies might miss out on a windfall, but every molecule will still find a willing Asian buyer.

Considering that gas prices and affordability are probably the most salient topic for the upcoming US midterm elections, you're incredibly lucky that this administration is generous enough to allow you to buy their energy. That can change.

> because we didn't want to help you in yet another retarded (unilaterally started!) war.

No, because you didn't want to lift a finger to defend your own energy supplies. Instead you angrily demand that Uncle Sam ensure your energy security for you while heaping on the opprobrium.

Typical European self-centered entitlement.

> To think that Russia who is actively waging war on us isn't [...]

I never said Russia wasn't a target of European vitriol. Just that the US is but DPRK is barely even mentioned while their troops are fighting and ballistic missiles are raining down right next door.

We're talking about different things. The French withdrawal from NATO unified command is a good example of what it means to say relationships can't just be repaired; it took 43 years to bring them back!

It's true that the news can overstate just how much things have changed. The US and Canada remain major trade partners and strong allies, with NORAD currently in the middle of a week-long joint exercise, and it's unlikely that's going to change. But you should not expect a return to friendly trade relations in 2029.

But they can be repaired. The OP claimed:

> Other administrations will not be able to repair the damage

So if you disagree with them you should reply to them and let them know the damage can be repaired.

Again, we're talking about different things. What the OP understands "repair the damage" to mean, which I know because I've seen the expectation myself in the wild, is that the next administration can restore the 2024 status quo by just going on a really compelling apology tour. I don't think that's likely; we're still going to see Canadians boycotting random consumer goods, Europeans demanding that everyone should move off American tech ASAP, and countries in general being a lot less willing to negotiate for trade agreements the Americans can't credibly promise to keep.

Their lack of specificity does not invalidate my comment.

> and countries in general being a lot less willing to negotiate for trade agreements the Americans can't credibly promise to keep.

We have a lot of trade deals and have created new ones while Trump has been in office. Countries have willingly negotiated with us and us with them. What you are writing is ideological wishful thinking, not what is reflected in reality.

> We have a lot of trade deals and have created new ones while Trump has been in office. Countries have willingly negotiated with us and us with them. What you are writing is ideological wishful thinking, not what is reflected in reality.

Those trade deals aren't worth the paper they're written on while Trump is around. Everybody is aware of this, the only difference is that Trump seems to think he's the only one who knows.

> Those trade deals aren't worth the paper they're written on while Trump is around. Everybody is aware of this, the only difference is that Trump seems to think he's the only one who knows.

But they are still real trade deals, the rules are still followed, &c.

Your personal distaste for Donald Trump (I believe he belongs in jail and didn't vote for him either time) doesn't change that fact.

> But they are still real trade deals, the rules are still followed, &c.

No, that's the point, they're not.

> Your personal distaste for Donald Trump (I believe he belongs in jail and didn't vote for him either time) doesn't change that fact.

Same in reverse. He could be everyone's favourite uncle and it would still be rendering the US's word worthless.

Me, I'm not eligible to vote for him, what with having repeatedly turned down opportunities to move to the USA, the most recent occasion of which having been in 2016 specifically due to him having won.

> No, that's the point, they're not.

Do you want me to quote formal trade agreements that were made or are you able to just do a Google search yourself and see?

> Same in reverse. He could be everyone's favourite uncle and it would still be rendering the US's word worthless.

Ok our word is worthless and all that stuff so who cares then what anyone in Europe or whatever thinks.

Oh well so sad we should withdraw from NATO immediately, send troops back to the US, and remove sanctions on Russia so we can bring down gas prices - who cares what Europe thinks since our word is worthless and all.

Guess we'll just have to keep doing whatever we're doing.

> Do you want me to quote formal trade agreements that were made or are you able to just do a Google search yourself and see?

I wrote "Those trade deals aren't worth the paper they're written on", you seem to be responding as if I wrote "nonexistent".

> Oh well so sad we should withdraw from NATO immediately, send troops back to the US, and remove sanctions on Russia so we can bring down gas prices - who cares what Europe thinks since our word is worthless and all.

Those troops are in Europe for your benefit, more than ours. Those bases are a big part of how the USA gets to do force projection.

Can you really not see the cost to yourself? Your reaction is like committing suicide after getting caught cheating. You're not coming back from cheating, but if you really, genuinely, seriously, cannot see how much worse it can get… wow, things are going to get so much worse.

> I wrote "Those trade deals aren't worth the paper they're written on", you seem to be responding as if I wrote "nonexistent".

That's just your opinion though. I say they're worth the paper they're written on, and other countries have agreed to them and are following them. That's my opinion, and the opinion of the countries who have signed and are following trade deals.

So it's like, me, America, the countries we've done trade deals with

and then there's you who disagree with all of us.

> Those troops are in Europe for your benefit, more than ours. Those bases are how you get to do force projection.

This is cope. Certainly those bases do benefit the United States, but it's not as lopsided as you are making it out to be. If the US turned to be more isolationist (not something I advocate really) we wouldn't need those bases to, say, project power in the Middle East or provide a backstop to Europe due to Russia. And we know this is true because when the United States under Trump has threatened or started to remove troops, the NATO alliance and European leaders either treaded carefully, or made overtures to keep the troops/bases operational in Europe. I don't know why people keep parroting these talking points - they really don't make a lot of sense.

Like if you are going to claim those bases are just there for our benefit, then why do you care if we remove them? Leave us alone and let us make our own choices.

> Can you really not see the cost to yourself? Your reaction is like committing suicide after getting caught cheating. You're not coming back from cheating, but if you really, genuinely, seriously, cannot see how much worse it can get… wow.

Sure, I see the cost. The degradation of these relationships is not something I advocate for. But if you're saying everything is done and over, untrustworthy, &c. then sure it's over - it's just like you said and want. So why do you keep trying?

> Do you want me to quote formal trade agreements that were made or are you able to just do a Google search yourself and see?

Are there any actual formal trade agreements, ratified by Congress (like CUSMA)?

Most of them seem to be hand-wavy executive actions, full of caveats and outs, sitting upon the unstable legal foundation of illegal tariffs, dubious legal theories, and front-running the courts. Signed by an executive with a long history of dishonesty, reneging on deals, and criminality.

> Most of them seem to be hand-wavy executive actions, full of caveats and outs, sitting upon the unstable legal foundation of illegal tariffs, dubious legal theories, and front-running the courts. Signed by an executive with a long history of dishonesty, reneging on deals, and criminality.

Fair but then that criticism goes back pretty far and is bipartisan. I don't think it's fair to single Trump out for this. Congress (Republicans and Democrats both) have been abdicating their responsibility and deferring to the courts or the Executive for over 20 years and it gets worse every year.

Of course it is fair to single out Trump. No other president has pursued this strategy. In the case of Canada, there was the original free trade agreement (Reagan), NAFTA (Bush I/Clinton), and even CUSMA (Trump I). All approved by Congress.

They didn't implement illegal tariffs, make up fake emergencies (eg fentanyl across the northern border), and do the 51st state/Governor Trudeau stuff.

More broadly, the "he is just doing what his predecessors did" argument that Trump water carriers like to make is a Lake Ontario-sized false equivalence.

> Are there any actual formal trade agreements, ratified by Congress (like CUSMA)?

> In the case of Canada, there was the original free trade agreement (Reagan), NAFTA (Bush I/Clinton), and even CUSMA (Trump I). All approved by Congress.

Why bother asking me questions like this if you know the answer?

The legality of the tariffs is questionable but just calling them illegal as though it's a moral judgement I cast out as nonsense and not worthy of discussion.

None of these points detract from what I wrote which is that Congress under both Republicans and Democrats have continued to be dysfunctional and delegate more and more of their responsibility to the Executive and Judicial branches.

> Why bother asking me questions like this if you know the answer?

I know the history of the Canadian treaties. I don't know the status of all the other various frameworks and intents and executive orders with other countries that have been tweeted about, agreed to and then un-agreed to, etc. Maybe I missed some that Congress approved, but they mostly seem to be like peace agreements with Iran.

> The legality of the tariffs is questionable but just calling them illegal as though it's a moral judgement I cast out as nonsense and not worthy of discussion.

The more recent ones are questionable. The Supreme Court ruled the "liberation day" tariffs illegal. That's why they're being refunded.

> None of these points detract from what I wrote which is that Congress under both Republicans and Democrats have continued to be dysfunctional and delegate more and more of their responsibility to the Executive and Judicial branches.

Under this administration, it is a LOT more. A LOT LOT more.

> I don't know the status of all the other various frameworks and intents and executive orders with other countries

Then why did you assert claims without knowledge about the underlying facts? Delete Twitter, get off social media, and you'll be much better informed.

> They seem to be like peace agreements with Iran.

I'm not sure that's a good comparison because the Iranians never had any intention of an agreement. Even today hardliners and the IRGC have internal fighting with other members of the Iranian government as to what to do about the US closing the Strait on them. Hard to negotiate when the party you are negotiating with either doesn't want to negotiate or can't agree on whatever their talking points are.

> Under this administration, it is a LOT more. A LOT LOT more.

Maybe but I don't think the volume makes a significant difference. It's just further evidence of the dysfunction of Congress and it'll just get worse once the Republicans deservedly get blown out in the midterm elections.

Assert claims? I know a lot of the deals are vague/incomplete executive directives; not treaties ratified by congress. But I don't know about all of them - maybe Congress approved a deal with the penguins that Trump tariffed? So I asked you a question (which you didn't answer).

Don't take the comparison with Iran too literally; it was a gibe about yet another in an endless line of Trump deals (political, business, personal) that didn't stick.

> Don't take the comparison with Iran too literally; it was a gibe about yet another in an endless line of Trump deals (political, business, personal) that didn't stick.

Sure but you used the comparison so I did want to make sure that if we were taking a serious tone we have to realize they aren't honest negotiators anyway and there's a lot of in-fighting.

> I know a lot of the deals are vague/incomplete executive directives; not treaties ratified by congress.

How do you know that? What do you mean by an incomplete executive directive? Are you sure that all trade deals or modifications of such deals must go through Congress? How familiar are you with the US legislative system?

> So I asked you a question (which you didn't answer).

Was it a rhetorical question or are you genuinely asking? You already answered your question by pointing out a few different deals. That's why I'm a little confused. I addressed your question, even if I didn't answer it... because you answered it!! lol

Separately does it matter? My point was that Congress has abdicated this responsibility to the Executive and Judicial branches and this has gone on for decades and only gotten worse over time. The lack of Congressional approval for trade deals would just reinforce the point I am making.

Agreements approved by Congress are more politically and legally durable than something simply signed by the executive. Especially when the executive is as dishonest and capricious as this one is.

CUSMA was approved by Congress in the middle of Trump's second term. In this area at least, they haven't been abdicating for decades.

Also, seems primary blame for Trump's illegal tariffs should lie with... Trump?

The US isn't even following its own rules. The "liberation day" tariffs were illegal.

They can be repaired but it is going to require a very significant amount of work on one side of the border in particular.

Irreparable doesn't make it a good idea to increase the damage, in much the same way that a company losing their trademark ("irreparable harm") can have an even worse time if all their banks suddenly refuse to do business with them.

The US taking Greenland by force means either NATO ends, or it collectively is at war with the USA, either outcome within a week or less. Similar but with different timelines for the entire EU due to Article 42(7), even though not all EU member states are in NATO and vice versa. It means maximally escalating trade prohibition (which doesn't mean everything from day 0) rather than simply the absence of deals leading to tariffs.

I will note with Suez, the British and French were humiliated, and by some the crisis is considered to be the end of the British empire. The British are not exactly beloved world-wide, despite what British newspapers will write about all the asylum seekers.

And the French didn't fully withdraw from NATO, but from the US-led unified command and the control of NATO's nuclear arsenal, to approximately quote the Wikipedia page.

Neither world war worked out well for those involved; for the British it was two Pyrrhic victories in a lifetime, for Germany it was humiliation and hyperinflation the first time around and getting quartered the second time around with active economic suppression only ending because of a proxy conflict of brain drain across what became the Iron Curtain. In both wars, Germany was seen as villainous for the next generation. The relative economic damage in Europe is what allowed the USA to become a superpower, and it only really supported Europe as a foil against Communism.

Or just look at how much the borders changed going from pre-WW1 to post-WW2.

And yet were still selling power to USA. Ford lost his right to an opinion when he decided to make noise about "Fighting" but refuses to do the only thing that could cause trouble

People I know change their meal plans if the only options are US products.

Yup! Just like a game of chicken that goes a little too far.

> anything said here applies to Canada as well.

Correct. But Canada didn't start this trade war, all it can do is respond to it.

And the correct way to respond to a bully, fraud, and liar is tit-for-tat. Tax his exports, tax your irreplaceable exports. Tax and block his digital and media services.

> They increase prices for foreign goods

Not only for foreign goods. If there's a tax on imported X, domestic X producers can now charge more because the foreign producers must raise their prices to pay for the tax.

Another way to look at it is that any tariff reduces foreign competition, with all the knock-on effects that implies.

It's not the foreign producer who must raise her prices to pay for the tax. It's the local importer. The net effect on the consumer is that the price of imported goods goes up so then, as you say, the local producers can raise their prices and increase their profits.

It all comes down to who has pricing power. If Canadian exporters can raise prices without unduly harming sales, then the tariffs on their goods are predominantly paid by American consumers. If the US cannot, then the tariffs on their goods are predominantly paid by American exporters (and must be absorbed by reducing profit margins).

Whether or not that is true, I have no idea. One would expect there to be enough diversity of trade that on the balance it cannot be that lopsided, but maybe that's wrong. It is certainly possible for one side of a trade war to be hurt both coming and going, without any logical inconsistency.

> This seems illogical.

It is. When Canada imposes retaliatory tariffs, it is of course a tax on Canadians. Though it is also a market inducement, and one of the complaints of the admin is that Canada's retaliatory vehicle tariffs -- literally mirroring the tariffs the US applied to Canada -- caused a 22% drop in imports.

> import duties on American products which also must be treated in the same fashion for this analysis - Canadian imposed tariffs on dairy

Can you tell us if those import duties are in the room with us? Because you know they didn't exist, right?

There have been $0 in tariffs on US dairy. The tariffs only come into play when the US imports pass a certain volume -- and precisely the same tariffs happen in both directions -- and the US hasn't. Now the US has complained that there are administrative barriers, and maybe so, but they sure aren't clear on what they are, and lie about everything constantly.

Prior to this trade war, there was essentially 0% tariffs on products from the US. And the only reason there is a trade "deficit" is because of massive amounts of Alberta oil that the US desperately needs. I mean, it's hilarious that Trump was literally celebrating bringing back Keystone XL, and increasing the flow of Alberta oil, while simultaneously complaining essentially about that very same oil.

This is, as the WSJ named it, the stupidest trade war in history. All for yet another distraction, as Trump's entire base just desperately need to puff their little chests and celebrate when they think he is punching down on someone. Even if it makes their lives worse and their lot worse.

Let's set the framing correctly because I think we're starting off on the wrong foot. The US is not in a desperate need of any product from Canada. Nice to have and super important? Yea. Desperate? No. Not by any stretch of the imagination.

> There have been $0 in tariffs on US dairy. The tariffs only come into play when the US imports pass a certain volume

So there are tariffs on US dairy... Maybe the US can just say well once 50 cars are shipped in from Canada we impose 300% duties. I'm not part of team Trump here or anything, but these kinds of arguments are semantics - at the end of the day neither Canada, China, the EU, or others who claim to be free-trade economies (in some sense) are really living up to the hype, whether that's outright tariffs, or complicated regulatory or policy schemes to circle around what amounts to a tax on foreign produced goods.

> This is, as the WSJ named it, the stupidest trade war in history.

Wall Street (and the WSJ) also helped move American jobs overseas. So are you aligning with corporate America's viewpoint on trade? They also want much lower corporate taxes. :)

> All for yet another distraction, as Trump's entire base just desperately need to puff their little chests and celebrate when they think he is punching down on someone. Even if it makes their lives worse and their lot worse.

I don't know that this is a distraction and it would be a mistake to dismiss these concerns out of hand as chest-pumping.

> The US is not in a desperate need of any product from Canada. Nice to have and super important? Yea. Desperate? No. Not by any stretch of the imagination.

The US oil stockpile is rapidly declining, it is desperately buying up bonds to try to prop up the market ($40T debt, deficit spiralling, and now your orange goblin is talking about using the military to prop up the bond market...which good God), and now Vance is running around trying to make lemonade out of lemons and talking up how no longer being the reserve currency is a great thing. Utter idiocracy.

Canada needs absolutely nothing from the US.

> I'm not part of team Trump here or anything, but these kinds of arguments are semantics

It isn't semantics when $0 in tariffs were applied. What an utterly stupid argument. And this was all precisely negotiated into USMCA -- you know, the trade deal that your hero called the best trade deal ever -- for which we gave concessions.

Trump takes advantage of his base being catastrophically stupid and misinformed, and what a case in point.

>I don't know that this is a distraction

It is 100% a distraction, for a monumentally stupid base.

Personally I want USMCA torn up, as a Canadian. Loads of Americans are catastrophically stupid -- the most impossibly misinformed group of people on this planet -- about how privileged you have been, and what you have to lose.

> It isn't semantics when $0 in tariffs were applied.

> There have been $0 in tariffs on US dairy. The tariffs only come into play when the US imports pass a certain volume

So how do tariffs come in to play if there are no tariffs applied?

> You clearly are.

> you know, the trade deal that your hero

You're welcome to read my entire comment history. You will find I routinely have said Donald Trump belongs in jail. You can choose to believe I'm a Trump supporter for whatever reason, if you'd like, but I can only tell you that I'm not except in circumstances where his actions create good things for the United States or if his policies (or anyone's) align with mine. I make the decision and then others align or don't. I'm better characterized as anti-populist and anti-populist movements including MAGA, DSA, and others where applicable, and then also anti bad arguments.

> So how do tariffs come in to play if there are no tariffs applied?

What is the duty you pay on duty free goods?

Is this a serious question?

Canada negotiated in a quota of dairy products the US could export to Canada tariff free. If the US exceeds this quota, there are tariffs. If it doesn't, there are none. It has never even come close to hitting the quota, much less exceeding it, and the total tariffs ever paid on this has been $0.

Again, this is all a part of a massively complex trade agreements where every agreement had a give and take.

Exactly the same system applies in reverse. Canadian dairy isn't putting US farmers out of business, because there are basically zero exports to the US of dairy products.

The fact that Trump constantly returns to dairy betrays just how fundamentally broken the US is now.

As an aside, saw Lutnick -- that disgusting greaseball Epstein island visitor, as the entire admin are scumbags and pedophiles -- on the news the other day declaring that the only reason there are auto plants in Canada is to evade unions. Canada has 3x the union rate than the US, better worker protections, better vacation and holiday and sick and health and environmental protections, and so on. Why is he willing to just LIE so egregiously? Because America has become the stupidest fucking country on the planet, and your Pedo Leaders can just do this endlessly and you'll eat it up and repeat the stupid nonsense verbatim. What an embarrassment.

> Canada negotiated in a quota of dairy products the US could export to Canada tariff free. If the US exceeds this quota, there are tariffs. If it doesn't, there are none. It has never even come close to hitting the quota, much less exceeding it, and the total tariffs ever paid on this has been $0.

So you wouldn't take issue with an America quota on assembled motor vehicles, for example, since that wouldn't be a tariff? Maybe that automaker moves most of its facilities back to the US and now yea you've got one factory making 10,000 cars/year or something and that's under the quota, but you were effectively tariffed anyway because to maintain facilities would breach the quota that was set. Were you outright tariffed? No. Were you effectively tariffed? Absolutely.

That's why this argument you are putting forth is just semantics. It's not tariffs on duty free goods (except when it is). It's not tariffs on imported products (except when it is). There aren't any restrictions, except when there are. Nobody is moving facilities until they do.

Other countries do the same thing to protect their domestic industries, I'm not singling Canada out here, but I do take issue with the lack of honesty where folks pretend that we had these free trade schemes without any barriers right up until Trump got elected again. It's simply untrue.

>So you wouldn't take issue with an America quota on assembled motor vehicles, for example, since that wouldn't be a tariff? Maybe that automaker moves most of its facilities back to the US and now yea you've got one factory making 10,000 cars/year or something and that's under the quota, but you were effectively tariffed anyway because to maintain facilities would breach the quota that was set. Were you outright tariffed? No. Were you effectively tariffed? Absolutely.

You've returned to this example twice now. And it's interesting. Did you know Canada imports and buys more vehicles from the US than we export to the US? Or at least it did before this incredibly stupid, self-destructive trade war.

Did you know that prior to NAFTA cum USMCA it was the reverse? Like literally, this is one of those amazing punch yourself in the face moments.

But sure, if this was negotiated into a trade deal where we made compromises and both sides understood and agreed, sure thing. We'll cut off American vehicles just the same. I mean, America's automakers sure are shitting their pants about Canada importing a tiny number of Chinese cars, which is kind of funny. Again, Canada compromised in both NAFTA, and redoubled in USMCA, because of our dairy system. Now your rapist goblin gets his ill-informed clownshow enraged about something we've given in for twice.

Again, tear up USMCA. Close the border, effectively. I am 100% onboard. I absolutely, positively do not want the government to give a fucking iota, even if there is short term damage from it.

> You've returned to this example twice now. And it's interesting. Did you know Canada imports and buys more vehicles from the US than we export to the US?

So what? We could still enact a quota on imports regardless of exports. If anything that would be ideal (ask China, Germany) in some ways. But you can just substitute autos for any other random product - the specific product is, as I know you are well aware, isn't the point.

> So what?

You specifically chose a thing that Trump has tried to use as a lever multiple times. Again, I want 100% of vehicle production from the US barred from Canada. A 0 vehicle quota. Let the US automakers collapse into the eventual failure that is coming.

> We could still enact a quota on imports regardless of exports.

Huh? What does this even mean. When there are two parties to an agreement. If the US did that, we'd do it in return. I mean, we did (to yield hysterical tantrums by the criminal empire). Just as the dairy agreement goes both ways.

"But Canada's market is small and we're big and only we matter" - I mean, 40 million affluent buyers is a huge market, and much, much smaller markets do well. We'll just block all US vehicles and we'll serve ourselves. It'll be disruptive and people desperate for the status quo will fear monger, but so be it. New world order.

And it's hysterical how Americans desperately want everyone to believe that Canada's market is too small to matter. It sure as shit matters to your automakers, who have been creaming their diapers at every disruption.

US automakers wouldn't collapse if Canadiens weren't buying American cars. Canada is too small of a market. On the other hand Canada would lose a lot of jobs. It also wouldn't apply to just American auto manufacturers. Japanese and German manufacturers I imagine ship cars to Canada too so you wouldn't get those either.

> Huh? What does this even mean.

Well we would enact a quota on imports, and then we'd be free to export. Certainly we wouldn't self-impose export controls on products we want to sell. Canada could then choose to add more tariffs or just stop imports but that's a separate step.

Maybe you haven't noticed the world turning against you. Canada is forming trade agreements rapidly with other countries. We can get cars from anywhere in the world. You, on the other hand, would only be able to get cars from yourself. If you ban imports other countries will ban your exports. Isolationism is a losing philosophy. The best and wealthiest nations are the ones that do the most trade, not the least.

No the world isn’t turning against the US, just people in the internet who like to think it is.

Canada is forming trade agreements, the US is forming its own as well as we routinely do, including I’m sure a future one with Canada, and we can get cars for ourselves (we don’t need to import) or import them at will. For autos the US manufacturers are primarily domestic anyway so we have way more leverage than anyone else there. That’s partly why Honda, Toyota, BMW, Volkswagen, and more build cars in the US. Those markets (China too) are much more export dependent than we are.

> If you ban imports other countries will ban your exports.

To some degree but the US hasn’t really been banning imports though with some exceptions like Chinese automobiles but Europe will be doing that too.

At this point I assume this is all an act. Like some sort of parody. Because there is simply no way.

>No the world isn’t turning against the US, just people in the internet who like to think it is.

https://www.pewresearch.org/global/2026/07/15/people-in-many...

Yes, most of the world thinks you're a busted idiocracy. I mean, people view China more positively. In the Iran debacle, where the US got its ass handed to it by some two-bit theocracy, absolutely no one was rooting for the US but Israel. If 9/11 happened today, I'm going to be honest with you: Most of the world would go "Eh, sucks, but not surprising".

You are a hated nation. You haven't felt the consequences yet because inertia is a hell of a thing, and decades of trade and military relationships take time to unwind. But if you, like so many Americans, live under the profound denial that your future has become much, much darker, you need to wake up.

>but Europe will be doing that too.

LOL, what? Europe sure as shit isn't banning Chinese autos. Everyone is transitioning from the US to China. Except your little war-criming buddy Israel, or your hysterically pathetic "Board of Peace". I mean, good god, what a shameful debacle. What an absolutely giant shit this farcical idiocracy movement is taking on the great Americans in the past that put it in the position where it is now flushing down the toilet.

As an aside, it's hilarious seeing you talking about cars. Notice not a word is being dropped about vastly more cars made in Mexico, which are going absolutely nowhere. This never had anything to do with bringing manufacturing "back" to the US, however many cosmically stupid idiots fell for that line.

I think this is a completely crazy, over-sensationalized view and all you are doing is whipping yourself up into a fantasy about how much most people care about this stuff. Who cares what Pew Research "researched"?

> I mean, people view China more positively.

For now lol. Germany is shedding 10,000 manufacturing jobs/month [1] due to Chinese competition. And China hasn't tried to invade Taiwan yet. Oh and of course they're supporting Russia outright in the war against Ukraine - somehow folks conveniently keep forgetting that.

> LOL, what? Europe sure as shit isn't banning Chinese autos.

They may not ban them outright but they'll tariff them. How long do you think the EU is going to put up with this?

  [1] https://www.wsj.com/economy/china-is-devastating-the-last-stronghold-of-german-industry-c7a98514

  [2] https://www.wsj.com/economy/trade/chinese-export-flood-tests-europes-stomach-for-trade-war-with-beijing-c03a9ac1?mod=article_inline

  [3] https://www.reuters.com/world/china/german-state-politician-calls-eu-tariffs-chinese-hybrid-cars-letter-shows-2026-08-21/

  [4] https://eletric-vehicles.com/general/eu-prepares-to-extend-tariffs-on-china-made-vehicles-to-phevs-report/

> In the Iran debacle, where the US got its ass handed to it by some two-bit theocracy, absolutely no one was rooting for the US but Israel.

? We bombed their nuclear sites, destroyed a lot of their military equipment, killed their leaders, and now we're blockading them and crushing their economy. [5]

Israel alone rocked Hamas and Hezbollah and killed their scumbag Hitler wannabes.

  [5] https://www.wsj.com/world/middle-east/labor-protests-and-panic-buying-signal-growing-pressure-in-iran-3f039fab?st=3C4UhN&reflink=article_imessage_share

> Yes, most of the world thinks you're a busted idiocracy.

Well if we're idiots that must be embarrassing for everyone else to be constantly getting beaten by idiots lol.

ROFL. Christ.

Alright, buddy. Hey, your child-diddler rapist just renamed something! Yay! WINNING!

> I do take issue with the lack of honesty where folks pretend that we had these free trade schemes without any barriers right up until Trump got elected again. It's simply untrue.

Which folks are these? The original Canada/US free trade agreement was negotiated in the 1980s. It was never a "free trade scheme without any barriers" and I don't recall anyone ever describing it as such. There have always been exemptions, quotas, and points of contention on both sides. Softwood lumber has been in the news for decades, for example.

Your issue with a lack of honesty seems misplaced. Surely you should be more concerned that the White House is occupied by a pathological liar who has surrounded himself with pathological liars, and consequently the US as a whole has a massive global credibility problem?

It's amazing how confidently some people speak about a topic they know nothing about.

>Let's set the framing correctly because I think we're starting off on the wrong foot. The US is not in a desperate need of any product from Canada. Nice to have and super important? Yea. Desperate? No. Not by any stretch of the imagination.

Literally yesterday:

“This country desperately needs aluminum,” Trump said. “Selfishly, we need aluminum in this country. We don’t have it. We get it all from Canada for the most part, and we need it badly.”

Note that Trump said this within hours of claiming "we don't need anything from Canada". What else does the country need that Trump has lied about (that you seem to have bought hook, line, and sinker)? Have you considered another source of information?

Well you can start with potash (very much a critical need according to the United States Ambassador to Canada), and oil (according to the US voters), electricity (according to several million American households).

That's not even to mention current and future supplies of critical minerals. Remember how much Trump panicked when China cut off critical minerals? You'd better hope that doesn't happen again.

Well there's layers right. If you're going to claim that we're very desperate for such things we would of course have to act as a country of desperation and secure aluminum, oil, and critical minerals perhaps at all costs. I wonder what that would look like? If we don't take desperate measures, maybe we aren't desperate yea?

But just as we don't have to take Trump at his word when he says something we disagree with, we don't have to take Trump at his word when he says something you happen to agree with. I disagree with Trump - it's better to get aluminum and other commodities from Canada, but we are not in desperate need.

"If I choose to adopt the most extreme definition of the word 'desperate', then I'm technically correct, and I don't have to support my assertions, or argue with facts!"

You know very well that the intended meaning of the word "desperate" in the comment you replied to isn't what you're now desperately pretending to be confused about. Stop it.

From the HN community guidelines:

"Please respond to the strongest plausible interpretation of what someone says, not a weaker one that's easier to criticize. Assume good faith."

  > From the HN community guidelines: "Please respond to the strongest plausible interpretation of what someone says, not a weaker one that's easier to criticize. Assume good faith."

If you’re going to quote these guidelines then you should at least follow them in good faith. If you believed my interpretation of the word desperate wasn’t what was intended to be communicated you or others can clarify it or ask questions instead of doubling down on what is an incorrect use of the word in this situation.

https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/desperate

There is nothing uncharitable about my interpretation of the word desperate here.

I responding to you saying:

>If you're going to claim that we're very desperate for such things we would of course have to act as a country of desperation and secure aluminum, oil, and critical minerals perhaps at all costs. I wonder what that would look like? If we don't take desperate measures, maybe we aren't desperate yea?

Which I presume is an allusion to war ("secure... at all costs"). The implication being that since there's no war, then the phrase "desperate for oil" simply cannot apply. I only realized you were using that extreme interpretation when you... you know... alluded to war(!) At which time I pointed it out.

But go ahead Eric, carry on with your desperate[0] flailing.

[0] So there's no confusion, the intended meaning here is this one (from your source):

ˈde-sp(ə-)rət: "involving or employing extreme measures in an attempt to escape defeat or frustration"

Instead of doubling down you should just admit that you should have backtracked from the usage of the term desperate here. It's not a big deal but you're making it into one to the extent any Internet comment can be.

It's a bit of an annoyance that you are sitting here quoting the rules around charitable interpretation and then you turn around and cite the definition of desperation which was how I was using it and start calling that an "extreme interpretation". Nobody is casually desperate.

I'll leave you here to mull it over as I demonstrated my point, unequivocally, to my satisfaction and the satisfaction of others.

> Let's set the framing correctly because I think we're starting off on the wrong foot. The US is not in a desperate need of any product from Canada. Nice to have and super important? Yea. Desperate? No. Not by any stretch of the imagination.

aluminium, potash, and electricity are more than "nice to have"s

Yea but we can find other sources or just do with less if we had to just like any other country can.

Remember when Russia invaded Ukraine? Did Europe figure out a way to do without Russian products? I'm not sure why folks seem to think the US can't also figure things out if it so choses.

"I'll just get it from somewhere else" means you do need it. This isn't complicated logic. You don't have enough yourself. The fact that you hope you could get it from a brutal dictatorship instead of a democratic country doesn't change the fact that you do need things Canada has.

And yes, Europe found a way off Russian gas. But they had to ration energy, hallways went cold, lighting was restricted. It was not fun. You want to ration food and heat? And for what exactly? What do you gain from it? Have fun.

> "I'll just get it from somewhere else" means you do need it. This isn't complicated logic.

Right, it’s not complicated logic, so follow along. I didn’t say that America didn’t need these things. I said we aren’t desperate to get them from Canada. Big difference.

> The fact that you hope you could get it from a brutal dictatorship instead of a democratic country doesn't change the fact that you do need things Canada has.

Ok, and then Canada needs things that the US has, as does the EU. Both Canada and the EU also have to get products and commodities from brutal dictatorships. This is a poor argument - what exactly are you trying to prove here?

> And yes, Europe found a way off Russian gas. But they had to ration energy, hallways went cold, lighting was restricted. It was not fun. You want to ration food and heat? And for what exactly? What do you gain from it? Have fun.

Which proves my point. We aren’t desperate - nothing like that is on the table here. You’re confusing your dislike of Trump and these tariffs for resulting conditions. We can cut off trade tomorrow with Canada and it would certainly not be ideal nor something I support, but we would just get along with life like we always do, even if it’s slightly more inconvenient and/or expensive.

> Ok, and then Canada needs things that the US has, as does the EU. Both Canada and the EU also have to get products and commodities from brutal dictatorships. This is a poor argument - what exactly are you trying to prove here?

No, actually, we don't. If you are including "hypothetical future sources" which it seems you are, then Canada and EU can get everything they need from places other than the US. The only one thing that the US has that the world needs is GPUs, but even then maybe we could make a deal and get lesser but workable ones from China.

Also no, Canada and the EU do not generally do a lot of trade with brutal dictatorships, unless you're trying to include the US in that category. At this point I have to assume you're a troll account.

Ok, and then the US can get everything it needs from non Canadian or EU sources, and then we can just get maybe lay a little more or find alternative sources where needed.

> Also no, Canada and the EU do not generally do a lot of trade with brutal dictatorships,

Still do trade though, even with Russia. Hell, the EU still lets in Russian tourists, hosts their billionaires, and their children. The EU trades massively with Russia, buys oil and other products from the Middle East, and more.

> unless you're trying to include the US in that category.

Well, no, because that would be stupid lol. The US isn’t a dictatorship by any definition. I’m close-minded to any statement or opinion to the contrary.

> At this point I have to assume you're a troll account.

Every accusation is a confession.

The us is closer to a dictatorship than at any time in the recent past. Ruling by executive order is rather close to ruling by decree and neither congress or the scotus care.

Then that has been the case at least since the Obama years. There is a lot of truth in the failure of Congress and how it has abdicated its power to the Executive and Judicial branches but to say we are closer to a dictatorship than at any time in the recent past is like saying on a scale of 0-100 where 100 is a dictatorship we’ve moved from like a 4 to a 5.

> The EU trades massively with Russia, buys oil and other products from the Middle East, and more.

"In 2025, Russia was the EU's 19th largest trade partner, representing 1.1% of the EU’s total trade in goods with the world." - https://policy.trade.ec.europa.eu/eu-trade-relationships-cou...

A whole 1.1% of their trade is with Russia. A "massive amount." I'll leave this fact here for others. I'm done responding to your disinformation and pro-Russian propaganda efforts.

> A whole 1.1% of their trade is with Russia. A "massive amount." I'll leave this fact here for others.

I want the US to step up and end the war in Ukraine and kick Russia out, including US forces on the ground in Ukraine. Yea - tell me I’m “pro-Russia”.

You’re right though about the numbers. My framing was wrong because I meant to write China, not Russia there. China is also a brutal dictatorship like Russia and Iran for example.

But 1% is still nothing to sneeze at given that in addition to still buying oil/gas from Russia the EU hosts the oligarchs and families of Russian oligarchs within Europe.

> I'm done responding to your disinformation and pro-Russian propaganda efforts.

Every accusation is a confession.

> we can find other sources or just do with less

That kind of rhetoric is typically only employed when you’re in some great struggle, and the sacrifices made are supposed to be offset by a greater good.

In this trade war the struggle was completely avoidable and you chose it for yourself. Now you’re deploying the belt tightening home front rhetoric.

I’m going to be a little naughty and stop the constructive discourse to say: HOLY MOTHER OF COPE!

What is there to cope with? I’m not in favor of a trade war or anything, but if someone is going to claim we are desperate or make other claims that I believe to be sensationalist, wrong, or misleading I’ll just call them out. “Do this or else” always get an “else” from me, and I suspect the vast majority of Americans too.

By the way, this same logic applies to Canada. Why are they increasing prices of imported goods? There isn’t any great struggle going on here or greater good. And yes before you say “we are standing up to the US” we can say “we are standing up against trade practices we find unfair (regardless of their accuracy).

Agreed that "Canada is taxing you back" doesn't make sense. But "America is taxing Canada" makes even less sense. Sorry, just no. America is taxing Americans, Canada is taxing Canadians, these taxes harm exports and imports.

Also, we've never had fully free trade. You can whine about dairy, we can whine about unfair lumber tariffs. These are all part of CUMSA, an agreement that has been illegally violated every damn day under Trump's regime. Let's just cut to the chase. If Trump won't honour CUMSA why make any deal with him? There is no reason he'll honour any new agreement either. He was the one who negotiated CUMSA in the first place.

The administration faces steep legal headwinds. Having already lost at the Supreme Court over the misuse of the IEEPA, the courts are likely to view Section 338 with significant skepticism.

The statutory requirements of Section 338—specifically requiring a formal finding of discriminatory disadvantage against U.S. goods (hard to prove under CUSMA’s preferential framework) and strictly "offsetting" remedies—make the sweeping 50% broad-based tariffs legally vulnerable.

Likely Outcome in Court: A federal court will likely grant an injunction temporarily staying the tariffs pending a full review, or strike them down entirely as exceeding executive statutory authority under Article I of the Constitution.

> But "America is taxing Canada" makes even less sense

I don’t disagree. I just wanted to point out the framing needs to be consistent, which I think you agree with.

I also agree with you with respect to free trade. Every exporter is a free trade proponent. Curious how when it comes to imports or protecting domestic industries all of a sudden every country in the planet puts up some sort of protectionist barrier.

First, I agree with your complaint about that wording.

Aside from that, the "obvious" dairy tariffs you speak of are almost entirely theoretical. Those are anti-dumping tariffs that kick-in only when a certain threshold has been met. It never has.

That's not to say there aren't trade barriers. The US side argues that there are market barriers that make reaching those quotas impossible [0]. It's a fair point and worth discussing. But let's call it what it is: it's a dispute about opening up a potential new market. Nobody has been over-charged and no American farmers have been "ripped off" (quoting DJT).

If the end result is the same, do the details matter? Absolutely. Being overcharged or ripped off is something that gets people heated, (which is exactly why Trump uses that inflammatory language). Being denied market access because of administrative hurdles to a small-ish niche in a relatively small market like Canada? Not so much.

Please don't repeat the falsehood that dairy tariffs are an "obvious" example of where Canada has imposed fees on American companies. The truth is more nuanced.

[0] https://www.farmprogress.com/farm-policy/the-real-story-behi...

Fair enough, I agree the truth is more nuanced. I regret even using dairy as that has caused a lot more of a discussion about the specific item being, idk, targeted? than I would have liked and detracted from a more broad point that I wanted to make or at least discuss. Thanks for sharing that article, will take a look at that too.

>Aside from that, the "obvious" dairy tariffs you speak of are almost entirely theoretical. Those are anti-dumping tariffs that kick-in only when a certain threshold has been met. It never has.

What about others' contention that the reason why the quota hasn't been hit is that it's a pain to make use of?

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49455381

Huh? That's exactly what I described and linked to.

How do you square your initial statement about how the tariffs are "almost entirely theoretical" and "anti-dumping", then in the next paragraph you seemingly walk back on that, but then move the goalposts to something like "well ok the tariffs might not be only theoretical, but trump is still wrong because he used the phrase 'ripped off'" and that "Nobody has been over-charged", despite the comment you were replying to never mentioned "over-charged", only "Canadian imposed tariffs on dairy". By all accounts that's true. The tariffs do exist, even if nobody pays them. The fact there's some complicated workaround doesn't mean it doesn't exist.

Yes, there was some nuance added around how the quotas work and how there are exemptions, but to use that as an excuse to dismiss the comment as a "falsehood" gives me similar vibes to the infamous fact check "clinton acid washed her server - DEBUNKED, she used bleachbit!"

That is definitely a flatly wrong statement. Unfortunately, it reinforces the Trumpian disinformation that tariffs are fees that other countries pay us... or something.

Trump is taxing Americans when he imposes tariffs. Canada is taxing Canadians when they impose retaliatory tariffs.

And FWIW, most economists think retaliatory tariffs are stupid - on net they cause more harm to the retaliating country than if there were no retaliation. But the politics around tariffs are stupid too. It's all stupid.

> And FWIW, most economists think retaliatory tariffs are stupid - on net they cause more harm to the retaliating country than if there were no retaliation. But the politics around tariffs are stupid too. It's all stupid.

You can't divorce these tariffs from their geopolitical context, which is Trump threatening to annex Canada.

> And FWIW, most economists think retaliatory tariffs are stupid - on net they cause more harm to the retaliating country than if there were no retaliation.

This is wrong, because you're using the extremely broad concept of "harm" for a specific monetary loss. There are many more things at play here than just money gained/lost.

I think you are reading way too much into that "you" in that sentence. I read it simply as a list and total of all the retaliatory tariffs that Canada is imposing, and the site emphasizes that this is obviously bad for American jobs, not that American consumers pay the tariffs that Canada is imposing.

This whole trade war with Canada has to be one of the dumbest fucking things I have ever witnessed, and that's saying a lot given the complete incompetence and buffoonery of the current US administration. First they had to imitate Idiocracy with the the WFC fight on the White House lawn, now they're imitating South Park by killing relations with Canada. Heck, a big joke in the original South Park movie was that it was so inconceivable that of all countries Canada is the one we'd have a war with, but Trump just wants to speed run to every country on the planet hating our guts.

> I think you are reading way too much into that "you" in that sentence.

Sure that's fair, but on the other hand that's what was written and the framing I think is unfair and inconsistent. Of course, others may go along happily reading it and thinking wow we created these tariffs to raise prices and Canada decided to tax us!? That's worth clearing up and being honest about, in my view.

Imagine someone writes another article and frames it as though Americans are taxing Canadians with tariffs. Surely folks would want to "clear that up" wouldn't they?

I see your point but it's all AI written and I doubt any human actually read it to ascertain accuracy

Sure that's super fair haha. Good call

I think it's a bit more complicated than you're implying here.

Yes - you are technically correct that each country is taxing its own citizens/businesses with tariffs. I also agree that phrasing is more honest than what the article states

But for interconnected supply chains, the result can get pretty muddled.

Ex -

Canada sells wood to a US company. US applies tariff.

That US company sells a component made of that wood back to a Canadian company. Canada applies tariff.

That Canadian company uses that component to produce a good that's sold to US consumers. US applies tariff.

etc...

For the end purchasers of the finished product - the net increase in price (the final "tax" you pay) might be a summation of various tariffs applied by both countries as they interact with each other.

The price increases at the final sale are additive, regardless of which country is capturing the tariff as tax. The real result is that the product is just more expensive to make when tariffs are in place, and so must be sold at a higher price based on the total tax applied to all parts of the product (regardless of where in the chain it was US/Canada/China/Other/Etc actually capturing a tariff).

Ex - you will pay more because of US tariffs, and more again because of Canadian tariffs in response to US tariffs.

I don’t disagree with you at all. My point was this:

> Ex - you will pay more because of US tariffs, and more again because of Canadian tariffs in response to US tariffs.

Also applies to Canada for the exact same reasons you highlighted. So when they say that Canada is taxing Americans because of tariffs, it goes both ways.

> This whole trade war with Canada has to be one of the dumbest fucking things I have ever witnessed, and that's saying a lot given the complete incompetence and buffoonery of the current US administration.

You'd think that, strategically, a decapitation strike is the worst thing that could happen for a nation. However, that would be incorrect: the worst thing that could happen is this, a vain and incompetent buffoon installed in the top leadership position. With no leader you're just not making decisions, but the organization can continue operating under autonomous cells. With a hyperactive incompetent leader you're speedrunning every conceivable bad decision and everyone just has to look on in horror.

>"the worst thing that could happen is this, a vain and incompetent buffoon installed in the top leadership position."

Well, Canada repeatedly elected Justin Trudeau (now departed)... so both countries have made some... interesting decisions...

oh come on, you can't seriously be comparing those two. One of them can form complete sentences

As incomplete as the sentences from one of these may be, their "weave" style tickles the attention mechanisms for their most ardent supporters, and comes across as heartfelt, relatable, and ultimately a coherent stream of consciousness dump.

In other words, complete sentences are the province of the elite.

In at least two languages.

I don't recall Justin Trudeau making leadership decisions so diabolical and incompetent that Serious People were forced to ask if he was a foreign agent.

I am not sure that there is one example which can meet all your criteria, though there are many examples of stupid things that (almost) everyone agrees he should not have done:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WE_Charity_scandal

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SNC-Lavalin_affair

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aga_Khan_affair

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-india-43151115

I still believe his most egregious betrayal of voters was his abandoning proportional representation, without providing any justification.

Trump has had worse WEEKS in this term than Trudeau's entire decade. Not even remotely comparable.

For more movies about the ridiculousness of having a fight with Canada, of all places, see Canadian Bacon: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0109370/

Summary quote from IMDB: "The U.S. President, low in the opinion polls, gets talked into raising his popularity by trying to start a cold war against Canada."

It's really not that complicated imo...

So what do you do when your government is effectively bankrupt? You’ve accumulated more debt than you can realistically repay without imposing enormous economic pain, but you still need to keep the country functioning. One historical answer is an inflationary cycle combined with a trade war.

You impose tariffs on foreign goods, which creates government revenue while also making imported goods more expensive. You then blame the resulting price increases on foreign competitors and trading partners. But the tariffs themselves are inflationary because businesses ultimately pass much of those higher costs on to consumers.

As prices rise, nominal tax revenues also rise because governments are collecting taxes on larger dollar amounts. Meanwhile, governments have an incentive to continue borrowing, spending, and potentially expanding the money supply to deal with their fiscal problems. More money chasing higher-priced goods creates further inflation.

The critical part is what inflation does to existing debt. If you owe $1 trillion in debt today, but inflation dramatically reduces the purchasing power of the dollar over time, that $1 trillion becomes much easier to repay in real terms. The nominal debt remains the same, but its real economic burden shrinks.

So you can end up with a feedback loop: tariffs increase prices, higher prices increase nominal tax receipts, fiscal pressure encourages more borrowing and monetary expansion, monetary expansion fuels more inflation, and inflation gradually erodes the real value of the government's existing debt.

In other words, rather than explicitly defaulting on the debt, you can effectively "inflate it away." The creditors get paid back in dollars, but those dollars are worth substantially less than the dollars they originally lent.

The danger is that this isn't free money. The cost is ultimately transferred to consumers, savers, wage earners, and holders of government debt through reduced purchasing power. And once inflation expectations become entrenched, controlling the cycle can become extremely difficult without causing a recession or other severe economic disruption.

Hey, thanks for this comment. You seem to be knowledgeable about the topic and I am a moron.

What happens to consumer spending and associated tax revenue when imported goods cost significantly more? Let's take a hypothetical German auto brand that has no factories in the US (BMW, MB, VW have factories, not sure if Audi and Porsche are grandfathered in because of VW).

If a car that cost $100K before and now is $125K, it seems that the demographic that could afford that $100K will shrug and pay the higher price. Now, that's the well-off folks, a bit immune in this economy.

What other consumer goods with imposed new tariffs will cause less spending and shrink the economy instead? It seems that tariffs are a net loss, besides I guess in cases when they are used to prevent dumping.

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