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Comment by db48x | Hacker News Reader

Most don’t see it as Trump’s fault. The trade agreement between the US and Canada allowed both sides to renegotiate the terms every six years. It also allowed both sides to withdraw if those negotiations failed. Trump simply took that option and proposed to renegotiate, which Canada rejected. So Trump took the obvious next step, exactly as anticipated by the treaty itself, and withdrew from it. Nobody should have been surprised by that.

Most Americans don’t have a problem with the content of Trump’s proposed treaty either. It would have lowered Canada’s tariffs on US dairy products down from 400% to whatever the US charges on Canadian dairy products. It would have allowed US banks to enter the Canadian market just as Canadian banks are allowed to operate in the US. Etc, etc.

The Canadian government made the soup themselves.

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Canada's effective tariff on dairy products is 0%. If your strongest complaint about the agreement is a tariff that has never been collected and has no prospects of ever being collected for the life of the agreement...

I wasn’t complaining about the agreement specifically, merely recounting what those who support Trump see.

That said, saying that the tariff is never collected is itself misleading. The importers know about the quota, and naturally they avoid going over it. It’s a restraint on trade either way and Trump proposed getting rid of it.

They never come anywhere close to the limit so there is no reason for them to try to avoid hitting it.

Quite frankly that’s even worse, if true. It looks the same to Americans who hear about it, and the Canadian government would have no reason to balk at a trade negotiation over it. They could let themselves be talked down to completely eliminating the tariffs without losing anything. The Canadian response looks more and more irrational the more I hear about the details.

USMCA/CUSMA has an exit clause. Trump has not exercised that. The treaty is expected to be honoured by both sides during the reevaluation phase. Trump did not do that either. He simply violated the treaty.

As Carney has said, this President's signature is apparently in pencil. If you violate agreements you yourself signed, don't be surprised if people stop trusting you.

Finally, if the current trade deal was so awful... Trump negotiated that. One has to ask, what would it take for you to hold your glorious leader accountable for something he did?

Sure - some of what you have said has merit, however Trump has also initiated trade wars with pretty much every other country at the same time. He took advantage of the allowance to renegotiate and then instead of just keeping it within NAFTA, has expanded to a global scale.

The whole idea behind tariffs was to replace income taxes with them. The bonus was realizing that he could weaponize it.

Tariffs today have one real value only: protecting domestic industry. And to do that correctly, it needs to be thoughtful, consistent (legislated rather than by executive order), and coordinated with the industries they are designed to protect.

Come on this is not just about trade disputes, though that side of things is also deeply screwed up.

Maybe some Americans don't take all the "51st State" and annexation talk that's become a full-on party line seriously, but Canadians are perfectly in their rights and sense to take it seriously and literally.

I actually disagree with you there. Trump is an open book. Literally, he published a book called “The Art of the Deal” where he described exactly how he negotiates. Anyone who doesn’t know at least the outline of what’s in that book is working at an extreme disadvantage. Go check out a copy from your local library!

First, he decides what he wants. He does this in advance specifically so that he can avoid agreeing to any deal that gives him less. Then he asks for the moon, knowing that the other party won’t want to give it all up. Instead he wants them to negotiate him down. He will agree to almost any deal that gives him what he wants, but of course hopes that they’ll give him more than that.

So when Trump says that Canada should join the US he is asking for the moon. He knows that Canada would never actually agree to it. It’s not an unjustifiable position; he can offer arguments about why they should (it simplifies the defense of the continent, it eliminates the expense of maintaining the border, it eliminates the possibility of trade barriers between us, etc, etc), but he expects to be talked down from that position. Obviously Canada should at minimum demand to be brought in as multiple states rather than as one oversized one. Or Canada could just offer to lower tariffs instead. It’s up to them.

So Canadians who took these statements “seriously and literally” were in fact overreacting.

I think you're operating in enough bad faith that normally I wouldn't respond, but on behalf of my northern friends, I gotta say

> Obviously Canada should at minimum demand to be brought in as multiple states rather than as one oversized one. Or Canada could just offer to lower tariffs instead. It’s up to them.

This is quite something. Trump does not think in any kind of structured axiomatic way at all as of his decaying health in 2026, and the framework you've put this in is so far outside of any coherent diplomatic framework that it's outright an offense.

No, Canada should not be put in a position where they consider the choice of being multiple U.S. states! What is wrong with you!

> I think you're operating in enough bad faith that normally I wouldn't respond

No, I am being completely straight forward about Trump. Go read the book.

> Trump does not think in any kind of structured axiomatic way at all as of his decaying health in 2026…

There’s where you make your mistake. There’s no evidence of that at all. Well, he’s physically somewhat frail, but that’s pretty normal at his age.

> No, Canada should not be put in a position where they consider the choice of being multiple U.S. states! What is wrong with you!

I think that Canadians are strong enough to rationally discuss any idea. We don’t need to shield them. Besides, apparently Canada is going to join the EU now. And they won’t even get to be a full member; they’re opting to be a junior partner instead. Will they even be allowed to vote on things, or will the EU expect them to meekly adopt whatever new rules they are given?

If Canada decides instead to team up with the USA then they should insist on becoming as many states as they can get away with. They are 10% of the US population and will therefore have about 10% of the seats in the House, but they should aim to have about 10% of the seats in the Senate as well. 13 new states would probably be a hard sell but you might be able to swing it.

If it makes you feel better, Trump and the ambassador to Canada probably never actually brought up the idea with the Canadians. They were negotiating in the context of the existing trade agreement so they were just talking about trade. The quip about the “51st state” was merely something Trump said on television.

This comment is full of misinformation.

The US hasn't withdrawn from CUSMA. On July 1st it declined to extend the agreement past 2036, which isn't the same thing. The deal stays in force until 2036 with annual reviews, and no withdrawal notice has been given.

It was also the US, not Canada, that declined to renew. Canada and Mexico both pushed for extension with the same administration that renegotiated NAFTA into CUSMA only a few years ago. So what changed exactly?

Also, the 6 year review is about whether to extend the term. Withdrawal is a separate clause that a nation can use at any time on six months' notice. As I understand it the treaty doesn't set up "if negotiations fail, then withdraw" mechanism but IANAL.

The 400% dairy figure is incredbily inflated. The steep tariffs, roughly 200-300% depending on the product, apply only above quota, and in quota imports come into the states without duty. The US also runs its own dairy quotas, and it's incredibly disingenuous to portray Canada as the overbearing protectionist entity in a scenario where Americans twice elected a leader running on an overtly and relatively unprecedented (in modern times anyways) protectionist policy.

> The Canadian government made the soup themselves.

On this we are in full agreement. The integration of the Canadian economy into the American one has placed Canada in a precarious place and only further decoupling from America and seeking trading partners abroad will change that.

https://cassels.com/insights/cusmsa-still-in-force-notwithst...

> The US hasn't withdrawn from CUSMA. On July 1st it declined to extend the agreement past 2036, which isn't the same thing. The deal stays in force until 2036 with annual reviews, and no withdrawal notice has been given.

> Also, the 6 year review is about whether to extend the term. Withdrawal is a separate clause that a nation can use at any time on six months' notice.

These are good corrections; I was merely oversimplifying. The main point is that what Trump is doing is not some kind of horrible betrayal, he is simply using the terms of the treaty as written. The treaty explicitly specifies how and when either party can renegotiate, decline to renew, and withdraw. You could argue that the treaty ought to have been more permanent than that, but then your beef is not with Trump but with the Canadians who agreed to the treaty as written.

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