Summary

In a virtual speech at the World Economic Forum, Trump suggested Canada could become a U.S. state to avoid his proposed tariffs on imports.

The remark elicited gasps from the audience.

Trump claimed the U.S. does not need Canadian lumber, energy, or vehicles, vastly overstating the trade deficit between the two nations.

He reiterated his intention to impose tariffs, potentially as high as 25%, on imports from Canada and Mexico starting February 1.

Economists warn such tariffs would raise prices for U.S. consumers.

  • Queen HawlSera
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    243 months ago

    How does this lower the price of my god damn eggs?

    Also he does know that Canada would be yet another blue state right?

    • Pyr
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      123 months ago

      Each province/territory would insist on being its own state so Canada would at least probably become 10 blue states and 3 red states if not 11/2. Not sure how Manitoba would swing.

      • @kent_eh@lemmy.ca
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        73 months ago

        Not sure how Manitoba would swing.

        Given that our current government is NDP after a disastrous period of the previous conservative government, I would expect Manitoba would generally vote to the left of most states.

  • @HighFructoseLowStand@lemm.ee
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    223 months ago

    I would welcome fifty new Congressional districts, the overwhelming majority of which would vote Blue within an American political framework.

    • vortic
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      73 months ago

      You know, I’d never thought of it this way. If Canadians were willing, I’d whole heartedly welcome them!

    • @Jamablaya@lemmy.world
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      103 months ago

      Yeah you don’t know much about Canada, I guess. roughly half would vote democrat, roughly half republican, varying by 5, 10 percent up and down each individual election same as you see every election down south. The Conservatives form government for 8-10 years every 8-10 years federally.

      • @kent_eh@lemmy.ca
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        83 months ago

        Your guess is incorrect. The Overton window in Canada is quite a bit to the left of where it is in the US.

        Bernie would be considered a centrist in Canada.

        • @SpeakinTelnet@programming.dev
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          53 months ago

          I wouldn’t call Bernie a “canadian centrist” since he aligns with what the NPD want to be, social democrats (left). Otherwise yeah, the american democrats pretty much aligns with Canadian conservatives.

        • @Jamablaya@lemmy.world
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          3 months ago

          It’s not a guess, you’re functioning on strereotypes. Joe Biden is roughly a centrist if he was in Canadian politics.

    • @xenomor@lemmy.world
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      3 months ago

      I want to piss on his grave. Seriously, they better have that shit locked down or at the top of a mausoleum or something. Otherwise, I want to try and make it a national pastime.

      • @Skates@feddit.nl
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        3 months ago

        I actually thought about this a while ago. Surely there are many hated people in the world, but some world leaders take the cake. I would pay to piss on Putin’s grave for example. So… Why isn’t there a business opportunity here? Buy the graveyard holding them, sell tickets to piss on Putin/Trump/Kimjong/Xi/whoever. You can make it into a holiday - 1000 euro for a weekend in a Moscow hotel, you visit the Kremlin, you piss on Putin’s grave, you go home with a shirt that says “I literally pissed on Putin and all I got was this lousy Polonium-engraved t-shirt”. I almost bought pissonputinsgrave.com when I thought about this, but I lack the funds to actually buy their graveyards.

        Surely there’s something here for our society, right? We’re all tired of oppression at the hands of a few power-hungry old fucks and are just waiting for them to die so that we can finally release our common prostate. Or is it just me and you that would love the satisfaction of defiling the corpses of these cunt dictators?

        • @werefreeatlast@lemmy.world
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          23 months ago

          If only Saddam and the other fuckface hadn’t been wasted like that! They just got removed, one sunk into the ocean, the other hung and buried. We…err…the world could have made millions, even to this very day. Like if you hung a drape and told people Saddam was on the other side, they would pay you good money to punch the drape for a chance to actually punch Saddam. But to make this more accessible and make more money efficiently, pee is the key! Its universally understood. It would be a huge 2 floor shrine. You create a transparent fishtanks musuleum on the first floor, and toss the evil in there. People park, pay the entrance fee (which includes a large drink), and they make a line to go see the assholes decomposing. In due time, they need to pee so they head upstairs where urinals and restrooms are all setup accordingly. Then all that flows down and pours over the evil before heading to the general drainage. Done? Head back down and you can pay extra for a remote controlled super soaker fed with pee that you can use to shoot the poop off with. You may pay extra for the 3rd floor which offers a direct line of sight opportunity for you to personally peen on the evil. Everyone would enjoy this! And we can keep tossing in more evil as they fuck up and find out. A few decades later we would have bones for sale by the piece at auction. All clearly marked so you know which evil you are peeing on. And all this would be perfectly sanitary and safe and good smelling. Good for the environment too if we treat the swage correctly.

      • Roflmasterbigpimp
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        33 months ago

        I live in Germany but I’m more than willing to send a stool and urine Sample via overnight express to the USA as soon as this sack of human-goo and spray tan gets put in the ground.

    • @Paragone@lemmy.world
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      13 months ago

      You will be waiting until 2031 or 2032, then.

      He won’t tolerate the 2028 election, so Civil War Part2 begins around then…

      Only when “either his or NOBODY’s” has finished butchering Turtle Island, will he be “finished”.

      People are living in hopium, instead of understanding the actual context, with the fascists allying globally, to butcher the whole world, for their “glory”, or self-worship…

      Please live strategically: too many are going to be wasted-lives, when things go to hell, for real: this is only the appetizer, I’m afraid…

      _ /\ _

    • Cousin Mose
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      223 months ago

      I’ll make it a holiday. I’m going to have to remember that.

  • @finitebanjo@lemmy.world
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    83 months ago

    Reminder that Tariffs dont work as a threat to other nations.

    The selling price is the same for the seller, they already give the lowest price they can profit from because the modern era allows international distributors to find a demand anywhere, the buyers are the ones paying the import tax for the same goods.

    If you were selling and then the buyer had a tariff you wouldn’t just agree to take less money as a result.

    • Victor
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      43 months ago

      Isn’t the point to make the domestic customers choose products from other nations? Why wouldn’t that be a threat to the nation that is selling?

      • @Someone@lemmy.ca
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        33 months ago

        Yeah but it only really works if it’s targeted. Threatening blanket tariffs on countries that represent 60% of all imports (EU, China, Mexico, Canada) takes a bit of the impact away, it’s unlikely domestic production could handle all that. Even if it could, why wouldn’t American companies raise their prices as much as they felt they now could?

        • Victor
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          3 months ago

          Probably true. I don’t know enough to speak further down this line. 😅 But I thank you for joining and sharing that! Interesting!

      • @fine_sandy_bottom@discuss.tchncs.de
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        53 months ago

        I think it’s a “threat” but not a very good one.

        There might be 3 brands of toothbrush available to buy in the US but maybe all of them are manufactured in China. If you just tariff everything from China then US consumers will just pay more because there’s no incentive for manufacturers to absorb the tariff.

        It’s a threat to Chinese toothbrush manufacturers because it creates an incentive for other manufacturers to pop up elsewhere, maybe someone will start manufacturing toothbrushes in the US. These toothbrushes would be cheaper than the tariffed ones for consumers to buy, but obviously more expensive than toothbrushes used to be before the tariffs.

        In summary, because consumers are unlikely to buy less toothbrushes, they just end up paying more.

        • Victor
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          13 months ago

          These toothbrushes would be cheaper than the tariffed ones for consumers to buy, but obviously more expensive than toothbrushes used to be before the tariffs.

          I think this is my whole point? You’d obviously buy the cheaper one of the products are (fairly) identical. So the Chinese product is disregarded, and thus that market is being hurt.

          • @fine_sandy_bottom@discuss.tchncs.de
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            23 months ago

            Sure ok but to make that point you have to skip over all the other significant impediments to this plan.

            You need to build, staff, and supply a local manufacturing plant for toothbrushes.

            This is no small thing and not something that can be created overnight. It’s not even as simple as “building” a factory… you need the supply chain, and most of the requisite supplies probably come from China - plastic to make the brush head, plastic to make the handles, machines to form the plastic, and technicians to maintain those machines. If you want to invent all these things locally and avoid the retaliatory tariffs from China, that’s going to take decades.

            During those decades consumers will be buying the tariffed Chinese toothbrushes wondering why the fuck everything from toothbrushes to shampoo to laundry powder to televisions costs twice as much as it does in any other country.

            So my whole point is, there’s a “threat” to Chinese producers but it’s not very likely to materialise because the US will lose the political will to maintain the tariffs long before locally made products appear.

            • Victor
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              3 months ago

              I was thinking more along the lines of choosing other manufacturers that already exist, that don’t have tariffs affecting them, but in case they don’t (exist), you definitely have a good point from what I can understand. 👍😁

              Thanks for explaining!

    • @kerrigan778@lemmy.world
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      73 months ago

      That’s not strictly true, they don’t “pay the tariff” obviously but they do have to balance profit margin and lost sales. Tariffs are likely to decrease number of sales which does hurt their bottom line, the question then is if they just take a loss in sales, cut into their profit margins trying to lower the price to the US (very unlikely the margins are nearly enough for this to be viable let alone preferable) or increase prices further to offset the lower sales. Probably will be mostly the former with raw material type goods and mostly the latter with high end finished goods.

      • Victor
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        23 months ago

        Right, that’s what I was thinking. Surely it hurts the seller. But it also hurts the buyer, so it’s like 🙄 well done, Trump…

  • ERROR: Earth.exe has crashed
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    3 months ago

    So a huge state with an overton window to the left of the US?

    But why have only one state when we can have more!

    Use gerrymandering tactics to pack all the conservatives in one state, then split the rest in a 60/40 ratio, and make them all winner take all.

    magats will lose presidency and the senate forever

    How do you like them apples?

    • @floofloof@lemmy.ca
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      143 months ago

      Don’t even talk about the possibility. Don’t even weigh it up. He needs to be told and shown very firmly that this will never happen.

    • Log in | Sign up
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      3 months ago

      I’ve written to seven senators asking them to make an amendment to the relevant legislation to call it the “Trump inflation explosion act 2025”. Not really, but that’s what this is.

      • @carpelbridgesyndrome@sh.itjust.works
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        43 months ago

        Being pedantic but generally table in American legislative use means to kill or remove from the floor indefinitely. You are using the British parlimentary use of table which could confuse legislators

  • Cassa
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    733 months ago

    Remember when he said he was gonna end the war in gaza and ukraine?

    Or cut the prices on gas and food?

    Yea, this is abuse of the news cycle. It’s just manipulation of news cycle so you don’t think about any losses, mistakes or other shit.

  • @studentofarkad@lemm.ee
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    183 months ago

    Did someone brainwash this dude to annex other countries or something? Its like he wants to leave a legacy behind of being the first president in the modern age to expand America.

  • @notsoshaihulud@lemmy.world
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    433 months ago

    Besides this being a distraction, it’s more likely that in this case Canada would end up politically annexing the USA:

    • The 2 Senators and 50 something electoral votes for “Canada State” would mean that Canadians would end up controlling US politics. :D

    Of course if one assumes that elections remain binding in the Turd Reich.

  • @AnUnusualRelic@lemmy.world
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    283 months ago

    I still remember fondly the Trump speech at the UN when the whole assembly laughed at him.

    I suspect that there’s going to be a lot more of that to come.

  • @pixxelkick@lemmy.world
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    1003 months ago

    So many people are extremely missing the point here

    Trump is purposefully threatening Canada to give his canadian conservative buddy Poilievre something to “fight” against, to make him look good

    “Wow Poilievre is standing up against Trump, I’m gonna vote for him!”

    That’s the game plan, in reality the two dipshits are best buds and can collude together to fuck over both countries extra hard, after conservatives get a majority over here.

    It’s a stunt to get conservatives in charge over here “against” Trump, which is so fucking stupid and yet it’s probably gonna work cuz so many people are gonna fall for it.

    I don’t think the liberal party has a good play against it, other than if our new liberal leader challenges Trump and musk to a boxing match and literally bears the shit out of them on live television

    I unironically think the Lincoln “I’ll fight you let’s go right now” leader who seriously fucks up Musk or Zuckerberg or any of those dipshits on live television would actually win by a landslide here

    It’s fuckin stupid but that’s what works apparently…

    • @kent_eh@lemmy.ca
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      3 months ago

      Trump is purposefully threatening Canada to give his canadian conservative buddy Poilievre something to “fight” against, to make him look good

      Except Polierve has been the slowest and the quietest to speak out against this bullshit that Trump is trying to pull.

    • @Revan343@lemmy.ca
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      23 months ago

      other than if our new liberal leader challenges Trump and musk to a boxing match and literally bears the shit out of them on live television

      That would probably get me to vote liberal for the first time in my life

    • @UltraGiGaGigantic@lemmy.ml
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      3 months ago

      Is electoral reform still a policy of the liberal party. Will they Lucy football is away once the election is over again?

    • @ImplyingImplications@lemmy.ca
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      483 months ago

      The Conservative Premier of Ontario, Doug Ford, is already doing that. I’ve heard his ads on the radio calling for Ontarioans to give him a majority government so he “can stand up to Trump”. The guy spent his time as Premier standing up to nurses and bike lanes. This new stand up against Trump shtick is just more faux populism.

        • @corsicanguppy@lemmy.ca
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          93 months ago

          Sides. But try not to get caught up in the us vs them drama.

          The key point is that Mr Ford is using populism to promote populism, with no actual history where he stands up to bullies as much as he stands up to caregivers and citizens; and populism is the schtick of his party and the national cons, but isn’t a common thread in other parties as they campaign on rights and consolidated services instead.

        • @NotSteve_@lemmy.ca
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          53 months ago

          The centre to left is against it as much if not more than the conservatives. If anything, PP has been awfully silent on the whole thing. And don’t even look up how Danielle Smith (conservative premier of Alberta) is responding

    • @nova_ad_vitum@lemmy.ca
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      213 months ago

      Trump is purposefully threatening Canada to give his canadian conservative buddy Poilievre something to “fight” against, to make him look good

      This theory is predicated on 1) Trump remembering who PP is, 2) caring enough about who is running Canada to have it drive policy.

      I don’t think either of these things are true.

      • @pixxelkick@lemmy.world
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        63 months ago

        They literally have meetings, and Trump obviously cares about conservatives willing to help him grift being in charge…

    • @Someone@lemmy.ca
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      43 months ago

      I don’t think the liberal party has a good play against it, other than if our new liberal leader challenges Trump and musk to a boxing match and literally bears the shit out of them on live television

      Ahh, well that’s not good. Love him or hate him, I think one thing everyone could agree on about Trudeau is that he’d do pretty well in a politician boxing league.

      • @pixxelkick@lemmy.world
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        03 months ago

        Trudeau is out, we are voting in a new leader shortly

        Hopefully they vote someone in who unironically would challenge dipshits to boxing matches

  • @Someone@lemmy.ca
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    153 months ago

    I bet he’ll end up sprinkling in a handful of very specific exemptions. These are what we need to slap export taxes on. Doesn’t need to be much, but match his 25%. At best it’ll hammer them where they need it, at worst it’ll keep things fair for all our exporters.