- cross-posted to:
- world@lemmy.world
- news@beehaw.org
- cross-posted to:
- world@lemmy.world
- news@beehaw.org
cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/24657192
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.
Dear Trump:
If’n he can point to it on a map
Do you think he wanted to do this last time but ousted everyone who told him that’s fucking psychotically stupid?
There is no actual fentanyl or immigration basis for tariffs on Canada. Just submit to less representation than California, and help absorb large US debt with little in return for it.
There’s no basis for tariffs on Mexico either.
Really there is no basis for any tariffs, the richest nation in the world putting tariffs on other nations products because they can’t keep up is embarrassing.
He’s about to fuck around and find out…
He is about to fuck around and America is about to find out…
Tap for spoiler
The world doesn’t revolve around America.
How about trump can suck my left nut. There, I said it.
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Somehow, even with conservatives owning all the branches of government, it will be the Dem’s fault.
And they’ll even say sorry for it because they consider it “impolite” and “not done” to talk back to the sitting government or some shit.
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Lol that’s just the narrative they need to fundraise another loss in the 2028 election.
So what are the Dems doing to prevent any of this?
Hard to prevent when you are trying to get in front of the flood of dumb things being put out right now.
If Trump is serious about this it will be bipartisan by 2028 just like all the 2016 Trump policies that were bipartisan by 2020
That’s the point, I think, as well. I could see Putin using the useful idiot to destroy the primary rival to its superiority. The US is incredibly difficult to invade. The intelligence apparatus is too ingrained in all our communication to avoid detection. If you can’t get the rot to start from the outside, go for the inside.
This is peak BlueAnon/Marvel Cinematic Delusion, where Putin is a supervillain with a global mind control network.
Damn these Russians making the US into warmongers. After all, stealing land is a completely foreign concept in America
Nice
When Dollar is replaced as the reserve currency, America’s imports will shrink and there may be inflation. But it won’t result it in defaulting on its domestic currency.
Any austerity on the US will be self-inflicted (as it is in the UK and Europe). The unwillingness of the US Government to take over the economy from the parasites will make things much worse.
Who needs dollars when you have $TRUMP meme coins?
Now backed by your social security! Thanks Obama
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Bitcoin is a form of electronic token, so $TRUMPET
let’s go comrade trump
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As long as the US dollar has maintained and will maintain its supremacy, regular people suffer all over the world for the comfort of treatlerites in the imperial core.
I’d rather the dollar crash so that the world has a chance.
He is preparing a firesale for the super rich…
Inshallah
And the last gasp of our conservatives as the final pillar of the whitehouse collapses into a flaming wreck due to Trumps ridiculous toddler-like mismanagement of everything will be to blame it all on the Democrats.
Stop, I can only get so erect.
rip you guys are gonna get couped
imperialism is manifesting itself in the imperial coreDo you really think it’s likely this will happen? I think hell just start throwing a tantrum and maybe symbolically apply some tariffs.
Yes it is likely. Canada can’t afford to resist. Canada is highly dependent on trade with the US.
Just because I think it is likely doesn’t mean that I think it’s right. This is clearly wrong.
Your screenshot does not make it likely.
This is a high level of cope. Those imports are worth almost half of Canadas GDP.
imperialism is manifesting itself in the imperial core
Sounds familiar
Hey, I’ve seen this one before!
Insert Césaire quote on fascism
“People are surprised, they become indignant. They say: “How strange! But never mind-it’s Nazism, it will pass!” And they wait, and they hope; and they hide the truth from themselves, that it is barbarism, but the supreme barbarism, the crowning barbarism that sums up all the daily barbarisms; that it is Nazism, yes, but that before they were its victims, they were its accomplices; that they tolerated that Nazism before it was inflicted on them, that they absolved it, shut their eyes to it, legitimized it, because, until then, it had been applied only to non-European peoples; that they have cultivated that Nazism, that they are responsible for it, and that before engulfing the whole of Western, Christian civilization in its reddened waters, it oozes, seeps, and trickles from every crack.”
- Aimé Césaire, Discourse on Colonialism
rip you guys are gonna get couped
Seems to me we got couped. It was just mostly domestically bloodless. So far.
[They did that once to Australia.]! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alleged_CIA_involvement_in_the_Whitlam_dismissal)
They did that to halve of this world, just not to that many western countries.
yeah they got couped
Canada is one of the few countries that has actually defeated the USA. They even burned the white house.
No, that was the British during the war of 1812.
British based in occupied Canada, with Canadian born soldiers the majority of soldiers.
American here: honestly would not mind if Canada came and did that again at this point. Please help us get the Nazis out of the White House.
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Don’t act like Canada hasn’t been seeing it’s own share of right wing extremists making their way into government.
Yeah no need for a coup really. Without a revolution Canada is gonna be part of this new axis on its own.
I want to see Canada put out an open offer for immediate welcome, territoriship, and instant citizenship for any state along the border that votes to join Canada.
Is the US so attractive that countries are lining up to join? 🤔🇺🇸
Come for our healthcare! Stay cause you died.
Me too, thanks.
What about the provinces within Canada? Are they gonna all merge to become one US megastate?
All I know is that Quebec would never allow that
All hail GiGa Montana
Finally, Hannah Montana!
Canada’s economy is dependent on the US. Trump might actually pull this off.
Edit: More context since people are downvoting. Consider the following now picture yourself one of the greedy capitalists in Canada, which is a preferred outcome? Losing your wealth or losing Canadian sovereignty?
Just because I think it is likely doesn’t mean that I think it’s right. This is clearly wrong.
Not likely.
Likely doesn’t mean inevitable. I am the pessimistic type, so there’s that. I hope that I am proven wrong.
Canada’s oligarchs like the fact that only Israel and US is allowed to compete with them, and elections are cheaper to buy. A single state makes them lose power. Population understands only negatives from US, and also would not vote for Trump.
Unfortunately for Canadians, they are still programmed to side with US over China and Russia, and that programming makes it a blasphemy to seek independence that would also protect them from the US. As long as Canada’s position is to beg to restore its fully subservient colonial status, then the Trump extortion will continue.
One goal that Musk would have behind this is that it can destroy the big 3 automakers.
Canada is also America’s largest trading partner.
America had $357 billion dollars worth of imports from Canada in 2023, if they introduce a 25% tarriff Americans will pay $446 billion instead because it’s not like you’ll get all that stuff anywhere else for cheaper since America is going to put tariffs on practically every other country they trade with apparently.
Corporations spend billions on the current infrastructure and trade routes and logistics, they will not uproot everything and go through the pains of firing everyone then moving to America and retraining because of a short term loss. American administrations are fickle, many of them will simply wait out the 4 years hoping it will return to normal then. If it doesn’t then maybe they might consider it then but for the next 4 years Americans are going to be paying a shitload more for anything that’s not made in America.
American businesses will also find it a lot more difficult to sell their products out of the country when those countries retaliate with tarriffs against them.
<sigh> Four more years of this shit. But oh well, it’s worth it if it spared a few people of superior moral integrity from compromising their principles to vote for Harris when she didn’t measure up to their requirements and the Democrats didn’t run a good enough campaign and besides it was kind of cold that day and it would have meant putting on pants.
Why are you okay with your fellow Americans being unrepresented in the voting booth?
Are you working to replace First past the post voting in your state? People should be free to vote for those they deem best, while still counting their vote against those they don’t want in office.
We don’t need to wait for a miracle from congress. How we vote us controlled at the state level. Alaska has already done away with FPTP voting. Alaskan Republicans were so upset that Ranked Choice voting kept Sarah Palin out of office they offered up a referendum to go back to FPTP voting. The people of Alaska voted to keep it
Why do you want to use the same voting system republicans prefer? Do you support democracy? Or do you get off on telling people how to vote?
Videos on alternative voting systems
First Past The Post voting (What most states use now)
Videos on alternative electoral systems we can try out.
Feel free to express (and explain) your opinion that some people are unrepresented, but why are you okay with pretending that’s my opinion and asking me to defend it? Millions of people who voted for Biden in 2020 refused to vote at all in 2024 because the Democratic Party hadn’t given them a candidate they liked. More than enough to defeat Trump, but that wasn’t important enough for them to step off their moral high ground, and now here we are.
That is a huge leap of logic from the parent comment. They sarcastically said how happy they were that some people got the satisfaction of staying home and not voting, and you took that to mean they don’t support democracy?
I’m Canadian, and Justin Trudeau, our current (for a few more weeks) Prime Minister, campaigned in 2015 that it would be Canada’s last election with FPTP. They put a committee together that made some recommendations, but the government untimately ignored those recommendations, said it was too hard, and nothing changed. (Yes, that’s an incredibly simplistic take, don’t @ me).
FPTP benefits them. The Liberals won a majority of seats with only 40% of the popular vote. Large parties tend to benefit from FPTP because it discourages minority and fringe votes. So while I’m sure you’re right that the Republicans prefer FPTP, I’d bet a shiny Canadian dollar (or about 0.69USD) that the Democrats also prefer FPTP.
I think it comes to to a lot more than that, bud. I don’t agree with the 13 million that didn’t vote but I understand their frustration.
I shared their frustration myself, but I realized stopping Trump was more important in the long run. Too bad not enough others did - he hardly won any states by more than 200k.
Well… and then there’s the now published interference with the voting machines in the swing states that Harris did nothing about. I almost wonder if those 13 million would have come out, would it even have mattered? I understand SCOTUS would’ve said ok so what? But even a fucking requested recount to show there was fuckery going on would’ve at least been the documentation we needed to see to move ahead down the road.
The only one I’m aware of is in Michigan, where 3 Trump allies are now charged with tampering or planning to tamper with voting machines, and that case is moving forward.
Yea. Surprised it isn’t bigger news at least in the social media circles. There was this post on Jan 20th here: https://sh.itjust.works/post/31381451. Which lead me to read this letter a bunch of high level security officials sent to Harris … which apparently fell on dead ears, here: https://freespeechforpeople.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/letter-to-vp-harris-111324-1.pdf … and as much as I fucking hate conspiracy theories and the people behind them, there was this data analyst who made an extremely compelling data backed argument here: https://youtu.be/QDWwLDejg8Y?si=y_ckplWhEzun8nvq
Thanks for those links - the Nathan guy especially makes a lot of compelling points, even though they still could just be results defying polls. I don’t think the lack of news about this implies a lack of interest or that nobody is doing anything. If there is any substance to the vote swap idea I’m sure something will be uncovered, as anything on this scale would leave a lot of loose ends.
Canada is avoiding Trump’s tariffs by not becoming a state.
They are not paying the tariffs, american people do. So by joining the US they would start paying all the tariffs that Trump is putting on China’s products, European products …
Why do people think that happens? It does not happen. 90% of the tariffs will be absorbed by Canadian companies trying to keep up sales to the US because there’s nowhere else to go, and even if they sell elsewhere, it’ll be discounted that much to other countries because of the general laws of supply and demand.
The only way, and it’s one that we have nothing in place to effect, is to mark prices as of the tariff date and to enact an export tariff for the amount of the sale under the price set point. That would highly discourage discounting sales and pretty much just cut them off since, in the case of products made or produced in the US, it would be competing with local products at 125% of the local price.
No, that’s called “dumping” and is against compliance of WTO rules, which would then allow the importing country to raise more taxes as anti-dumping measures.
This is from a US Gov website explaining what that is
The importer, not the exporter pays tariffs. Aka Canada pays nothing, things made in Canada have an extra tax attached to them when they cross the boarder into the us, paid by Walmart or whomever ordered the goods
Yes, but in the real world, while the importer pays the tariff, they’ve taken a discount on cost from their supplier in order to compete with local goods that aren’t tariffed. That’s why no country wants tariffs applied to their imports. Its almost like governments understand how this works.
Ummm no.
In the real world consumers ultimately end up paying the tariffs.
Domestic suppliers have a tendency to raise prices is response to increased demand and decrease competition from imports.
When Trump implemented a tariff on Washing Machines in 2018 during his first term. The price of imported washing machines went up, the price of domestic washing machines went up, the price of dryers… which weren’t tariffed went up.
Eventually it did led to more washing machines and dryers being manufactured domestically. Which did lead to a small increase manufacturing in jobs. But it was a net loss for the consumers.
Tariffs function as a flat tax on goods. Like all flat taxes this benefits the wealthy and hurts poor and the working class.
Well, when it’s been in place and the Canadian economy is in free fall, you can come here and tell me how wrong I and all the governments were about how this works. I’m sure it’ll go totally different than the softwood lumber tariffs that shut down the forestry industry in BC for a decade.
Here’s the Canadian forest industry take on tariffs. Mostly borne by Canadian producers:
https://forestresources.org/2024/12/19/a-discussion-around-tariffs-on-cdn-lumber/
I’m confused friend.
The article you linked to says:
… Canadian lumber producers would not be able to absorb this, the price of lumber will adjust upwards ….
Is that not, quite literally, a direct contradiction of your earlier statement that:
90% of the tariffs will be absorbed by Canadian companies
And if the price increases, is that not the consumer paying the tariffs?
I’m out of energy for this.
You’re right, we should just ignore it because it’ll only affect the USians. Maybe we lobby them to make it 50% so it punishes them more. It’ll all be perfectly fine here.
I personally think this is bravado to negotiate something more realistic, although if he really wanted to it’s unlikely Canada would resist.