SpankyMcFarland

Let’s see how the US does with its side of the bargain, stemming the flow of illegal weapons, including rocket launchers, to Mexico. Don’t hold your breath, folks.

There are a lot of clever people here, there and everywhere trying to make sense out of a senile sociopath’s ramblings.

Yes but victory for whom? We were recently told by Trump himself that the Mexican government is in cahoots with the cartels - he called it an ‘intolerable alliance’ to be exact. If so, why would the cartels seriously damage their core business?

The leader of our closest ally has just deeply insulted our country and called its very existence into question. Trump isn’t holding forth on a website like this to an audience that might fill a small van. He’s speaking for America.

Larger countries focus more on internal politics. It’s difficult for a foreign policy issue to gain traction in America, China or India. They just don’t hear it as much.

An election was a bad decision by Ford, both unnecessary and reckless. A crisis after Trump’s inauguration was foreseeable. The country is facing economic war and we’ll have politicians shooting their mouths off about what an eejit Trump is which is true, of course, but not necessarily helpful in negotiations with our adversary.

Guys, why did you lose? I know nothing about BC politics but I would say this to the supporters of any losing party - don’t blame voters. The political market has spoken. Secondly, Eby looked like a guy waiting to be knocked out. What a sourpuss, not a natural politician at all. It’s time for a real post mortem that identifies who screwed up if you want win in the future.

Nobody can deny he’s been very successful in his career and banking at that level isn’t so far from politics.

If I were advising Poilievre, I would suggest less visibility with alternate policies and more of a consensual tone supporting the government. Don’t fight the falling poll numbers. The public is in no mood for division in our political ranks at this moment of peril - there will be ample time for normal politicking to resume down the road. Clement Attlee loyally served in Churchill’s government right through WWII and still gave him an absolute hiding in 1945. In terms of style, the crisis is a good opportunity for Poilievre to soften his image and sound less partisan. Bring us more of the guy we heard at Mulroney’s funeral.

In fairness to him, Carney knows a lot more about money than Ignatieff did with serious jobs at the heart of two economies and his chances of being more than a Campbellesque footnote in Canadian political history grow by the day, thanks to Mr. Trump. I can’t argue he lacks real world experience outside the strange world of politics. My concerns with his candidacy are focused more on age and lack of parliamentary experience.

Yes, Xi and his gang look like more reasonable chaps to do business with than they did last month. Ultimately, Trump’s actions are symptoms of retreat and decline. America’s transition from global champion of free trade and democracy to authoritarian regional power content with bullying its neighbours has begun.

‘At one point, according to the source, Mr. Lutnick suggested that U.S. tariffs might eventually be removed when U.S. overdose deaths go down – which probably won’t be soon and certainly won’t be closely related to anything Canada does.’ https://www.theglobeandmail.com/politics/opinion/article-the-trump-shock-a-trade-war-that-will-reshape-north-america/#comments So now fentanyl users will determine policy down there which makes sense.

Is Trump a homegrown Manchurian Candidate? For years I’ve been going on about the danger of China to the West. Turns out Xi and his successors won’t even have to fight us. We’ll destroy ourselves.

Relatively speaking, the export of fentanyl to the US from Canada is a small part of their problem compared to Mexico. Our producers simply can’t compete on price. Surely, that is obvious? Of course, the real drivers of this malign industry are the users. How about talking up the importance of personal responsibility instead of blaming our country here? And what does the flabby orange balloon have to say about the drugs and guns flowing north? Has anybody told him about them?

That was the analogy used by Professor Ian Lee. South Africans would call him a hensopper which I presume needs no translation.

There is no real fentanyl crisis on our border. That’s a straight lie. To discuss that seriously is to humour a delusion. Fact: we’re not going to completely eliminate fentanyl from our country and therefore we can’t guarantee that a tiny percentage of that won’t leak across the border.

Just saw that American orange balloon on the TV saying, “they owe us a lot of money”. Does Dominion owe me money because I bought stuff there?

This outrageous move by Trump will generate lasting ill-will and distrust in Canada. Any sensible American leader would be factoring the effect of that into their security calculations as well.

If a neighbouring friendly country has a problem with our policies, the normal, civilized way for rule of law democracies to start addressing the issues would be to engage in negotiations over them through the usual channels. That’s what the US has been preaching to other countries since 1945. Giving into a bully is appeasement. The US under Trump is hostile to our economic interests. He wants to damage our economy in the short-term through tariffs and long-term by forcing companies to leave here. He has a primitive, mercantilist view of economics.

Yes, a tiny amount of fentanyl flows south but to go along with the Trump lie is outrageous for any Canadian politician at this time. The drugs trade is an ubiquitous global problem caused by demand. Anyone who says they can stop it, especially in a large rule of law country, is ignorant, dishonest or both.

I can see the economic argument for Canada not responding with tariffs ourselves: https://financialpost.com/news/economy/better-ways-canada-fight-back-trade-war But I don’t agree with it. This isn’t a standard trade issue because the person we are negotiating with is neither rational nor well informed and I’m afraid some pain must be inflicted by us on red states in particular if the other side is going to see reason.

The UK is still less than 10% Asian. One sees a lot of news about majority Asian constituencies but there are not that many of them.

There were other, fairly legitimate, reasons for putting tariffs on China already. This round of tariffs was explicitly linked to fentanyl.

Trump’s intentions couldn’t be clearer. The old world order, based on rule of law, is on its way out:

The fentanyl problem has its origin in China, America’s new competitor across every domain, and yet Trump only puts a 10% tariff on them.