Tariffs on Canadian Goods

[Aristides]

When the carbon tax comes off, even gas will be less attractive in the US.

[User]

13 minutes ago, I am Groot said:

Prices are better? When the Canadian dollar is worth 0.69c?

Lower sales tax, duty free exemptions, bulk goods at cheaper prices, certain products not in Canada. Yes.

The folks I work with on a daily basis talk about their routine trips down to stock up, the use of shipping there, etc…

[User]

17 minutes ago, Aristides said:

Don't count on that continuing. Our depressed dollar has made the US much less attractive and I don't think you understand how really p*ssed off Canadians are at how they are being treated by people they had always assumed were friends. Never underestimate the animosity of a betrayed partner.

We are in Mexico and have friends here from Quebec. They say that all the Quebecers they know who have gone to Florida for years and own homes there are trying to dump their properties and leave. The result is a glut of homes on the market and depressed prices for everyone, not just Canadians.

Canada is probably a lot like America with the urban vs rural politics.

The folks I interact with daily are like the equivalent of folks in Idaho, Wyoming, or East Washington where they are far more Conservative and they all jokingly welcome the US taking over as they are tired of the high taxes, high cost of living, and shitty return on government services. 
 

 

[Aristides]

2 minutes ago, User said:

Canada is probably a lot like America with the urban vs rural politics.

The folks I interact with daily are like the equivalent of folks in Idaho, Wyoming, or East Washington where they are far more Conservative and they all jokingly welcome the US taking over as they are tired of the high taxes, high cost of living, and shitty return on government services. 
 

 

They haven’t yet seen the damage Trumps tariffs are going to do to them.

[cannuck]

I for one am delighted to see Trump's tariffs.

To start with: he is responsible for the US economy, not ours.   We have been too lazy, stupid, greedy and/or ignorant to revert from a diverse manufacturing economy (70 years ago) to hewers of wood and drawers of water (and oil) that we sell with no value added into the US economy.  Outside of the US auto industry in ON, we have let our industries go from independent to branch plant to closed.   Instead of investing in Main Street we have put our meager money and trust in Bay Street as Wall Street had instructed.

I am insulted daily when I leave the counter of my primary industrial supplier when the person on the other side bids me farewell with "thank you for buying Canadian", and I have to remind him that almost everything in their massive catalogue was made in China, USA or Mexico, not Canada.

Instead of developing an economy that exploits our resource wealth to fund value added businesses within our borders,   Instead of promoting Canadian entrepreneurs to create wealth we instead scrape the very bottom of the international barrier and bring in millions of people who have absolutely no other purpose in life except to provide cheap labour to those who import products and services that prey upon Canadian consumers.  Those same NACs are here because they know they can bring over the rest of their family to enjoy a free ride on our sick care and social services or play the games to exploit their student visa status to enter the USA.

The truly ignorant and arrogant new US President is doing us a potentially great service if it will make us look at where we came from, where we are and where we are going as a result of being passive dolts  along for the ride.

[Aristides]

https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/trump-canada-tariffs-reaction-trudeau-1.7448263

[I am Groot]

1 hour ago, cannuck said:

Instead of developing an economy that exploits our resource wealth to fund value added businesses within our borders,   Instead of promoting Canadian entrepreneurs to create wealth we instead scrape the very bottom of the international barrier and bring in millions of people who have absolutely no other purpose in life except to provide cheap labour to those who import products and services that prey upon Canadian consumers. 

Instead of building more pipelines to export oil at world prices we sell it all to the US at a discount because there's too many regulations to build pipelines. Instead of refining it ourselves, we ship it to the US and then import the refined oil as gasoline. We ship raw logs to both the US and China, rather than putting it through our own lumber mills. We train IT people at great cost and when they graduate they find Canadian companies have little interest in them because they can hire cheap Indian tech workers for less and make them work like dogs. So they go to the US instead. 

But the problem is deeper than that. The problem is that we can't build infrastructure. We can't build anything. We approved the Transmountain pipeline in less than a year and built it in nine months back in 1952. Now compare that to the horrendous mess, the years of litigation and hearings, and then astonishing overspending that finally twinned it. How long does it take us to build a subway, or LRT or highway or bridge? All at much higher costs than in other countries.

Compare the LRT built in our capital to the subway stations put up in Asia. Theirs are bright, glittering, clean, modern and beautiful, with tracks locked behind glass doors. Ottawa's came in way over budget and years behind schedule. They're made of bare concrete, with no protection from the elements, made of shoddy materials, and a poor design with tiny stations they have to shut down when there is a major crowd-producing event in the area because they'd be unsafe. 

This happens at all levels of government. We are a bureaucratic state and you need dozens of forms to get anything done, from renovations on your house to opening a factory. The added cost for the average house runs well into six figures. For a mine or other natural resource project you have to supply literally thousands and thousands of pages of studies and forms just to get to the hearing phase. God only knows what that costs but it discourages investment, which seeks friendlier shores to the south.

That's the real problem we face. It's behind our low productivity, behind our low investment, behind our low levels of entrepreneurship, and behind our economic and political malaise.

[SpankyMcFarland]

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

 

[eyeball]

1 hour ago, Aristides said:

https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/trump-canada-tariffs-reaction-trudeau-1.7448263

Good story.

The demand for fentanyl and Americas use and addiction to it is entirely their own fault and responsibility.

Americas use of fentanyl to justify turning on us the way weapons of mass destruction were used to justify invading Iraq is the surest sign Americans and especially MAGA are even more addicted to bullshit.

Who can ever forget Colin Powell's comic books?

 

 

[Gaétan]

The tariffs are to raise money to pay off debts caused by the useless wars of the previous corrupt government

[cannuck]

1 hour ago, eyeball said:

Good story.

The demand for fentanyl and Americas use and addiction to it is entirely their own fault and responsibility.

It's not unique to USA as Canada and the rest of the world have as much addiction to alcohol and other drugs - a cultural acceptance that goes back centuries.  It is a responsibility to each and ever nation and person.   Countries try to limit some of their addictions by making it illegal to import and trade in such substances - and the US has indeed done that.  Where they have failed is in securing their borders - and we have been complicit in providing a welcome and unimpeded road for entry of people and drugs into their country.   They have every right to do whatever they think is appropriate to stem this flow, and that is what they seem to think they are doing.

[Aristides]

1 hour ago, Gaétan said:

The tariffs are to raise money to pay off debts caused by the useless wars of the previous corrupt government

The most expensive war for the US in  this century was Iraq and Afghanistan. Started by Bush the Younger.

Quote

A report from the Costs of War project at Brown University revealed that 20 years of post-9/11 wars have cost the U.S. an estimated $8 trillion and have killed more than 900,000 people.

https://www.brown.edu/news/2021-09-01/costsofwar

This is from 2021, before the Russian invasion of Ukraine and 8 months into the Biden presidency.

Edited February 2 by Aristides

[Gaétan]

Wars for politicians are an income, while for the people they are expenses that must be reimbursed

[Aristides]

China has just slapped a tariff on US LNG. That could be good for BC.

[SpankyMcFarland]

If Trump doesn’t hit us with tariffs next month we’ll still have to wait and see what the long-term damage is. The possibility that this could happen at any time in the future draws attention to how flimsy the protections of USMCA are for us compared to what’s provided to smaller states within the EU and may discourage investment. 

[CdnFox]

19 minutes ago, SpankyMcFarland said:

If Trump doesn’t hit us with tariffs next month we’ll still have to wait and see what the long-term damage is. The possibility that this could happen at any time in the future draws attention to how flimsy the protections of USMCA are for us compared to what’s provided to smaller states within the EU and may discourage investment. 

Well there's the thing. He may put another delay on it at the end of 30 days, so things are going great but we really need to wait for this election to be over with so I'm extending it for 90 more days and will continue to talk in the meantime. Then it's hanging over Canada for April and May

And he might even drag it out longer, who knows! Until he satisfied it gets what he wants he may want to be disruptive.

 

[Boges]

On 2/4/2025 at 5:13 PM, CdnFox said:

Well there's the thing. He may put another delay on it at the end of 30 days, so things are going great but we really need to wait for this election to be over with so I'm extending it for 90 more days and will continue to talk in the meantime. Then it's hanging over Canada for April and May

And he might even drag it out longer, who knows! Until he satisfied it gets what he wants he may want to be disruptive.

What does satisfaction even look like? 

The trade deficit might even widen now that Canadians are looking to avoid buying American goods. 

There aren't many KPI's to determine that Canada has eliminated the Fentanyl epidemic. 

It seems like all Trump wants is the attention. 

[Aristides]

A majority of Canadians support using oil as weapon if Trump starts trade war, including 72% of Albertans.

https://www.bnnbloomberg.ca/markets/oil/2025/02/06/canadians-support-using-oil-as-weapon-if-trump-starts-trade-war/

[CdnFox]

2 hours ago, Boges said:

What does satisfaction even look like? 

Well of course we don't know yet, we haven't heard his demands. But interestingly I think it will be made of the greater of one of two factors. There is what he wants to get, and then possibly what he thinks he can get in excess of what he wants to get if he pushes hard enough. He will go for whichever of those two numbers is the higher

3 hours ago, Boges said:

The trade deficit might even widen now that Canadians are looking to avoid buying American goods. 

There aren't many KPI's to determine that Canada has eliminated the Fentanyl epidemic. 

It seems like all Trump wants is the attention. 

No, I think he wants control and I think he wants a larger market. I think he also wants to drive manufacturing jobs specifically back to the united states. I think part of this whole process is sending a clear message to American businesses as well as foreign businesses that if you're not making your product in America you never know when a trade more may wipe out your business.

But we'll see what the end looks like. My guess is the sticking points will be more access to Canadian markets for telecommunications, banking, dairy and poultry, and some of the other restricted areas

[eyeball]

On 2/6/2025 at 12:04 PM, Boges said:

What does satisfaction even look like?  The trade deficit might even widen now that Canadians are looking to avoid buying American goods.

Meanwhile US companies have likely rushed to order a bunch of Canadian goods now to try and save paying 25% later if/when the tariff pause ends.

Even Trump couldn't shoot himself in the head if he tried.

 

[Barquentine]

On 2/6/2025 at 7:07 PM, CdnFox said:

I think he also wants to drive manufacturing jobs specifically back to the united states.

Trump gets his $69 bibles printed in China at $3 apiece. The Commander-in-Chief setting an example!

[CdnFox]

4 hours ago, Barquentine said:

Trump gets his $69 bibles printed in China at $3 apiece. The Commander-in-Chief setting an example!

And he wouldn't if he tariffs himself over it   See? It's working!

[Barquentine]

There is a pattern in U.S. politics and the economy. Since Reagan at least, every Republican president has run the economy into the ground, and the following Democrat president has revived it, only for the next Republican to destroy it again. Guess those tax-cuts for the rich are worth it.

[CdnFox]

39 minutes ago, Barquentine said:

There is a pattern in U.S. politics and the economy. Since Reagan at least, every Republican president has run the economy into the ground, and the following Democrat president has revived it, only for the next Republican to destroy it again. Guess those tax-cuts for the rich are worth it.

That's a common dishonesty held by the left. We've examined that before, and it simply doesn't hold water. When you actually look at the real metrics rather than cherry picked data what tends to happen is the democrats tend to create the circumstances that will eventually lead to an economic downturn and then I replaced leaving the republicans to deal with it.

The housing crisis would be an absolutely perfect example of this where under Clinton's time the economic activity seem to be great and booming because they let literally anybody have a mortgage and it created a housing bubble. By the time the democrats were out of office that bubble had grown to a point where it was almost impossible to pop it without severe financial backlashes. Bush tried very hard to mitigate it but was blocked by the democrats in congress.

Eventually it burst and of course we had one of the worst recessions in history going back to the great depression. But the bubble and the corresponding world financial collapse was 100% a result of the democrat policy of giving anybody who wants one a mortgage regardless of whether they would qualify or not. That bubble burst while a republican was in and republicans cleaned up the mess.

But of course people like you will claim that somehow it was the republicans who are at fault for the housing bubble that the democrats created because it happened to burst when they were in office.

There's an old saying. When times are tough you turn to the tories. It's a Canadian and British saying which basically means the leftover spins and screws everything up and then when there's an economic downturn people vote in the fiscally responsible party Who gets stuck with cleanup

[Barquentine]

Clinton cleaned up Bush 1's mess. Obama cleaned up Bush 2's mess, Biden cleaned up Trump's mess. To say otherwise is just confirmation bias. The republicans are not good fiscal stewards.

They're also not the "law and order party". Their "dear leader" is a convicted criminal who tried to overthrow the elected government of the USA.