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Comment by polotics | Hacker News Reader

What if you're wrong? What if the apparently irrational behaviour hides a well planned policy that has desirable outcomes for someone?

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It’s not like we haven’t already had experience with his actions. We went through that discovery process from 2016-2020 already

So the argument is that there may be some secret super compelling justification that for some reason can't be articulated, and, against all odds, hasn't been leaked, despite being telegraphed for months? Yeah, that's not plausible at all.

IMO the tariff on Canada is purely because they are in free trade with Mexico and without Canada imposing the same tariff on mex, the US must impose the same on Canada or they become trivially an import proxy to bypass our tariffs on Mexico.

What the US really wants imo is for Canada to tariff Mexico so we can remove the Canada tariff without undermining the Mexican one. Pretty much guarantee we'll see Trump pushing Canada to do that in the upcoming negotiations.

Yet, rather than saying that, Trump is implying that he wants Canada to be a US state. Whether or not he means that, US-Canada relations will be irreparably harmed for a long time.

Pretty sure Trump doesn't actually want that. If Canada became a US state, it would add two US Senators, and several US Representatives. Those new members of the US Congress would be likely to not be Republicans.

Mind you, I don't know if Trump has thought that far. But "own Canada, but good bye ruling majority"? I'm not sure he really wants that.

Which of course, is the opposite of what just happened - Trump just delayed the Mexican tariff implementation. Sounds like he's more interested in punishing Canada than punishing Mexico.

I suppose it's possible that Trump is playing 4D chess and somehow this is going to all work out great, but it sure doesn't seem that way.

Obviously I don't have access to Donald Trump's brain, so I am only able to judge things from how they are. How they are, at least right now, seems to indicate a completely economically illiterate person.

I didn't write that the goal is for this to work out great for you or for anyone you know. It is just that ways and means are clearly being applied, with literacy, towards goals.

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