Canada considering charging for road access from USA to Alaska
washingtonstatestandard.com
washingtonstatestandard.com
It's the US that's isolating itself. Canada isn't 'cornered'. It has the entire rest of the world to talk to and make deals with.
It has everything to lose by continuing to rely on the US, which is why you're seeing such a hard pivot toward Europe and Asia.
The problem is, this kind of pivot would take a long time and be extremely difficult. Out there in the real world, real Canadians have a lot to lose.
The US strong-arming its allies in this way puts them in a massive bind near term. Canada could eventually adapt to a different world order with reduced reliance on the US, but it would suffer a recession (or worse) in the process.
They have no good options here, because how can you really deal with a madman? (In a game theoretical sense [0], if not also a literal one) - but I think the ideal strategy is to acquiesce to the US and pursue these efforts as quickly as they can to remove any reliance going forward.
This is made more difficult by the fact that there seems no obvious way to actually appease the US, whose current goals and objectives are completely opaque.
There was already a sentiment of distrust in Canada about being so dependent on American goodwill. You can see this in the debates from the 1998 federal election (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gyYjRmM7RDY) on the establishment of CUSFTA, the precursor to NAFTA and later CUSMA. Brian Turner (red tie in that video) argued that free trade in Canada would lead inevitably 'reduce' Canada to becoming a 'colony' of the United States. He lost the election, and the agreement went through. Here we are almost three decades later and, as Canadians see it, those fears are at risk of coming true.
I'm not sure that Americans really understand that this has permanently damaged the relationship between our countries. It's going to be a generation before there will be the political will in Canada to consider going back to something similar to NAFTA/CUSMA again. Even assuming the United States returns to open trade policies again, the question forever on everyone's mind will be "what if another Trump gets elected?".
Would it be better if they did? I think so, but as a European (but very very exposed to the US) I don't think that's an economically rational way to plan.
The current trade spat is an issue, and Canada should react accordingly, but the reality is that, even with tariffs, the US still represents a very profitable trade partner, especially when they can levy tariffs of their own.
Tariffs are only part of the issue. They seem the be the first USA step meant to weaken Canada economically before USA proceeds to steal from from it.
Yes, we're taking it seriously. It wasn't some one-off tweet. He's the official head of state and silence from the rest of the GOP and the US political class generally isn't exactly doing anything to calm tensions.
We faced heavy tariff threats under 1.0 and it wasn't anything like this. The reaction here isn't really about trade at all. It's about sovereignty.
The US is the only country that has ever invaded us.
Who is “us”? Surely we need to acknowledge that Europeans invaded Canada in the first place? The “us” that can make claims about having been invaded likely is just the indigenous people of that land. Of course, this applies to America as well. I do wonder what causes all of us to view a certain set of borders as the “correct” one. I also do the same thing.
> Yes, we're taking it seriously. It wasn't some one-off tweet.
As for whether Trump’s language about 51st state or whatever is a troll: I think it’s partially that. It’s really more about calling attention to the future of Canada and whether it makes more sense for it to be a part of the US than linger on its own. I don’t think it literally means annexing it through force but more like asking whether it’s mutually good for Canada to also be among the “United States” - just as you could ask that question of whether it should be in the EU.
Trump’s aggressive way of stating this has succeeded in one sense, which is drawing attention to the idea. It has backfired in another sense, which is that it is highly disrespectful and maybe has turned Canadians off that possibility entirely. Or worse, it may permanently push Canada into the arms of China or the EU. So I do agree that it is partially a troll but still destructive.
Canadians, of course.
> Surely we need to acknowledge that Europeans invaded Canada in the first place?
No. Europeans (and others) "invaded" North America. The sovereign country called "Canada" didn't exist until the mid-1800s. Even the name didn't appear on maps until the mid-1500s and the indigenous peoples who lived in North America at the time certainly didn't consider themselves a part of a unified nation by that name.
> I do wonder what causes all of us to view a certain set of borders as the “correct” one.
e.g. When the treaty of Ghent was signed ending the War of 1812, the chief (and really only) "victory" for the Americans was the fact that the British gave up defending/supporting the indigenous people in the midwest who had (under Tecumseh and with the support of the British to some degree) fought off American settlers. And so the Americans were free to go in and massacre and wipe out the remaining pockets of indigenous resistance in the Americas.
& Iroquois/Mohawk under Brant fled north to Canada, where the British granted them land along the Grand River valley here in Ontario.
I think northeastern US states have more in common with us than their own southern states. I think the Canadian political class -- both conservative and liberal -- are really parasitical awful people overall, and our own business community are oligopoly-trending douches with a penchant for using regulatory capture to screw their own citizens. I think Quebec could as easily be its own nation, in a north american federation and that the structure of much of the Canadian state is arbitrary.
But I think you've touched on something, which is that Trump has poisoned all discourse. I like many others have turned rabidly nationalist in the last few months.
In any case there's a reason why Canada exists. It's not some accident of history or just some retrograde unenlightened loyalists who liked the monarchy. Many of our ancestors saw aspects of dysfunction and injustice in the way the US was taking shape, and chose Canada as an (imperfect) alternative. And that there is an "alternate path" for governance in North America is in fact I think the precise thing that actually enrages people like Trump.
As for the "who is us?" and the invasion comment, my point is only that there is actually a long-running "meme" inside American politics since the very foundation of the US that objects to the existence of Canada at all, and included the assimilation of Canada in a large Manifest Destiny project. It's usually been a fringe position, but it has at times become amplified. E.g. under McKinley there was similar talk as what Trump is mouthing now, and of course during 1812, etc. It's "out there", but it's consistently present.
And that's the reason Canadians take this annexation talk seriously.
Haven't heard anyone quite put it like this - thanks.
Trump is also such an egomaniac that he wants territorial expansion of the US to be part of his legacy. He admires conquerors and invaders.
What Trump is doing is like a kid's colouring book version of the same thing. It's crude jingoism to shore up his own base with bullshit about Canada and whatever, to build legitimacy based on jingoistic nationalism, and to try to undermine and destroy a liberal / centrist gov't on his doorstep. And, consistent with his "drill baby drill" mantra, it's also an attempt to stop climate change initiatives, to free US capital in Alberta from Canadian regulation, and to maintain/extend American control over our resource sector.
But there's also Trump repeatedly talking about annexing Canada. That goes well beyond a trade spat, and I would absolutely expect Canada to do more in response because that is in the mix. Including actively working to reduce their dependency on US-sourced or US-transiting products.
Hopefully this all leads to more countries stopping relying on US trade.
Yes, but any of those deals will pale in comparison to the opporunities Canada has with the wealthiest next door neighbor in the world. The oceans aren't nothing, the culture differences aren't nothing (no matter how small you try to make them with other Commonwealth countries).
Losing the US as a friend is a massive loss, and nothing will match it.
Is this a joke?
- unimaginable atrocities that would make Hitler blush, and then they might still lose
- Vietnam x 100
North Vietnam had 13 mil people, South Vietnam 17m. Afghanistan had 20m people at the time of invasion.
These were undeveloped countries with very low human capital. Their militaries did not hold up. And yet - how did it all turn out for the US?
Canada has 40m people, terrain ideally suited to guerilla warfare, a huge land border with the US, and a population that is not only indistinguishable from American civilians, but also enjoys much wider popular support in the US than the Vietnamese ever did.
It would be extremely foolish to think you could simply invade such a place at all, nevermind easily.
Putin, the current administration and conservatives in general swallowed that hook line and sinker.
> Today we’re going to look at definitions of fascism and ask the question – you may have guessed – if Donald Trump is running for President as a fascist. Worry not, this isn’t me shifting to full-time political pundit, nor is this the formal end of the hiatus (which will happen on Nov 1, when I hope to have a post answering some history questions from the ACOUP Senate to start off on), but this was an essay I had in me that I had to get out, and working on the book I haven’t the time to get it out in any other forum but this one. And I’ll be frank, some of Donald Trump’s recent statements and promises have raised the urgency of writing this; the political science suggests that politicians do, broadly, attempt to do the things they promise to do – and the things Trump is promising are dark indeed.
> Now I want to be clear what we’re doing here. I am not asking if the Republican Party is fascist (I think, broadly speaking, it isn’t) and certainly not if you are fascist (I certainly hope not). But I want to employ the concept of fascism as an ideology with more precision than its normal use (‘thing I don’t like’) and in that context ask if Donald Trump fits the definition of a fascist based on his own statements and if so, what does that mean. And I want to do it in a long-form context where we can get beyond slogans or tweet-length arguments and into some detail.
— https://acoup.blog/2024/10/25/new-acquisitions-1933-and-the-...
1. In the Fallout universe, the USA annexes Canada
2. In at least two Neal Stephenson novels (Snowcrash and Termination Shock), the USA has collapsed.
I've never before thought that either of these would have a semi-realistic path to actually happening.
* the biggest example I expect Americans to bring up is gun control. Canada absolutely needs to revert to a logic and data based restriction approach rather than an emotional appeal over looks or otherwise. Unfortunately while 85% of the country supports some form of gun control, only one party is actively implementing it and doing it in the stupidest way possible. That being said, I expect Americans never to agree with gun control in any form, and that's OK and another reason of the many Canadians do not want to be part of the US.
* Canada has mirrored the US in restricting protests and collective bargaining in some cases, and needs to step back and seriously strengthen the laws protecting its people. At the same time, some protestors also need to understand the difference between protesting and terrorizing neighbourhoods...
and what would data tell why guns have to be restricted?
Some questions:
- what the fraction of gun crimes are commited by law-abiding citizens, which would be actually subject of restrictions?
- is number of casualties high compared to casualties from knife fights, over-doze, obesity, and car accidents because of speeding
Is there data for this question which would back restricting populations from having tools of self defense against tyrannic government(could happen in Canada too one day) and make it high priority for society compared to other problems?
Plus, they make gun owning men (specifically) much more successful at killing themselves.
Plus they cause accidents.
Guns are waay more likely to be used by tyrants supporters then by anybody else. Case in point, republicans support president dismantling democracy and own more guns.
I mean its been obvious to many they're full of shit for decades, but that was the 'If anyone still thinks they aren't full of shit after this" line...
They are literally almost never used in crime. So “routinely” is false. In fact, I would guess that 99.9% of lawfully acquired guns in America are only ever used in lawful ways.
> Case in point, republicans support president dismantling democracy
Democracy is not being dismantled. If you’re an American citizen, you still have the right to vote however you want. You can still say what you want and publish what you want. You can protest if you are doing so in legal ways.
If anything, the end of massive censorship in social media, like was seen in the last 10-15 years, is helping democracy. Now you can actually share ideas freely and not get your content or account banned. And the elimination of wasteful spending of taxpayer money on political nonprofits is also helping democracy by not having the government bias politics through this loophole.
Plus the worry now is executive actively harming companies and opposition. Retaliating against companies, against law enforcement, breaking laws while doing both, attacking press and stomping on people's rights. Not some kind of flimsy complaint your account was banned after you harassed several people.
It absolutely depends on the type of crime. Domestic murders most often happen with 'legal' guns north and south of the border.
Other crimes, specifically 'aggravated' crimes that involve a weapon however lean the other way where guns are mostly 'illegal' in some way (stolen, smuggled, person doesn't have the right to have due to criminal record or otherwise depending on state/country).
Both domestic and aggravated crimes happen enough that you can justify the use of 'routinely' in both cases. Its ALSO completely true that most legally acquired guns are only ever used legally.
>Democracy is not being dismantled.
- Legal visa holders being deported for criticizing the government - Foreign nationals invited to conferences in the US denied at the border for criticizing the government - Government officials stating they will go against legal/judicial orders - Executive over-reach specifically to remove checks and balances and ensure what remains of government agencies and its staff are loyal to the person, not the president or the country. - Violating multiple laws, overstepping the bounds of the executive office specifically designed to protect democracy and assuming powers of the legislative and judicial branches - Attacking Judges for implementing the law/doing their jobs as part of the above - Professionally and personally threatening members of the legislative branch, state governors and others if they oppose the acts of the President.
Democracy and what democratic protections you have is absolutely being dismantled right in front of you.
>If anything, the end of massive censorship in social media, like was seen in the last 10-15 years, is helping democracy.
I just logged back into facebook after a few years haitus. The majority of what was on there was provably false / fake. Its worse than it ever has been. This is SUCH a benefit to democracy (hint, its not).
While I will agree there has been overreach on censorship, the pendulum swing the other way on top of the enshittification of the internet and the introduction of AI means the average citizen is now less informed and more propagandized than ever. Add in the failings of the US education system and the abysmal literacy rate...
An educated and informed population is bedrock of democracy, checks and balances are its framework. The US foundation has crumbled and its buildings are on fire.
Yes, a tyrant could take over, but the only credible threat Canada has had of that since the second world war has been our most powerful ally 'joking' about annexing us. A well-armed militia wouldn't really help to stop that given the difference in equipment and headcount between the Canadian military, and the US military.
If Canadians decide that Canada needs one, we should implement a method to drive enrollment in the the Canadian Army Reserves, or implement a home defense militia that folks could enroll and participate in with a guarantee that they couldn't be deployed outside of Canada (I was in our armed forces, and would not join a volunteer unit that could be deployed overseas, but would immediately sign up for one that was only legally allowed to be deployed domestically for defense).
As a Canadian, I'd love to see a resurgence of Cadets, Reserves and other methods of training civilians in proper gun use, self defence and methods to integrate with militias/military command in the event we need to domestically defend ourselves.
We are smack in the middle of 2 former enemies, which in their current trajectory will become allies while making us one of their new enemies... We need to have a serious national conversation about that.
I think your link doesn't have actual mass shootings number, my bet is that majority of fire arm homicides are commited by some small caliber hangguns (unlikely to be restricted) in domestic violence setting. Wikipedia says that massshooting casualties are only 0.2% of gun deaths in USA.
You can argue the merits for or against, but more than 60% of Canadians support outright bans on firearms, and more than 80% support bans on 'assault' weapons.
This is not a hugely controversial topic in Canada; personally I support hunting, and recognize the utility of firearms as someone with a rural upbringing. I also support very strict gun controls and regulation, and I don't agree that there should be a right to bear arms - it's a privilege that should be earned, and well defended through testing and responsible ownership.
Some points I feel compelled to make:
About 52% of URBAN voters support outright firearm bans but that number goes down when rural is added. I've always believed regulations for urban and rural environments should be different when it comes to firearms.
The vaguely defined "assault" weapons clarification always draws criticism so i'm going to avoid it. Personally I support banning fully automatic weapons, concealed/shortened shotguns, high capacity drum magazines, bump stocks and other items that exist to increase lethality in ways that cannot be justified for sport or hunting purposes. I also support restricting handguns, restricting magazine sizes, and other regulations. Most people that are against assault weapons I personally talk to agree the looks aren't the problem its the capabilities. Tacticool is fine, any gun being used for a crime will be scary. My point is that there is a lot that can and can't be included in 'assault' weapons, and everyone has their own list of what they do and don't think applies, so that 80% number isn't homogonized on what they are supporting.
We both 100% agree its a privilege that should be earned not a right. Testing and responsible ownership are requirements of keeping that privilege. Steps need to be taken to ensure that volatile domestic or mental health situations that are known to police and communities aren't left to fester with easy access to weapons. We also need to focus on illegal guns crossing our border from the south.
The US has these tools and a dictator upending the country and yet these tools are not being utilized.
What makes a dictator is a ruler unconstrained in practice by law.
We have banned, restricted, and unrestricted classifications. There are good arguments for fully automatic weapons, concealable shotguns and handguns being at least restricted, and for fully automatic and concealable weapons to be completely banned. I'm not going to rehash the arguments, because frankly we're likely going to disagree on most of them and neither of us are going to benefit from rehashing the debate. There are many arguments and viewpoints, but the salient fact is 85% of Canadians view the arguments and decide gun control under some logical framework is needed and support it, while Americans largely take the opposite side which can be traced to cultural and other differences between the countries.
That being said, the fact that the majority of non-domestic gun crimes are done with restricted/banned weapons that are being illegally imported from the states demonstrates a few things.
1. restricting access to those weapons is in fact the correct approach 2. internal restrictions need to be accompanied by stricter border enforcement due to the prevalence of guns and gun culture south of the border. Making it difficult to get legally needs to be superseded by making it incredibly difficult to get illegally first/foremost.
If anything good is coming from the current political nonsense, Canada's stepping up border protection has actually made Canada safer from US drugs and guns illegally crossing the border north, while having almost no impact on the traffic south as Canada Border agents don't stop or search traffic moving south without specific requests from US officials (something most Americans seem to misunderstand about border crossings)
>Is there data for this question which would back restricting populations from having tools of self defense against tyrannic government
Is there data comparing the known and predictable harms to a population having open and unrestricted access to weapons (see the impact of US social problems exacerbated by gun culture vs other countries) vs the concept that it would in fact help in 'self defense against a tyrannical govt'?
Frankly the 'standup against a tyrannical govt` argument has held little weight for decades as modern militaries and equipment vastly outclasses what any civilian can and will have even in the US. A proper democracy with checks and balances will serve far better than any number of civilians with military purpose weaponry, in fact the argument more so applies to a strengthened education and judicial system to ensure tyrants can't bloviate their way into power and remove all checks and balances.
not really. In urban setting, it is still the same soldier on foot with rifle, unless military decides to level all cities in the country.
>unless military decides to level all cities in the country.
See Gaza, most of eastern Ukraine. The existence of armoured equipment, air support, satellite monitoring and encrypted/EW resistant communications means civilian resistance is all but irrelevant.
Civilians co-operating with an organized, funded and supplied military is one thing, but on their own its a laughable concept at best.
I cannot say anything about Gaza.
But I live in Kyiv, Ukraine, and I have lot of talks with civilian resistance, from about 2012 (yes, Euro-2012 significant).
And I could say, map of occupied Ukrainian territory is very close to map of least pro-Ukrainian civilian activity.
I could state exactly - territory where pro-Ukrainian civilian activity (mostly in form of various Non-Government Organizations), was high before war, stay under control of Ukrainian government, but territory where previous power just physically destroyed civilian activity was lost.
Exceptions are Kharkiv and Odessa, where anti-Ukrainian Organizations was very powerful, but they appear very early and pro-Ukrainian forces successfully neutralized them.
What I mean saying about physically destroyed civilian activity, for example The deportation of the Crimean Tatars.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deportation_of_the_Crimean_Tat...
In Ukraine, militia with rifles (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Territorial_Defence_Forces_(Uk...) dug into the ground and stopped invasion of 1M army with thousands of armored vehicles, absolute superiority in artillery, airforces, tactical missiles and 100B annual budget.
In Gaza, Israel with all tech advantages struggles to efficiently police relatively small urban area for 70 years already.
Actual untrained civilian forces with nothing but rifles on their own made little impact to the speed of russian advances however, which after multiple defeats and setbacks led to the formation of that defence force.
Gaza is a whole can of worms in many ways, but its a shining example of a civilian group with access to arms being completely unable to stop a superior local force from driving over them multiple times when they have the desire and political backing.
Which is exactly the point. A bunch of untrained sport shooters and hunters with more guns than they can personally use at once and no supply lines for ammunition or anything else aren't going to stand for any length of time against an organized military, especially on the military's home soil.
More realistic scenarios in any case are full civil war and the military itself splitting and civilians join sides as reserve forces to back them. in which case civilians having blanket access to arms before hand doesn't have any significant bearing on.
All of this is hypothetical, and ultimately comes down to the argument for unrestricted access to guns being 'so we can stand up to a tyrannical government' falls short. You are welcome to disagree, and that's OK with me. My country is largely in line with my sentiment and sees gun ownership as a privilege not a right, one that comes with restrictions balancing the safety of our society. You do you, we will do us.
I don't think this is true. They were formed at the day of invasion (or few days before) with those who voluntarily enlisted(very many people), they received some old AK with bullets, and then moved to frontline to dig tranches, and that's what stopped advancements, because it is still extremely difficult to clear infantry which dug into the ground.
> A bunch of untrained sport shooters and hunters
A bunch is not, but in US number of gun owners is not "a bunch".
> but its a shining example of a civilian group with access to arms being completely unable to stop a superior local force from driving over them multiple times when they have the desire and political backing.
Sure, superior in tech and numbers force can "run over" aka walk on the streets, while being regularly shot from the windows in urban area, and it was with 5x superiority in population. Now imagine dictator tries with say 100k loyalists establish his rule in country with 350M population?
I think this idealism/naiveness is why you're now sliding further and further away from democracy. Older countries already had their democracies stress-tested, but seemingly this is the biggest test so far for the "checks and balances" in the US, and I feel like many other countries learned to always live with idea that democracy can slip away really quickly unless you always pay attention.
It's deeply concerning. Essentially, people don't care about democracy because they've grown up in it.
It's one of those "My father rode a camel, I drive a land Rover, my son will drive a land Rover, his son will ride a camel" type stuff.
On top of that, Americans truly believe we are different. We don't have to follow the rules that other nations do because we have manifest destiny. This prevalent all throughout American culture. You'll notice it when you start to look for it. "You can count on the Americans to do the right thing, after they've tried everything else." Americans are stubborn.
But even assuming the premise, it’s not hard to see how generations who’ve enjoyed a privilege might be more likely to take it for granted than societies that have more recently gained it, and are within living memory of fascism in power (or in neighboring states).
Fun fact: The US isn't counted as a "Full Democracy" by that index, so seems it's not as a great of an achievement as you seem to think. I'm looking forward to see how the ranking of the US changes in 2025, seems to be slipping downwards rather than upwards sadly.
> However, the political and structural problems that caused the US to be downgraded to a “flawed democracy” in 2016 (a downgrade that pre-dated the inauguration of Donald Trump as president in January 2017) persist. These include low levels of trust in political institutions and the media; institutional gridlock; excessive influence of lobbyists, interest groups and the mega-rich; sharp economic and social inequalities; and an absence of social consensus on core national values.
Just saying "USA is the most democratic country in the world" feels like worse than at least trying to look at things objectively.
And the lack of universal suffrage back in the day doesn’t diminish America’s achievement. India and Bangladesh and Iraq and many places have universal suffrage but they’re not as democratic as the U.S. was in 1789. Getting to that point is the 0 to 1 of democracy. Expanding the franchise from there is incremental development.
And yes, some of the rights are essential for democracy. There is a reason bill of rights was approved at the sunrise of our democracy.
That said:
* it existed in a historic and cultural context of states that had already made significant movements in that direction -- it was a big leap, but it wasn't simple 0-1. More like a 0.4 with a lot of the relevant ideals and institutions (elections, representation, courts, legislative bodies, executive authority, rule of law , etc) fairly well developed and demonstrated in various ways pulled together into a coherent 0.75 and woven in with enlightenment ideals as expressed in documents like the declaration of independence.
* There is at least a partial linear dependence between civil rights and democracy. The franchise relationship is where it's strongest. Democracy is effective, principled, & honored ballot access. Without any effective franchise what you have instead is an opinion poll. And mere fractional access to the franchise walks elections & representation down from "1" -- it is literally the coefficient you have to multiple a "1" democracy by in order to arrive at its effective democratic nature.
That's just the start, though. It's a bit like that old Churchill/Shaw/Twain/whoever story where Clever Guy™ is having a conversation with a woman:
“Would you sleep with a stranger if he paid you £1,000,000?”
“Yes.”
“And if he paid you £5?”
“£5? What do you think I am?”
“We’ve already established that, now we're just haggling over the price.”
This generalizes to other rights. In order to have them guaranteed to anyone, they must be guaranteed to everyone. It's why constitutional guarantees tend to be features of constitutional representative democracies since the enlightenment, imperfect leap though the US is.
The big question is if the US (among others) can finish climbing the ladder when the political headwinds seem to be against "guaranteed to everyone."
I don't think that inductive reasoning works. Every country excludes lots of people from the franchise. The U.S. has almost 100 million people who aren't eligible to vote, mostly young people and non-citizens. No country has a truly universal franchise. Under your reasoning, that's unstable--if we can take away the franchise from 17 year olds, we can take away the franchise from 18 year olds, etc.
Historically, the big democratic jumps were probably extending the franchise to prominent family heads voting, followed by landowning males.
Contrast that with sex, religion, ethnicity, origin, asset ownership etc and the real question is why anyone would accept that they're truly comparable.
Citizenship may be the only truly stickier corner case. Largely because international relations will sometimes produce reasons to limit it more tightly or extend it more freely by broad categories such as national origin. But even here (a) most countries recognize that is often only one of several important judgements in a wise process (b) it's possible to review the equitability of citizenship qualifications: can they be met by anyone by way of objective assessment of investment in society and respect for acceptable participation?
The world has many old countries. Most of the world’s most democratic states are constitutional monarchies, with centuries of history of not being a settler colony like the US.
How do you reconcile your comment with the fact that the US in the democracy index (from The Economist) is a flawed democracy, and considerably less democratic than a whole bunch of monarchies.
It’s just words.
I'm just saying there's literally dozens and dozens of countries with far more obvious realization of democratic ideals than we've ever managed to figure out, and at this point our age and blind devotion to dead assholes ("founding fathers") are major barriers to any sort of movement forward.
In order to deny that England, America, and France spearheaded the modern democratic system (albeit inspired by Ancient Greece), a person needs to explain who did?
That doesn't mean these governments make any political sense as a democracy today relative to the status quo. Hell, Britain is probably the only government on earth more dysfunctional than America's. At least France refreshed relatively recently; what the hell is Britain's excuse? Even North Korea and Eritrea seem to maintain more dignity internationally than any of the three of us and they barely even attempt to come across as "democratic".
It's in the name: United Kingdom.
The people like the pomp and ceremony.
One day we'll finish the job, I swear. Pinky-promise.
Cheaper to nullify meteorological services and browbeat media into silence and simply tell Americans everything is fine.
But regardless of what happens with trade balance, it will also make borrowing money much more expensive, which is not great for the US since our debt to GDP ratio is over 100%.
It also removes another non-military weapon from our toolkit.
* The US is able to get very cheap loans, which enables the US to throw around money when necessary to do things that are important (emergency projects, economic stabilization, etc).
* The US has an extraordinary power to influence global politics due to their ability to control trade and banking systems.
* The US dollar is stable in part because of its status as a trade currency. And a stable currency is extremely important for citizens of a country.
> Because it enables us to run unsustainable deficits?
No, it it actually the primary reason that enables the US to run huge deficits sustainably. The currency is important enough to the world that giving a loan to the US is safer than giving one to another country whose currency is not as important.
I’d also love a sane domestic politics that acknowledges that borrowing money from foreigners every year because we can’t square our spending with our taxing is a bad thing.
The crazy thing is, most of the money that the US borrows from is from their own citizens... not foreigners.
I don't know why everyone presumes that US debt is mostly or entirely owed to other countries. It isn't.
does any other country do it this way?
Some other countries have simply tried to print their way out of deficits, usually it doesn't end well. Zimbabwe is my favorite example. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyperinflation_in_Zimbabwe
Those with existing assets (including retired folks in the US) theoretically "lose" in this situation.
You can split the US and see inequality arise from printing: (1) US federal govt vs non-govt entities (2) US citizens with assets vs US citizens without assets, (4) people who received money first vs people who last bits of the "trickle down".
In various cases, certain people "win" and others "lose"
Japan runs huge structural deficits and most is held by its own citizens.
Being a reserve currency increases currency stability.
Being stable makes the cost of all loans, including domestic loans, cheaper.
Being stable also increases the use of a currency for reserve purposes.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Triffin_dilemma
Basically this is why times have been great for industries like finance and tech in the US, but sucked for manufacturing. In turn leading to wealth inequality and, dare we say the class struggle that seem to have reached a boiling point.
I can hold my breath for a few seconds, but not for a 10 minutes. it is like that.
and that is only the federal deficit. local governments are also running massive deficits.
That's why you get a ridiculous situation where even the center-left party is promising not to raise taxes on people making under $400k/year. In reality, such a tax plan wouldn't even meaningfully raise taxes on people making $1 million a year. You can't solve the deficit by raising taxes if you're unwilling to tax 99.5% of the population.
I do think that, at least, removing the income cap on social security would be helpful.
Honestly though, the only thing that'll stop the current US approach to fiscal policy is the bond markets.
Taxes are only one side of this problem. The other side is expenses. Empires are expensive.
In the bigger picture - the reserve currency dynamic has allowed many things to grow detached from reality, and those things are in dire need of reform (eg the everything bubble). But that the destroy-America-first platform can include condemning the whole dynamic is itself just another symptom of that detachment and entitlement. Talk about wanting to kill the goose that lays golden eggs because you don't understand it, and don't want to spend any effort trying to understand it.
It seems like you don’t even disagree about the problem, you just think we should chip away at the symptoms instead of getting at root causes.
Free ice cream is bad! Bobby is going to not learn how to work for a living, and he’s going to get diabetes on top of that.
If letting our industrial base wither is a problem, then spend some of the resources we get for merely exporting our currency on explicitly building it back up. Those IOU's can be traded for machine tools just as easily as disposable "fast fashion".
If the all-asset bubble is a problem, then stop letting the Federal Reserve drop interest rates to the point that wild or highly-leveraged speculation makes sense.
If the churn of cheap non-repairable throwaway crap is a problem, then ban it and/or mandate repairability outright.
If the proliferation of do-nothing middle managers in government/academic/industry is a problem, then figure out how to increase accountability, actual meritocracy, and general nimbleness. Turning the financial and authoritarian screws mostly hurts people who are focused on doing their jobs rather than focused on keeping them.
Humans are not wild animals. Free ice cream is an unequivocally good thing - it can always not be eaten. If little Bobby is eating unhealthy amounts of ice cream, then his parents should stop him from doing that independent of financial constraints.
If little Bobby is not developing a work ethic, then teach him to work hard directly and teach him how to save his money for larger goals. Certainly don't think that teaching him to live hand to mouth for ice cream treats is doing him some kind of service.
These are all problems of abundance. The destructionist movement seems to be based on wanting to revert to some idyllic version of the past with a struggle we understood. Whereas we really need to be solving the new problems we face.
As it stands, the destructionist approach is going to leave us without financial wealth or industrial wealth. Tariffs and allowing increased corporate externalities are basically the economic equivalent of "thoughts and prayers" .
Losing reserve status will be damaging to some parts of the american economy and create a boom in others.
Take a look at what current tariffs are across the world. The US isn't necessarily bullying as equalizing.
Which parts will benefit from higher inflation?
The only reason the US has been spared from >20% inflation after engaging in what would be called "money printing" by American press when practiced by a 3rd world country is that there are deep pools of unused reserves slowing the overall velocity. Americans don't know how good they have it.
All domestic producers which produce products that cost less than imported competitors.
I agree with you. The question to be answered is what kind of economy do americans want to have going forward. It's great to be in America at present, but what happens if global relations continue to deteriorate and fracture?
Who will afford to buy their expensive products? Cheap imports are what is making minimum wage-earners circumstances bearable. Full-on reshoring is untenable without reforging the entire economy for higher salaries at the bottom. The whole system has feedback loops (higher wages -> higher product prices) which will cause pain for a long, long time before things stabilize. I don't think Americans have the stomach for it now, moreso with the threadbare social safety nets being shredded. Any politician or political group pushing for this will not survive long enough to see it through. The task is impossible for leaders incapable of considering second order effects, and beyond.
Fewer and fewer people. Yes, a shrinking of the consumer economy. It will work, just not like it has in the past. As I see it, you are absolutely correct in your assessment. Absent a proactive approach, the alternative (which I think we will live to see) will be watching the system break.
Perhaps a lame duck president rebalancing tariffs can slow the slide, but I think the end result will be the same.
What would it take for America to have more of a German-style economy than the current American one? Who would that hurt and who would that help?
I think China is the one to watch. They have double the energy output of the US and are basically the production capital of the world for the foreseeable future unless something changes.
Second, how does VAT protect domestic production? VAT applies to both imported and domestically manufactured goods equally. VAT is really ultimately just a sales tax, just collected in a somewhat different way, and you pay the same sales tax regardless of where the good was produced.
You did send me down a research rabbit hole trying to better understand VAT. It's complex so I picked a car as a test product. As a comparison, I found that to import a car from Germany into the US it costs 2.5% of the cars value. North Carolina charges an additional 3% state tax on it for a grand total of 5.5%.
To import the same German car into France the cost is (cough) 20%.
To import an American car into France the same 20% is paid plus a 10% import fee for a total of 30%. I'm sure I'm glazing over many, many smaller charges/exemptions in these examples.
To answer your question about protection using the numbers above, companies outside the eu that want to compete at an equal price with an equivalent German car would need to do so with a product that is at least 10% cheaper.
No, the cost to import is 0%. The 20% VAT you are talking about here applies equally, regardless of whether the car is imported, or (cough) French. Again, VAT is just a kind of sales tax, and you pay sales tax for all goods, imported and domestic.
To import an American car into France the same 20% is paid plus a 10% import fee for a total of 30%.
No. Importing an American car to EU is 10%, regardless of which country you import it to, and then it's 0% to move it between EU countries. As I repeatedly said, you pay 20% VAT on any car, imported or not. Often, you actually pay additional registration taxes on top of that. For example, to import a car to Poland, on top of 10% EU customs duty and 23% Polish VAT, on a car with engine over 2000cc, you'll pay additional 18.6% excise tax upon registration. So, a $25k Chevrolet Malibu imported from US will cost $38k to buy in Poland.
To answer your question about protection using the numbers above, companies outside the eu that want to compete at an equal price with an equivalent German car would need to do so with a product that is at least 10% cheaper.
Yes, EU does apply protectionist tariffs, but my point is that they are not German tariffs, they're EU-wide. Germany might benefit from these more than countries without car industries, but most large EU countries have substantial car industry. For example, Poland exports $40B of vehicles and vehicle parts each year.
The primary effect of losing reserve currency status would be on the government's ability to borrow money. That's going to be a problem since US government debt to GDP ratio is >100%. We have no fiscal discipline now and neither party shows interest in making cuts or raising taxes. DOGE hasn't changed anything yet unfortunately, as daily government outflows are still roughly inline with where they were under Biden. Even if DOGE cut all discretionary spending (obviously impossible), we'd still have a budget deficit and massive existing debt burden.
If we lose reserve currency status, my guess is we'll go full Argentina with hyper inflation as the government prints money to pay debt and fund the government.
The upside is the debt decreases in value as the currency inflates. So there's that.
It's a bit like coming up with a realistic scheme for a computer with no RAM, only hard drive and CPU caches.
As a result, any attempt to switch away from the dollar would be… cataclysmic.
But even on a purely economic level… does the Eurozone even have a larger economy than China?
I can see countries moving away from USD, but I don’t see them coalescing around a single alternative.
This move would amount to throwing rocks from a glass house.
https://www.ctvnews.ca/winnipeg/article/how-crews-cleared-a-...
I've seen this incident be the subject of hyperbolic clickbait articles and YouTube videos discussing the complete cutting off of East and West Canada (conveniently ignoring the realities articulated by your comment). Perhaps the parent comment is vaguely aware of incidents like this and is extrapolating to unfounded conclusions?
So I don't buy the argument that Canada needs the US because of the threat of transit networks being completely cut off. I am much more amiable to the argument that reciprocal road tolls like this would be stupid because they'd increase the cost of goods for all of us (Canadians and Americans alike). As noted earlier, the fastest route between East and West is through the US due to geography. But or course things like this are stupid, and I doubt an argument as to why is required here. Maybe we should pull back and stop doing all this nonsense like arbitrary tariffs on close allied nations? Especially those who's explicit purpose as described by the elected head of state is to threaten the sovereignty of the other?
In 2016 there was a bridge failure that resulted in large detours: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nipigon_River_Bridge
Trans-Canada is a highway system, not a single road.
It's true that the stretch from Kenora to Sault Ste Marie is a vulnerability. It's tough terrain.
My take is that you have never been to Canada, and if you have, it was only to a major city, like Toronto.
I'm not sure this is evidence of anything that you're claiming. Google routes based on criteria you choose, typically 'fastest' or 'most fuel efficient', that does nothing to prove that other routes don't exist.
Default 44hr route goes through the states. If I click and drag the route up to go through winnipeg, it becomes a 47hr route that doesn't go through the states. I don't think this proves anything.
Intelligent conversation and debate has no baring in this absolutely ridiculous situation.
This is truly one of the biggest unforced errors I have seen in a long time.
It seems in the face of existential threats to our sovereignty, every option should be considered where we have advantage, and there are few.
Right now the US is in a political crisis. It has elected a weak, narcissistic man without coherent or sensible policy who is for the short term without serious opposition. (Mainly because its own neo-liberal elite has done a garbage job of running the country for the last 30 years and the population is desperate to try something else.) That man and the sycophants who travel with him is trying to use us as a whipping boy, a sacrificial victim, to rally his base.
In reality what is happening to Canadian workers via these tariffs are not in the interests of American workers, either. If they wake up they will eventually deal with Trump. Things will come to a head. The US will either destroy itself, or rescue itself. Unfortunately we're very much tied to this process because of geography.
Plus, Trump will blame Biden, woke, women, democrats and especially Canada and EU for bad economy. And Trumps base will 100% believe him.
The rise of someone like Trump to power reflects I think a fragmentation of consensus and weakening of legitimacy of the government. He's a reality TV star, an entertainer. Yes he has what seems like a blank cheque, but it's likely to backfire on him eventually.
I am using "strong" as powerful and "can push for what he wants". Trump is absolutely that. There is no meaningful opposition.
He has control over DOJ, fired everyone involved in suits against him, hired loyalists. He is destroying law company that sued him and everyone is taking notes. Less opposition in the future.
He breaks law, courts already judged he can and when they don't, he attacks judges. They will fall.
The opposition has security removed while fans are made to hate them.
He is not weak. He is powerful. And saying he is weak just makes him more powerful
Nah, Canada ships too much trash to Michigan to go after one of those crossings. Yes it's weird that part of the US is used as another first world countries garbage dump. I've never looked in to why this is happens. Maybe we could put a tariff on trash?
Toronto. Low bidder. We're sorry.
It's also bewildering that Trump literally negotiated a trade deal in his first term with Mexico and Canada but is now saying we're getting screwed? Is this the "art of the deal" he always talks about?
The talk about fentanyl, the supposed trade imbalance, and all the rest is just smoke and noise, because if he said that he wanted to raid Canada for resources and Lebensraum it might actually threaten his support.
He's not being subtle in this. He and his people have made constant comments that Canada doesn't work as a nation, that the border is artificial, and even explicitly that the tariffs would just go away if Canada became the 51st state. This is economic warfare driven by manifest destiny.
This was a major thing in his first term. People fight to be the last person to speak in a meeting.
Even if such an effort were attempted, any progress would likely be reversed by the next administration, assuming Democrats return to power.
Beyond that, the situation has been highly disruptive to Canada. I've witness movements like "Free Alberta" and "Alberta 51" have gained traction, while some people display pro-Trump stickers and wave U.S. flags. At the same time, others are booing the U.S. national anthem and removing American flags.
Overall, this growing division is unhealthy for Canada and has only deepened existing tensions.
It's not fun to be in Canada right now..
Nationalism is one hell of a drug.
Just like he doesn't understand that tariffs are paid by the buyer, not the government of the seller.
Finally, the current trade treaty between Canada-USA-Mexico was negotiated by Trump himself, and it replaced NAFTA. When he says it's a bad deal, why is nobody pointing out that he negotiated it? And famously said it was the best trade deal in history.
Every sane person is pointing it out.
But the asymmetry of lies and indifference to those lies by a large swathe of the electorate is terrifying.
I have no idea how to fight this.
This is a major reason trump kicked a bunch of reporters out of the press pool. They challenged the narrative which doesn't let them ignore criticism.
(Nevermind that DHS would have shot some of those protesters on site if the same kind of protests had occurred on the US side of the border. There's a reason the convoy was mobilized towards Ottawa and not to Washington, even though the vaccine requirements for truckers were actually a Biden regime initiative.)
That and a generally liberal government holding power directly on your border, in the same linguistic/cultural/economic mileux has potential domestic consequences / threat.
That's the really blatant part that is ignored/swept under the rug. He's made recent comments about the worst deal made, and dismissive comments about whoever made that deal. It would be funny if he was being ironic knowing that he was the one that made that deal, but we all know that's not why he says it. He says it because he knows his followers won't look up the details.
Instead, alternative markets and surcharges for potash, minerals, energy, counter tariffs and bans of American goods, expanding interprovincial trade, bans on government procurement from the US, bans on American propaganda and media should be sufficient. And re-armament.
Given that it's clear that America cannot ever again be trusted, (electing Trump once was an accident, twice is actively malicious), and given that it's likely compromised by Russia, it should be considered what it is - a dangerous, unstable, suicidal foreign adversary. A kind of North Korea, but with nuclear weapons.
It may not help much in terms of revenue, but it may help with public perception. People spend a lot of time and energy in their car. Think about how much people talk about gas prices as a measure of whatever politicians they think are responsible for them.
You force that 8% on to ship or by air and I suspect whatever that cargo was is going to get a good deal pricier or a good deal late.
It was nice of them to exclude Hawaii.
BTW it's very close to California: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._states_and_territ...
Not that we'd ever be "admitted" as a state should we be forced to grovel down to that point. We'd be some sort of occupied territory with no voting rights, but with 100% right for American capital to take our resources freely and dismantle our institutions.
https://abcnews.go.com/538/trumps-push-canadian-statehood-hu...
basically, assuming the US continues as a democracy in the same way it is now, the GOP / Trump would loose terribly in the next election. Then I guess it probably becomes independent again.
Oh, wait, is that suddenly not so appealing?
Making Canada one huge state would be stupid, even more than annexing Canada.
> Making Canada one huge state would be stupid, even more than annexing Canada.
Fully agreed.
Q. What is time for? "Time is nature's way to keep everything from happening all at once".
Attributed to John Archibald Wheeler.
Yet reading here, one might conclude that all things bad are occurring as we speak!
Canada has been so close to the US we would lovingly joke about it being "the 51st state". Canada's cities are all pressed up against the US border precisely because it's so tightly economically integrated with the US. We share the world's longest undefended "border" for a reason.
The small minded neofascists think that someone being part of their sphere of influence must mean they can shit on them, tell them it's caviar, and they'll lap it up and come back for more. It's like they can't see that Canada (along with most of the rest of the world) was already strongly aligned with the US, in favor of some stupid imagined written on paper "ownership" direct-command relationship. They really can't get past the two bits in front of them and see larger constructive situations, at all.
(I'm of course talking about all the useful idiots cheering this on, and enabling it by not impeaching. The Manchurian Candidate himself is just following the directions of Russia/China supplied by his handlers directly into his cancerous ego.)
This is a very intentional worldview organized, funded, and distributed by - shocker! - powerful people who find themselves constrained by the law.
So really, it's the age-old political dynamic where frustrations with the current system are used as fuel for the next round of destruction, looting, and centralizing of power. It's why the Trump appointees are a menagerie of malcontents. Each has achieved popularity from criticizing the status quo on their own pet topic, but without constructive solutions. And now they don't need to actually agree on anything apart from the need to butcher our institutions.
"Contiguous USA to Alaska" would be fine, but ~"USA to USA" is poorly-worded.
Not confusing, mind you. Just poorly-worded!
If you spend any time living in Hawaii or Alaska, and then move to the mainland, you will receive a shockingly high frequency of questions about what it's like to move to the US.
GP might have similar experiences.
For non-US readers, or for the geopolitically-unaware, Hawaii and Alaska became US territories in the late 1800s, but didn't become states until 1959.
- Donald Trump
Hell based on the representatives going to DC to discuss making Alberta a state, he’ll probably gin up even more support.
> The bill does not automatically impose fees on vehicles, but it “just gives BC the tools to do so down the road if Trump continues to escalate his threats towards BC and Canada,” according to a statement from the provincial Ministry of Transportation and Transit.
Also this
> The government of British Columbia filed legislation Thursday that would permit the province to levy tolls on vehicles between the Lower 48 and Alaska.
No one is yet doing anything and no one is cutting anyone off.
You say that as though this is someone who would require even a modicum of rationale to act.
Appeasing bullies does. not. work.
As a friendly porcupine.
> Appeasing bullies does. not. work.
This isn't a schoolyard bully situation. This is something like an Odysseus vs. Polyphemus situation.
It calls for wit and guile, not open aggression and escalation.