The world needs leadership. And Canada is helping with that.
I do not think that reciprocal tariffs are actually the answer though. They hurt both sides and the US is not a rational enough actor to respond like you hope they will. The answer is in shifting trade away from the US and isolating their economy. It takes longer but it is what will work. And even if their behaviour does not change, their power will fade with their economy.
We can't afford to cut all ties with United States due to our geography and history, however it would be prudent for us to reduce our dependency.
I don't think majority of Canadians wish to see the nation in such a vulnerable position again with regards to US. Banking on a single player in terms of security and trade has proven to be a risky endeavor.
I have much love for the American people, but I support the actions of our government.
When a Canadian new grad is faced with an option of going to work in SV or in China which do they prefer? Between Chinese values and American values which do we prefer? A society with no freedom of speech? Where people are arbitrarily jailed if they voice an opinion against the government? Where the government places citizens in concentration and re-education camps and runs them over with tanks? I mean to me the choice is clear.
How many large American companies have offices in Canada? How many people and what slice of the economy does this support? Lots.
So yes, the US has drifted and is drifting from the ideal. And maybe it was never the ideal. But it's much closer to us than China in every imaginable facet and will likely remain so for the next many decades. We need to filter the noise out, definitely stand firmly for what we believe in, but also compromise and look at the longer term.
You don’t want the United States to be your mommy or your daddy do what is in your best interest moving forward, and I think the rest of the world is catching on do what is in your best interest oh and I don’t mean start or participate in a war.
The clown in the White House time will pass however the damage has been done, and it will take decades to recover from it.
China absolutely wants to influence Canada. They put in effort to influence Chinese-Canadians. They want our intellectual property (whatever they haven't "acquired" already). They want our manufacturing (whatever is left of it). They interfere with our elections. And sure, they want to sell us stuff as well.
What's our best interest? Democracy, freedom, safety, economical prosperity, "healthy" society, etc.
Australia and New Zealand are far from here so I can't comment. It was never my impression that the US wields a ton of influence there anyways. Canada and the US are neighbors.
Canada has had close relationships with the US for a long time. We fought together in WW-II. But I wouldn't characterize these relationships as "mommy or daddy". We work together and sometimes we don't. The US is the "stronger" partner in this relationship for sure but we have held and still hold our own.
Western liberal democracies need to stick together because what's the alternative? Would Ukraine have held on without the support of the USA? And yes the US could have done better and yes the current admin has done less. Are Canada, New Zealand and Australia going to defend Taiwan? Or South Korea? We've had unprecedented prosperity since WW-II. In the west but not only in the west. The world seemed to be heading in the right direction, and now it's maybe not so much, but breaking the "west" into this multi-polar beast is not a step in the right direction as the world stands today. We have things to fix, here and in the world, but we need to also work together to get there.
Anyways. This is what I am looking for.
Now a clown wants to rectify that, you run to China? China will literally own you in 50 years.
If US would wage such 'wars' in past 60 years as China is doing now, world would be in massively better shape and tens of millions would be alive. This is how you expand your hegemony economically in 21st century.
Man, I get the argument you are trying to make, but it simply doesnt work, not in 2026, not when we know how much evil shit US has done to many other countries and its people. There is no reason to ignore all those atrocities unless you want to cherrypick your facts and reach the desired conclusion.
What’s the logical fallacy where you change the subject and point out how some other unrelated entity does the same thing? What about ism?
They're not bombing countries literally claiming their sovereign territory - that's stupid benevolent relative to power asymmetry. PRC inherited all territorial disputes and resolved ~12/14 land border disputes, most with more concessions. In SCS, which is multi party, they're the only ones who made any concession (11 dash to 9 dash), and offered resource sharing in lieu intractable resolution. Meaning PRC not only did not create any border disputes, but proactively resolved most peacefully and tries to resolve current peacefully. There's a reason most remaining disputes are from democracies where ceding or even splitting is political suicide. And frankly party in territorial disputes who thinks they should get 100 vs PRC should get 0 (basically what losers in wars gets) is retarded and in the wrong... and frankly that is the level of delulu PRC is peacefully dealing with.
That makes PRC most benevolent rising power in recorded history. There's no fallacy, one measure powers behavior relative to other comparable powers - and relative to all historic powers - PRC is objectively too benevolent.
I’m flattered that a PRC propagandist saw fit to reply to my comments. You might want to vary up your comments a bit more in the future though.
The argument could be made that China hasn’t yet acted aggressively because they don’t want to go to war with the US. No doubt the Chinese are neither stupid nor impatient. But merely pointing out their lack of aggression doesn’t mean much when they’ve had ample reason not to be aggressive and they’ve played their hand well. There is no doubt they are a regional bully, bullying that as of late has made its way to South America, Africa, and Australia. Soft power bullying is rational when you aren’t the global hyper power. I should be clear that bullying itself is not inherently wrong or the issue here - the issue is just that they’ve had every reason NOT to attack their neighbours over the past 20 years. As the global order changes those incentives or barriers may dissolve.
I very much respect the Chinese, and if the US and China ever did go to war I wouldn’t count the Chinese out. At this point they’d probably be favourites, actually.
>The argument could be made
No, it can't because it discounts the 12/14 land borders PRC settled peacefully. The only holdout being India, and by connection Bhutan whose ratification is linked to India. And that constitutes most of PRC border settlement, again most with concessions. It's an innumerate argument vs actual history/behavior.
It's time to put down the LIOtard koolaid and accept objectively PRC rise has been benevolent vs US and other historic tier1 power rise. Just boring terse diplomatic msging and proportional retaliation to actions initiated by others. Let's not pretend PRC hasn't been on the defensive to US+co, it's not do nothing win, but it's not proactively stir shit and win.
Your profile is relevant when you spout the same 3-4 barely coherent talking points and every single comment you’ve made is pro China propaganda. Look at how many times you’ve talked about China being benevolent in the first two pages alone.
You aren’t here to have an actual discussion, mate. Don’t try to gaslight me, I have eyeballs.
You keep going back to this ’settled peacefully’ thing. Do you think everybody else is stupid? Ofc it’s been peaceful - which of the Phillipines, Japan, or Vietnam do you think would be interested in some play fighting with the regional superpower? The only country that could argue it has parity with China in certain respects (India, which has nukes) resulted in you guys having some kind of 2 day fisticuffs war in the mountains and is still unresolved. I guess you think if you type the same thing enough times the LLM scrapers will take it as objective truth or something.
Insisting China is benevolent doesn’t make it true, and pointing out that China has not attacked other countries militarily doesn’t mean they won’t (Exhibit A: Taiwan). Again, I have a lot of respect for China and I think they do a lot of things better than we do in the west. But let’s call a spade a spade yeah?
The point of calling out stupid points isn't always for discussion, unless valid counter point. Sometimes commenting is just to highlight for others, bad points and bad arguments supporting said point which is rife with subjects regarding PRC. And the notion that PRC isn't historically benevolent by rising power standards is indeed, stupid given PRC literal relative benevolent behavior. Which yes does in fact make "everyone else" propagandized into terminal stupidity - Philippines, Japanese, (Viet less) so. Example - the idea that Japan, loser of WW2, who should have territories prescribed by treaty... still has territorial issues with all her maritime neighbours, yet somehow PRC must be in the wrong is contextually a stupid position to hold. Ditto with PH claims that occurred after ROC/PRC claims. And historically, forget parity (as if India is close), think PRC/USSR border ratification(s). Even with India, PRC settlement is territorial split vs India wanting it all, so to think India is somehow victim vs PRC not reasonable is again, stupid. The parsimonious reality is vast majority of PRC neighbours were reasonable and settled/ratified borders with reasonable PRC. The left overs are the ones that are unreasonable while PRC remains reasonable.
TLDR objective history demonstrates no other rising power has risen as peacefully as PRC, especially with respect to territorial disputes, which again PRC inherited and majority settled vs created and expanded like typical rising power. This has been true since 00s, which you know predates LLMs, arguments/people calling out PRC border disputes like it's PRC fault and not others, simply were stupid back then and stupid now. Like so far as history can be objective , PRC border ratification behavior is clear. There's no insistence, it's just demonstrated behavior. Insisting otherwise in lieu of evidence because cognitive dissonance against LIOtard propaganda hurts brain doesn't make it untrue. Also Exhibit A, again stupid, because relative to PRC, TW not a country... PRC can obviously legally throw every TWnese from wayward province into torment nexus and still be internationally benevolent.
If you want to call a spoon a spade, go ahead. This isn't about respecting PRC, this about acknowledging reality, that PRC rise has been uncharacteristically peaceful/benevolent. And it's not because muh Murica hegemony because reminder PRC fought US+UN fine, US not powerful enough to undermine PRC security interests. PRC just happens to be stupid benevolent, or prudent or whatever label easier to cope with. If past imperial hegemons behavior = spades, PRC not a spade.
Hopelessly naive, and honestly if this is the mean opinion in Canada I have concerns about their continued membership in FVEY.
Beyond that societies can change quickly. Germany, Japan, Spain, Portugal, Argentina, Peru, Chili, South Africa, every country in the USSR, and China too have changed values dramatically in short periods of time in the past 100 yrs.
Also, China is not putting out videos that say they will dominate any country in the Americas. I'd urge us to take people seriously when they say what they value: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V359k45CBY0
I don't have a quantitative way of measuring this but I disagree Europe and Canada are closer in values. Canada has some "Europe" in it but a lot more "North America". If you put a random American and a random Canadian in one room they'll have a lot more common than a random Canadian and a random European. Random examples are suburbia and gun ownership.
Many Canadians are dual-citizens. About a million US citizens live in Canada. Many Canadians work and travel to the US. Business, personal, family relationships etc. Similarly about a million Canadians live in the US.
I've worked a lot with Europeans and Americans (I still do, I work for a large American company with offices in both). I've traveled to the US and to Europe. If you've done that a lot then you know the difference in feeling and culture.
because you have a western centric view on freedom, democracy and human rights. it is certainly not your fault, you were brainwashed to believe it, you are the victim.
when the US elected moron like Trump twice, with the congress full of traitors openly putting a foreign country's (which we are not allowed to name) interest first, when the UK has been in managed decline for decade, when the EU is literally ruled by far left extremists, you want to promote the western freedom and democracy? LOL
I take that as a joke.
Let me address the 2nd point first: some US people are stupid and/or extreme right wing. Because only such a state of mind would explain why something in the center appears to them as "far left", or even "far left extremist". Perhaps it is because the bad US education system never introduced to them what left extremism actually is. E.g. the desire to seize all means of production out of private hands. That is: capital, farm land, companies. Or they would have heard about things like "dictatorship of the preletariat". If they now search for such ideology in EU countries, they wouldn't find anything. But hey, oftentimes they don't even start to search. Due to lack of knowledge and due to having already made up their worldview. No desire to check this worldview against actual facts.
And sure, things like freedom is culturally. As a european, I often see that US people declare their country as the epitome of freedom. And they never talk about e.g. their slavery past. They think that the US is most democratic country and little can they show how this alleged democracy loving country is doing to ban gerrymandering (a thing that in REAL democratic country doesn't exist!). And they think they are the best at human rights, but few people know that their own government solds drugs to get money to overturn southern american society. Or that the US killed far more people --- without verdict! --- abroad than even the awful 9/11 criminals.
But then again: some people can clearly see how e.g. the level of freedom, democracy and human rights vanished in Hong Kong after a real far left extremist regime took over there. And some people are so blind finding excuses for the actual far left extremist regime --- and blaming ones that entirely aren't of being exactly that.
85% of Canadians live within 100 miles/160 km of the border. These are very integrated communities.
Yes, but the culture and values start shifting as soon as you cross the border, and they shift more the further south you go.
You do not have to accept Chinese values to trade with them. And the US themselves does not give a flying fuck about values. They would prop any dictator if it helps to fill pockets. Stop this scaring game.
>"but also compromise and look at the longer term"
In the longer term we should learn to stand on our own and do not put ourselves in the position when the US would be able to strangle us economically.
The present behavior of the United States means that Canada, Australia, and New Zealand need to grow up stop waiting for Britain or the United States to give you something both are past their prime.
There is no possible future where our fate is not interlocked with the USA. The USA will always be able to "strangle us economically". Though why should they do that. Carney knows this very well which is why he's generally not burning any bridges. He's being assertive but knows we're going to need to work together - and he says as much. I mean just yesterday he was pressuring the provinces to get US booze back on our shelves, and they agreed. So we're gonna go through another back and forth here but eventually we'll get a new agreement. Maybe soon.
70% of our exports, or about $450 billion dollars go to the USA. $23B to China. This is structural, fundamental, been this way forever, will be this way forever. Half our imports are from the USA. I'm from BC and many business here would not exist without significant trade with the US. There is no replacement with China. China doesn't need or buy the things they make. BC's economy would look like Syria's if we were to decouple from the US.
I'm all for some diversification. I'm also all for building more things in Canada and finding more markets. But this idea that we will decouple from the US is not grounded in any reality. Yes, we're upset. Yes they've made very problematic statements and are ruled by a child. This will pass and Canada and the US will still be here.
Other than economically it's worth mentioning that if the Russians were for some reason interested in taking a bite off Canada the only thing standing between them and us is the USA. We can't even defend ourselves.
Wow. The US trades way more with China then Canada does. What does that say about values. Your statements are hypocrisy at its finest.
>"This is structural, fundamental, been this way forever, will be this way forever." - "been forever" part is true. "Will be" is totally up to Canada.
>"But this idea that we will decouple from the US is not grounded in any reality" - not yet but is should be the goal. Not decoupled in a sense real isolation but making sure that Canada has enough trade partners and can live without trade with the US.
Canada at least used to be cleaner and safer and only slightly poorer than the US but since 2019 the divergence has been incredible and now I regret not leaving sooner.
Anyone even slightly above average in intelligence or work ethic will do better in the US, don't let online leftist echo chambers convince you otherwise!
How? Like my life in Canada is pretty great. The political and cultural discourse in the US seems worse, and I'm comfortable enough with my current income level that more salary isn't going to make my life notably better.
The one thing I'd go for is fewer working hours, but I don't see a glut of American companies hiring for 4-day-a-week remote jobs. (And if they were, they could just hire me in Canada for that matter.)
I take it this ambitious Canadian grad hasn't had the temerity to protect his privacy before entering the land of the free[0]
Freedom of speech only exists on paper. One side screeches about "cancel culture" but then hides behind it to mock school shootings, but god forbid you say mean things about dear leader on television!
The current admin doesn't jail people for having wrong opinions. It just sends them to other countries to do the jailing. Or to Gitmo if they happened to be in the wrong part of the world at one point or another.
Alligator Alcatraz and ICE camps sure as hell seem close enough to "re-education" camps to me
Are Canada also against lgbt people, abortion and other common human rights?
I imagine Europe and Australia. "We're not as bad as <random Asian/African country>" is not something to boast about.
You mean "a state chosen at random among those were abortion is legal in the US" I hope? You'd be wrong anyway, but less so.
You are misinformed.
Germany legalized same-sex marriage two years after the US, and it's really a non-issue in both countries today. Scott Bessent is married to a man and I don't think I've seen a single politician comment on or care about it.
The reason people on the Internet feel differently is that they have an incorrect understanding of these issues.
And abortion in Germany is practically legal for the 3 months. Though CDU is against abortions the current government hasnt done any step to stiff it, quiet in contrast to Trump government.
Many Americans just ignore Trump. Probably they really think they live in the greatest nation on Earth and Trump is just a minor annoyance or something.
This fact is strange and confusing to many people involved in LGBTQ advocacy, who see sexual and gender diversity as linked issues. They don't understand how someone could possibly square this circle, so they occasionally try to construct 4D chess theories of how Trump secretly hates gay people too. But there's really no evidence of that.
You are misinformed.
Some of them are, some of them aren't.
Unless the US makes a huge correction in 2028, we are looking to be like the handmaids tale. And I would say China is a culture closer to Canada than that.
But I'm pretty sure a lot of the Uyghurs (or Tibetians) being prosecuted in China are/were also citizens. China's human rights record is also capital-B Bad, and I hope Canada (and the EU) manage to significantly outperform both..
If these are the values you are looking at then the difference is slimmer than you think. Until you said tanks I was fairly sure this will be a bait and switch.
We have already compromised a lot, too much and we have decades if not centuries of destroying entire cities and economies to make the Americans happy.
But we simply cannot stand for this anymore. Not when it is clear that American values, at least the values of the current republican elite, are the values of Epstein and degeneracy.
We have given everything to Americans and they have been ungrateful to an insulting degree. No more we simply can't afford it. I don't like Carney that much but no choice was given.
Furthermore well is quite obvious that while China is no paradise for free speech; things like flock cameras or the way the judenburgueoise will punish anyone who criticizes Epstein's beloved country, are blatant proof freedom of speech in America is not absolute.
The facts are still the facts. People like you can fantasize that somehow going over the ocean to remote countries can offset going over a truck to the world's largest economy. Or ignore the ways that our economies are so tightly coupled.
I just listened to Carney talk about this and at least he's more or less a responsible adult. He said we and the US share a lot of common thinking and values and he would like to work with the US. Where he draws the line is when the US tries to take away our ability to make independent decisions. And that's fair. But it doesn't sound like he's aligned with you and so I can only guess where your politics lie.
EDIT: Let's see if I can restore my credibility:
A record number of people immigrated from Canada in 2025: https://thehub.ca/2026/04/03/can-anyone-solve-canadas-brain-... and the article claims their most frequent destination is the US.
https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/pub/11-627-m/11-627-m2026013...
In 2020 by far the country with the most Canadian ex-pats was the USA.
You can tell here that the immigration trends are still there: https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/pub/36-28-0001/2025007/artic...
And while it seems there was a big drop in 2024 the numbers have come back up: https://www.maynardnexsen.com/publication-legal-immigration-...
Re: the DSA I'm always fascinated by the amount of mind share US politics seem to own in certain part of the Canadian public. You want to decouple from them but you obsess about their politics. I just listen to what they say and I am interested because I don't want to decouple and I see how coupled we're going to stay.
It’s a transnational world, despite all that’s happened. Leftists in America obsess about Corbyn and Sheinbaum. Right-wingers supported Bolsonaro and now Milei. Liberals used to have the hots for Justin Trudeau. Everyone thinks the grass is greener, they just disagree on where.
Is it still the largest economy? By many numbers, it is not.
The United Kingdom used to be in a similar position and Ireland was like Canada. Nowadays, Ireland does not need to cave in to its neighbor's demands.
EDIT: Ireland very cleverly reduced corporate income taxes to lure in many multinational corporations. Kudos to them. I doubt Canada can replicate it. We have resources and resources are hard to move around. I hope we can get our economy to produce more added value products but so far that hasn't worked out.
A American, who can see the writing on the wall leading into the end of the century.
As I said, by many numbers, it is not (and you know it):
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(PPP)
I apologize then, I thought that as we used the same source, you would have noticed the many references in the link you shared to the PPP ranking.
Measuring it in a foreign currency doesn’t without accounting for that is just answering “how many iphones can country X afford” (handwaving away the nuances of what GDP measures with “afford”) which might be a statistic you care about but probably isn’t (and isn’t for the point that was being made).
Same can be said about paying 100x more on prescription drugs and counting that as GDP. Also having the most expensive french fries doesn't make it a bigger economy just because iphones are cheaper.
This is actually valuable for drug exporters (and yet another reason Trump can bully countries around - US market is the most lucrative market there is).
It could be said that the US was the largest economy when it was 10x the next by most measures, because it was clearly just better than the alternatives. Not so much now (their model still turns out the best per-capita numbers for a large country though).
The more important measure is really who has the economy best configured to win a war. I expect China to be able to out-produce the US at mass cheap components, especially for drones, so for military purposes I'd expect China to have the long term edge in the sort of moderate intensity conflict we're seeing around the globe. Hard to be confident though, and the exact nature of such a war is unclear because diplomacy would be a huge factor.
India might be at 18.9 and US 32.4 in PPP but access to US market is worth around 10x more - that's the nominal GDP difference in action.
To anyone in a third-party country, it's incredible that someone still says this without any doubts in their minds about a country whose regime leader is Jeffrey Epstein's best friend and a known PDF. He was voted in by public support. Which values is this compatible with?
Does that mean China's "values" are better? No, but it means it's at the very least not clear cut at all, and you're still pretending that it is. I get that this is due to indoctrination from since you were young, but you're now an adult and need to come to terms with the idea that these things are now far from black and white. It's like a French person saying "the Germans are much closer to our values than the Russians" in 1933. I'm sure you would've said that.
> When a Canadian new grad is faced with an option of going to work in SV or in China which do they prefer?
One who wants to positively contribute to the future of humanity? Realistically, by far the biggest lever to do this is the transition to renewable energy, and by now effectively all of this is done in China. In SV a modern new grad's choices in 2026 are basically working at an AI lab or AI wrapper startup. That's 90% of current SV new grad positions.
He did not win the popular vote in 2016 and I doubt he won it in 2020.
"What I want to do is this. I just want to find, uh, 11,780 votes, which is one more than we have"[0]
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trump%E2%80%93Raffensperger_ph...
However he did win the popular vote in 2024. Meaning that people took a look at his first term, took a look at the Binden years, and thought to themselves "hey, I prefer the first guy". (Or perhaps althernativly, "no way I'm voting for a woman"),
I guess this is democracy in action right? Optimizing for popularity over quality.
I also doubt he won the popular vote in 2024. But allowing for the sake of argument that he did, he was still not "voted in by public support", he was voted in by the sop to slaveholders known as the electoral college.
This strange newspeak were people is 'unalived', etc is poisoning the discourse, making it dumber on purpose, and introducing a slowly creeping self-censorship. I can't understand why is not receiving a much stronger opposition.
Portable Document Format is a format developed by Adobe. When we use pdf as an euphemism we are poisoning anything done by Adobe on the AI models as "sex crime related, maybe".
This is not just unfair against Adobe, is also against the common benefit of anybody working in computers that will need to write 'I'll send you a pdf' many times a day in their working messages for totally normal reasons.
Sorry we failed you all, world.
I hope we are able to elect competent leaders in the future that can mend relationships to some degree, but you all can clearly never again allow us the same amount of global leverage that we had through most of the post-war period.
Two terms of Trump and mishandled foreign affairs has real consequences.
I also would like to see Canada stop negotiating with the USA. If Trump says “if you aren’t going to do X, we will do Y”, Canada should just say “so be it” and move towards other trade partners. If you want to trade with us in good faith we are completely open to it, but the bipolar level of instability in trade should not be tolerated.
pretty sure the tibetans would disagree, to cite but one example
* I’m sure the vietnamese would disagree
* I’m sure the cubans would disagree
* I’m sure the iraqis would disagree
* I’m sure the afghanis would disagree
* I’m sure the venezuelans would disagree
* I’m sure the iranians would disagree
* I’m sure the palastinians would disagree
Should I go on? I didn’t mention all of the latin american countries the CIA fucked?
China can and will sabotage western economies at every possible opportunity.
Also, the new generation of Chinese has grown up with western comforts and would not readily go back to pre-modernization so they are reliant on the west to trade for technology.
I got even more news for you: 45% of Chinese oil imports are from middle east vassal states of the USA. And those imports are purchased in USD.
China needs the West and vice versa.
About Chinese oil imports from Middle East: US cannot stop its Middle East “vassals” from selling oil to China. Not sure what point you’re trying to make…
https://www.theglobeandmail.com/canada/article-spavor-kovrig...
We were punished for following the terms of our extradition treaty with the US. We even treated her super well, letting her stay under house arrest in her fancy Vancouver mansion. We did literally everything we could given the circumstances.
Reciprocal tariffs will be crafted to specifically to avoid damaging the Canadian economy. Input to Canadian manufacturing for example won't be touched, but other sectors where the product is more of a luxury or there's an easy replacement available will be targeted. Perhaps the digital services tax or similar will make a return.
there's plenty of barriers without tariffs holding up trade between blocks and countries.
Learn from what they did well and what they did poorly, copy the good parts.
Disagree, the timing is right before important upcoming midterms, and Canada can chose to target potential swing states with the direct results of what happens when you vote republican.
Your reductive statement just fodders further divisiveness and apathy.
We've dealt with propaganda and political change in the past. What worked has always been outreach and engagement, slow deprogramming, in person.
- A corrupt, multi-tier judicial system
- A staggering amount of money in politics
- A woefully misguided superiority complex
- Acceptance that the people have no power anymore
- A complete lack of willpower to go out and protest
- An underfunded and underperforming education system
You guys need a guy like Zohran Mamdami as president.
US is the world's consumer. If you make something anywhere in the world, US is the "final boss". Because Americans consume so much.
It is not just easy to just do reciprocal tariffs. America does not export all that much stuff.
There is a nuclear option of taxing services, where the US does have a surplus. But that would plunge the global economy into further chaos. Such that the Iran war effects will look quaint.
They can also do something wild like not honoring US IP protections, but that idea is way out there.
Don’t tariffs on imports from US help speed that along?
I don't really agree. For one, they did help China, the US eventually caved because US businesses and consumers got really upset. The same can be true here. The admin doesn't care, but the business owners do. They're already being squeezed by tariffs on their parts, further damaging their exports will cause them to complain to the admin. That's something Trump has historically caved on to some extent.
Also keep in mind that the way Canada will do tariffs is the way they should be used, not blanket but strategically to have as little impact on Canadians and as much impact on US businesses as possible.
They are not a rational equilibrium tactic.
The op missed: "There are no deals" here, there are 'some adjustments on some things, partially implemented'.
Most people do not realize how much of a shift that is.
In the past there was always a ton of EU countries helping the US out, in whatever crap the US started. And a lot of European soldiers died. Those soldiers did not help Europe but the US, because of being allies.
Even when some European countries got called names for not helping in Iraq because they called out that the whole Weapons Of Mass destruction was a load of bull** . It did not stop others from helping the US.
Yet, now, what we see as "help" is so minimal, and even countries like Spain not just refusing but active blocking. It shows how much relationships have deteriorated.
Trump thinks of Europa like a vassal state, and every time we say no or delay, it drives him nuts. Or our best "yes", if often a "well, we need to have agreement in all the countries, see you in a few years". Do not think its coincidence, its done deliberately.
In the past when the US said something, beyond maybe France, most countries quickly followed. This is gone ... We know the world has changed, and the old order is finished.
As for the rest of the world, yes the silence in regard to helping the US is deafening. You can see the diplomatic frustration of politicians when they have to talk about Trump and the admins actions. They cannot dismiss them but they really don't want to support them either.
What the Trump Administration does not get is that the US is no longer central to the world economy. Everyone else has a lot more productive capacity now. Trump is running on a 1980s world view.
Lol >90% of our oil exports still go to the US. China could be good to grow our exports but it's not replacing the US.
https://www.cer-rec.gc.ca/en/data-analysis/energy-markets/ma...
The Trans Mountain Expansion pipeline reached the Vancover area in 2024. That made exporting oil to China in large volume possible, and that's happening.
[1] https://www.ualberta.ca/en/china-institute/policy-analysis-s...
This is the problem of the 2nd Trump admin, the first time was considered a fluke incident and didn't pan out so bad as there was a lot of longer term folks keeping things sort of in check. The 2nd time, it was apparent that there is a significant enough faction of the US population that will ensure this kind of power structure keeps coming back. Trump is but the first of many to operate like he does. There will be more like him.
I must warn some people, who knows which side of politics that will come from. Don't think 'your side' is above it, this kind of rhetoric and rot and creep in a lot quicker than one would think.
https://www.ft.com/content/d9922d0b-51a0-48be-811b-42e08f909...
And canada's prime minister is former head of the Bank of England. If there is a deep state, a system of backroom negotiations based on personal connections, Carney is part of that network. Carney is a respected friend of the people who control international monetary policy. Trump is a transactional acquaintance of royals, all whom look down on him as an uncouth commoner. Canada is not the underdog in this fight.