this post was submitted on 01 Feb 2025

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343

The Republican-controlled US government has decided to impose a 25% tax on American imports of goods from Canada (lemmy.ca)

submitted 4 days ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

76 comments fedilink hide all child comments

Language matters.

The President is empowered by a Congress controlled by a narrow majority. Rather than the individual they have chosen, I am pissed at the Republican party. And disappointed in the American people. The guy? He was always that way and would have continued to be so at a safe distance from the levers of power without his enablers.

It is the American and especially Republican relationship with Canada that is important in this situation. Those are what endure, that person is only momentarily significant. So, where we can choose the narrative, I think that's important to focus on.

Plus I suspect he likes the sound of his own name.

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[+] [email protected] -23 points 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago) (4 children)

Dang it, I am here waiting for our crap prime minister to come out on stage to let the nation know if we are doing anything in response to this. Its like blue balling for national sovereignty.

Edit going to write down my thoughts as he talks: Oh here he is.... comes out with a grin then remembers this is not a good time for that. And now is talking "if" the usa goes though with these "threats". MY DEAR SHITHEALING IDIOT, THIS IS NOT A WHAT IF! Like is this guy even working in todays reality, and not last weeks?

"We stand at the ready to work together" so we are doing what? what does that mean?

Oh 155 items being tariffed back, so we are responding to a total tariff regime with a limited one. I guess better then nothing?

[–] [email protected] 22 points 4 days ago (4 children)

Your listening comprehension needs work. He didn't say 155 products, he said 155 billion worth of products.

And he didn't say if.

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[–] [email protected] 19 points 4 days ago (1 children)

I’m hoping for 100% tariffs on US Teslas and removing the current tariffs on Chinese EVs.

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[–] [email protected] 15 points 4 days ago (1 children)

Markets gonna lose 10,000 points on open

[–] [email protected] 14 points 4 days ago

I hope so. That would be a nice fucking wake-up call to the orange traitor shitcunt’s moron supporters.

[–] [email protected] 31 points 4 days ago (2 children)

I'm boycotting all American goods and services. No more Amazon, Google, Microsoft and Disney (Never did go to Walmart). Going to be looking elsewhere for these things now.

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[–] [email protected] 8 points 4 days ago

Renegotiate so that these products go elsewhere for the next 4 years.

[–] [email protected] 72 points 4 days ago (1 children)

American here.

Help.

Do what you can to crash the American economy, IDGAF. I don't know, grasping at straws.

Adopt me?

Help turn the entire world against America? Whatever it takes.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 4 days ago (5 children)

Canada is not going to damage the American. 74.5% of Canadian exports and 56.2% of imports are with the US. On the other hand Canada makes up 14% of US imports and 15.8% of exports.

If any plan killed the American economy every one else is going down too.

[–] [email protected] 23 points 4 days ago (2 children)

Copypasta my other comment:

The bulk of Canadian exports to the US are oil. We can certainly tariff US goods, but export tariffs on Canadian oil and hydro electricity to the US will probably be a big component of the Canadian response.

Even with a big increase on hydro power exports to the US, it's still cheaper than most other sources of electricity, so they'll still happily pay it.

As to oil, there are some refineries in the US that are set up to process Canadian bitumen. Canada's long history of just exporting raw materials and re-importing finished goods give a pretty outsized room to manuever here. This refineries will probably just pony up and pay more.

Where the damage will come is in areas like the auto sector, where there are tightly coupled supply chains.

Paul Krugman points out in his article The End of North America that there is probably already damage done to the concept of North American manufacturing.

Trump is going to do a whole lot of damage, we're going to take some of that damage, but my favourite quote on the topic:

no one wins trade wars, but the kid who never stands up for himself always loses and for a long time

Scotiabank Daily Points

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[–] [email protected] 7 points 4 days ago (1 children)

Again, desperate, maybe the world needs a reset?

I don't know. I don't want anyone to suffer or hurt, but at this point it seems inevitable.

So how do we mitigate the suffering and pain, but still create progress and block fascism?

How do we Luigi but not have it be a slippery slope?

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[–] [email protected] 180 points 4 days ago (14 children)

Guys, American here.

Hit Tesla, Meta, Amazon, hard as fuck. He raised tariffs 25%? Raise theirs 70%. Nail us with 25% on oil and electricity or shit, just shut it the fuck off.

Nip this fuck face in the bud now or he will just keep keep going.

[–] [email protected] 13 points 4 days ago

There's a bit of a problem here though.

Say we put tariffs on services from Amazon for example. What should they apply to? Amazon the online store and Prime Video? Or should we also apply them on cloud services? Because a LOT of Canadian companies are using their cloud services.

Even if they switched to Google, wouldn't we want to tariff them as well for supporting Trump also? Or even Microsoft? They all spent a million $ for his inauguration. And I'd bet they would bend to his demands if push comes to shove.

We always knew that we depended too much on these companies and it's never been so obvious than now. When we're suddenly at the mercy of a psychopath fascists dictator president at the controls of our biggest economic partner.

[–] [email protected] 100 points 4 days ago (5 children)

The best suggestion I've seen, personally, is just to stop respecting American copyright law's bullshit.

[–] [email protected] 15 points 4 days ago

I wish I could upvote this 1000x

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[–] [email protected] 8 points 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago) (2 children)

The good solution is rather to invest in diversity of sources. For the oil side, the solution is to invest in renewables and electrification as to not depend on oligarchs anymore, just like China is massively doing by the way.

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[–] [email protected] 18 points 4 days ago (6 children)

just make content ludicrously expensive and force people to pirate it, then don’t follow up on people doing so

that’ll make some very powerful interest groups that basically only exist in the US absolutely frothy with rage

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[–] [email protected] 9 points 4 days ago (2 children)

I don't know how you could tariff Meta, but I'd love if it was crippled so the essential groups I'm in would move somewhere else. I only ever get served posts from 1 or 2 of my real acquaintances as needles in a haystack of irrelevant trash.

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[+] [email protected] -20 points 4 days ago (3 children)

This is incredibly stupid as an economic counter plan for a nation whose number one import and export (>50% respectively) is the US. Compare that to the US's highly diversified trade portfolio. Trump would clap back with a 100% general tariff on Canada.

American trade can survive without Canada. But Canadian trade can't survive without America.

[–] [email protected] 17 points 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago)

Even with a big increase on hydro power exports to the US, it's still cheaper than most other sources of electricity, so they'll still happily pay it.

Where the damage will come is in areas like the auto sector, where there are tightly coupled supply chains.

Paul Krugman points out in his article The End of North America that there is probably already damage done to the concept of North American manufacturing.

Trump is going to do a whole lot of damage, we're going to take some of that damage, but my favourite quote on the topic:

no one wins trade wars, but the kid who never stands up for himself always loses and for a long time

Scotiabank Daily Points

[–] [email protected] 12 points 4 days ago (1 children)

Canada and Mexico account for about a third of US exports. US businesses may be able to survive without them, but they sure won't make the shareholders happy.

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[–] [email protected] 64 points 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago) (1 children)

Isn't Canada in an agreement with the US that trades "no tariffs" for "no infringing on copyright"?

If the US is imposing tariffs, Canada should now be free to copy any American product.

Or was I lied to?

[–] [email protected] 69 points 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago) (3 children)

This also means Canada should be free of its water transit treaties. Let's divert water from flowing south over the border.

Kick Nestle completely out of the country, too -- no more cheap access to our water.

Start right now on new local beef processing faciliities.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 4 days ago (3 children)

Don't touch the water treaties. A fair bit of water comes north too and we don't want them treating waterways as a dumping ground that just leaves their country.

[–] [email protected] 14 points 4 days ago

As a michigander, I'm going to support "don't fuck with the water". I'm really fucking sorry this fuckwit is in charge, but we share the great lakes. Those suckers hold 21% of earths surface fresh- water and we don't want to give them an excuse to start throwing toxic waste in there especially out of spite.

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[–] [email protected] 45 points 4 days ago (2 children)

Agreed. Fight fire with fire. The only way to get the people to react is to make them uncomfortable. We tried reasoning, that failed. Let the leopards loose.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 4 days ago

Never gonna happen, but I would love to see countries removing embassadors from the US and closing their borders to their citizens.

Sadly I would have to be consistent and ask the same for my country (.ar), where our own delirious-in-chief is following to the letter Project 2025's playbook.

[–] [email protected] 15 points 4 days ago

More in this case, bullies and fascists only respond to force, that is all. There is no decorum, no societal norm, no mutually agreeable term that can be arrived at. Punch them in the face and keep doing it until the consequences are greater than the benefits of acting as such.

Power, through force is the ONLY thing they respect and understand.

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[–] [email protected] 53 points 4 days ago

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