16 Comments
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Dave White's avatar

You would think our government would think of this instead of counter tariffs. It would be a betrayal if they were using it as an opportunity to increase revenues too.

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Deirdre Mitchell-MacLean's avatar

💯

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Bruce Smith's avatar

I disagree.

You are not looking at the big picture. This has nothing to do with economics.

Trump thinks he can destroy democracy in the US and Canada. The only acceptable result is regime change in the US. To that end we have to hit him as hard as possible. Punish the American people with higher prices and job losses so they will back the resistance and regain control of the house and senate.

We are ready, the US is not. We tank their economy in two weeks - max.

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Deirdre Mitchell-MacLean's avatar

It has an impact on our economic situation, though. Retaliatory tariffs don’t help us any, and we have other things we can do that are a bigger threat to money that Trump actually cares about — he doesn’t care about the average person in the U.S..

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Bruce Smith's avatar

True - I still say hit them with everything we have and it will be over in a week.

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Deirdre Mitchell-MacLean's avatar

I am concerned about Ford’s intention to cut off power — that’s dangerous and could escalate things much faster to a space we don’t want to be in.

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Alexis's avatar

The last time Trump did this it was the Canadian countervailing tariffs that brought him back to the negotiating table and produced the last free trade agreement.

They can be a blunt instrument but if placed strategically can be central to ending the trade war.

Trump is NOT an economist, nor is he playing 4 dimensional chess. He’s an ignorant mob boss and sees everything through the lens of transactions. He has NO CLUE what tariffs actually are, he doesn’t get that it will impact the USA far more than Canada, or maybe he doesn’t care. But he thinks he can act like Putin since that man is the one person he truly admires and wants to be like.

So Putin walked into Ukraine and took it why can’t Trump walk into Canada and Mexico and take them?

The man truly hasn’t got a clue but he used tariffs before and he got a trade deal, so he believes he can make Canada join the US if he has tariffs on us that hurt. He NEVER remembers that we can put tariffs on his stuff too. And ours are far more strategic because at the moment they are pin pointed to various red states that have teetering economies and mostly items that Canadians can find other countries versions of.

Trump forgets that the amount of NECESSARY products the US needs and cannot easily replace, is massive. Oil, gas, electricity, steel, aluminum, lumber, and most especially potash! (Yes I know the tariff on oil is less)And with a tariff on those products the Americans get to pay 20% more for things they truly NEED.

Yes, we are going to got have some pain here, but we can trade round the world and apparently quite a few countries have already said they would be interested in our oil, with no issues about collecting it in Vancouver. Some want aluminum, some lumber and there is renewed interest in doing more business with Canada

Other countries are now more interested in trading with us over the USA and many are cancelling contracts and other connections.

We might hurt for a while, but not anywhere near as much as the US will.

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Ryan H's avatar

I can’t help but feel like targeting specific businesses and Trump supporters with cancelations and penalties, and targeting them with tariffs, is a distinction without a difference

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Garth Jolly's avatar

With respect, I disagree with regards to retaliatory tariffs. But they should be pinpointed in exactly the same way as the other items on Corey’s list. We can’t match the impact of the tariffs, but with precision can certainly create very sharp pain points that make this intolerable for Trump. Similarly with export tariffs on electricity and oil. Not responding makes the impact tolerable for him for long term. Responding harshly creates domestic political and market pressure that is untenable.

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Deirdre Mitchell-MacLean's avatar

Oh, we still respond, but the reason I like threatening to no longer respect patents is because that hits people with money. Trump doesn’t care if the average person can’t afford eggs, but he will care if the people who have a lot of money get upset.

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Lucy's avatar

I’m a little tea pot…

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Jim Sellers's avatar

What we can do is buy US dollars to help raise them on the exchange market. That would seriously affect their ability to sell anything.

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Jim Sellers's avatar

If countries like Canada start buying large amounts of US currency, its value goes up. And accomplishes two things: it keeps foreign products cheaper, in spite of tariffs, and it forces the US trade deficit higher, which is Trump’s biggest complaint.

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Deirdre Mitchell-MacLean's avatar

Well that was easy :)

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Deirdre Mitchell-MacLean's avatar

Can you game that out for me? I’m not sure what you mean.

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