Trump tariffs, again; we can do better than reciprocating bad ideas
Bold ideas, rather than tired talking points, are needed.
Ever since Donald Trump began musing about throwing tariffs on the largest trading partners the U.S. has, almost everyone has been shaking their heads.
Tariffs are a tax on goods that a country brings in from outside its borders to sell within.
Tariffs hurt consumers in the country who applied them; that’s the bottom line.
Sure, it also hurts the country whose goods are taxed at higher rates, but it’s paid for by those importing the goods; in this case, consumers in the U.S..
Mr. Trump has said that he wants to bring back the good old days of the early 20th century when tariffs padded federal coffers. No one wants to talk about the fact that income tax rates were also as high as 90 per cent on the top earners.
No billionaires seemed to work out well for them back then, too, but why complicate messaging as simple as “tariffs will make us rich”?
Tariffs are especially damaging to a relationship where decades, upon decades, of work has gone into building a complex, integrated, and complimentary, economic partnership.
U.S. companies have benefitted from their stronger dollar in neighbouring countries like Canada and Mexico — it allows them to pay less in USD, which has resulted in lower prices for consumers. Adding the tax on imported goods will increase the costs for suppliers, who will in turn pass that cost onto consumers.
Everyone, even much of the right-wing internet celebrity cabal, gets this.
For Canadians, it makes less sense to apply reciprocal tariffs because that will increase prices here at a time when economic turmoil caused by Trump’s tariffs is likely.
Other levers are available to us and we should use them
In threatening tariffs, Mr. Trump is breaking the free trade agreement he signed during his first term, and we should move forward as if the agreement does not exist.
That frees up a lot of space in intellectual and technological property rights.
We can also disregard registered trademarks.
On 1, it has the benefit of both being true and being a strong point in a communications war that you can carpet bomb throughout America: we won't raise tariffs, that makes things worse here. Your president is raising tariffs, that makes things worse there.
On 2, it puts the pain where it belongs - a kleptomaniacal administration. You could add lots of things to this list targeted at Trump and his inner circle.
On 3, it puts a sword over their heads and creates anxiety in the United States. Not pain - but anxiety - which in turn could put pressure on Trump to resolve.
And my personal favourite: eliminating respect for U.S. patent registrations in Canada.
We could play this little game of “who can have the most damaging tariffs”, but why should we? Our response should be threatening to untether our own economic prowess, especially in the field of intellectual and technological property.
In answering a question about Trump tariffs the first time, on a panel for 770 CHQR, I offered as well that in order to maintain ownership in Canada, any public money put towards developing it be deemed proper business investment rather than grants, with ownership retained by public post-secondary institutions.
I know public/government ownership isn’t all that popular in certain circles, but I’m tired of government handing out public dollars to boost private profit. If we’re paying to build it, we should own it, and get proper returns for the investment just like private capital would.
Mr. Hogan has also had the bright idea in the past to end foreign ownership of resources related to national security like media.
Looking at you, Postmedia empire, that has sucked up most of the dailies in the country and spits out a single pro-conservative editorial from some dude in Ontario at election time on the front page of every single one in return.
Get bent.
We need bold ideas, not a reflection of bad ones
Whatever new justification Mr. Trump and his administration comes up with next, they are loudly declaring they no longer wish to act with goodwill towards their allies and that deserves reciprocation.
Mr. Trump has all but torn up CUSMA. As such, we have an opportunity to reclaim jurisdictional sovereignty over our economic future.
That means we remove the “perks” of being Canada’s ally.
We have sold our intellectual property to U.S. businesses to watch it sit in the void by the competition.
We have encouraged foreign investment from a nation that now wishes to harm us and we must take steps to prevent further damage.
The answer is not retaliatory tariffs, but something that actually benefits Canada — taking back our right to build as we see fit, not as a foreign government demands.
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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.
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.