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New Canadian Politics Thread

Are libs gonna buy gas guzzling Ford f150s to respond to Maga suddenly being environmentalists and buying Teslas? I think that should be our real response.
 
UWHabs said:
Even if Canada turned off all trade to the US, it's not like the country would become a third world country. I'd rather become the North American equivalent of an Eastern European country than bow to the US' whims.
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Trump's assumption, and I guess Preston's also, is that when push comes to shove we will cave because we're so soft that we won't be able to live without Chick fil-A or something. We'll maybe Count cant live without his trips to Disney but most Canadians will happily sacrifice, secure in the knowledge that the US isn't the only country from which we can purchase goods and services. There's a whole big world lut there that we could be making deals with and the only thing that ever prevented it was the fact that the US was conveniently located right next to us.

If the US market is closed we simply knock on another door while also cutting the hydro off for large swaths of the US and forcing their farmers into bankruptcy trying to pay the tariffs on our potash.
 
Next on the list of soon-to-be failed states after the US:

The UK. They've been on a slippery slope since Brexit and the only time they aren't seen as arrogant is when they're standing beside an American.
 
mbow30 said:
Taxes on plastics and aluminums are gonna hurt bad. A lot of raw materials can shift around but we’ll eat the added transport cost.
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Yeah, some of the tariffs they place on us will sting. I was asking about tariffs we place on them. I don't see the economic damage from placing the set of counter tariffs that we have.
 
CH1 said:
If we strip out energy, the US doesn’t have a trade defecit with us. Not sure why that isn’t reported by the media in every trade story
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And they get a ~20B annual windfall by exporting benchmark price from the Permian Basin to third parties and substituting it with discounted WCS from Alberta.
 
CH1 said:
Also, defecit is the wrong word. It’s more of a trade imbalance. American based companies are choosing to buy our raw materials because it helps maximize their profits…. not because they’re doing us a favour.
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Aluminum and potash, in particular. That stuff is so fundamental.
 
MindzEye said:
Serious question....which and why?

Taking US booze off of the shelf doesn't hurt our economy. Shit, I don't even think it will lead to higher prices for consumers, the world is awash in booze companies. We're just shifting trade flows.

List of products from the United States subject to 25 per cent tariffs effective March 13, 2025 - Canada.ca

Effective March 13, 2025, the Government of Canada is imposing 25 per cent tariffs on $29.8 billion in products imported from the United States (U.S.).
www.canada.ca www.canada.ca

That's the list of item categories impacted by the Canadian counter tariffs. It's all raw products we produce here (that the US has tariffed going the other way) or finished product that the American industry isn't important to us. For example, there's a 25% tariff on American wrist watches. I'm a watch nerd and have been for over a decade now....is there an American watch brand worth owning? A few micro brands maybe, but meh.

I've kind of nibbled around this issue in a handful of posts over the last week but the composition of the economies is so different it's crazy. We're their cheapest supply for the vast majority of what they buy from us. Put a 25% tariff on Western Canadian Select and when you factor in transportation and what American refineries are set up to finish, WCS is still cheaper than bringing in Brent or Opec Basket so all the Americans have done in the end is put a 25% tax on themselves for buying our shit. There is no alternative to Canadian potash for them, you could double the fucking price of Potash and we're still the only supplier.

On the American end of things, everything they sell us has a competing product in price and quality from a nation not trying to annex us.

They're bigger than us, they can make this hurt if they're willing to be stupid enough but the composition of the economies and what they do for each other are massively assymmetric.
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Ok, well, taking American booze off shelves isn’t a tariff — it’s a non-tariff measure that exacts maximum pain in certain places, and I fully approve. I would also endorse an export tax on Alberta oil, if it comes to that. That’s probably our number one point of leverage and in some ways, I can’t wait until we start taking seriously about inflicting that specific harm on those fuckers. It will also cause an extreme crisis in Canadian federalism, so let’s be as chill as we can on that front for now.

Targeted, strategic tariffs on stupid American things like motorcycles and orange juice and scented candles and poorly made sleeping bags are great because they hurt the competitiveness of American companies and are easily replaced or substituted. This is why I fully endorse the approach to hit them in a surgical and graduated way to exact maximum pain. That’s what the first $30billion that is already in effect and that we did not take away when Trump announced his latest stupid pause is intended to do.

But that next $125 billion, the dollar-for-dollar approach can’t be so surgical. That’s why it was originally set for March 25 instead of immediately and why it was delayed until April 2. That’s inevitably going to cover essentials and inputs into Canadian products, so it’s going to raise prices for us and make some of our industries not viable.
 
lecoqsportif said:
We should cancel F35 and also start to minimize all procurement from the US.
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Yeah, I was against cancelling the F-35 contract, but the deeper this goes the less continuing those ties makes sense. The Rafale does most of what we would need it to do, is cheaper than the F-35 and a decent order of Rafales (say, 40 air frames) would bridge the gap from where we are now to when 6th gen programs start shipping units. Japan-UK-Italy have the merged Tempest/F-X program and France-Germany-Spain have the FCAS program. Don't know enough about either to have a functioning opinion, the Tempest program appears to be further along....but FCAS is a Dassault-Airbus led program and both have excellent track records so who knows which the way to go is. Both are likely to be competitive with at least the Chinese 6th gen aircraft whenever it's released but probably not as good as the American offering, but whatever.
 
MindzEye said:
Yeah, some of the tariffs they place on us will sting. I was asking about tariffs we place on them. I don't see the economic damage from placing the set of counter tariffs that we have.
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rd 2 has plastic and aluminum. I think it also has hfcs. Rd 1 is pretty contained but rd 2 may get ugly.
 
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