CAN-USA 2025 Tariff Strife (split from various pol threads)

[OldSolduer]

Actu

Actually the Americans have been trying for years to point this out for years but we've been politicians are kicking the can down the road - joyfully ignoring them...... and reality.

FTFY.

 

[Brad Sallows]

So, we spend a little over 1.2% of our GDP on defense, while the US spends 3.4%. But here's a little secret: The US spends it all on the defense of its own defense interests, every last penny. The US decided after WWII that it would be unchallenged militarily by any other country, or even group of countries, and that is their approach to defense spending.

Here's a non-secret: US expenditures also benefit a lot of other countries, and they care about that.

If no-one cared, there would be no whinging when the US stops looking after "its own defence interests" and others have to fill a gap. They could just shut up about the US and get on with funding Ukraine's defence against Russia.

 

[Good2Golf]

Here's a non-secret: US expenditures also benefit a lot of other countries, and they care about that.

If no-one cared, there would be no whinging when the US stops looking after "its own defence interests" and others have to fill a gap. They could just shut up about the US and get on with funding Ukraine's defence against Russia.

Another non-secret. The US beholds other nations it provides direct military support to (read most of the M.E., parts of Asia, etc.)

Of course, the US likes to suck and blow at the same time, so it portrays its support as ‘benevolent’ not ‘controlling’.

By the numbers, the US could probably mind its own business on 1.2-1.5% of GDP, but like the Scorpion said to the Frog, after having stung it halfway across the river on its back, “Sorry, it’s just in my nature…”

 

[GK .Dundas]

FTFY.

Maybe but but the reason politicians can do this is that Canadian voters give them leave to do so .

 

[Brad Sallows]

Another non-secret. The US beholds other nations it provides direct military support to (read most of the M.E., parts of Asia, etc.)

Of course, the US likes to suck and blow at the same time, so it portrays its support as ‘benevolent’ not ‘controlling’.

By the numbers, the US could probably mind its own business on 1.2-1.5% of GDP, but like the Scorpion said to the Frog, after having stung it halfway across the river on its back, “Sorry, it’s just in my nature…”

Sure. Would the world be a better place without it - Russia and China and whoever else doing more of what they please?

If the US is cold and calculating, likely so is everyone else - including calculations to free-ride instead of putting more money into defensive alliances, supporting small like-minded countries abroad in the face of aggression, anti-piracy, etc.

 

[Good2Golf]

Sure. Would the world be a better place without it - Russia and China and whoever else doing more of what they please?

If the US is cold and calculating, likely so is everyone else - including calculations to free-ride instead of putting more money into defensive alliances, supporting small like-minded countries abroad in the face of aggression, anti-piracy, etc.

Yup, so they gotta pay to play the World Police game. Again, can’t suck and blow at the same time.

 

[daftandbarmy]

What makes all this even worse is that Eby looks like an indignant high school basketball coach when he's delivering his 'call to arms'.

Eby responds to Alaskan senator's threat to have cruise ships bypass B.C. ports

British Columbia Premier David Eby says he is standing firm behind the legislation granting the province the ability to levy new fees on U.S. commercial trucks heading to Alaska, despite political threats involving the cruise ship sector from an Alaskan senator.

www.ctvnews.ca

 

[ModlrMike]

Does he mean the cruise ships that aren't US flagged owned by companies that aren't US domiciled. Exactly how does that work?

https://www.cruisecritic.com/articles/who-owns-my-cruise-line-a-guide-to-cruise-line-parent-companies

 

[Kirkhill]

Yup, so they gotta pay to play the World Police game. Again, can’t suck and blow at the same time.

Pax Britannica made a lot of people rich and angry at the same time as it made Britain poor. The Georgians were rich. The Edwardians were poor.

 

[Furniture]

Pax Britannica made a lot of people rich and angry at the same time as it made Britain poor. The Georgians were rich. The Edwardians were poor.

America is in it's Edwardian era... But unlike the empire, America is intentionally accelerating it's demise.

 

[Kirkhill]

Who is going to play Britain's Wilson and Roosevelt to America? Do we bet on 70 years of Pax Sinae?

But those of us who love America must acknowledge how the US ruthlessly exploited its participation in the wars to demolish Britain’s financial, maritime and geopolitical power. It treats its allies as vassals, rather than equals. In Stalin’s War, Sean McMeekin recounts how Roosevelt suggested to Stalin in 1943 that India be taken away from Britain. It was best “not to discuss the question of India with Mr Churchill”, the US president said, arguing that America and Russia should remake India “from the bottom, somewhat on the Soviet line”. Stalin couldn’t believe his luck, or the way Roosevelt spoke of the greatest Englishman of all time.

John Maynard Keynes was sidelined at Bretton Woods. The 1947 sterling crisis was precipitated by America. The US betrayed us over Suez. Ronald Reagan disappointed on the Falklands, and invaded Grenada, a Commonwealth member, without properly informing Lady Thatcher. The IRA spent decades fundraising in the US while murdering in Britain. The UK sacrificed much in Iraq and Afghanistan after 9/11 for no return; the “special relationship” started to feel abusive. Barack Obama and Joe Biden disliked the UK, and removed Churchill’s bust from the Oval Office. Obama took the EU’s side over Brexit. Trump is an Anglophile, and may offer us a trade deal, but has no interest in our perspective.

 

[RangerRay]

Mods: If there’s a better thread for this, please feel free to move it.

I always love to hear former politicians talk. Their honesty can sometimes be brutal!

Jason Kenney is mad

Podcast Episode · The Paul Wells Show · 2025-03-12 · 37m

podcasts.apple.com

 

[daftandbarmy]

Does he mean the cruise ships that aren't US flagged owned by companies that aren't US domiciled. Exactly how does that work?

https://www.cruisecritic.com/articles/who-owns-my-cruise-line-a-guide-to-cruise-line-parent-companies

There's legislation in place that requires US cruise ships to stop at a Canadian port (mainly Victoria and Vancouver) when transiting Canadian waters. If they wave that you can say bye bye to many millions in revenue for the BC tourism industry this summer. Hundreds of small businesses would likely go under.

My guess is the charges to US trucks transiting BC to/from Alaska would be a fraction of that revenue stream. And yes, our politicians are that dumb...

B.C. ports monitoring Alaska senator’s cruise-ship bypass threat​

Trade war sparking division between B.C. and Alaska as cruise ships appear to be next collateral damage

The U.S. Passenger Vessel Services Act prohibits foreign-flagged vessels (such as cruise ships) from transporting passengers between U.S. ports (such as Seattle and Anchorage) without stopping at a foreign port. The act is a protectionist measure for U.S. maritime industries and there are some exceptions.

The act was last raised as an impediment during the COVID-19 pandemic, when American officials sought a broad exemption.

The Greater Victoria Harbour Authority’s Lewis-Manning said there are 320 cruise ships scheduled to visit his city in 2025.

B.C. ports monitoring Alaska senator’s cruise-ship bypass threat

Trade war sparking division between B.C. and Alaska as cruise ships appear to be next collateral damage

www.biv.com

 

[HavokFour]

There's legislation in place that requires US cruise ships to stop at a Canadian port (mainly Victoria and Vancouver) when transiting Canadian waters. If they wave that you can say bye bye to many millions in revenue for the BC tourism industry this summer. Hundreds of small businesses would likely go under.

My guess is the charges to US trucks transiting BC to/from Alaska would be a fraction of that revenue stream. And yes, our politicians are that dumb...

B.C. ports monitoring Alaska senator’s cruise-ship bypass threat​

Trade war sparking division between B.C. and Alaska as cruise ships appear to be next collateral damage

The U.S. Passenger Vessel Services Act prohibits foreign-flagged vessels (such as cruise ships) from transporting passengers between U.S. ports (such as Seattle and Anchorage) without stopping at a foreign port. The act is a protectionist measure for U.S. maritime industries and there are some exceptions.

The act was last raised as an impediment during the COVID-19 pandemic, when American officials sought a broad exemption.

The Greater Victoria Harbour Authority’s Lewis-Manning said there are 320 cruise ships scheduled to visit his city in 2025.

B.C. ports monitoring Alaska senator’s cruise-ship bypass threat

Trade war sparking division between B.C. and Alaska as cruise ships appear to be next collateral damage

www.biv.com

The Jones Act is exactly the reason why those cruise ships stop at B.C. ports, it's a loophole. Good luck getting any of the cruise ship companies to comply because said act requires the ships to be American made, flagged, and crewed. The ones with room for 3000+ passengers cost almost a billion each to build, and that's not even the "made in the USA" price.

 

[dapaterson]

Given how many Victoria residents seem to act, getting rid of those greasy unwashed tourists might be seen as a net win.

 

[Genetk44]

An interesting read with some more little known nfo

https://www.producer.com/news/u-s-dairy-exports-to-canada-up-67-per-cent/

 

[Kirkhill]

Where is this madness leading?

Trump’s game plan for devaluing the mighty dollar

Attempts to boost US exports risk undermining the foundations of American exceptionalism

www.telegraph.co.uk

Rewind to the mid-1980s, when Ronald Reagan was the US president, and America was cursed by a similarly large trade deficit, and thanks to the administration’s expansionary fiscal policies, a relatively strong currency buoyed by high interest rates.

Under threat of tariffs, the US’s four largest trading partners at the time – Japan, Germany, France and the UK – were persuaded to intervene in currency markets to weaken the dollar, an agreement that became known as the Plaza Accord.

It worked; from peak to trough, the dollar lost about 40pc of its trade weighted value. That success has galvanised calls from some in the Trump administration for a sequel, already dubbed for obvious reasons the “Mar-a-Lago Accord”.

Yet the world is a very different place today,

To be sustainable, moreover, would require the US to run artificially low interest rates and everywhere else to run them high. This would be doubly inflationary in the US and is scarcely likely to appeal to either Europe or China, where economic conditions are currently weak.

...

Alternatively, countries could be strong-armed into submission. Stephen Miran, who was confirmed last week as chairman of the US council of economic advisers, suggests that surplus countries should be forced to peg their currencies against the dollar at a beneficial rate to the US by threatening them with even higher trade tariffs should they refuse.

So what is Trump really after? Defence? Fentanyl? Dairy? Land? Water? Or just to unsettle us?
...

Yet even if this form of competitive devaluation via blackmail were initially successful, it wouldn’t necessarily stop the flow of foreign capital into US markets, and would therefore be hard to maintain.

Miran has got an answer for that, which is to tax the coupon on US treasury securities for overseas buyers so as to discourage foreign demand for them.

The same effect could be achieved, Miran argued in a paper last November, by forcing countries to swap their holdings of US Treasuries for 100-year bonds. In return they would receive security guarantees.

It scarcely needs saying that both these lines of attack would be regarded as a default, and would therefore play havoc with US debt markets and the federal government’s ability to fund its burgeoning budget deficit.

https://ticdata.treasury.gov/resource-center/data-chart-center/tic/Documents/slt_table5.html

Canada holds 378.8 BUSD in Treasuries. Number 6 (there's that number again) behind Japan (1060), China (759), UK (723), Luxembourg (424) and Cayman Islands (419).

The whole ghastly, divisive mess we see unfolding before us was perfectly foreseen by the British economist John Maynard Keynes, and is in a sense a direct consequence of the dollar’s global reserve currency status.

Without going into the precise mechanisms, this in effect requires the US to run big, compensating fiscal and trade deficits so as to supply the rest of the world with the dollars it demands.

Keynes’s solution was to establish a separate international reserve currency which he called the “bancor”, but it never flew.

And in any case, would Trump really want to give up the dollar’s “exorbitant privilege”? It’s a fair bet that he would not. Nor does he seem minded to run the balanced budgets that would help mitigate the trade deficit.

There’s no telling where this will end. Badly, would be a reasonable guess.

 

[Good2Golf]

So what is Trump really after? Defence? Fentanyl? Dairy? Land? Water? Or just to unsettle us?

Yes…

 

[OldSolduer]

Yes…

I don’t think he has a clear idea either. It seems he has a political version ofADHD

 

[Kirkhill]

I don’t think he has a clear idea either. It seems he has a political version ofADHD

I still think it unwise to make that assumption. How do you create surprise in a transparent world?