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

[brihard]

Could the cartels not just become a "listed entity" like the Proud Boys?

That’s precisely what I understand PMJT to mean. Thing is, ‘listed entity’ means listed under I think it’s s. 83.05, and it ties to the definition of terrorism under s.83.01. The definition of terrorism has, simplified, two prongs: Ideology and harm. Harm is straightforward and easy to make out. Killing/badly hurting people, major destruction, or things that can be reasonably expected to cause same.

The ideology - political, religious, whatever - is much less clear. The proud boys have a clear political ideology that met the definition; for them the harm part was probably tougher to establish. The cartels are harmful as hell, but if they are essentially ‘just (awful) businesses’, forcing them into the 83.01 definition for an 83.05 listing is tricky.

I think we’ll see a lot being hung on the propensity of the cartels to usurp the rule of law and monopoly of lawful armed force. But recognize that each organization/group needs to be listed (and justified) individually. They can’t just say ‘the cartels’.

The articulation will be interesting to see when they do it. And I believe they will, but it’s going to be a real challenge.

 

[QV]

Kidnapping and usurping the Mexican government may play a factor.

 

[brihard]

Kidnapping and usurping the Mexican government may play a factor.

Right. But each individual group will need both the ‘harm’ and ‘ideology’ prongs to be satisfied. Some will be straightforward. Others will not. Pragmatically, identifying and hitting those involved with fentanyl will be the priority.

 

[Cloud Cover]

Could the cartels not just become a "listed entity" like the Proud Boys?

Proud Boys were delisted in the US on or About January 23 at the Oval Office.

 

[Quirky]

Starlink back on. For now.

https://www.reuters.com/business/media-telecom/ontario-cancels-starlink-contract-latest-canadian-tariffs-protest-2025-02-03/

Have all the made in US alcohol bottles/cans been removed from the shelves already? On the bus off the bus.

 

[Cloud Cover]

That’s precisely what I understand PMJT to mean. Thing is, ‘listed entity’ means listed under I think it’s s. 83.05, and it ties to the definition of terrorism under s.83.01. The definition of terrorism has, simplified, two prongs: Ideology and harm. Harm is straightforward and easy to make out. Killing/badly hurting people, major destruction, or things that can be reasonably expected to cause same.

The ideology - political, religious, whatever - is much less clear. The proud boys have a clear political ideology that met the definition; for them the harm part was probably tougher to establish. The cartels are harmful as hell, but if they are essentially ‘just (awful) businesses’, forcing them into the 83.01 definition for an 83.05 listing is tricky.

I think we’ll see a lot being hung on the propensity of the cartels to usurp the rule of law and monopoly of lawful armed force. But recognize that each organization/group needs to be listed (and justified) individually. They can’t just say ‘the cartels’.

The articulation will be interesting to see when they do it. And I believe they will, but it’s going to be a real challenge.

Even if they meet the Canadian definition vis a vis their US threat, they actually have to have Canada in their crosshairs as a terrorist target or intended target or conspiring, counselling thereto. Conversely if a Cartel related entity is listed in the US, it may have no nexus to Canada. A well organized Cartel will take advantage of that, by using proxies for example existing organized crime in Canada.

 

[Czech_pivo]

That’s precisely what I understand PMJT to mean. Thing is, ‘listed entity’ means listed under I think it’s s. 83.05, and it ties to the definition of terrorism under s.83.01. The definition of terrorism has, simplified, two prongs: Ideology and harm. Harm is straightforward and easy to make out. Killing/badly hurting people, major destruction, or things that can be reasonably expected to cause same.

The ideology - political, religious, whatever - is much less clear. The proud boys have a clear political ideology that met the definition; for them the harm part was probably tougher to establish. The cartels are harmful as hell, but if they are essentially ‘just (awful) businesses’, forcing them into the 83.01 definition for an 83.05 listing is tricky.

I think we’ll see a lot being hung on the propensity of the cartels to usurp the rule of law and monopoly of lawful armed force. But recognize that each organization/group needs to be listed (and justified) individually. They can’t just say ‘the cartels’.

The articulation will be interesting to see when they do it. And I believe they will, but it’s going to be a real challenge.

Harm - ‘major destruction’ - I would argue that this applies to the Cartels.

 

[Oldgateboatdriver]

I am very disappointed with our Prime Minister (and the President of Mexico). Today, he sacrificed part of our sovereignty at the altar of politics (or maybe he was just scared... and he is one of those types that are scared to be scared, which makes you a lousy negotiator.)

We have now set the tone that every time in the next four years that Trump threatens us economically, we will agree to do the US's bidding at our own expense.

That is not negotiation, that is cowardice.

We have agreed to do all these things that were not on our political radar for Trump and what did we get in return? Nothing - just 30 days until it starts all over again.

And we didn't negotiate anything. We didn't put any Canadian reciprocal demands before Trump. We didn't bargain to get anything for Canada. Why? Because the Trudeau government had no time to prepare nor did they even know what we would be "ordered" to do in the talk with Trump. And we didn't have our own list of wants ready to go.

Personally, had I been PM, Knowing that last night on TV that Trump said he would talk to us and Mexico Monday morning , I would have had the personnel handling communications this morning answer: "Sorry, the PM is not available to talk to you at this time, but will gladly take your call this afternoon after 3:30" (This sets the tone that Trump will not dictate the schedule, but that from now on, it will have to be mutually agreed). Then in the afternoon, I would have said nothing: I would have left Trump make all his points and noted them, then told him we would get back to him, probably with demands of our own. Then I would have made the simple point that we don't negotiate with a gun to our head and that the actual negotiations would begin only after the tariffs were permanently off the table and don't bother to call us before then to start negotiations.

I would then have informed all the medias on the tenor of the conversation and that the ball was in Trump's court if he wishes to negotiate anything.

The way to handle bully negotiators is not found in the Art of the deal (which is only the bully's bible), it found ion the reasoned negotiation techniques taught at the Harvard negotiation Project.

 

[IKnowNothing]

"The tariffs announced on Saturday will be paused for a 30-day period to see whether or not a final economic deal with Canada can be structured," he said.

JT did a solid job on the brinksmanship- met nose to nose and blinked in a largely performative way. Didn't escalate, but didn't roll over. Bought time.

But this was always just the weigh in. The main event is coming. And for as much as I hate DJT, he has successfully reframed the nature of this relationship as one where we are negotiating to forestall tariffs.

 

[brihard]

Even if they meet the Canadian definition vis a vis their US threat, they actually have to have Canada in their crosshairs as a terrorist target or intended target or conspiring, counselling thereto. Conversely if a Cartel related entity is listed in the US, it may have no nexus to Canada. A well organized Cartel will take advantage of that, by using proxies for example existing organized crime in Canada.

No they don’t. There’s no statutory requirement for a Canadian nexus. We’ve listed all kinds of 83.05terrorist entities that have had nothing to do with Canada. The listing criteria ties to the 83.01 definition of “terrorist activity”, which is explicitly “in or outside Canada”.

 

[The Bread Guy]

This is the way. Hopefully he backs off the ledge because any Canadian alternative is trash compared to Starlink.

Not impossible this is just a bargaining chip/negotiation position - Lord knows he’s course corrected/flip flopped before - but it sucks that the Canadian solution is so much crappier.

Edited to add: missed the “snowshoes back on” post up thread.

 

[brihard]

I am very disappointed with our Prime Minister (and the President of Mexico). Today, he sacrificed part of our sovereignty at the altar of politics (or maybe he was just scared... and he is one of those types that are scared to be scared, which makes you a lousy negotiator.)

We have now set the tone that every time in the next four years that Trump threatens us economically, we will agree to do the US's bidding at our own expense.

That is not negotiation, that is cowardice.

We have agreed to do all these things that were not on our political radar for Trump and what did we get in return? Nothing - just 30 days until it starts all over again.

And we didn't negotiate anything. We didn't put any Canadian reciprocal demands before Trump. We didn't bargain to get anything for Canada. Why? Because the Trudeau government had no time to prepare nor did they even know what we would be "ordered" to do in the talk with Trump. And we didn't have our own list of wants ready to go.

Personally, had I been PM, Knowing that last night on TV that Trump said he would talk to us and Mexico Monday morning , I would have had the personnel handling communications this morning answer: "Sorry, the PM is not available to talk to you at this time, but will gladly take your call this afternoon after 3:30" (This sets the tone that Trump will not dictate the schedule, but that from now on, it will have to be mutually agreed). Then in the afternoon, I would have said nothing: I would have left Trump make all his points and noted them, then told him we would get back to him, probably with demands of our own. Then I would have made the simple point that we don't negotiate with a gun to our head and that the actual negotiations would begin only after the tariffs were permanently off the table and don't bother to call us before then to start negotiations.

I would then have informed all the medias on the tenor of the conversation and that the ball was in Trump's court if he wishes to negotiate anything.

The way to handle bully negotiators is not found in the Art of the deal (which is only the bully's bible), it found ion the reasoned negotiation techniques taught at the Harvard negotiation Project.

Partly disagreed. We didn’t actually concede much at all.

We threatened equal reciprocal counter tariffs. We’ve pledged “10,000 front line border personnel”- not new personnel, just personnel, CBSA has 17,000 employees. Not sure how many RCMP IBET employ, but RCMP and provincial/municipal police are already augmenting border work in their respective jurisdictions. 10,000 will likely not be a hard figure to creatively achieve for the necessary amount of time until this simmers down. Many police will probably be able to be truthfully double-counted as working Fentanyl in some capacity and also being part of border security.

A ‘Fentanyl czar’ is meaningless; probably some RCMP Org Crime Superintendent will get his or her bump to Chief Superintendent and 90% of their job will already exist. Or someone in Public Safety will get a new ADM spot while another closely related one goes quietly unfilled. We already committed $1.3 billion, are already procuring new kit… An intelligence priorities declaration is simply that; some criminal and security intelligence focus will shift but that was happening already, and the December border announcement already threw CSE in the game. Another $200 mil is not a huge spend.

A ‘strike force’ for money laundering and countering Fentanyl… Ok, sounds like joint force operations. So RCMP, FINTRAC, and CBSA will share some projects with FBI, FINCEN, and HSI. Nothing really new there, if they want to build some kind of FentaNORAD, they can go nuts. It won’t add much capability.

Listing cartels as terrorist entities won’t really do anything new, save for potentially shift which parts of the RCMP bureaucracy oversee investigations. The stuff they’re doing is criminal anyway, and adding the ability to tack a few section 83 offences likely won’t add anything. Prosecutors will probably eschew the added complications of terrorism offences. The risk of charges failing on the ‘ideology’ prong of 83.01 is high, so why complicate things? It may not out much additional burden on RCMP national security as I first speculated if Public Prosecution Service of Canada don’t see a need to go the terrorism route.

This isn’t a full nothingburger, but it ain’t a big beef patty now that I’ve had time to reflect. Trump wanted to be theatrical, we’ve given him theatre. We have made relatively modest additional commitments, many of them sort of a shell game, to provide him with an off-ramp from what was going to be some significant self-inflicted economic damage. We also kept the concessions entirely within the scope of the demands relevant to the executive order and not any of the new bullshit he was throwing at the wall. Not to say he won’t be back with that in a few months, but we have a heads up now of the strategic and economic risks we need to work to mitigate.

 

[PrairieFella]

I have a question
Lots of people saying fuck Trump, let's piss him off with our own tariffs. Ignore his wishes to stop fentanyl and terrorists going south from here. We can afford to live a little tighter and cheaper to make our point.
Really? How about all those people at rock bottom, living in trudeauvilles already? How about those who are just on the edge, giving up meals to buy gas for their 2-3 jobs, do they now move to the trudeauvilles? Those sites are about to suffer a big increase in residents.
It's nice to sit warm and dry in our homes, with our great job or retirement keeping us that way. A huge amount of Canadians don't have these advantages. And here is trudeau changing his emergency funding plan from 'pandemic' to 'tariff war' and is about to throw millions and millions back into the ether, where it will disappear without helping Canadians again. I'll bet we have the same companies and individuals bilking the system again. There was no repercussions for cheating last time, how many millions will go missing again.

Trudeau's plan and implementation will go the same ham fisted, irresponsible, bank breaking way his pandemic action did. All he did was dust the last solution off and change the cover page.

This is not the way out of this. Our freeloader status has been called out and our only response is to stick out our tongue and blow raspberries at America.

Trudeau loves this chaos. He's not going to fix it. Him, Carney, et al need this crisis to grow so they can keep scaring Canadians and terrorizing them to stay in line and depend on liberal solutions.

Where is the bipartisan commission? Or are we going to let the liberals drive the train without input from the opposition. Or be content to let them and the orange liberals drive it over a cliff?

Who cares how much hardship we can bring to the Americans? How it will affect them? Worry about Canadians. This is not a war. This is not spiteful. Trump is doing what he thinks best for his country and citizens, even if we think it's personal. It's a negotiation. Trump has thrown his first card, now we need to see how low he will go and to find out where our common ground is so we can grow that.

Trudeau is as useless, in this, as tits on a bull.

As I reservist whose real job is adjacent to immigration, I can assure most of the border jumpers, drugs and guns come this way, not the other way. The immigration stuff is window dressing and has no merits to stand on.

 

[lenaitch]

So we'll be paying $100m in cancelation fees and not get any internet?

He's not banning Starlink in Ontario (even if he physically could). He's terminating direct contracts between Starlink and the government. I'm not sure what they are except one.

 

[lenaitch]

Well this is an interesting approach. I thought Scott Moe is supposed to be one of the smart ones.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/troops-border-poilievre-1.7449077

Earlier Monday, Saskatchewan Premier Scott Moe suggested Ottawa look into making the CBSA a branch of the Canadian Armed Forces.
The premier said it would make it easier to deploy military troops along the border. "Thereby addressing concerns President Trump has raised," he said. Moe also suggested the Canadian Armed Forces absorbing the CBSA would help Canada get closer to meeting NATO's military investment benchmark of two per cent of gross domestic product.

 

[Jarnhamar]

He's not banning Starlink in Ontario (even if he physically could). He's terminating direct contracts between Starlink and the government. I'm not sure what they are except one.

Right.

The starlink was for remote hard to reach communities.

So there's the possibility we'll still pay Starlink millions of dollars and the Canadians in remote communities' won't get any internet.

This is the danger of knee jerk reactions reaching for low hanging fruit.

 

[brihard]

Right.

The starlink was for remote hard to reach communities.

So there's the possibility we'll still pay Starlink millions of dollars and the Canadians in remote communities' won't get any internet.

This is the danger of knee jerk reactions reaching for low hanging fruit.

I suspect I was right in my guess earlier that it was conditional. It’s an economic impact to hold out as a counter if the U.S. circles back to economic belligerence, as are many of the actions provinces have undertaken of their own initiatives. Going after a company directly linked to Musk punches above its weight, too.

 

[IKnowNothing]

Trump wanted to be theatrical, we’ve given him theatre. We have made relatively modest additional commitments, many of them sort of a shell game, to provide him with an off-ramp from what was going to be some significant self-inflicted economic damage. We also kept the concessions entirely within the scope of the demands relevant to the executive order and not any of the new bullshit he was throwing at the wall. Not to say he won’t be back with that in a few months, but we have a heads up now of the strategic and economic risks we need to work to mmitigate.

Well said. And I don't think we should underestimate the extent to which the firmness of our initial response created this soft off ramp. Nothing that happened today couldnt have been asked for and given last week. He/they wanted to pull the trigger and see what happened, and I don't think it went to plan.

I got a major "the lady doth protest too much, methinks" vibe watching a Hassett interview today. "Trade war? What trade war, silly Canadians just needed to read the EO and ignore everything the President has said in the last two months about trade, what a misunderstanding"

 

[Remius]

Right.

The starlink was for remote hard to reach communities.

So there's the possibility we'll still pay Starlink millions of dollars and the Canadians in remote communities' won't get any internet.

This is the danger of knee jerk reactions reaching for low hanging fruit.

At the time Ford said he didn’t care if he had to pay a fine if any.

 

[lenaitch]

Right.

The starlink was for remote hard to reach communities.

So there's the possibility we'll still pay Starlink millions of dollars and the Canadians in remote communities' won't get any internet.

This is the danger of knee jerk reactions reaching for low hanging fruit.

Thanks. I figured as much. Apparently the contract was only signed in November for 2025 roll-out. Cancellation on hold (for now). It's part of a federal-provincial package - we're getting fibre down the road. Looking forward to it - Starlink ain't cheap and it's just internet. They don't do TV or phone packages.

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