The US also demanded a veto over Canada's future trade agreements with third countries and a right of first refusal on critical mineral exports from Canada.
No Canadian negociator would ever agree to such terms which would sign away Canadian soveereignty.
Sometimes I think we are back in the Banana Wars era of American foreign policy.
My theory on Trump has always been that he THINKS he can return the USA to that sorta supposedly grand era, BUT thinks he's found a way to legitimize it by using freely-entered(at least legally speaking) negotiations rather than military aggression.
As someone who believes that soft-power is an indispensable part of any long-term imperialist agenda, I will say that Trump REALLY doesn't know how to play that card at all. The closest I've seen to anyone in his admin demonstrating a feeling for local political culture in their annexationist rhetoric is Bessant saying something like "Albertans are a hard-working, entreprenurial people", which is totally boilerplate and doesn't actually address any precise issues that might be of concern to Albertans beyond the far-right fringe. And they have completely incinerated themselves with public sentiment everywhere else in Canada, with the PQ, an economically continentalist party previously jaunty about not letting the Trump bogeyman deter them from a referendum, now saying they won't hold one while Trump is in the White House.
...the PQ, an economically continentalist party previously jaunty about not letting the Trump bogeyman deter them from a referendum, [is] now saying they won't hold one while Trump is in the White House.
Not that I think grabbing Quebec would be in Trump or the USA's interests at all, in fact, it's probably the LAST province they'd wanna try and assimilate. But if you're seriously interested in annexing some of the more absorbable provinces, anything that weakens the unity of the overall nation is probably a good thing.
The US also demanded a veto over Canada's future trade agreements with third countries and a right of first refusal on critical mineral exports from Canada.
No Canadian negociator would ever agree to such terms which would sign away Canadian soveereignty.
Sometimes I think we are back in the Banana Wars era of American foreign policy.
Trump’s negotiators knew that the Canadians would never accept any such veto. It was a device the US government could use to show that the Canadians were being obstructive.
Only a moron would think that could be the case of course, but this is the world we are in.
One of Trump's tweets today contained a reference to Rob Ford, with the implication that Doug is an inferior leader compared to his brother.
A rhetorical tactic of debatable wisdom, since I think that on both sides of the border, Rob Ford is remembered, if at all, largely as an unintentionally comedic buffoon. Given how little Doug publicizes his connection to Rob, we can probably conclude he rightly regards his late brother as an embarrassment, and thus a better line would be something like "He's even stupider than his white-trash cokehead brother!!"
I am not fond of Doug Ford, but rather liked his straightforward response to trump in an interview this morning: "Well, he can kiss my ass, as far as I'm concerned." Unlike trump, he's not usually a man who expects to be kissed on all four cheeks by anyone.
The thing that worries me is that there doesn’t appear to be any rhyme or reason to this other than (as Krugman puts it) a dominance display. And obviously Trump doesn’t really care about harming American interests in the process, unless of course they happen to be his own interests….
It will be interesting to see what we come up with by way of retaliation. There was clearly a concern earlier that some measures might be counterproductive but maybe the risk-benefit calculus on that isn’t what it used to be.
It will be interesting to see what we come up with by way of retaliation. There was clearly a concern earlier that some measures might be counterproductive but maybe the risk-benefit calculus on that isn’t what it used to be.
It's basically asymmetrical warfare. They wanna threaten a shitloada jobs and company-towns in Canada? We threaten a smaller number of jobs in the USA, plus maybe hike up the price of gas for a bit, in the hopes that the damage on the American side will be sensed on a more, shall we say, visceral level.
The latest At Issue mini-panel on the broken down trade talks. Chantal Hebert's analogy to playing strip poker in a bathing suit was priceless. https://www.cbc.ca/player/play/video/9.7319110
From CBC.ca reporting on the Canadian Government's live press conference.
Canada hitting back with counter-tariffs
Darren Major
As promised, the federal government is introducing counter-tariffs on a swath of U.S. goods. These new retaliatory tariffs will have a sliding scale of 15, 25 and 50 per cent.
The new levies will hit about $27.6 billion worth of U.S. goods, Ottawa said, including seafood, certain paper products, furniture, apparel, tools and motorcycles.
The heftiest fees of 50 per cent are being slapped on certain dairy products, cosmetics and some lumber products.
Steel and aluminum products were previously under a retaliatory tariff of 25 per cent, but that will increase to 50 per cent.
These countermeasures are set to go into force on Sept. 8.
Comments
My theory on Trump has always been that he THINKS he can return the USA to that sorta supposedly grand era, BUT thinks he's found a way to legitimize it by using freely-entered(at least legally speaking) negotiations rather than military aggression.
As someone who believes that soft-power is an indispensable part of any long-term imperialist agenda, I will say that Trump REALLY doesn't know how to play that card at all. The closest I've seen to anyone in his admin demonstrating a feeling for local political culture in their annexationist rhetoric is Bessant saying something like "Albertans are a hard-working, entreprenurial people", which is totally boilerplate and doesn't actually address any precise issues that might be of concern to Albertans beyond the far-right fringe. And they have completely incinerated themselves with public sentiment everywhere else in Canada, with the PQ, an economically continentalist party previously jaunty about not letting the Trump bogeyman deter them from a referendum, now saying they won't hold one while Trump is in the White House.
Not that I think grabbing Quebec would be in Trump or the USA's interests at all, in fact, it's probably the LAST province they'd wanna try and assimilate. But if you're seriously interested in annexing some of the more absorbable provinces, anything that weakens the unity of the overall nation is probably a good thing.
Trump’s negotiators knew that the Canadians would never accept any such veto. It was a device the US government could use to show that the Canadians were being obstructive.
Only a moron would think that could be the case of course, but this is the world we are in.
https://paulkrugman.substack.com/p/the-moose-that-roared?
So Canada's the "perverted" ex-girlfriend who went down on you in a theatre?
A rhetorical tactic of debatable wisdom, since I think that on both sides of the border, Rob Ford is remembered, if at all, largely as an unintentionally comedic buffoon. Given how little Doug publicizes his connection to Rob, we can probably conclude he rightly regards his late brother as an embarrassment, and thus a better line would be something like "He's even stupider than his white-trash cokehead brother!!"
The thing that worries me is that there doesn’t appear to be any rhyme or reason to this other than (as Krugman puts it) a dominance display. And obviously Trump doesn’t really care about harming American interests in the process, unless of course they happen to be his own interests….
It will be interesting to see what we come up with by way of retaliation. There was clearly a concern earlier that some measures might be counterproductive but maybe the risk-benefit calculus on that isn’t what it used to be.
It's basically asymmetrical warfare. They wanna threaten a shitloada jobs and company-towns in Canada? We threaten a smaller number of jobs in the USA, plus maybe hike up the price of gas for a bit, in the hopes that the damage on the American side will be sensed on a more, shall we say, visceral level.
Canada hitting back with counter-tariffs
Darren Major
As promised, the federal government is introducing counter-tariffs on a swath of U.S. goods. These new retaliatory tariffs will have a sliding scale of 15, 25 and 50 per cent.
The new levies will hit about $27.6 billion worth of U.S. goods, Ottawa said, including seafood, certain paper products, furniture, apparel, tools and motorcycles.
The heftiest fees of 50 per cent are being slapped on certain dairy products, cosmetics and some lumber products.
Steel and aluminum products were previously under a retaliatory tariff of 25 per cent, but that will increase to 50 per cent.
These countermeasures are set to go into force on Sept. 8.