Trump shitposts fail to win support for Canadian trade
war
Liz Dye
Yes, Trump actually
posted this.
 |
| The Premier of Ontario has an answer |
Donald Trump spent the past week cozying up to North Korea
and attacking Canada. Whatever claim the US had to be a beacon of free trade —
not to mention moral leadership — has been demolished like the East Wing of the
White House.
And so it was probably inevitable the president would dig
the prototypical failed economic policy of the 20th century out of history’s
dumpster and operationalize it against our closest ally.
Smoot-Hawley tariffs are back, baby! Sure, aggressive levies
cutting off trade as a means of stimulating domestic industry never worked
for those people. In fact, it effectively crashed the global
economy and turned a recession into the Great Depression. But it may work for
us!
It will not work for us. But it may make us so
roundly despised that it galvanizes other countries to reimagine the world
order so as to cut out the one, heretofore indispensable nation.
USMCA? Never heard of it!
Upon returning to office, Trump immediately took a Sharpie
to “the most modern, up-to-date, and balanced trade agreement in the history of
our country, with the most advanced protections for workers ever developed”
— also
known as the USMCA, which he himself negotiated in 2018 as a
replacement for NAFTA
"We don't need anything that Canada has, we don't need
anything that Mexico has, but they need everything that we have,” he blustered in
June. “We don't need their cars, we don't need their lumber, we don't need
their energy, we don't need anything that they have."
This is self-evidently ridiculous.
Canada supplies roughly 80% of the potash American farmers
use as fertilizer. Midwest refineries are built to run on heavy Canadian sour
crude, and the pipeline infrastructure simply doesn't exist to swap in lighter,
American-produced oil from places like Texas.
Canadian hydropower fuels a
significant share of the electricity supply in New York and New England. And
the auto and auto parts trade between the two countries, already strained by
Trump's steel and aluminum tariffs, is about as integrated as two countries'
economies get.
And yet Trump negotiated as if Canadians could never say no,
even as he demanded crippling concessions and lobbed humiliating insults at our
stalwart ally. Trade talks were at an impasse after 18 months of threats and
taunts about annexing our northern neighbor. But in July the prospect of an
additional 50 percent levy on a sprawling list of Canadian goods forced
Canadians back to the negotiating table. And last week, with the major
principles agreed, Trump congratulated both sides for striking “a very fair
deal.”
"Our farmers are going to be thrilled; our
manufacturers are going to be thrilled," he gushed.
"And basically, we have no tariffs going into Canada anymore."
Instead talks collapsed Friday night, when Prime Minister
Mark Carney announced he
was suspending negotiations and recalling Canada’s negotiators to Ottawa.
By Saturday morning, the Trump administration had
levied tariffs on
roughly $20 billion worth of Canadian goods — hockey sticks, building
materials, beer, cheese. Carney promises dollar-for-dollar retaliation, hitting
US steel, dairy, appliances, agricultural equipment, pulp, paper, and
electronics starting September 8.
Art of no deal
The New
York Times and Washington
Post confirm that the deal fell apart because the Trump administration
attempted to extract a fresh round of concessions at the last minute.
After domestic companies aggressively lobbied Commerce
Secretary Howard Lutnick, the US backpedaled on reductions in steel and
aluminum tariffs. Plus Lutnick insisted on excluding Ontario-built heavy trucks
(the Ford F-350, F-450, and GM Silverado) in hopes of forcing carmakers to
relocate production to the US.
And if you’ve got a problem, that crank Peter Navarro can
make it worse.
“Navarro and Lutnick were both yelling at Greer saying:
‘What are you doing? This is stupid. You know, we’re not giving these things
away,’” a source told the Post.
Trade Representative Jamieson Greer said the Canadians would
never go for it, and he was right.
America’s last-minute demands included: dropping French
language labeling and content requirements, an absolute non-starter for the
country’s restive Québécois population; getting rid of “buy Canadian”
government initiatives while leaving similar “buy American” measures in place;
and restoring US-produced liquor to Canadian shelves. That last decision lies
with each province, and Ontario Premier Doug Ford told Carney he wouldn’t go
along with it.
Trump responded with a grotesque post comparing
Ford to his dead brother, calling Carney “Governor,” and lying about Canada’s
unemployment rate. (In reality, Canada has a higher labor force participation
rate than the US.)
The president is currently shitposting about
changing the name of Lake Ontario, “in that we don’t expect to be doing much
business with Ontario any longer.”
But what actually killed the deal was a demand that Canada
subordinate its independent trade policy to the ever-changing whims of the
United States — specifically, that Ottawa agree in advance to match tariffs
imposed by Washington, even when it would override Canada’s existing trade
agreements.
Per the New York Times:
The United States wanted Canada to apply US tariffs to other
countries, particularly when it came to steel, now and in the future: If the
United States changed policy and place higher tariffs on certain goods from a
third country, Canada would need to do the same, even if it already had a trade
agreement in place, a Canadian official said.
American negotiators characterize this as a measure to
prevent Canada becoming a passthrough conduit for goods excluded by US tariffs.
But no sovereign country could voluntarily surrender its trade policy, much
less yoke itself to an erratic neighbor whose maniac leader imposes a new
tariff scheme every week.
“Last spring, I warned that America is trying to break us so
that they can own us. And I promised: ‘That will never, ever happen,’”
Carney said Saturday.
“We are keeping that promise. Canada is becoming stronger and less dependent on
America. We are already giving ourselves more than they can take away.”
This echoes a major speech Carney
gave in January at the World Economic Forum in Davos, in which he exhorted
middle powers to band together rather than rely on the United States to ensure
their national and financial security.
“You cannot live within the lie of mutual benefit through
integration, when integration becomes the source of your subordination,” he
warned, adding that “hegemons cannot continually monetize their relationships.
Allies will diversify to hedge against uncertainty.”
And Canada is putting its money where its mouth is. Only two
nations imposed retaliatory tariffs in response to Trump’s two prior rounds of
levies: Canada and China. In fact, that response is now being cited as
justification for the latest tariffs.
As America reverts to naked suzerainty, Canada hopes to lead
the international resistance movement — yet another reason the Trump
administration was so insistent on blocking the country’s power to enter into
its own international trade deals.
But a funny thing happens when a world leader actually puts
in the effort to explain his policy choices. Carney’s approval rating is
at 60
percent, and polls show that 76
percent of Canadians support his decision to walk away from trade
talks with the US.
The fallout from these tariffs will absolutely hit Canadians
harder than Americans, with potential job losses in the tens of thousands. But
Canadians are gearing up for the fight, and a movement to boycott US-made goods
is picking up steam. In contrast, Americans feel no patriotic support for
Trump’s capricious levies. And as Politico points
out, swing state voters really don’t like these tariffs. That
may have an impact in November, with the midterms serving as a referendum on
Trump’s handling of the economy.
Naturally Susan Collins is concerned.
And with Trump’s tariffs about to increase costs for farmers, builders, and
autoworkers, she’s got a reason to be — as do her fellow Republicans in
Minnesota, Michigan, Wisconsin, Ohio, and Iowa. Because Canada’s leaders have
done the work to ensure that their citizens are prepared to absorb the pain
from this trade war.
Carney spent the past nine months making the case that
Canada must fight back against the United States to ensure its survival. Trump
spent that time posting AI slop and pretending that the US has nothing to lose.
One of these men has a 30 percent approval rating 70 days before an election.
Looks like it’s time for Tariff Man to test his theories …
again.
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