20th+: trade

The dimwitted, uneducated bully opened his ill-advised economic bullying tariffs on allies (25%) and enemies (10%) ... Canada and Mexico promptly retaliated. Pootin must have been delighted. When markets closed on 25-4-3, DUHmented notified an alarmed world of truly idiotic "Liberation Day" tariffs on most countries (except Ruscia). The best interpretation of the typically stupid naming is "liberation from your money". Tuvalu? Turks and Caicos? The orange blob should be in an orange jumpsuit.

25-7-19 American media outlets either fail to understand that Canadians are boycotting the US and its products because of the threat of becoming a 51st State and not the threat of tariffs, or they are reluctant to admit that to a money-always-first American audience:

Comment:
When I watch these reports, it is disappointing that you always seem to avoid asking what the underlying problem is. Let me tell you, and from my point of view there are two of them:

1) Canadians are not crossing the border into America because they don't feel safe. The intrusive, ideological questioning we've all heard about is making us feel unsafe: Anyone who has in the past talked disparagingly about Trump, his government, or the 77 million ignorant sheep who like him is fodder for border guard abuse, for arrest, detention, and ultimately deportation with a legal threat that they won't be allowed back for a given period of years (usually 5 years), or ever. And those who do manage to get across the border intact and without phone or computer equipment being impounded are at risk of arbitrary arrest and detention by ICE - especially if the don't look "aryan".

2) The disrespect we have received from Trump and his minions, both with the "51st State" threats and with the arbitrary, irresponsible tariffs thrown at us for no apparent (real) reason. This is the one that Americans often refer to, as if the love of money is as important to Canadians as it is to Americans. It's not the financial or economic threats; it's the disrespect. We have been America's closest friend for many, many decades, and to be treated like this is like being a wife stabbed in the back by her husband for no reason, with no provocation, and for no purpose. What's that wife going to do? Seek help from people outside, and look for a safe shelter away from her husband. That's what Canada is doing right now. And for our husband to try to coax us back home with offers of small gifts and promises of better treatment won't work. We have left home. And when Geoff Freeman asks us to come back, he must realise that once we have been seriously abused there's no way we will trust America again. But I suspect he just doesn't accept that his country has abused us. And to say that by staying away we are harming the small businesses just across the border, in NY and Vermont, is victim-shaming. The culprit is your President. All the time you accept what he says and don't identify him as your problem, we are keeping well clear of you.

An afterthought on the tariffs: If they represent "trade deals" (as Trump has repeatedly said), they also represent the terms under which other countries will be allowed to trade with USA. All those countries are quickly learning that there's little point in negotiating with Trump, because any agreement is not worth the paper it is written on by the time the sun goes down, and Trump always feels able to renege on agreements he personally has signed, in order to demonstrate to his voters how strong he thinks he is. So if those are the conditions of trade, and there's no point in negotiating, so be it: All the countries in the world will trade with each other and not with the USA. That's why Canada has been so quick to set up new trade relationships with the countries in Europe, and has set up a ship-borne trade across the Pacific in LNG, rather than piping it to USA at cheap rate and letting them sell it on at a profit. Trump's tariffs are not raising money by taxing other countries; they are isolating America from any trade at all.

Speaking personally, we (in Canada) have had some pretty big expenses this year so far, including a new car and a new snowblower. We did a lot of research to make sure that nothing we bought would end up with our money filtering back into America in any way. We ended up buying a VW EV, built in Germany and imported directly to Canada, with no connection to USA. The home charger we've ordered is built in Canada by a Canadian company. Our only compromise is to have bought an adapter from the Tesla NACS to CCS, because all the other brands (none Canadian) were of suspect quality or safety. But that is about 1/4% of the total purchase cost - that's all we are prepared to give America.

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