US president, Donald Trump, has hit Canada with a 25% tariff on almost everything. Things are going to get expensive.
Get ready to pay more for everything – especially if you are an American. Early last month, Trump made it clear that he intends on slapping Canada with a 25% tariff. At the time, I pointed out that all this talk about securing the Canada US border was little more than a red herring and that he’s just going to do it.
In the weeks since, the Canadian mainstream media started weirdly convincing themselves that the border was still at the heart of the issue. As a result, they started having all sorts of bizarre conclusions about how if the Canadian government beefed up border security, then maybe the tariffs won’t happen. Why did they come to those conclusions? Hell if I know.
Then, on Friday, during a press conference, Trump was asked if Canada (or Mexico) was going to get hit with these tariffs on Saturday. Trump unusually was straight forward and said that yes, the tariffs are proceeding. When he was asked if there is anything the countries could do to avoid the tariffs. Trump said “no”. Then, Trump was pressed and was asked if there were any concessions the countries can make. Trump, again, in a very straight forward manner, said that he isn’t looking for concessions. Normally, Trump issues word salad responses and goes on bizarre rants and tangents that are filled with lies and conspiracy theories, so him being so direct with his answers was quite unusual.
As a result, the narrative from the Canadian mainstream media that securing the border would be Canada’s “get out of jail free” card went splat. One CBC reporter responded to all of this by saying that listening to Trump was like having puzzle pieces thrown at you and you have to pick up the pieces and piece together what he’s really saying. Under normal circumstances, that reporter is sort of right because Trump is pretty unintelligible in his answers. In this case, though, Trump is throwing one piece puzzles. There’s nothing to decipher here. He’s actually giving straight answers. So, why that reporter made that analogy at this point is a mystery to me because it didn’t make any sense in that scenario.
One thing I will credit the mainstream media for, however, is that they are doing a reasonably good job at explaining the consequences of all of this. In short, everything is going to get a heck of a lot more expensive. What’s more, tariffs are something the American’s pay, not the country that pays the tariffs.
Separately, I’ll give credit to the federal government for at least having some good responses to this. For one, the Canadian government said that they intend on fighting back with counter-measures. With the exception of the Alberta premier who seemingly advocated for unconditional surrender to the US, the Canadian federal government and several provinces are pushing ahead with counter-measures in the form of tariffs of their own.
Yes, there are no winners in trade wars and yes, Canada alone can’t win a tit-for-tat trade war with the US. The thing is, Trump is pushing for tariffs on everyone around the world. This includes tariffs on Mexico, China, Europe, and the moon for all we know. If Canada were to work with other countries and collectively pushed back against the US, then Canada would have a fighting chance to defend itself effectively against the US. Canada needs to focus on working with international partners to not only fight back, but broaden the countries trade relationships with other countries. With the latter point, that should’ve happened decades ago, but our fearless leaders decided “business as usual” was the better way to go. Yeah, that decision is finally biting Canada in the rear there.
Regardless, though, here we are today and Canada was hit with the tariffs. From the CBC:
President Donald Trump launched a trade war against Canada on Saturday by imposing a 25 per cent tariff on virtually all goods from the U.S.’s neighbour — an unprecedented strike against a longstanding ally that has the potential to throw the economy into a tailspin.
Trump’s long-threatened plan to inflict economic pain on Canada has materialized on the day he said it would, and it includes a 10 per cent tariff on Canadian energy products, according to a senior Canadian official who shared details of Trump’s plan with CBC News.
These potentially devastating tariffs will take effect on Tuesday and remain in place until Trump is satisfied Canada is doing enough to stop the flow of fentanyl into the U.S., the government official said.
Experts have said trade action of this magnitude has the potential to shave billions of dollars off Canada’s gross domestice product (GDP) and plunge the country into a painful recession requiring government stimulus to prop up the economy.
Indeed, the Canadian government has been floating the idea of a stimulus program to try and stave off some of the economic pain being inflicted on us for absolutely no good reason. Again, this is something I personally agree with because, well, what other option is there? Let people starve on the streets? Come on.
Already, Canadian’s have felt the pain of the long-standing affordability crisis. With this added pain, things will become even more unaffordable. Already, the Canadian and US stock market took a hit on Friday, already wiping out huge amounts of value from the markets. So, if you happened to have squirrelled some of your money away into general investments, even you are feeling the pinch on things. What’s more, I wouldn’t be surprised if the slide deepens come Monday and into the rest of the week.
While Trump has pushed for Canada to cease to exist by absorbing it into the US, that is simply not fucking negotiable as far as I’m concerned.
At any rate, everyone is going to get hurt by this. Everyone. Everything about this is completely unnecessary and it’s all because Trump heard the word “deficit” that he decided to do this. It demonstrates complete economic cluelessness at the very least.
Like most people, the hope is that these tariffs are going to be temporary. The thing is, unless Trump starts feeling the pain, he won’t have any incentive to stop. He doesn’t care about anything or anyone other than himself. That’s why countermeasures are so important at this point.
At any rate, all of this really sucks. Welcome to the world of Trump where everyone suffers sooner or later.
