vastardTrump promises 25% tariffs on steel and aluminum imports — including from Canada
But we made a CZAR! A CZAAAAR~!
gonzo-rand19We didn't make a czar, we are changing the title of a position that already exists. Just because Trump is a bully doesn't mean he can't be placated by sweet nothings that caress his ego.
If Trump wants to play a game, we can play too. If you think that's rolling over, that's a you problem. Trump is obviously using this situation to allow him to declare a false national emergency to bypass Congress. These actions are technically illegal under both US and international law.
In a world where lying had consequences, this wouldn't be happening. To expect Trudeau to fight back aggressively against a nation with the most powerful military in the world while it's controlled by the most volatile and capricious politician in modern history is to expect it to rain cream soda - i.e., it's stupid.
It appears the sarcasm in my czar lament wasn’t apparent.
Without sarcasm, I do think Trump is making a game or a joke out of threatening our sovereignty because of his size and military advantage.
His miscalculation is that he isn’t an emperor… yet. Economic consequences to tariffs on Americans will eventually become unpopular enough that republicans will collectively trust his arm to back down. The rumblings are already happening.
I doubt we are even changing his title. We just need a name for when they ask who it is.
And Americans will suffer…
If cutting power is still on the table, sometime in the next 2 hours would be hilarious.
Aluminum uses a lot of electricity to manufacture too.
Sure would be a shame if it suddenly became uneconomical to manufacture in the US.
It’s already practically uneconomical to so, Canada produces about 4x more Aluminium than the US and the US imports about 80% of the Canadian production.
Canada doesn’t have to budge on this one, the US can’t just spin up that much Aluminium production in any reasonable time line, they’re going to keep importing it and just paying the tariff themselves.
TroyWe could stack export tariffs on there. Bureaucratically difficult since we currently don’t really do export tariffs. But it would be an interesting political response.
Nik282000Would be a shame if Canada had to up the price to make up for the slump in sales. It costs a lot of money to run a smelter and lower production increases the overhead per ton of product.
Not just aluminum, but building factories for anything takes years nowadays. The sheer amount of equipment needed alone is staggering, not to mention that such equipment is usually made from steel and aluminum and is often foreign made.
And this is presuming that the owners want to build the factory as fast as possible. There’s quite a few from Biden’s incentives that are still not anywhere near ready to start producing anything. And that’s presuming that anybody has confidence that the economic environment will stay stable enough to make such a multi-decade investment worthwhile and won’t be reversed because of unexpected tariffs.
The thing is that you invest and build things like factories with a long-term time horizon. One of the things that makes stable western democracies rich is that we have stable governments and a rule of law that makes planning these large, long-term investments easier. With Trump, you have no idea what is happening next month, never mind next decade. And you can assume that most of this crazy stuff will be repealed in 4 years max. So, it is not worth building most of the factories you would need if this were going to be the policy for decades.
As you say, the supply chain is unlikely to shift that much. What will happen are changes in demand. It will hurt both sides.
There is a reason that The Depression was global. You cannot tariff your way to prosperity.
No, actually, I think supply chains will change a lot, but mostly because nobody wants to trade with an unreliable partner unless if the profits are high enough.
US will be paying more for everything, and will have more trouble getting deals made because they will be on a shorter term basis. Not the decade long deals they are used to, but ones that are only months long because you don’t want to be chained to a country when the laws related to your products can change at a moment’s notice.
We export electricity, natural gas, and crude oil. ctvnews.ca/…/can-quebec-cut-energy-exports-to-the…
Can Quebec cut energy exports to the U.S. amid tariff war? An expert says we shouldn’t
As tempting as it may be to take a tit-for-tat approach to the United States tariff war against Canada and turn off the lights to the country’s northeastern states, Concordia University economic professor Moshe Lander warns we may want to take the high road – for our own benefit.
At some point countries need to just stop sending the US anything Trump puts tariffs. He says tariffs on steel would be for “national security”, but I bet having a chunk of their steel supply cut off would be a bigger national security problem than whatever he’s pretending to solve.
I agree with this. It would hurt us tremendously in the short—term but probably not any worse overall. It would certainly drive a resolution more quickly.
UndeariusI guess we shouldn’t be putting any money towards the border then if he’s just going to put tariffs in place anyway.
I think border security is probably a good idea but not for the same reasons.
HellsBelleWe should be upping border security. Keep the southern threat contained.
Ah sweet, so only the tariffs that will bankrupt all the car manufacturers except Tesla. I wonder who’s idea that was.
MohamedWhy wouldnt it affect Tesla as much?
They manufacture a lot more parts on site.
They aren’t making the aluminum which their cars are largely made of.
You’re correct that they will be hit by the tariffs but they won’t be hit by it multiple times. Most other car manufacturers have intermediate part production in Canada so they can end up paying tariffs again and again on the same part.
What is steel and aluminum in terms of attracting tariffs? Are finished parts still considered steel?
Depends on the specific tariff order usually a tariff on steel and aluminum goods would include any product composed of 50%+ that material. Since we don’t yet know the details of the order, it’s not certain but it’s quite likely to include finished parts and full automobiles.
They don’t actually sell a lot of cars
Good.
This will hurt us - a lot - but will absolutely destroy the US.
Frankly, it’s overdue.
Yeah that’s the thing with being a transparent, transactional, narcissistic senile, misogynistic serial grifter. We kinda know you’re up to no good because you telegraph all your intentions.
Is any but the most gullible conservative Canadian fooled by the one month pause? This fucker is coming for our land, our sons and daughters and he will not be dissuaded save by terms he understands.
People are remarkably naive, especially those in decision making positions.
Remember how, during lockdowns and the slow return to normality that followed, many large online businesses made decisions that indicated they believed that consumer behaviour during lockdown would continue after lockdown? Even as all the businesses – *including those behaving thisbway – started forcing people back into the office?
The people behind those decisions really believed things would stay as they were. I’ve spoken to many more of them than I ever expected to, and they all said the same thing: We thought this was the new normal, and so did everyone else in the industry.
People are wantonly and willfully naive when their choice is between believing someing will be good, or believing something will be bad. It’s kind of shocking, particularly in the face of having already gone through the thing before.
I agree, and this is, in my opinion, the best evidence that the brain acts as a rationalization engine more than one of cognition. IE: “feelings don’t care about your facts”. I also don’t expect us to realize this while it’s occuring in our brains, affecting what we laughably call our “judgement”.
Let Trump tax the American people. Will the US suppliers use the profits to reinvest in more supply or with the do the American thing and use the profits for bonuses and stock buy backs.
This is litterally what’s happening with the US oil sector. Trump removed regulations and put up incentives, and the industry just went “thanks for reducing our costs, but we’re not increasing production one bit” and instead just ate up the bigger margins while charging the same amount to their customers.
I have a friend who runs a plant to make stamped steel parts for the auto industry, based in Canada. He’s so ready to increase the prices to offset the tariffs for US customers. The customers already invested big bucks for the tool development and they can’t just source the parts somewhere else. They’ll have no other choice than paying the tariff price increase.
If Trump supporters think that the tariff can magically move productions local…well, I’m being presumptuous by assuming Trump supporters think.
He does not have to “offset the tariffs”. Tariffs are a tax paid by the ones doing the importing. Americans will pay the tariffs.
He just has to resist lowering his prices to help his customers out. This can be hard sometimes but, right now, it should be pretty easy to point the finger at Trump and say there is nothing you can do.
His customers will pay more. He will make the same as before ( assuming demand does not drop ).
You’re right.
I guess there will be a lot of knee jerk reactions to the tariffs as well.
acargitzHe has brought up before that the US government used to get its revenue from tariffs before income taxes were introduced.
The US is running ginormous deficits but their religion doesn’t allow them to raise taxes. So this might be his least bad option (talking about his internal politics, not the actual economics) to start addressing his deficit.
psvrhThe executive branch gets revenue from taxes, independent from congress.
The reason for tariffs is to have a source of funding he and his Project 2025 cronies control without oversight. Need to pay wages for the American Sturmabteilung? This is how you do it.
This worked once, way back in the 19th century. It hasn’t worked since.
Not to mention that they got a massive trade war at the time as well, and seriously strained their international relations. But back then, the US was a nobody nation and nobody cared about them, so going from “nobody” to “annoying joe shmoe” wasn’t a problem. Now everybody watches carefully to see how the US rolls over even in its sleep, so every little thing they do on purpose has a huge rippling impact.
They’re not only starting a trade war when nobody has won a trade war in over a century, but they’re destroying a century of built up trust in the meantime, and economies are built on trust. Without trust, who the hell is willing to sign a deal that lasts more than a few months when the norm is to sign decade long deals?
I don’t debate the insanity of the economics of it. I’m saying they have a problem the solution for which is raising taxes but their stupid religion (bootlicking capital) doesn’t allow it, so he’s trying to raise revenue this way.
A guy I watch ran the numbers about it actually, and the results were funny. Basically, presuming that imports and purchasing trends stayed the same, to replace income tax with tariffs, everything being brought in would have to get a near 100% tariff to cover the difference.
Basically have to double the cost of living in order to cover the lost income from getting rid of income tax.
Well, I hope that pushes Canadians even more to double down on avoiding US product. He didn’t even stick with the 30 days delay in tariffs. Are there still people thinking he might not go ahead with them?! Let’s drop them like a hot potato!
Don’t forget. Alberta and Ontario premiers are calling for appeasement as a RESPONSE to Trump breaking his word a second time to Canada in less than a month.
We’ve got craven liers on both side of the boarder, and we can’t let either of them keep getting away with it.
"Fuck appeasement"
- Poland, 1939.
So he not only blocks the Nippon merger, but he puts tariffs on foreign steel.
Is he just trying to tank the country
Apparently it’s signed now.
Good. Time for Canada to end reliance on an unstable dictatorship.
I mean the steel and aluminum will probably be sold to China so I’m not sure how much better that is in terms of dictatorship, but they are more stable/reliable I suppose.
This is going to cause curtailments at plants, and real hardships for some whole communities.
Aluminum requires vast amounts of electricity to process the bauxite ore. If I remember correctly, the factory in Alma, Quebec uses as much electricity as the entire city of Montreal. It has its own hydroelectric dam to supply this power.
How quickly is Trump going to be able to spin up a power plant to supply something like 400 megawatts of electricity?