Language matters.

The President is empowered by a Congress controlled by a narrow majority. Rather than the individual they have chosen, I am pissed at the Republican party. And disappointed in the American people. The guy? He was always that way and would have continued to be so at a safe distance from the levers of power without his enablers.

It is the American and especially Republican relationship with Canada that is important in this situation. Those are what endure, that person is only momentarily significant. So, where we can choose the narrative, I think that’s important to focus on.

Plus I suspect he likes the sound of his own name.

  • @TransplantedSconie@lemm.ee
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    1573 months ago

    Guys, American here.

    Hit Tesla, Meta, Amazon, hard as fuck. He raised tariffs 25%? Raise theirs 70%. Nail us with 25% on oil and electricity or shit, just shut it the fuck off.

    Nip this fuck face in the bud now or he will just keep keep going.

    • @xmunk@sh.itjust.works
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      873 months ago

      The best suggestion I’ve seen, personally, is just to stop respecting American copyright law’s bullshit.

    • @Phen@lemmy.eco.br
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      3 months ago

      Isn’t Canada in an agreement with the US that trades “no tariffs” for “no infringing on copyright”?

      If the US is imposing tariffs, Canada should now be free to copy any American product.

      Or was I lied to?

      • Arghblarg
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        3 months ago

        This also means Canada should be free of its water transit treaties. Let’s divert water from flowing south over the border.

        Kick Nestle completely out of the country, too – no more cheap access to our water.

        Start right now on new local beef processing faciliities.

        • Phoenixz
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          163 months ago

          Nestle is European, but I’ll always support a witch hunt for those greedy psychopathic fuckers

          • Arghblarg
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            73 months ago

            Thanks for the clarification on Nestle!

            But yeah… agreed, f them it would be wonderful it they got caught in the splash damage.

        • @Albbi@lemmy.ca
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          63 months ago

          Don’t touch the water treaties. A fair bit of water comes north too and we don’t want them treating waterways as a dumping ground that just leaves their country.

          • @HellsBelle@sh.itjust.works
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            83 months ago

            They already are dumping grounds … specifically the Red River that feeds Lake Winnipeg. The phosphorous from American farm runoff creates massive, poisonous blue-green algae blooms every year in the lake, affecting fish stock and animals.

          • Arghblarg
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            63 months ago

            Perhaps. But as I understand it we have the most water of any nation in the world, so we should be more discriminating in what we let leave the border. Even if it’s just a bargaining chip during this tariff war.

            The US hasn’t technically torn up any treaties, so we don’t have to either, let’s just “suspend” them. Seems they have no qualms doing so …

    • Cyborganism
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      123 months ago

      There’s a bit of a problem here though.

      Say we put tariffs on services from Amazon for example. What should they apply to? Amazon the online store and Prime Video? Or should we also apply them on cloud services? Because a LOT of Canadian companies are using their cloud services.

      Even if they switched to Google, wouldn’t we want to tariff them as well for supporting Trump also? Or even Microsoft? They all spent a million $ for his inauguration. And I’d bet they would bend to his demands if push comes to shove.

      We always knew that we depended too much on these companies and it’s never been so obvious than now. When we’re suddenly at the mercy of a psychopath fascists dictator president at the controls of our biggest economic partner.

    • @Someone@lemmy.ca
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      93 months ago

      I don’t know how you could tariff Meta, but I’d love if it was crippled so the essential groups I’m in would move somewhere else. I only ever get served posts from 1 or 2 of my real acquaintances as needles in a haystack of irrelevant trash.

      • @TransplantedSconie@lemm.ee
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        53 months ago

        Oops. Sorry, Meta. We just passed a law that you now have to pay a 300% monthly tax to operate in our country and every 3rd Tuesday of the month, Zuck has to publicly address the nation that he “Is a ginormous doo-doo head who likes to smell farts and sucks at hockey.” Again. So sorry, buddy. -Canada.

      • @Kecessa@sh.itjust.works
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        43 months ago

        “You need to pay local taxes on any profit made off Canadians, it’s your responsibility to report your numbers and prove that they’re true, if you can’t we’re blocking your platforms.”

    • @bitchkat@lemmy.world
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      33 months ago

      I’m planning on buying canadien goods when I’m driving through half of the country this summer. I need a decent winter coat, so I’ll pick up a Canada goose.

    • @FireTower@lemmy.world
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      -193 months ago

      This is incredibly stupid as an economic counter plan for a nation whose number one import and export (>50% respectively) is the US. Compare that to the US’s highly diversified trade portfolio. Trump would clap back with a 100% general tariff on Canada.

      American trade can survive without Canada. But Canadian trade can’t survive without America.

      • @Grimpen@lemmy.ca
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        3 months ago

        The bulk of Canadian exports to the US are oil. We can certainly tariff US goods, but export tariffs on Canadian oil and hydro electricity to the US will probably be a big component of the Canadian response.

        Even with a big increase on hydro power exports to the US, it’s still cheaper than most other sources of electricity, so they’ll still happily pay it.

        As to oil, there are some refineries in the US that are set up to process Canadian bitumen. Canada’s long history of just exporting raw materials and re-importing finished goods give a pretty outsized room to manuever here. This refineries will probably just pony up and pay more.

        Where the damage will come is in areas like the auto sector, where there are tightly coupled supply chains.

        Paul Krugman points out in his article The End of North America that there is probably already damage done to the concept of North American manufacturing.

        Trump is going to do a whole lot of damage, we’re going to take some of that damage, but my favourite quote on the topic:

        no one wins trade wars, but the kid who never stands up for himself always loses and for a long time

        Scotiabank Daily Points

      • @tburkhol@lemmy.world
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        113 months ago

        Canada and Mexico account for about a third of US exports. US businesses may be able to survive without them, but they sure won’t make the shareholders happy.

        • @shawn1122@lemm.ee
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          13 months ago

          And we all know that not making the shareholders happy makes America very very sad.

          Only in an American hospital will you hear that we need to discharge patient’s faster and do everything we can to keep them from coming back because “we have a duty to our shareholders”