Summary

In a virtual speech at the World Economic Forum, Trump suggested Canada could become a U.S. state to avoid his proposed tariffs on imports.

The remark elicited gasps from the audience.

Trump claimed the U.S. does not need Canadian lumber, energy, or vehicles, vastly overstating the trade deficit between the two nations.

He reiterated his intention to impose tariffs, potentially as high as 25%, on imports from Canada and Mexico starting February 1.

Economists warn such tariffs would raise prices for U.S. consumers.

  • @r0ertel@lemmy.world
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    1034 months ago

    I’m going to keep posting this every time I see a reference to US tariffs against Canada.

    https://pluralistic.net/2025/01/15/beauty-eh/

    The TL;DR is that tariffs would violate the NAFTA / USMCA treaty in which Canada agreed to respect US copyright law in exchange for free trade. No free trade? Canada doesn’t need to respect US copyright any longer and can become a flourishing economy of products to compete with US products that are massively overpriced. Think printer ink and other stuff.

      • @NotSteve_@lemmy.ca
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        124 months ago

        Idk if it’s just for individuals, but our ISPs generally don’t care about pirating already. I use a VPN to pirate here but just set to another city in Canada. I only even do that because I run jellyfin and have terabytes of downloads a month.

        Worst case scenario is the ISP sends you a notice that the media companies are mad, but that’s the end of it. They won’t pursue anything further because they don’t care

        • @ILikeBoobies@lemmy.ca
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          114 months ago

          It’s not illegal to download something, it’s illegal to host something (seeding)

          ISPs are compelled to notify you of copyright notices but they can’t hand your information over so you can only get caught if you respond

          • @lazylion_ca@lemmy.ca
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            74 months ago

            And even if you are dumb enough to respond to one of those emails, the liability is limited to something $50 per title. So it’s not worth the money to pay a lawyer to go after anyone. They will however try to trick you into a private settlement.

            • @Doomsider@lemmy.world
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              54 months ago

              No no no, you must charge every user with willful commercial infringement and penalize them $250,000 per violation. It is the American way!

      • @r0ertel@lemmy.world
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        74 months ago

        I was thinking to host pirate sites of US movies, software, etc. Get the US companies to tell the orange buffoon to behave or better yet, move the companies to Canada.

        I really like the article’s reference to manufacturing US DMCA-breaking technologies and forcing devices to host app stores in Canada where the government can declare the 30% Apple tax illegal.

    • @kent_eh@lemmy.ca
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      84 months ago

      The TL;DR is that tariffs would violate the NAFTA / USMCA treat

      The treaty that Trump himself negotiated and agreed to.

      That’s the treaty he is calling a “bad deal” and threatening to violate.

    • @dan1101@lemm.ee
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      4 months ago

      Yeah anyone mad at the US government right now should to take it out on the US corporations, not the citizens. Citizens can’t do much about this shitty administration until the next election but the corporations will have their feelings massively hurt every quarter if they don’t meet their profit expectations.

      trump will listen to corporations far more than citizens.

      • @kent_eh@lemmy.ca
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        64 months ago

        Citizens could have done something about it in November. And almost half of them chose to sit on their hands.

        Of the ones who actually voted, half of those actively voted for this shitshow.

        Sorry to the few who tried to stop it, but the idiots that surround you have brought this on you.

        We will try to aim most of our retaliation at the Redhatter morons, but some of you will likely get caught in the crossfire.

        Please do whatever you can to fix your country’s shit, so we can get back to being friendly neighbours.

        .

        Also, please try not to break any more of the firefighting equipment we loaned you (and sent even after agent orange started threatening us).

    • @Paragone@lemmy.world
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      23 months ago

      You’re misunderstanding the situation, then, sorry…

      Trump isn’t rational, he is narcissistic-machiavellian-sociopathic.

      IF Canada retaliates like that, THEN Trump may well declare war against Canada.

      They would only need to drop a single large conventional-bomb on Ottawa, & then claim Canada as their “manifest destiny”, declaring all Canadians to be “illegal aliens & criminals”, & their “problem” would be “fixed”.

      He may not have the guts to do that this-week, but he is progressing psychologically, & the end-point of that progression, about 4y in our future, is as the most-murderous-dictator-on-the-planet.

      He will be the complete-set: narcissistic, machiavellian, psychopathic, nihilist, sadist, systemically-dishonest, & hate, before the transformation is complete.

      Tread carefully, when one is near a heavily-armed psychiatrically-defective giant, eh?

      _ /\ _

      • @r0ertel@lemmy.world
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        13 months ago

        Sometimes I think you’re right. Other times I think that couldn’t possibly be true.

        I’ve studied many of the bigger wars and they’ve all mostly have been started by far less severe events. It’s scary that one person could wield all that power, unchecked and unaccountable.

        It sounds like it’s time to build a bunker.

    • @xenomor@lemmy.world
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      4 months ago

      I want to piss on his grave. Seriously, they better have that shit locked down or at the top of a mausoleum or something. Otherwise, I want to try and make it a national pastime.

      • Roflmasterbigpimp
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        24 months ago

        I live in Germany but I’m more than willing to send a stool and urine Sample via overnight express to the USA as soon as this sack of human-goo and spray tan gets put in the ground.

    • @Paragone@lemmy.world
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      13 months ago

      You will be waiting until 2031 or 2032, then.

      He won’t tolerate the 2028 election, so Civil War Part2 begins around then…

      Only when “either his or NOBODY’s” has finished butchering Turtle Island, will he be “finished”.

      People are living in hopium, instead of understanding the actual context, with the fascists allying globally, to butcher the whole world, for their “glory”, or self-worship…

      Please live strategically: too many are going to be wasted-lives, when things go to hell, for real: this is only the appetizer, I’m afraid…

      _ /\ _

  • @pixxelkick@lemmy.world
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    744 months ago

    So many people are extremely missing the point here

    Trump is purposefully threatening Canada to give his canadian conservative buddy Poilievre something to “fight” against, to make him look good

    “Wow Poilievre is standing up against Trump, I’m gonna vote for him!”

    That’s the game plan, in reality the two dipshits are best buds and can collude together to fuck over both countries extra hard, after conservatives get a majority over here.

    It’s a stunt to get conservatives in charge over here “against” Trump, which is so fucking stupid and yet it’s probably gonna work cuz so many people are gonna fall for it.

    I don’t think the liberal party has a good play against it, other than if our new liberal leader challenges Trump and musk to a boxing match and literally bears the shit out of them on live television

    I unironically think the Lincoln “I’ll fight you let’s go right now” leader who seriously fucks up Musk or Zuckerberg or any of those dipshits on live television would actually win by a landslide here

    It’s fuckin stupid but that’s what works apparently…

    • @ImplyingImplications@lemmy.ca
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      364 months ago

      The Conservative Premier of Ontario, Doug Ford, is already doing that. I’ve heard his ads on the radio calling for Ontarioans to give him a majority government so he “can stand up to Trump”. The guy spent his time as Premier standing up to nurses and bike lanes. This new stand up against Trump shtick is just more faux populism.

    • @nova_ad_vitum@lemmy.ca
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      134 months ago

      Trump is purposefully threatening Canada to give his canadian conservative buddy Poilievre something to “fight” against, to make him look good

      This theory is predicated on 1) Trump remembering who PP is, 2) caring enough about who is running Canada to have it drive policy.

      I don’t think either of these things are true.

      • @pixxelkick@lemmy.world
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        54 months ago

        They literally have meetings, and Trump obviously cares about conservatives willing to help him grift being in charge…

    • @kent_eh@lemmy.ca
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      4 months ago

      Trump is purposefully threatening Canada to give his canadian conservative buddy Poilievre something to “fight” against, to make him look good

      Except Polierve has been the slowest and the quietest to speak out against this bullshit that Trump is trying to pull.

    • @Someone@lemmy.ca
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      34 months ago

      I don’t think the liberal party has a good play against it, other than if our new liberal leader challenges Trump and musk to a boxing match and literally bears the shit out of them on live television

      Ahh, well that’s not good. Love him or hate him, I think one thing everyone could agree on about Trudeau is that he’d do pretty well in a politician boxing league.

      • @pixxelkick@lemmy.world
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        04 months ago

        Trudeau is out, we are voting in a new leader shortly

        Hopefully they vote someone in who unironically would challenge dipshits to boxing matches

    • @Revan343@lemmy.ca
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      24 months ago

      other than if our new liberal leader challenges Trump and musk to a boxing match and literally bears the shit out of them on live television

      That would probably get me to vote liberal for the first time in my life

    • @UltraGiGaGigantic@lemmy.ml
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      4 months ago

      Is electoral reform still a policy of the liberal party. Will they Lucy football is away once the election is over again?

  • @notsoshaihulud@lemmy.world
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    334 months ago

    Besides this being a distraction, it’s more likely that in this case Canada would end up politically annexing the USA:

    • The 2 Senators and 50 something electoral votes for “Canada State” would mean that Canadians would end up controlling US politics. :D

    Of course if one assumes that elections remain binding in the Turd Reich.

  • @DaddleDew@lemmy.world
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    264 months ago

    And Canada collectively tells him to go fuck himself. Seriously, he really thinks that will make them want to join him?

    • @floofloof@lemmy.ca
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      4 months ago

      There are a lot of MAGA idiots in Canada, weirdly enough, and Canada is about to elect the Conservatives under a MAGA-style populist hate-monger who borrows his promises directly from Republicans. As a Canadian, I don’t wholly trust Canadians to resist this hard enough, especially with almost all Canadian media being right wing and the Conservatives promising to shut down what isn’t.

      • @foggenbooty@lemmy.world
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        64 months ago

        Yup. America is currently riding the brain rot rollercoaster, and we’re waiting in line holding our ticket.

      • @Someone@lemmy.ca
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        14 months ago

        I’m equally curious and terrified to find out where the line between “we love trump” Conservatives and “we need our own trump” Conservatives lies. Even if, purely for arguments sake, we accept that all his policies are amazing, they’re amazing for a different country and actively detrimental to ours. Assuming we get stuck with PP he’s going to have to make a choice. Which half of his base does he agree with? Will he stand up for our country, or roll over and hope the Yanks have their way with us gently. Unfortunately I feel he’s going to fumble and fail to do either.

  • @AnUnusualRelic@lemmy.world
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    244 months ago

    I still remember fondly the Trump speech at the UN when the whole assembly laughed at him.

    I suspect that there’s going to be a lot more of that to come.

  • @Gammelfisch@lemmy.world
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    214 months ago

    Putin’s Sock Puppet taking orders from Moscow to divide the NATO members. For starters, the Canadians should stop buying US made weapons, because the current US leadership is unhinged and unreliable. If anything, the Blue States should become Canadian Provinces.

    • @kent_eh@lemmy.ca
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      144 months ago

      “Go fuck yourself” says Canada.

      Just like our Danish friends recently told Trump.

  • Queen HawlSera
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    204 months ago

    How does this lower the price of my god damn eggs?

    Also he does know that Canada would be yet another blue state right?

    • Pyr
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      104 months ago

      Each province/territory would insist on being its own state so Canada would at least probably become 10 blue states and 3 red states if not 11/2. Not sure how Manitoba would swing.

      • @kent_eh@lemmy.ca
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        64 months ago

        Not sure how Manitoba would swing.

        Given that our current government is NDP after a disastrous period of the previous conservative government, I would expect Manitoba would generally vote to the left of most states.