Summary
Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced retaliatory tariffs after Donald Trump confirmed 25% tariffs on Canadian goods and 10% on energy, set to take effect at 12:01 a.m. Tuesday.
Trump justified the move by linking it to fentanyl smuggling concerns.
Trudeau called the tariffs “unjustified” and imposed 25% tariffs on $155 billion in U.S. goods, with $30 billion effective immediately and the rest in 21 days.
He warned of price hikes and job losses in the U.S., arguing the move violates Trump’s own trade agreement from his last term.
I like Cory Doctorow’s plan.
The reason Canada got tariff-free access to sell to the US in the first place? Canada agreed to enforce penalties for tampering with digital locks, following the premise of the Digital Milennium Copyright Act.
If the US is going back on the deal, then Canada should too. Make it legal to jailbreak all US tech.
Doctorow advocating for this plan:
- On Democracy Now
- On his blog
- On his podcast
- In the Ursula Franklin lecture at the University of Toronto’s Innis College (I especially enjoyed this one, but it is the longest)
Heck, make it legal to pirate all American media.
A surprising amount of ‘American’ media is filmed and produced in Canada.
TorontoVancouver is like Hollywood North. This would probably be a footgunNo problem, make exceptions for anything that was made involving Canada!
Stargate SG-1, full of blatant military propaganda (I know it’s not so bad, but), was filmed there.
Hit where it really hurts: stop paying Microsoft.
It already basically is; Anti-piracy laws in Canada don’t have a lot of teeth. I leave my torrent computer running 24 hours a day to seed and I don’t even get emails anymore after switching to a smaller service provider.
In that case, the Candian government should set up an official service for downloading American stuff. Making it easy to find things would be worth a nominal fee for a lot of people.
VPN with multi-hop proxy, my bratha/sista.
No need. I’m seeding 24/7 raw dogging my connection and don’t hear a peep from my ISP.
Impressive!
Yeah, I’m not too concerned about that. Their courts are being attacked with so much that I’m pretty sure downloading a car isn’t going to be high on their list.
If the US is going back on the deal, then Canada should too. Make it legal to jailbreak all US tech.
That should be considered with plans for further escalation varying from nothing to an embargo.
Though arguably piracy and jailbreaking are not so bad for said domination. Microsoft practically encouraged piracy in ex-USSR at some point. Piracy solves the availability problem, supports market share, leads to short-term loss in sales but long-term growth.
But that’s Microsoft, while US government in general seems to think DMCA is for them what the Sound was for the Danish crown in middle ages.
Microsoft practically encouraged piracy in ex-USSR at some point. Piracy solves the availability problem, supports market share, leads to short-term loss in sales but long-term growth.
Yup, Bill Gates pretty much said he’d rather have people growing up on pirated Microsoft products than use alternatives.
Im pretty sure i watched him say this on democracy now and he was a great listen
Yep, I caught that one too. He’s a fantastic orator. He’s got an endless arsenal of one-liners.
I added a link to that and some other instances where he’s made this argument.
They could also make their own play store and apple store, and could charge the developers much lower fees, for the same apps that would work anywhere. It would cost them very little and be nothing but profit.
The fact that both Apple and d Google fail to keep malware off their stores makes me think it’s maybe not so easy.
Pretty sure Canada could do as good of a job as anyone though.
It’d be nice if somewhere, other than Russia and China, was doing the important reverse engineering work.
Trump is such a vindictive moron. Whether he’s a Russian asset or just a certifiably stupid, the end result is the same.
Good god I hate this fucking timeline. Fuck corporate America for backing this monster and fuck everyone who voted for him. Fuck the Democrats for collectively shrugging about all this too.
Whether he’s a Russian asset or just certifiably stupid
Most definitely both.
Yeah, if he was just in it for his own aggrandisement, none of this would make sense. The orders are very clearly coming from Moscow here, because only Putin benefits from all this bullshit.
And he’s stupid for going along with it - a smart Russian asset US president would get something in return other than a pat on the head.
I mean presumably he’s getting a pile of money. Or there’s kompramat. Or, more likely, both. Also he just likes when people talk to him like he’s special, I’m sure it took the KGB all of 6 seconds to figure that out and take advantage of it
unfortunately, America has created a system where we can’t really do anything about the president at this point I am really wondering how long will the global world order allow Donald Trump to continue to screw things up for everybody else? Not just talking about economics with Mexico, Canada and China. But also the military situation in Ukraine, which directly impacts the European Union as well as NATO 
The problem is that the global order is collapsing. That’s what makes this possible for Trump and his companions. It’s been going to shit for a while. We’re entering a world where international law will be less important. Sadly.
International law was already completely irrelevant when it came to the developed world imposing its will on the entire developing world, or anyone classified as an “enemy”. There are hundreds of violations across the years that were never enforced, from America carpet bombing south east asia and installing puppet regimes around the world, to Russias use of phosphorous warheads and chemical weapons in Syria, to Israel (and allies) genocide in Palestine.
International laws have only ever been, at best, gentleman’s agreements among the developed world’s oligarchs and political classes.
What’s happening now is the US political class and oligarchy are shifting allegiance to fascist authoritarianism and imperialism, because both are populated with mentally ill narcissists and psychopaths of insatiable greed and megalomania, completely detached from reality; no different to the feudalist monarchs, emperors and pharaohs of old.
I also don’t believe this is an America problem, as much as it is a capitalism problem. Americas oligarchy are no different to Russias oligarchy, who are no different to Chinas oligarchy, who are no different to every oligarchy. They are borderless, stateless, only worship wealth and power, and are a reflection of the psychology created by unchecked wealth and power; these people view themselves as the rightful rulers of humanity, by virtue of their wealth and power, and views concepts like democracy a direct threat to their existence.
Fucking phenomenal run for American upper-middle classers & up for daysssss (decades)
Staycations on every screen, DoorDash, weekends at national parks, summers full of music festivals, no air raid sirens or drafts
Little blips of economic busts and terrorism, but overall stable with a solid stock market. The climate taking its beating without much protest. The developing world manufacturing much of our own world for pennies on the dollar, their conditions out of sight and out of mind. Stagnant minimum wage, the prison industrial complex, the crimes of the healthcare industry - captivating John Oliver segments, yes, but not pressing personal problems.
waow that was a lotta work over the years from a lotta good people to get the US here, and now…
(job hunt question)
Any recommendations for organizations that might be hiring right now and looking for people who want to fix this?
I didn’t want Trump to become president for many reasons, one of the main ones being I didn’t want him to pull USA out of NATO, because it strengthens our shared enemies.
Things are actually going worse than I expected, which is really impressive.
I know people are probably sick of hearing this, but I kind of figured this would be the worst possible case imaginable because the same thing happened to Hitler. They threw his ass in jail and then after a couple of months they let him walk and then when he regained power, he knew that he could never lose power again, and if he did, he’d never be able to accomplish his personal objectives. 
There’s something about history that we can learn from here. I don’t know why Trump was even allowed to run, but yeah, here we are. 
He was allowed to run because McConnell stonewalled Obama and let Trump select a bunch of Supreme Court appointees, which then decided that trump can’t be held accountable for anything.
Then everyone decided the rule of law was important, except trump, which means he’s steamrolling every safeguard we had.
Plus McConnell as leader could have gotten R’s to convict, at least in the second impeachment after Jan 6th, which was a short window when they would probably have gone along with him. It would have made trump ineligible to run again. So I place a large part of the blame on McConnell.
The SCOTUS ruling is just icing on the cake for trump, because once he got into power again, SCOTUS isn’t going to be much of a problem for him no matter how much they might rule against him. He’ll just ignore it and no one will do anything about it because the entire repub party supports him–they are the ones who would have had to check his power but they’re completely on board with him and they have the trifecta, total control.
That’s why I’m worried about the midterms–they aren’t going to give up that power willingly which means they’re more than prepared to do whatever it takes to stop a free and fair election in 2026.
McConnell basically stated that Trump deserved conviction, but didn’t want congress to be the ones to do it. He wagered that it’s a problem that would take care of itself without having to be the ones to piss off the MAGA people he hoped to keep energized and aligned to the GOP even as Trump went away.
Then the SC basically said it’s the job of congress, and not the courts (although they reserved the power to specifically declare something as not a duty of the president, so the courts could proceed if and only if the supreme court signs off on it).
To the extent that it could have maybe had the SC ultimately rule that January 6th was not an official duty, DOJ slow walked the process so that it was way too late before the SC would have even had the chance.
Merrick Garland was Biden’s biggest mistake. By far. But it’s still ultimately McConnell and the other repub senators’ fault. They had the power and more importantly the constitutional responsibility to stop him. They violated their oaths and failed in their duty. It was their cowardice and corruption that allowed this.
Lee Harvey Oswald found a way to do something about the presidency. Just saying…
Lee Harvey, ONI and Guy Bannister
I believe you mean Bernard Montgomery Sanders who we all know was the second shooter.
I guess this is a joke, but it’s dangerous because any conspiracy theory can find many people who take it seriously these days.
It is Robert Evans of Behind The Bastards has been making this joke for 6-7 years now
The US is one of the only, if not the only country in the world where what can be done is enshrined in the constitution.
Surely the US isn’t the only country that has foreign leaders assassinated?..
American here.
100% support you Canada. Keep it up.
Ditto. Our only hope is for brave nations like yours to smack our leaders down.
My fear is that, the brain washed swarms will ignore the shortcomings and scapegoat something else.
We need to really turn the screws into the U.S. Along with applying tariffs, we also need to just outright stop delivery of critical materials they need. Full Stop.
I’m know this is just a sounding board, but honestly I’d love to see the cutting off of any and all essential raw materials they need. I’m sure they can source it elsewhere, but they most likely can’t get enough of it fast enough.
Cut off anything they need for energy and more importantly: agriculture.
People can live without power. Make their stomachs ache.
Trump is a diseased cunt who doesn’t understand what happens when things don’t go his own way. Let’s show him.
The Beaverton had as a headline a few weeks back along the lines of “Americans choose the most expensive way to figure out what they purchase from Canada” which I thought was appropriate.
I said it before. Stop sending aluminum and steel and aerospace and military manufacturing would suffer immensely. That is 90%+ of all good made, metals have strict import requirements and certifications, and we couldn’t just make our own on a whim.
Starting off slow and ramping up sends the correct message that (a) we want to find a way to stop this garbage and (b) we can and will make things more painful for business and consumers alike if it continues long term.
Yes make us hurt. It’s the only way.
Everytime Trump threatens tariffs they should out a one week export ban on literally everything to the US… That would really shock the system.
Why doesn’t trump just setup fentanyl production in the states? Seems like a easy fix for me /s
I was going to buy an item but the price went up since yesterday. Not going to buy it now. It’s his tax on us. Not going to finance Krasnov’s destruction of America.
Trudeau’s measured retaliation shows Canada won’t back down but prioritizes diplomacy over chaos.
🐱🐱🐱🐱
Today I watched both Trudeau and Sheinbaum’s addresses.
I must say that Americans get even worse reputation everytime Trump and Vance talk even just because of the contrast with some of the best, most prepared speakers and I must say attractive individuals in politics today.
Fuck, marry, kill?
Despite being a boring hetero male, I am so conflicted between the first 2.
Nobody married to president sheinbaum would be boring
Ok I’ve been wanting to ask this and all the articles don’t really address it so I’m confused.
The whole rhetoric is that Trump’s tariffs will impact the citizens with increased prices and it’s really just going to cause economic harm. Like cool, I can understand that. But why is Canada then performing the same action effecting their citizens? I get it’s retaliatory, and suppose to expedite (hopefully) a return to normal trade policy. I just don’t get why this is the move when it’s a bad move in the first place (two wrongs don’t make a right and all). Please be gentle, I’m honestly just confused.
Trump’s tariffs are universal. Meaning that even in cases where the only practical option is Canada, for example potash, they have to suffer a direct 25% price increase.
The Canadian tariffs are highly selective, we only tariff goods that have alternate non US suppliers at similar prices. In this case the tariffs would mostly reduce market competition without directly affecting price.
I think the better approach is to not enforced the digital lock aspects of the free trade agreement and have Canada be a leading repairer of farm and industrial equipment.
Doesn’t Belarus also produce potash? I thought they were dropping sanctions against them to get it
I mean yeah, but Canada produces an ENORMOUS percentage of the world’s potash.
Edit: checked the numbers. Canada produced ~38% of the worlds potash (25mil lbs), while Belarus produced 5-7mil lbs, most of which already goes to China, Russia, and India. Canada exports 46% of our potash to the US, meaning the US could buy ALL of belarus’ potash and still not meet current supply.
If the tariffs are taylored correctly they can cause more pain in the US while minimizing cost to Canada. For example, us grain is not cheap and you can make it so that Canada buys from other countries at a similar cost. This will hurt farmers in the US (a key group for Trump) while not really hiring Canada.
Make it hurt for the morons that support nazis
My understanding is that when the americans institute their tariffs, all canadian products become more expensive for americans and not price competitive with local american products. This results in a decrease of purchasing from Canada.
If we do nothing, then Canadians are still buying just as much american as before and there are little to no consequences for the tariffs
With tariffs on both sides, the effect is roughly “equalized” in that we are both now buying more local goods and less trade over the border
Higher import taxes (tariffs) on Canadian goods for Americans will increase the price, presumably reducing the amount of these goods that Americans will buy which hurts the Canadian producers. The only thing Canada can really do is hurt American producers in the same way, hence increase tariffs to reduce Canadian consumption of American goods and hurt American producers just as much (or preferably more). Hurting each other is a loss-loss strategy though, which explains why trade wars typically do not have winners only losers…
Carry on Prime Minister Trudeau and create better trade deals with the EU, EEC and friendly Asian countries.
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Don’t retaliate 1:1. Retaliate 5:1.
Burn the fucking bridge already.
Excuse my ignorance but wouldn’t that make things more expensive for Canadians as well?
:edit: thank you all for answering me. I totally understand now.
Fuck trump
Yes, but items are targeted to inflict the least amount of pain. We don’t neeed orange juice or bourbon for example.
Yes, tariffs increase prices in almost any case they’re implemented, which is the goal. Trudeau seems to be hoping that by adding these tariffs, it will become even easier to shift consumer behavior to buy non-American made goods, which could possibly either lead Trump to reduce/remove his tariffs, or at least make Americans feel more of the economic impact of those reductions in sales, which could then push more people to go against Trump politically.
Only on American products. Canadian products theoretically will cost the same.
Maybe in Canada. In the US, I fully expect corporations to increase domestic prices by 15-20%, and still have the more attractive option for consumers. If and when the tariffs are dropped, it is unlikely that prices will go back down. Trump essentially just created a permanent new regressive tax, affecting the poorest of US citizens the worst.
Anyone want to place a bet for what he blames it on? I’m hoping he goes for the classic Obama excuse.
should double those tariffs.
If Trump escalates, so do we.
If we go “all in” on day one, we don’t have any future leverage.
you are right, got to strategically tariff so it hurts US but with minimal impact on Canada.
got to strategically tariff so it hurts US but with minimal impact on Canada.
Yup.
That’s why the initial list of counter-tariffs were specifically chosen to hit the overlap of red states and things we make ourself, or can easily get elsewhere, or can comfortably do without for an extended period of time.
