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For a thorough economic analysis, I recommend Patrick Boyle. The gist is that tariffs are redistributive: They take income from the household sector and transfer it to protected businesses — both within the US. Whether Canada will be thrown into a recession depends on how badly Canadian goods are demanded by US consumers.
The basic economic incentive for international trade is the same why we have different professions for people: by dividing labor, countries can specialize and be more efficient in producing particular good or service, making it cheaper for everyone. Yes, you can grow bananas in Canada, but it's just way cheaper to do it in warm climate. The flip side is that Canada will never gain the expertise needed to grow bananas, and will not have any bananas if the other countries close down shop. This is fine without bananas, but if you replace "banana" with "weapon", then some people start worrying about "natural security".
This is not directly related to your questions — but I'm genuinely curious. How would you describe the harm that the left has done to you and your loved ones, and how would you say the mainstream media misrepresents Trump?
The reason why I'm asking is that I'm firmly anti-Trump — I have no hate for him, but I do believe that he will make the lives of almost everyone worse, including his own supporters, except for the direct beneficiaries of his authoritarian rule.
And I'm bringing this up with you because I'm curious why his own supporters would support him, even though he will harm them. Obviously, that doesn't make sense to me. 😅
Before I expand on that, I'd like to expound that my core value systems is humanism — essential, every human being is worth caring for. That includes you, every Trump supporter, all leftists, and people of all colors. However, it appears to me that Trump supporters do not necessarily see it the same way, and then it becomes a question of how much care I can afford for a human that is fine with harming me.
Now my quick rundown of Trump: The key tactic of populist figures is to deceive about the actual benefit of their policies. Will Trumps' tarrifs improve the lives of most American consumers? Judging by argument above, the answer is "no". Does Trump care? The answer is — "no". Why would he care? Why would he not lie to everyone? His good character? But he doesn't seem to have a good character? And will people be able to tell the difference? The answer is "no" — that's why the deception works. Most people do not understand well enough what effect tariffs have — and they will harm themselves if they belief they work while the reality is that they don't. It's the discrepancy between belief and reality that is the source of harm. And the populist strategy is to play exactly that: Tell people what they want to believe, reinforce it, throw new beliefs at the wall and see what sticks, without any regard for reality. Everyone who is in on that deception will win, everyone who is not will lose out.
As Henry George put it in his 1879 book "Progress and Poverty":
“A theory that, falling in with the habits of thought of the poorer classes, thus justifies the greed of the rich and the selfishness of the powerful, will spread quickly and strike its roots deep. This has been the case with the theory advanced by Malthus.”
I can’t answer for the user you’re replying to, but can for me. The answer is immigration. Until mass immigration ends, immigration is the only issue that matters. Every normal policy can be quickly reversed, but in human history, mass immigration is usually (albeit not always) forever, especially under liberal democracy.
A huge global recession caused by Trump’s tariffs policies would be awful, but the alternative was acquiescing to the most harmful policy of the last 70 years of Western civilization. If my voice is heard (and of course it isn’t really), it must be for that.
Aren't you an immigrant living in London, UK? (Of course, you, individually, are not "mass immigration," but neither is any other individual immigrant.)
She’s from the U.S. it’s different. Culturally and ethnically.
Yes, the US and UK are famously "two nations separated by a common language." Other former colonies, like India, have much greater cultural ties to the UK. (Cricket, poor production value in movies/tv, cousin marriage, sub-US social mobility, spelling...)
Indian cultural heritage and genetic ‘median personality traits’ for lack of a better word under the layer of Britishness is very different though.
Americans and English are also sometimes much more different than they think, especially the ex-Borderer strain, but often closer in terms of heritage and base understanding.
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