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Trumpism is a movement defined by outrageous statements, only some of which they are serious about and it's up to you to guess what. Does Navarro (or Trump) really believe that Canada has been taken over by Mexican cartels? Probably not, but you can't dismiss the possibility. Either way, why not say it?
Trump's messaging on tariffs has been incoherent. On the one hand, tariffs are industrial policy, meant to bring back American manufacturing. On the other hand, tariffs are a negotiating tactics, to be dropped in exchange for concessions. On the mutant third hand, tariffs are a revenue alternative - a way to replace income taxes with consumption taxes (though Trump clearly doesn't think of them that way, quite possibly because he doesn't know how tariffs work).
The problem is that at most one of these things can be true. Taking it as a given for now that tariffs-as-industrial policy is effective, you need to maintain the tariffs (so no dropping them as a concession) and you need American consumers to shift to American-made goods (so tariff revenues must decline substantially). If tariffs are a negotiating tactic, you're giving them up for whatever objective you're pursuing and therefore forgoing both industrial development and revenue. If tariffs are supposed to be a revenue stream that substitutes for income taxes, you need Americans to keep buying imports, which means not buying American-made goods at the scale you're expecting for an industrial revival driven by domestic demand.
(In reality, the only one of these that makes any measure of sense is tactical tariffs)
All of which is to say that what Canada can do to reverse the tariffs is probably lobby members of Trump's inner circle to try and change his mind. The likely (but unfortunately not overwhelmingly likely) outcome is that someone prevails upon Trump that this idea is really fucking dumb and Canada makes some symbolic concession so Trump can feel like he got a win. But, there are also quite a few people in the Trump administration who unironically think tariffing everyone is a great idea, so who knows.
Trump himself could probably be sold on the idea of a unified trade bloc going after China -- this would probably an actual Good Thing, but Canadian politics is pretty compromised on that front so we will probably only hear that Going After China is Racist or something.
Sold by who? Trump is president of the US - if someone is going to take lead on forming an anti-China trading bloc it's going to be him (both because the US is the country with the most vested interest in the idea and because it seems incredibly unlikely that Trump would accept the leadership of anyone else).
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Canada didn't take a stance of "attacking China is racist" over the past few years when the past few administrations have increasingly become China hawks and drew Canada into things like the Huawei fight.
Trump on the other hand has shown himself to have a disdainful attitude towards the very countries he'd presumably be creating a unified bloc with for ?? reasons that no one can agree with.
All anyone wants is greater integration with America. If anything, part of Canada's weakness here is from becoming too complacent and relying on that. It was already going to happen if the US was bringing back manufacturing. The only impediment to more of that is Trump.
LOL
https://www.nsicop-cpsnr.ca/reports/rp-2024-06-03/special-report-foreign-interference.pdf
For the benefit of people who don't feel like reading a 90-page document in order to continue the conversation, relevant portions (that aren't censored):
NB: I am strongly of the opinion that @jkf should have provided such a digest himself.
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Lol and a pdf? Come on son!
It's more effort than he deserves -- "LPC is hawkish on China" isn't even low effort, it's just agitprop.
That's not my point. I said the LPC hasn't been banging the racist drum even though it's clear that basically every US administration has been getting more and more hawkish on China. Even when it demands actions that create problems for Canada.
Y'know, as we discussed all of a day ago.
As opposed to blaming a lack of further integration on Canadian wokeness when Trump is the one taking a cleaver to his own trade deal because ?? tariffs.
Please
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Id expect a tariff to be a lot like a sales tax (and in the limit of increasing import and export identical). The concentration means somewhat more distortion per revenue than a uniform sales tax increase, but since you think the fundamental problem for conservatives is unwillingness to raise taxes, is it really that bad? You might even get some industrial policy, as a treat. IDK, I just think its funny how many lefties are now making anti-tariff arguments that are in fact generic anti-tax arguments.
Well, I'm not a leftist and have been pro-free trade forever, so I can't speak to people like that. Conservative tax-phobia is most salient to their stated preference to reduce the deficit versus their revealed preference of increasing it via uncovered tax cuts.
What I can say is that not all taxes are created equal - in terms of revenue raised, distortionary impact, etc... Tariffs are extremely distortionary, which means they cost a lot more than the revenue they raise, and that's before how you'll start getting retaliatory tariffs. A broad-based VAT or sales tax wouldn't be especially popular, but it would probably be defensible. But, importantly, that is not what Trump wants to do. He (says he) wants to cut income taxes and replace them with tariffs.
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Lying is a sin.
That doesn't appear to have been an overriding concern for Trump or his associates thus far.
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The specific subset of lying referred to in the KJV as "bearing false witness against thy neighbour" is a particularly grievous sin. Falsely stating that a friendly country has been overtaken by drug cartels qualifies. I'm at work so I don't have time to look up the specific punishments in Dante, and in any case Trump plans to be in the reserved front row seating for Nobel Peace Laureates, so he will be closer to the Fire than Dante suggests.
In the highly likely event that Trump cares not a jot for his immortal soul, there is also the point that the US-Canada relationship is nonzero sum. The Trump administration presumably has some kind of good outcome in mind which requires mutual cooperation. Telling gratuitous lies makes that harder, both because it signals bad faith (up to and including outright malice) and because it makes it harder for the other side to work out what you actually want (hence this thread).
Falsely and with intent to decieve being the the key components of said sin.
Saying things that the other party does not want said, is not the same as speaking falsly.
If it were to come out tomorrow that Trudeau had been bought off by the CCP, or that the Sigiloa Cartel had infiltrated the highest levels of the Mexican government would anyone be surprised?
Both are far more plausible than Trump being a Russian plant if you ask me.
Trudeau being bought by the Red Chinese is plausible but unlikely. Cartels infiltrating the Mexican government would be less surprising than Pope Francis coming out as a Catholic.
But you are sanewashing Navarro here. What he said is that Trudeau had been bought by the Mexican drug cartels. I would eat my hat if that turned out to be true.
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