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PaperclipPerfector
17hr ago
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So Trump has hit back against Canadian counter-tariffs with more bans and tariffs on goods like alcohol, dairy products and so on. He's also talked about preventing Bombardier from selling in the US unless it builds there, despite Bombardier building engines there.
What's striking is that I've seen no theory of victory at all from the Canadian side. The closest I see is a sort of forlorn "midterms ?? profit". But I don't see much indication midterms will stop Trump. He's not actually going to run again. Probably.
He may legitimately TACO, but I think it doesn't seem wise to imagine that pulling back against China says much about what he'll do with Canada. A tit-for-tat tariff battle on 1% of trade likely doesn't do it, in which case Canada is being put very choppy economic waters (who wants to do business in this climate without a deal?) even before we get into potential escalations.
If Canada wants independence, they need their own nuclear weapons program and probably a command economy since North America is a natural and profitable economic unit. Mass immigration and an imperial style of citizenship so they can sidestep assimilation and just get resources from millets would help too. A nuclear powered command economy with 100 million people would definitely be independent.
I don't think Canada wants independence. Carney may, he talks that way at least. As if he's the head of some European democracy. Some of the government paid class may also want to be European. Most people are fine doing business across the border. That's the revealed preference.
Canada seems to want to stand up to Trump. Maybe punch him in the face and make him acknowledge Canada and then settle into some honorable peace where all this annexation talk and the unreliability on deals stops, even if we get our asses kicked a bit.
The problem is nobody has actually explained how it'll be contained to the "a bit" part. Or the explanations have a curious contradiction between how vicious Trump is supposed to be (so you can't give an inch) and how constrained a war with said vicious person is going to be.
As for the 100 million people thing...yes, that was a thing people used to bandy about, the northern version of Yglesian thinking. Trudeau killed it.
As for resources, it's hard to explain but Canada fears and distrusts them. Which is why they prefer to sell it to America. As I said, revealed preference.
Carney just appointed the guy who invented it to CEO of our business development Crown corp -- the other co-founder is sitting on the advisory comittee for US relations!
Carney is deeply embedded in this world and I'd be very surprised if he is not personally supportive of the idea -- he can't say so because the actual consequences of mass immigration have become obvious over the Trudeau years, and voters don't like it at all. I wouldn't really say that Trudeau killed it, it was always sort of a shadow policy. Very beneficial for rich globalists, which is kind of Carney's whole deal...
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