Trumponomics - Or How I Learned to Stop Worrying & Love Tariffs

[IceBear]

Trudeau is literally gone in a few weeks...shouldn't hold it against us

[hepcat]

Trump hasn't made the same 51st state threat against Mexico? I wonder why tha....oh, right, racist.

[IceBear]

Delayed to March 1st...he's going to keep moving those goal posts

Edit: Hmmm, might not be official

Edit: Ok, CBC is saying that's what they were told by Trudeau

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said Monday that U.S. President Donald Trump will hold off on levying tariffs on Canada for at least 30 days.

[IceBear]

Details:

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said Monday U.S. President Donald Trump will hold off on levying tariffs on Canada for at least 30 days after Canada made a series of commitments to improve security along the border.

The country can let out a collective sigh of relief — at least for now.

To get Trump to shelve his punishing tariffs, Trudeau said Canada is reinforcing the border with new choppers, technology and personnel and stepping up its co-ordination with American officials to stop the flow of fentanyl.

Trudeau said, all told, there will be 10,000 front-line personnel working along the border to address Trump's stated priority: a major crackdown on drugs and migrants.

The prime minister also made a series of new commitments to Trump, including a promise to appoint a new fentanyl "czar" who will lead Canada's efforts to crack down on the deadly drug. And he promised to list Mexican cartels, one of the top purveyors of fentanyl and other drugs in Canada and the U.S., as terrorists under Canadian law.

Trudeau said Canada is launching a "Canada-U.S. Joint Strike Force," that will be tasked with combating organized crime and money laundering.

"Proposed tariffs will be paused for at least 30 days while we work together," Trudeau said in a social media post.

Given so little drugs come from Canada to the US, I am sure this is just face saving all around. Hopefully it'll keep the guns and bad hombres from the US from getting into Canada...I'm looking at you hepcat

[RunningMn9]

Could people stop giving in to his bullshit threats? Hasn’t every movie taught us in excruciating detail why you don’t negotiate with terrorists?

[IceBear]

I know...there will be something else in 30 days, and then something else after that, but honestly we would lose a trade war. This at least gives us 30 more days to work on diversifying.

The people I meet in the grocery stores are all avoiding anything from the US and I don't expect that to change while the threat lies over us.

For those 10,000 workers on the border they will be bored for the most part

[Smoove_B]

Could people stop giving in to his bullshit threats? Hasn’t every movie taught us in excruciating detail why you don’t negotiate with terrorists?

The news media could also do a better job of reporting. Specifically that it wasn't nearly as one-sided as Trump wants everyone to believe. First, there were already 10,000 Mexican troops at the border because that was previously agreed upon with Biden. Spoiler - no threats were needed there. Second, as part of the exchange, Trump agreed to help stop trafficking guns into Mexico, fueling their violence.

If the news media could just...focus a bit and report what's happening rather than continue to be dazzled by his bullshit, it would be helpful.

[Rumpy]

I mean, I consider this progress. The fact that he actually took the time to sit down and listen towards a solution rather than blow smoke is already an improvement. This is actually the first actual 'news' about this in weeks.

[IceBear]

Right...the thing is, he signed an executive order to study tariffs for April 1st (Happy April Fools day!) so he could have just waited until then before starting all this bullshit.

The bad thing will be right around then, our government will be gone in the middle of an election. Hopefully they will work together first to keep the government in existence until the threat is over

[Rumpy]

Well, delaying for a month lets us get all our ducks in a row so to speak.

[IceBear]

Yup, more time to prep

[Grifman]

It's all smoke and mirrors. Everything that Trump is claiming he accomplished via threatening Mexico and Canada were already agreed to with the Biden administration:

[Rumpy]

Well, you gotta love it, Trump claiming credit for Biden's plans. I guess it's more proof that he can't really do anything. He did the same thing with Obama during his first term, taking credit for Obama's economy. What a farce.

[IceBear]

Lol...Fox News headline

Canada blinks, President Trump delays tariffs on northern neighbor for at least 30 days

Pretty sure all we did was appoint someone as a fentanyl czar and agree for a joint strike force on organized crime. The rest we were doing anyway

[LordMortis]

And the market manipulators are having a field day. Being in the inside for the after hours turmoil must be absolutely lovely for draining money is the shit show.

[Isgrimnur]

[Holman]

Whether his points are valid or not, Ralph Nader can eat a big bag of rancid dicks.

[Montag]

I like this guys style.

[LordMortis]

Barring everything else. The US decided decades ago we don't want foundries. They're a messy business. It would interesting to see who says "put these new ones in my backyard." and why and who benefits. Not fun but interesting. I get that foundries are necessary but making more of them especially in a deregulated environment? Yucky. I feel for the damage being done in Mexico and South America that we may be spoiled. Ignorance will have been bliss.

[Montag]

Barring everything else. The US decided decades ago we don't want foundries. They're a messy business. It would interesting to see who says "put these new ones in my backyard." and why and who benefits. Not fun but interesting. I get that foundries are necessary but making more of them especially in a deregulated environment? Yucky. I feel for the damage being done in Mexico and South America that we may be spoiled. Ignorance will have been bliss.

I get you. From a true environmental perspective, it is better to have the mines and nasty industries here for better supervision and controls vs 3rd world locations.

[Max Peck]

The isolationist/ethnonationalist/fascist solution is to turn the "there" where resources are extracted and refined into a subset of "here" via territorial expansion, complete with a subjugated work force. The end goal is to be completely self-reliant so that international trade isn't a thing you need to be concerned with once you control the entire production chain. Trump himself is probably not playing that game (I'm not sure he's capable of anything resembling long-term strategic planning), but I'm pretty certain that at least some of the people whispering in his ear and writing his EOs are totally into it.

[GreenGoo]

Could people stop giving in to his bullshit threats? Hasn’t every movie taught us in excruciating detail why you don’t negotiate with terrorists?

As pointed out above, no one gave into his threats. Mexico and Canada agreed to do the things they had already agreed to do prior. There's a funny meme showing a phone call between Mexico and Canada laughing about offering a "compromise" that would have America receive everything already agreed upon and how Drumpf "fell" for it.

Now, do I think this is over? Obviously not. Drumpf needs to get bored and start playing golf full time again. Which should be soon. Until then...chaos for everyone.

[IceBear]

CTV news has an article that basically says he plans on using them to open up our markets (banking and dairy for example) in the next round. We apparently have regulations on dairy products (no growth hormones for example) and banking so while I believe we aren't specifically targeting US in these areas, they just don't meet the regulations so can't be sold here. I suspect we're going to cave on those.

[Isgrimnur]

Nothing like a race to the bottom.

[Rumpy]

Barring everything else. The US decided decades ago we don't want foundries. They're a messy business. It would interesting to see who says "put these new ones in my backyard." and why and who benefits. Not fun but interesting. I get that foundries are necessary but making more of them especially in a deregulated environment? Yucky. I feel for the damage being done in Mexico and South America that we may be spoiled. Ignorance will have been bliss.

I get you. From a true environmental perspective, it is better to have the mines and nasty industries here for better supervision and controls vs 3rd world locations.

Yeah, I kind of wish that we would have figured out much earlier how much harm to the environment these facilities do to the environment. Proof of that with all the mines in our region was all the scarring of the land due to the smelting process before the 1970's required better standards, and it's taken several decades for forest growth to return with the help of regreening efforts.

[Isgrimnur]

China counters with tariffs on US products. It will also investigate Google.

China announced retaliatory tariffs on select American imports and an antitrust investigation into Google on Tuesday, just minutes after a sweeping levy on Chinese products imposed by U.S. President Donald Trump took effect.
...
This isn’t the first round of tit-for-tat actions between the two countries. China and the U.S. engaged in an escalating trade war in 2018, when Trump repeatedly raised tariffs on Chinese goods and China responded each time.
...
China said it would implement a 15% tariff on coal and liquefied natural gas products as well as a 10% tariff on crude oil, agricultural machinery and large-engine cars imported from the U.S. The tariffs would take effect next Monday.

“The U.S.’s unilateral tariff increase seriously violates the rules of the World Trade Organization,” China’s State Council Tariff Commission said in a statement. “It is not only unhelpful in solving its own problems, but also damages normal economic and trade cooperation between China and the U.S.”

[Enough]

If you have any orders shipping from China or were planning on it, you might want to cancel for now.

Suspension of Inbound Parcels from China and Hong Kong

INTERNATIONAL SERVICE SUSPENSION NOTICE – effective Feb. 4, 2025

Effective Feb. 4, the Postal Service will temporarily suspend only international package acceptance of inbound parcels from China and Hong Kong Posts until further notice. Note the flow of letters and flats from China and Hong Kong will not be impacted.

[IceBear]

Former Canadian PM Stephen Harper: "There is no migrant flow happening from Canada to the United States of any significant numbers... And I'm going to tell you right now, drugs, guns, crime—most of those things flow north, not south."
If there is a problem with border security between the States and Canada, it's not on our side. Between Oct. 2023 and September 2024, roughly 43 lbs of fentanyl was seized passing from Canada to the States (compared to 21,100 lbs at the Mexico border). That's the equivalent of a single suitcase.
...but just two weeks ago, 1,840 LBS of cocaine was seized by the Toronto Police, coming from the States INTO Canada.
The Toronto Police have also found that 85% of crime guns they recover have entered Canada from the States.
What does President Trump intend to do to resolve this?
Move the goalposts some more, apparently.
First it was "drugs and illegal migrants are pouring in over the Canadian border!" (they aren't); then it was "we're subsidizing Canada by $200B/year!" (they aren't), then it was "Canada has been treating us unfairly!" (referring to the trade deals that HE signed last time he was in office), and now it's "they don't allow U.S. banks into their country!"
First, this is false; as of right now, there are 13 American banks that have branches inside Canada.
Second, here's the true part: it HAS been challenging for American banks to make much headway in Canada, but this is for a significant reason: Canada's tighter financial regulations mean that the way those American banks would LIKE to do business (and do south of the border) are illegal in Canada.
Remember during the financial crisis of 2008, when the American government had to bail out their largest banks or they wouldn't survive? ...Yep, because that's what happened.
Remember during the financial crisis of 2008 when the Canadian government had to bail out OUR banks? ...Nope, because that never happened.
There have been 534 bank failures in the States since 2001.
The number of Canadian bank failures in that same time is 0.

[hepcat]

If you have any orders shipping from China or were planning on it, you might want to cancel for now.

Suspension of Inbound Parcels from China and Hong Kong

INTERNATIONAL SERVICE SUSPENSION NOTICE – effective Feb. 4, 2025

Effective Feb. 4, the Postal Service will temporarily suspend only international package acceptance of inbound parcels from China and Hong Kong Posts until further notice. Note the flow of letters and flats from China and Hong Kong will not be impacted.

They've since rescinded that, by the way.

[Kurth]

If you have any orders shipping from China or were planning on it, you might want to cancel for now.

Suspension of Inbound Parcels from China and Hong Kong

INTERNATIONAL SERVICE SUSPENSION NOTICE – effective Feb. 4, 2025

Effective Feb. 4, the Postal Service will temporarily suspend only international package acceptance of inbound parcels from China and Hong Kong Posts until further notice. Note the flow of letters and flats from China and Hong Kong will not be impacted.

They've since rescinded that, by the way.

That’s fine, but there’s no explanation for how they could possibly inspect any meaningful percentage of the tsunami of small packages coming from China. What’s the plan, Stan?

[hepcat]

I would imagine they do that anyway with scans. Labels have to be created for anything being shipped from anywhere.

...except Sexytown, where I live.

[Rumpy]

Former Canadian PM Stephen Harper

That's tellling him...

And as for banks, there are also mergers that have happened in the past. I forget which U.S bank merged with TD, but imagine my surprise when on a trip to Vermont in 2019, I saw the TD Bank logo being used. It's since reverted to be another name, but during its transition period, it used the TD Bank logo. It was surreal.

[Isgrimnur]

TD Ameritrade, previously TD Waterhouse, eaten by Charles Schwab

[Rumpy]

Yeah, that's it. And at the time I saw it, it said TD Waterhouse. Most wouldn't know what the TD stands for, but it stands for Toronto Dominion.

[IceBear]

They were also investigating for money laundering. Wonder if that wouldn't have happened if they didn't dip their toes in US

https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/td-bank- ... ations-18b

[Rumpy]

Probably. And I have to imagine that it was the American division that was the one being investigated.

Wow, and that's fairly recent, and it lends credence to what Harper said.

[Enough]

If you have any orders shipping from China or were planning on it, you might want to cancel for now.

Suspension of Inbound Parcels from China and Hong Kong

INTERNATIONAL SERVICE SUSPENSION NOTICE – effective Feb. 4, 2025

Effective Feb. 4, the Postal Service will temporarily suspend only international package acceptance of inbound parcels from China and Hong Kong Posts until further notice. Note the flow of letters and flats from China and Hong Kong will not be impacted.

They've since rescinded that, by the way.

That’s fine, but there’s no explanation for how they could possibly inspect any meaningful percentage of the tsunami of small packages coming from China. What’s the plan, Stan?

And they have not pulled back on eliminating the de minimus tax exemption for items under $800 (another Congressionally done thing being undone by POTUS btw). So that means you will now pay the previous and new tariffs on China, so expect prices to increase at least 35-45% on many items I would guess.

[stessier]