So the fucker did it

[Scooter]

25% tariffs on imports from Canada beginning Tuesday.

A 150+ year friendship flushed down the toilet with the stroke of a pen.

Fuck Trump.

Fuck the United Fucking States of America.

[Scooter]

Time for Canada to re-orient itself with a military and economic alliance with China.

[Scooter]

And the response: 25% tariffs on $30B in U.S. imports as of Tuesday. 25% on a further $125B in 21 days.

1930s, here we come.

[BoSoxGal]

Please don’t hate on all the USFingA, most of us including many of his voters are going to be painfully affected by his profound lack of grasp of sound economic policy. I’m already wondering how I will afford my new healthy diet when most of the produce I buy is from Canada and Mexico. More beans and rice, fewer fruits and vegetables I guess.

I really need to learn to love bananas they’re still dirt cheap at 25% more.

I’m sad for the damage that will be done to Canadian and Mexican economies and residents as well.

[Scooter]

Let's start with the entire North American auto industry will come to a crashing halt, because no automaker can afford a 25% increase in input costs.

[Scooter]

Please don’t hate on all the USFingA,

A couple of incidents I heard about today that made me sad - the U.S. national anthem was booed at a hockey game between the Ottawa Senators and the Minnesota Wild, and the mayor of the border city of Sarnia faced demands to take down U.S. flags that symbolize its relationship with Port Huron, its counterpart on the U.S. side.

I'm thinking I'll go to the U.S. consulate with a sign that says "Fuck Trump" on one side, and on the other "Fuck Melania, because that micro dick can't".

[rubato]

Im surprised that there are no Republicans who can tell him this is a very bad idea and will only hurt us (and the US car companies who manu. In the land of. Mukluks and maple syrup.).

Yrs,
Rubato

[datsunaholic]

There have been several Republicans that have told him that. But generally anyone that speaks against anything Trump does finds himself fired. Since Trump has no respect for Constitutional laws, and the Supreme court has essentially told Trump he can do whatever he wants, the Constitution has simply ended up being as worthless as the Articles of Confederation. The only laws that work are ones you can enforce, and that's the purpose of the Executive branch- to execute the laws. And Trump is using the agency he controls to execute whatever acts he wants to.

I don't know if Trump is still so willingly ignorant of how Tariffs work, that he still believes that the Tarrifed country will pay for them (as he keeps saying Tariffs will pay for themselves) since it's part of Trump's plan to eliminate income taxes and replace that money with tariffs. He keeps wrongfully claiming the foreign countries will pay for them, that the US doesn't need foreign imports, that these will balance the budget. His cult laps this up, because it's what they want to hear. They think they won't pay for it.

What it becomes is a national sales tax- the importers pay the tax and pass the cost onto the price of the goods. So everything becomes more expensive. Not a problem for the ultra-rich, because they spend fractions of their total income actually buying anything. It simply hurts those that already can't make ends meet. It doesn't make American-made products less expensive, and companies aren't going to forgo profit.

He claims it's because of immigration and Fentanyl. 25% on Canada and Mexico, 10% on China due to Fentanyl since there isn't a "open border" between the US and China. Never mind that the US, with it's much larger economy, can't stop those either.

It's all part of his plan to bankrupt his detractors. Keep them poor, they can't fight. The weak die, those that don't conform are forced to conform or hide.

He has his minions in the Department of the Treasury looking on how to stop automatic payments. He's fired anyone who says the treasury's job is to pay out what they are told to- Trump wants full control of what checks get written. I suspect within a week or 2 you will see that payments will stop. This is nothing new to Trump- he routinely didn't pay people for services rendered, instead having his lawyers ensure the creditors bankrupted themselves before they could get money out of him. Now, Trump has the government paying his minions to stop payment to anything he doesn't like. Pledging allegiance to Trump will be required to see any government money, whether or not it was contractually obligated.

[Burning Petard]

My Japanese Toyota Corolla was made in Canada. My car before that, a Ford Escort, was made in Mexico. My car before that, also a Ford Escort, was made in Atlanta, Georgia.

If I had the money, I would go out and buy a new Sabaru Forester. No mater where it is made. Will there be a price drop, compared to the competition, for Honda's made in Japan?

snailgate

[ex-khobar Andy]

At some point you have to wonder if reality will set in and those idiots who voted him in will realize that eggs are not getting any cheaper. But, as many people smarter than me have said, the hardest thing to say is "I was wrong."

The even bigger debate that has to take place is this: how did we get to the point at which the Presidency is so powerful? As a non-native I still think that the Constitution was a remarkable concept for its time. Nowadays we have instant communication - I just got off an hour long video phone call with a very old friend in Croatia which cost me precisely $0.00 - so dumb ideas like the Electoral College might have made sense when NY to Philadelphia was a three day stage coach ride. Besides there was an easy way to amend the Constitution when reasonable men (!!!) saw fit.

Anyway, my reading of that document says that the President does as he is told by Congress. Congress says "Thou shalt tax the rich" and the President and all the experts who work for him figure out how to get that done, how to police it and even how much. They gave him conduct of foreign affairs; but after all WGAF what happens in far off lands such as China or Russia or even the UK which was a month or more away if you were lucky.

[rubato]

The even bigger debate that has to take place is this: how did we get to the point at which the Presidency is so powerful?

Bertrand Russell pointed out university presidents and corporate CEOs in England have relatively little individual power, being answerable to boards and trustees, while the opposite is true in the US where they rule by proclamation and fiat with little to moderate their whims.

Our style is able to move quickly. In a dynamic situation while theirs is more measured and predictable but stifles innovation.


Yrs,
Rubato

[Scooter]

[BoSoxGal]

Sorry!

[rubato]

Trudeau has made Canada a lot less appealing. His goals are admirable but the methods he chooses are worse than doing nothing. He has damaged and set back every cause he claims to espouse.

Other than his own turd mark I generally wish we were more like them.

Yrs,
Rubato

[Scooter]

[Crackpot]

If it only blew back on him.

[Bicycle Bill]

Would someone please explain — the Reader's Digest version — as to why and how one dipshit can arbitrarily and unilaterally fire people, freeze funding, create new government agencies like DOGE (and install personal cronies in the top positions), and institute taxes — sorry, tariffs — without any input or oversight from Congress or any other branch of the government, like he was that sawed-off little shrimp king of Id making proclamations from his balcony to the rabble below?

-"BB"-

[datsunaholic]

Because Congress is letting him do it. Congress has been giving up power for decades... well, almost a century, really.

But the MAGA party knew he would dictate. That's what they wanted. Congress, courts, all that... takes too long. Constitutional amendments can't pass. So they simply ignore it. No one is stopping him. And with MAGA in control of all 3 branches, no one will.

The Constitution only works if there is someone to enforce it. Otherwise it's toilet paper. And we knew this would happen. But that'd what the plurality of voters wanted.

[MajGenl.Meade]

There you go, BB

[Big RR]

From what i recall when Trump last did this, the power of the president to levy tariffs unilaterally goes back to the early 60s. It's not just the MAGA types, we have been giving the president more and more power for the last 50 years or more (really more--goes back to the 30s for sure--and look at some of the pre civil war times to see what presidents did unilaterally). The MAGAs have just been using it more openly. And for all the arm waving and bellyaching, I doubt it will change. People want their strong man in power. It doesn't speak well for democracy, but then little does.