American here.
Don’t counter with tarrifs. Counter with embargoes. Trump loaded you a gun and handed it to you. Pull the fucking trigger already.
Counter by decriminalizing everything to do with violations of US intellectual property. Ignore all US patents. Let Canadian drug companies make pharmaceuticals without having to pay for a US license. Let repair shops disable the DRM systems that prevent HP printers from accepting any old generic ink. Let Canadian broadcasters show US movies and TV shows without kicking back money to Hollywood. Let Canadian farmers repair their tractors without first kicking back money to John Deere. Allow anybody who wants to to jailbreak iPhones, and sell kits that allow other people to do that. Free Canadians from having to kick 30% of every purchase back to Apple in California.
That was Cory Doctorow’s recent take on it too. Trump just threw out the trade agreement with Canada and Mexico he was so proud to say was his accomplishment, after renegotiating NAFTA. They really should say fine, stew in your own mess. Ignore patents, crank out cheap pharmaceuticals, forget about DRM. Nationalize US factories on their soil. Will hurt for a while until new trade is established, but there is the whole rest of the planet to trade with.
Nationalize US factories on their soil
This is extreme and could warrant an invasion from the US. Wars have been fought for less. Look at what happened to Guatemala when they wanted to take back some of the half off their farmland owned by Chiquita.
Canada is a mid-sized power but not really in a position to flaunt US power like that
Canada is part of Nato. Isn’t trump going to leave Nato? So that would mean all of Nato would be on Canada’s side. That is one hell of a leg to stand on.
Nato doesn’t have the navy to help Canada in a fight. Assuming America isn’t torn apart by a civil war as factions of the military defects and there’s a revolution in the streets. (60/40 at that point. Fighting a century old ally is a red line that would absolutley cause a civil war)
the US navy would chuckle as the french and british and other relevant navies lie at the bottom of the atlantic. And at that point, Russia moves in and Europe is in a land war while the US decides to partner with Russia.
I dunno, Invasion requires a ground war. If the US attacked thier ships, they can just essentially blockade the US at ports of entry. The US can’t invade all points of entry and ensure safe passage. One shoulder mounted missle can take care of that. The US just can’t win that exchange. It takes 100x the force to secure than to disrupt. And in general the Uzs doesn’t have the troops to protect all it’s assets overseas. Nato would cripple us in a week.
this conversation was specifically about the US turning aggressive against Canada. the US turning on its allies and getting its global presence destroyed is one thing (I dont think that would happen, either). But to be clear, in this scenario we are talking about, If the US went aggressive against Canada, there is absolutely nothing NATO can do to help Canada except fingerwag, or nuke America.
And if Nuclear weapons were threatened, you could bet your ass the Mouth Foaming Z-Nazi party in Russia would rush to the aid of America, and declare that they were ready to invade and launch on the “Insane Europeans” to help the “Americans we have no problem with”
Russia wants to be hegemon of Eurasia, or at the very least Europe. If America wants to sacrifice it’s world influence and power to set up some kafkaesque one state entity across north America, Russia is more than happy to let them have it as long as they get their peice of the pie.
We’re doing both. Both BC and Ontario are cutting off American Booze. That’s gonna hurt American company’s hard.
My hope if Trump keeps it up we cut off the power, and better yet the gas. Although that might make him try to invade or something.
Up next will be him calling Canadians Nazis and trying to annex Quebec.
As an American, I’m rooting for Canada.
But this all feels very by design of Putin to fracture US alliances.
Yes, it’s Putin who’s totally controlling trump and making him do tarrifs. After all, Putin leads hamas, putin did 9/11, putin killed millions in Iraq, Putin killed millions the middle east, Putin’s funding UAE and Israeli genocides against Sudan and Palestine How peaceful the world would be without Putin /s
I’m so upset at my Canadian family members who supported Trump.
I got an uncle who was constantly saying he supports trump cause he’ll “run the country the country like a business” - i don’t think either trump or him actually understand business all that well.
I hope Canadian-European relations get stronger, and hopefully Canadian-American relations will be rebuilt once this fucker is gone
That’s the fallacy that I thought was learned back with Ross Perot. You don’t run a country like a business. It’s a government.
I’m pretty sure that people who say they want to “run the country like a business” just think it sounds good but haven’t put 2 braincells worth of thought into it. Businesses exist to make money. Government exists to serve citizens.
Do you want firefighters showing up to your burning house and asking for a credit card before they put out the fire? Or maybe have the post office decide that it’s not profitable enough to service entire states? The whole idea is moronic.
My mum last night on text.
“We’ll see what shithead Trump retaliates with tomorrow. The only way to stop the maniac is with a bullet!”
“Have you noticed how shithead has not left the White House since he was sworn in?”
“Trudeau is doing a great job!” (Referring to the presser)
I’m glad I don’t have your family OP
Edit - for the kids out there my mum is 74. She’s a baby boomer. Some of them are good people. They are not well off. I told my parents with the tariffs coming if they find themselves struggling to let me know because I will help in any way I can.
I’m glad I don’t have your family OP
Thankfully some of them have braincells
I appreciate your mom. My old man is a crass Appalachian boomer and speaks in a similar tone and diction with respect to Trump.
His ancestors are weeping
he supports trump cause he’ll “run the country the country like a business”
THIS MOTHERFUCKER BANKRUPTED A CASINO.
People say they want him to run the country like a business, but that man bankrupted a money printing machine, probably because he was doing all kinds of illegal shit and didn’t actually run his business like a business. Why would he run a money printing country any different than his money printing business.
My dumbass uncle feels the same way as yours, and I have to bite my tongue so after to remind him that he and trump have something in common: they both embezzled from their company until it died.
He will run the country like he does all of his businesses; into the ground.
He even failed at running a casino. Except this time he will likely be burying thousands of Americans along with the country.
“Run the country like a business” is the dumbest thing ever. If the government was run like a business they’d raise taxes because what business doesn’t want to increase revenue? There would also be an open door immigration policy, because what business turns away potential customers?
Personally I want the government run like a non-profit organization whose goal is to make my life better, but that’s just me.
Trump is now uniting Canadians like never before.
Do you tell him that Trump has filed for bankruptcy six times with his companies? What does that say about his business acumen? How often has your uncle filed for bankruptcy?
Trust me, I tried.
i’m still waiting for an explanation on how running anything like a business is objectively a good thing.
I’m up in the middle of nowhere Ontario in the north surrounded mostly by trees and lakes and not even remotely close to anything American … but yet I still have a few friends and family who love your dumb orange beanbag president.
I don’t understand the pull that this idiot has on people or the millionaires and billionaires that pour their money into him for some god forsaken reason.
It is actually perfectly simple.
Mr. Trump gives people easy answers to extremely complex problems, the fact that he is rich means that people just assume he is right about it.
People want easy answers that don’t blame them, Trump has perfected the style of of talking where he is ambiguous enough that people fill in the blanks themselves.
It is classic fascism speech.
Trump is so horrible he got Americans to side with the country putting retaliatory tariffs on them.
Also it should be pointed out that Trump essentially declared war on an ally because he wanted to seize Canadian land.
Any talk about drug trafficking is silly since the first thing Trump did was pardon one of the biggest drug traffickers in the world, Ross Ulbricht
All drugs should be legal
IMO they should be decriminalized for personal use, but having corporations selling hard drugs is a terrible idea
[…] having corporations selling hard drugs is a terrible idea
What’s your rationale?
How are you going to have a trade war with a superpower? it’s just a losing battle and it will hurt regular Canadians the most.