Canada

This sounded off to me, but maybe everything does. Another off-sounding idea I've heard: Gillian Tett, an editor and columnist at the Financial Times, seems to think there's a good chance Trump wants to hyperinflate the US dollar so he can somehow set more favourable repayment terms, when time comes due for them to renegotiate. I expect that would lower their credit rating even more but I guess Trump in that scenario doesn't care about that.

Normally I'd say it's possible for people who have been through failure (in his case, bankruptcy) to know things that more successful people don't, but whatever logic he has is overruled by his apparent narcissism so it's hard to be sure if what he thinks he's going to accomplish has some basis in reality.

Wouldn't it be easier for them to just tax the billionaires until they're just ten-millionaires?

"Tariffs are now a global policy of the United States," ... But those countries who ~~play nice~~ sycophantically serve US empire at expense of their GDP and sovereignty will have their existence spared. "This was, enthusiastically, a great and productive meeting"

To understand this as a great meeting, is to understand that if we just compete with Europe/other colonies for shifting our GDP and weapons purchases to US, even more than Europe, that we will get some merciful favoritism in the future, when Trump declares "Canada is no longer taking advantage of us, and there are zero fentanyl deaths in US, and the border line was set correctly, and we are not wasting $200B defending Canada" then maybe tariffs will be removed. This is "good cop Lutnick" making promises that "bad cop Trump" is not bound to. Calling this a good meeting is falling for BS.

Step 1: Get auto manufacturers and CAW to ensure full production capacity in Canada. Use export tariffs on energy and materials, and Potash, to reduce US auto sector capacity, and make their agriculture uncompetitive. No WTO rules respect for US. Auto parts exports to China may not be tariffed from Canada, but they are from US. Ensure decent relations with China to increase exports to China. Reciprocal trade with Europe, for their weapons and Airbus exterminating Boeing orders, but with high export deals to Europe too, and to get Canada-Europe unity in destroying US manufacturing, economy, and debt sustainability.

Step 2: IF auto manufacturers do not cooperate, and colonies choose US over Canada, then full decouple from US, and join BRICS/SCO. Chinese FDI/belt and road. Abandoning war on Russia, NORAD/US military cooperation. Canadian manufacturing is very highly subsidized. Using export tariff revenue from step 1 to subsidize it more is acceptable, but it requires cooperation from manufacturers. Having much cheaper/better value cars is a completely reasonable policy. Future of manufacturing is robotics anyway, and it will have declining employment.

Calling the US trade meeting "great", is fulfilling US empire's wet dream of EU/Canada going into direct war with Russia and China, while buying US weapons to do so, and sparing US soldiers in the process. The generational hatred manufactured by US propaganda that made us support this suicidal evil under Biden should not be amplified tenfold. Canada's divisiveness with Russia, China, and Mexico has increased under this trade war already. Dead wrong direction.

Calling this trade meeting productive is the same gas lighting as Chuck Schumer calling the budget deal unacceptable for a few hours, and then betraying the US (and Canada/world) by pretending that a government shutdown gives Trump more power than the explicit unchecked power given to him in bill.

Trusting the US to keep Canada's standard of living sustainable is a terrible mistake. We need to aggressively force them to.

Tax cuts for billionaires to balance the budget? What morons actually believe that?

There are three ways the U.S. government is working to cut down that deficit, Paterson added.

The first is a major budget resolution that calls for billions of dollars in tax cuts

Any good financial planner will tell you if you want to get out of debt, step one is decreasing your income

It's probably going to be cheaper for manufacturing to completely remove themselves from the USSA and avoid doing any business with it at all.

It's honestly a little reassuring to here that the reason for these tariffs is "We want to tax the ever-loving shit out of our citizens so we can give money to billionaires, but we don't want to call it a tax."

At least that means that it wasn't meant to be an act of betrayal and pre-text to war with Canada. I mean, it still was an act of betrayal creating massive hardship and permanently damaging our relationship. But the idea of a Russian/Ukraine remake happening along the 49th parallel seems less likely than it did.

It's literally a way to raise taxes on poor Americans without using the word tax.

Billionaires aren't importing significant amounts of physical goods from Canada, Mexico, or China.

For poor people, a good chunk of what they buy is coming from or partially made in one of those locations.

What a bunch of shit bags. The tarrifs violate the same trade agreement the cheeto signed a few years ago. If he doesn't like it, he can request a review in 2026. Until then, he should live up to his agreements. His actions make it abundantly clear any agreement with him isn't worth shit.

And using annexation threats as trade leverage to pass his tax cuts for the rich is beyond despicable.

"There are three ways the U.S. government is working to cut down that deficit, Paterson added. The first is a major budget resolution that calls for billions of dollars in tax cuts"

...ah, yes, nothing balanced the budget like siphoning the federal coffers into the 1%ers' pockets.

“Tariffs are now a global policy of the United States,” said David Paterson, Ontario’s representative in Washington. “And this is a historic change to global trading patterns, and [the Americans are] very aware of that.”

Paterson said the American plan is to impose tariffs by sector across countries all around the world on April 2. From there, the countries that get along with the U.S. the best will be “first in line” to adjust or mitigate the tariffs.

[Ambassador Kirsten] Hillman described the meeting as “concrete” and appreciated the conversations, but she noted that nothing changed in terms of the ongoing trade war between Canada and the U.S.

That’s what I understood the strategy to be back in 2015 when it was first being floated.

Why did it take the government so long to figure it out? Because it’s so badly thought out that it couldn’t possibly have been the plan?

You are looking at step 1 when you see US actions as related to the federal budget deficit. Step 2 is to reduce the trade deficit and bring home manufacturing and other production. The strategy for Step 2 will be devaluing the $USD.