Nearly every day, I wonder what the top Republican leaders honestly think about these foreseeable outcomes. They made a deal with the devil -power at any cost.
It is going to be a rough ride as America re-calibrates to a world which no longer relies on it. We took enormous amounts of benefits for granted.
I wonder how many will simply become "Trump Republicans" and follow some other leader when he's gone? Or will some simply pretend to wake up and have realized they had Trump Derangement Syndrome the whole time and are ready to come back to reality?
They are laser focused on making this a whiter nation with lesser rights for women and no ambiguous LGBTQ. From all the literature it seems like they believe that this demographic reversion will over the long term solve all their problems. They are not looking to optimize for anything else now including the loss of hegemony and influence. This is going to be completely and irreversibly devastating for the United States.
Agreed completely. Part of this deal is that the Canadian auto market is no longer protected against Chinese EVs which substantially undercut the legacies. There is also news that the Europeans are making about to make a similar deal with China. Imagine what the United States economy will be like if Stellantis, Ford, or GM or all of them go bankrupt. 3-4 million in lost jobs alone.
Trump wants to tariff countries that support Denmark and Greenland. That's like all of the other NATO countries. What happens if NATO doesn't exist? No more bases to support Middle East operations and no more intelligence sharing.
It will mean more support from the Canadians and Europeans for moving trade to be denominated by Renminbi.
I don't think the Republican leadership has thought through the implications to the US with their deal with the devil.
This is a negative-sum choice being made by everyone but China. Chinese cars will decimate the European motor industry. Volvo is already gone. BMW, Porsche, Volkswagen will follow. This will hurt Europe a lot more than it will hurt America.
The pressures of a democratic society will force Western governments to extract money from their productive sectors and redirect them to their comparatively unproductive auto sectors.
Watching an increasingly aging Europe try to sustain its expensive welfare state while losing its biggest industries and facing a war citizens don't have the heart to prosecute is going to be interesting. Already French retirees make more than the average working man there.
They won't fight. They won't work. They won't provide children. To retirees, replacing local industry with Chinese manufacturing is a no-brainer: everything gets cheaper. With the resulting loss of well-paying jobs, healthcare for the elderly and wait staff will get even cheaper. A bonanza for a generation soon to disappear leaving the bits to be picked up by their most ardent fans.
Everyone is going to be hurt, but if you're not the US you need to hedge. Being firmly aligned with the US is too dangerous right now. Lots of negative costs and outcomes come with that hedging.
I don't think you understand the bigger issue. Locking out competitors will save these jobs for now, but it will not last forever. This is exactly what happened to the US automakers in the 80s and look at them now.
>Imagine what the United States economy will be like if Stellantis, Ford, or GM or all of them go bankrupt. 3-4 million in lost jobs alone.
They wouldn't go bankrupt. They will be saved and protected by government bailouts and tariffs, and the situation will become similar to say Russia car industry. Though, naturally, the situation with Russian cars has become so bad that even they are forced to massively open market to Chinese cars (and even "Russian cars" become more and more just simple rebadge of Chinese cars).
In short - if you don't compete by increasing productivity, efficiency, quality, you will be overtaken by the ones who do. The government actions may prolong your complacency time, yet ultimately such prolongation is just the time you actually lose falling more and more behind.
> I wonder what the top Republican leaders honestly think about these foreseeable outcomes
It doesn't matter what they think. Trump's message resonates with the electorate much more effectively than theirs, partly because of his political brand and partly because he has a network of social media acolytes who broadcast his messaging to each segment and demographic. It's a positive feedback loop wherein anyone who dares to go off-message or criticize his decisions gets instantaneous blowback from the MAGA audience themselves, so they quickly recalibrate. At this point, Trump has built a metaphorical tower of skulls of political foes within the party (e.g. Marjorie Taylor Greene).
Despite everything that has happened over the past year, the Democrats only have a few percentage points lead over the Republicans in current midterm polling. As an outside observer: Absolutely wild. I know a lot about the reasons, but it still feels completely surreal.
Trump is not unique. You can find similar parties and figures in most of Europe. Usually the would-be autocrat populist is even more popular than in the US in two party systems. Multi party systems dilute it which just leads to paralysis until eventually >40% of your population is ok with abandoning democracy because the impacts of paralysis are stacking up (France).
Don’t know how to tell people this, but the world doesn’t really need America to be the country everyone relies on. We may be better off with diversity. Increase your international exposure.
True. But the US want to remain the country everyone relies on if it wants to preserve the dollar as the world's primary trade, reserve and settlement currency.
Dollar dominance gives the US disproportionate leverage over global finance and allows it to shape the rules of the system. Absent this asymmetry, it is difficult to imagine US tariffs or financial pressure (or any kind of pressure) would carry comparable global impact.
I mean, but they're not feeding into the US's power. So they're like, buying into a depreciating asset. This actively signals the US is losing power to China given that it's _formerly top ally_ is making trading partnerships with one of it's nominal "enemies". Anyone who can think more than a month out, can see this will result in the US losing power in the long run.
> So they're like, buying into a depreciating asset
Part of the issue is that the average age of the House is ~55 and for the senate it's above 60. So they have a lot less incentive to care about that, or about climate change.
Reminds me of Russia post-Soviet collapse when all of the SSRs rushed to form their own blocs or align with the West, while the Russians thought they would continue to align with their former overlords in Moscow.
USA will definitely turn into the new Russia if it continues to go on this path. It has already exhausted most of its cultural and moral capital, and its tech sector is already under threat in its major allies. It will continue to stay relevant for maybe a generation or two but it will turn largely irrelevant by the turn of the century, just like the British Empire or Russia today. Assuming, of course, that it doesn't correct course.
The long term goal of US foreign policy has been to weaken Russia and the EU and take resource rich countries like Venezuela, Greenland, Iran. Canada was probably not overtly on the list.
To that end, the US provoked a war in Ukraine. Now it wants the EU to pay for its war while it is taking resources elsewhere, including from Denmark.
Venezuela basically has bipartisan support. Greenland has long been on the list, as evidenced by neocon (and current Trump enemy) John Bolton. who complains about Trump's methods but not about the objective.
The EU and Ukraine have been fooled by a long term bipartisan con and are beginning to wake up.
The only encouraging signal is that polls among Americans voters show that hardly anyone would support a takeover of Greenland or Canada. But the tech bros and other corporations have the politicians in their pocket, especially those who claim to be anti-interventionist during election campaigns.
I wonder why these alternative points of view always try very hard to deflect blame away from Russia when it comes to Russia's invasion of Ukraine (which began in 2014).
Maybe because Russia's guilt is obvious and does not need to be repeated? Victoria "Fuck the EU" Nuland was active in Ukraine before 2014 and precisely one of the reasons Russia took the bait. It was wrong to take the bait, in case that needs to be stated again.
Nature is healing (mild /s), not that there isn't high risk of pivot backfiring for CAN. Regardless people forget Canada under the British and post independence was fundamentally an anti-American project until WW1. Before that, it took multiple wars and (failed) US annexation effort before CAN/US realized jawjaw was better than warwar, really when Canada realized you can't be FOB for US adversaries, then British, and even that coexistence was under decadesof mutual suspicion. Of course the chance of PRC/CAN defense cooperation is nil, US will never allow that considering all the NORAD infra, but way things are going, even generic trade with PRC (something US already does - agriculture, energy, technology) is probably going to put another 51st state annexation attempt back on the menu.
This agreement was reached at almost the same time as Mercosur, the huge EU - South America trade deal. Hopefully the American electorate is paying attention.
I don’t think so. This is not first time euro bureaucrats pull off shit like this. Apply cutthroat regulations locally and push through cheap imports. Then cry about local industries struggling. Rinse and repeat.
To be fair, Europe is tired of its farmers rioting and the general public welcomes the trade deal. If the farmers are crying about struggling against competition, I have a tiny violin to play for them.
Eh. As a citizen of EU member, I’m not happy about Mercosur deal at all. Hopefully fellow euro electorate is paying attention too. But giving how EU bureaucracy is shielded from the feedback loop, I doubt any outcome in national and EP elections could change anything anytime soon.
I feel the same way about some euro leaders pointing to China as possible alternative to US. Fuck no. Sometimes it feels like some people here want to pull off the same shit that is going on in China or US and just wait for a good opportunity. E.g. legendary chat control. But many people pretend it’s all fine and dandy just because.
Good. People are sometimes dismissive or worried about China, with how they spy on people etc. But for most of the western world, the real danger is US and not China. Just think - Canadian, Europeans etc are more likely to go on business travel to the States than China. You can get your phone checked at the border and if you’re not too keen about the US dear leader, that won’t be good for your US admission.
Being negative about Xi might have similar results, but less likely in practice.
This is a sound tactical move to provide a hedge against future US economic threats.
Strategically, I do think you want to be coming up with a plan to shield core industries like auto, shipping, energy, and some parts of manufacturing (eg “factories for factories” rather than “factories for consumer goods”) from dumping / state subsidies.
It might be OK to let the PRC subsidize your solar cells, assuming you can build wind instead if they try to squeeze you. It’s probably not wise to depend on PRC for your batteries, drones, and cars, where these are key to strategic autonomy and you don’t have an alternative.
Canada should re-enact the AutoPact [0] (tldr: I don't see this in the wiki article, but the real benefit was; for every 3 cars sold in Canada, 1 had to be 'made' in Canada). This was ruled as unfair under NAFTA and thus terminated. It also had the effect of incredible auto-industry cutbacks.
BUT, with a new contender (China); we could re-enact it, rebuild our diminished blue-collar manufacturing base; and hasten the rollout of EV vehicles. Which is the real objective here.
The time to negotiate that would have been before this announcement. Carney has doomed Canada's auto industry because he is negotiating with his emotions.
But are Chinese EVs attractive to consumers if they are built in Canada with union wages? At that point people will just keep buying Toyotas/Hondas that are also built in Canada.
Very curious if this will result in US tariffs for car imports from Canada.
Also curious how those tariffs would be justified (they‘re always using Terrence Howard math but at least pretending to be analytical). „Canada has to pay because China bad“?
Trump said, “Well, that's OK, that's what you should be doing. I mean, it's a good thing for him to sign a trade deal. If you can get a deal with China, you should do that, right?”, so he doesn't seem annoyed by it so why would he impose tariffs?
Trump could increase the tariffs he already set in April 2025 for new cars manufactured in Canada. Depending on the car model the increases vary between 2500 and 15000 USD.
FAFO* goes both ways. US is in an interesting spot. We have a 1 one-time reset button: Since we’re the reserve currency we can inflate out debt away at the cost of inflation. If and when we do that the world will pivot away, maybe, to another currency. At that point the great American tailwind will be over and we’ll have to be competitive at the global stage — interesting to see what that means, if anything.
As an analogy, imagine you’ve accumulated enough debt and bought yourself a house, a car, and invested in enough productive unseizable assets (very important), like a farm and whatnot, to sustain yourself. what’s the point in servicing your debt? If the only consequence is no one will lend you again, you already have everything so whatever, right?
I can poke a million flaws in this logic, but I _think_ that’s the megasupersmart move the current administration is gunning for. Hell do I know how it will pan out, but I have a hunch. FAFO I guess.
Any country willing to not be lent to again in future can default on their debts, nothing special there; the actual clever bit is stringing out the ability to accumulate debt at relatively low cost into decades of investment... something they seem to be willing to sacrifice to well and truly own the libs. The sadder reality is that there isn't any megasupersmart strategy, just an ageing buffoon with the foreign policy savvy of a middle schooler who's just heard about the Louisiana purchase and tariffs, and a bunch of grifters hanging on.
The experiment in "is America too big to fail" is probably going to result in a "not quite" answer, but they're really giving it a go.
Foreigners don't need to own fixed-interest securities. They can also invest in other US assets, such as the stock market. That's quite a good inflation hedge, so long as the US remains a good place to invest.
Except, apart from tech, there is no good place to invest in the US, especially given the headwinds in the current macro environment. And tech is super overvalued now.
There's a lot of investor capital moving to traditional industries in China, India, Brazil, Korea and Europe, simply because there's better returns to be made with more resilience to American problems.
So Canada found out it doesn't have any leverage over China in this so-called trade war, that is going on between North America and China?
That is at least the logical conclusion based on the information the linked-to article provides.
What I am asking myself now is, why did Canada join the US in the 2024 tariffs enactment the article is talking about in the first place? What was their motivation?
The US president always said, that he deemed the existing contracts between China and the US as "unfair" for America, hence the tariffs and trade war. That is his official explanation at least. But why would Canada join that? That's what I want to know.
The Canada-US Auto Pact of 1965 effectively integrated automobile manufacturing between the two countries. This pact removed the previous tariffs and added certain guarantees. This effectively created one protected automobile market between the countries.
This is, of course, exactly why Canada joined the US in 2024 tariffs against China. We had all one market to protect.
Their motivation was protectionism, because Canada hosts assembly plants and a broad parts manufacturing base. Same as the US. This regards the targeted EV tariffs from 2024 which is the only such tariff action mentioned in the article.
>So Canada found out it doesn't have any leverage over China in this so-called trade war
That's an astonishingly weird take-away. FWIW, Canada by almost any analysis "won" this trade negotiation. China was very eager to thaw relations. Every Chinese newspaper ran a front page of Carney visiting China. They all know this is yet another brick in the collapse of the American empire.
Maybe if you just threaten military conquest more you'll reclaim something much better people built decades ago? Now the Joe Rogan generation foolishly eat up the most profoundly stupid nonsense and repeat it like clucking chickens.
>why did Canada join the US in the 2024 tariffs enactment the article is talking about in the first place? What was their motivation?
Because we foolishly engaged with a tightly integrated economy with the sort of country that casual floats conquering friendly democracies to loot their resources, and that repeatedly elects vile, unbelievably stupid criminal pedophiles? See, "America's" automakers are actually US/Mexico/Canada automakers, so we worked with the US to defend them. Then Trump decided, in his incredibly, profoundly shortsighted foolishness (being unchecked by anyone) that he would start a trade war with neighbours.
I think the most astonishing was how willing the incredibly poorly educated American public bought the silly fentanyl lie, all so that clown could claim national security grounds.
TLDR: Developed countries will come together to cooperate on matters they agree without the US, or US-dominated forums like the UN. Whether it's a group to support Ukraine, tackle climate change, increase trade etc it'll be faster and looser. We will indeed trade a lot more with China and allow chinese EVs, but there's also lots of pressure to bring down domestic trade barriers, automatically recognize European-approved products etc. Over time this will help us decouple from the US.
I'm looking forward to a less US-reliant Canada. We used to have a more vibrant and distinctive culture in the 80s, 90s so it's nice to see people travel less to the US, consume fewer US products. Like the pandemic, it is a painful external event you have to deal with, but what else are you gonna do other than deal with it head on.
It is going to be a rough ride as America re-calibrates to a world which no longer relies on it. We took enormous amounts of benefits for granted.
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