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I've got one word for you: Potash. Hugely important for agriculture, barely produced in the US at all, mostly imported from Canada. If Canada retaliates by ba

I've got one word for you: Potash. Hugely important for agriculture, barely produced in the US at all, mostly imported from Canada. If Canada retaliates by barring or limiting potash exports, it would be so harmful to the American agriculture sector that Trump would go ballistic. > They can and will move to the US because of these tariffs. That's a lot easier said than done, and as US policies might change at any time -- it's a coin-flip what'll be the case in four years -- they'll probably just decide to wait it out and let US consumers eat the tax. Seriously, you might think it's easy to relocate, e.g., a car manufacturing plant, but it sure ain't...

dismalaf 2y ago
Potash is important yes. Canada also imports a majority of our fruit and vegetables from the US. Over 90% of our leafy greens come from the US. We already have a massive cost of living crisis. And I'm not sure if American commentators have been paying attention to our economy or not but Canada's GDP per capita has gone down for 6 straight quarters. And here's the analysis from the Bank of Canada: https://www.bankofcanada.ca/publications/mpr/mpr-2025-01-29/in-focus-1/ https://www.bankofcanada.ca/publications/mpr/mpr-2025-01-29/... I know commentators want to stick it to Trump but Canada's economy has been in a bad place for years and this isn't good for us at all...
- deeg 2y ago
  I don't think anyone is saying it won't hurt Canada; trade wars hurt both sides. The discussion is whether Canada can make it hurt Trumps supporters enough to pressure him to remove the tariffs.
  - dismalaf 2y ago
    My perspective is as a Canadian. The US GDP per capita is 7% above pre-Covid numbers, Canada's is 2% below. Or you can say our GDP per capita has diverged by 9% since COVID. Canada's cost of living is actually untenable right now. Canada can't hold the line long enough to do anything to the US. We'll do it for political reasons until the election this year but it's going to decimate our economy even further.
    - tokioyoyo 2y ago
      Cost of living in Canada has been untenable for the past decade. The choice is to bend the knee or suffer more with the hopes you’ll at least go down with pride. I have no idea how the hell the government across the border got their citizens to start hating on us within a couple of weeks.
      - School-Cotton 2y ago
        They didn’t. The vast majority of Americans don’t hate Canadians. You don’t need a popular referendum to set tariffs, the president can just do it. One of the many downsides of electing a crazy person as president.
        tokioyoyo 2y ago
        Fair, apologies for having a knee-jerk reaction to it. It just sucks to scroll a tiny bit on forums and get bombarded with pure hate. I understand that it doesn’t represent the majority, but makes you scratch your head and think why so many level headed people are willing to throw away trust that was built throughout decades. Like I get the whole America First approach, and understand the desire to build out the manufacturing locally… but is it worth it to turn away all of your allies and make them get closer with the actual super power that wants to dethrone you?
        dismalaf 2y ago
        To be fair Canada and most of the EU haven't come close to fulfillment our NATO requirements since, well, ever. For better or worse most of the free world freeloads off the US' security shield. Canada is especially egregious, where we have a bunch of tariffs and regulations protecting certain Canadian corporations while expecting the US to protect us and buy our products. All the while smugly criticizing them for it.
        tokioyoyo 2y ago
        US gets unquestionable currency dominance from US' security shield. Don't get me wrong, but if that was a real concern, they would've started the tariff war 4, 6, 8 years ago. Economical and political headwinds are showing potential Chinese dominance across all manufacturing and export industries. This is the actual time when US is being threatened and trying to bully others, because they can't fix the problem themselves.
  - psb217 2y ago
    You also have to account for how much Trump cares about his supporters vs how much any Canadian politician with sufficient power to act cares about their supporters. Trump is already elected, so whatever self-interested concern he had for his supporters is gone. I doubt Canadian politicians, with an election looming, are as willing to throw their supporters under the bus.

dismalaf 2y ago

Potash is important yes. Canada also imports a majority of our fruit and vegetables from the US. Over 90% of our leafy greens come from the US. We already have a massive cost of living crisis. And I'm not sure if American commentators have been paying attention to our economy or not but Canada's GDP per capita has gone down for 6 straight quarters. And here's the analysis from the Bank of Canada: https://www.bankofcanada.ca/publications/mpr/mpr-2025-01-29/in-focus-1/ https://www.bankofcanada.ca/publications/mpr/mpr-2025-01-29/... I know commentators want to stick it to Trump but Canada's economy has been in a bad place for years and this isn't good for us at all...

deeg 2y ago
I don't think anyone is saying it won't hurt Canada; trade wars hurt both sides. The discussion is whether Canada can make it hurt Trumps supporters enough to pressure him to remove the tariffs.
- dismalaf 2y ago
  My perspective is as a Canadian. The US GDP per capita is 7% above pre-Covid numbers, Canada's is 2% below. Or you can say our GDP per capita has diverged by 9% since COVID. Canada's cost of living is actually untenable right now. Canada can't hold the line long enough to do anything to the US. We'll do it for political reasons until the election this year but it's going to decimate our economy even further.
  - tokioyoyo 2y ago
    Cost of living in Canada has been untenable for the past decade. The choice is to bend the knee or suffer more with the hopes you’ll at least go down with pride. I have no idea how the hell the government across the border got their citizens to start hating on us within a couple of weeks.
    - School-Cotton 2y ago
      They didn’t. The vast majority of Americans don’t hate Canadians. You don’t need a popular referendum to set tariffs, the president can just do it. One of the many downsides of electing a crazy person as president.
      - tokioyoyo 2y ago
        Fair, apologies for having a knee-jerk reaction to it. It just sucks to scroll a tiny bit on forums and get bombarded with pure hate. I understand that it doesn’t represent the majority, but makes you scratch your head and think why so many level headed people are willing to throw away trust that was built throughout decades. Like I get the whole America First approach, and understand the desire to build out the manufacturing locally… but is it worth it to turn away all of your allies and make them get closer with the actual super power that wants to dethrone you?
        dismalaf 2y ago
        To be fair Canada and most of the EU haven't come close to fulfillment our NATO requirements since, well, ever. For better or worse most of the free world freeloads off the US' security shield. Canada is especially egregious, where we have a bunch of tariffs and regulations protecting certain Canadian corporations while expecting the US to protect us and buy our products. All the while smugly criticizing them for it.
        tokioyoyo 2y ago
        US gets unquestionable currency dominance from US' security shield. Don't get me wrong, but if that was a real concern, they would've started the tariff war 4, 6, 8 years ago. Economical and political headwinds are showing potential Chinese dominance across all manufacturing and export industries. This is the actual time when US is being threatened and trying to bully others, because they can't fix the problem themselves.
- psb217 2y ago
  You also have to account for how much Trump cares about his supporters vs how much any Canadian politician with sufficient power to act cares about their supporters. Trump is already elected, so whatever self-interested concern he had for his supporters is gone. I doubt Canadian politicians, with an election looming, are as willing to throw their supporters under the bus.