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62% of Canadians Plan to Avoid the U.S. for at Least the Next Year
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- hn_throwaway_99 2y agoI am honestly baffled what this whole shitstorm is about. Like why did Trump want to bash on Canada in the first place? None of his purported reasons pass the laugh test. Fentanyl trafficking? As has been widely reported, less than 1% of fentanyl that has been caught enters through the Canadian border. And if Trump cares so much about drug trafficking, why did he pardon the Silk Road founder, which did over $200 million of drug sales. And if anyone can have a beef about border security, it's Canada - look at all the contraband that enters Canada (especially guns) through the northern border. The trade stuff makes no sense either. Just read Trump's own words about what an amazing deal the USMCA treaty (the NAFTA replacement that the Trump administration negotiated in 2020) was: https://trumpwhitehouse.archives.gov/briefings-statements/remarks-president-trump-united-states-mexico-canada-agreement/ https://trumpwhitehouse.archives.gov/briefings-statements/re.... So I get it, Trump flip flops all the time, but I'm just trying to find some rationale for the Canada ire. What especially makes me so angry about all of this is that it's just classic junior high bullying bullshit. A couple months ago basically nobody in the US had any bad thoughts about Canada at all. Then Trump went on his bizarro crusade, and now you see all this conservative commentary online bashing Canada, parroting his "51st state/governor Trudeau" nonsense. It's the same juvenile mean girl crap where the queen bee decides "Who are we going to destroy today", and then the queen bee randomly picks out some kid and basically makes everyone else treat this kid like a pariah, simply because she wants to show she can. The whole thing is just beyond gross to me, but I still can't understand an iota of non-insane rationale behind it.
- don_neufeld 2y agoNot saying it’s true, but those behaviors make a lot more sense if you replace “Trump” with “Russian agent”, don’t they?
- marcusverus 2y ago[flagged]
- retrochameleon 2y ago[flagged]
- hn_throwaway_99 2y agoLook, I don't believe Trump is a Russian asset. But I'll be honest, looking at some of his actions with respect to Canada and Europe, I can certainly see why people think this. Based on your response, my guess is that you are at least less anti-Trump than most people I know. So I'm genuinely curious, do you have any ideas about his stance against Canada?
- afavour 2y agoI genuinely wonder if we're going to look back on all of this very differently. It's become commonly accepted that folks on the left got in way over their skis with the "Russian agent" accusations during his first term and based on the evidence actually available I'd say that's true. But with everything I'm seeing with Ukraine recently... I dunno. His actions aren't rational. It's conspiratorial thinking I know. But absent a coherent explanation for why he sides with Russia repeatedly I'm also not ready to just dismiss anyone saying it.
- billy99k 2y agoDoes putting sanctions on Russia make sense in your scenario?
- fzeroracer 2y agoI don't think there's a point in looking for a rationale. His mind is exceedingly addled and he's even less coherent than he was during his first term. Combined with delegating responsibility to a bunch of people high on various drugs constantly telling him to do X or Y or Z his policy is 'whoever talks to him first'.
- TylerE 2y agoImportant correction: It's whoever talked to him last. He has flipflopped (remember when THAT was enough to doom a political career?) on virtually every possible issue, most multiple times.
- pessimizer 2y agoThis is fantasy. The guy does endless interviews and explains why he's doing everything he's doing, at length, and negotiates in public. You can hate it, but if he's addled then Biden didn't even count as alive for his entire term. The reason that he came out of the gate so hard is due to extensive planning, and he's the only person during your lifetime who was the president, had four years off to reflect on it, then became president again. He recorded weird little videos of all of his future policies a couple of years ago, and he's not deviating from them significantly. He's the least confused guy in politics right now. Whether you like it is a different story, but I personally am thankful that the worst, covert elements of the government made an enemy of him in his first term. The obvious temptation when handed a dystopian nightmare of surveillance, censorship, front groups, fake science, and an infinite mandate to the executive from Congress would be to use them. Thank god Trump actually hates them personally, and is petty. Economically, he's sincerely trying to keep the US from paying the piper for the trade deficit we've been running for 40 years. He obviously actually believes in this. It is also completely mainstream economic theory. I wish there was a political force that could oppose him on policy and say why things should be done a different way, but the "resistance" base is still announcing that the walls are closing in on orange Hitler any minute. Policy is like kryptonite to anti-Trumpers right now. They refuse to argue anything on the merits, because they all sound like Reagan Republicans when they do.
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- SpicyLemonZest 2y agoI think it's clear that he's simply too old to understand what's going on. By his own account, when he talked with Trudeau yesterday, he was confused why Trudeau couldn't tell him when the next Canadian election was and concluded that he must be planning to "run again for Prime Minister". Because Trump has a reputation for dishonesty, people tend to assume he's lying when he says nonsensical things, but as you say it's hard to imagine what strategic value there could be to lying about this.
- outrun86 2y agoCanadian here, who is also not a Trump fan. It is true that Canada has extremely lax border controls and there are complex organized crime networks that exploit this inside of and through Canada. The US security establishment is aware of this, as is the Canadian security establishment. The 1% fentanyl headline is indeed widely reported, it’s also a red herring. The simple answer is Canada doesn’t really look, so not much is seen. More info here, by one of Canada’s best investigative journalists: https://www.thebureau.news/p/trade-based-money-laundering-is-the?utm_campaign=post&showWelcomeOnShare=false https://www.thebureau.news/p/trade-based-money-laundering-is... IMO Trump is, as the official white house press release says, trying to put pressure on Canada to address this. Are tariffs the best way to do that? A valid question, for sure. Does he have other, possibly irrational, motivations? Also an excellent question. But I see much Canadian and US commentary that assumes there is nothing rational about this at all, and that there is no Canadian border/security issues, and I would say that’s incorrect.
- matthewdgreen 2y agoOrdinarily when there's a really big problem, a President will go to some effort to explain to the public what the problem is, and how their actions will fix it. Apparently this problem is definitely motivation Trump and is also somehow so deeply hidden that we can only find out about it from random newsletter sites. I'm not saying that this makes it BS. But I'm also saying if this doesn't ring your BS meter, you don't have one anymore.
- outrun86 2y agoI follow what’s happening with Canadian drugs / money laundering pretty closely. The article I linked isn’t a random newsletter site, it’s from one of Canada’s top investigative journalists. Here’s the official white house statement from the Whitehouse website. I’ve heard Trump reference this multiple times: https://www.whitehouse.gov/fact-sheets/2025/03/fact-sheet-president-donald-j-trump-proceeds-with-tariffs-on-imports-from-canada-and-mexico/ https://www.whitehouse.gov/fact-sheets/2025/03/fact-sheet-pr...
- kalleboo 2y ago
- pastrami_panda 2y ago> Like why did Trump want to bash on Canada in the first place? Canada was a founding member of NATO, and it's very obvious Trump does not want a strong NATO alliance. Whatever the reason may be is up to speculation, but from an outside looking in it's quite jarring seeing clips of Hillary Clinton 8 years ago warn everyone that Trump was going to dismantle NATO. How any American is baffled by the current events is the only thing that is baffling to me.
- creer 2y agoOne theory was to rant at everyone about everything in the hope of getting little random trade concessions from everyone. The squeeky wheel is the one that gets greased or something. The "what" didn't matter. BUT the ranting is now at the stage where it has created chaos everywhere. And that has been costly everywhere, first of all in the US. Can the concessions make up for that cost? Is anyone in the mood for concessions by now? It's becoming doubtful. A little outrage would have been no big deal, but it seems we are already past that. I can now see a second theory: if you see a stalemate you don't like - and your position is otherwise somewhat strong - you can kick major mayhem all around you and stand ready to grab what falls back down from people in a less strong situation. A mix of disruption and being bold when the others are fearful. In that situation, the cost of chaos may be acceptable because you believe you can survive that chaos while the others cannot.
- zeagle 2y agoI think he is trying to set us up and also occupy the news cycle to distract. We retaliate with tariffs, he blames us for his domestic economic woes and increases tariffs, we retaliate with electricity and potash for leverage, public support for Canada slowly drops. Thus he slowly moves the goal posts eventually to seize these resources because they are of national importance. A stretch? Maybe but look at Panama, Greenland, Ukraine minerals actions. There is no going back to the previous relationship because Canadians feel betrayed after years of big sibling adoration and blame pre-existing, worsening unrelated domestic issues on Trump’s actions. My honest take of public sentiment is it has taken such a dive at this point if 9/11 happened in this era the passengers landing in Canada could camp out on the runway huddling for warmth by barrels until busses home are arranged.
- afavour 2y agoI think it's raw materials. Canada and Greenland both have a load of them. Trump could buy them, he'd rather just _have_ them. I also think (and I realize this, uh, is not a nuanced, science-backed view) that he's senile and as a result collapses complex ideas into their simplest possible form, which is what we're seeing here. There's a level where examining his motivations in depth just comes up empty and I think that's... accurate?
- quadragenarian 2y agoMy belief is partially his rationale is/was to try to extract "border concessions" and by that I mean ask Canada to give away some of its land to the US. It seems bonkers but when you compare Trump to Putin who's clearly trying to expand mother Russia, it's not that different than any strongman with a big army's approach.
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- epoxia 2y agoAn interesting barometer of the tensions, is by looking at Canadian grocers website. All that I have seen, have "buy Canadian" and "produced in Canada" plastered onto most products. Even Walmart has a "made in Canada" tab.
- ViktorRay 2y agoInteresting this is happening in Canada. I live in America and I have not seen too many Made In America stuff recently. Maybe that will change though
- nitwit005 2y agoBecause the Canadians are angry at America, but the reverse is not true.
- hn_throwaway_99 2y agoNo, because the same is true. At least about half of Americans are angry at America too. And if you look specifially at the administration's stance towards Canada, if you believe polling a sizable majority are as angry and baffled as you are.
- jerlam 2y agoProbably wouldn't happen in retail - the price differences are stark. Most of the made in USA stuff I have seen is mid to higher end.
- seanmcdirmid 2y agoMost of your produce and groceries are made in America. It just isn’t worth it to ship broccoli from China. In Canada, it’s mostly foodstuff and soft goods also that is being discriminated against for being American, farmers, distillers, food processors, etc… are going to be the most effected.
- gruez 2y agoI wouldn't read too much into this. I wouldn't read too much into this. A few years ago it was "black businesses", but I doubt anyone was actually basing their purchasing decisions on it. It's just businesses trying to ride the current thing. https://www.theverge.com/2020/7/31/21348990/google-black-owned-businesses-maps-search https://www.theverge.com/2020/7/31/21348990/google-black-own... https://www.businessinsider.com/amazon-gave-big-companies-small-business-black-owned-badges-report-2023-4 https://www.businessinsider.com/amazon-gave-big-companies-sm...
- WorldPeas 2y agoThere are several Canadians by me selling their (winter) houses at lower than market rates. I asked them about it and they cited the current situation, but I'm not sure if they were doing it to get liquidity to brace themselves for economic conflict or because they were afraid of property seizure.
- _aavaa_ 2y agoIt could be that they want out of the country without leaving a big asset behind
- seanmcdirmid 2y agoIf this is Florida, there is also that high home insurance cost to consider.
- WorldPeas 2y agoyes but this was in an area that had no real risk for hurricane damage, we only got some torn soffits and maybe lawn damage. And to see multiple people doing it for the same reason, and not knowing each other/coordinating this, was concerning.
- throwacct 2y agoInteresting. I'm not from the US or Canada, but are Canadians really going to "war" against the US? They're going to lose +400B in trade potentially. No markets are waiting for those products. Just "play ball" with Trump, spend more on border security, block any drugs from entering the country that might start with the letter "f" and be done with that.
- theluketaylor 2y agoThere is no playing ball. Trump has made no actionable demands and we have already spent a ton of money on the border. Less than 1% of fentanyl enters the US through Canada and we have already slashed that negligible number in the last few months. He isn't even moving the goalposts; there are no goalposts. This is economic warfare to take over Canada's resources.
- seanmcdirmid 2y agoTrump hasn’t actually made any demands, his talks with Mexico and Canada are more like “what can you offer me?” And not “I want you to do X.”
- archagon 2y ago“Acquiesce to the bully” is a universally unpopular policy.
- beveldropshadow 2y ago[flagged]
- needcontainers 2y agoAnd literaly no one will notice
- rlnvlc 2y agoI don't understand the what-does-Trump-really-want guessing game other commentators are playing in. He clearly states what he wants: Canada as the 51st state. Americans are about to learn that Canadians are not the polite people they think they are when things start to get real.