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How? What if we just decide we will never go to war with Mexico or Canada and get comfortable with the idea of importing from our allies? There is no serious fu

How? What if we just decide we will never go to war with Mexico or Canada and get comfortable with the idea of importing from our allies? There is no serious future risk from doing that

fidotron 1y ago
This kind of answers your own question: the reality is you are only a reliable US ally [1] if you can hold them by the balls TSMC style. Given that countries go to great lengths to develop and maintain such dependencies. Canada's current weakness is at least in part because it has failed to do so. [1] Edit to add: This was/is poorly worded - I mean that the US will only guarantee that you remain an ally while they are in some sense dependent on you, and while doing so they may work to break that dependence, which you may interpret as them trying to abandon you.
- mgraczyk 1y ago
  You are claiming that Canada will stop exporting to the US in the future? Populism does the opposite, they would likely stop importing. There's almost no risk to us that they would not export chips
  - fidotron 1y ago
    My claim is Canada has no unique product that it offers that the US is sufficiently conspicuously dependent on for it to guarantee any real sense of true independence, and so it finds itself subject to the whims of a foreign state. Right now there is a very large Canadian boycott of US products, services and tourism. I also had to explain to a client this week that because of the import tariffs on Chinese goods to the US the US assembled products are now no longer competitive with alternatives. The fact you were seemingly unaware of this kind of demonstrates the level of effect of it.
    - mgraczyk 1y ago
      You are arguing my point. Canada may stop importing from us but will never stop exporting. There are no incentives for that and never will be. We import tons of food and energy from them and have no alternative on time scales or 10 years If we imported chips from Canada, that supply chain would be safe for at least 50 years, probably hundreds
      - fidotron 1y ago
        The Nintendo Wii SoC was actually fabbed in Canada and exported, but that facility has changed into something slightly different because the whole east coast/hudson river valley fab world went sideways a while ago. > We import tons of food and energy from them and have no alternative on time scales or 10 years More importantly for Canadians that food or energy has no alternative competing market to sell into. Consequently the Canadians are totally dependent on the US market to even set the price of it. This applies to many other sectors as well. Canada is currently having a huge desperate push to export to non US markets because of the levels of uncertainty that have been created. And I say this as someone not totally dismissive of the US position, but they need to do a far better job of bringing their allies into the tent with them.
      - SJC_Hacker 1y ago
        Historically there have been plenty of incentives to stop exporting. Its called an embargo. Usually in an attempt to get the host country to change foreign policy, though I can't think of any situation where it actually worked. Examples: Napoleon's "Continental System" against Great Brtain, US oil embargo against Japan prior to WWII, Confederate States of America cotton embargo against the UK during the early years of the American Civil War
        mgraczyk 1y ago
        Yes it's definitely possible, but very rare and as you pointed out (especially in the confederacy's case) it usually harms the exporter much more than it helps. I'd say that in any case of a serious Canadian export embargo, it will have been in retaliation to US trade policy or US invasion, not the other way around. We had essentially no risk that Canada would embargo us, there was no possibility of this happening for the last 150 years until we became the aggressors
theteapot 1y ago
It's an extension of a peace through strength philosophy. If you lose your critical sovereign capabilities you become weak and vulnerable. You no longer get to decide who you do and don't "never go to war with".
- mgraczyk 1y ago
  Yes I understand the reasoning, it's just obviously wrong. This doesn't happen and hasn't happened in hundreds of years. This is not why people get invaded, otherwise Switzerland would have been invaded many times over the last century
  - 1718627440 1y ago
    That's exactly why Switzerland didn't got invaded in the last century. Every side depended on them for money supply, so they couldn't risk bringing the war to Switzerland. Also it had a track record of staying neutral, so they didn't feared it may pick a side, because it largely made money from selling stuff from both sides.
deleted 1y ago
[deleted]
topspin 1y ago
> if we just decide we will never go to war with... That's hubris. Although the US does indulge elective wars, one does not always get to choose with whom one will war.
- mgraczyk 1y ago
  Okay so make a prediction. What is the probability that Canada or Mexico will declare war on the United States in the next 100 years?
  - topspin 1y ago
    100 years? Only a fool would attempt that. 100 years from now Uzbekistan could be fighting Brazil in orbit around Venus.
  - lm28469 1y ago
    100 years ago the British Empire ruled the world, now it's a small island you don't hear much about... The US is only about 250 years old, I'd be cautious about predicting the future
    - mgraczyk 1y ago
      You're off by about 150 years. 100 years ago was 1925, the British has already largely collapsed losing the US, Canada, Australia. 100 years isn't forever but it's a long time And we haven't had any serious threats from Canada since 1812. I think the most reasonable estimate is 100-200 years
      - simianparrot 1y ago
        Surely based on history the odds of a conflict between neighbouring countries increases with time passed.
        mgraczyk 1y ago
        No, based on the history of conflict we can say that the more time that passes with neighbors not invading one another, the less likely they will in the future
like_any_other 1y ago
> go to war It won't be war. It'll be one-sided trade deals [1,2], and a slow erosion of economic and political sovereignty, culminating in a puppet state. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canada-China_Promotion_and_Reciprocal_Protection_of_Investments_Agreement https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canada-China_Promotion_and_Rec... [2] https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/fipa-agreement-with-china-what-s-really-in-it-for-canada-1.2770159 https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/fipa-agreement-with-china-wha...
- mgraczyk 1y ago
  One sided trade deals in which they continue exporting to us and import less There is plenty of risk that our neighbors stop importing and almost no risk they stop exporting

How? What if we just decide we will never go to war with Mexico or Canada and get comfortable with the idea of importing from our allies? There is no serious future risk from doing that

fidotron 1y ago

This kind of answers your own question: the reality is you are only a reliable US ally [1] if you can hold them by the balls TSMC style. Given that countries go to great lengths to develop and maintain such dependencies. Canada's current weakness is at least in part because it has failed to do so. [1] Edit to add: This was/is poorly worded - I mean that the US will only guarantee that you remain an ally while they are in some sense dependent on you, and while doing so they may work to break that dependence, which you may interpret as them trying to abandon you.

mgraczyk 1y ago
You are claiming that Canada will stop exporting to the US in the future? Populism does the opposite, they would likely stop importing. There's almost no risk to us that they would not export chips
- fidotron 1y ago
  My claim is Canada has no unique product that it offers that the US is sufficiently conspicuously dependent on for it to guarantee any real sense of true independence, and so it finds itself subject to the whims of a foreign state. Right now there is a very large Canadian boycott of US products, services and tourism. I also had to explain to a client this week that because of the import tariffs on Chinese goods to the US the US assembled products are now no longer competitive with alternatives. The fact you were seemingly unaware of this kind of demonstrates the level of effect of it.
  - mgraczyk 1y ago
    You are arguing my point. Canada may stop importing from us but will never stop exporting. There are no incentives for that and never will be. We import tons of food and energy from them and have no alternative on time scales or 10 years If we imported chips from Canada, that supply chain would be safe for at least 50 years, probably hundreds
    - fidotron 1y ago
      The Nintendo Wii SoC was actually fabbed in Canada and exported, but that facility has changed into something slightly different because the whole east coast/hudson river valley fab world went sideways a while ago. > We import tons of food and energy from them and have no alternative on time scales or 10 years More importantly for Canadians that food or energy has no alternative competing market to sell into. Consequently the Canadians are totally dependent on the US market to even set the price of it. This applies to many other sectors as well. Canada is currently having a huge desperate push to export to non US markets because of the levels of uncertainty that have been created. And I say this as someone not totally dismissive of the US position, but they need to do a far better job of bringing their allies into the tent with them.
    - SJC_Hacker 1y ago
      Historically there have been plenty of incentives to stop exporting. Its called an embargo. Usually in an attempt to get the host country to change foreign policy, though I can't think of any situation where it actually worked. Examples: Napoleon's "Continental System" against Great Brtain, US oil embargo against Japan prior to WWII, Confederate States of America cotton embargo against the UK during the early years of the American Civil War
      - mgraczyk 1y ago
        Yes it's definitely possible, but very rare and as you pointed out (especially in the confederacy's case) it usually harms the exporter much more than it helps. I'd say that in any case of a serious Canadian export embargo, it will have been in retaliation to US trade policy or US invasion, not the other way around. We had essentially no risk that Canada would embargo us, there was no possibility of this happening for the last 150 years until we became the aggressors

theteapot 1y ago

It's an extension of a peace through strength philosophy. If you lose your critical sovereign capabilities you become weak and vulnerable. You no longer get to decide who you do and don't "never go to war with".

mgraczyk 1y ago
Yes I understand the reasoning, it's just obviously wrong. This doesn't happen and hasn't happened in hundreds of years. This is not why people get invaded, otherwise Switzerland would have been invaded many times over the last century
- 1718627440 1y ago
  That's exactly why Switzerland didn't got invaded in the last century. Every side depended on them for money supply, so they couldn't risk bringing the war to Switzerland. Also it had a track record of staying neutral, so they didn't feared it may pick a side, because it largely made money from selling stuff from both sides.

deleted 1y ago

[deleted]

topspin 1y ago

> if we just decide we will never go to war with... That's hubris. Although the US does indulge elective wars, one does not always get to choose with whom one will war.

mgraczyk 1y ago
Okay so make a prediction. What is the probability that Canada or Mexico will declare war on the United States in the next 100 years?
- topspin 1y ago
  100 years? Only a fool would attempt that. 100 years from now Uzbekistan could be fighting Brazil in orbit around Venus.
- lm28469 1y ago
  100 years ago the British Empire ruled the world, now it's a small island you don't hear much about... The US is only about 250 years old, I'd be cautious about predicting the future
  - mgraczyk 1y ago
    You're off by about 150 years. 100 years ago was 1925, the British has already largely collapsed losing the US, Canada, Australia. 100 years isn't forever but it's a long time And we haven't had any serious threats from Canada since 1812. I think the most reasonable estimate is 100-200 years
    - simianparrot 1y ago
      Surely based on history the odds of a conflict between neighbouring countries increases with time passed.
      - mgraczyk 1y ago
        No, based on the history of conflict we can say that the more time that passes with neighbors not invading one another, the less likely they will in the future

like_any_other 1y ago

> go to war It won't be war. It'll be one-sided trade deals [1,2], and a slow erosion of economic and political sovereignty, culminating in a puppet state. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canada-China_Promotion_and_Reciprocal_Protection_of_Investments_Agreement https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canada-China_Promotion_and_Rec... [2] https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/fipa-agreement-with-china-what-s-really-in-it-for-canada-1.2770159 https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/fipa-agreement-with-china-wha...

mgraczyk 1y ago
One sided trade deals in which they continue exporting to us and import less There is plenty of risk that our neighbors stop importing and almost no risk they stop exporting