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The Tariff Cost: analysis of the costs to Americans from new tariffs on Canada

231 points by mikestorrent 1mo ago

Marsymars 1mo ago
This site looks good, and it's nice that it has data sources, but it would also be nice if it was clear about who built the site.
- A_D_E_P_T 1mo ago
  Claude built the site, it's obvious from the style. Which is to say that anybody with a $200 subscription and access to Namecheap and Netlify could have built the site in one hour flat. There's no longer any need for an NGO, media nonprofit, or lobbying group to build such things; the effort required has been reduced to near-zero, so anybody can do it.
  - Marsymars 1mo ago
    Yeah, I figured that it was LLM-build - which I'm generally okay with if there's someone willing to put their name to it so I can make my own determination about trust level.
  - afavour 1mo ago
    > There's no longer any need for an NGO, media nonprofit, or lobbying group to build such things; the effort required has been reduced to near-zero Right but actually creating the thing is only half the story. You need to fact check it (especially with LLMs) promote it, approach journalists to bring it to their attention, etc etc etc. In many ways making a web site has always been the easy part.
    - A_D_E_P_T 1mo ago
      > You need to fact check it (especially with LLMs) That's true... but with every day that passes it's increasingly less true. Today's best high-end LLMs are highly optimized towards fact checking themselves and each other. The winning move is to get a report from Claude and have both Kimi K3 and GPT-5.6-Pro adverserially review it. Then synthesize a fixed version with any one of them. Then adverserially review it again in incognito mode. This sounds like a lot of work, but it takes literally two minutes of effort and it works amazingly well.
      - b112 1mo ago
        Every time I check facts with Claude, it looks at web pages to get stats! With no humans publishing semi reliable data, there is nothing for Claude to quote.
    - gruez 1mo ago
      >promote it, approach journalists to bring it to their attention, etc etc etc. Well it's not very hard these days with social media. All you need to do is post on HN with a compelling enough headline and people will upvote it even if it's AI slop.
    - sagarm 1mo ago
      Why fact check it? Facts are kinda of irrelevant in this brand new world anyway.
  - swingboy 1mo ago
    And it doesn't look that great. The CSS is all fucked up for me the more you scroll down. No padding in most of the sections. Also, "modelled", lol. I guess that's Claude's British English at work again.
- bpt3 1mo ago
  Why does it matter? The data sources are cited and are publicly available. It's basically just documenting the utter stupidity of a trade war with a close ally with whom we are tightly coupled economically.
  - Marsymars 1mo ago
    > Why does it matter? The data sources are cited and are publicly available. Because I don't want to click through to every data source to verify every figure and need some baseline level of trust about whether they've been correctly used. If there's an error, I want to be able to contact the author somehow.
  - ChrisRR 1mo ago
    Because people want to turn absolutely everything into an excuse to argue about AI
apercu 1mo ago
Last time I checked, Canada was the largest trading partner of 27 states, directly and indirectly. Disclaimer; I’ve lived in both countries and am a dual citizen so not unbiased.
lenerdenator 1mo ago
I'm trying to think of the number of people I (an American) know who considered trade with Canada to be a real issue. The answer I keep coming back to is I know zero people who considered that. Does the US have a trade imbalance that causes problems, particularly in our manufacturing sector? Yes. Can tariffs kind of help with that? Also yes. Really, you need to instill some sort of sense of duty to country in business leaders, which is a far heavier lift, but this at least puts a number to it. Does picking a tariff fight with Canada, our closest cultural ally, solve the above problem to the point where it justifies the costs? Hell no.
- apercu 1mo ago
  But does America have a trade imbalance with Canada? Canada has things that our economy needs desperately (e.g. potash).
  - lenerdenator 1mo ago
    I'd say that the cultural links are so strong that any actual accounting for trade imbalance is just not worth thinking about. Some things are bigger than money. ... which, come to think of it, is something that the current administration doesn't understand, at least from a "personal net worth" standpoint, and explains why this is happening to begin with.
    - Mezzie 1mo ago
      That's one thing that I find so confusing about this. Even if we assume that the administration genuinely doesn't care and does want to annex/culturally subjugate Canada, it's really not easy to separate the two cultures and escalating this to a certain degree is going to prompt domestic backlash. I was born in America. About half of my ancestors lived in Canada on both sides of my family, I know my Canadian cousins, I spent time in Canada growing up/was taught Canadian history as well as American history, I have a Canadian education and half of my professional network is Canadian, etc. I'm eligible for dual citizenship and am pursuing it now, as are other members of my family, whereas we never bothered before because the separation never seemed to matter. With the recent change in Canadian citizenship laws, I'd estimate at least 25% of the Great Lakes population is eligible for dual citizenship at this point. One of my parents and some of my siblings are Ojibwe/Anishinaabe. My paternal cousins are all French Catholic. (My dad's parents were Protestant but my aunt married into an old French Catholic family and converted.) I don't even really know how I would separate out the two nations' influence, and that's true of a lot of people, especially those of us whose families have lived here since before America and Canada existed.
ericmay 1mo ago
> And Canada is taxing you back This seems illogical. You can't simultaneously claim that the US is paying higher prices for Canadian goods because of US-imposed tariffs and then turn around and say only that Americans are paying a tax on buying Canadian goods on Canadian-imposed tariffs. Both countries are either paying higher prices or paying higher taxes. Canada's tariffs must also be viewed as America is taxing Canada back, or else neither can be viewed that way. Separately you can go back prior to 2024, for example, and discuss monopolization of Canadian companies and import duties on American products which also must be treated in the same fashion for this analysis - Canadian imposed tariffs on dairy (I don't care about dairy other than it being an obvious example) would have to be claimed to be an American tax on Canadians for this to be consistent. Whatever claim you would levy here, equally applies to Canada minus the dollar volumes depending on which country imports more and what products are imported since Canada is also implementing additional (because they've had tariffs for a while) tariffs on specific goods/services.
- hn_throwaway_99 1mo ago
  I think you are reading way too much into that "you" in that sentence. I read it simply as a list and total of all the retaliatory tariffs that Canada is imposing, and the site emphasizes that this is obviously bad for American jobs, not that American consumers pay the tariffs that Canada is imposing. This whole trade war with Canada has to be one of the dumbest fucking things I have ever witnessed, and that's saying a lot given the complete incompetence and buffoonery of the current US administration. First they had to imitate Idiocracy with the the WFC fight on the White House lawn, now they're imitating South Park by killing relations with Canada. Heck, a big joke in the original South Park movie was that it was so inconceivable that of all countries Canada is the one we'd have a war with, but Trump just wants to speed run to every country on the planet hating our guts.
  - ericmay 1mo ago
    > I think you are reading way too much into that "you" in that sentence. Sure that's fair, but on the other hand that's what was written and the framing I think is unfair and inconsistent. Of course, others may go along happily reading it and thinking wow we created these tariffs to raise prices and Canada decided to tax us!? That's worth clearing up and being honest about, in my view. Imagine someone writes another article and frames it as though Americans are taxing Canadians with tariffs. Surely folks would want to "clear that up" wouldn't they?
ck2 1mo ago
imagine the level of stupid that's going down if the Dems do not also get get the Senate this administration has three boxes it reaches into to sprinkle around daily [CHAOS] [CORRUPTION] [CRUELTY] hope everyone is enjoying the billion spent on golden statues in DC while you can't afford to put gas in your car but don't worry, he still gets to fly around in his billion dollar QatarForceOne while taking $2 Million golf outings each weekend
- afavour 1mo ago
  > imagine the level of stupid that's going down if the Dems do not also get get the Senate The Senate, literally by design, does not represent the will of the people. Add things like gerrymandering on top and the uphill climb required of Democrats to capture the Senate keeps getting higher and higher.
  - ck2 1mo ago
    how's that supreme court working out for you? how's all those cabinet members working out for you? that's 100% Senate, regardless what you think of its representation we can argue the details later if we somehow survive this decade btw all the nuclear treaties like weapons in space have been allowed to expire and he's looking at invading Cuba and Greenland if only for the chaos without full control over Congress the next two years are going to make the first two pale in comparison
  - abeppu 1mo ago
    Wait, wait, gerrymandering messes with the House, but how does gerrymandering impact control of the Senate? Don't senators need to be elected by their whole state?
    - gruez 1mo ago
      I think he's just using "gerrymandering" (incorrectly) to vaguely refer to anything that's anti-democratic, such as a chamber that isn't proportionally elected.
bpt3 1mo ago
I assume the data source citations are referencing Census Department API endpoints, I would make the data sources explicit by adding links. You also might want to consider archiving the data if you aren't already given this administration's tendency to remove data that doesn't further their agenda.
ryanisnan 1mo ago
I like the idea behind the site, but I have some nits. First, when you list something like a financial figure, you must also include the relevant time period. E.g. you say 16.0B in taxes collected by Canada from American exporters. But you don't list the time period. Second, you say 313 are taxed today. What is this in reference to? Goods? People? Companies? Percentage? The labels need some serious love.
spacemule 1mo ago
Am I the only one who finds this site undecipherable? Take this snippet for example: American exporters $16.0B of what American exporters sell to Canada sits in headings Canada taxes today, 10.5% of the total. From 8 September it is $26.5B. See whose jobs What does "sits in headings Canada taxes" mean? Whatever this means, how does it jump to $26.5B from $16.0B on a single date? Don't things have to enter for tariffs to be collected? "See whose jobs" is even more confusing. Nothing about jobs was mentioned. It's talking, presumably about an increase in a tariff collected by Canada. I can understand this will affect certain jobs, but "See whose jobs" just confuses the situation more. I cannot figure out for the life of me what's going on. Here's another example when you click the "nuclear option" it jumps, without context beyond "Canada’s energy supply is a fourth exposure, and a different kind" to this: The nuclear option Canada has not done this, and nothing here predicts it will. But tariffs are the smaller lever. Flip the switch to see which states buy their energy from Canada, and whether they have anywhere else to buy it. Crude cost per gallon $1.86 what everyone else charges, up 26¢ a gallon Both figures are prices the United States actually paid this year: $67.17 a barrel to Canada, $77.92 a barrel to everyone else, across 704 million Canadian barrels. Careful with the gap, though. It is not a pump price, since refining, distribution, tax and margin all sit on top of the crude. Nor is it really a discount: Canadian barrels are mostly heavy crude, and heavy crude sells below lighter grades wherever it goes, so a lot of the difference is just the grade. What replacing one with the other would cost is a question this page does not have the data to answer. Am I really dumb for not understanding this site, or is this the infogram equivalent of a Nigerian prince email?
- sadengineer22 1mo ago
  It is AI slop, which has the veneer of sense without the substance. https://cymerys.com/w/im-becoming-ai-blind https://cymerys.com/w/im-becoming-ai-blind
- magicalhippo 1mo ago
  > What does "sits in headings Canada taxes" mean? My guess would be it's refering to the Harmonized System[1], used to classify goods on import and export declarations: The HS is organized into 21 Sections, which are subdivided into 96 Chapters (Chapters 1 to 97 with Chapter 77 reserved for potential future use by the HS). The 96 HS Chapters are further subdivided into 1,228 headings and 5,612 subheadings in the current 2022 edition of the HS. Most countries have additional subdivisions, for example in US the HS is used as a basis for the Harmonized Tariff Schedule[2]. The classification is used to determine tariffs, taxes and restrictions, but those are often applied to the broader groups, so covering say all imported aluminum, rather than say aluminum of a particular kind for use in a particular sector. > Whatever this means, how does it jump to $26.5B from $16.0B on a single date? Because Canada announced it will impose tariffs on more types of goods on that day, ie more headings, affecting more of the exported value. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harmonized_System#Structure https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harmonized_System#Structure [2]: https://hts.usitc.gov/ https://hts.usitc.gov/
whatsThisBtn4 1mo ago
I'm afraid to comment because HN shadow bans when discussing international relations. The wild part is that I'm quite academic, Waltz, Mearsheimer, Morgenthau are on my wall. Okay let's get flagged for saying the uncomfortable silent part(chatGPT joke)... Canada suffers more than the United States.
- xutopia 1mo ago
  How do figure Canada will suffer more?
- gyanchawdhary 1mo ago
  It does. The ones who hurt scream the loudest.
- deleted 1mo ago
  [deleted]
sobellian 1mo ago
Imagine you want to build a factory in the US. You pay tariffs on the factory equipment you need - much of it is made overseas. You pay tariffs on your input goods. And then when you try to export your customers get hit with a retaliatory tariff. I don't agree with tariffs but even if we accept some level of protectionism you can't tariff everything the way this administration wants. You have to pick what you actually want to prioritize and choose your battles.
- NoidFonsense 1mo ago
  I totally disagree. The same factory would be made infeasible without the tariff. What do we need that shouldn't make domesticially?
  - sobellian 1mo ago
    I'm telling you as a fact that as someone working for a manufacturing startup the tariffs have only made things more expensive for us. But I'm sure the Cleveland Cliffs execs are doing great.
  - cindyllm 1mo ago
    [dead]
  - SmirkingRevenge 1mo ago
    Tariffs hurt domestic manufacturing for a number of reasons, but one of the major ones is because something like 50% of our manufacturing inputs are imported.
- epolanski 1mo ago
  Protectionism and tariffs simply don't work in the global world. Capitalism will keep producing things where they make sense not where politicians want. Exceptions make sense only to protect industries that are absolutely vital and critical for security. Ship building should be one of those for countries like US or UK. Or when you want to kickstart an industry and need to protect it for a limited amount of time (Koreans and the Japanese both did so with some of their industrial sectors, but it was always time limited). This administration thinks it can make every industry thrive through tariffs. I don't see how it can work, even for a country with the resources of the US.
declan_roberts 1mo ago
Canada is very unfortunately caught in the trade war between the USA and China. It's pretty easy right now for certain goods to bypass the US tariffs by being transshipped through Canada and enter the USA without tariff because of minimal processing. Chinese steel is a notable example of this. And a lot of Canada's trade MOUs with other countries basically requires they have this special privilege. So there's gonna be fallout everywhere. I wouldn't personally want to own Canadian dollars right now but I think they'll get this figured out.
- JumpCrisscross 1mo ago
  > Canada is very unfortunately caught in the trade war between the USA and China Ottawa is fighting Anchluss. The MAGA wing is entirely serious about annexing Canada. Carney, for a change, is right. Canada is being attacked.
  - robocat 1mo ago
    [spelling] EN:Anschluss https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anschluss https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anschluss
  - happyopossum 1mo ago
    >The MAGA wing is entirely serious about annexing Canada. Wow, that's some amazing propaganda you've bought in to there...
    - data-ottawa 1mo ago
      Donald Trump has said exactly this, repeatedly, for two years straight. He posted a picture of him taking over Canada and arresting Carney today. That is not propaganda. And if you say it's "joking", if you threaten to shoot your friend multiple times, you'll find they don't consider it a joke.
      - deleted 29d ago
        [deleted]
Mamut3 1mo ago
There's much more than tariffs at stake. The fight here is about influence but the way Trump is handling his push to regain American influence in the Western Hemisphere is pushing several allied countries even further away — including some that have been allies for more than two centuries. This strategy is going to fail and when it does countries will trade much more one with others currencies and less with USA and USD. When that happens the American house of cards will collapse because it will no longer be possible to print trillions of dollars and count on other countries to absorb them trusting in the American policies and agreements. The printing dollars formula facing low single-digit inflation is coming to an end. U all can downvote me like on the credit-card thread but this is the reality for those outside the big American walls.
dom96 1mo ago
I don't really understand why these tariffs are taken seriously. Haven't basically all previous tariffs been cancelled and refunded?
- phoronixrly 1mo ago
  Did the cancelled/refunded tarrifs have serious consequences of US customers?
- deleted 1mo ago
  [deleted]
maxglute 1mo ago
LBH, Canada has always been real economy loser with respect US trade with ~80b goods / services deficit AFTER discounted energy - cheap crude sales to US to fuel US refinery mismatch. US doesn't have strategic domestic energy self sufficiency without Canadian crude, CAN sludge should be selling at premium (same with VZ but we see how that went). In an ideal world Canada could be making more refining and selling high margin refined fossil to global markets and not sending ~80b to US. Which is to say, if Canada sorts out inter provincial trade, pivot to domestic goods/services and sell commodities globally at benchmark prices it on paper come out ahead. Nvm associated brain drain via US integration killed what was left of Canadian tier1 industries (not much to be done). Or half reason CAN has to sell cheap to US is US lobbying (read political meddling / foreign influence) on infra/pipelines. Or discount NORAD which LBH missiles over polar orbit aren't stopping at Canada, as if Canada needs to free ride on NA security architecture. TLDR is Canada always loser of even happy vassal arrangement, the carrot was always stale but it dint' need to be sweet with how big US stick is. But stick not big enough to force CAN to deepthroat new rotten carrot arrangement. At least not yet.
- bryanlarsen 1mo ago
  USMCA (and the 2 deals that preceded it) are definitely better deals for the US than they are for Canada. But they're fairly generally believed to be win-win deals; it's just that the US wins more than Canada. If you're playing a single football game, the lesser winner is the loser. However, the economy is not a single football game. In real life the lesser winner is still a winner.
  - maxglute 1mo ago
    >generally believed to be Generally believed by orthodox economics whose credibility is not so hot. CUSFTA, NFTA, USMCA... there was brief decade in 90s with CUSFTA integration where rising water lift all boats, but realistically Canadian growth in 00s was on the back of commodity supercyclic and inflated real estate. In real life the winner takes home $10000 cheque, the second/third winners take home participation ribbons, and sometimes they come home battered and bloodied (US buyouts in highend because CAN champions lack of scale never could compete once barriers gone ). In real life the lesser winner still has to look at opportunity cost of playing the game in the first place. Was there a more profitable game where runners up get $5000? Which is not to say participation trophy was not the optimal play, i.e. the opportunity cost of not joining common industrial base might have been more detrimental, maybe global capital wouldn't enter Canada in first place, maybe not playing = atrophy at home. But surviving + participation prize winner not the same as a take cheque home winner.
fg137 1mo ago
Interesting, the domain is blocked at my workplace.
- john_strinlai 1mo ago
  it was only registered today. many places will block new domains, for a customizable definition of 'new'.
  - fg137 1mo ago
    You are right. Tried another random newly registered domain that is parked and got blocked as well.
beloch 1mo ago
Numbers don't tell the whole story. 1. The U.S. economy is large, but insular. Most trade is between states, not with other countries. This is why most countries shrug and accept tariffs on their goods. For them, trade with the U.S. is not as big of a deal as it's portrayed, so it's not worth risking "fireworks" over. Canada and Mexico are rare exceptions to this. Canada, particularly, is reliant on international trade and trade with the U.S.. That's why they are fighting back for a deal that's better than slow death. 2. Canada is the #1 export market for a lot of American goods. e.g. Autos. Trump is determined to destroy Canada's auto manufacturing sector and bring it all to the U.S.. That might sound good to Americans, but they need to realize that this will necessarily mean they'll lose their #1 export market. If tariff's freeze Canada out of the American market and the Canadian auto industry dies, there will be no incentive to maintain the trade barriers against Chinese autos. Thanks to heavy automation, China is producing better autos than North America can at a fraction of the cost. American autos will be more expensive than ever after a forced retreat from Mexico and Canada and will be totally unable to compete on price and quality. Then there will be the lasting hostility to American products that Trump has caused. 3. Americans should closely examine some of the demands that were in the deal Canada just walked away from. One was for Canada to follow U.S. trade policy with other countries, no questions asked, no variations allowed. e.g. If the U.S. decides Tuvalu needs to be tariffed, Canada would be obligated to as well. Canada would also need to ask permission to sign trade deals with other countries. This would have been a complete surrender of sovereignty and would have reduced Canada's international trade policy to that of an American vassal. Not even an American state! This was a completely unacceptable proposal that was likely introduced to sabotage the negotiations. Howard Lutnick's last minute arrival and direct financial interest in generating more tariff refunds is not getting enough attention. 4. Americans are mostly ignorant of the fact that one of the biggest trade wars of the last century is going on with their Northern neighbour. Of those who are aware, the overwhelming majority are not supportive. Canadians are universally aware of it and overwhelmingly in support of Carney. Canadians have been cutting travel to the U.S. and buying fewer American goods for over a year. Now they're going to do it harder, and many won't stop even after the trade-war ends. Kids are watching their parents read labels in the grocery store to make sure they're not buying American goods and asking why. Trump can negotiate a new trade deal with Carney but he can't negotiate away the sense of betrayal Canadians now feel. 5. People are saying that Canada is too small to win this trade war, but this is not even remotely true. In Canada the war is supported because it's a matter of sovereignty, which is priceless. In the U.S., it's fracturing the Republican party. In Canada, people are voluntarily boycotting American goods and services, as well as travel to the U.S.. In the U.S., there are looming mid-terms that rising costs from a fresh trade-war could help decide. The most recent tariffs imposed by Trump were likely aimed at forcing an agreement he could tout as a "huge victory" right when he needed it. Instead, he has an embarrassing fiasco blowing up in his face. He's so short on ideas that he's threatening to rename lakes! The U.S. may be big, but U.S. leadership is small, inept, and poised to lose it's hold on power. Carney has signalled that he's ready to maintain this trade-war for the two years and change needed for Trump to leave office, but a few months may be all that's required.
cryptoegorophy 1mo ago
From what I researched, Tarrifs that are discussed are impacting about 5% of overall trade between USA and Canada. This seems more political and clickbait than anything meaningful. 5% is not something to be concerned about unless you are directly impacted. “They” (news, politicians) just want your attention.
QuantumNoodle 1mo ago
I have anecdotal experience that makes the ~$1,600 per house hold feel like an underestimate. We purchased a Subaru Outback right around the first round of tarrifs. We were in the market for the base trim, no bells & whistles. We ended up getting the highest trim bc all the remaining base trims were post-tarrifs and and cost $3.5k more than the pre-tarrif higher trim that was already in the lot. Mind you the Subaru outback was assembled in IL, USA so it is not just imported entirely from Japan. And that's not considering all the other "consuming" we do (which is quite limited being outdoor ppl).
- gruez 1mo ago
  >We purchased a Subaru Outback right around the first round of tarrifs. We were in the market for the base trim, no bells & whistles. We ended up getting the highest trim bc all the remaining base trims were post-tarrifs and and cost $3.5k more than the pre-tarrif higher trim that was already in the lot. The average car on the road is ~15 years old. The actual lifetime is likely higher. Therefore for proper tariff accounting, your subaru's contribution to this year's tariffs should be 3500/15 = $233, not $3.5k. Not to mention much of the items people buy are either: 1. domestically produced (this includes housing, the biggest cost for most people) 2. tariff exempt (think oil) 3. produced abroad, but have fat markups
  - sagarm 1mo ago
    Where are you getting this 15 year old average? That seems highly unlikely to be accurate.
    - gruez 1mo ago
      https://www.repairerdrivennews.com/2025/05/28/average-passenger-car-age-now-14-5-years-nearly-13-years-overall/ https://www.repairerdrivennews.com/2025/05/28/average-passen...
    - QuantumNoodle 1mo ago
      Gruez was spot on, our last car was 15 years old. Though I don't know if his stat considered resold cars. We wouldve kept it too but the work it needed was $8k. Parts were available and already imported, just that mechanics in the area had all raised their labor rate. I support liveable wages but that points to tarrifs having higher order effects than just the goods that they apply to.
deleted 1mo ago
[deleted]
clove 1mo ago
The site is far from strong evidence for what most people in this thread believe. It is also AI-generated, if you cannot tell. "Canada is taxing you back" frames a Canadian tariff as a charge on Americans when it's really charge on Canadian importers. The site reached the front page of HN because it confirms the mainstream opinion here, which is "go team go," anti-Trump admin US. I'm not pro-Trump admin btw; But I am anti political team sports on HN and will continue saying so until HN reverts to its previous culture of objectivity that we had before this culture of blindly signal-boosting anything that portrays the current boogieman as bad.
- sanderjd 1mo ago
  It matters what the reality is. The trade war between the US and Canada is bad. It is entirely the fault of the administration that is currently in charge in the US. That is the reality. I share your disdain for political team sportism. But not everything is indecipherable without requiring that lens, and that is unusually often the case with this particular administration.
CosmicShadow 1mo ago
What I don't think most people realize is that for many consumer goods coming from Canada the Americans are not paying the tariffs, Canadians are paying it instead because USPS is not setup to actually collect tariff payments from their own people and refused to do so. When I buy USPS shipping labels for my business that ships to the US, as a Canadian, I have to pay the fucking US tariff out of my own pocket and I have no way to charge my customer other than jacking the fuck out of my price. I lost so much money last year after the tariffs first went into effect and no one (UPS, USPS, US Gov't) knew what to do, how to charge, how to collect, but eventually after a 1.5months I managed to get CUSMA figured out. This 50% tariff is still the same scenario, I'm expected to pay the tariff on behalf of my American customer, so WTF. Oh and I got no refunds from anyone for that first 1.5months of insane costs as I'm not from the US. I can ship UPS instead and then push the tariff back where it belongs, but nobody wants to pay 4x for shipping and then get another bill afterwards. US Customers already screamed bloody murder about a total $4 duty fee, which anyone in Canada would kill for on an international purchase.
franksvalli 1mo ago
I have nothing to offer except my recent dumb purchase. Could only find an out of print Moleskine black page artist notebook from a Canadian seller. It's important that it matches with a book I already have. Learn from my mistake: * $19.99 item cost * $21.25 shipping * $2.99 tax * $31.94 import fees (billed directly by UPS) Total cost: $76.17
TitaRusell 1mo ago
We're rapidly approaching a time in which America doesn't make anything that can't be replaced. If Carney was serious he'd fly to Beijing and shake Chinese hands. That would utterly terrify the few responsible adults left in Washington to back the fuck down.
- hodder 1mo ago
  You mean like Carney did in January? Trump cannot be shown reason once he has convinced himself his gut feel is correct.
lucasyvas 1mo ago
None of you have any idea what you’re talking about - this thread should be nuked. A bunch of arm chair commentators with no actual understanding of the specifics of a negotiation claiming to know otherwise.
- ChoGGi 1mo ago
  What does any of that matter for speculative discussions? Is hacker news going to be at the table?
eucryphia 1mo ago
Get back to us when Canada cuts its 300% tariff on butter.
486sx33 29d ago
[dead]

231 points by mikestorrent 1mo ago

This site looks good, and it's nice that it has data sources, but it would also be nice if it was clear about who built the site.

A_D_E_P_T 1mo ago
Claude built the site, it's obvious from the style. Which is to say that anybody with a $200 subscription and access to Namecheap and Netlify could have built the site in one hour flat. There's no longer any need for an NGO, media nonprofit, or lobbying group to build such things; the effort required has been reduced to near-zero, so anybody can do it.
- Marsymars 1mo ago
  Yeah, I figured that it was LLM-build - which I'm generally okay with if there's someone willing to put their name to it so I can make my own determination about trust level.
- afavour 1mo ago
  > There's no longer any need for an NGO, media nonprofit, or lobbying group to build such things; the effort required has been reduced to near-zero Right but actually creating the thing is only half the story. You need to fact check it (especially with LLMs) promote it, approach journalists to bring it to their attention, etc etc etc. In many ways making a web site has always been the easy part.
  - A_D_E_P_T 1mo ago
    > You need to fact check it (especially with LLMs) That's true... but with every day that passes it's increasingly less true. Today's best high-end LLMs are highly optimized towards fact checking themselves and each other. The winning move is to get a report from Claude and have both Kimi K3 and GPT-5.6-Pro adverserially review it. Then synthesize a fixed version with any one of them. Then adverserially review it again in incognito mode. This sounds like a lot of work, but it takes literally two minutes of effort and it works amazingly well.
    - b112 1mo ago
      Every time I check facts with Claude, it looks at web pages to get stats! With no humans publishing semi reliable data, there is nothing for Claude to quote.
  - gruez 1mo ago
    >promote it, approach journalists to bring it to their attention, etc etc etc. Well it's not very hard these days with social media. All you need to do is post on HN with a compelling enough headline and people will upvote it even if it's AI slop.
  - sagarm 1mo ago
    Why fact check it? Facts are kinda of irrelevant in this brand new world anyway.
- swingboy 1mo ago
  And it doesn't look that great. The CSS is all fucked up for me the more you scroll down. No padding in most of the sections. Also, "modelled", lol. I guess that's Claude's British English at work again.
bpt3 1mo ago
Why does it matter? The data sources are cited and are publicly available. It's basically just documenting the utter stupidity of a trade war with a close ally with whom we are tightly coupled economically.
- Marsymars 1mo ago
  > Why does it matter? The data sources are cited and are publicly available. Because I don't want to click through to every data source to verify every figure and need some baseline level of trust about whether they've been correctly used. If there's an error, I want to be able to contact the author somehow.
- ChrisRR 1mo ago
  Because people want to turn absolutely everything into an excuse to argue about AI

apercu 1mo ago

Last time I checked, Canada was the largest trading partner of 27 states, directly and indirectly. Disclaimer; I’ve lived in both countries and am a dual citizen so not unbiased.

lenerdenator 1mo ago

I'm trying to think of the number of people I (an American) know who considered trade with Canada to be a real issue. The answer I keep coming back to is I know zero people who considered that. Does the US have a trade imbalance that causes problems, particularly in our manufacturing sector? Yes. Can tariffs kind of help with that? Also yes. Really, you need to instill some sort of sense of duty to country in business leaders, which is a far heavier lift, but this at least puts a number to it. Does picking a tariff fight with Canada, our closest cultural ally, solve the above problem to the point where it justifies the costs? Hell no.

apercu 1mo ago
But does America have a trade imbalance with Canada? Canada has things that our economy needs desperately (e.g. potash).
- lenerdenator 1mo ago
  I'd say that the cultural links are so strong that any actual accounting for trade imbalance is just not worth thinking about. Some things are bigger than money. ... which, come to think of it, is something that the current administration doesn't understand, at least from a "personal net worth" standpoint, and explains why this is happening to begin with.
  - Mezzie 1mo ago
    That's one thing that I find so confusing about this. Even if we assume that the administration genuinely doesn't care and does want to annex/culturally subjugate Canada, it's really not easy to separate the two cultures and escalating this to a certain degree is going to prompt domestic backlash. I was born in America. About half of my ancestors lived in Canada on both sides of my family, I know my Canadian cousins, I spent time in Canada growing up/was taught Canadian history as well as American history, I have a Canadian education and half of my professional network is Canadian, etc. I'm eligible for dual citizenship and am pursuing it now, as are other members of my family, whereas we never bothered before because the separation never seemed to matter. With the recent change in Canadian citizenship laws, I'd estimate at least 25% of the Great Lakes population is eligible for dual citizenship at this point. One of my parents and some of my siblings are Ojibwe/Anishinaabe. My paternal cousins are all French Catholic. (My dad's parents were Protestant but my aunt married into an old French Catholic family and converted.) I don't even really know how I would separate out the two nations' influence, and that's true of a lot of people, especially those of us whose families have lived here since before America and Canada existed.

ericmay 1mo ago

> And Canada is taxing you back This seems illogical. You can't simultaneously claim that the US is paying higher prices for Canadian goods because of US-imposed tariffs and then turn around and say only that Americans are paying a tax on buying Canadian goods on Canadian-imposed tariffs. Both countries are either paying higher prices or paying higher taxes. Canada's tariffs must also be viewed as America is taxing Canada back, or else neither can be viewed that way. Separately you can go back prior to 2024, for example, and discuss monopolization of Canadian companies and import duties on American products which also must be treated in the same fashion for this analysis - Canadian imposed tariffs on dairy (I don't care about dairy other than it being an obvious example) would have to be claimed to be an American tax on Canadians for this to be consistent. Whatever claim you would levy here, equally applies to Canada minus the dollar volumes depending on which country imports more and what products are imported since Canada is also implementing additional (because they've had tariffs for a while) tariffs on specific goods/services.

hn_throwaway_99 1mo ago
I think you are reading way too much into that "you" in that sentence. I read it simply as a list and total of all the retaliatory tariffs that Canada is imposing, and the site emphasizes that this is obviously bad for American jobs, not that American consumers pay the tariffs that Canada is imposing. This whole trade war with Canada has to be one of the dumbest fucking things I have ever witnessed, and that's saying a lot given the complete incompetence and buffoonery of the current US administration. First they had to imitate Idiocracy with the the WFC fight on the White House lawn, now they're imitating South Park by killing relations with Canada. Heck, a big joke in the original South Park movie was that it was so inconceivable that of all countries Canada is the one we'd have a war with, but Trump just wants to speed run to every country on the planet hating our guts.
- ericmay 1mo ago
  > I think you are reading way too much into that "you" in that sentence. Sure that's fair, but on the other hand that's what was written and the framing I think is unfair and inconsistent. Of course, others may go along happily reading it and thinking wow we created these tariffs to raise prices and Canada decided to tax us!? That's worth clearing up and being honest about, in my view. Imagine someone writes another article and frames it as though Americans are taxing Canadians with tariffs. Surely folks would want to "clear that up" wouldn't they?

ck2 1mo ago

imagine the level of stupid that's going down if the Dems do not also get get the Senate this administration has three boxes it reaches into to sprinkle around daily [CHAOS] [CORRUPTION] [CRUELTY] hope everyone is enjoying the billion spent on golden statues in DC while you can't afford to put gas in your car but don't worry, he still gets to fly around in his billion dollar QatarForceOne while taking $2 Million golf outings each weekend

afavour 1mo ago
> imagine the level of stupid that's going down if the Dems do not also get get the Senate The Senate, literally by design, does not represent the will of the people. Add things like gerrymandering on top and the uphill climb required of Democrats to capture the Senate keeps getting higher and higher.
- ck2 1mo ago
  how's that supreme court working out for you? how's all those cabinet members working out for you? that's 100% Senate, regardless what you think of its representation we can argue the details later if we somehow survive this decade btw all the nuclear treaties like weapons in space have been allowed to expire and he's looking at invading Cuba and Greenland if only for the chaos without full control over Congress the next two years are going to make the first two pale in comparison
- abeppu 1mo ago
  Wait, wait, gerrymandering messes with the House, but how does gerrymandering impact control of the Senate? Don't senators need to be elected by their whole state?
  - gruez 1mo ago
    I think he's just using "gerrymandering" (incorrectly) to vaguely refer to anything that's anti-democratic, such as a chamber that isn't proportionally elected.

bpt3 1mo ago

I assume the data source citations are referencing Census Department API endpoints, I would make the data sources explicit by adding links. You also might want to consider archiving the data if you aren't already given this administration's tendency to remove data that doesn't further their agenda.

ryanisnan 1mo ago

I like the idea behind the site, but I have some nits. First, when you list something like a financial figure, you must also include the relevant time period. E.g. you say 16.0B in taxes collected by Canada from American exporters. But you don't list the time period. Second, you say 313 are taxed today. What is this in reference to? Goods? People? Companies? Percentage? The labels need some serious love.

spacemule 1mo ago

Am I the only one who finds this site undecipherable? Take this snippet for example: American exporters $16.0B of what American exporters sell to Canada sits in headings Canada taxes today, 10.5% of the total. From 8 September it is $26.5B. See whose jobs What does "sits in headings Canada taxes" mean? Whatever this means, how does it jump to $26.5B from $16.0B on a single date? Don't things have to enter for tariffs to be collected? "See whose jobs" is even more confusing. Nothing about jobs was mentioned. It's talking, presumably about an increase in a tariff collected by Canada. I can understand this will affect certain jobs, but "See whose jobs" just confuses the situation more. I cannot figure out for the life of me what's going on. Here's another example when you click the "nuclear option" it jumps, without context beyond "Canada’s energy supply is a fourth exposure, and a different kind" to this: The nuclear option Canada has not done this, and nothing here predicts it will. But tariffs are the smaller lever. Flip the switch to see which states buy their energy from Canada, and whether they have anywhere else to buy it. Crude cost per gallon $1.86 what everyone else charges, up 26¢ a gallon Both figures are prices the United States actually paid this year: $67.17 a barrel to Canada, $77.92 a barrel to everyone else, across 704 million Canadian barrels. Careful with the gap, though. It is not a pump price, since refining, distribution, tax and margin all sit on top of the crude. Nor is it really a discount: Canadian barrels are mostly heavy crude, and heavy crude sells below lighter grades wherever it goes, so a lot of the difference is just the grade. What replacing one with the other would cost is a question this page does not have the data to answer. Am I really dumb for not understanding this site, or is this the infogram equivalent of a Nigerian prince email?

sadengineer22 1mo ago
It is AI slop, which has the veneer of sense without the substance. https://cymerys.com/w/im-becoming-ai-blind https://cymerys.com/w/im-becoming-ai-blind
magicalhippo 1mo ago
> What does "sits in headings Canada taxes" mean? My guess would be it's refering to the Harmonized System[1], used to classify goods on import and export declarations: The HS is organized into 21 Sections, which are subdivided into 96 Chapters (Chapters 1 to 97 with Chapter 77 reserved for potential future use by the HS). The 96 HS Chapters are further subdivided into 1,228 headings and 5,612 subheadings in the current 2022 edition of the HS. Most countries have additional subdivisions, for example in US the HS is used as a basis for the Harmonized Tariff Schedule[2]. The classification is used to determine tariffs, taxes and restrictions, but those are often applied to the broader groups, so covering say all imported aluminum, rather than say aluminum of a particular kind for use in a particular sector. > Whatever this means, how does it jump to $26.5B from $16.0B on a single date? Because Canada announced it will impose tariffs on more types of goods on that day, ie more headings, affecting more of the exported value. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harmonized_System#Structure https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harmonized_System#Structure [2]: https://hts.usitc.gov/ https://hts.usitc.gov/

whatsThisBtn4 1mo ago

I'm afraid to comment because HN shadow bans when discussing international relations. The wild part is that I'm quite academic, Waltz, Mearsheimer, Morgenthau are on my wall. Okay let's get flagged for saying the uncomfortable silent part(chatGPT joke)... Canada suffers more than the United States.

xutopia 1mo ago
How do figure Canada will suffer more?
gyanchawdhary 1mo ago
It does. The ones who hurt scream the loudest.
deleted 1mo ago
[deleted]

sobellian 1mo ago

Imagine you want to build a factory in the US. You pay tariffs on the factory equipment you need - much of it is made overseas. You pay tariffs on your input goods. And then when you try to export your customers get hit with a retaliatory tariff. I don't agree with tariffs but even if we accept some level of protectionism you can't tariff everything the way this administration wants. You have to pick what you actually want to prioritize and choose your battles.

NoidFonsense 1mo ago
I totally disagree. The same factory would be made infeasible without the tariff. What do we need that shouldn't make domesticially?
- sobellian 1mo ago
  I'm telling you as a fact that as someone working for a manufacturing startup the tariffs have only made things more expensive for us. But I'm sure the Cleveland Cliffs execs are doing great.
- cindyllm 1mo ago
  [dead]
- SmirkingRevenge 1mo ago
  Tariffs hurt domestic manufacturing for a number of reasons, but one of the major ones is because something like 50% of our manufacturing inputs are imported.
epolanski 1mo ago
Protectionism and tariffs simply don't work in the global world. Capitalism will keep producing things where they make sense not where politicians want. Exceptions make sense only to protect industries that are absolutely vital and critical for security. Ship building should be one of those for countries like US or UK. Or when you want to kickstart an industry and need to protect it for a limited amount of time (Koreans and the Japanese both did so with some of their industrial sectors, but it was always time limited). This administration thinks it can make every industry thrive through tariffs. I don't see how it can work, even for a country with the resources of the US.

declan_roberts 1mo ago

Canada is very unfortunately caught in the trade war between the USA and China. It's pretty easy right now for certain goods to bypass the US tariffs by being transshipped through Canada and enter the USA without tariff because of minimal processing. Chinese steel is a notable example of this. And a lot of Canada's trade MOUs with other countries basically requires they have this special privilege. So there's gonna be fallout everywhere. I wouldn't personally want to own Canadian dollars right now but I think they'll get this figured out.

JumpCrisscross 1mo ago
> Canada is very unfortunately caught in the trade war between the USA and China Ottawa is fighting Anchluss. The MAGA wing is entirely serious about annexing Canada. Carney, for a change, is right. Canada is being attacked.
- robocat 1mo ago
  [spelling] EN:Anschluss https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anschluss https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anschluss
- happyopossum 1mo ago
  >The MAGA wing is entirely serious about annexing Canada. Wow, that's some amazing propaganda you've bought in to there...
  - data-ottawa 1mo ago
    Donald Trump has said exactly this, repeatedly, for two years straight. He posted a picture of him taking over Canada and arresting Carney today. That is not propaganda. And if you say it's "joking", if you threaten to shoot your friend multiple times, you'll find they don't consider it a joke.
    - deleted 29d ago
      [deleted]

Mamut3 1mo ago

There's much more than tariffs at stake. The fight here is about influence but the way Trump is handling his push to regain American influence in the Western Hemisphere is pushing several allied countries even further away — including some that have been allies for more than two centuries. This strategy is going to fail and when it does countries will trade much more one with others currencies and less with USA and USD. When that happens the American house of cards will collapse because it will no longer be possible to print trillions of dollars and count on other countries to absorb them trusting in the American policies and agreements. The printing dollars formula facing low single-digit inflation is coming to an end. U all can downvote me like on the credit-card thread but this is the reality for those outside the big American walls.

dom96 1mo ago

I don't really understand why these tariffs are taken seriously. Haven't basically all previous tariffs been cancelled and refunded?

phoronixrly 1mo ago
Did the cancelled/refunded tarrifs have serious consequences of US customers?
deleted 1mo ago
[deleted]

maxglute 1mo ago

LBH, Canada has always been real economy loser with respect US trade with ~80b goods / services deficit AFTER discounted energy - cheap crude sales to US to fuel US refinery mismatch. US doesn't have strategic domestic energy self sufficiency without Canadian crude, CAN sludge should be selling at premium (same with VZ but we see how that went). In an ideal world Canada could be making more refining and selling high margin refined fossil to global markets and not sending ~80b to US. Which is to say, if Canada sorts out inter provincial trade, pivot to domestic goods/services and sell commodities globally at benchmark prices it on paper come out ahead. Nvm associated brain drain via US integration killed what was left of Canadian tier1 industries (not much to be done). Or half reason CAN has to sell cheap to US is US lobbying (read political meddling / foreign influence) on infra/pipelines. Or discount NORAD which LBH missiles over polar orbit aren't stopping at Canada, as if Canada needs to free ride on NA security architecture. TLDR is Canada always loser of even happy vassal arrangement, the carrot was always stale but it dint' need to be sweet with how big US stick is. But stick not big enough to force CAN to deepthroat new rotten carrot arrangement. At least not yet.

bryanlarsen 1mo ago
USMCA (and the 2 deals that preceded it) are definitely better deals for the US than they are for Canada. But they're fairly generally believed to be win-win deals; it's just that the US wins more than Canada. If you're playing a single football game, the lesser winner is the loser. However, the economy is not a single football game. In real life the lesser winner is still a winner.
- maxglute 1mo ago
  >generally believed to be Generally believed by orthodox economics whose credibility is not so hot. CUSFTA, NFTA, USMCA... there was brief decade in 90s with CUSFTA integration where rising water lift all boats, but realistically Canadian growth in 00s was on the back of commodity supercyclic and inflated real estate. In real life the winner takes home $10000 cheque, the second/third winners take home participation ribbons, and sometimes they come home battered and bloodied (US buyouts in highend because CAN champions lack of scale never could compete once barriers gone ). In real life the lesser winner still has to look at opportunity cost of playing the game in the first place. Was there a more profitable game where runners up get $5000? Which is not to say participation trophy was not the optimal play, i.e. the opportunity cost of not joining common industrial base might have been more detrimental, maybe global capital wouldn't enter Canada in first place, maybe not playing = atrophy at home. But surviving + participation prize winner not the same as a take cheque home winner.

fg137 1mo ago

Interesting, the domain is blocked at my workplace.

john_strinlai 1mo ago
it was only registered today. many places will block new domains, for a customizable definition of 'new'.
- fg137 1mo ago
  You are right. Tried another random newly registered domain that is parked and got blocked as well.

beloch 1mo ago

Numbers don't tell the whole story. 1. The U.S. economy is large, but insular. Most trade is between states, not with other countries. This is why most countries shrug and accept tariffs on their goods. For them, trade with the U.S. is not as big of a deal as it's portrayed, so it's not worth risking "fireworks" over. Canada and Mexico are rare exceptions to this. Canada, particularly, is reliant on international trade and trade with the U.S.. That's why they are fighting back for a deal that's better than slow death. 2. Canada is the #1 export market for a lot of American goods. e.g. Autos. Trump is determined to destroy Canada's auto manufacturing sector and bring it all to the U.S.. That might sound good to Americans, but they need to realize that this will necessarily mean they'll lose their #1 export market. If tariff's freeze Canada out of the American market and the Canadian auto industry dies, there will be no incentive to maintain the trade barriers against Chinese autos. Thanks to heavy automation, China is producing better autos than North America can at a fraction of the cost. American autos will be more expensive than ever after a forced retreat from Mexico and Canada and will be totally unable to compete on price and quality. Then there will be the lasting hostility to American products that Trump has caused. 3. Americans should closely examine some of the demands that were in the deal Canada just walked away from. One was for Canada to follow U.S. trade policy with other countries, no questions asked, no variations allowed. e.g. If the U.S. decides Tuvalu needs to be tariffed, Canada would be obligated to as well. Canada would also need to ask permission to sign trade deals with other countries. This would have been a complete surrender of sovereignty and would have reduced Canada's international trade policy to that of an American vassal. Not even an American state! This was a completely unacceptable proposal that was likely introduced to sabotage the negotiations. Howard Lutnick's last minute arrival and direct financial interest in generating more tariff refunds is not getting enough attention. 4. Americans are mostly ignorant of the fact that one of the biggest trade wars of the last century is going on with their Northern neighbour. Of those who are aware, the overwhelming majority are not supportive. Canadians are universally aware of it and overwhelmingly in support of Carney. Canadians have been cutting travel to the U.S. and buying fewer American goods for over a year. Now they're going to do it harder, and many won't stop even after the trade-war ends. Kids are watching their parents read labels in the grocery store to make sure they're not buying American goods and asking why. Trump can negotiate a new trade deal with Carney but he can't negotiate away the sense of betrayal Canadians now feel. 5. People are saying that Canada is too small to win this trade war, but this is not even remotely true. In Canada the war is supported because it's a matter of sovereignty, which is priceless. In the U.S., it's fracturing the Republican party. In Canada, people are voluntarily boycotting American goods and services, as well as travel to the U.S.. In the U.S., there are looming mid-terms that rising costs from a fresh trade-war could help decide. The most recent tariffs imposed by Trump were likely aimed at forcing an agreement he could tout as a "huge victory" right when he needed it. Instead, he has an embarrassing fiasco blowing up in his face. He's so short on ideas that he's threatening to rename lakes! The U.S. may be big, but U.S. leadership is small, inept, and poised to lose it's hold on power. Carney has signalled that he's ready to maintain this trade-war for the two years and change needed for Trump to leave office, but a few months may be all that's required.

cryptoegorophy 1mo ago

From what I researched, Tarrifs that are discussed are impacting about 5% of overall trade between USA and Canada. This seems more political and clickbait than anything meaningful. 5% is not something to be concerned about unless you are directly impacted. “They” (news, politicians) just want your attention.

QuantumNoodle 1mo ago

I have anecdotal experience that makes the ~$1,600 per house hold feel like an underestimate. We purchased a Subaru Outback right around the first round of tarrifs. We were in the market for the base trim, no bells & whistles. We ended up getting the highest trim bc all the remaining base trims were post-tarrifs and and cost $3.5k more than the pre-tarrif higher trim that was already in the lot. Mind you the Subaru outback was assembled in IL, USA so it is not just imported entirely from Japan. And that's not considering all the other "consuming" we do (which is quite limited being outdoor ppl).

gruez 1mo ago
>We purchased a Subaru Outback right around the first round of tarrifs. We were in the market for the base trim, no bells & whistles. We ended up getting the highest trim bc all the remaining base trims were post-tarrifs and and cost $3.5k more than the pre-tarrif higher trim that was already in the lot. The average car on the road is ~15 years old. The actual lifetime is likely higher. Therefore for proper tariff accounting, your subaru's contribution to this year's tariffs should be 3500/15 = $233, not $3.5k. Not to mention much of the items people buy are either: 1. domestically produced (this includes housing, the biggest cost for most people) 2. tariff exempt (think oil) 3. produced abroad, but have fat markups
- sagarm 1mo ago
  Where are you getting this 15 year old average? That seems highly unlikely to be accurate.
  - gruez 1mo ago
    https://www.repairerdrivennews.com/2025/05/28/average-passenger-car-age-now-14-5-years-nearly-13-years-overall/ https://www.repairerdrivennews.com/2025/05/28/average-passen...
  - QuantumNoodle 1mo ago
    Gruez was spot on, our last car was 15 years old. Though I don't know if his stat considered resold cars. We wouldve kept it too but the work it needed was $8k. Parts were available and already imported, just that mechanics in the area had all raised their labor rate. I support liveable wages but that points to tarrifs having higher order effects than just the goods that they apply to.

deleted 1mo ago

[deleted]

clove 1mo ago

The site is far from strong evidence for what most people in this thread believe. It is also AI-generated, if you cannot tell. "Canada is taxing you back" frames a Canadian tariff as a charge on Americans when it's really charge on Canadian importers. The site reached the front page of HN because it confirms the mainstream opinion here, which is "go team go," anti-Trump admin US. I'm not pro-Trump admin btw; But I am anti political team sports on HN and will continue saying so until HN reverts to its previous culture of objectivity that we had before this culture of blindly signal-boosting anything that portrays the current boogieman as bad.

sanderjd 1mo ago
It matters what the reality is. The trade war between the US and Canada is bad. It is entirely the fault of the administration that is currently in charge in the US. That is the reality. I share your disdain for political team sportism. But not everything is indecipherable without requiring that lens, and that is unusually often the case with this particular administration.

CosmicShadow 1mo ago

What I don't think most people realize is that for many consumer goods coming from Canada the Americans are not paying the tariffs, Canadians are paying it instead because USPS is not setup to actually collect tariff payments from their own people and refused to do so. When I buy USPS shipping labels for my business that ships to the US, as a Canadian, I have to pay the fucking US tariff out of my own pocket and I have no way to charge my customer other than jacking the fuck out of my price. I lost so much money last year after the tariffs first went into effect and no one (UPS, USPS, US Gov't) knew what to do, how to charge, how to collect, but eventually after a 1.5months I managed to get CUSMA figured out. This 50% tariff is still the same scenario, I'm expected to pay the tariff on behalf of my American customer, so WTF. Oh and I got no refunds from anyone for that first 1.5months of insane costs as I'm not from the US. I can ship UPS instead and then push the tariff back where it belongs, but nobody wants to pay 4x for shipping and then get another bill afterwards. US Customers already screamed bloody murder about a total $4 duty fee, which anyone in Canada would kill for on an international purchase.

franksvalli 1mo ago

I have nothing to offer except my recent dumb purchase. Could only find an out of print Moleskine black page artist notebook from a Canadian seller. It's important that it matches with a book I already have. Learn from my mistake: * $19.99 item cost * $21.25 shipping * $2.99 tax * $31.94 import fees (billed directly by UPS) Total cost: $76.17

TitaRusell 1mo ago

We're rapidly approaching a time in which America doesn't make anything that can't be replaced. If Carney was serious he'd fly to Beijing and shake Chinese hands. That would utterly terrify the few responsible adults left in Washington to back the fuck down.

hodder 1mo ago
You mean like Carney did in January? Trump cannot be shown reason once he has convinced himself his gut feel is correct.

lucasyvas 1mo ago

None of you have any idea what you’re talking about - this thread should be nuked. A bunch of arm chair commentators with no actual understanding of the specifics of a negotiation claiming to know otherwise.

ChoGGi 1mo ago
What does any of that matter for speculative discussions? Is hacker news going to be at the table?

eucryphia 1mo ago

Get back to us when Canada cuts its 300% tariff on butter.

486sx33 29d ago

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