I’m picking up more details about Trump’s trade war with Canada. One bit I didn’t notice right away is that Trump’s 50 percent tariffs don’t go into effect until January 1. He’s hoping for another shot at subjugating Canada, I take it. But the retaliatory tariffs Canada is putting on U.S. imports begin September 8. Prime Minister Carney is looking to mess with the midterms, obviously. Trump can’t think more than a half step ahead of anything and no doubt never anticipated Canada could mess with the midterms.
In recent days, Trump has announced plans for tariff relief on some ground beef imports, enraging cattle producers in states such as Iowa and Nebraska, and launched a new trade war with Canada, rattling manufacturers and businesses in border states including Maine, Michigan, Alaska and Ohio. Those states are all Senate battlegrounds crucial to Democrats’ strategy to retake the chamber.
The Guardian is reporting that the U.S. is about to face surging toilet paper prices, but of course that’s just the beginning. The economies of the U.S. and Canada are intertwined in multiple ways, and I’m not sure where the damage is going to show up first. I understand auto parts manufacturing in particular is integrated between the two countries and will likely get messed up. Very likely Trump doesn’t comprehend this.
And I’m not sure Trump’s cabinet is much brighter than Trump is. The Guardian is reporting that the administration is certain that U.S. consumers won’t be affected by the trade war. That means we’re doomed, folks.
The New York Times has put together a long article about the negotiations that places a lot of the blame on Utterly Useless Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick — UUCS is his full, official title, IMO — but of course it’s Trump’s vision of totally dominating North America that is the basic theme here.
See also Josh Marshall, Trump’s Idiotic Trade War Is a Bigger Political Opening Than You Think at TPM and Zack Beauchamp, The bizarre roots of Trump’s trade war on Canada at Vox.
Speaking of the midterms, Trump has decided that the best way to help Republicans win is to make the midterms all about him. See Trump Plans to Buy Midterm Ads About His Own Record at The Atlantic. Yes, he’s going to make ads touting his accomplishments in office and run them all over the country to help Republican candidates. The candidates are not entirely thrilled.
Trump’s lawyers are also threatening to tear down the Kennedy Center if courts don’t let Trump go ahead with a massive renovation of the building that would include having his name engraved on the building. I’m waiting for the Kennedy family to get involved here.
See also Paul Krugman, Der Untergang. Basically Krugman is saying that as it sinks into Trump that he is losing his grip on power, he will try to destroy as much as possible before he leaves.
"…Yes, he’s going to make ads touting his accomplishments in office and run them all over the country to help Republican candidates."
And all of the things he will claim as accomplishments will be outright lies.
My ears picked up, when I believe I heard PM Carney say they were specifically targeting the red states. No mention from him of cutting "hydro" (electricity) which I'm guessing would affect mostly New England and NY state.
Someone in Canada pointed out that, for once all the major political factions in Canada are united behind Carney, who is polling at 85% IIRC in his decision to fight the Yankees.
Maha, you do such a good job of cutting the noise in a calm, interesting, post that gives me more perspective.
I lurk here a lot but I just wanted to say I appreciate what you do and how you do it.
Thank you
Der Untergang can be reached. The movie is called Downfall and is from 2004. The link below should get you to a stream with subtitles. I made it to the ballroom scene and bailed out.
The parallels are too vivid for me to watch more. It is rated as having good historical accuracy, and award winning. That makes the horror even harder to watch.
So, Krugman sees connections. The same connections one might see in today's NYT story about a military academy professor's firing.
Fired because he refused to "defy science".
Der Untergang (2004) [Englische Untertitel] – Downfall (2004) Full Movie with English Subtitles
3 Secret Service Officials Are Said to Be on Leave Amid Inquiry – The New York Times
Thanks for the link to Der Untergang. I don't believe I'd ever heard of it, but now I'm going to have to watch it.
Here's an update to the ads Trump plans to run about himself. It's in the Atlantic article linked in the post, but somehow I missed it.
"His advisers told him that the poor polling reflects the fact that the voting public still does not know about many of his accomplishments—the dozens of new stock-market highs, a decline in fentanyl deaths, the 'sealed; southern border, the increase in domestic-manufacturing production."
That may be why Trump thinks the polls are "fake." And yes there has been a modest increase in "domestic manufacturing production," but that hasn't translated into more manufacturing jobs. There's been a slight uptick in manufacturing jobs recently, but possibly less than 2,000 nationwide, which isn't much to write home about. And fentanyl deaths were down a bit last year, but that was at the tail end of a historic drop in 2023 and 2024, while Joe Biden was president.
So Trump figures that if people just knew about his great successes, they'll vote for Republicans. I'm fully behind his plan to run ads about himself to "help" Republican candidates get elected. .
Trump’s 50 percent tariffs don’t go into effect until January 1.
Is this a thing where they deliberately postpone the pain they cause until it can be blamed on newly-elected Democrats?
I don't think Trump is ready to admit Dems will win.
Dems wil sin as easily as the GOP. I think the question is whether they will win.
I fixed my type.
Watching today, I am astounded by the uncoordinated stupidity. US tells Canada they are willing to back of on the provision banning Canada from doing warnings in Canda in French and English. I recognize this as an attempt to concede something of very low value to try to get Canada back to the table. But also today, Trump signs an EO renaming Lake Ontario to Lake America. So don't hold your breath waiting for Canada to sit across the table from the US.
IMO, Canada's opening bid should be for the US to withdraw permanently all the BS demands that were added to reasonable negotiations in the 11th hour. Make even the hint, in negotiations or tweets, that Canada's sovereignty is anything less than absolute, and Canada will leave the table. If an agreement is reached, it will be signed separately – no one from the Canadian team will be seen with DJT. If they have to talk to Lutnick, they will but there will be no handshakes or pictures,
US tells Canada they are willing to back of on the provision banning Canada from doing warnings in Canda in French and English. I recognize this as an attempt to concede something of very low value to try to get Canada back to the table.
If the US idiots, excuse me, Government (Administration in US terms?) thinks that this is "an attempt to concede something of very low value" then it illustrates their abysmal ignorance of the political and social reality of Canada. This is a “die fighting on the barricades” issue. If the issue was not based on their abysmal ignorance, then it signifies that the USA wants to destroy Canada but they are willing to back off for the moment.
Language rights are “sacred” in many countries. Just after the Maidan coup d’état in Ukraine, the new Verkhovna Rada (parliament) passed a law dropped Russian, as an officially recognized language. I remember thinking that Ukraine had just started a civil war. I wondered, at the time, if the USA had put the coup leaders up to it.
I suspect that doug meant that the BS "English Only" plank was originally plopped into the negotiations with the knowledge that it would be withdrawn later as a way to pretend that the US is showing flexibility. It's as classic (and not classy) Trumpy "negotiation" tactic.
Sure, Trump and his pet lawyers probably don't understand just how big a deal that issue is inside Canada, but still, I presume that doug meant that the issue had "low value" to the US side.
OTOH, how does this issue play in Alberta? Bringing it up could be a way to drive that (existing?) wedge deeper, exacerbating the (imaginary?) secessionist movement there?
OTOH, how does this issue play in Alberta?
Not sure, I live in Ontario but anyone who wants to keep Canada in existence will worry even if few Albertans are directly affected.
Trump knows only one way to interact with people, which is to dominate them. In his mind if you aren't dominating you are losing. He got away with this in real estate transactions, apparently, but he can't see that it doesn't work in international relations.
Yes, in his first term, he told his cabinet that he wanted this to be a reality show where, every day, he would be vanquishing his enemies. Trump likes hurting people, and being praised, and, of course, being praised for hurting people is best of all, I'd imagine. And Republicans are good at hurting people, so, you'd think it was a good combination.
But Trump doesn't want to stop hurting them, not after a single lousy stinking one big turd of a bill, and that's where the real problem lies. They didn't realize Trump needed a steady pace of sacrifice, not unlike a serial killer.
Quote of the Day:
"living through the Donald Trump administration is like using Arch Linux: every month, you learn about a new part of the system breaking that you previously didn't even know existed"
– skeet.best
My childhood insists that I note your "don't mess with the moose!" makes me think "nor his bud, the flying squirrel." Rocky and Bullwinkle would have figured out (slowly, in Bullwinkle's case) that Captain Peter "Wrong Way" Peachfuzz was in the Presidency, and they had to remove him, before he attacked Canada, and turned Frostbite Falls into a battleground.
…yes. And who knows? If Rocky and his pal Bullwinkle manage to rid the world of Captain Peachfuzz, they just might (maybe) find themselves the recipients of the secret directions to a massive source of the vaunted but near-impossible to find mooseberries!
Maybe we can get Sherman and Peabody to help us out of this mess.
If we change the name Trump to STRUMPET, maybe he'll stop this nonsense and go hide at his palace in Florida. They might put up with it.
If we change the name Trump to STRUMPET, maybe he'll stop this nonsense and go hide at his palace in Florida. They might put up with it. Put it on all his buildings, golf putt putts and anything named Trump.
I'm sure that Trump will do what Hitler did at the end, but with nukes.
NYC, Chicago, LA, Detroit, Philly, London, Ottowa, Berlin, Paris, Rome among other places.
As Hitler said; "If I can not win, I will drag the rest of the world into the abyss with me”.