Summary

In a virtual speech at the World Economic Forum, Trump suggested Canada could become a U.S. state to avoid his proposed tariffs on imports.

The remark elicited gasps from the audience.

Trump claimed the U.S. does not need Canadian lumber, energy, or vehicles, vastly overstating the trade deficit between the two nations.

He reiterated his intention to impose tariffs, potentially as high as 25%, on imports from Canada and Mexico starting February 1.

Economists warn such tariffs would raise prices for U.S. consumers.

  • @[email protected]
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    285 months ago

    I still remember fondly the Trump speech at the UN when the whole assembly laughed at him.

    I suspect that there’s going to be a lot more of that to come.

  • @[email protected]
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    15 months ago

    LMAO…

    HE ACTUALLY SPOKE THE TRUTH, that his intention is POSSESSION & SUBJUGATION/slavery, not collaboration-with??

    You will notice that this has been updated, with the head-wound “miraculously” cured,

    …though I insist that the original-prophecy referred to mental head-injury’s cure, & that that hasn’t happened, yet…

    https://www.benjaminlcorey.com/could-american-evangelicals-spot-the-antichrist-heres-the-biblical-predictions/

    You will notice that the ancient biblical prophecies were about someone extraordinarily possessive, eh?

    I wonder just how much corroboration has to happen, before the Christians begin taking it seriously

    • shruggeth *

    The ancient Jewish & Christian prophecies are accurate, in this case… ( so are the Indigenous ones, but most don’t care about those… interesting, though, when such predictions get sooo much right, that’s certain, in empiricism… : )

    _ /\ _

    • @[email protected]
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      15 months ago

      The antichrist is said to be given power for 42 months and then die in revelation so if trump dies July 2028 (Trump was given power in Jan 2025) then we may only have a few more years in this world. Enjoy it while you can. If you’re lucky enough to enjoy it.

  • @[email protected]
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    95 months ago

    Reminder that Tariffs dont work as a threat to other nations.

    The selling price is the same for the seller, they already give the lowest price they can profit from because the modern era allows international distributors to find a demand anywhere, the buyers are the ones paying the import tax for the same goods.

    If you were selling and then the buyer had a tariff you wouldn’t just agree to take less money as a result.

    • Victor
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      45 months ago

      Isn’t the point to make the domestic customers choose products from other nations? Why wouldn’t that be a threat to the nation that is selling?

      • @[email protected]
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        35 months ago

        Idk but Trump just tried to threaten Canada with them so clearly some Americans don’t know.

      • @[email protected]
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        55 months ago

        I think it’s a “threat” but not a very good one.

        There might be 3 brands of toothbrush available to buy in the US but maybe all of them are manufactured in China. If you just tariff everything from China then US consumers will just pay more because there’s no incentive for manufacturers to absorb the tariff.

        It’s a threat to Chinese toothbrush manufacturers because it creates an incentive for other manufacturers to pop up elsewhere, maybe someone will start manufacturing toothbrushes in the US. These toothbrushes would be cheaper than the tariffed ones for consumers to buy, but obviously more expensive than toothbrushes used to be before the tariffs.

        In summary, because consumers are unlikely to buy less toothbrushes, they just end up paying more.

        • Victor
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          15 months ago

          These toothbrushes would be cheaper than the tariffed ones for consumers to buy, but obviously more expensive than toothbrushes used to be before the tariffs.

          I think this is my whole point? You’d obviously buy the cheaper one of the products are (fairly) identical. So the Chinese product is disregarded, and thus that market is being hurt.

          • @[email protected]
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            25 months ago

            Sure ok but to make that point you have to skip over all the other significant impediments to this plan.

            You need to build, staff, and supply a local manufacturing plant for toothbrushes.

            This is no small thing and not something that can be created overnight. It’s not even as simple as “building” a factory… you need the supply chain, and most of the requisite supplies probably come from China - plastic to make the brush head, plastic to make the handles, machines to form the plastic, and technicians to maintain those machines. If you want to invent all these things locally and avoid the retaliatory tariffs from China, that’s going to take decades.

            During those decades consumers will be buying the tariffed Chinese toothbrushes wondering why the fuck everything from toothbrushes to shampoo to laundry powder to televisions costs twice as much as it does in any other country.

            So my whole point is, there’s a “threat” to Chinese producers but it’s not very likely to materialise because the US will lose the political will to maintain the tariffs long before locally made products appear.

            • Victor
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              5 months ago

              I was thinking more along the lines of choosing other manufacturers that already exist, that don’t have tariffs affecting them, but in case they don’t (exist), you definitely have a good point from what I can understand. 👍😁

              Thanks for explaining!

      • @[email protected]
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        35 months ago

        Yeah but it only really works if it’s targeted. Threatening blanket tariffs on countries that represent 60% of all imports (EU, China, Mexico, Canada) takes a bit of the impact away, it’s unlikely domestic production could handle all that. Even if it could, why wouldn’t American companies raise their prices as much as they felt they now could?

        • Victor
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          5 months ago

          Probably true. I don’t know enough to speak further down this line. 😅 But I thank you for joining and sharing that! Interesting!

    • @[email protected]
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      75 months ago

      That’s not strictly true, they don’t “pay the tariff” obviously but they do have to balance profit margin and lost sales. Tariffs are likely to decrease number of sales which does hurt their bottom line, the question then is if they just take a loss in sales, cut into their profit margins trying to lower the price to the US (very unlikely the margins are nearly enough for this to be viable let alone preferable) or increase prices further to offset the lower sales. Probably will be mostly the former with raw material type goods and mostly the latter with high end finished goods.

      • Victor
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        25 months ago

        Right, that’s what I was thinking. Surely it hurts the seller. But it also hurts the buyer, so it’s like 🙄 well done, Trump…

  • @[email protected]
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    5 months ago

    I still don’t think he realizes the tariffs he keeps threatening us with hurt his people way more…

    • @[email protected]
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      145 months ago

      By “his people,” you mean most voters, yeah.

      But for high millionaires/billionaires, this is effectively a regressive tax that will benefit them.

  • @[email protected]
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    185 months ago

    Did someone brainwash this dude to annex other countries or something? Its like he wants to leave a legacy behind of being the first president in the modern age to expand America.

  • @[email protected]
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    255 months ago

    So much political theater and me without my opera glasses

    Cutting off trade with Canada would devastate the US economy overnight

  • @[email protected]
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    255 months ago

    Putin’s Sock Puppet taking orders from Moscow to divide the NATO members. For starters, the Canadians should stop buying US made weapons, because the current US leadership is unhinged and unreliable. If anything, the Blue States should become Canadian Provinces.

    • @[email protected]
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      65 months ago

      They don’t want us. As soon as NYS joins, NYC would dominate the votes, due to wild population differences.

      • HellsBelle
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        45 months ago

        Why wouldn’t Canada want any state to join our Confederation?

        Guaranteed if that were to happen we would be switching to a proportional representation federal vote to fix large population differences.

        • @[email protected]
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          25 months ago

          So, Canada would “fix” it, by employing a system like the US has, that ensures a tyranny of the minority?

  • @[email protected]
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    5 months ago

    The US consumers voted for Trump to lower the price of eggs.

    The price of eggs is soaring today. Why? Because bird flu is killing chicken.

    So what does Trump do? He cancels research on bird flu. Surely the irony won’t be missed on the magats who voted him in.

    And now this: aggression against allied nations that will result in more price hikes. More irony for the maga morons to enjoy.

    It’s only been 4 days. It’s gonna be a long 4 years…

    • @[email protected]
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      25 months ago

      Surely the irony won’t be missed on the magats who voted him in.

      Someone would have to explain the concept of irony to them first.

    • @[email protected]
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      15 months ago

      Trump won’t tolerate the 2028 election to remove him.

      The Civil War Part2 ocean-of-slaughter begins then.

      Please do not rely on hopium to protect you & your loved-ones.

      Please begin getting capable, or out, now.

      _ /\ _

    • @[email protected]
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      255 months ago

      Surely the irony won’t be missed on the magats who voted him in.

      Oh… You have some completely unrealistic faith on Humanity…

      Of course they will miss the irony. And in 4 years, they will claim the constant 4 years of inflation on Biden.

    • @[email protected]
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      5 months ago

      The term ‘magat’ is just so on the nose, no matter how deep you go with the analogy.

      A maggot is a mindless sack of flesh that wriggles and writhes all over itself and its neighbors, feeding on a constant diet of rot and decay. And if it survives that stage? It becomes a fly, attracted to steaming piles of shit, regurgitating the same diet that it feeds on just to consume it again, and then buzzing off to distract, annoy, and generally piss off the regular folk who are just trying to get on with their day.

      • @[email protected]
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        15 months ago

        Sorry, but Kahneman1-mind, imprint->reaction mind, including all ideology/prejudice/“religion”,

        CANNOT solve the problem that Kahneman1-mind created.

        Einstein got that right: a different level of mind is required to dismantle the problems created with a particular level of mind.

        Cultivating automatic-prejudice against MAGA cult members just polarizes things even more.

        Only Kahneman2-mind, considered-reasoning, CAN counter ideology’s highjacking-of-the-entire-planet-for-its-tantrum, that it’s working-up-to, this decade.

        _ /\ _

  • @[email protected]
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    215 months ago

    Even if Canada would merge with the US, surely it wouldn’t become a state. We all know the importance of the Senate at this point, and how the two-senators-per-state rule affects things. At the very least, each province would want to become a state to get more senators, and it may be in the best interest of some of the larger provinces like Ontario or Quebec to subdivide to gain even more, if they can get away with it. Goodness knows the idea of splitting California has been floated by some to try to get something closer to senator-per-capita parity.

    • Dharma Curious (he/him)
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      5 months ago

      Y’know, I can see a future where Canada gets annexed, but not Quebec. Those francophones will burn down the whole province down and salt the earth before they became US citizens. I just know it. And I wouldn’t blame them one little tiny bit.

      • @[email protected]
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        75 months ago

        Maybe Alberta would accept being annexed fairly quickly but the rest of the Canada would fight just as hard as the Québécois. Part of the Canadian identity is not being American and like hell you’re taking that away from us.

        • Dharma Curious (he/him)
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          45 months ago

          I’m not suggesting the rest of Canada would lay down and take it, just that the image in my head of Quebecoise is one of salt of the earth and die on that hill type. Like, Canadians are Not American™, and Quebecoise are Not Any Of You Fuckers™

    • Flying Squid
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      85 months ago

      We all know the importance of the Senate at this point

      Trump does not understand how anything in the U.S. government works, you must know that.

  • breakfastmtn
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    5 months ago

    Ummmm… we’ll take the tariffs. Some offense, Americans. (jk love you guys)

  • @[email protected]
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    295 months ago

    And Canada collectively tells him to go fuck himself. Seriously, he really thinks that will make them want to join him?

    • @[email protected]
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      5 months ago

      There are a lot of MAGA idiots in Canada, weirdly enough, and Canada is about to elect the Conservatives under a MAGA-style populist hate-monger who borrows his promises directly from Republicans. As a Canadian, I don’t wholly trust Canadians to resist this hard enough, especially with almost all Canadian media being right wing and the Conservatives promising to shut down what isn’t.

      • @[email protected]
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        25 months ago

        I’m equally curious and terrified to find out where the line between “we love trump” Conservatives and “we need our own trump” Conservatives lies. Even if, purely for arguments sake, we accept that all his policies are amazing, they’re amazing for a different country and actively detrimental to ours. Assuming we get stuck with PP he’s going to have to make a choice. Which half of his base does he agree with? Will he stand up for our country, or roll over and hope the Yanks have their way with us gently. Unfortunately I feel he’s going to fumble and fail to do either.

      • @[email protected]
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        85 months ago

        Yup. America is currently riding the brain rot rollercoaster, and we’re waiting in line holding our ticket.