Reciprocal tariffs alone don’t make much sense, it’s just making things for Canadians more expensive with an adversary that’s larger and can sustain them longer (although how long remains to be seen with guilt yields rising.)
If they really want to hurt them start making it legal to circumvent DRM on American products and allow build meaningful replacements.
Well it's 73 days till the midterm elections so we'll see what happens. Signing a bad deal when the political landscape could dramatically change in a few weeks never made sense.
I don’t think you can approach it from a rational economic perspective because that’s not how it started: it’s a dominance power play and what we’ve seen with China and the EU is that standing up to a bully is the only thing which causes them to back down. If you accept the offer, people like that see it as a sign they could’ve asked for more.
The companies who are forced to raise prices are politically well-connected, mostly as part of his party, and I’m sure the Canadian government is banking on their executives and his laid-off voters pushing him to cut a deal.
If this was even close to true, why did basicly this exact same move work when china did it and when EU threatend to do the same before.
And from a different angle: “giving fines to firms makes no sense since they firm can only get money from customers so it’s just going to make it more expensive for the customer”.
Not an identical situatio, but to say it’s the only consequence, that it becomes more expensive for Canadian, is just not right.
You’d have to tariff fruits and vegetables like crazy to make the American varieties more expensive than oceanic shipped produce. That seems a fairly steep price for the Canadian consumer.
Which highlights the problems with tariffs, they are self harming. You have to be willing to give up better alternatives for some other reason, and food is a hard one.
> You’d have to tariff fruits and vegetables like crazy to make the American varieties more expensive than oceanic shipped produce.
Bullshit. I already see in the supermarket (Canadian Superstore) oranges from South Africa, lemons from Morocco, broccoli from Mexico, mangoes from Malaysia, fish from the Philippines, coconut from Vietnam, kiwis from Italy, etc.
Yes, oceanic shipping adds to the cost. But most of those countries already have cheaper labor, and that partially offsets the extra cost.
Mangoes and South Asian fish don’t grow close to you no matter what. You don’t think bull shipping Mexican tomatoes via the ocean isn’t going to cost more than the same tomato shipped by the US land route?
If you were going to take that tariff money to build up a local tomato industry it might make sense, Canada already has a growing hot house industry. But don’t kid yourself, tariffs cost the consumer and for low margin highly seasonal and subject to going bad goods like produce is about the worst case scenario.
If you want people to buy stuff from you Americans then just try to stop pushing forward American imperialism down into everyone's throats. This isn't just about money, it is about my country's sovereignty.
Nope. Not how prices work. If you have a replacement good that would be cheaper but you artificially inflate it with a tax you are forcing that tax on every transaction.
Again, if you think that tax is valid, feel free but tariffs costs are born by the consumer in the tariff applying country, ask us how we know…
Sadly most of us do realize it. But this is why tariffs are so pernicious. Because you hate me, you are going to tax yourself. It’s a negative sum world view. It’s bad enough that Trump believes the nonsense, he’s been able to export it.
If they really want to hurt them start making it legal to circumvent DRM on American products and allow build meaningful replacements.