Canada, Greenland, Mexico, etc - USA Tariffs / Trade War commencing March 2025 #4

[LibraStarr]

Rut-roh, Trump is losing Ted Cruz.

Ted Cruz speaks out against Donald Trump's tariffs: "tax on consumers"

The Texas Senator said he is "not a fan of jacking up taxes on American consumers" and hopes the tariffs are "short-lived."

www.newsweek.com

Maybe. Though with Cruz, it’s hard to tell. He’s spoken out before but usually ends up back in line before long. Would be nice to see him actually hold his ground this time, but I guess we’ll see.

 

[Herat]

It's just like Canadian dairy products. Canada doesn't need USA dairy products, and that makes the USA angry. Australia doesn't need USA beef.

USA dairy is low quality and contains artificial hormones to increase milk production. USA cattle cannot be certified as born in the USA.

If the USA improved animal health and food quality, they wouldn't have a problem. As long as the USA puts profit above food health, they are out of step with much of the developed world, and no one wants their animal products.

The USA gov't wants to force other countries to accept low standard and low quality food, and the world does not want it.

I drink milk, primarily in my coffee. Can’t drink coffee without it.

I buy only organic, grass-fed milk that is certified as hormone-free. Purchasing this kind of milk supports local dairies. This kind of milk is also treated at a higher temp than pasteurization ( UHT) so it has a much longer pull date. Yes it is more expensive, but it’s the quality is superior.

 

[detective.moon]

California to negotiate trade with other countries to bypass Trump tariffs

Gov. Gavin Newsom said California will look for new trade opportunities.

www.newsweek.com

California Governor Gavin Newsomsaid he has directed his administration to "look at new opportunities to expand trade" as he tries to steer his state around President Donald Trump's sprawling import tariffs.

In a post on X, Newsom addressed the U.S.'s global trading partners, writing "California is here and ready to talk."

It comes after a Fox News report revealed that Newsom is directing his state to pursue "strategic" relationships with countries announcing retaliatory tariffs against the U.S., urging them to exclude California-made products from those taxes.

 

[BayouBelle_LA]

What do those who are reading here and voted for Trump think about all of this? I would like to hear your views.

I think we’ve been headed in this direction for a while now. Whether it be President Trump or someone else it was bound to happen. The fast rate that the US is accumulating debt is unsustainable. I’ve always been an America first person. And it should go without saying, every other country puts themselves first.

I am more concerned about future generations than the price of a McDonald’s hamburger.

The article I’m quoting is from 2022. There are a few things here that I think are important. imo

The Charan doctrine is that the rivalry between national spheres of influence is a three-legged stool made up of political, military and economic strengths. Like a three-legged stool, the legs are interdependent. Without relative economic strength, the sphere’s political and military strength will decay over time. As the autocracies’ relative economic strength increases, so will their political and military strength.

Just as no nation can compete over time with another nation on which it is dependent for military resources, no nation or sphere can compete effectively with its rival who controls its supply chain and accumulates trillions of trade surplus and hard dollar currency.

Why Economic Self-Sufficiency Is Imperative In The Coming US-China Reset, Per Ram Charan

CEO advisor and author Ram Charan is convinced that the US and its allies need a three-year action plan to regain superior economic self-sufficiency and stem the chronic, growing trade deficit and capital outflows to the country that has announced its intention to out-compete them.

www.forbes.com

I have a clear understanding of tariffs. My life has been in businesses dealing with exporting and more recently importing, heavy equipment. I realize there’s no way to be self-sufficient in all things. And it will still be cheaper to import. But in my opinion it’s as good a time as any to start.

As they say, put your oxygen mask on first, before you help others.

IMO

 

[otto]

Trump and Musk claim that CBC News Canada is the voice of the Canadian Liberal Party. Many people in the USA believe this to be true ... because Trump-Musk said so. The CBC is publicly funded journalism that is regulated by law and is politically neutral.

The BBC News UK and the ABC News Australia are the same - publicly funded news that ensures people across the country have access to unbiased fact.

Carney wants to ensure that Canadians have continuous access to factual global news. Trump-Musk and Poilievre want to eliminate that necessary service and replace factual news with Rebel News, influencers, youtubers, and un-regulated self-appointed broadcasters. Why do they want this? First guess is that they want to use propaganda rather than fact to subjugate populations.

• "Liberal Leader Mark Carney said he would increase annual funding to CBC/Radio-Canada by $150 million and modernize the public broadcaster’s mandate.
• Poilievre didn't say explicitly he would [starve of funds] CBC, but he had repeatedly promised to do so in pre-campaign appearances."

https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/livestory/canada-election-carney-pitches-funding-boost-for-cbc-radio-canada-as-way-to-preserve-national-identity-9.6711533

 

[otto]

I drink milk, primarily in my coffee. Can’t drink coffee without it.

I buy only organic, grass-fed milk that is certified as hormone-free. Purchasing this kind of milk supports local dairies. This kind of milk is also treated at a higher temp than pasteurization ( UHT) so it has a much longer pull date. Yes it is more expensive, but it’s the quality is superior.

More expensive is the turning point. If artificial hormones to increase milk production were illegal in the USA, as they are in Canada, the EU, Australia, and other countries, milk would be competitively cheaper in the USA.

 

[otto]

California to negotiate trade with other countries to bypass Trump tariffs

Gov. Gavin Newsom said California will look for new trade opportunities.

www.newsweek.com

California Governor Gavin Newsomsaid he has directed his administration to "look at new opportunities to expand trade" as he tries to steer his state around President Donald Trump's sprawling import tariffs.

In a post on X, Newsom addressed the U.S.'s global trading partners, writing "California is here and ready to talk."

It comes after a Fox News report revealed that Newsom is directing his state to pursue "strategic" relationships with countries announcing retaliatory tariffs against the U.S., urging them to exclude California-made products from those taxes.

That's like Premier Smith going solo and pleading with the USA to exclude Alberta from tariffs. It doesn't work. Tariffs apply to borders, not state or provincial lines. On the plus side, Canadian tariffs are targeted towards Republican states with the hope that those Republicans will stop the tariffs. California is relatively safe.

 

[UK Girl]

It's just like Canadian dairy products. Canada doesn't need USA dairy products, and that makes the USA angry. Australia doesn't need USA beef.

USA dairy is low quality and contains artificial hormones to increase milk production. USA cattle cannot be certified as born in the USA.

If the USA improved animal health and food quality, they wouldn't have a problem. As long as the USA puts profit above food health, they are out of step with much of the developed world, and no one wants their animal products.

The USA gov't wants to force other countries to accept low standard and low quality food, and the world does not want it.

America wants us to have their chickens but we do not want them for that reason

 

[Seni]

"Nintendo unveiled the much-anticipated Switch 2 on Wednesday, the same day US President Donald Trump announced his raft of new global tariffs.

The gaming company said then that US pre-orders for the console would open in a matter of days. But now, it has been forced to revise its plans.

"Pre-orders for Nintendo Switch 2 in the US will not start April 9, 2025 in order to assess the potential impact of tariffs and evolving market conditions," it said in a statement.

Japan, where the gaming company is based, has been hit with a 24% tariff - a cost which the firm must swallow or pass onto consumers."

Trump tariffs live: Global stocks sink in second day of market turmoil

All three US indexes - the S&P 500, Nasdaq and Dow Jones - have dropped 5% since the start of trading today.

www.bbc.com

 

[Cryptic]

The BBC News UK and the ABC News Australia are the same - publicly funded news that ensures people across the country have access to unbiased fact.

How does being publicly funded automatically equate to being factually unbiased?

Thinking that truly unbiased news has never existed- and does not exist now. Who funds it does not matter.

As Depeche Mode sang: "People are people...."

Canadian people have the exact same motivation to put spins on news as American people do. For example, my bet is that the official public Canadian news sources have a different spin on lumber subsidies.

 

[Cryptic]

That's like Premier Smith going solo and pleading with the USA to exclude Alberta from tariffs. It doesn't work. Tariffs apply to borders, not state or provincial lines.

I agree. That has been the historical norm. But..... its a new world and strange things are happening.

As a side note, California has sent "trade delegations" (as opposed to "diplomatic missions") to Asia for decades.

 

[otto]

Who is Laura Loomer? It sounds like Trump is the puppet and she is running the government.

"President Trump has fired General Timothy Haugh as director of the intelligence agency NSA. This is reported by several American media, although the White House has not yet confirmed it. NSA deputy director Wendy Noble is also expected to leave the field.

According to the media, it is not known exactly why the two were fired. But they make a connection with a visit Trump received on Wednesday evening from Laura Loomer. She is a far-right activist and 9/11 conspiracy theorist who regularly advises the president.

During that visit, Loomer advocated for the firing of Haugh and Noble because they were allegedly disloyal to Trump, she confirmed on X . After her visit, Trump ordered Defense Secretary Hegseth to fire them, The New York Times reports."

'Trump ontslaat leiding inlichtingendienst NSA'

Volgens media is niet bekend waarom de directeur en de onderdirecteur zijn ontslagen. Er wordt een verband gelegd met een bezoek van een extreemrechtse adviseur.

nos.nl

 

[Herat]

How does being publicly funded automatically equate to being factually unbiased

Thinking that truly unbiased news has never existed- and does not exist now. Who funds it does not matter.

As journalism and reporting and media broadcasting is all controlled by human beings, there clearly has to be a filter introduced to screen the amount of writing that actually makes it to the public. If you want a bot or AI to do that, you are going to end up with a huge gmish of quasi-information that is based on frequency of terms or comments.

So if you have a human editor of a newspaper, a journal, a magazine, a broadcast program you inherintly do have to have some kind of bias.

Some biases are just more rational than others. You have to pick and choose what you expect to see, hear, or read.

 

[otto]

How does being publicly funded automatically equate to being factually unbiased?

Thinking that truly unbiased news has never existed- and does not exist now. Who funds it does not matter.

Regulated equates to factually unbiased, not "publicly funded". Because journalism is unregulated in the USA, it is beyond comprehension that regulated, unbiassed, fact-based journalism exists in other countries. That's why it is so easy for people in the USA to believe Trump over Canadians regarding CBC news content.

"Editorial independence is a bedrock principle of CBC journalism.

Not only is CBC/Radio-Canada's editorial independence guaranteed under Canada's Broadcasting Act, but our journalism is subject to rigorous standards, to which we're held publicly accountable through an independent Ombudsman office.
...

While CBC/Radio-Canada is publicly funded through a parliamentary appropriation voted upon by all members of Parliament, the government has no — zero — involvement in our editorial content or journalism.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/editorsblog/cbc-twitter-news-1.6813747

 

[Cryptic]

Regulated equates to factually unbiased, not "publicly funded". Because journalism is unregulated in the USA, it is beyond comprehension that regulated, unbiassed, fact-based journalism exists in other countries. That's why it is so easy for people in the USA to believe Trump over Canadians regarding CBC news content.

Regulated leads to "unbiased"? I am just not convinced.

If humans make the new and regulate the news, than human biases and national interests are going to be part of the news.

As a side note, China and Russia could well have "regulated" news. Might not be "unbiased" though. Meanwhile, North Korea has very regulated news. So, would North Korean news be very unbiased?

 

[iamshadow21]

This *gestures around wildly* is why we can't have nice things.

Nintendo delays Switch 2 pre-orders in response to Trump tariffs

Proposed tariffs could raise prices by nearly 50%

www.polygon.com

 

[otto]

Regulated leads to "unbiased"? I am just not convinced.

If humans make the new and regulate the news, than human biases and national interests are going to be part of it.

Canadians, Australians and the UK know that people in the USA cannot understand the concept of unbiassed fact-based journalism. Although it must have existed at one time in the USA, over the years it has been lost in the murky depths of propaganda. Today, people in the USA believe that unbiassed fact is an illusion.

For example, CBC news could not, would not be allowed, to replace the word "deficit" with "subsidy", exaggerate $63M to $250B and go unchallenged. They would be forced to issue a correction.

The answer is here:

https://cbc.radio-canada.ca/en/vision/governance/journalistic-standards-and-practices

 

[Herat]

Who is Laura Loomer? It sounds like Trump is the puppet and she is running the government.

"President Trump has fired General Timothy Haugh as director of the intelligence agency NSA. This is reported by several American media, although the White House has not yet confirmed it. NSA deputy director Wendy Noble is also expected to leave the field.

According to the media, it is not known exactly why the two were fired. But they make a connection with a visit Trump received on Wednesday evening from Laura Loomer. She is a far-right activist and 9/11 conspiracy theorist who regularly advises the president.

During that visit, Loomer advocated for the firing of Haugh and Noble because they were allegedly disloyal to Trump, she confirmed on X . After her visit, Trump ordered Defense Secretary Hegseth to fire them, The New York Times reports."

'Trump ontslaat leiding inlichtingendienst NSA'

Volgens media is niet bekend waarom de directeur en de onderdirecteur zijn ontslagen. Er wordt een verband gelegd met een bezoek van een extreemrechtse adviseur.

nos.nl

The cadre of opportunistic, overly ambitious, and unbalanced people who Trump collects truly defies any kind of logic.

I was watching a BBC interview with Lord Alan Sugar, a UK British business magnate who is also in the House of Lords. He rose from absolute nothing as a street scrabbler to become a billionaire and football club owner. He also has an ascerbic wit and can be very unfiltered. He is currently the star and host of the UK version of The Apprentice. I like listening to him. He's practical, tough, unfiltered, and wise.

As they were discussing The Apprentice, the topic turned to Donald Trump. He very much disparaged the way Trump behaved in publicly berating and trying to degrade Zelensky in the Oval Office. He knows a bully when he sees one. He has also met Trump and said he realized that you cannot reason with Trump at all. You have to show obeisance and loyalty to him and you cannot disagree with him.

Excerpt from BBC interview from 2 weeks ago:

Here's an example in another interview. Lord Sugar says the tariffs are a disaster.

 

[Cryptic]

For example, CBC news could not, would not be allowed, to replace the word "deficit" with "subsidy", exaggerate $63M to $250B and go unchallenged. They would be forced to issue a correction.

Thinking that the "unbiased" news regulated by humans for human consumption in Canada reflects the Canadian point of view regarding the issue of lumber subsidies ie "They are not truly subsidies for reasons "A" and "B".

 

[Herat]

So I was checking my Costco prescriptions. As I certainly expected, none are made in the US.

It looks like Costco buys it's drugs from Aurobindo, an Indian-based company with manufacturing plants in India, Brazil, and Portugal.

I wonder how Costco is going to deal with these tariffs. Are they going to have to go completely through their pharmacy formulary and have to assign 3 different prices to each Rx to comply with the tariff matrix: India 46%, Portugal 20%, Brazil 10%? Are they going to know exactly which plant in which country each Rx is manufactured in? I wonder how my insurance company is going to determine how much they pay for and how much I am now going to have to pay for. What a freakin' mess.

I also noticed that their pharmacy/ vitamin / cosmetics and toiletries aisle is now full of products that are labelled:

Distributed in the US from imported materials. That really hides the precise tariff price increase from the consumer. (Toothpaste, dental floss, shampoos, vitamins, cough medicines, etc etc etc.) I guess they just load the highest tariff.

If I were Costco's CEO I would be beyond furious.