Canada May Put A 100% Tariff On Teslas— China Should Do The Same... So Should The Rest Of The World

I loved going up to Montreal to teach at McGill, more so than any classes I taught in U.S. universities. And what a great town Montreal is! It breaks my heart to see our country trying to break them and take them over now. It’s sickening. Trump is sickening. The Republicans are sickening. The last time I left the country to live someplace else I was 21. It was an awesome experience but… I’ll be 77 in a couple of weeks. I can’t run; I can barely walk some days.

There doesn’t see to be any way to stop the Trump-Musk regime. I never imagined I’d see anything like it happen here. Even just a month ago I didn’t imagine anything this serious would happen. I thought it would just be a little worse than Trump I— not a million times worse. Yesterday, Timothy Snyder asked what is a country? and responded “The way its people govern themselves. America exists because its people elect those who make and execute laws. The assumption of a democracy is that individuals have dignity and rights that they realize and protect by acting together. The people who now dominate the executive branch of the government deny all of this, and are acting, quite deliberately, to destroy the nation. For them, only a few people, the very wealthy with a certain worldview, have rights, and the first among these is to dominate. For them, there is no such thing as an America, or Americans, or democracy, or citizens, and they act accordingly. Now that the oligarchs and their clients are inside the federal government, they are moving, illegally and unconstitutionally, to take over its institutions. The parts of the government that work to implement laws have been maligned for decades. Americans have been told that the people who provide them with services are conspirators within a ‘deep state.’ We have been instructed that the billionaires are the heroes.”

All of this work was preparatory to the coup that is going on now. The federal government has immense capacity and control over trillions of dollars. That power was a cocreation of the American people. It belongs to them. The oligarchs around Trump are working now to take it for themselves.

Theirs is a logic of destruction. It is very hard to create a large, legitimate, functioning government. The oligarchs have no plan to govern. They will take what they can, and disable the rest. The destruction is the point. They don’t want to control the existing order. They want disorder in which their relative power will grow.

…Trump’s tariffs (which are also likely illegal) are there to make us poor. Trump’s attacks on America’s closest friends, countries such as Canada and Denmark, are there to make enemies of countries where constitutionalism works and people are prosperous. As their country is destroyed, Americans must be denied the idea that anything else is possible.

…The best people in American federal law enforcement, national security, and national intelligence are being fired. The reasons given for this are DEI and trumpwashing the past. Of course, if you fire everyone who was concerned in some way with the investigations of January 6th or of Russia, that will be much or even most of the FBI. Those are bad reasons, but the reality is worse: the aim is lawlessness: to get the police and the patriots out of the way.

In the logic of destruction, there is no need to rebuild afterwards. In this chaos, the oligarchs will tell us that there is no choice but to have a strong man in charge. It can be a befuddled Trump signing ever larger pieces of paper for the cameras, or a conniving Vance who, unlike Trump, has always known the plot. Or someone else.

…Make sure you are talking to people and doing something. The logic of “move fast and break things,” like the logic of all coups, is to gain quick dramatic successes that deter and demoralize and create the impression of inevitability. Nothing is inevitable. Do not be alone and do not be dismayed. Find someone who is doing something you admire and join them.

What is a country? The way its people govern themselves. Sometimes self-government just means elections. And sometimes it means recognizing the deeper dignity and meaning of what it means to be a people. That means speaking up, standing out, and protesting. We can only be free together.

I recall seeing a month or two ago, Musk saying that the Trump tariffs would cause pain but it would be worth the pain. Trump said the same thing over the weekend. Pain for us, worth it for them? Schumer said the tariffs against Canada and Mexico would likely “hit Americans in their wallets… It would be nice if Donald Trump could start focusing on getting the prices down instead of making them go up.” He added that Trump should set his sights on “competitors who rig the game, like China, rather than attacking our allies.” Ken Martin, the new head the DNC said that Trump is “using American workers as pawns in his petty political games. If a president promised that they’d help my family get by, and then they did this, I’d be pretty pissed off. So, you should be pissed off.”

While the trio of affected countries are preparing retaliatory moves, with China saying it will lodge a lawsuit with the World Trade Organization against the US, Democratic leaders are flagging potentially devastating consequences domestically for American workers.

…In a largely symbolic gesture, given Republican control of both chambers of Congress, two Democratic senators have introduced a bill to force Trump to seek congressional approval for implementing any tariffs on trading partners. The bill, crafted by Chris Coons from Delaware and Tim Kaine from Virginia, would require the president to explain his plan and its impact on the US economy and foreign policy.

“If the president is going abuse this power to bully and coerce our allies, Congress should take this authority back,” Coons said in a statement.

Speaking on CNN’s State of the Union on Sunday, Kaine said that he was struck by the “irony” that Trump issued an emergency order on energy then days later slapped 10% tariffs on Canadian energy. “He is increasing prices at the pump, and you will start to see it in the next couple of days. At the same time he is saying there’s an energy emergency – the emergency is self created.”

Deep anxiety about the prudence of Trump’s aggressive move is also being expressed by parties who are normally allied with the president.

The US Chamber of Commerce, a powerful force in conservative politics, said that Trump was making a mistake in thinking that tariffs could solve the problem of immigration across US borders and fentanyl flowing into the country.

“The imposition of tariffs is unprecedented, won’t solve these problems and will only raise prices for American families and upend supply chains,” the chamber’s John Murphy told CNN.

European figures reacted with dismay to the turmoil. On Sunday, asked about Trump’s weekend moves, European Central Bank policymaker Klaas Knot said he expects new tariffs will lead to higher inflation and interest rates in the US that will likely weaken the euro.

The German opposition leader and frontrunner to become the next chancellor, Friedrich Merz, on Sunday expressed his concern. “Tariffs have never been a good idea for resolving trade policy conflicts,” he said at his CDU conservative party convention.

In Britain senior cabinet minister Yvette Cooper said that Trump’s tariff plans could have a “really damaging impact” on the global economy and growth. The top Labour figure said the UK wanted to break down trade barriers, not put them up. “Tariff increases really right across the world can have a really damaging impact on global growth and trade, so I don’t think it’s what anybody wants to see,” she said.

Other experts also warned about the potential impact.“It’s only a matter of time before the EU is targeted,” said Marchel Alexandrovich, an economist at Saltmarsh Economics in London. “The fact that Canada is responding and putting up tariffs against US goods is a sign of things to come and demonstrates the risks to global trade.”

At the same time Canada said it will stand firm in the trade war.

“I think the Canadian people are going to expect that our government stands firm and stands up for itself,” Kirsten Hillman, Canada’s ambassador to the US told ABC News.

She added: “We’re not at all interested in escalating, but I think that there will be a very strong demand on our government to make sure that we stand up for the deal that we have struck with the United States.”

This morning after Wall Street crashed and Sheinbaum tossed him a bone, Trumpy McClown strated backing down down... and by the end of the day he had also backed down on Canadian tariffs. What a dick!

Jason Lalljee reported that the Trump tariffs would be an $830 annual tax on the average American household. “Economists fear the tariffs will be a net negative for households and the broader economy… [and will] shrink the economic output of the U.S. by 0.4% and increase taxes by $1.2 trillion between 2025 and 2034… In a letter to lawmakers last month, the Congressional Budget Office also estimated that the tariffs would spur price hikes on consumer goods, at least initially, though they added that after 2025, the tariffs would not have any ‘additional significant effects on prices.’ The CBO also noted that poorer households would experience the largest drop in purchasing power.”

To Trump this all appears to be a big joke... and an opportunity for bullying. Next he'll be causing ill-will and pain for our EU allies. He keeps sending out nonsense like this: