Just in case it isn’t clear I don’t support Trump nor the tariffs.

I voted against Trump and I hate him with a vengeance. I’m discussing the geopolitical and economic context of the tariffs and the dynamic between US and Canada. I was surprised when I started doing research about this recently just how reliant in the US Canada truly is. The numbers were shocking to me. Likewise with Mexico. For some reasons the news doesn’t really cover these details.

There really is no world where the US is not Canada’s largest trade partner. It doesn’t matter what government is in power. No amount if federal unemployment would cover a quarter of your economy vanishing overnight.

And on the topic of a united Canada- https://www160.statcan.gc.ca/good-governance-saine-gouvernance/institutions-eng.htm

Public faith in federal institutions is at an all time low… just like the US. Right wing populism is on the rise… just like the US. Canada is a lot closer to the US both culturally and politically than any European country. This should be intuitive- both are cut from the same cloth. British settler colonial societies.

And Canada is starting to fall victim to the same style of right-wing populism we are seeing in the US (Trump), Latin America (Brazil/Bolsonaro, Argentina/Milei), and Europe (UK/Brexit, Germany/AfD, Italy/FdI, France/Le Penn, Sweden/Dems) etc.

Don’t let some vague sense of national pride blind you from seeing the truth for what it is. Confront the truth head on even if it is uncomfortable.

All countries are sovereign but some countries are more sovereign than others. If Canada’s priority was protecting sovereignty then they would not be in this position to begin with.

It’s something that has been decades in the making. It will take decades to reverse course. It isn’t going to meaningfully change in the upcoming 5-10 years.

You say Canadians are ready to “go without” but we’re talking about millions of people losing their jobs. A historic spike in poverty. Collapse of many industries. No sane leadership would ever cut off trade with America. National pride doesn’t feed a family.

Long term, sure, maybe there will be a realignment. I doubt it, but it’s possible. The near future is a chaotic one where Canada and Mexico are going to need the economic value from America. We’re headed for troubled times globally.

Yes, they are. There will be no meaningful response because they have no leverage. Any meaningful change from status quo would mean an immediate economic crisis.

Ignore what they say on camera because they are speaking to their domestic audience.

Right now, Canada has placed a 25% tariff on $30B worth of imports. That’s 7% of US imports. Whereas Trump has placed 25% on everything that Canada exports to the US.

And 80% of Canadian exports go directly to the US.

So just for reference.

Canada retaliatory tariff -> $30B which represents less than 1% of total US exports

Trump’s tariffs -> ~$550B which represents nearly 80% of total Canadian exports

Ignore the rhetoric, look at the numbers. Canada and Mexico have no choice. They signed their economic autonomy away a long time ago. It’s sort of like when Greece went through their debt crisis and couldn’t do jack shit because they signed away their autonomy to Brussels (and really Germany).

There are trade-offs to every decision. Canada got easy access to the American market and a nice way to exploit their natural resources. But it also gives Washington an absurd amount of leverage over them.

Mexico is even more screwed.

Canada - America trade amounts to a little over $920B https://crsreports.congress.gov/product/pdf/IF/IF12595

Canadian GDP is a little over $2.1T https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NY.GDP.MKTP.CD?locations=CA

We’re talking nearly half of their GDP. In addition, half of Canadian foreign investment comes directly from the US. They will continue to be integrated into the US economy, even if Trump doubled the tariffs tomorrow.

And that’s because Canada, and Mexico to an even higher extent, are completely reliant on US trade. They both have no real choice but to grin and bear it. They will of course speak out publicly for the domestic audience but things will continue more or less status quo for the foreseeable future.

If a new World War was coming, we would definitely want to be closer with our border countries than give our foreign enemies a chance

think of it this way. let’s say WW3 kicks off with China tomorrow. Will Canada or Mexico suddenly ally with China?

Reality is that Canada and Mexico are totally dependent on US trade. It really doesn’t matter if you piss them off they’re gonna be forced to deal with you anyway.

80% of Mexican exports are to the US. 30% of their GDP is based on American trade. If US exports stopped tomorrow, Mexican economy would immediately enter a deep depression. They have no choice but to play nice, even with 25% tariffs.

Canada is similarly stuck. 75% of exports are to the US. 50% of their imports are from the US. 20% of their GDP is based on American trade.

If you took both Canadian and Mexican trade combined and compared it to the US economy, though, it wouldn’t even reach 5%. If trade with both of these countries were to stop tomorrow, America will suffer- but growth may slow by 0.5% or 1%. Both Canada and Mexico would see a depression.

America is like the sun in the solar system. Canada and Mexico have no choice but to fall into orbit around it. The total weight of the economic power is hard to understate.

Do you see why Trump feels like he has the power to do this? This is the point I was trying to make above. Historically US presidents have been more diplomatic and subtle about how to abuse the leverage that America has by the nature of being a superpower. Trump isn’t fundamentally different except he’s exploiting this leverage loudly and in an ugly and aggressive way.

In the past, presidents would play nice. Pretend like there was sovereignty and diplomacy, etc. But when Bill Clinton signed NAFTA… it was for the same reason. To dominate the economies of both Canada and Mexico. The difference is the rhetoric sounds much nicer.

After NAFTA was signed, subsidized US corn flooded the Mexican market, totally bankrupting millions of Mexican farmers. Wages in Mexico stagnated for decades because US needed cheap labor to build cars. In Canada, they became more and more reliant on exporting natural resources to the US.

We always need to remember US is an imperialist power. This is what empires do.

As for the upcoming war, I think it’s only a matter of time. But we’re talking a time scale of 5-10 years. We’re preparing for the future showdown. There will be one or two more flashpoints before the main war. Ukraine was one, Israel is another.

If we had to make an analogy with WW2, I’d say we’re roughly in mid ~1930s. Our Spanish Civil War is the Ukrainian war. Our Italian invasion of Ethiopia is the Israeli conflict. (Gaza, Israeli invasion of Syria, war with Lebanon, Iran, etc)

Anyone who’s even remotely qualified to lead the military is being replaced with sycophants

it’s a purge. we’re watching our own version of what Saddam Hussein did when he took power. it definitely weakens the country overall but it strengthens the hold on power for the executive.

as for the military, we’ve been spending more than like the next 8 countries combined for decades. it’s hard to understate the relative power of the US military. there are hundreds of military bases all over the world.

even a weakened superpower is still a superpower

If no enemies exist, they are created.

i don’t disagree. that’s why the rhetoric. but I would disconnect the rhetoric from the policy. trump says one thing and does another. he wants to deport everyone but at the rate he’s going we won’t even see a 10% reduction in the illegal immigrant population. mouth says one thing, hand does another

notice how tariffs were a trend that started a decade ago. Trump placed tariffs on China on his first term and then Biden increased the number of tariffs. the ban on Tiktok was a bipartisan effort- it’s in the interest of US foreign policy. obviously tariffs on Canada and Mexico are insane and probably wouldn’t have happened without Trump… but more tariffs were a definite part of the future regardless who won in 2024

Trump isn’t doing this because he’s some brilliant strategist

couple of things. first, i wouldn’t underestimate trump. he successfully hijacked the Republican party which is a party full of wealthy and powerful people who did everything in their power to try and stop him

second, the people around Trump are very principled ideologues (ie people like Peter Thiel and the dark enlightenment ideology they’re enamored in)

these people are educated, intelligent, and dedicated to their cause. they also have near-limitless money and now they have the control of the federal government of the strongest country in the world- a country that has an executive branch that has gotten progressively more powerful.

they have a vision and they planned for this and they are enacting it. this is not a spontaneous thing. they view a future where there is a showdown with China and tariffs play into that future

the analogy was in reference to the size differential between david (boy) and goliath (giant)

sure david wins in the parable but to quote bo burnham

South of queers, north of Hell

The queer ones suck and the brown ones smell

We guard the border and we guard it well

But some slip through the cracks of the Liberty Bell

Did I say liberty? I meant taco, Paco, hey you better let that rock go

'Cause in real life, Goliath wins

And then sells all the silk that the widow spins

I would very much like to preserve the freedom that attracted you to this country in the first place

i would very much like to preserve the freedom as well. i’m not pro-fascism if that wasn’t clear

i was just saying that even if shit gets really bad here people may still come because everything else could be worse

because there’s a war coming soon that will destroy most global trade. trump wants the US in a better position in that near future by having more factories and such inside of the US.

in a peaceful world, you allow free trade and specialization to do its thing and everybody gets richer. you farm bananas, i farm apples, and we trade. we create value out of thin air, it’s an amazing thing.

but in a world where superpowers are at war and the world splinters into factions, half of the global economy will be cut off from the other half. therefore it’ll be a huge liability if we for example depend on Taiwan for 90% of our computer chips when China can blockade Taiwan and we cannot reliably break that blockade. that’s one industry… now imagine the thousands of other products we need for a modern economy. it would cause massive economic shockwaves.

so this tariff thing is accepting that this will happen in the near future and preparing for it, slowly weaning off the economy from that connection to the rest of the world. so when it does come, it doesn’t hurt as bad.

it doesn’t really matter if you piss off your allies. since you’re the biggest military power they are going to have to rely on you anyway. you have leverage over them. the difference is that Trump is a reality TV star and so he is loudly exploiting this leverage whereas most past leaders would be more subtle and diplomatic about it.

Canada, Mexico, Germany, Japan, etc aren’t really allies. Being someone’s ally implies there’s a sort of equal footing. When someone has no choice but to bend to your will, is that a voluntary relationship? the US essentially wrote Japan’s constitution and they told the Germans what to write down for theirs. Canada and Mexico are heavily dependent on US trade- US growth might slow a half percent or two whereas Mexico and Canada are liable to fall into a recession because of these tariffs.

it isn’t equal footing. it’s a david v goliath situation

to give a recent example, Ukraine. Ukraine in 2014 had the Euromaidan coup and the president had to flee the country. The new government that was quickly appointed without an election realized one thing very quickly- Russia was about to invade them. they had only one option in terms of getting military aid and that was the US. so immediately, the same day that the government was appointed, they started cooperating with the US. a few days after that, little green men showed up in Donbas and the Russian army waltzed into Crimea

so you can say they “allied” with the US but a more honest way to say it is that they were desperately pushed into America’s orbit. and the US ultimately doesn’t care about a country like Ukraine. people are starting to see it more clearly today because of Trump, but I honestly don’t think the situation would have been meaningfully different with Biden or Kamala. The primary difference would have been rhetoric. Instead of calling Zelensky a dictator, we would have just dragged our feet with military aid instead, like what has been happening the last year or so

tldr: the US is a imperialist superpower and this is what they do.

i was born in a country with a military dictatorship who used to disappear people. just because the country is going to hell doesn’t mean you can’t carve out a meaningful life for yourself in the chaos. and living in a dystopian version of the US is probably still better than living in a dystopian version of a 3rd world country

then history has a very important lesson to teach you.

at no point in US history has the US been at war with a neighboring country over a trade war escalation and instituted a draft as a result of that war

any future war is going to be versus China and we’ve probably got at least a few years before that comes to fruition.

we’re in the years leading up to WW3. think of it like the early 1930s. if you look at history, everywhere sucked. i’d rather be in a 1st world country when the bombs go off rather than a 3rd world country where i’m liable to starve due to mass famines

Imagine there are still people who chose to go to USA voluntarily?

I’d rather live in neo-fascist USA than in a war zone where I’m liable to be sent to the frontlines and die bleeding out in a trench after a drone blows my leg off.

I’d rather live in neo-fascist USA than live in poverty in many parts of Latin America where I would make 10x higher salary for unskilled labor. I would also have a 10x lower chance of getting my throat slit walking down the street at night.

Sometimes I feel like I was the only one who remembered that this is what it was like the last time he was in office

I feel like it’s worse this time. Darker. We didn’t have the Ukraine or Israeli war. We didn’t have perverse AI videos like the Gaza video with a giant golden Trump statue.

2016 was the rise of Trump. Right now we are in the age of Trump. Trump is steadily increasing his power and I believe fairly soon he will be able to more or less unilaterally control the federal government as he continues his purges.

just means they are in bed with Nazis

Fascism is always the best business decision. This is the inevitable result of capitalism. The institutions on a good decade are strong and resilient. Oligarchy, yes, but still a more or less free society.

Eventually though, there will be a series of crisis in succession that causes the establishment to weaken just enough for a strongman to slip in and take the reigns. In the 20th century it was the fallout from WW1 and the Great Depression. In our time it was COVID and the Ukraine + Israeli wars (and to some extent, 2008 housing crisis)

One key part of fascism is that it is almost paradoxical

a) A populist-driven ideology, which means it appeals to the lowest common denominator

b) An elitist-driven ideology, which means it idolizes and puts value in the elites of a society

What ends up happening is the state picks and chooses elite groups of people who end up running the show. So for example, if you are Zuckerberg or Musk or Bezos… you know that if you play nice with Trump that he will reward you and you will have certain advantages by having a friend in an authoritarian government. You also know that if you don’t play nice with Trump, he will try and hurt you using both legal and illegal mechanisms.

Therefore, the best investment you could make is aligning yourself with the fascist state.

This was always going to happen. Sort of like how humans eventually will catch a cold or develop cancer. The immune system on a good day is strong enough to repel these types of problems. But eventually, you will be under some stress for one reason or another and your immune system is not enough to stop the inevitable cold or what have you.