69 Replies to “The Art Of The Deal”

  1. the Canadian government will never give up communist supply management for dairy and poultry, so get ready for long haul tariffs here

    1. “Never” is a long time. At some point, perhaps when the last of the auto plants in Ont/Que is closed and manufacturing moves to the USA, tier 2 Canada will have to consider what they’ve staked their worth upon.

    2. The sad part is that many Canadians embrace this crap.
      That people vote for parties that embrace policies that are in direct contradiction of their own interests is dumbfounding.

    3. I’ve also heard that at least the dairy tariff issue is BS to a point. The US is allowed a significant of imports tariff free before it kicks in, and only milk is affected in any case. Only Canadians are fully screwed by supply management. In fact ““During the renegotiation of CUSMA (USMCA), the United States secured substantial tariff-free access to the Canadian dairy market. As a result, the U.S. enjoys a significant dairy trade surplus with Canada, exporting $877.5 million CAD in dairy products while importing $357.9 million CAD in return.” Keep in mind that Trump bragged during his first term that this new agreement was the best agreement ever.

      1. Supply management is a protectionist racket which supports Quebec. It needs to go. It is a Bolshevik artifact.

      2. “…and only milk is affected in any case.”
        Great, I’ll just skip over to the store and buy myself some cheap American butter and cheese!

      3. “The US is allowed a significant of imports tariff free before it kicks in..”

        Ontario Farmer newspaper journalist Ian Cumming has been covering this unequal trade relationship for years. Canada allows a pittance of US dairy stuff across the border with reduced tariffs and then slams the doors shut.

        And Canadians are paying twice the price for our Balderson cheddar as they would for Cabit cheeses front New England.

          1. “My quote above is from The Dairy Farmers of Canada. Is $877M a pittance?”

            Why would you quote the people with the most interest in maintaining the status quo? The Dairy Farmers of Canada represent corporations, not small farmers…there are no small farmers left in the dairy industry.

          2. …and they’d certainly have no vested interest in manipulating the truth, would they?

            “…substantial…”
            “…significant…”

            Hard numbers or STFU.

          3. I thought a “pittance” was a tool for processing olives? Wasn’t there a classic play about them? “‘Tis Pittance, She’s A Whore”?

      4. “I’ve also heard that at least the dairy tariff issue is BS to a point. The US is allowed a significant of imports tariff free before it kicks in, and only milk is affected in any case. ”

        It’s a matter of degree. A ‘significant’ amount is completely subjective, and the US tariffs on Canadian milk once their own threshold is reached are only 24-37%, not the 250-270% we charge them.

    4. I don’t think that’s true, but to have TRQs a d supply management on the table the USA needs to bring their TRQs and their $30 billion in farm subsidies to the table

      1. “I don’t think that’s true, but to have TRQs a d supply management on the table the USA needs to bring their TRQs and their $30 billion in farm subsidies to the table”

        Then we can bring the rest of our own farm subsidies to the table as well, right?

  2. Brussels is so buried in bureaucracy, the non-tariff barriers are worse. Good luck navigating what the byzantines would call a mess.

    2. Plus subsidies. They will go big with under the table payments to their export industries so they can sell into the US at what appears to be a loss.

  4. India and Vietnam are also considering dropping tariffs and negotiating with Trump.
    Canada is more commie than Vietnam now.

    1. TBF … Trump has vowed not to negotiate his tariffs on Communist China … or any of her vassal States. Sorry ChiCanaComs.

      PS … your soon to be PM hates capitalism anyway … so he won’t bother even trying to negotiate with his great Satanic neighbor to the south

  5. If the EU agrees to zero tariffs on US goods going to Europe in exchange for zero tariffs on European goods going to the US, how is American manufacturing going to be reshored? Won’t this just enshrine the status quo?

    1. Good point! So screw all the whiners and SUDDEN negotiators. Decades upon decades of unfair trade and the hollowing out of the American middle class will no longer be tolerated or negotiated

      1. One thing you might want to be realistic about. Nobody in Europe wants to buy an American car. Unless GM comes up with a special Euro model (say a half sized Pinto without the exploding gas tank) there will be no sales. Most Euros drive Fiats, Minis, small Renaults, and live places where an F150 wouldn’t be able to turn most corners. The few who could afford or want a larger vehicle would still buy a Mercedes, Rover, BMW, Alpha Romeo etc.

        1. Well certainly they are cheaper due to the high tariffs on European cars (which by the way have all kinds of planned obsolescence built into them and extremely expensive parts….especially outside of the EU.)

          2. Which can now be moved back to America … as the Romanians are all needed on the front assembly lines of death in Ukraine.

            0-tariffs for imported bodies in the battle against Putin

        4. There is certainly not much demand for N.American cars in Europe or the U.K. but Ford and GM have subsidiaries there that make cars designed for those markets.

          (I think Rover was bought by an Indian company some years ago.)

    2. No, the status quo is not equal tariffs. Allowing free and un-tariffed trade between Europe and the USA will not just “enshrine the status quo” because the status quo is currently tilted in favor of the EU. Allowing free and un-tariffed trade between Europe and the USA will allow for free-market competition, with local outfits having a slight advantage because of considerably lower shipping and logistics costs.

    3. The EU no longer makes things, that is why their economy is so stagnant. Nothing there to reshore. Reshoring is from India and the far east, plus Mexico.

      1. The Dutch currently manufacture some of the best cranes and booms in the world. The Danes build some nice boats. The Swedes build nice fighter jets. The Swiss still build lots of watches. The Italians still build lots of cars, as do the Germans. Europe is still an industrial powerhouse, and getting rid of tariffs will only strengthen it.

    5. Consider this an opening gesture and not the final deal.

      Besides, the tariffs were enacted for other reasons as well as just trade. My President will likely be more than happy to negotiate, but is in no real hurry.

  6. I expect the joy to be short lived. The US and the EU are on a collision course concerning censorship. The US won’t live with it and the Euroweenies can’t survive without it. It’s going to be fun to watch.

    1. The EU “fact checkers” have certified that the 20-28% VAT tax on US imported goods are offset by the average 7.5% US sales tax on imported goods.

      No. Your math is racist. The EU “math checkers” have made the math … equitable

      1. I though an American economic genius like you would know what a Value Added Tax is. It’s just a sales tax like most US states have. Canada has a value added tax called the Goods and Services Tax or the Harmonized Sales Tax depending on which province you live in. VAT has nothing to do with origin of goods. I can see Trump being confused because he is stupiid. But Kenji?

        1. Depends on whether the manufacturer gets the tax rebated in some way, shape or form…..and it does. So no….Trump isn’t stupid.

        2. Sooooo … you missed the part where I directly compared the VAT tax to the US sales tax?

        3. scar, a value added tax is not a sales tax, in the sense of a retail tax.

          It is a tax applied at every point along the chain, from the inputs for producing a good, on that product when sold to distributors, then on the product when bought by wholesalers, then the product when bought by retailers and then finally on the consumer.

          That all adds up to the 20-28% range mentioned by Kenji.

      2. Trying to toss your political opponents in jail for their political views hits very close to home with this admin. Attempting to censor Americans with European laws isn’t sitting well either. It’s going to get even worse once the new admin gets to exposing the American censorship complex. Can’t wait.

    2. The censorship issue is not very closely tied to trade issues. The USA engages in trade with entities that are much, much worse than the EU re censorship and free speech. They do not spend billions each year defending these entities, however.

      1. illegal aliens weren’t tied closely to trade until all of a sudden they were, and we can see how that is working out.

        1. Do you not detect any difference between an unsecured border and the policies of nations on the other side of an ocean?
          The US is engaged in negotiations with arounf 50 countries right now, many of whom are pledging to drop all tariffs. Canada ain’t one of them.

          1. The US is using their economic club to achieve their goals and not all of their goals are economic.

          2. “The US is using their economic club to achieve their goals and not all of their goals are economic.”
            That may be true, but I certainly don’t think that you, or anyone else except for people actually in the Trump admin are able to predict exactly how the admin is going to play this.
            I think the economics are the biggest factor, and if the EU tries some hare-brained scheme to fine X or whatever for failing to censor its users, the admin will treat it as a totally unjust tariff, and respond accordingly.

          3. The US/UK “special relationship” is already under pressure from the UK govt’s attempt to police speech. Criminalizing parents for criticizing the school system is something that helped propel Trump back into office so it’s very unlikely they’re going to give this stuff a pass.

            https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-14573335/six-police-officers-arrest-couple-WhatsApps-childs-school.html

            It is all about economics and in this game, despite being $35T in the hole, the US still holds the club card.

            https://archive.ph/OvPnK

        1. Things are going so well in China that they undisappeared Jack Ma last November to help them fix things.

        2. Perfect! That will slow ChiCom trade even FASTER … repatriating US middle class jobs even faster.

          How will the ChiComs feed all those unemployed factory workers? Oh yeah … on high tariffed CA rice

  7. Like 2016 on steroids, Trump is once again separating the hidebound globalist loons who claim to carry the mantle of conservatism from the real conservatives.

  8. This is a good article explaining how the effective tariff rate was calculated for last week’s announcement. It is based on the trade deficit each country has with the US plus a 10% levy across the board. This explains why the UK has such a low rate; the US actually has a trade surplus with the UK. https://treeofwoe.substack.com/p/balanced-trade?utm_source=share&utm_medium=android&r=k10ob&triedRedirect=true

    I’m using the word effective, because this includes tariffs, regulations, subsidies etc that result in a US trade imbalance with various countries. So the rate is higher for those countries in which the trade imbalance is highest as a % of their GDP. And countries quoting a tariff rate as a complaint to the rate they are being now charged by the US misses the point, on purpose. It’s all the other barriers to US products coming into their countries producing those trade deficits that they fail to mention.

    So the EU looking to equalize tariffs is undoubtedly bogus because they’ll put up or keep other barriers and subsidize their products. And Trump, nationalist he is, wants to break up the globalist EU into individual countries anyways and negotiate trade with them separately.

    1. The US has a service economy and exports large amounts of services to countries like Canada. Taking in account services our trade is pretty much balanced. I suspect the entertainment, software, communications, and other intellectual property are going to be properly taxed.

      1. The U.S. has a service economy because we destroyed and offshored vast portions of our manufacturing base.

        We now have large numbers of idle people collecting government assistance with few prospects for useful employment.

      2. scar, I think you are referring to the US-Canada trade being nearly balanced if you include services and that looks right. I went to the Bureau of Economic Analysis site and a quick glance shows a $10 billion deficit total in 2024 between US-Canada, goods and services combined. However, I went to that site mainly for a global perspective, and US surpluses in services are roughly 20-25% of the deficits in goods. So much for that services based economy being a success.

        Funny thing I noticed, in January and February this year, the global monthly goods imbalances jumped from $123 billion in December, to $156 billion in January and $147 billion in February, mostly due to increased imports. It’s like Trump was taken seriously and stuff got imported into the US pre-tariff.

  9. Ah, Ursula, using weasel words to send a message, but still insincere.

    “Industrial goods”. Not food, agricultural, etc. Words are important, and wretched politicians like EU Ursula are simply Wordsmithing to try and appear conciliatory.

    She and the EU are snakes!

  11. So. every country and trading block will drop their tariffs for the good of their economy.. Except elbows up Canada.. That would mean Trump has won the trade war before Canada even got out of bed.. How exactly are we going to punish America when our so called friends are cutting deals for themselves?.. As they should..

  12. Tariffs were always the smaller part of the problem in trying to export to the EU. As we know well in Canada, it’s the non-tariff barriers (NTBs) that are the problem and the EU it’s million regional and local governments are past masters at creating them. Most of them fall under the heading of unwarranted technical barriers that take advantage of regulatory mismatched on GMOs, and medications & supplements used in livestock.

Proudly powered by WordPress & Skyrocket Themes

MENU

Navigation