
Canada hits back at 'punitive' U.S. tariffs in 'turning point' in relations - trumped
http://theprovince.com/pmn/news-pmn/canada-news-pmn/newsalert-canada-responds-to-u-s-tariffs-with-its-own-countermeasures/
======
huangc10
Even though this decision may potentially affect my TN status in the states
and more importantly will result in negative consequences for both countries,
I am 100% behind Trudeau on this.

~~~
mabbo
If NAFTA talks don't work out, folks like you and me with our TNs are actually
going to start worrying about how we're going to keep our jobs.

And here I thought Canada wasn't one of Trump's "shithole countries".

~~~
dguaraglia
I'm not exactly sure how the United States trying to walk back an agreement
(NAFTA) and slapping tariffs on our allies makes Canada a "shithole country".

If anything, it makes _us_ the shitty neighbor.

~~~
messick
It was a sarcastic reference to Trump’s “shithole countries” remarks about
African nations last year.

~~~
dguaraglia
Oh, I know what it was about. I was just pointing out that Canada is clearly
not a "shithole country" and that the current US attitude towards our long-
time allies everywhere makes _us_ the shithole country.

------
wwweston
Opinion: Trade sanctions against America won’t work. Sanctioning Trump himself
might.

[https://www.macleans.ca/opinion/trade-sanctions-against-
amer...](https://www.macleans.ca/opinion/trade-sanctions-against-america-wont-
work-sanctioning-trump-himself-might/)

~~~
craftyguy
That's exactly what the US does to folks (e.g. Putin's friends) when they do
stupid, I'm surprised that no nations have considered doing the same with
Donald and his friends/family.

~~~
PakG1
[http://money.cnn.com/2018/05/15/news/companies/trump-
organiz...](http://money.cnn.com/2018/05/15/news/companies/trump-organization-
indonesia-china-project/index.html)

Though this is a carrot instead of a stick.

------
pluc
Notice of intent to impose countermeasures action against the United States in
response to tariffs on Canadian steel and aluminum products:

[https://www.fin.gc.ca/activty/consult/cacsap-cmpcaa-
eng.asp](https://www.fin.gc.ca/activty/consult/cacsap-cmpcaa-eng.asp)

------
rednerrus
Can you imagine trying to negotiate with this administration?

~~~
jonhendry18
The way to "negotiate" with the Trump administration involves contributing to
the Trump businesses.

~~~
dominotw
Is this true? Do you have an example?

~~~
martincmartin
"Beijing granted Ivanka trademarks, Qatar invested in one of Jared’s office
towers, and Ukraine, with Slavic candor, simply wired half a million dollars
to the President’s personal lawyer Michael Cohen."

From the Maclean's article in the top comment.

~~~
lurquer
HN shouldn't regurgitate political hit pieces. Ivanka Trump's business has
trademarks registered throughout the world... it is no great honor to get a
trademark registered in China.

Qatar did not invest in Kushener's office tower.

And, a payment to Cohen by Ukrsine has been denied. (And, in any case, would
be perfectly legal so long as the appropriate lobbying paperwork was filled
out.)

------
itissid
The 1900's called they want their trade policies back. Throughout the history
of countries when has this pattern not repeated itself.

People suffer->People elect a person with an ability to corrupt social
discourse and/or the legislative body -> Time passes -> System breaks down.

The undermining and corruption can be subtle at first and likely takes time,
but it spreads eventually to every corner. Trade suffering is just a symptom
of a bigger problem: A lack of healthier political discourse.

Take India for example, where strong men and goons in the 20th century figured
why just play second fiddle to politicians, lets become them. Today roughly
2/3rd or more members of the upper and lower houses of Parliament have
criminal cases against them. It is somewhat democratic(ish) and free
market(ishhh).

If people don't make the hard choices who will? If they don't care about the
system of checks and balance in the name of "fairness" and no more "PC" who
will? A lot of this has to do with education and a understanding of why the
system of checks and balances is worth fighting for.

Addendum to what Ben Franklin said, "Those who give up their voices to forgo
democratic norms over short term gains, might just end up loosing all those
things (voices, democracy and gains)"

------
parvenu74
Can anyone point to an historical case study where protective tariffs resulted
in a better economic or social outcome? I can’t help but recall the saying:
“When goods don’t cross borders, soldiers soon will.” Not that I think the
United States is going to war with Canada, but the (German-dominated) EU and
China are less certain.

~~~
BurningFrog
Tariffs can be good for big companies and other special interests in a
country, but never for the country as a whole.

So when you ask if they result in "better economic or social outcome", you
have to be careful to think about "for who?".

~~~
kakwa_
Not necessarily.

Let say you are a large developing country and you want to bootstrap a
domestic car industry. The first cars coming out will probably not be that
great as you don't have the engineering knowledge or the experience building
cars yet.

Cars built by foreign companies are definitively better, and maybe cheaper to
buy and/or to operate.

If you do nothing, this new car industry would die quite soon.

So you impose tariffs on foreign cars, that way your domestic production is
protected, and you are able to make it grow and make it better. However be
careful to not protect it too much, otherwise it will keep producing crappy
cars looking like Trabant. With time you decrease the protection
progressively.

Another less abstract example is food, for instance, rice production and
tariffs in Haiti:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rice_production_in_Haiti](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rice_production_in_Haiti)

~~~
BurningFrog
So while you protect the local industry, your population is forced to overpay
for inferior cars. I think we agree on that fact.

You're saying that that is more than compensated for by the later emergence of
a competitive car industry, and the various wealth effects it spreads across
the nation over many following decades.

I just don't think there is empirical support for that. I'm sure you can
cherry pick examples in hindsight, but if you do an honest accounting of these
attempts, including those that failed I don't think it looks good.

Except for the favored industry of course, who makes a nice living during the
protected era.

------
mozumder
Tariffs, and protectionism, are such an extreme measure. It should only be
used against countries that you're going to war with. They should never be
used in the course of normal trade.

America is like 50 countries with open border & free trade policy between
them. Can you imagine what would happen if states decided to impose tariffs on
each other?

~~~
sonnyblarney
Not quite.

When 2 nations are each protective, it's bad for both.

If they are both open, it's generally good for both.

But - if one protects in a sneaky way, and the other is open - the it's
_amazing_ for the protectionist country.

So nations strive to be 'open' but then to sneak in stuff, or rather,
sometimes they are open, but really are not.

It's impossible for American companies to sell into Japan for many reasons,
arguably quality, but the way Japanese business syndicates work, they'll keep
America out, irrespective of what the government says.

This was a huge thing in the 1980's and is the 'memory' that gripes Trump.

As for China - we don't have open trade with them.

America is considerably more open than China.

\+ China has massive state-owned agencies, the subsidized markets

\+ They have a 100% politically controlled currency

\+ They have political capital controls

\+ They require foreign entities to hand over key IP

\+ They have any number of barriers (some on purpose, some not so much) to
foreign participation.

\+ China does not pursue those breaking IP rules.

China has had these advantages for some time, it's just that when they were
poor, nobody really cared, but as they get powerful, it becomes an issue.

So the only choice is to play 'hardball' with such nations - because these
nations won't react to anything else, and they'll only react to threats that
are credible.

As for Europe, it's a different bag, but America has some decent beefs with
Germany in particular.

As for NAFTA - that's a tough one. I don't think America has such a huge
advantage, but wages are weaker in Cana/Mex which gives big opportunities in
some ways ... but it also keeps Can/Mex standard of living lower in many ways.
So the NAFTA gripe is more difficult to understand.

Put another way - the US has been having a 'trade war' with China for 30
years, it just wasn't ever a big deal.

And there are some issues (cars) that America has a reasonable beef with on
Germany, for example.

I think Trump is a douche but he's not 'all wrong' on these things.

~~~
s2g
> but it also keeps Can/Mex standard of living lower in many ways.

I'm curious what ways you would argue Canada has a significantly lower
standard of living.

~~~
sonnyblarney
"I'm curious what ways you would argue Canada has a significantly lower
standard of living."

I'm Canadian.

Our GDP/cap is usually lower.

I work in tech, my salary is less than 1/2 what it would be in the US (not
just Silicon Valley).

Most goods are more expensive here.

We do have Universal Health care, and generally good schools and Unis, it's
generally safer, cops are more low key etc. etc.

It's hard to compare societies, and I think the US could learn a lot from our
system, but in most 'individual metrics' Canada is just poorer, economically.
(Though I'd hate to be poor in the US.) There's just so, so much more economic
activity and points of prosperity in the US sometimes I find it mind-boggling,
again, it's a lot of Apples to Oranges admittedly.

~~~
verelo
> I work in tech, my salary is less than 1/2 what it would be in the US (not
> just Silicon Valley).

Yes, but I'd argue that SV income might look higher, but after you try living
there you'd gladly go back to Canadian expenses if the compromise was that you
also had to take your Canadian income once again. Also, income inequality in
Canada isn't as bad as the US (yet...)

~~~
s2g
Why? Do you think people are too stupid to do basic math? Totally ignorant of
their monthly expenses? What is it that compels people like you to bring up
"cost of living" as though anyone who says "higher salary" is a complete
moron?

Is it just bay area zealots on both sides embracing the meme that "IT'S SO
EXPENSIVE".

We get it. we know. We don't look at SF and go "oh wow, 10 k more a year"
while paying 2000 a month more in rent. We look at it and go "oh wow, 110k
more a year, even with the rents thats a lot of money".

~~~
verelo
I’m not saying everyone cannot do the math, but for sure, lots of people are
in denial of the math.

------
Karishma1234
What is the point of political discussion on HN ? Isn't HN meant for quality
technical discussions ? Nothing good can come out of these sort of flame wars
here.

~~~
AnimalMuppet
Well, HN is meant for quality discussions of things we find interesting.
Sometimes politics is relevant to us (or at least to enough of us to qualify).

The trick is to keep it a quality discussion, rather than letting it
degenerate into a flame war. That's not easy. But if it can't happen here,
where can it? (And if the answer is "nowhere", well, I'm not sure that the
answer is wrong, but that's one of the most cynical statements possible about
the current state of politics.)

------
jimmytucson
Is Trump’s point that the prices of these goods abroad are artificially low,
so he’s going to implement tariffs to correct for that? If so, do counter-
tariffs strengthen this argument? This would seem to create an infinite
protectionist feedback loop.

~~~
dominotw
There was an episode on planet money about precisely this with sugar tarrifs
and how it had unintended consequences on the candy industy which had to move
overseas. Very complicated topic.

------
dmode
All Canada has to do is to engage the services of world's #1 consulting firm
Essential Consultants LLC and voila, suddenly Trump will be making Canada
great again

------
jimjimjim
how do market liberalists reconcile this with their everlasting love of trump?

------
throwaway5752
Donald Trump is objectively (ranked by presidential historians of all
political parties) as the worst president in the 242 year history of the US.

It will be work to get back what we can of what we've lost.

~~~
Larrikin
I believe it, but would like a source to see the criteria and who is rating.

~~~
throwaway5752
[https://sps.boisestate.edu/politicalscience/files/2018/02/Gr...](https://sps.boisestate.edu/politicalscience/files/2018/02/Greatness.pdf)

"The 2018 Presidents & Executive Politics Presidential Greatness Survey was
conducted online via Qualtrics from December 22, 2017 to January 16, 2018.
Respondents were current and recent members of the Presidents & Executive
Politics Section of the American Political Science Association, which is the
foremost organization of social science experts in presidential politics. 320
respondents were invited to participate, and 170 usable responses were
received, yielding a 53.1% response rate"

It's impossible to prove anything. But these people are scholars in the field,
it's non-partisan, the survey methodology is transparent, the results are
fairly consistent across partisan self-identification, and they are fairly
consistent over time (2014 poll of same org, 2010 Siena College survey, et
al). It's significant.

------
andrewstuart
Another option is not play tit-for-tat and instead appeal to the American
people by refusing to impose tariffs in return.

Make it about Trump, not America.

There's a chance Trump will lose all his power within a few months anyway if
the republicans do very badly in the midterm elections.

~~~
darawk
That would sort of prove Trump's point though. "See, they knew their trade
practices were unfair - they're not even fighting back".

~~~
andrewstuart
Trumps blather means nothing - the idea is to speak to the American people,
not Trump.

~~~
chillwaves
The Americans who support him will argue that Trump is winning, that his way
of doing business is a winning proposition.

How can our allies, that Trump is hurting for political gain, abide by that?

