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PaperclipPerfector  8d ago (text post)   35848 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of January 27, 2025

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While it's entirely possible Trump is absolutely excited to apply tariffs all around, my perception is that for Canada and Mexico his goals are more to use it as a "big stick" to get them in line with his goals: "your entire economy depends on us and I have the power to ruin you, so here's what I want you to do", like how he used it as a threat with the Colombian president refusing deportation flights

Canada's economic interaction with the US doesn't seem to be harmful in terms of the US's long-term economic success: "you send us oil, we refine it and sell it back to you" is actually a pretty good setup for the US. If anything, it seems to paint the Canada-US relationship similarly to the US-China relationship, where not building domestic industrial capacity leaves the former dependent on the latter.

The question then becomes whether Canada will cave sufficiently to Trump's desires, and I can see there being some pain there: Canada's tended to frame itself as "the US, but properly enlightened" and I expect that will lead to some #RESIST and trying to get Trump to cave first, and I'm reasonably confident Trump will actually pull the trigger if it comes to it.

and I expect that will lead to some #RESIST and trying to get Trump to cave first

They and what government? Provinces are already conducting foreign diplomacy; that's supposed to be the Federal government's job, but they're too busy waging the Capital's pet culture war against the rest of the country and the PM too busy quiet(ish)-quitting to bother with this.

If the Canadian government was smart they'd put pressure on the foreign workers "on loan" to the US; educated and competent workers are something the US temporarily imports significant numbers of from this country, and they can just as soon be taken away. But again, that would require something resembling a strategy. (I'm half-expecting him to announce a tariff on arms and related equipment and call it a day, since Canadians can't legally buy the guns these days and ammunition getting more expensive is symbolic/a culture war objective.)

What are you suggesting? That Canada make it illegal to work in the US?

Last I counted, roughly 1 in 20 high-skill Canadian workers currently work in the US on non-immigrant visas.

Demanding they return, which could be accomplished in a variety of ways, would be relatively disruptive to the Americans (or force them into a relatively awkward position in granting citizenship to what are supposed to be non-immigrant workers).

NAFTA doesn't just mean a lack of tariffs; that Canada should permit the brain-drain was part of the negotiations.

I understand that, but I'm asking how they would demand that. The Canadian government doesn't control where Canadians live. I doubt our government would be allowed by the Supreme Court to pass a law preventing us from living in the US.

The Canadian government doesn't control where Canadians live

But it does have some laws controlling what they do while living outside the country, including ones that have to do with certain types of commerce.

If they can ban that (and as far as I know the courts are fine with it), they can ban working for American companies. Enforcement is another matter, but since when has that stopped anyone?

Are you sure it wouldn't be more disruptive to Canada?

First, 5% of Canada's workers is not 5% of America's workers.

Second, American companies can scramble and hire someone from the rest of the world. I don't know what kind of jobs we're talking about, but I imagine at least some of them can be done online, making the replacement process a bit easier. Canada will have 5% of it's workforce pissed off at losing an American salary, and with no guarantee there's any job waiting for them back home.

Also, this move is easily countered by the US, they can literally just say "don't worry, bro, you can stay here as long as you want". How many of these people would rather cut off the US in favor of Canada, rather than the other way around?

Are you sure it wouldn't be more disruptive to Canada?

I don't think Canada cares nor is in any position to care.

Canada will have 5% of it's workforce pissed off at losing an American salary

They already have 100% of the workforce pissed off at having their COL jump another 20% overnight. And honestly, they can do business here, and work on making Canada better rather than America. Of course that would require a pro-growth government, which the sitting one is very much not, but one step at a time.

I don't know what kind of jobs we're talking about

The ones that are worth it- the engineers, the scientists, the programmers. There's a list of occupations subject to this; generally if not exclusively requiring at least a Sciences degree.

they can literally just say "don't worry, bro, you can stay here as long as you want"

I already answered this.

I think Canada does care. Most Canadians have relatives who live in the US and would care that their lives would be disrupted.

I don't think Canada cares nor is in any position to care.

I don't follow. You've proposed this as a move that is supposed to benefit Canada. If it disrupts them more, while it's not hurting America, how are they supposed to benefit from it?

And honestly, they can do business here, and work on making Canada better rather than America. Of course that would require a pro-growth government, which the sitting one is very much not, but one step at a time.

Not only would it require such a government, it would require it to be in power long enough to build infrastructure making such a move possible. There was this old quip from my parent's era: "If we had tin, we'd flood the West with cheap canned food! But alas, we have no meat...", don't know if this was communist-era dark humor or a part of an actual speech (communists had terrible speechwriters), but that's essentially what your argument sounds like to me.

The ones that are worth it- the engineers, the scientists, the programmers. There's a list of occupations subject to this; generally if not exclusively requiring at least a Sciences degree

Doesn't do much to answer my question - sounds like part of them could indeed be done online, though probably not all.

I already answered this.

That it would be "awkward"? Ok, and? Also, a green card would be more than enough, no need for citizenship.

Presumably this will also put pressure on Canada as a whole to produce a government that is capable of acceding to Trump's demands, and I wouldn't be surprised if that was one of his goals. If the current Cathedral bureaucracy churning along in Canada isn't going to deign to respond to someone they see as the next coming of Hitler, they can be presented with an economic collapse and associated angry mobs until they change their mind and/or are replaced.

Honestly, that might be kind of a clever approach to it: present incredibly reasonable demands like coordinating with the US's DEA on whatever fentanyl is flowing over the border, when you're ignored implement the tariffs, then when blamed for the resulting economic collapse point out the incredibly straightforward requests you had that anyone should be fine going along with. Exacerbates existing concerns with the faceless/motionless government, requires your opponents to take a pro-fentanyl stance, and hopefully resolves itself quickly enough to not do major economic damage to the US.

Musing a little further, I wonder if this is why Trump is cutting out government spending early on: he sees tariffs as a temporary financial shock that will cripple the other nations far faster than they'll cripple the US. Cut out a bunch of spending, use the resulting funds to shore up everything until your international counterpart caves, then when you need to re-add all the essential spending that would be an issue to cut out for too long, the tariffs are already back in the toolbox and the resulting economic hit was entirely hidden.

Presumably this will also put pressure on Canada as a whole to produce a government that is capable of acceding to Trump's demands, and I wouldn't be surprised if that was one of his goals.

For the US, this is probably just a normal Saturday.

I'm a lot more interested in what those in Southern Ontario will do, which is where the vast majority of Canadian manufacturing lives- this is where the impact will be felt the most, and unlike angry Albertans they're a lot closer to Ottawa. (Interestingly, all of that strategically important industry is within striking distance of American artillery while that artillery sits on their side of the border; nobody who thinks Canada could put up a fight realizes the country is just as vulnerable as South Korea is. Yes, the territory is very defensible- just take the bridges out- but they can just sit back and shell the factories, something that the Americans could not do the last time they invaded.)

For that matter I'm not at all convinced the Liberal government has an effective tit-for-tat tariff plan. I think they'll target something symbolic of the US like, say, guns... but that's about it. It might also not be long-term possible considering this appears to be a treaty violation on its face, but perhaps I don't understand those correctly and as you mention it doesn't necessarily need to be permanent.

he sees tariffs as a temporary financial shock that will cripple the other nations far faster than they'll cripple the US

And considering it hurts those who voted for him directly the most, probably best to get that one out of the way early (automotive manufacturing in the US is about to take a big hit considering how much they buy from Magna). Kind of like Biden's cancelling that pipeline as a day 1 goal, come to think of it.

For that matter I'm not at all convinced the Liberal government has an effective tit-for-tat tariff plan. I think they'll target something symbolic of the US like, say, guns... but that's about it.

Check again. Universal tariffs from Canada just got announced.

I get what Trump wants from Mexico. I'm not sure what he wants from Canada. Is fentanyl coming in from Canada? I thought it was coming from Mexico.

I mean, He's said that he wants Canada to become part of the US, but that can't be his motivation here, can it?

I don’t think he wants anything from them per se. He wants stuff to be made in the US, by the US, for the US. America has enough raw materials, it can physically do that.

The tariffs are a goal, not a lever to the goal.

It cannot physically do that. Sure, any one specific thing can be made in the US, albeit at greater cost. But it would have to take resources from some other industry. It can't make everything it is making now and make everything it imports, not even if it stopped producing exports. It's not just because of the trade deficit which means it consumes and invests more than it produces, but because it would lose the gains from trade.

That's Juche.

Economic self-sufficiency (자립; jarip) is required to achieve political independence, according to adherents of Juche.

In On the Juche Idea, Kim Jong Il argues that a state can achieve economic self-sufficiency only when it has created an "independent national economy" based on heavy industry, as this sector will drive the rest of the economy. He also emphasizes the importance of technological independence and self-sufficiency in resources.

I’m not sure if you’re providing additional info or criticising by analogy. If the latter, it would be nice if you say so.

Personally I don’t find ‘a tiny, bent state once did this, so if you do it you will turn into a tiny bent state’ hugely convincing. Circumstances matter.

That's true, but the situation is different. North Korea did Juche out of necessity. They were a small, backwards nation being embargoed by most of the world, and also completely lacking in oil and other key resources. Today they're... still small and backwards... but they've survived, much longer than anyone thought possible (albiet with a lot of help from the USSR and China). The USA is different. We're large, rich, and have basically every kind of natural resource within our border somewhere. There's no particular the USA should have to trade with other countries if it doesn't want to. The usual econ argument is that free trade and specialization of labor makes countries more prosperous, bu the counterargument is that it leads to income inequality, alienation, and fragility as our entire industrial base moves overseas.

fragility as our entire industrial base moves overseas

We can talk about industry being shipped to countries with lower wages and laxer environmental regulations, but none of that really applies to Canada.

It may not apply to Canada. It does, however, apply to other countries that use Canada as a point of entry into the US economy.

There are a fair number of "made in Canada" products where the final transformation is done in Canada with the rest of the processing chain being overseas.

(Ditto Mexico.)

Trump is putting higher tariffs on Canada than on China (25% vs 10%).

I think the 10 % on China is on top of existing tariffs, so that the total is bigger than 25 %.

I dont care about lower wages or environmental rules much. But i do think it its a bad thing when global capitalism concentrates all te production for something critical into a single place. Case in point, some people are joking that we can't oppose Denmark because they control the entire world supply of ozempic.

So long as everyone makes something that everyone else needs, it should be fine, right? Denmark can't oppose Taiwan beacuse both need each other.

Unless the Taiwanese just don't overeat, in which case the Danish have no hold on them.

”Folks, the bourgeois, they're no good everyone is saying it. All these workers, very handsome workers come up to me and say, Comrade Trump there is a specter haunting Europe, and you know what, they're right. These bourgeois are very nasty people very very rude and very unfair to the workers. They are stealing our surplus value and no one is doing anything about it. The proletariat comes up to me everyday and says, Comrade Trump will you lead the revolution? And I gotta turn to them and say, Look the instruments of capitalism will be used to bring about its destruction believe me you gotta trust me on this one. The means of production, obama never wanted to seize them. Well guess what? I'm seizing them. Landlords? They're done for folks. Everyone told me they said, Comrade Trump you won't be the vanguard of the revolution and they would laugh, the media laughed the democrats laughed, guess whose laughing now?"

What if he is serious about Canada joining the United States, and he wants to use tariffs to force them to either ruin their economy or join the Union?

Then perhaps it is better to induce the population of Canada to hold that referendum now, rather than give them a chance to elect a government likely to be more protective of Canadian interests.

I think the "annexing canada" and the "tariff canada unless they accede to his demands" might be coming from the same place: "you're entirely dependent on the US, so get in line and work to our benefit, rather than benefiting from our largesse and then stabbing us in the back in every public forum you get into"

I think there are some other similar things in Trump's policies, like asking NATO to pay for its own defense: some of that is just cost-cutting, but some of it is the NATO countries deriding the US for being a warmonger while being completely dependent on its warfighting capability. I suspect if they were praising their benevolent protector instead of claiming they're superior because they don't need to spend money on weapons, it would be a lower priority.

How is NATO dependant on America? European NATO has 400 nukes, 2 million troops, carriers, submarines, aircraft, everything.

As of 2024, NATO has a total of 3.4 million active military personnel across its 32 member states. The United States has the largest number, with nearly 1.33 million troops. Turkey follows with around 355,200 active personnel, and Poland has the third-largest military with 216,100 personnel.

European NATO would crush Russia in a conventional war. 500 million Europeans beat 140 million Russians 100% of the time. They're only behind in nuclear weapons but still retain the power to cause Russia a lot of damage.

Everyone points to them not spending as much as the US military but they have everything they need already.

European NATO would crush Russia in a conventional war. 500 million Europeans beat 140 million Russians 100% of the time. They're only behind in nuclear weapons but still retain the power to cause Russia a lot of damage.

"They're only behind in nuclear weapons" - this is blatantly untrue. Russia has substantial technological advantages in multiple fields, especially hypersonics for which there are only theoretical missile interdiction systems. Additionally, Russia and her allies have an immense military materiel manufacturing advantage - look at the disparity in artillery ammunition supplies in Ukraine. If you cut off foreign aid (so no China/North Korea/Iran for Russia and no US for EU Nato) the disparity becomes overwhelming - it doesn't matter how many warm bodies you can supply if you don't have weapons for them to fire or bullets for them to shoot. If they're telling the truth about the Oreshnik's availability the conflict would be even more one-sided.

If Russia has been struggling to crush Ukraine for the past 3 years even with their munitions advantage, then they can't beat a force vastly larger and stronger than Ukraine.

Europe has large navies that can blockade Russian sea trade. Europe has large air forces that can at least secure air parity, they won't be reduced to sitting around getting glide-bombed to death. They have a massive front with Russia that Russia will struggle to man, stretching from Turkey up to Finland.

Europe produces machine tools domestically. They have Germany for precision engineering. If they're actually at war they'll get serious and start producing ammunition in large quantities. It's really not that hard to produce shells and gun barrels, we know from history that German industry can produce large amounts of munitions, not to mention the other states. They're just trapped in the EU aura of omnishambles and are dragging their feet. Aside from Britain I doubt most of the other NATO countries care that much. This war doesn't really harm their interests enough to make a serious effort to arm Ukraine intensively.

The Russians don't have enough munitions to destroy 2 million professional soldiers, which is what they'd need to do before Europe starts drafting. Europe's sheer size and scale can buy them time to militarize their economy. Russia doesn't seem very good at swift blitzkriegs.

Ukraine has somehow managed to hold this long by throwing warm bodies into the fray, Europe can do that for years and years. Ukraine has no navy and next to no air power, Europe has both.

And this whole discussion is silly because Europe does have nuclear weapons and wouldn't be attacked anyway.

If Russia has been struggling to crush Ukraine for the past 3 years even with their munitions advantage, then they can't beat a force vastly larger and stronger than Ukraine.

This is because the majority of EU munitions were actually sent to Ukraine, along with a lot of "instructors" and other technical staff who used those weapons. They aren't struggling to crush Ukraine by itself - they're dealing with EU's stocks as well. The EU currently has a massive ammunition shortfall, and according to people who are actually involved in the EU defence industry they need at least 3-4 years to build their stocks back up, and 10 years to be fully prepared. I will freely admit that if you give the EU a decade's warning to prepare in advance that they'd do substantially better, but that's not the situation we're in now.

They're just trapped in the EU aura of omnishambles and are dragging their feet.

They currently don't have enough materiel to put up a fight against Russia - it was all shipped to Ukraine. That weakness you're identifying is actually lethal if the conflict took place now as opposed to ten years in the future. It doesn't matter how many warm bodies and soldiers you can produce if you can't actually give them bullets to shoot or guns to shoot them from.

And this whole discussion is silly because Europe does have nuclear weapons and wouldn't be attacked anyway.

And in this situation (assuming a kindly wizard has disarmed all nuclear weapons) Russia would just threaten EU leaders with Oreshnik strikes and let them know that it isn't just grunts and poor people who would be in danger - and the EU would immediately surrender.

Are you counting Ukraine as part of Europe? Because right now the rest of Europe doesn't seem to be doing a great job of defending it. They also notably had trouble with Serbia/Bosnia in the 90s and Russia/Georgia in the 2000s. Defense is about more than just "is able to continue to exist." As always, the main problem is that those 500 million Europeans are divided into about 50 different countries that don't agree on much.

Ukraine isn't in the EU or in NATO, tons of european voters dislike Ukraine (illegally flooding markets with their cheaper grain, bombing the oil pipeline with Russia, covering up their own accidents that killed some polish people and trying to blame it on russia) so the motivation to defend it isn't fully there.

In this context I mean European NATO which was also unthreatened by Serbia or the Russian invasion of Georgia. Georgia would be nigh-impossible to defend even with the US involved, just via geography.

I think there are some other similar things in Trump's policies, like asking NATO to pay for its own defense: some of that is just cost-cutting, but some of it is the NATO countries deriding the US for being a warmonger while being completely dependent on its warfighting capability.

There has to be a limit, NATO countries can't be expected to fight and die for countries that aren't even in the alliance as a reasonable part of their defence.

Yeah, if it wasn’t for nukes, EU could defeat. The nukes are still not something one can take out of the equation, though.

I would argue a vast amount of those military resources were researched designed and developed with US IP... decreasing costs for our allies...

And to add to that, if you have XX amounts of jets including however many f-16s, as you can see in ukraine, once you get into a real war, those artillery shells start to deplete quickly. Im aware some european countries produce their own jets but I believe, and am willing to be proved wrong, that despite that much of the equipment is still sold to them by the US. So they get into a war and then you have Macron begging in the house just like zelensky for a loan to buy equipment.

Europe does buy a lot of American equipment but that's fine, many countries do that. They buy it with their own money as opposed to other people's money like Ukraine.

And they have the Eurofighter, Rafale and Tornado that were produced entirely in Europe. They have Leopards, Leclercs, Marders, MLRS and long-range SAMs... Turkey license-builds the F-16 domestically. There is a European version of just about everything except stealth fighters.

Maybe the American stuff is a bit better? American aid would obviously make it much easier to beat Russia. But it's not strictly necessary with over 3:1 population advantage and a much larger industrial base. 1v1 Europe would beat Russia every time in a conventional war. It would be like the Ukraine war but in reverse where sheer size is the most important thing. Broadly speaking, as Russia is to Ukraine, so Europe is to Russia.

If they were actually at war, then they'd start building serious numbers of artillery shells. But there's no reason for them to be at war so they don't bother.

Cost cutting would involve actually cutting defense spending which they're not going to do. This is pure misplaced populist resentment. Folks intuitively know they're getting screwed by Millitary Industrial Complex but they don't want to be seen as pinko pacifists so they resent Canada or Belgium, or whomever, instead of Lockheed/Boeing lobbyists.

For all the buzz it gets "defense spending" in the for of tanks, ships, jets, missiles, Et Al is effectively pocket change within the context of total US spending.

The DoD's budget accounts for about 700 billion dollars of the Federal government's 6.9 trillion dollar total, in other words somewhere around 10%. Of that 10% somewhere between 1 quarter and 1 third goes to maintenance and procurement. The remaining balance is going to things like food, wages, housing, medical benefits, the GI bill, etc...

Point being that the US could cut 100% of what most people think of when they think of "defense spending" and it wouldn't make much more than a 3% difference overall.

I'm not sure what he wants from Canada. Is fentanyl coming in from Canada?

This is my question. Is he just picking a fight for the sake of it?

I think so. Tariffs are not going to put much of a debt in America's liabilities. America spends too much on domestic programs, not that it imports too much

It crossed my mind earlier that this is a distraction.

[tinfoil]

Right now DOGE is working around the clock to gain access to government computer systems. Elon is working with Trump to implement the purge as we speak. If the media went full-out covering this the way they reported on Comey in 2017, they likely wouldn't be able to get away with it. If everyone is worried about tariffs and the economy instead, then DOGE can work in the shadows to take control of federal agencies away from the career civil service.

[/tinfoil]

I'm not convinced even the Canadian government [is in any state to] know the answer to that.

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