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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.
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?
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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?
I don't think Canada cares nor is in any position to care.
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.
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.
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.
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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?
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.
Doesn't do much to answer my question - sounds like part of them could indeed be done online, though probably not all.
That it would be "awkward"? Ok, and? Also, a green card would be more than enough, no need for citizenship.
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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.
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.
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.
Check again. Universal tariffs from Canada just got announced.
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