On top of being terrible policy, this is procedurally no way for the largest economy of the world to manage its relationship with its largest trading partners. No debate, no vote, no plan, no meaningful notice, just one guy's mood whenever he gets around to it. - ThreadSky

jacobtlevy.bsky.social • 43 days ago

On top of being terrible policy, this is procedurally no way for the largest economy of the world to manage its relationship with its largest trading partners. No debate, no vote, no plan, no meaningful notice, just one guy's mood whenever he gets around to it.

Reposted from David Cochrane

Canada has been officially told that President Trump will impose tariffs today. Timing and specific details unknown. But it will be today. We will have extensive coverage on CBC News Network.

Comments

epiousios.bsky.social•42 days ago

Canadians - we are being called out. Let's flush this Orange turd back down his floriduh drain.
To the end.
All Churchill no Chamberlain.
Our economy now PROTECTS CANADA AND CANADIANS harmed by this Dick-tater.
#democracyoverdictatorship

allcaps-22.bsky.social•43 days ago

Are these tariffs even legal? I thought there was some question about this.

sausalitocheese.bsky.social•43 days ago

People talk about what makes Trump "dictatorial" and this is certainly a good example.

frangsbo.bsky.social•42 days ago

👇

sporkless.com•43 days ago

Why does no one mention the fact that he is abrogating the very agreement he championed, touted, and signed? The U.S. is on a fast track to becoming an unreliable partner to any friendly country.

cyneheard.bsky.social•42 days ago

Everything Trump and Musk are doing is saying "the United States Federal Government has zero desire to fulfill any obligations it has ever made, so good luck making any actual deals with the US"

lessafetoday08.bsky.social•42 days ago

And the world will just learn to go around us.

karmion.bsky.social•42 days ago

I've actually tried over the years to remember any treaty or agreement or promise that the U.S. government has kept.

Right now, we're even looking at breaking the promise to Ukraine to back them up against Russia (The Budapest Memorandum).

cyneheard.bsky.social•42 days ago

I’m not just talking about the big stuff (although WWII would certainly qualify).

It’s the little stuff like “you have a contract to do $100k in work for the federal government” that is also now in a question.

robotblue.bsky.social•42 days ago

Fast track? We passed that weeks ago.

jcharleshood.bsky.social•43 days ago

We need to pass a law to put tariff power in the hands of congress moving forward.

forensicguy.bsky.social•43 days ago

The hucksters pressing the Unitary Executive should be sent to a very remote island

listessotempo.bsky.social•43 days ago

Remember when they said women couldn't be leaders because of "hormones"

petergratton.bsky.social•42 days ago

He can also do it retroactively (as the NYT rightly notes). Even as people are going crazy hitting refresh on the ITA website today, imagine trying to make decisions based on something that could come retroactively (let alone all the arbitrage trading that goes on, too) — when he gets around to it.

petergratton.bsky.social•42 days ago

This was hugely important to someone who considered himself a budding woodworker during Covid. The guy who a few years later has all the wood he needs for the builds he can get to for a long time is thinking, yeah, go to the limit Canada.

shieldsy.bsky.social•43 days ago

And this “plan” won the popular vote 🤮

spike29.bsky.social•43 days ago

He’s not trying to “manage” anything.

He’s trying to destroy the competition.

sophialarkrose.bsky.social•43 days ago

It does suggest a strategy of investing in more stable trading partners.

suestroud.bsky.social•42 days ago

https://actionnetwork.org/petitions/pledge-for-canada-petition?source=direct_link&

devokneivel.bsky.social•41 days ago

The US is officially a banana republic. That simple.

crusaderproject.bsky.social•41 days ago

No shit.

janellenelson.bsky.social•43 days ago

Trump does not manage relationships. He uses people and things.

jacklbrand.bsky.social•43 days ago

Exactly.

It's almost like the system that allowed this one guy to be in a position to do this is tragically broken, or never was designed right in the first place. 🤷‍♂️

janetbufton.ca•43 days ago

Not necessarily broken, but definitely not automatically self-sustaining nor otherwise sustained.

jacklbrand.bsky.social•43 days ago

My point is the system allowed the elevation of someone like Trump to be in power.

Not a good system.

janetbufton.ca•43 days ago

I get what you're saying. My point is that there is no system that will stop the elevation of a Trump if not enough people are committed to stopping it.

The U.S. system needs reform to stop him. The mechanisms for reform exist, but have gone unused—in part because of faith in automatic guardrails.

ru12xu.bsky.social•43 days ago

It is a system that relies too heavily on ‘norms’ rather than clear legislative rules. When you have someone that ignores the norms the system doesn’t work

jacklbrand.bsky.social•43 days ago

Precisely. Which is not a good system. It's been a fairly ok system for white males all along, but not for others.

Notice how many other advanced countries have an Electoral College model, or Senate representation where Wyoming = California?

Yeah, me neither.

janetbufton.ca•43 days ago

They are also ignoring legislative rules. The legislature needs to enforce those, too.

mattkavanagh.bsky.social•43 days ago

Largest economy in the world… for now.

davemc5192.bsky.social•42 days ago

Governance by Royal Decree, that’s what it amounts to. But then again that’s what SCOTUS did, they effectively anointed him King, he can do no wrong!

thelasttheorist.bsky.social•43 days ago

It's no way to set up meeting a friend for drinks!
"Definitely tonight. Can't say when or where."
"See? this is why we're not friends anymore."

arnelson.bsky.social•42 days ago

They should just cut us off from everything.

jeffholcomb.bsky.social•43 days ago

Every single thing he does. Horrible policy, implemented like a 4th grader.

ilikenewspapers.bsky.social•42 days ago

I assume the main logic to the extent there is any is to make Americans feel like they are surrounded by enemies and to get them to buy into policies to dominate others in very crude ways

amy8cs.bsky.social•42 days ago

Didn’t he sign the usmc???

radgen.bsky.social•42 days ago

And this will likely be uniting for Mexico and Canada while it is going to be very divisive for the US. Everyone loses in a trade war, but I am betting we lose this one worse.

rnavarre.bsky.social•43 days ago

Wonder if you'll actually be able to come and give your talk at Bridgwater. ... oh my, APSA is in Vancouver this year. lololsob. (Anyway my class is smack dab during your talk).

jacobtlevy.bsky.social•43 days ago

I'm a dual citizen, so while I've learned to never say never, I'm not actually worried about my ability to enter the US.

epiousios.bsky.social•42 days ago

Famous last words....

spike29.bsky.social•43 days ago

🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣

adub01488424.bsky.social•43 days ago

They didn't want to take his actual words at face value and put them into their models because they knew that the results would be so bad as to be seen by Trump as an attack on the administration.

indigokar.bsky.social•42 days ago

Exactly this👇

janetbufton.ca•43 days ago

This article gets it exactly right.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/world/trump-tariff-north-america-analysis-1.7447878

riwallis.bsky.social•43 days ago

Trump is destroying the stability of the US economy, the very thing on which his perception of US dominance relies.

Canada and Mexico are no longer beholden to the US under those conditions. It's now in their interest to seek trade elsewhere.

deepwader.bsky.social•43 days ago

The purpose of the tariffs is to bend the will. Everyone knows it is virtually impossible to implement a tariff process in 24 hours by even competent officials. The current bunch of inexperienced, unprofessional, unqualified lackeys will walk it back like all the other orders. Another face plant.

nobodyelseknows.bsky.social•43 days ago

Unfirtunately there are still many people thinking this is Trump 1 all over again. This second group knows exactly what they are doing.

deepwader.bsky.social•42 days ago

They may know what they are doing, but they lack evidence of knowledge about how to do it. Many missteps thus far.

janetbufton.ca•43 days ago

Hopefully. But he also has a constituency, including (at least rhetorically) Vance and some Heritage folks, that believe it's better for the U.S. to be poorer but "independent". By that they mean not being normally integrated in the global economy. Those guys aren't incompetent, they're illiberal.

deepwader.bsky.social•42 days ago

We do know that he is not an isolationist, more transactionalist I think. We know he's deal making because he wants something. Although I don't know what it is, other than perhaps corruptly lining his pockets, I suspect it is something different than his illiberal sycophants.

aaronrosspowell.com•42 days ago

He wants money, and he still thinks tariffs are where other governments give his government money.

janetbufton.ca•42 days ago

He is absolutely an isolationist and has been for at least my whole life.

deepwader.bsky.social•42 days ago

Many foreign policy commentators do classify him as that. But he doesn't fit the mold. I'm currently reading Charles Kupchan's"Isolationism". At best neo-isolationist might work given his interventions in China and the Middle East. I choose transactionalist.

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/10/21/briefing/is-donald-trump-an-isolationist.html

sausalitocheese.bsky.social•43 days ago

Tariffs don't just raise the price of the foreign made good, it increases the price across the board. US firms will also raise their prices to be just under the foriegn good + tariff.

janetbufton.ca•43 days ago

Yes, and I expect he's being unrealistic about the political cost of the economic effects of tariffs. But if the economic effects (at least in the short term) are not at all his concern, what he's doing is easier to explain. (It also makes his policy bad! Just explicable.)

catblack69.bsky.social•42 days ago

Yeah.
Super easy to move our oil, gas, softwood, potash production to another country. 🇨🇦
/s
And Trumps whole “trade deficit” spiel is 99% BS. He’s such an ass.

https://youtu.be/cw0R0EOEEyA?si=Z6NEYt8lG-i_trRk

robotblue.bsky.social•42 days ago

Who the fuck would want to “move production to the US” now that it’s under Nazi control???

andrewglisson.bsky.social•42 days ago

Also, if those businesses need to import or export anything, they're subject to Trump's will. Who wants to move business behind the Trump Curtain.

steve1970peng.bsky.social•42 days ago

Can he get his electricity from Russia ?

Meanwhile, it will cost Americans $3600 each while you wait for that to happen.

How is …
Make AmeriKKKa Germany Again ….
working for you ??

Canada 🇨🇦

jtadetroit.bsky.social•43 days ago

The “When you’re President they let you grab them by the tariff” school of governing

skeetertjones.bsky.social•42 days ago

Congress passed the law to allow this. They can take it back at any time.

ellz.bsky.social•43 days ago

Well, he's nuts

ash1987.bsky.social•43 days ago

tRump is a petulant man baby. It's said he can't focus past 10 minute conversations or meetings without lots of art, pictures, graphics. My mother with dementia is the same way. I think his sister Mary is correct on his cognitive loss. He makes no sense in breaking everything this way.

pdwschmidt.bsky.social•43 days ago

Yes, yes, that's all true...But it's a great way to spur domestic production of maple syrup?

pdwschmidt.bsky.social•43 days ago

(BTW, my advanced undergraduate seminar will be reading one of your articles in a few weeks. Looking forward to what they'll say about it.)

jacobtlevy.bsky.social•43 days ago

Oooh, that's always nice to hear! Which piece?

pdwschmidt.bsky.social•43 days ago

Not So Novus an Ordo. I'm teaching a comparative-historical course on Constitutionalism.

angryoldgeek.bsky.social•43 days ago

Because they were "mean" to him at some point. Trump is such a fragile little NAZI. (along with all the other crap you expect from someone who bankrupted casinos).

schzzrf.bsky.social•42 days ago

As someone who’s worked around data & analytics for a long time, frustrating to see someone in the most important job on earth just throw out a % w/absolutely nothing to back it up, knowing that in my line of work, you get challenged on most numbers you present to others. He just…gets away with it

michaelmarcus47.bsky.social•43 days ago

Trump is an autocrat and a bully who gets his way too often. He will over-reach and eventually America will wake up, but many people will suffer along the way.

robotblue.bsky.social•42 days ago

Now unfortunately our allies will need to treat US like the tenting toddler bully our dear leader is now. I don’t blame them.

marsisblu.bsky.social•43 days ago

Yes but the Supreme Court decided that he was above the rule of law and that for whatever whim, mood or outrage he did or does he has absolute immunity (also known as a plenary indulgence in the circles they’re known to frequent)

gelbach.bsky.social•42 days ago

On behalf of the not batshit crazy people here let me please just say I'm sorry, for all of us on both sides of the border (other than the people here who really do deserve to find-out-by-leopard)

eh-lorenz.bsky.social•42 days ago

Thanks, on behalf of Canada, we really appreciate the apology and we’re sorry that we’re gonna have to retaliate.

1loriking.bsky.social•42 days ago

The uncertainty has to be driving ceos crazy, but also someone put out there, is trump fucking either stock market manipulation to enrich himself?

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