this post was submitted on 04 Mar 2025
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Summary

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced retaliatory tariffs after Donald Trump confirmed 25% tariffs on Canadian goods and 10% on energy, set to take effect at 12:01 a.m. Tuesday.

Trump justified the move by linking it to fentanyl smuggling concerns.

Trudeau called the tariffs "unjustified" and imposed 25% tariffs on $155 billion in U.S. goods, with $30 billion effective immediately and the rest in 21 days.

He warned of price hikes and job losses in the U.S., arguing the move violates Trump’s own trade agreement from his last term.

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[–] meowmeowbeanz@sopuli.xyz 4 points 44 minutes ago

Trudeau’s measured retaliation shows Canada won’t back down but prioritizes diplomacy over chaos.

🐱🐱🐱🐱

[–] chiliedogg@lemmy.world 2 points 39 minutes ago

Don't retaliate 1:1. Retaliate 5:1.

Burn the fucking bridge already.

[–] DarkFuture@lemmy.world 56 points 4 hours ago (1 children)

American here.

100% support you Canada. Keep it up.

[–] CanadaPlus@lemmy.sdf.org 9 points 1 hour ago

<3

We know it's not all of you.

[–] Kimmy@lemmy.world 7 points 2 hours ago (5 children)

Excuse my ignorance but wouldn't that make things more expensive for Canadians as well?

[–] CanadaPlus@lemmy.sdf.org 18 points 2 hours ago* (last edited 1 hour ago) (1 children)

Yes. It's alright, I've managed to mostly eliminate American products. Anyone smart or at least patriotic has looked into it as well, since the madness began. It was kind of neat watching the US products just sit on the shelves while Canadian stuff emptied out.

To reiterate what all our politicians have been saying to US media, Trump is raising prices on Americans to hurt us, it's for no good reason, and we're forced to do the same on our side.

[–] epicstove@lemmy.ca 2 points 1 hour ago (4 children)

Genuine question, if Trump's tarrifs just make things expensive for Americans why would we put retaliatory tarrifs that effect us?

Do tarrifs really just make things more expensive for the home country? How do they effect the country the tarrifs are imposed on?

[–] sjkhgsi@lemmy.world 3 points 1 hour ago

Trump's tariffs make Canadian stuff more expensive for Americans, so they'll tend to buy less Canadian stuff. Without retaliatory tariffs, Americans only buy American stuff, and Canadians continue to buy American stuff, so nobody is buying Canadian stuff. This hurts Canada because nobody is buying their stuff. With retaliatory tariffs, US stuff becomes more expensive in Canada, so it encourages Canadians to stop buying American and spend their money in Canada.

[–] CanadaPlus@lemmy.sdf.org 3 points 1 hour ago* (last edited 1 hour ago)

Do tarrifs really just make things more expensive for the home country? How do they effect the country the tarrifs are imposed on?

It makes it harder for that country to sell. Which means layoffs and loss of asset value there. The most dramatic example is the auto industry. They're talking about just closing shop immediately, because their business plan depends on moving things back and forth across the border as they gradually get assembled.

If this goes on as long as I suspect, there will be new businesses that bubble up to use the same resources, but it's never going to be as nice as a single integrated continent, and in the meanwhile, time is money, things can't grow and develop while just sitting there. Not to mention the workers that now don't know how to put food on the table.

Genuine question, if Trump’s tariffs just make things expensive for Americans why would we put retaliatory tariffs that effect us?

That's actually a separate question. It's a matter of tit-for-tat, partly. But, there's also the fact that the US government is pocketing all those tariffs. If we didn't have a bit of extra income to match, I imagine it'd get really hard for the government to pay for things with our now weaker currency. Not retaliating was considered, though.

[–] cynar@lemmy.world 1 points 55 minutes ago

Imagine widgets are $10 in country A, but a company in country B can make and sell them for $8. Buyers are likely to buy the cheapest (all else being equal). A 100% tariff would turn $8 into $16. Company B still only gets $8, but they now look far more expensive to customers in country A.

They are designed to price out external competitors to local companies. This can be used to protect industries. Steel is a good example. China can make steel far cheaper than the rest of the world. However, steel plants take a long time to build and get producing. You generally don't want a potential rival to have control of the materials you need for war production.

Another legit use is to account for local regulations. If you require local companies to pay in a carbon credit system, an external company could undercut them from abroad. A tariff would help level the playing field.

None of these apply to what trump is doing. He's swinging a claymore mine around like a toy hammer. It causes huge damage to all involved.

[–] Honeybee@sh.itjust.works 1 points 1 hour ago (1 children)

Not an economic, but everything is entangled

Say you have two products: one from USA ($110) and the same from Canada ($100). Now we impose a tariff of 25 pct on the Canadian product ($125).

This means that consumers are going to buy the cheaper product, resulting in less income for the Canadian manufacturer.

The USA manufacturer can increase the price to $120, and still be cheaper than their Canadian counterpart. All while prices for customers are increasing

[–] leadore@lemmy.world 1 points 1 hour ago

The USA manufacturer can increase the price to $120, and still be cheaper than their Canadian counterpart.

Unless there is no USA manufacturer, or there is but they don't make nearly enough of the product to satisfy demand. More importantly, if the manufacturers we (USA) have buy much of the needed raw materials to make their products from Canada or other places with tariffs imposed, then a USA-made product becomes that much more expensive.

It's stupid, and hard on everyone but the blame is entirely on trump. Canada (and hopefully Mexico) imposing retaliatory tariffs is basically the only way to get trump to back down. Like with MAD (mutually assured destruction), the assured part has to be there or it doesn't work. Even though it causes pain to everyone, retaliation is the most effective way to end this madness sooner--it will hurt the US economy, raise prices, and turn trump's supporters against him. The more it hurts, the sooner people will be out in the streets.

[–] Pacattack57@lemmy.world 1 points 28 minutes ago

Only on American products. Canadian products theoretically will cost the same.

[–] Insayn@reddthat.com 2 points 1 hour ago

I am starting to understand how felon tRump bankrupted casinos

[–] ArchRecord@lemm.ee 1 points 1 hour ago

Yes, tariffs increase prices in almost any case they're implemented, which is the goal. Trudeau seems to be hoping that by adding these tariffs, it will become even easier to shift consumer behavior to buy non-American made goods, which could possibly either lead Trump to reduce/remove his tariffs, or at least make Americans feel more of the economic impact of those reductions in sales, which could then push more people to go against Trump politically.

[–] yes_this_time@lemmy.world 6 points 2 hours ago (1 children)

Yes, but items are targeted to inflict the least amount of pain. We don't neeed orange juice or bourbon for example.

[–] CanadaPlus@lemmy.sdf.org 1 points 2 hours ago* (last edited 2 hours ago)

And inflict the maximum amount of pain on specifically the bad Americans who are doing this.

[–] kibiz0r@midwest.social 229 points 10 hours ago* (last edited 7 hours ago) (7 children)

I like Cory Doctorow’s plan.

The reason Canada got tariff-free access to sell to the US in the first place? Canada agreed to enforce penalties for tampering with digital locks, following the premise of the Digital Milennium Copyright Act.

If the US is going back on the deal, then Canada should too. Make it legal to jailbreak all US tech.

Doctorow advocating for this plan:

[–] rottingleaf@lemmy.world 8 points 4 hours ago (1 children)

If the US is going back on the deal, then Canada should too. Make it legal to jailbreak all US tech.

That should be considered with plans for further escalation varying from nothing to an embargo.

Though arguably piracy and jailbreaking are not so bad for said domination. Microsoft practically encouraged piracy in ex-USSR at some point. Piracy solves the availability problem, supports market share, leads to short-term loss in sales but long-term growth.

But that's Microsoft, while US government in general seems to think DMCA is for them what the Sound was for the Danish crown in middle ages.

[–] boonhet@lemm.ee 2 points 53 minutes ago* (last edited 53 minutes ago)

Microsoft practically encouraged piracy in ex-USSR at some point. Piracy solves the availability problem, supports market share, leads to short-term loss in sales but long-term growth.

Yup, Bill Gates pretty much said he'd rather have people growing up on pirated Microsoft products than use alternatives.

[–] samus12345@lemm.ee 60 points 8 hours ago (4 children)

Heck, make it legal to pirate all American media.

[–] ayyy@sh.itjust.works 6 points 3 hours ago* (last edited 3 hours ago)

Hit where it really hurts: stop paying Microsoft.

[–] Cort@lemmy.world 22 points 5 hours ago* (last edited 4 hours ago) (4 children)

A surprising amount of 'American' media is filmed and produced in Canada. ~~Toronto~~ Vancouver is like Hollywood North. This would probably be a footgun

[–] samus12345@lemm.ee 4 points 3 hours ago

No problems, make exceptions for anything that was made involving Canada!

[–] sparky@lemmy.federate.cc 10 points 5 hours ago (1 children)

Vancouver is a huge TV filming location as well.

[–] Cort@lemmy.world 5 points 4 hours ago (1 children)

Ugh, I feel like a dummy. I was picturing BC in my mind and typed out Toronto. You're 100% correct about Vancouver

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[–] tiefling@lemmy.blahaj.zone 1 points 2 hours ago* (last edited 2 hours ago)

Producers like to film in Toronto while pretending that it's NYC. X-Men and What We Do In The Shadows are the first things that come to mind. I still find it hilarious that the "Westchester" Train Station in X1 is in Hamilton (I believe)

A more subtle crossover is that Ramona (Scott Pilgrim) is from NYC

[–] rottingleaf@lemmy.world 2 points 4 hours ago

Stargate SG-1, full of blatant military propaganda (I know it's not so bad, but), was filmed there.

[–] CileTheSane@lemmy.ca 5 points 4 hours ago (2 children)

It already basically is; Anti-piracy laws in Canada don't have a lot of teeth. I leave my torrent computer running 24 hours a day to seed and I don't even get emails anymore after switching to a smaller service provider.

[–] NeilBru@lemmy.world 1 points 1 hour ago

VPN with multi-hop proxy, my bratha/sista.

[–] samus12345@lemm.ee 4 points 3 hours ago* (last edited 3 hours ago)

In that case, the Candian government should set up an official service for downloading American stuff. Making it easy to find things would be worth a nominal fee for a lot of people.

[–] lance20000@lemmy.ca 5 points 4 hours ago

Yeah, I'm not too concerned about that. Their courts are being attacked with so much that I'm pretty sure downloading a car isn't going to be high on their list.

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[–] apfelwoiSchoppen@lemmy.world 119 points 10 hours ago (1 children)

Trump is such a vindictive moron. Whether he's a Russian asset or just a certifiably stupid, the end result is the same.

Good god I hate this fucking timeline. Fuck corporate America for backing this monster and fuck everyone who voted for him. Fuck the Democrats for collectively shrugging about all this too.

[–] samus12345@lemm.ee 32 points 8 hours ago (1 children)

Whether he’s a Russian asset or just certifiably stupid

Most definitely both.

[–] Diplomjodler3@lemmy.world 15 points 7 hours ago (1 children)

Yeah, if he was just in it for his own aggrandisement, none of this would make sense. The orders are very clearly coming from Moscow here, because only Putin benefits from all this bullshit.

[–] samus12345@lemm.ee 2 points 3 hours ago

And he's stupid for going along with it - a smart Russian asset US president would get something in return other than a pat on the head.

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