The trade wars going on are making me chuckle. First, we have Mexico. Trump imposed a tariff on them, slated to begin at 12:01am Tue. Feb. 4rd. By 10am Monday, Trump had fielded a call from Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum, and the tariffs were put on hold for a month. Why a month, you ask? Because Sheinbaum promised to “…reinforce the northern border with 10,000 members of the National Guard immediately, to stop drug trafficking from Mexico to the United States, in particular fentanyl.” (AP)
Canada… now they’re doubling down. Or rather, I should say that outgoing Prime Minister Trudeau is doubling down. He’s put a 25% tariff on certain items coming from the US to Canada (the list is here: Canada.ca). Having zipped through the list, it looks like chicken and other poultry, cheese and other dairy products, wine and other alcohol, cigarettes, and then a list of various smaller products like suits and jackets, carpets, etc. The biggest one for me is the chicken. We in America have been experiencing a rising in chicken prices because we have less chickens due to many of them being slaughtered due to avian flu (I’m on the fence over it, but having talked to egg and meat producers myself, it’s not that big a deal and isn’t the main reason costs went up). If we’re not exporting chickens and eggs, that means we get to eat them. That should lead to our prices going DOWN. Seems like a win to me.
Canada placing tariffs on our goods going north means that our folks will find people willing to pay better prices down here, in America. That means we keep American produce in America. That seems like a huge win to me. Bring it on.
Funny (to me) quote: “And don’t forget bar cabinet staples, like tequila and Canadian whisky. According to the Distilled Spirits Council of the United States, a trade group, the U.S. imported $4.6 billion worth of tequila and $108 million worth of mescal from Mexico, as well as $537 million worth of Canadian spirits – including $202.5 million worth of whisky.” (AP) Goodness gracious, what ever will we do if we can’t buy Mexican tequila and Canadian whiskey? Oh, right, we make those here. Never mind then. LOL!
And then we have Panama. I don’t understand all the minutia with the trade agreements between Panama and China, but I know that we used to own the canal. We built the damn thing. I can’t find news on it, but I heard through the grapevine that Panama has already caved on their Chinese partners, and modified things to allow better and more preferential treatment to American ships using the canal, thereby halting (at least temporarily) Trump’s tariffs.
The bottom line is, everyone’s now watching Canada. They’re the only ones who didn’t immediately give in. I’m pretty sure that Canada is going to hurt more from this than America is. While Canada is a little bit larger, it has less population by far (336 million in America versus Canada’s 41 million). They simply don’t have what it takes to win this trade war. Eventually, they’ll give in.
And while I’m pretty sure that Trump’s comments about making Canada the 51st state were jokes, there would be benefits to both countries in merging. It also might allow for some spacing out of people, maybe “redistricting” in a way? Regardless, it’s a fascinating idea.
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