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.
Excuse my ignorance but wouldn’t that make things more expensive for Canadians as well?
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.
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?
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.
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.
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.
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.
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
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.
Only on American products. Canadian products theoretically will cost the same.
I am starting to understand how felon tRump bankrupted casinos
Yes, but items are targeted to inflict the least amount of pain. We don’t neeed orange juice or bourbon for example.
And inflict the maximum amount of pain on specifically the bad Americans who are doing this.
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.