Summary

Trump announced that 25% tariffs on imports from Canada and Mexico will take effect on February 1, though a decision on including oil remains pending.

He justified the move by citing undocumented migration, fentanyl trafficking, and trade deficits.

Trump also hinted at new tariffs on China.

Canada and Mexico plan retaliatory measures while seeking to address U.S. concerns.

If oil imports are taxed, it could raise costs for businesses and consumers, potentially contradicting Trump’s pledge to reduce living expenses.

  • Anamnesis@lemmy.world
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    5 hours ago

    A friend of mine works for an electric semi truck company. The vast majority of their parts are manufactured in Canada and Mexico; they’re just assembled in the US. His mom voted for Trump and really wants him to move back to Ohio so he can have space and be close to family. He wanted to go back, too, and had a transfer and promotion within the company set up before the election. Now there’s a company-wide freeze and his transfer is gone. The company’s internal financial projections are not good.

    His mom refuses to recognize that she just voted for her son to stay in Seattle indefinitely, even though he wants to move back. She keeps thinking that any day now, the economy will be so booming that his company will be doing great. He can’t talk to her about it anymore.

  • Zier@fedia.io
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    6 hours ago

    I was going to give up eating this year anyway. Food just takes too long to buy, cook & eat.

  • prodajvodapavel@aggregatet.org
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    8 hours ago

    He justified the move by citing undocumented migration, fentanyl trafficking, and trade deficits.

    Translation: “We’re going to artificially increase the prices of our competitors’ products so the American ruling class can profit off of giving Americans a worse deal.”

    • T00l_shed@lemmy.world
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      2 hours ago

      Yes, but i don’t believe trump KNOWS that. Instead he’s been told to do this.

  • supersquirrel@sopuli.xyz
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    9 hours ago

    I can’t wait for mainstream business media to attempt to explain this rationally while keeping a straight face AND still bootlicking at the same time.

    I don’t envy that job.

    • prodajvodapavel@aggregatet.org
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      8 hours ago

      It’s not just the media that loves tariffs.

      Plenty of regular, stupid people have been convinced that a worse deal is better if they’re making someone domestic richer instead of someone foreign.

      The domestic aristocracy doesn’t care about America, or else they would take a hit to their profits to provide Americans a better deal.

      • vividspecter@lemm.ee
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        7 hours ago

        Plenty of regular, stupid people have been convinced that a worse deal is better if they’re making someone domestic richer instead of someone foreign.

        No, regular people don’t understand how tariffs work at all. They literally think that Canada, Mexico, and China are the ones that pay the tariffs.

  • Hegar@fedia.io
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    10 hours ago

    Part of me thinks this is so they have an easy way to drop prices after people get used to everything costing more, but I’m sure it’s mostly just trying to destroy the the US’s relationship with it’s most important allies.

    • the_tab_key@lemmy.world
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      42 minutes ago

      Part of me thinks this is so they have an easy way to drop prices after people get used to everything costing more

      Trump is running the US the same way I ran my cities in SimCity2000

    • prodajvodapavel@aggregatet.org
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      8 hours ago

      but I’m sure it’s mostly just trying to destroy the the US’s relationship with it’s most important allies.

      Close, but no cigar.

      As usual, it’s to make the American ruling class richer. That’s all. Full-stop.

      Let’s stop distracting ourselves from it 🙂

    • NoneOfUrBusiness@fedia.io
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      10 hours ago

      Part of me thinks this is so they have an easy way to drop prices after people get used to everything costing more

      This is a technique commonly employed by Sisi in Egypt so while it’d be surprising that America sunk that low that quickly I can see it happening. And by the way, yes America is now being compared to Egypt out of all countries so… Uh… Good luck.

    • Hobbes_Dent@lemmy.world
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      10 hours ago

      It’s already destroyed.

      Not by him, his threats and tariffs are old news. By the people - The People, the royal We - who actively, unironically and with great power of democracy, chose an aggressive, compromised, and stupid fascist with ample evidence that this, hate, and war were a consequence.

      Because the hate and apathy was stronger I guess. For electing a woman. For people being bullied by a juvenile government wielding adult violence for who they aren’t - a cis white right male.

      They went to the dark side and joined a tri-polar world of evils to bully and rape the rest of us until we all burn to death. So yeah.

      Never again.

  • xmunk@sh.itjust.works
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    11 hours ago

    If oil is excluded the truly boss move on Canada & Mexico’s part would just be to introduce a 25% export premium on those products while the tariffs are in effect.

    • Someone@lemmy.ca
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      8 hours ago

      Exactly, clearly they’ll still pay for it if it’s important enough to exempt. In Canada’s case we could give Alberta the extra revenue just so they won’t get too cranky.

  • kreskin@lemmy.world
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    10 hours ago

    Its Americans trying to buy food who will be hit with a 25% tarriff, not Mexico. And Mexican farmers wont see a dime of that revenue, if anything they will see a decline in revenue as people stop buying the products. It all goes to the US treasury.

    • wisely@feddit.org
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      7 hours ago

      Yes and then it can be funneled into the pockets of the person who is calling for the tariffs.

      It’s weird that everyone is taking the premise of making america great again with tariffs seriously. The reason it doesn’t make sense is because that’s just a distraction to the fact that it’s for personal profit like with everything else.

    • Cyborganism@lemmy.ca
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      10 hours ago

      Canada and Mexico are still part of that North American free trade agreement thing. We (Canada) will just get our food from Mexico and South America like we’ve always done. We’ll just skip America.

      • adarza@lemmy.ca
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        7 hours ago

        back in the first episode, lord diaper whined, and whined and shit on nafta, forcing it to be ‘renegotiated’ by him. he just had to have his name on everything.

        nafta was a long time in the making, from reagan, to bush, to clinton when it finally went into effect. it had bipartisan support in congress, a little stronger from the right.

        undone by a single shart from an orange moron that leaked, and then magically ‘fixed’ by the same…

        in the end, what mr. art-of-the-fucking-deal managed to ‘negotiate’ is almost entirely the same as the nafta he hated so much.

        now he’s shitting on his own fucking deal. fuck’m.

        i fully support your efforts to avoid our products and companies for the next few years. and if anyone up there wants to come renovate the white house again… i won’t be in your way.

    • protist@mander.xyz
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      10 hours ago

      I live in Texas, and it’s hard to overstate how much of our produce is imported from Mexico. This would be an almost immediate 25% price hike on food that basically can’t be grown at scale here because we don’t have Mexico’s climate. Surely he’d exempt food from whatever he’s about to do. Right…?

      • puntinoblue@lemmy.ml
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        55 minutes ago

        I expect food would be exempt as you don’t want an angry, hungry, volatile population. Bread and Circuses

      • Kecessa@sh.itjust.works
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        5 hours ago

        “surely he’d exempt X from…”

        Exact same reflection as all the people who depend on migrant workers that voted for him only for the bubble to burst in their face.

      • adarza@lemmy.ca
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        7 hours ago

        it’s a 25% import tax paid by the importer. when their margins are added, and then the distributors’ on top of their higher costs, at each step of the distribution chain… it’ll be a fair bit more than ‘just’ +25% once product reaches the store shelves.

      • chingadera@lemmy.world
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        8 hours ago

        Will it benefit the average person? If the answer is yes, you can take it off the list.

        Even if it benefits the rich, it would have to exponentially hurt the average American more for it to be considered. They’ve already turned their nose up at studies that have proven better working conditions, pay, and benefits would make them richer in the long run because it takes a little bit of control away from them. These people are sick, and the only thing that is going to correct it at this point is a violent uprising.

  • KoboldCoterie@pawb.social
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    10 hours ago

    If oil imports are taxed, it could raise costs for businesses and consumers, potentially contradicting Trump’s pledge to reduce living expenses.

    Does anyone honestly think Trump meant anything he said while he was campaigning? It was obviously all just saying what people wanted to hear. He basically said as much himself. Pretending otherwise is just legitimizing lies and propaganda.

    • LadyMeow@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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      10 hours ago

      Yes, he meant several things while campaigning. Like destroying trans peoples lives, freeing nazis, and punishing those who deigned to attempt to hold him accountable for his many crimes. Oh also for destroying climate protections, deporting brown people, shall I go on? All the things like lowering prices? No absolutely not. That would benefit regular Americans and not hurt minorities, so it doesn’t make the list

    • Damionsipher@lemmy.world
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      8 hours ago

      It might not matter weather or not he targets oil. We Canadians understand how important our energy supply is to the US and we’re willing to cut that supply of as a bargaining tool. This is where the find out happens following the fucking around.

      • KoboldCoterie@pawb.social
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        8 hours ago

        I really hope you do. I hope everyone does, when Trump starts flexing at them. We (Americans) deserve every bit of hardship we get from this situation.

    • Cyborganism@lemmy.ca
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      10 hours ago

      He’s just basically doing the same thing as trying to make Mexico pay for the border wall.

      • chingadera@lemmy.world
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        8 hours ago

        But he’s not, because tariffs are going to come out of the consumers pocket, not the country they’re imposed on. They can start to introduce incentives to produce those same things here, but a lot of them are imported for a reason like availability or established industries within those countries or processing capabilities. This will fuck Americans up exponentially worse and create yet another thing for corporations to hide behind when gouging prices long before those countries see any real difference in their own revenue streams.

        • Cyborganism@lemmy.ca
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          8 hours ago

          True.

          I just hope Canada and Mexico and… Well everybody can bounce back and start producing locally. I’m already boycotting made in America starting this week. I’ll miss my orange juice, but fuck it. Il drink apple juice instead.

          • chingadera@lemmy.world
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            8 hours ago

            I hope so too, but it looks like he’s starting to gut everything and break the nepotism world record. I think he’s trying to force a depression to give the rich yet another opportunity to scrape up that last .05% of ownership they missed when they did this shit last time.

  • tal@lemmy.today
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    10 hours ago

    If oil imports are taxed, it could raise costs for businesses and consumers, potentially contradicting Trump’s pledge to reduce living expenses.

    First time around, with the trade war with China, he had the federal government cut checks to affected farmers. I don’t know the form that took, but during COVID-19, he had stimulus checks sent out – with his name on them – to the broader public.

    So, that’s presumably to make sure that they associate him with the check. I understand that sending out gifts to the public with your name attached isn’t uncommon around election in some countries with kinda sketchy political systems.

    One imagines that he might do a repeat. Most people don’t seem to have a great handle on what drives inflation, from polls I’ve seen. If you figure that you get political points for sending out checks but don’t lose as many political points for raising prices because people don’t associate you strongly with those costs, that might be an advantageous political move; add tariff, which generates revenue to federal government, then send money to some approximation of impacted people with name attached. It’s economically-inefficient, but…

    • ms.lane@lemmy.world
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      6 hours ago

      Don’t forget his little issue with TSMC holding a virtual monopoly on wafer fabrication.

      Don’t forget that’s HIS FAULT.

      GlobalFoundries had working 7nm, but they were a year late and-

      • Intel’s problems appeared to be over (they weren’t)

      • TSMC would have mass production of N7 up within months (they were already in risk production)

      • Samsung’s aggressive posturing and pricing for Samsung Fab would eat into their business, even though it was for a 10nm class product

      • UMC would have 7nm up within 6 months (they stole TSMC IP and got clapped for it, no UMC 7nm)

      • SMIC would also be up within a year (Also stolen TSMC IP, they can’t sell it in the west but it’s used extensively in China)

      All those thing would make it hard to make a lot of money when they were a year late (though all of them turned out wrong except TSMC). SF parent company would have allowed all that to happen too, but then Trump started subsidising oil to put pressure on OPEC. ATIC no longer had their ‘unlimited money’ and GF had to get back in black, so 7nm was cancelled.

      This left only TSMC and Poor Quality Samsung (Intel still doesn’t really do third party fab work)

      Thanks Trump for putting tariffs on for the mess you created.

  • labbbb2@thelemmy.club
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    10 hours ago

    What an idiot he is.

    Plot twist: Trump is just looking to see if the Americans can stand up for themselves. If they remain silent and do nothing like people do in former USSR countries, he will continue to tighten the screws.

    P.S. Need to take out a loan for Trump passport at 146% APR, lol

    • kreskin@lemmy.world
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      10 hours ago

      I’m not sure what to do though. Pitchforks at city hall? mean letters to white house interns? Protests that the news wont cover? I live in one of the bluest states there is.

      We certainly cant count on the Corporatist dems doing much of anything, except if there is any pushback they will try to use it as a photo op while contributing no support to it at all.

      • labbbb2@thelemmy.club
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        9 hours ago

        Pitchforks at city hall? mean letters to white house interns? Protests that the news wont cover?

        I don’t promote violence though, and I understand what do you mean. I just said to people it as a fact that he acts like a typical narcissist will do, and it’s unhealthy. You may have done the best you could, don’t bother.

        Stay strong.

  • mvilain@fedia.io
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    10 hours ago

    I read a post on Mastodon from someone in Ontario Canada that was proposing shutting off all export of oil and electricity to the US. The thing that made me doubt this was they were also calling for impeaching 45 (again!). That would leave Vance which scares me even more.

    • vastard@lemmynsfw.com
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      2 hours ago

      The person who proposed shutting off electricity was Doug Ford, the premier of Ontario who could in fact follow through. It would definitely be the nuclear option but it would disrupt the power grid of several norther states we border.

      I don’t think it will come to that. I think the orange idiot just wants some politicians to grovel and pay his tithe at the last minute so he can feel powerful. He’s “warned” of tariffs too many times to make me think he’s serious.

  • adarza@lemmy.ca
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    10 hours ago

    exclude oil, and the u.s. has a trade surplus with their northern neighbor.

    so leaving oil without the extra tax, then there is not even that flimsy concept of an excuse to have the tariffs in the first place.

    • prodajvodapavel@aggregatet.org
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      7 hours ago

      flimsy concept of an excuse to have the tariffs in the first place.

      Gotta distract people while the ruling class robs them blind.