Does this make a difference in our trade with Cananda?

[ElChupacabra]

Trade balances/imbalances need to be assessed in some manner besides - that's what's been in place for a long time, right or wrong. I think it's very useful that an appropriate smart, educated, and talented team is finally doing just that and is tasked with preparing a detailed report.

Why not create a report first, then negotiate rather than cause market chaos and have no one be clear on what exactly this is all about? That doesn't sound like something smart, educated, and talented teams do. This is like threatening your neighbor with legal action and not telling them what they did to warrant that response.

I expect things like this will be made clear in the report. And if the quota is so high it's meaningless, I wonder why have it at all? Maybe that is something that should be recognized and addressed.

Then you didn't do your homework.

I'd strongly argue Trump wasn't elected to sit back and coast. And Trump did talk about tariffs on a quite regular basis. All polls indicated people wanted change.

I don't think any president is elected to sit back and coast. They will always have an agenda, but right now what the global markets are trying to figure out is why the heck the US president is resorting to tariffs before having commenced any negotiations and now have an environment of economic uncertainty. There's nothing wrong with wanting change, but one should be clear about why that change is needed and what the trade-offs for making that change are.

As far as the stock market, yours is a huge reaction for what is so far, a correction (which happen quite regularly).

I do enjoy this kind of spin, mainly for it's complete absurdity. I've thus far made no alarmist comments or all caps lock posts about how the end is nigh. In that respect I differ from the current president who has made these claims at much smaller dips in the market. Remember the "Kamala Crash"? That dip wasn't even a third of the current one. Remember how Trump warned the stock market would crash if Biden were elected? As for the current market correction, what doesn't make it normal is it is a direct reaction to the tariffs placed by Trump, and since no one is really clear on why or whether this will continue to be policy, it makes for a shaky investment environment.

Now I'd agree something like the border was something polls showed voters wanted fixed and no polls showed voters were clamoring for tariffs - but the border was fixed in 10 minutes because that was easy and never needed to happen. Now it just takes money (and lots of it) to fix all the ramifications of that totally unnecessary border disaster.

Only if you ignore the already decreasing numbers from the previous administration.


So people weren't clamoring for tariffs, they got them despite being concerned about a rise in prices and it makes sense despite them not even being given a strategy other than bumper sticker slogans?

Trumps plans for tariffs and the economy will take more than 10 minutes. They are significant and wide ranging plans. Tariffs are only a small part. A competitive and friendly tax environment for private business is also well underway right now. But I'm not willing to make any assessments with the economy for at least a single year.

Tell me more about these "plans". I've followed much of what Trump's proposed but don't recall reading anything about these specific plans or the "tariffs first, talk later" approach.

It's a chasm which makes conversation difficult. You clearly despise Trump and it seems that filters into you not wanting his plans to be successful for our country. I don't despise Trump and I think there is a fair to good chance he'll be an instrumental leader who will lead this country to big, productive, prosperous, fair, tough, and long overdue changes.

I don't despise or hate him. I'm not sure why you think it's impossible to think someone is an abject idiot and not hate them; I don't see those as remotely related. As it relates to wanting his plans to be successful or not, I'd have to know what they are outside of platitudes like "make America great!" or "trade must be fair!". The problem I see in terms of conversation is akin to those had between those of faith and those without, since the latter actually need more information to make decisions than sheer trust in a person/religion.

 

[AConcernedCitizen]

Free Trade is based on goods and services . When you add in services and take out American produced oil the trade balance is by far in America's favour. We use billions in dollars annually in American consulting services. Trumpers aren't getting the full story not the truth.

That would still be fair, balanced, and reciprocal, since the money going from Canada to the US is equivalent to the value of the services that Canada is getting in return.

Just because you buy more from the grocery store than they buy from you doesn't mean that the grocery store is treating you "very unfairly." A trade deficit is a goods and services surplus.