Language matters.

The President is empowered by a Congress controlled by a narrow majority. Rather than the individual they have chosen, I am pissed at the Republican party. And disappointed in the American people. The guy? He was always that way and would have continued to be so at a safe distance from the levers of power without his enablers.

It is the American and especially Republican relationship with Canada that is important in this situation. Those are what endure, that person is only momentarily significant. So, where we can choose the narrative, I think that’s important to focus on.

Plus I suspect he likes the sound of his own name.

  • TransplantedSconie@lemm.ee
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    4 days ago

    Guys, American here.

    Hit Tesla, Meta, Amazon, hard as fuck. He raised tariffs 25%? Raise theirs 70%. Nail us with 25% on oil and electricity or shit, just shut it the fuck off.

    Nip this fuck face in the bud now or he will just keep keep going.

    • xmunk@sh.itjust.works
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      4 days ago

      The best suggestion I’ve seen, personally, is just to stop respecting American copyright law’s bullshit.

    • Rhaedas@fedia.io
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      4 days ago

      Agreed. Fight fire with fire. The only way to get the people to react is to make them uncomfortable. We tried reasoning, that failed. Let the leopards loose.

      • pdxfed@lemmy.world
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        4 days ago

        More in this case, bullies and fascists only respond to force, that is all. There is no decorum, no societal norm, no mutually agreeable term that can be arrived at. Punch them in the face and keep doing it until the consequences are greater than the benefits of acting as such.

        Power, through force is the ONLY thing they respect and understand.

      • richieadler 🇦🇷@lemmy.myserv.one
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        4 days ago

        Never gonna happen, but I would love to see countries removing embassadors from the US and closing their borders to their citizens.

        Sadly I would have to be consistent and ask the same for my country (.ar), where our own delirious-in-chief is following to the letter Project 2025’s playbook.

    • Cyborganism@lemmy.ca
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      4 days ago

      There’s a bit of a problem here though.

      Say we put tariffs on services from Amazon for example. What should they apply to? Amazon the online store and Prime Video? Or should we also apply them on cloud services? Because a LOT of Canadian companies are using their cloud services.

      Even if they switched to Google, wouldn’t we want to tariff them as well for supporting Trump also? Or even Microsoft? They all spent a million $ for his inauguration. And I’d bet they would bend to his demands if push comes to shove.

      We always knew that we depended too much on these companies and it’s never been so obvious than now. When we’re suddenly at the mercy of a psychopath fascists dictator president at the controls of our biggest economic partner.

    • Someone@lemmy.ca
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      4 days ago

      I don’t know how you could tariff Meta, but I’d love if it was crippled so the essential groups I’m in would move somewhere else. I only ever get served posts from 1 or 2 of my real acquaintances as needles in a haystack of irrelevant trash.

      • TransplantedSconie@lemm.ee
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        4 days ago

        Oops. Sorry, Meta. We just passed a law that you now have to pay a 300% monthly tax to operate in our country and every 3rd Tuesday of the month, Zuck has to publicly address the nation that he “Is a ginormous doo-doo head who likes to smell farts and sucks at hockey.” Again. So sorry, buddy. -Canada.

      • Kecessa@sh.itjust.works
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        4 days ago

        “You need to pay local taxes on any profit made off Canadians, it’s your responsibility to report your numbers and prove that they’re true, if you can’t we’re blocking your platforms.”

    • bitchkat@lemmy.world
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      4 days ago

      I’m planning on buying canadien goods when I’m driving through half of the country this summer. I need a decent winter coat, so I’ll pick up a Canada goose.

    • FireTower@lemmy.world
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      4 days ago

      This is incredibly stupid as an economic counter plan for a nation whose number one import and export (>50% respectively) is the US. Compare that to the US’s highly diversified trade portfolio. Trump would clap back with a 100% general tariff on Canada.

      American trade can survive without Canada. But Canadian trade can’t survive without America.

      • Grimpen@lemmy.ca
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        4 days ago

        The bulk of Canadian exports to the US are oil. We can certainly tariff US goods, but export tariffs on Canadian oil and hydro electricity to the US will probably be a big component of the Canadian response.

        Even with a big increase on hydro power exports to the US, it’s still cheaper than most other sources of electricity, so they’ll still happily pay it.

        As to oil, there are some refineries in the US that are set up to process Canadian bitumen. Canada’s long history of just exporting raw materials and re-importing finished goods give a pretty outsized room to manuever here. This refineries will probably just pony up and pay more.

        Where the damage will come is in areas like the auto sector, where there are tightly coupled supply chains.

        Paul Krugman points out in his article The End of North America that there is probably already damage done to the concept of North American manufacturing.

        Trump is going to do a whole lot of damage, we’re going to take some of that damage, but my favourite quote on the topic:

        no one wins trade wars, but the kid who never stands up for himself always loses and for a long time

        Scotiabank Daily Points

      • tburkhol@lemmy.world
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        4 days ago

        Canada and Mexico account for about a third of US exports. US businesses may be able to survive without them, but they sure won’t make the shareholders happy.

        • shawn1122@lemm.ee
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          3 days ago

          And we all know that not making the shareholders happy makes America very very sad.

          Only in an American hospital will you hear that we need to discharge patient’s faster and do everything we can to keep them from coming back because “we have a duty to our shareholders”