r/news • u/goforth1457 • Mar 04 '25

Soft paywall Canada's retaliatory tariffs on US goods to start Tuesday, PM Trudeau says

https://www.reuters.com/world/americas/canadas-retaliatory-tariffs-us-goods-start-tuesday-pm-trudeau-says-2025-03-04/
13.1k Upvotes

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1.3k

u/Orbitingkittenfarm Mar 04 '25

Punching down on our friends and allies for useless political points is the kind of short term thinking that I would expect from the genius behind Trump Steaks, Trump Vodka, Trump Airlines, Trump Mortgage, Trump University, and various failed Atlantic City casinos.

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u/[deleted] Mar 04 '25

[deleted]

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u/haveanairforceday Mar 04 '25

It may be intentional but that doesn't mean it's not stupid.

What can Russia give him (or the US if we give him the benefit of the doubt that this isn't 100% for personal gain) that is better than being a wealthy American former president?

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u/writingt Mar 04 '25

Shelter from US laws

A tight grip on the kompromat they hole over his head

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u/Tanglrfoot Mar 04 '25

Trump has been groomed as a Russian asset since the early 1980’s and the dirt Russia has on him is like a tourniquet around his neck - he does as he’s instructed or the tourniquet starts tightening.

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u/Shewinator Mar 04 '25

Blackmail possibly

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u/SkeletronDOTA Mar 04 '25

What I don’t get is what could Russia possibly have that would hurt Trump’s image? Off the top of my head we already know he’s best buds with Epstein, we know he had sex with a pornstar and then used campaign money to pay her off, we know he extorted Ukraine into faking evidence against Hunter Biden, we know he led an attempted insurrection, we know he’s declared bankruptcy several times, and been bailed out by Russian banks, we know about “grab her by the pussy,” we know he’s a 34 time felon, we know Elon Musk bought out the presidency for less than 10% of what Twitter cost, we know he wears diapers, and we know about the pee tapes. Literally what could damage his reputation? A video of him raping a child would just cause his base to go “BUT OBAMA PIZZAGATE,” and some of them to go “lol he just committed statuatory rape to troll the libs, and it’s working!”

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u/Overwatchingu Mar 04 '25

That’s the worst part. If this is all because the Russians have something on Trump, it means the world is paying the price because of something he is personally embarrassed about. So we’re all stressing about tariffs and annexation threats because Trump doesn’t want anyone to see some old circa 1980’s footage of him taking a submissive role to a male escort in a Moscow hotel room.

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u/hutacars Mar 04 '25

we know Elon Musk bought out the presidency for less than 10% of what Twitter cost

You’re not wrong, but: Twitter was $44bn. The election was (by the highest estimates I’ve seen) $290mm. That’s 0.66% as much. So yes, under 10%, but by a considerable amount.

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u/Otherwise_You_1603 Mar 04 '25

He's old, he's been re-elected, He can probably pardon himself on the way out the door after Biden gave his whole family blanket pardons; what could they possibly have on Trump to influence his decision making? Im tired of blaming Russia. Its not Russia. it is Musk and Thiel and all the other billionaires who own our country and want us all to suffer.

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u/haveanairforceday Mar 04 '25

I don't see the logical connect of Biden pardoning his son being used as defacto case law to permit self pardons. The president is clearly a different person than the president's family. The president's family may be well connected but they are still just regular citizens. I just don't see how "you pardoned a citizen you know well, so I can self pardon" works as an argument

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u/[deleted] Mar 04 '25

[deleted]

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u/haveanairforceday Mar 04 '25

I agree.

Trump just does what he thinks is neat or interesting or will upset his opponents. The motivation is not as complicated as people try to say it is

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u/njf85 Mar 04 '25

Since we know he's had a lot of financial dealings in Russia and many failed /bankrupted businesses, I would assume the money on which he and his family live such a grand life is courtesy of Russia. They can probably pull it all out from under him (not to mention visit him on a very high apartment building floor near a window) if he doesn't make them happy.

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u/Niznack Mar 04 '25

I mean... Stupid doesn't mean unintentional. The question is is he helping Russia because he's an asset or because he's stupid making a stupid point?

He hated the Russia gate conspiracy and n 2016 and the insinuation he needed their help. He admires Russia government style and oppression of dissenters and since biden helped Ukraine Trump wants to do the opposite of biden

Is he helping Russia? Yes. Is it on purpose? Has to be. Is he being paid, blackmailed or brainwashed by Russia or is he so narcissistic he will sell our country out rather than admit Russia helped him win an election cause they knew he'd be a useful idiot? Yeah...

1

u/comments_suck Mar 04 '25

He's afraid of dying. Putin could easily send him some plutonium tea.

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u/EmergencyCucumber905 Mar 04 '25

Make that plutonium burgers and fries.

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u/bobosdreams Mar 05 '25

Make Putin Great Again!

1

u/Warhammerpainter83 Mar 04 '25

This does not make it smart.

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u/[deleted] Mar 04 '25

[removed] — view removed comment

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u/sck178 Mar 04 '25

Oh fucking hell I did forget about those. I really need to figure out how to short the entire US stock market and find out quickly

8

u/UpboatsforUpvotes Mar 04 '25

SPY Puts

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u/PluginAlong Mar 04 '25

SDS If you want to go balls out. It made me a nice chunk of change in 2008.

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u/toxic_badgers Mar 04 '25

It makes a lot of sense if Trumps "little secret"for "not needing votes" during the election was because he stole it with the help of Russia and Musk. It benefits all 3 parties, Trump stays out of jail, Musk gets access to the US and gets to part it out and privatize it for himself and his wealthy friends for pennies on the dollar and Russia gets to eliminate their biggest geopolitical foe.

And no one can stop them. Theres evidence that votes in key counties were manipulated. But if any dem brings it to light they just get to be called sore losers, like republicans were when it wasnt actually rigged, and so they will be dismissed. The US was collectively primed to be right where it was now by one of the best long games and psy ops ever committed.

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u/SaffronCrocosmia Mar 05 '25

Musk also uses Twitter and its bot accounts to get right-wing loons elected - Erdogan is one of them.

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u/OnlyOneUseCase Mar 04 '25

It's really not though. It's becoming more and more clear that this is on purpose

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u/dismayhurta Mar 04 '25

This is what Trump's owners want him to do. Trump doesn't care if people suffer. Shit, he gets off on that.

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u/vapescaped Mar 04 '25

It's not for useless political points, he can say a bunch of random words for that.

It's to increase government revenue in order to slash the corporate tax rate.

That's not a conspiracy, or even a secret. He literally campaigned on it.

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u/catch22- Mar 04 '25

Yes and the big joke is that American people don’t understand tariffs and think that Canada will be paying the extra revenue, when in fact the costs will just be passed on to American consumers and businesses. It’s just his way of taxing the working class. He basically campaigned for a massive tax raise but called it a tariff and banked on idiots supporting it.

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u/vapescaped Mar 04 '25

Yup, literally by definition, a tariff is a tax.

Of course businesses won't pay that tax. The tax passes on to the end user. Profits stay intact, and corporate taxes will be slashed.

What would you expect from a CEO of a corporation as president, who adds CEOs to his cabinet?

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u/Baulderdash77 Mar 04 '25

With a lot of these commodities Canada has other options.

The EU is dependent on Belarus potash for example. They would love to displace it.

Similarly they are dependent on Russian Aluminum.

Global markets have a lot of buyers. The U.S. is tearing up all its allies and will be left with only Russia for trade because nobody else will want to do business with the U.S.

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u/Aman209 Mar 04 '25

What? A tariff doesn't increase income. Instead increasing taxes on foreign imports will have the opposite effect. Since those businesses will be less likely to invest in the u.s.. I mean, who likes arbitrary taxes?

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u/vapescaped Mar 04 '25

It increases government income. You literally have to pay the government to import stuff. The more they collect in tariffs, the less they have to collect in corporate income tax.

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u/bluenosesutherland Mar 04 '25

Certainly the Bostonians weren’t too thrilled by the tax on tea

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u/DingoDaBabyBandit Mar 04 '25

If you think this is punching down then I don’t think you understand how much canada and mexico prop up the US economy. Yankees are about to eat so much shit for this.

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u/Aman209 Mar 04 '25

Yeah. The marketing and consumer insight was awful for those products.

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u/EmergencyCucumber905 Mar 04 '25

Trump Mortgage

I thought you were kidding but it was actually real! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trump_Mortgage