Trump slaps tariffs on Mexico, Canada and China
POSTED BY: 6ixStringJack
UPDATED: Sunday, October 26, 2025 00:38
VIEWED: 2358
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Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
This looks like Trump's "maximum pressure" tactic. Threaten 25% tariffs and then delay them after winning concessions. Threaten to take over Panama, then get Panama to stop cooperating with China on their Belt and Road Initiative.
I wonder what his real aim is for Greenland.
Also, I think he's not done with Canada and Mexico.
There is a problem with Trump tearing up all kinds of previous agreements, especially one that he negotiated himself: It makes people realize that Trump's agreements are written on air.
You can get away with that when you're dealing with small nations who can only concede to whatever the hell you choose to do, but not so good when you're dealing with a superior or near-peer power.
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"It may be dangerous to be America's enemy, but to be America's friend is fatal." - Henry Kissinger
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Quote:
There are not any nations more powerful than we are, although I'd be curious to hear what two you're referring to.
China's economy is the largest in the world, and the Russian military is superior to ours, even in the nuclear realm. Iran could cause us huge heartburn, by cutting off the Straits of Hormuz, thru which most mideast oil flows. Afghani Taliban defeated us, drove us out. Even a group as small as the Houthis can be a problem, sitting on a strategic chokepoint.
World has changed over the past 30 years. American's ideas of it haven't. That's dangerous.
-----------
"It may be dangerous to be America's enemy, but to be America's friend is fatal." - Henry Kissinger
AMERICANS SUPPORT AMERICA
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Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
This looks like Trump's "maximum pressure" tactic. Threaten 25% tariffs and then delay them after winning concessions. Threaten to take over Panama, then get Panama to stop cooperating with China on their Belt and Road Initiative.
I wonder what his real aim is for Greenland.
Also, I think he's not done with Canada and Mexico.
There is a problem with Trump tearing up all kinds of previous agreements, especially one that he negotiated himself: It makes people realize that Trump's agreements are written on air.
You can get away with that when you're dealing with small nations who can only concede to whatever the hell you choose to do, but not so good when you're dealing with a superior or near-peer power.
You are missing part of the equation here, Sigs.
Up until now, we have been a net-exporter of US Taxpayer dollars to all of these countries. To virtually every country on the planet.
None of the deals have been fair to America, or were even in-line with American interests in the first place. As you know, most of the oligarchs who have been running the show have made sure of that over the last several decades especially.
This includes China even more than Canada or Mexico, and the Chinese leadership is well aware of this.
They are strong enough to bluff immediate non-compliance and they have spared themselves the embarrassment that the leaders of Canada and Mexico just faced, but they won't do so for long.
They are going to lose in this new deal, but they're smart enough to know that the losses are satisfactory compared to the other potentialities. And Trump will offer them the dignity of making it look like everyone came to an agreement together and not come out looking like a bitch like Justin just did.
--------------------------------------------------
"I don't find this stuff amusing anymore." ~Paul Simon
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Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:Quote:
There are not any nations more powerful than we are, although I'd be curious to hear what two you're referring to.
China's economy is the largest in the world
Not without us it isn't.
Quote:
and the Russian military is superior to ours, even in the nuclear realm.
Links or it didn't happen.
Quote:
Iran could cause us huge heartburn, by cutting off the Straits of Hormuz, thru which most mideast oil flows. Afghani Taliban defeated us, drove us out. Even a group as small as the Houthis can be a problem, sitting on a strategic chokepoint.
That's because we had a bunch of idiots and bureaucrats running the show. Not to mention that a lot of them were Globalists and didn't have any allegiance to the nation or even the idea of America.
There is not a single country in the world we couldn't obliterate off the face of the globe today if we wanted to.
I'm not saying that it wouldn't end up with us wiped off the globe at the same time, but when you're talking about this magnitude of sheer power, it almost hardly matters which country out of the Big 3 even have the strongest military anymore. That being said, none of the Big 3 have any interests in going to war with each other. At least for now, until the Oil really starts running out.
The Taliban are nothing more than little boys playing Cowboys and Indians. They are of no concern to us so long as we don't allow anymore of them into our country and we remove those already here.
Quote:
World has changed over the past 30 years. American's ideas of it haven't. That's dangerous.
Oh... I think they're changing pretty quickly right now.
--------------------------------------------------
"I don't find this stuff amusing anymore." ~Paul Simon
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Quote:if you're referring to foreign aid, nearly all of our routine foreign aid goes to ISRAEL AND EGYPT. And, you'll note, those are the two exceptions to the stop payments on foreign aid.
Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
This looks like Trump's "maximum pressure" tactic. Threaten 25% tariffs and then delay them after winning concessions. Threaten to take over Panama, then get Panama to stop cooperating with China on their Belt and Road Initiative.
I wonder what his real aim is for Greenland.
Also, I think he's not done with Canada and Mexico.
There is a problem with Trump tearing up all kinds of previous agreements, especially one that he negotiated himself: It makes people realize that Trump's agreements are written on air.
You can get away with that when you're dealing with small nations who can only concede to whatever the hell you choose to do, but not so good when you're dealing with a superior or near-peer power.
You are missing part of the equation here, Sigs.
Up until now, we have been a net-exporter of US Taxpayer dollars to all of these countries. To virtually every country on the planet.
None of the deals have been fair to America, or were even in-line with American interests in the first place.
And most recently Ukraine and the neocon's project to destroy Russia.
Then, there is the DOD hemorrhaging $$$ all over the globe, protecting Japan and the NATO states. Fair to us? No, but that's on us and our deep state, not them.
Quote:
As you know, most of the oligarchs [here?] who have been running the show have made sure of that over the last several decades especially.
This includes China even more than Canada or Mexico, and the Chinese leadership is well aware of this.
They are strong enough to bluff immediate non-compliance and they have spared themselves the embarrassment that the leaders of Canada and Mexico just faced, but they won't do so for long.
They are going to lose in this new deal, but they're smart enough to know that the losses are satisfactory compared to the other potentialities. And Trump will offer them the dignity of making it look like everyone came to an agreement together and not come out looking like a bitch like Justin just did.
What the world has come to depend on is the American market, and that is bc they can get those all-important petrodollars by selling us stuff, which, UNTIL RECENTLY, were required to purchase oil. And oil, being essential to any modern economy, made it imperative that each nation SOMEHOW scrape enough American dollars together to buy the oil it needed. A lot of international loans were made in the American dollar as well, adding to the requirements for American dollars. Many of those loans are still active, and are a great source of revenue for dollar based banks (JPMChase etc).
This gave America the whip hand in purchases, so many nations were forced to sell at rockbottom prices.
No more. Saudi Arabia is accepting yuan in payment. BUT THESE ARE NOT TAX DOLLARS, THEY ARE AMERICAN DOLLARS IN INTERNATIONAL CIRCULATION.
The China story is long and complicated. Until 2008 they hitched their development to the American market. They also built up a fairly large cadre of mini-oligarchs who were wedded to American based profits. 2008 was a wakeup call. The government has been working assiduously to decouple from America, that's what BRI was all about, IMHO. Right now its largest trading partner is ASEAN. But it hasn't been entirely successful, maybe too many Chinese billionaires are pushing against it. American tariffs against Chinese products would be painful, but it might force China to become independent.
I always thought Chinese dependence on being an exporting nation, and especially depending on the American market, was unsustainable. It was good for a jumpstart in development, but China should have transiti
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Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:Quote:
Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
This looks like Trump's "maximum pressure" tactic. Threaten 25% tariffs and then delay them after winning concessions. Threaten to take over Panama, then get Panama to stop cooperating with China on their Belt and Road Initiative.
I wonder what his real aim is for Greenland.
Also, I think he's not done with Canada and Mexico.
There is a problem with Trump tearing up all kinds of previous agreements, especially one that he negotiated himself: It makes people realize that Trump's agreements are written on air.
You can get away with that when you're dealing with small nations who can only concede to whatever the hell you choose to do, but not so good when you're dealing with a superior or near-peer power.
You are missing part of the equation here, Sigs.
Up until now, we have been a net-exporter of US Taxpayer dollars to all of these countries. To virtually every country on the planet.
None of the deals have been fair to America, or were even in-line with American interests in the first place.
if you're referring to foreign aid, nearly all of our routine foreign aid goes to ISRAEL AND EGYPT. And, you'll note, those are the two exceptions to the stop payments on foreign aid.
Once again, you're going to have to bring receipts. You can't just say that.
Quote:
And most recently Ukraine and the neocon's project to destroy Russia.
Then, there is the DOD hemorrhaging $$$ all over the globe, protecting Japan and the NATO states. Fair to us? No, but that's on us and our deep state, not them.
What does that matter who's fault it is?
Bottom line, they're not going to get that money from us anymore, and that's the only thing that matters.
Quote:Quote:
As you know, most of the oligarchs [here?] who have been running the show have made sure of that over the last several decades especially.
This includes China even more than Canada or Mexico, and the Chinese leadership is well aware of this.
They are strong enough to bluff immediate non-compliance and they have spared themselves the embarrassment that the leaders of Canada and Mexico just faced, but they won't do so for long.
They are going to lose in this new deal, but they're smart enough to know that the losses are satisfactory compared to the other potentialities. And Trump will offer them the dignity of making it look like everyone came to an agreement together and not come out looking like a bitch like Justin just did.
What the world has come to depend on is the American market, and that is bc they can get those all-important petrodollars by selling us stuff, which, UNTIL RECENTLY, were required to purchase oil. And oil, being essential to any modern economy, made it imperative that each nation SOMEHOW scrape enough American dollars together to buy the oil it needed. A lot of international loans were made in the American dollar as well, adding to the requirements for American dollars. Many of those loans are still active, and are a great source of revenue for dollar based banks (JPMChase etc).
This gave America the whip hand in purchases, so many nations were forced to sell at rockbottom prices.
No more. Saudi Arabia is accepting yuan in payment. BUT THESE ARE NOT TAX DOLLARS, THEY ARE AMERICAN DOLLARS IN INTERNATIONAL CIRCULATION.
The China story is long and complicated. Until 2008 they hitched their development to the American market. They also built up a fairly large cadre of mini-oligarchs who were wedded to American based profits. 2008 was a wakeup call. The government has been working assiduously to decouple from America, that's what BRI was all about, IMHO. Right now its largest trading partner is ASEAN. But it hasn't been entirely successful, maybe too many Chinese billionaires are pushing against iNOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
Quote:I doesn't need our technology and it doesn't need our dollars..(Its got almost a trillion of them in reserve), altho it may still want our markets so they can keep those factories humming and keep people busy and out of mischief.
SIX: There are not any nations more powerful than we are, although I'd be curious to hear what two you're referring to.
SIGNY: China's economy is the largest in the world
SIX: Not without us it isn't.
Quote:
SIGNYV and the Russian military is superior to ours, even in the nuclear realm.
SIX: Links or it didn't happen.
First, let me point out that Russia isn't defeating Ukraine. It's defeating Ukraine AND NATO AND THE COLLECTIVE (POLITICAL) WEST.
NATO has turned itself inside out supplying Ukraine with weapons and ammo, and the west is hemorrhaging money into the (endless pockets that need lining) grift that is Ukraine.
Russia is outproducing the collective west in weapons and ammo by factor three. Their weapons development is being accelerated by the war in Ukraine, and their weapons systems are being honed by combat experience.
The Russian army currently has a 1.3 million active personnel, 1 million of which are trained combat ready soldiers. The USA, by comparison, 1.3 million active duty personnel- unkown how many of those are combat ready - about 50,000 stationed in Europe.
Russian missile technology has a broad array of conventionally armed
cruise and ballistic missiles that are
subsonic, supersonic, and hypersonic
air, land, and sea-launched
covering a variety of ranges, and
against a variety of targets including AIRCRAFT CARRIERS and deeply buried, hardened targets
There is not even a theoretical defense against some of these missile types.
Russia's air defenses are in-depth. In other words, their defense range from strategic to point-defenses. America has no equivalent system, hence Trump's call for an Iron Dome.
Russia has an unsung and very much under the radar (ahem!) missile-carrying submarine fleet.
A point about Russia's antiship missiles: America's power projection depends on a surface fleet of aircraft carrier groups. In a serious war between Russia and the USA, aircraft carriers would be vulnerable targets. Russia has chosen not to invest in them. (China, stupidly, has.)
Quote:Only if we used nuclear weapons. Our aircraft carriers are exceptionally vulnerable, and our missiles don't have long enough reach. We depend on friendly nations to base our planes, drones, and missiles overseas.
SIGNY: Iran could cause us huge heartburn, by cutting off the Straits of Hormuz, thru which most mideast oil flows. Afghani Taliban defeated us, drove us out. Even a group as small as the Houthis can be a problem, sitting on a strategic chokepoint.
SIX: That's because we had a bunch of idiots and bureaucrats running the show. Not to mention that a lot of them were Globalists and didn't have any allegiance to the nation or even the idea of America.
There is not a single country in the world we couldn't obliterate off the face of the globe today if we wanted to.
Quote:Nonetheless, we couldn't beat them.
SIX: I'm not saying that it wouldn't end up with us wiped off the globe at the same time, but when you're talking about this magnitude of sheer power, it almost hardly matters which country out of the Big 3 even have the strongest military anymore. That being said, none of the Big 3 have any interests in going to war with each other. At least for now, until the Oil really starts running out.
The Taliban are nothing more than little boys playing Cowboys and Indians. They are of no concern to us so long as we don't allow anymore of them into our country and we remove those already here.
Quote:
SIGNYV World has changed over the past 30 years. American's ideas of it haven't. That's dangerous.
Oh... I think they're changing pretty quickly right now.
I think
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Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:Quote:I doesn't need our technology and it doesn't need our dollars..(Its got almost a trillion of them in reserve), altho it may still want our markets so they can keep those factories humming and keep people busy and out of mischief.
SIX: There are not any nations more powerful than we are, although I'd be curious to hear what two you're referring to.
SIGNY: China's economy is the largest in the world
SIX: Not without us it isn't.
It can't survive without us. Not when it also needs to survive alongside of us. If they lived in a bubble where the US didn't exist, we'd be having a much different conversation.
Quote:Quote:
SIGNYV and the Russian military is superior to ours, even in the nuclear realm.
SIX: Links or it didn't happen.
First, let me point out that Russia isn't defeating Ukraine. It's defeating Ukraine AND NATO AND THE COLLECTIVE (POLITICAL) WEST.
No shit. I've never argued that. It was never a contest, even with our money.
So the fuck what? The US Military would destroy Russia's.
Nobody has seen a fraction of the might of the US military in nearly 80 years.
All you're doing is pointing out the bureaucracy and bullshit that keeps America from exerting more than 1% of its massive military might at any given time. Fuck NATO, and Fuck anyone else in the "collective political west" outside of America.
I'm going to leave it there because we're not going to agree on much of anything here and getting into an argument is not anything that comes with an ROI on the back end.
--------------------------------------------------
"I don't find this stuff amusing anymore." ~Paul Simon
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Quote:You keep thinking this but you haven't shown me WHY it can't survive without us. What do they need from us that's so existential that they can't get somewhere else? LINKS OR IT HASN'T HAPPENED.
SIX: There are not any nations more powerful than we are, although I'd be curious to hear what two you're referring to.
SIGNY: China's economy is the largest in the world
SIX: Not without us it isn't.
SIGNY: It doesn't need our technology and it doesn't need our dollars..(Its got almost a trillion of them in reserve), altho it may still want our markets so they can keep those factories humming and keep people busy and out of mischief.
SIX: It can't survive without us. Not when it also needs to survive alongside of us. If they lived in a bubble where the US didn't exist, we'd be having a much different conversation.
Quote:Where? In what battle?
SIGNY: and the Russian military is superior to ours, even in the nuclear realm.
SIX: Links or it didn't happen
SIGNY: First, let me point out that Russia isn't defeating Ukraine. It's defeating Ukraine AND NATO AND THE COLLECTIVE (POLITICAL) WEST.
SIX: No shit. I've never argued that. It was never a contest, even with our money.
So the fuck what? The US Military would destroy Russia's.,
In a committed war near Russia, Russia would have the logistics.
In a committed war distant from both Russia and USA, Russia would be at a disadvantage bc it doesn't have a surface fleet to convoy the men, materiel needed. OTOH it has missiles of tremendous range and accuracy. And as I recall, in GWB's war on Iraq, it took 6 months and a friendly onshore base to accumulate 500,000 personnel and weaponry, and a friendly island (Diego Garcia) to act as our unsinkable aircraft carrier. And that was without anybody trying to sink our ships en route.
So, pick a spot on the globe where this theoretical war takes place and let's war game this thing.
Quote:
SIX: Nobody has seen a fraction of the might of the US military in nearly 80 years.
Well, what have we seen? Javelins (defective and ineffective), TOW missiles, 155 mm artillery pieces and ammo (mostly used up), HIMARS, Abrams tanks, Strykers, ATACMS and other missiles, radar stations, air defense missiles including Patriot missiles, mines, helicopters https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_military_aid_to_Ukraine_during
_the_Russo-Ukrainian_War
Of all of those, the HIMARS, IFVs, APCs seem to have been the most useful.
Our production is tapped out.
We haven't seen American troops in action, and we haven't seen F35s, or much of F16s. We haven't seen nuclear weapons. I think we've seen everything else
Quote:
SIX All you're doing is pointing out the bureaucracy and bullshit that keeps America from exerting more than 1% of its massive military might at any given time. Fuck NATO, and Fuck anyone else in the "collective political west" outside of America.
SIX instead of blathering and waving your arms and blaming "them", be specific. What HAVEN'T we sent? What SHOULD WE have sent?
Quote:Well, you might LEARN SOMETHING. Or I might.
SIX: 'Im going to leave it there because we're not going to agree on much of anything here and getting into an argument is not anything that comes with an ROI on the back end.
-----------
"It may be dangerous to be America's enemy, but to be America's friend is fatal." - Henry Kissinger
AMERICANS SUPPORT AMERICA
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How Trump Lost His Trade War
By David Frum | February 5, 2025, 1:42 PM ET
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2025/02/trump-tariffs-mexico
-canada/681579/
Round one of Donald Trump’s trade war has come to an inglorious end. The United States has suspended its threats against Canada and Mexico in return for border-enforcement measures that Canada and Mexico either were doing anyway or had done before without making much difference in the flow of drugs. What can Americans and others learn from this costly episode—other than not to repeat it? The following:
1) American tariffs hurt Americans.
President Donald Trump has always insisted that tariffs are paid by foreigners, that they put free money into the U.S. Treasury. Trump’s week-long tariff war confirmed that nobody else in the U.S. government or in American business believes him. The National Association of Home Builders published a letter to the president predicting that his tariffs would raise the cost of housing construction. Automobile stocks slumped because investors expected Trump’s tariffs to add thousands of dollars to the cost of each new vehicle. The senior Republican in the Senate publicly pleaded for potash to be exempted from tariffs so as not to increase fertilizer prices for his farm constituents, belying Trump’s claim that the higher prices would be paid by the exporters.
2) Tariffs beget retaliatory tariffs.
When Trump paused tariffs on Canada and Mexico, those countries halted their retaliatory actions. But China is proceeding with a range of tariffs against U.S. exports, reserving more retaliation for later. Americans are already paying for previous rounds of Trump trade actions against China. In the first Trump presidency, China cut its purchases of U.S. soybeans by 75 percent over a single year in 2018. Brazil in 2018 overtook the United States as the world’s largest soybean producer. During the campaign of 2024, the vice-presidential candidate J. D. Vance lamented that the United States had become a net importer of food. He omitted to mention that a reason for this status was precisely the harm done to U.S. farm exports by Trump’s first-term tariffs.
3) There’s not much point in negotiating trade treaties with the United States.
Trump renegotiated NAFTA during his first term, replacing it with his USMCA deal. Now, in his second term, he has reneged on that. Trump’s version of NAFTA offered a range of legal ways to terminate the agreement; he did not use any of them. He did not even pretend that Canada or Mexico had somehow defaulted on their end of the bargain. He simply ignored the deal and proceeded with his tariffs under a series of contradictory excuses.
Days earlier, Trump had issued a flurry of threats against Colombia, which also has a trade agreement with the United States. Again, Trump ignored all the legalities of the treaty; again, he used trade as a weapon to resolve nontrade disagreements.
Mexico and Canada have oriented their economies to the U.S. under first NAFTA and then USMCA. That probably will not alter even after Trump’s episode of blackmail. But other countries, farther away, may wonder whether there’s any point in signing deals with such a bad-faith partner as the United States has become.
4) “Friend-shoring” is a fiction.
As relations have worsened between the United States and China, many in the U.S. government have looked to friend-shoring as a way to keep most of the benefits of free trade. The idea is to redirect U.S. purchasing power away from hostile China and toward more trustworthy partners. The assumption behind the term is that those partners will gladly trust the United States.
Trump, Vice President Vance, and their allies in Congress have threatened unilateral military action against Mexico; Trump himself indulges in speculation about the forced annexation of Greenland from NATO ally Denmark and about absorbing Canada as a 51st state.
Maybe that’s all just a lot of ugly talk. But the president has made clear that so-called friendship with the United States does n
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