Read this carefully. It is evidence of Canada's long-term economic subservience to the US in a couple of major areas: automobiles and the fuel they run on. You come to a province like Alberta and you can see every effort being made to force citizens to drive vehicles and burn fuel. Sidewalks are disappearing, city transit is getting worse and long distance buses are practically things of the past. You wanna go somewhere? Drive a whole vehicle by yourself. Make it an SUV or a full sized truck. Why not a Hummer or a van or, what the hell, just go all the way and finish the cycle of absurdity, why not just drive your own fucking bus? Oh Canada! Shit yeah!
For as long as I can remember we've been exporting 99% of our crude oil to the US. That's mostly in the form of bitumen from the oilsands in Alberta. In October of 2024 (and for hundreds of months before that I'm pretty sure) it topped the list of exports from Canada to the US at $10.9 billion. What is next on the list? Sounds like the same thing but it's not. It's petroleum gas which is compressed petroleum or (in Canada's case) natural gas. $3.52 billion. So to simplify that's almost 11 billion in tar sands bitumen and 3 1/2 bil in natural gas.
Next, oddly enough is cars $3.35 billion worth. Then even oddlier REFINED petroleum cuz, YES, Canada has finally done the obvious and started building its own oil refineries I guess. $1.84 billion. And finally car parts. $1.3 bil.
Now, what is it that we are so hooked on importing from the US that we would be willing to suffer 25% tariffs that are being proposed by His Florida Orangeness? Cars $1.61 billion, refined petroleum $1.43 billion, car parts $1.41 billion, delivery trucks $1.34 billion, and crude petroleum $ 1.15 billion.
This is just one month. I don't think all months are the same so this is going to be simplistic economics but bear with me cuz it serves a purpose. Let's start with cars. Canada gave the US $1.74 billion more in cars than they gave us. So we can eliminate that trade and import more Hyundais or Kias or Ladas or Tatas or cars from any other nation. The cars built here are American Chevy, Chrysler, Dodge, Ford, GM, and Lincoln, Japanese Honda and Toyota or Lexuses anyway. Lexii? We're good for cars without the States.
We give them .41 billion more in refined petroleum than they give us so fuck 'em, we'll keep all that in Canada which we should have been doing a long time ago anyway.
We can surely live without the .11 billion more in car parts that we import from US than we export.
Anywhere in Europe where Gazprom is holding the monopoly on natural gaz I am sure we could wheel and deal for 3.5 billion bucks a year. That would ease the Gazprom (Putin) foot on the neck of European fossil fuel control somewhat.
What does that leave us with? The massive $9.75 billion dollar difference in favour of the US in crude oil being shuffled back and forth. What have I been saying for DECADES? We need to build more refineries and refine it ourselves for our own use instead of sending it to the US and China!
However, this is all just to illustrate that we don't NEED the trade we have with the US in our top 5 products. Forget about delivery trucks, we use them to deliver shit to the US anyway. We could get by without them in the top 5, who's to say we need them in the rest of our trade? I mean it seems odd that we trade the same stuff back and forth doesn't it? Maybe "odd" isn't the right word. Maybe "fishy" is a better word or "fraudulent" or downright "diabolical."
So when the His Impending Doomishness proposes 25% tariffs on ANY trade commodities, given the increasing diversity of the global economy it would seem blatantly obvious what the prudent response would be from Canada, wouldn't it? Just say, "Okay, we'll shop elsewhere for that. Smell ya later." RIGHT?
Well, wrong. Because when you have been engaged in the longest international screwing of the consumer partnership in the world, you don't do the obvious... it would be too obvious. Sure enough turn on the news in any Canadian household and you will see Canadian politician Doug the Macho Man Ford, not to say Macho Camacho from Idiocracy, doing his best pre-bout trash talking wearing a "Canada is Not For Sale" cap in lieu of wrestling tights and threatening retaliatory tariffs.
If you haven't read my (and some Nobel Prize-winning economist's) explanation about how tariffs work, see my blog entry entitled "WTF." No company pays tariffs. Some companies who don't want to pay tariffs attached to goods commit customs fraud. For instance if I want to import 1000 Chinese made TV's I could stamp "made in Mexico" on them and have them re-routed through Mexico so the customs agent can match the manifest with the goods. (or just skip all that and bribe the customs agent) What a GREAT time to be a customs agent the next 4 years could be!!! I think I'll apply tomorrow!
But most companies do the easy thing and for some reason the LEGAL thing and just jack up the prices. And I don't need to say it again but I will: nobody but NOBODY jacks up the price just enough to cover the tax or tariff or whatever, they jack it up that much and then a little more. So let's give these sheisters more credit than they deserve and say the Canadian consumer will inherit 110% of the 25% tariffs Trump is imposing on imported American goods. This COULD hurt the company. It COULD. But only if the customer stops buying after the price hike. And we are good little consumers in Canada. We won't. We'll just bitch a bit louder about inflation, take our Soma, and go on consuming making the companies even richer.
The tariff money goes to the American government which, no doubt, they will use to help out the citizens of America who voted them in.
No that money will go to the rich in the form of tax breaks or whatever and many of the owners of the companies by which the tariffed material is produced will actually benefit from the tariffs on their own goods! And it will go exactly in reverse for Canadian government and corporations. They'll put retaliatory tariffs on Canadian goods that will make them more expensive for the consumer and make all the rich richer in America too.
But they can't act like it. They have to convince the Canadian and American people that they are outraged at the damage tariffs will do to what they laughingly call "the economy." Every industry could be making record profits and they'll still be crying the blues about the ailing economy. In reality it's the best example I've ever seen of Jonathan Swiftian war politics to date. We might just as well be arguing over whether to crack our boiled eggs at the big end vs. the little end or whether to wear Slamecksanian low heels or Tramecksanian high heels. This shit has been going on since the 17th century folks and I'm pretty sure Jonathan Swift didn't make it up.
Watch the play acting on the news. I can't cuz it drives me to drink. But observe how they feign outrage and how they borrow gestures and phraseology from professional wrestlers. When the shit hits the fan these people who are playing with lives like Risk tokens will have destroyed and even ended many but they'll have their ill-gotten gains to comfort them.
I thought maybe there might be a chance the government, business and banks of Canada would be smart enough not to fall for such a simplistic ploy offered up by such a simpering simpleton but this has made it crystal clear once and for all how deeply committed Canada is to enriching the few at the expense of the vast majority. The worst of it is how this betrayal, this outright treason will be supported by many. Indeed, this will probably increase Canadian pride. It already fucking HAS!
In this war of tariffs I can foresee no upside for any but the rich. They are certainly not doing something I would call "winning" the war or something that is in any way beneficial for either country. War is always like that. My favourite quote about that is from Bertrand Russell: "War does not determine who is right, only who is left."
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