I find it tragically hilarious how the leader of the most powerful country in the world sees tarriffs and fails to understand the interconnectedness of economies that benefit both. When someone thinks of the world as a zero-sum game it's pretty clear.
And as a Canadian whose country been the target of a certain leader's 51st state jibes, I find it pretty hard to sympathize with the pain that Americans are going through and how bad inflation is going to get.
I suspect we'll end up seeing the Trump era as a good thing for the rest of the world -- a stable America tends to suck up all the oxygen in the room and the current daily whiplash makes the rest of us just prefer to trade with each other.
While the US still holds a fair bit of monetary power worldwide, we're basically seeing them spend soft power at a ridiculous rate.
Meanwhile, we're refocusing our economy to make it less US-centric, finding new markets for our resources and watching America self-immolate.
I was discussing today with a relative how Cuba's Fidel Castro framed the public opinion in the country in such a way the nation is currently... having a very hard time. Even after Fidel Castro's dead. Worse, Hugo Chavez imported the same set of morose ideas, and a decade later, with both idiots dead, the two countries are competing to see which one has longer blackouts. Never underestimate people's capacity to listen to popular figures and embrace damaging cabals.
Strange but conventional perspective. I would say to never underestimate the long-term sadism of the US when dealing with small countries who insist on abolishing slavery or owning their own natural resources, or the ability of the people who benefit from that sadism to blame the victims of it.
There is something to what you say; like, Marcos Rubio has probably benefited from that sadism. Materially though, I think the Americans are worse off for it.
With that said, the average Cuban is so down that they don't get a chance of being a victim of USA's long-term sadism (though many, many, have benefited from USA's long term generosity. Florida is full of them). Being affected by USA's sanctions require sufficient standing to, well, try to import something from USA or access its financial markets in some way.
Yes, USA's legislation forbids the Cuban government and its citizens from doing business with American entities, and that includes accessing financial instruments. But all Cuban citizens are forbidden by their own government from commercially importing goods and services from any part of the world. Goods for private consumption are under a 100% tariff, except for food, which is under a temporary exception due to famine[^2]. That exemption is re-examined every three months, with government officials showing up on TV and bemoaning the missed tariff income.
Foreign investment is heavily regulated, and only allowed for big industries that the government considers strategical. The business regulation forbids citizens from participating in or forming stock corporations. There is no legal notion of corporate veil.
The Cuban banking system is wholly-government controlled[^1], and it only allows privates and businesses to give foreign currency to the government at a rate set by the government, with no exchange in the other direction. But the Cuban government decided to stop printing its national currency to force everybody to use its digital ledgers, so that they can levy revenue taxes directly (yes, "revenue", not "profit"). It makes sense in some sort of Machiavellian way. Problem is, the power infrastructure has collapsed and nothing digital is currently working. There is still a stiff tariff and insurmountable paperwork on importing solar power infrastructure--which is only allowed for private residences. If you do manage, you are required to connect that infrastructure to the public network but it's impossible to do due to bureaucracy and red-tape, and you are not to be paid by the power delivered into said network. Solar farms which do not belong to the government are not allowed.
I could keep going for a few more pages. Yes, there is USA long-term sadism towards some small nations, I've been affected by it and it's not exactly kosher. But it's a drop in the bucket compared with what those small nations do to their own citizens.
[^1] But there are some interesting corruption twists in that story which I don't have time to go on.
[^2] Famine in a country with great weather and good soils, because the government forbids farmer from selling their produce at market prices and from importing machinery and miscellaneous equipment, fertilizers and seeds.
We're not really spending soft power as much as flushing it down the shitter. I won't be mad at all if Canada wants their own nuclear weapons now. Good fences and all that
Trump's tariffs against China are at least aligned with both his, and long-term America stated strategy and goals. America has tried the free trade trick with China to try to compel it to towards political liberalization - it didn't work. Remember that Trump's tariffs on China from his first term were not cancelled by Biden - infact Biden added to the tariffs, in addition to enacting export restrictions. Both Bush Jr and Obama enacted limited tariffs on Chinese products.
If you look at trade action against China, you can see the contours of a strategy that could maybe actually work. Obviously, tariffs cannot be the only component of such a strategy, since the disparity between Chinese and American manufacturing capability in many fields is absolutely gigantic. It took decades for China to reach their current position, there's no reason to expect that America, or the west as a whole could expect to catch up in anything less than roughly a decade scale, especially with only unpredictable tariffs.
Trumps tariff plans against the rest of North America and the EU however... those fly in the very face of attempting to seriously take on China. USMCA is up for renewal in 2026. Whatever legitimate issues Trump had with Canada and Mexico, and whatever strong arm position he wanted to take, he could have messaged as a part of a prelude to the renewal. This probably would result in better outcomes for the US.
The US is finding that many of their critical supply chains (including defense supply chains) are passing through China. Tariffs alone are not sufficient to disentangle these elements, and the domestic messaging from Trump simply does not create the domestic conditions for sustaining both the tariffs and whatever other policies and aid are required to enact these structural changes. It's difficult to reconcile "lower inflation", "slash the budget and deficit", "tax cuts for the rich", "tariffs", and "reindustrialize America" all at once.
Randomly picking the Toyota EV battery plant that's supposed to come online this year in North Carolina - site selection was announced back in 2021. In many of these critical areas, we're talking multi-year minimal lead times to bring new capacity online.
How the current US administration is treating European and North American countries makes me wonder if they are serious about taking on China.
As a Brit, I've been surprised by how much my view has shifted in the last few weeks. I used to assume we'd be allies with the US and have a probably competitive and maybe adversarial relationship with China. Now I see the US administration basically saying "we're going to make you pay through the nose for everything" (e.g. taking Ukrainian minerals). So I've started thinking "Well, if the US and China will both behave like that, surely we're best off playing them against each other and seeing who'll offer us more?"
That seems like a very bad deal for the US. So I figure that (a) the administration isn't serious about taking on China, or (b) assumes European and North American countries will roll over, or (c) they think they can go it alone.
Yeah as much as I'm very much unhappy with the consequences of this to me directly, I imagine this admin is going to be really important abroad, for the EU in particular, for identifying unnecessary vulnerabilities and dependencies on US infrastructure.
I previously worked in a five-eyes facing role and it's pretty terrifying when one staunch ally loses its mind. So much procedure and process is based on reliability.
> And as a Canadian whose country been the target of a certain leader's 51st state jibes, I find it pretty hard to sympathize with the pain that Americans are going through and how bad inflation is going to get.
Less than half of Americans that voted voted for Trump, and while there are definitely some people happy about what he is doing, there are also many who voted for him that aren't. I'd also like to point out that Trump didn't say anything about annexing Canada until after he had won the election.
And because turn-out was only 63.9%, only %31.8 of the voting-eligible population voted for him. More of the voting-eligible population didn't vote at all than voted for him.
And as a Canadian whose country been the target of a certain leader's 51st state jibes, I find it pretty hard to sympathize with the pain that Americans are going through and how bad inflation is going to get.
I suspect we'll end up seeing the Trump era as a good thing for the rest of the world -- a stable America tends to suck up all the oxygen in the room and the current daily whiplash makes the rest of us just prefer to trade with each other.
While the US still holds a fair bit of monetary power worldwide, we're basically seeing them spend soft power at a ridiculous rate.
Meanwhile, we're refocusing our economy to make it less US-centric, finding new markets for our resources and watching America self-immolate.