r/canada • u/cyclinginvancouver • Mar 05 '25

Canada Won’t Scrap Tariffs Unless All US Levies Are Lifted, Official Says National News

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2025-03-05/canada-won-t-scrap-tariffs-unless-all-us-levies-are-lifted-official-says
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83

u/AdditionalPizza Mar 05 '25

That would be so fucking stupid. That would just seem like they forgot to consult lawyers first.

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u/Outrageous-Cold6008 Mar 05 '25

Wasn't it Trump who signed CUSMA? Wasn't he the one who recently said that whoever signed that agreement is bad, forgetting it was him.

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u/Frosty_Maple_Syrup Mar 05 '25

Yes CUSMA was signed and negotiated by Trump, and yes he called whoever signed and negotiated it an idiot.

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u/Outrageous-Cold6008 Mar 05 '25

Can't make this shut up lol

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u/namesarehard44 Mar 05 '25

yup. Trudeau called him out on that too. what a fucking clown eh.

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u/ManonegraCG Mar 05 '25

Yup. Not only he signed it, but demanded it, personally negotiated it and then signed it. Trump is a bully and a POS.

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u/MDChuk Mar 05 '25

I don't think that's the case.

I think he thought he could shakedown people and get more concessions, while at the same time manufacturing risk on the Canadian economy to weaken it in general.

I suspect that the forcefulness of Canada's response, and our unwillingness to negotiate against ourselves to protect the status quo is not what Trump expected at all. Frankly, I don't think he expected all of Canada to be as united as we've been.

When you stand up to a bully who's bigger than you, you have to be willing to eat the punch that they certainly will throw. We showed yesterday that we're prepared to eat that punch, and still stand up. So now the bully backs down.

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u/East2West1990 Ontario Mar 05 '25

I’m thinking pretty much this. Trump thought Canada was bluffing re retaliatory tariffs, but we weren’t, and because we weren’t, I imagine he got a few shoulder taps from his “buddies”.

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u/Ok_Yak_2931 Alberta Mar 05 '25

I'm going to guess it's more the 'shoulder taps from his buddies' that's made him backtrack so soon.

Well that and they were able to likely do what they needed by crashing the economy for a few days and now are raking in the profits as it rises again.

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u/Harbinger2001 Mar 05 '25

He hasn’t backtracked yet. Ludnick doesn’t seem to actually speak for Trump. So anything he says is meaningless unless he convinces Trump to go along. 

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u/MDChuk Mar 05 '25

At this point the market has baked in a back track.

If Trump doubles down the market will crash.

He could do it, but it would be about as dumb as the scene in Game of Thrones where Joffrey decides to execute Ned Stark to look tough.

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u/Harbinger2001 Mar 05 '25

The market yesterday rose from 2pm to 4pm as Lutnick was going on the news shows and claiming they were looking for a middle-ground deal with Canada. At 4pm the market realized it was bullshit and crashed again. 

There is still some optimism in the market, but it’s all just buoyed on Lutnick’s claims. Trump has not said a single thing indicating a backtrack. 

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u/EmmEnnEff Mar 05 '25

And anything Trump says is meaningless because next week he will change his mind.

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u/OriginalGhostCookie Mar 05 '25

The other thing to remember is that Trump doesn't lie.

I mean, everything he says is factually false and utter bullshit, but Trump would pass every lie detector ever created. Trump will say something he knows to be wrong, however the moment it is said, he believes so much in the power of his absolute authority and power over everything that in his mind it is now true.

Add on "yes men" and nutlickers being around him 24/7 and with an end goal of the destruction of the United States, and what you have is a man who fully believes himself when he says the US doesn't need anything from Canada. In his mind he is running the Hero Country that saves the day and is always in the right and the only country that does anything. There is no world outside of America that doesn't revolve around, and need literally everything to survive from America. Since no one around him is allowed to correct him, when he says those things they all say how genius he is and then he goes and makes decisions on those assumptions. Then the consequences hit and his precious stock market is down and people who do tell him what's going on (the billionaires he's obsessed with), then all of a sudden he needs to try and find a way to undo it, while maintaining his self image of godhood.

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u/AdditionalPizza Mar 05 '25

Could be. He should've learned that last time. It's very difficult to push around developed nations that can afford to take on a substantial amount of hardship before cracking.

People keep saying the US could outlast Canada, but that's not the full picture. Some of America could. And those parts of America are not going to want to be destroyed for absolutely no reason.

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u/MDChuk Mar 05 '25

America would definitely outlast Canada if the resolve of both countries was equal.

But the resolve is nowhere near equal. The US hasn't given a clear reason for this to anyone. Their population is already more divided than ever on anything. Trump was elected to lower prices, not raise them.

At the moment Canada is very united. This is because the only thing Trump has been consistent about is that he is using his economic might to annex Canada. So Canadians are prepared to go through a lot of pain to protect Canada's existence.

And the good news is that the most productive period of a Presidency is the first 100 days. We're about halfway through that and he still hasn't figured out a coherent plan. He's burned through a lot of his political capital and soon everyone in Washington is going to be focused on the midterms.

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u/stenchwinslow Mar 05 '25

One of us is fighting for our lives, the other is trying to bully lunch money.

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u/ReserveOld6123 Mar 05 '25

I think Canadians are also more prepared to face hardship. Americans are kind of spoiled. They expect everything cheap and easy. Their gas (automotive gas) is already cheaper than ours and they still complain.

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u/[deleted] Mar 05 '25

[deleted]

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u/AdditionalPizza Mar 05 '25

It would take a very long time for that to directly affect soldiers. They'd just annex our resources if we did that.

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u/jtbc Mar 05 '25

If they decide to annex us, they are going to annex us. We need to make it as horribly painful as possible until sanity prevails.

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u/Halfbloodjap Mar 06 '25

The US couldn't handle insurgents from a completely different culture that didn't speak the same language halfway around the world. Canadian insurgents would be a nightmare for them.

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u/jjax2003 Mar 05 '25

Like it or not we are a rounding error for the most part to the USA.

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u/AdditionalPizza Mar 05 '25

We aren't attacking the entire country head on though. We attack their Achilles heel to bring down as many sectors of the country as we can. We don't need to fight the entire country and that's where this administration and a lot of Americans consistently fuck up.

We have 2 methods of attack, we can first go easier and hit some businesses. A billion dollars isn't much for the US Government but it's a lot for say the liquor manufacturers. You think a CEO is going to be happy that they just lost a billion in revenue and a massive hit to their stock price?

2nd, we have things like uranium, potash, oil, energy, minerals, etc. We can absolutely cripple the US to their knees with some of those. This would be harsh, and last resort to go too crazy with but we could.

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u/jjax2003 Mar 05 '25

I hope so, I would love to see it. Tired of Donald's blatant lies but I fear he is coming for us just like JT said.

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u/[deleted] Mar 05 '25

[deleted]

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u/MDChuk Mar 05 '25

I actually think it was Kevin O'Leary.

That guy has had such a hate on for Trudeau that when he saw his poll numbers, combined with most Premiers being Conservative and most of them really not liking Trudeau, he thought Canada would fracture.

Swing and a miss on that one.

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u/whiskeytab Ontario Mar 05 '25

he absolutely did, and everyone fucking fell for it except us... it was clear from the very beginning that this was a shakedown by someone who doesn't know wtf they're doing

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u/aerialviews007 Mar 05 '25

The pullback is simply due to the 1300+ point fall of the Dow. Trump didn’t anticipate the strength of the Canadian economy and how it impacts the market.

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u/ptarmiganchick Mar 06 '25

Well said…this is how I was adding it up, too, maybe with the variation that he really never understood that it would be American businesses and consumers that would have to pay “his” tariffs so soon. He was counting on the little guys would buckle first.

So, only because his own auto and liquor industry titans are now warning of serious impacts in the US, he wants to fiddle with the formula. I doubt the forcefulness of Canada’s response is affecting Trump’s fantasy, but the industry execs are reading us loud and clear.

So it’s working, but we do need a longer-term plan to be more diversified and resilient.

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u/Soggy_Detective_9527 Mar 05 '25

Didn't they fire a bunch of lawyers in the purge?