And here I thought Canada wasn't one of Trump's "shithole countries".

If anything, it makes us the shitty neighbor.

https://www.macleans.ca/opinion/trade-sanctions-against-amer...

"the President can be successfully engaged, and countries like Ukraine, China, and Qatar have demonstrated this. When they want something from the United States, they skip the State Department, and even the White House staff. Instead of approaching their problem state-to-state, they go state-to-man. These countries focus on what Trump wants on a personal level – to enrich his family. So Beijing granted Ivanka trademarks, Qatar invested in one of Jared’s office towers, and Ukraine, with Slavic candor, simply wired half a million dollars to the President’s personal lawyer Michael Cohen."

Is America Great Again yet? A chicken in every pot and a car in every garage?

Don't worry about steel, we'll open the steel mills up again. We have to build plenty of new aircraft carriers so we'll need a lot of steel. And they'll have steam catapults, none of this newfangled computer nonsense. And the wall. The wall will be steel, too, of course, so when the Mexicans try to climb up it they'll just slide right back down. In fact, we'll need two walls now, one for the Canadians, too.

Sigh.

I wonder if this one will fondle Angela Merkel too?

Oh, and we can put solar panels on the wall, which will help pay for the wall with the power generated, even though the Mexicans are paying for the wall via increased tariffs on Mexican goods, forcing American consumers to pay more.

As it turns out, the surface area for attack is much greater.

Though this is a carrot instead of a stick.

Could also use tariffs to try and hit the states that voted for Trump the hardest.

These tariffs were targeted at congressional leaders:

" "The idea is, you look at a map of the congressional districts of the United States, you look at which members of Congress are in leadership positions and then you look at the big industries in those districts and then you draw up your list accordingly," she said. "And this list was clearly drawn up with this in mind." (http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/steel-tariff-maple-syrup-toi...)

It's almost like indirect election influencing vs direct election influencing (Russia in 2016). Somehow one is bad, but the other isn't.

Foreign governments do lobby our government, and register for the privilege. This is not the same as Trump Jr conspiring with Russians in Trump tower.

"The European Union will hit back at the heart of the United States, slapping tariffs on products like Harley-Davidsons, Kentucky bourbon and bluejeans, if President Trump goes ahead with a plan to place tariffs on steel and aluminum imports, the president of the bloc’s executive arm vowed on Friday."

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/02/business/europe-steel-tar...

https://www.fin.gc.ca/activty/consult/cacsap-cmpcaa-eng.asp

From the Maclean's article in the top comment.

Qatar did not invest in Kushener's office tower.

And, a payment to Cohen by Ukrsine has been denied. (And, in any case, would be perfectly legal so long as the appropriate lobbying paperwork was filled out.)

http://fortune.com/2018/05/09/michael-cohen-corporate-relati...

From this article: https://www.macleans.ca/opinion/trade-sanctions-against-amer...

Also China's loan for Trumps indonesian project and the rumoured Russian financing/laundering and Trumps positive behaviour toward Russia/Putin.

While possibly coincidence, there certainly seems correlation between countries that are treated favourable and helping Trump family business interests.

People suffer->People elect a person with an ability to corrupt social discourse and/or the legislative body -> Time passes -> System breaks down.

The undermining and corruption can be subtle at first and likely takes time, but it spreads eventually to every corner. Trade suffering is just a symptom of a bigger problem: A lack of healthier political discourse.

Take India for example, where strong men and goons in the 20th century figured why just play second fiddle to politicians, lets become them. Today roughly 2/3rd or more members of the upper and lower houses of Parliament have criminal cases against them. It is somewhat democratic(ish) and free market(ishhh).

If people don't make the hard choices who will? If they don't care about the system of checks and balance in the name of "fairness" and no more "PC" who will? A lot of this has to do with education and a understanding of why the system of checks and balances is worth fighting for.

Addendum to what Ben Franklin said, "Those who give up their voices to forgo democratic norms over short term gains, might just end up loosing all those things (voices, democracy and gains)"

IIRC haiti allowed tariff free dairy and now pretty much don't have that industry anymore.

Tariffs on general goods like steel, food, or oil just increase costs for the whole population.

So when you ask if they result in "better economic or social outcome", you have to be careful to think about "for who?".

Let say you are a large developing country and you want to bootstrap a domestic car industry. The first cars coming out will probably not be that great as you don't have the engineering knowledge or the experience building cars yet.

Cars built by foreign companies are definitively better, and maybe cheaper to buy and/or to operate.

If you do nothing, this new car industry would die quite soon.

So you impose tariffs on foreign cars, that way your domestic production is protected, and you are able to make it grow and make it better. However be careful to not protect it too much, otherwise it will keep producing crappy cars looking like Trabant. With time you decrease the protection progressively.

Another less abstract example is food, for instance, rice production and tariffs in Haiti:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rice_production_in_Haiti

You're saying that that is more than compensated for by the later emergence of a competitive car industry, and the various wealth effects it spreads across the nation over many following decades.

I just don't think there is empirical support for that. I'm sure you can cherry pick examples in hindsight, but if you do an honest accounting of these attempts, including those that failed I don't think it looks good.

Except for the favored industry of course, who makes a nice living during the protected era.

More seriously, I will be pretty surprised if this particular stupidity escalates to any kind of military action.

Edit: I'd be grateful for an explanation for why this might be getting downvoted.

However, I highly doubt any of Trump's tariff's are strategically smart.

America is like 50 countries with open border & free trade policy between them. Can you imagine what would happen if states decided to impose tariffs on each other?

Many more depend on dairy.

Canada also imports more than four times the dairy than it exports: http://www.cdc-ccl.gc.ca/CDC/index-eng.php?id=3803 (poutine 2-3 times per day adds up I guess).

Trump’s only direct authority for imposing steel tariffs is a narrow national security clause which is absurd and insulting to use against Canada and demonstrates that America can’t be trusted.

Even if a future president tries to rebuild international relationships I would be hesitant to waste years of effort working out any international agreement with America when the next TV populist president can easily tear it up. Unfortunately it takes a lot more effort to build things than tear them down.

I think it will take many, many years to rebuild the positive reputation that the US had among it's allies. At least from the people I've interacted with there is a universal hate for Trump at a level that I have never seen before, across a wide cross section of society. The man is reprehensible.

It takes a while to get over that, and he will forever be there. Also if he is the new normal then God help us all.

(Increasing taxes on something is a partial ban).

https://www.customs.gov.sg/businesses/valuation-duties-taxes...

The 20% on cars isn't to protect the (non-existent) car manufacturing industry of Singapore, but to reduce demand for cars.

When 2 nations are each protective, it's bad for both.

If they are both open, it's generally good for both.

But - if one protects in a sneaky way, and the other is open - the it's amazing for the protectionist country.

So nations strive to be 'open' but then to sneak in stuff, or rather, sometimes they are open, but really are not.

It's impossible for American companies to sell into Japan for many reasons, arguably quality, but the way Japanese business syndicates work, they'll keep America out, irrespective of what the government says.

This was a huge thing in the 1980's and is the 'memory' that gripes Trump.

As for China - we don't have open trade with them.

America is considerably more open than China.

+ China has massive state-owned agencies, the subsidized markets

+ They have a 100% politically controlled currency

+ They have political capital controls

+ They require foreign entities to hand over key IP

+ They have any number of barriers (some on purpose, some not so much) to foreign participation.

+ China does not pursue those breaking IP rules.

China has had these advantages for some time, it's just that when they were poor, nobody really cared, but as they get powerful, it becomes an issue.

So the only choice is to play 'hardball' with such nations - because these nations won't react to anything else, and they'll only react to threats that are credible.

As for Europe, it's a different bag, but America has some decent beefs with Germany in particular.

As for NAFTA - that's a tough one. I don't think America has such a huge advantage, but wages are weaker in Cana/Mex which gives big opportunities in some ways ... but it also keeps Can/Mex standard of living lower in many ways. So the NAFTA gripe is more difficult to understand.

Put another way - the US has been having a 'trade war' with China for 30 years, it just wasn't ever a big deal.

And there are some issues (cars) that America has a reasonable beef with on Germany, for example.

I think Trump is a douche but he's not 'all wrong' on these things.

I'm curious what ways you would argue Canada has a significantly lower standard of living.

I'm Canadian.

Our GDP/cap is usually lower.

I work in tech, my salary is less than 1/2 what it would be in the US (not just Silicon Valley).

Most goods are more expensive here.

We do have Universal Health care, and generally good schools and Unis, it's generally safer, cops are more low key etc. etc.

It's hard to compare societies, and I think the US could learn a lot from our system, but in most 'individual metrics' Canada is just poorer, economically. (Though I'd hate to be poor in the US.) There's just so, so much more economic activity and points of prosperity in the US sometimes I find it mind-boggling, again, it's a lot of Apples to Oranges admittedly.

Yes, but I'd argue that SV income might look higher, but after you try living there you'd gladly go back to Canadian expenses if the compromise was that you also had to take your Canadian income once again. Also, income inequality in Canada isn't as bad as the US (yet...)

Is it just bay area zealots on both sides embracing the meme that "IT'S SO EXPENSIVE".

We get it. we know. We don't look at SF and go "oh wow, 10 k more a year" while paying 2000 a month more in rent. We look at it and go "oh wow, 110k more a year, even with the rents thats a lot of money".

Also, isn't the median household income higher in Canada than the US?

honestly, the thing that made me question was lumping Canada in with Mexico. Not shitting on Mexico, but the standard of living there is clearly lower.

There is no direct link between the executive/legislative and the Fed.

The Fed does what's roughly best for American economy, which disproportionately favours those with assets, banks etc. - but they are fairly independent in normal times.

In times of crises, you could start to point to some things like all those homes right now sitting on the Fed balance sheet, surely. But regular operations are not politically controlled.

But in China, the currency is literally worth whatever the government wants it to be at any time. They can literally press a button and 'poof'.

Because of the amazing control and power of the Chinese government, the RMB might be the most tightly politically controlled currency in all of history: at least all of the fiat money that failed in the past ... leaders had to water it down or print money behind the scenes over time.

Not to say that's entirely bad - one could make the claim that 'it's better for China' to have this, there'd be some good points there. But in terms of 'free trade' it's not good.

In any event, the US does not have open trade with China really, so there's constant trade tensions, there probably always will be.

I don't thin anything I'm saying is controversial or new, it just might be new data for the folks here on HN who I find are generally more tech than finance oriented.

The trick is to keep it a quality discussion, rather than letting it degenerate into a flame war. That's not easy. But if it can't happen here, where can it? (And if the answer is "nowhere", well, I'm not sure that the answer is wrong, but that's one of the most cynical statements possible about the current state of politics.)

Besides: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Also the authority he invokes is specifically for national security so increasing jobs or any other non national security reason shouldn’t even be a factor. His comments that it’s a negotiating tactic also prove there’s no actual national security rationale.

“...the Trump administration promised its voters more big action on trade. Further WTO challenges could take years, so to make policy more quickly, Trump invoked section 232 of the Trade Expansion Act of 1962, which grants the US the ability to impose trade restrictions in the name of national security.”

https://www.google.com/amp/s/qz.com/1221853/donald-trumps-ta...

Which is why it's so confusing that Trump didn't just slap anti-dumping duties on China, which quite frankly everyone agrees with. The best guess is that Trump thought that he could use the steel tariffs as an easy way to wring concessions out of trade partners... and declaring the tariffs a matter of national security is the one way he can do that without having to get Congress's approval (as even many Republicans in Congress are horrified by this).

It will be work to get back what we can of what we've lost.

"The 2018 Presidents & Executive Politics Presidential Greatness Survey was conducted online via Qualtrics from December 22, 2017 to January 16, 2018. Respondents were current and recent members of the Presidents & Executive Politics Section of the American Political Science Association, which is the foremost organization of social science experts in presidential politics. 320 respondents were invited to participate, and 170 usable responses were received, yielding a 53.1% response rate"

It's impossible to prove anything. But these people are scholars in the field, it's non-partisan, the survey methodology is transparent, the results are fairly consistent across partisan self-identification, and they are fairly consistent over time (2014 poll of same org, 2010 Siena College survey, et al). It's significant.

Trump is not a good president, don't get me wrong, but that's just not good science.

And the self-identified conservatives rated him in the bottom five, too.

Yes, they were transparent. You, on the other hand, implied equal numbers.

Nobody likes Trump. There's no need to inflate how bad he is - it's very apparent.

When you say this: "Donald Trump is objectively (ranked by presidential historians of all political parties) as the worst president in the 242 year history of the US."

That usually means that presidential historians of all parties ranked him worst, or at least that a poll controlling for party/political leaning as a variable concluded that he was worst. Neither was the case here.

Make it about Trump, not America.

There's a chance Trump will lose all his power within a few months anyway if the republicans do very badly in the midterm elections.

How can our allies, that Trump is hurting for political gain, abide by that?