KRUGGEL: Trump Provokes Trade War

CTV News has the wrong headline.

This isn't the U.S. provoking a trade war.

This is Donald Trump and MAGA provoking a trade war.

What I think about seeing that headline isn't that Trump and MAGA did this, but that so many Canadians truly never thought he'd go through with it. The number of people that told me it would never actually happen became so large I stopped counting.

Now here we are.

How long will it last? How devastating will this be?

No one can give anyone else a good answer on that. I sure can't. This could come to an abrupt end in a few weeks or it could go on for years.

Truly only the Americans can end this. Either Donald Trump ends this or he is removed from power and whoever takes over ends this. Certainly, negotiation can end this but that requires the Americans to follow through.

No one is coming to our rescue either.

Our European allies are mostly silent with a few former leaders saying the Trump is acting irrationally. Sitting governments are keeping their heads down to avoid provoking his ire. What they seemed to have forgotten is that he has already targeted them for reciprocal tariffs, and new tariffs on steel, copper, and aluminum.

They're next.

 

China has already mobilized its own tariff response. Mexico has been oddly silent on specifics. I expected more from them, but their economic position is even worse than ours. 

 

What really occupies space at the front of my conscious is that here in Canada we saw Trump leave office in disgrace in 2021. People thought, that that, was that. That was a missed opportunity. We should have rallied as a nation back then under the realization that Trump or someone like him could come back. We should have worked to ween ourselves off the reliance of the American market. 

 

Instead we sat on our collective hands and talked about how we needed more social programs. Look, I am not against social programs. I just think we have to look at the big picture in terms of national economic survival and in particular the long term. We didn't do that. Now we're going to pay an enormous price.

 

Canadians just seem to think things will always work out in the end.

 

Clearly that is not the case. Things don't just work out. 

 

To say we squandered the last four years is not an understatement. It is a statement of historical fact. 

 

Yes, we had the Pandemic, but that again, is us using an excuse for not doing what needed to be done. 

 

We've had inter-provincial trade barriers for generations. We have been talking about getting rid of them for half a century with zero progress by the provinces. We couldn't even muster up that small step in progress.

 

That is Canadians just not thinking long term. Now we're in a trade war that is going to devastate our economy in the short, medium, and likely long term.  

Over the next month unemployment is going to surge unless these tariffs get resolved. The odds of that is close to zero

 

Government revenues are going to drop significantly meaning the deficit is going to skyrocket. This won't just be Federal. This will be provincial and your local city hall. The pain is going to be felt everywhere and it will make the Pandemic recession and the "Great Recession" look mild. 

 

I'll close with this. 

 

Donald Trump is going to do his best to break us.

 

When he finally realizes he can't, he's going to try to annex us by force.