We should change the law on presidential tariffs. Limit the number of countries that the president can tariff at a time without congressional approval, and prohibit him outright from tariffing treaty allies without congressional approval.
I completely agree that, once elected, a democratic politician should absolutely unilaterally undo Trump's attempt to bully our allies. But saying that's what you are going to do seems like a mistake from an electoral standpoint.
The democrats essentially already have the pro-internationalist/pro-trade issue sown up. I can't imagine anyone thinking: well, I don't like Trump style bullying but since the democratic canidate didn't promise to unilaterally stand down I'm going to vote for Vance (or whoever). OTOH it absolutely does seem plausible that certain segments of the population would see a promise to unilaterally stand down as selling out the country or being a wimp.
If you're brand is being a straight shooter who tells it like it is then maybe you should say it anyway but if you're Gavin Newsom who exudes political opportunism not making the promise is probably the best strategy.
I wish MY expanded on the merits of each of the US’ demands in this trade war.
Threatening (even “jokingly”) about Canada being the 51st state is unconscionable and should be interpreted as a threat to Canadian sovereignty. The US should be supporting the US-led rules based international order based on sovereign nation states within sovereign boundaries, not undermining it.
With that being said, these particular fights about alcohol, dairy, streaming regulations and trade with China are complex, and the hop from these demands in trade negotiations to Canadian sovereignty is being threatened I think is not obvious (at least to me as a non-expert). If the administration had not been repeatedly commenting “jokingly” that they want to undermine Canadian sovereignty, would these particular demands be seen as such a threat?
I support free trade so I support Democrats supporting free trade with our neighbors, on the merits, not only as a reaction to Trump’s stupid trade wars, so I agree that Democrats should actually support free trade with Canada.
Progressives have only supported free trade for like 5 minutes and only because of opposition to Donald Trump. Once Donald Trump is out of the picture, I think it’s likely that progressives will revert to their anti-free trade default. Iagree with MY that we should capitalize on the anti-Trump energy to realign on free trade, because free trade is genuinely a good idea under most circumstances. But I’m skeptical whether the new progressive alignment will persist in a post-Trump era.
I think most progressives just want the Global South to be richer, how they get there is a question of means that is negotiable. Before 2000, there was divergence where rich countries were getting richer and poor countries weren’t and rich countries were also writing all the rules so the global trade system looked rigged which is why you saw anti-trade protests in the 90s. However, since 2000, there has been convergence, and this has taken the wind out of the sails of progressive trade opposition even before Trump. People like Branko Milanovic have been very influential in demonstrating how the free trade era led to the first decline in global inequality since before colonialism so now even very left wing people like Jason Hickel who supported protectionism in the past are supporting free trade now, eg: https://x.com/jasonhickel/status/1909688859157225826. IOW, circumstances changed and the pro-free trade faction has been winning the argument.
- anti-growth agenda: trade, deportations (not the same as ICE behaviour) and the defiit, discouraging high-income potential immigranst and students, science and technology funding
- foreign policy: Ukraine, NATO, Isralie "settlements" (not the same as being pro-Hamas)
- abuse of executive power: the emergecies, the "unified executive," Fed independnce.
Abolishing all tariffs has always been the best trade policy and always will be. It is a test of how smart and good at government the people in charge are.
Canadian politics is the slow boring of softwood lumber.
It's all well and good to make common sense Democratic manifest cause with left insurgents against Trump...but if that's the only real basis for liking "free trade", the obvious question arises of what happens when victory is achieved. Strong trade deals count on continuity, and if only part of the Democratic tent actually likes free markets qua free markets, well, that's not encouraging! Especially since the GOP Chamber of Commerce types haven't really displayed a surfeit of feck over these past couple years, so that other historical half of the pro-free-trade coalition can't be counted on either.
For me the huge exception to free-trade-good is China, which as Matt has admitted was the ‘mistake of the century’. Democrats should just say free trade is good except with China. I think that’s basically correct and a simple talking point for voters. If inclined to elaborate, Democrats could say that antagonizing our allies with tarrifs is completely idiotic and should be stopped immediately.
I get that Matt's the high paid word talkin' guy and I am not. But I can't see why he would frame the position he wants Democrats to adopt has "surrender." I doubt that would poll well, nor is that a good way to kick off one's Presidential campaign. It's probably the only way to hand this issue back to TrumpUS Grant was *not* nicknamed Unconditional Surrender Grant because he was in the habit of surrendering unconditionally.
On the merits yes, the Democrats should committ to "undoing Trump's damage" and fully respecting Canadian sovereignty and dignity. They should negotiate new agreements that lack executive loopholes some future nut job can just override.
Having a friendly Canada is immensely important to us, and saves us billions of dollars while massively improving our national security. The current "strategy" does not make sense. Tough negotiation yes -- Canada is kind of backwards internally when it comes to trade between provinces, and has plenty of protectionism. With goodwill we could move towards a common border or all kinds of shared policy with a willingness to take the time to work it out -- negotiate for 20 years, build trust. Figure out water exports. Tough things, but I htink ultimately doable and would bring us together (which I presume is the current goal?) over time.
Absent the 51st state things this might just be tough negotiation, but it's wrapped into so much else at this point, not sure where we end up.
These pieces that proceed on the basis that Canada does everything well; that tariffs are hostile and inflationary and aggressive if USA imposes- but let’s have zero mention of Canadian tariffs on USA goods of intellectual property rights breached on American patented drugs etc - I find dumb ( to use the word Yglesius uses about American trade policy).
I do find Trump rhetoric dumb and counterproductive. But to examine any relationship and only analyze and criticize one of the 2 parties establishes a preordained conclusion.
If American tariffs are always bad and wrong and inflationary etc - do people think Canadian tariffs are benign? Inflation doesn’t occur there, because we only criticize American policies?
It’s also ridiculous to say democrats have always favored free trade - when democrats have always voted against free trade agreements. This was to protect union workers, although union workers have been recast as deplorable, uneducated idiots, when those workers switched from voting Dem to republican when the Dem party chose race and gender over working men.
????Of coures. Canada's restrictions on imports are also bad. All countries have problems from their protectionists. That they have some self-harming policies does not means we should too
Exactly right. Newsom wants the money in lieu of taxation. He can’t do the math. The overall tariff impact is negative to tax revenue. Btw collecting tax evaders’ dollars is 2x any tariff revenue. Most importantly, free trade is better for all, even the rich. Newsom is not presidential material.
People find the idea that there's a free lunch somewhere very seductive. they want to believe it, and--like the victims of fraud--are susceptible for falling for it because they want it to be true. Tariffs are like this. Make the billionaires----err foreigners--pay without any downside for us. It's tough for Dems to take the free trade position unless there's a lot of trust in the system and the Dems when they say "this is bad". Right now there's thermostatic pressure for free trade because it's the opposite of trump's position right now. but that could change in the next election easily.
This post is obviously correct. And yet, Matt’s recommendation is obviously not going to be followed. The implications are left as an exercise for the reader.
Well now that we are here, we should absolutely go back to the free trade paradigm but in return perhaps we demand Canada improve it's fire management issues that create waves of smoke over northern US states dozens of times per year
I agree the wildfire smoke is very annoying as someone who lives in the US, but I haven’t heard what Canada should do differently. Wildfires are genuinely harder to deal with there than in the US since the combustible areas are larger and more remote.
TLDR they have a policy of no burns ever, not even controlled burns or allowing natural burn offs, so over a century of that now every wildfire is set on a huge tinderbox which they cannot control. Changing the makeup of trees to high yield softwood types for logging and reducing more fire-resistant local types of trees like birch also made the problem worse when fires happen.
I just don’t understand where anyone gets the [guts] for this attitude. America is much stronger on every dimension, and in particular, unlike Canada, has a military. Can anyone imagine Japan venting toxic fumes into Beijing and China being like “please make it stop we’ll pay you”? If you feel comfortable forcing America to internalize your externalities, then America has made you far too comfortable.
Fine, foreign aid can be a part of the deal if Canada needs it. But control is province by province so Canada would have to agree to some unilateral changes to make even that paradigm work.
The sad thing about all this is that I’m certain there’s a very long list of extremely reasonable demands we could make of Canada, simply because they’re acting like they’re true equals in this relationship, whereas if we wanted to we could squash them in a second. The grain of reasonableness in Trump’s mountain of nonsense is that we are in fact the hegemon, and while we let Canada behave like an equal because that’s what we believe in, Canada shouldn’t be taking advantage of that generosity. The wildfire thing is a good example. The tariffs that are putatively the target of Trump’s actions are another good example. There are more good examples. Trump just doesn’t bother to make the case to anyone, and also goes insanely overboard threatening Canadian sovereignty, undermining the “what we believe in”.
Yeah it has gotten so bad in pretty much every direction. That's why I agree with the thrust of Matt's point about trade in general but we shouldn't concede that the previous relationship was a good one and just reset. Canada also passed C-18 which literally just forces US media to comp Canadian local media for no reason. It led Meta to block news on their FB/IG from US sources in general. Google caved and now pays Canadian news outlets $100M/year just to exist. It was an increasingly bad relationship we pretended was fine before Trump.
It's not really climate change related, they have extreme dense tree species that are specifically adapted to surviving burns. Canada decided not to ever allow even burns to happen, whether controlled or intentional. The undergrowth got so large that now every fire that happens is huge and affects thousands of square miles where it could previously have been contained.
Here in DC we're like 500-1000 miles from the wildfires but face about 20+ days a year of poor air quality from Canadian wildfires. That should never happen regardless of how many fires there are.
Short version, you can't just copy and paste arguments about California and apply them to Canada. The vast majority of Canada's forest has been "allowed" to burn unless the fires come close to residential areas. These aren't places where wildfire suppression caused too much fuel buildup, that just isn't the story here. Also, Canadian forests are enormously bigger than the California forest and intense management by controlled burns or manual removal of undergrowth will not work and is not feasible.
Furthermore given the tendency of the press to attribute anything that happens anywhere to global warming, I understand the skepticism, but the higher temperatures really are sucking the moisture out of the ground and causing these fires. This one really is global warming's fault.
Democrats have a soft spot for Europeans and Canada. Look at how the EU went full lawfare on Big Tech. You might not like Big Tech either, but recognize that the various EU regulations are just enormous tariffs on American companies with a veneer of regulatory respectability slapped on. Not a word from Biden.
We should change the law on presidential tariffs. Limit the number of countries that the president can tariff at a time without congressional approval, and prohibit him outright from tariffing treaty allies without congressional approval.
I completely agree that, once elected, a democratic politician should absolutely unilaterally undo Trump's attempt to bully our allies. But saying that's what you are going to do seems like a mistake from an electoral standpoint.
The democrats essentially already have the pro-internationalist/pro-trade issue sown up. I can't imagine anyone thinking: well, I don't like Trump style bullying but since the democratic canidate didn't promise to unilaterally stand down I'm going to vote for Vance (or whoever). OTOH it absolutely does seem plausible that certain segments of the population would see a promise to unilaterally stand down as selling out the country or being a wimp.
If you're brand is being a straight shooter who tells it like it is then maybe you should say it anyway but if you're Gavin Newsom who exudes political opportunism not making the promise is probably the best strategy.
I wish MY expanded on the merits of each of the US’ demands in this trade war.
Threatening (even “jokingly”) about Canada being the 51st state is unconscionable and should be interpreted as a threat to Canadian sovereignty. The US should be supporting the US-led rules based international order based on sovereign nation states within sovereign boundaries, not undermining it.
With that being said, these particular fights about alcohol, dairy, streaming regulations and trade with China are complex, and the hop from these demands in trade negotiations to Canadian sovereignty is being threatened I think is not obvious (at least to me as a non-expert). If the administration had not been repeatedly commenting “jokingly” that they want to undermine Canadian sovereignty, would these particular demands be seen as such a threat?
I support free trade so I support Democrats supporting free trade with our neighbors, on the merits, not only as a reaction to Trump’s stupid trade wars, so I agree that Democrats should actually support free trade with Canada.
Progressives have only supported free trade for like 5 minutes and only because of opposition to Donald Trump. Once Donald Trump is out of the picture, I think it’s likely that progressives will revert to their anti-free trade default. Iagree with MY that we should capitalize on the anti-Trump energy to realign on free trade, because free trade is genuinely a good idea under most circumstances. But I’m skeptical whether the new progressive alignment will persist in a post-Trump era.
The Democratic Party has historically supported free trade. Almost every Democratic president in our history has lowered trade barriers.
The Democratic Party has historically not been a progressive party for all or even most of its history
I think most progressives just want the Global South to be richer, how they get there is a question of means that is negotiable. Before 2000, there was divergence where rich countries were getting richer and poor countries weren’t and rich countries were also writing all the rules so the global trade system looked rigged which is why you saw anti-trade protests in the 90s. However, since 2000, there has been convergence, and this has taken the wind out of the sails of progressive trade opposition even before Trump. People like Branko Milanovic have been very influential in demonstrating how the free trade era led to the first decline in global inequality since before colonialism so now even very left wing people like Jason Hickel who supported protectionism in the past are supporting free trade now, eg: https://x.com/jasonhickel/status/1909688859157225826. IOW, circumstances changed and the pro-free trade faction has been winning the argument.
Democrats have been very weak on
- anti-growth agenda: trade, deportations (not the same as ICE behaviour) and the defiit, discouraging high-income potential immigranst and students, science and technology funding
- foreign policy: Ukraine, NATO, Isralie "settlements" (not the same as being pro-Hamas)
- abuse of executive power: the emergecies, the "unified executive," Fed independnce.
Implicitly the promise is to be not quite so bad.
.
Abolishing all tariffs has always been the best trade policy and always will be. It is a test of how smart and good at government the people in charge are.
this tweet is a pretty succinct and accurate outline.
https://x.com/GWHayduke97/status/2078025570127122523
Canadian politics is the slow boring of softwood lumber.
It's all well and good to make common sense Democratic manifest cause with left insurgents against Trump...but if that's the only real basis for liking "free trade", the obvious question arises of what happens when victory is achieved. Strong trade deals count on continuity, and if only part of the Democratic tent actually likes free markets qua free markets, well, that's not encouraging! Especially since the GOP Chamber of Commerce types haven't really displayed a surfeit of feck over these past couple years, so that other historical half of the pro-free-trade coalition can't be counted on either.
For me the huge exception to free-trade-good is China, which as Matt has admitted was the ‘mistake of the century’. Democrats should just say free trade is good except with China. I think that’s basically correct and a simple talking point for voters. If inclined to elaborate, Democrats could say that antagonizing our allies with tarrifs is completely idiotic and should be stopped immediately.
And Russia.
I get that Matt's the high paid word talkin' guy and I am not. But I can't see why he would frame the position he wants Democrats to adopt has "surrender." I doubt that would poll well, nor is that a good way to kick off one's Presidential campaign. It's probably the only way to hand this issue back to TrumpUS Grant was *not* nicknamed Unconditional Surrender Grant because he was in the habit of surrendering unconditionally.
On the merits yes, the Democrats should committ to "undoing Trump's damage" and fully respecting Canadian sovereignty and dignity. They should negotiate new agreements that lack executive loopholes some future nut job can just override.
Having a friendly Canada is immensely important to us, and saves us billions of dollars while massively improving our national security. The current "strategy" does not make sense. Tough negotiation yes -- Canada is kind of backwards internally when it comes to trade between provinces, and has plenty of protectionism. With goodwill we could move towards a common border or all kinds of shared policy with a willingness to take the time to work it out -- negotiate for 20 years, build trust. Figure out water exports. Tough things, but I htink ultimately doable and would bring us together (which I presume is the current goal?) over time.
Absent the 51st state things this might just be tough negotiation, but it's wrapped into so much else at this point, not sure where we end up.
These pieces that proceed on the basis that Canada does everything well; that tariffs are hostile and inflationary and aggressive if USA imposes- but let’s have zero mention of Canadian tariffs on USA goods of intellectual property rights breached on American patented drugs etc - I find dumb ( to use the word Yglesius uses about American trade policy).
I do find Trump rhetoric dumb and counterproductive. But to examine any relationship and only analyze and criticize one of the 2 parties establishes a preordained conclusion.
If American tariffs are always bad and wrong and inflationary etc - do people think Canadian tariffs are benign? Inflation doesn’t occur there, because we only criticize American policies?
It’s also ridiculous to say democrats have always favored free trade - when democrats have always voted against free trade agreements. This was to protect union workers, although union workers have been recast as deplorable, uneducated idiots, when those workers switched from voting Dem to republican when the Dem party chose race and gender over working men.
????Of coures. Canada's restrictions on imports are also bad. All countries have problems from their protectionists. That they have some self-harming policies does not means we should too
Exactly right. Newsom wants the money in lieu of taxation. He can’t do the math. The overall tariff impact is negative to tax revenue. Btw collecting tax evaders’ dollars is 2x any tariff revenue. Most importantly, free trade is better for all, even the rich. Newsom is not presidential material.
People find the idea that there's a free lunch somewhere very seductive. they want to believe it, and--like the victims of fraud--are susceptible for falling for it because they want it to be true. Tariffs are like this. Make the billionaires----err foreigners--pay without any downside for us. It's tough for Dems to take the free trade position unless there's a lot of trust in the system and the Dems when they say "this is bad". Right now there's thermostatic pressure for free trade because it's the opposite of trump's position right now. but that could change in the next election easily.
This post is obviously correct. And yet, Matt’s recommendation is obviously not going to be followed. The implications are left as an exercise for the reader.
Well now that we are here, we should absolutely go back to the free trade paradigm but in return perhaps we demand Canada improve it's fire management issues that create waves of smoke over northern US states dozens of times per year
I agree the wildfire smoke is very annoying as someone who lives in the US, but I haven’t heard what Canada should do differently. Wildfires are genuinely harder to deal with there than in the US since the combustible areas are larger and more remote.
That’s their problem!
TLDR they have a policy of no burns ever, not even controlled burns or allowing natural burn offs, so over a century of that now every wildfire is set on a huge tinderbox which they cannot control. Changing the makeup of trees to high yield softwood types for logging and reducing more fire-resistant local types of trees like birch also made the problem worse when fires happen.
Your commenters are helping to prove why the relationship won't go back to they way it was...
My point is it should not. The status quo is bad but the prior relationship was also bad
If America wants something different im Canadian fire management they should pay for it.
I just don’t understand where anyone gets the [guts] for this attitude. America is much stronger on every dimension, and in particular, unlike Canada, has a military. Can anyone imagine Japan venting toxic fumes into Beijing and China being like “please make it stop we’ll pay you”? If you feel comfortable forcing America to internalize your externalities, then America has made you far too comfortable.
South Korea pays the Mongolians for better forest management to improve air quality.
https://www.keiti.re.kr/site/keiti/ex/board/View.do?bcIdx=40382&cbIdx=237&utm_source=chatgpt.com
Take a look at a map, you will notice some salient geographical facts that ruin the analogy.
Fine, foreign aid can be a part of the deal if Canada needs it. But control is province by province so Canada would have to agree to some unilateral changes to make even that paradigm work.
It isn't foreign aid if it is paying for something you need in another country at market rates.
The sad thing about all this is that I’m certain there’s a very long list of extremely reasonable demands we could make of Canada, simply because they’re acting like they’re true equals in this relationship, whereas if we wanted to we could squash them in a second. The grain of reasonableness in Trump’s mountain of nonsense is that we are in fact the hegemon, and while we let Canada behave like an equal because that’s what we believe in, Canada shouldn’t be taking advantage of that generosity. The wildfire thing is a good example. The tariffs that are putatively the target of Trump’s actions are another good example. There are more good examples. Trump just doesn’t bother to make the case to anyone, and also goes insanely overboard threatening Canadian sovereignty, undermining the “what we believe in”.
Yeah it has gotten so bad in pretty much every direction. That's why I agree with the thrust of Matt's point about trade in general but we shouldn't concede that the previous relationship was a good one and just reset. Canada also passed C-18 which literally just forces US media to comp Canadian local media for no reason. It led Meta to block news on their FB/IG from US sources in general. Google caved and now pays Canadian news outlets $100M/year just to exist. It was an increasingly bad relationship we pretended was fine before Trump.
This year was the first time I remember it happening (in a significant way at least) my whole life… seems more climate change related.
What? It was worse 3 years ago than it was this year.
It's not really climate change related, they have extreme dense tree species that are specifically adapted to surviving burns. Canada decided not to ever allow even burns to happen, whether controlled or intentional. The undergrowth got so large that now every fire that happens is huge and affects thousands of square miles where it could previously have been contained.
Here in DC we're like 500-1000 miles from the wildfires but face about 20+ days a year of poor air quality from Canadian wildfires. That should never happen regardless of how many fires there are.
basically everything you said is incorrect canadisn fires is incorrect.
Enlighten me then, because I am breathing the air resulting from Canada's poor choices every year
Here you go:
https://substack.com/home/post/p-207384969
Short version, you can't just copy and paste arguments about California and apply them to Canada. The vast majority of Canada's forest has been "allowed" to burn unless the fires come close to residential areas. These aren't places where wildfire suppression caused too much fuel buildup, that just isn't the story here. Also, Canadian forests are enormously bigger than the California forest and intense management by controlled burns or manual removal of undergrowth will not work and is not feasible.
Furthermore given the tendency of the press to attribute anything that happens anywhere to global warming, I understand the skepticism, but the higher temperatures really are sucking the moisture out of the ground and causing these fires. This one really is global warming's fault.
Were they doing something different 10 years ago?
Democrats have a soft spot for Europeans and Canada. Look at how the EU went full lawfare on Big Tech. You might not like Big Tech either, but recognize that the various EU regulations are just enormous tariffs on American companies with a veneer of regulatory respectability slapped on. Not a word from Biden.
More a build up of bad practices over time that are now creating a much larger problem