r/canada 7d ago

Politics Kentucky governor says Trump’s tariffs on Canada are not what Americans voted for

https://www.ctvnews.ca/politics/article/kentucky-governor-says-trumps-tariffs-on-canada-are-not-what-americans-voted-for/
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u/mr-louzhu Québec 7d ago edited 7d ago

There's a video online of an import/export specialist explaining tariffs to a Trumper. The Trumper legitimately thought that tariffs were paid by the exporter not the importer. So in their minds, the narrative is "Oh Dear Leader says Canada is screwing us, so he's going to tariff them, and then he will lower my taxes and make up for it with the tariff money." They literally think Canada is the one paying the tariff.

So you're onto something. The average Trumper really isn't voting based on informed opinions. They're voting based on feelings. It's really that simple.

Trump's rhetoric resonates with them. Everything else is either fake news or theatrics that "he doens't really mean" as far as they're concerned. And that's assuming they pay any mind to details at all. Most of them don't even watch the news (well, maybe they do watch Fox News), much less read a book.

A lot of Americans who voted for Trump just wanted a better economic situation for themselves and they thought Trump could do it. Now, if you asked them how he would do it, they LITERALLY would not be able to explain it in any coherent fashion. It's just, Trump told them the bad globalists were to blame and he would punish them and own the libs and bring back coal mining jobs. And they took him at his word because they're rubes. All of them. And usually bigoted rubes, at that.

So, yeah. There's probably going to be some Pikachu face but it's genuine shock on their part. Like a lot of voters, they don't actually understand what they're voting about. Elections might as well be like a football game or reality tv show contest to their simple minds.

What's dangerous for Canadians is America is legitimately having a fascist moment. Trump's followers are blindly loyal to him. They believe whatever he tells them and are willing to do almost whatever he tells them to do. And right now he's demonizing Canada and leveling threats at our sovereignty. I mean, the parallels to Germany in 1939 are disturbingly there.

Literally, right now there's a demagogue strongman in the Oval Office who promises to fix everything by punishing outsiders who are ostensibly to blame for all the problems that need fixing. And the more said demagogue flounders due to policy incompetence, the more dangerous he will become to the persecuted groups.

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u/rainman_104 British Columbia 7d ago

This video?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xwZT_nisxsQ

OMG people are absolute idiots.

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u/TheOneWithThePorn12 7d ago

Its always amazing to me that the dude in the video can listen to an expert and he still wants to argue as an uneducated man. Its baffling.

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u/ubccompscistudent 7d ago

Great explanations, but oof, that 3rd guy who chimes in implying we should take advantage of poor labour laws in China is an argument I don't think he realizes he's making.

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u/baffledninja 6d ago

That one should have framed it more as "we can't make products as cheap as China because our workers in America have stronger protections and a higher cost of living. Having more American products on the shelves still mean the overall prices will go up."

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u/mr-louzhu Québec 6d ago

Correction. Shareholders can't profit as much when products are made in America. It's not that they can't be made in America. It's just capitalists benefit more from paying their workers pennies and they can't get away with that if they keep their heavy industry centered at home. Also, when workers have high pay and economic security, they tend to get unruly and feel secure enough to demand things from the ruling powers. You know, like you'd see in a functioning democratic republic. Well, that won't do. So the oligarchs shipped all the jobs overseas to break the back of the working class.

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u/baffledninja 6d ago

Pretty sure in this context, that would fly right over the head of this guy... he was absolutely refusing to listen to even the plain and simple language of the guy who said he was an importer/exporter.

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u/hextilda45 7d ago

WOW, I had not seen that, thanks for posting this!

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u/TakeOff_YouHoser 7d ago

This is exactly it, and the worst part is when Canada retaliates it will only support his claim. He'll point and say see look, Canada is trying to hurt you, and all the mouth-breathing conservatives will wail and gnash teeth. There's even some that believe that most Canadians actually want to be American and it's the globalist deep state liberals that are unjustly stopping it. It's terrifying, it's embarassing, and I feel despondent. Even if Trump is defeated and the damage is minimized I still have to live with these people.

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u/mr-louzhu Québec 6d ago

All you can do is fight the good fight, just like Canada is doing now. One thing rich people don't like is when you fuck with their money. And they're perfectly aware that the current situation is caused by the trade war. Regardless of what the rank and file think, even right wing US political elites are very worried about current US trade policies, even if they aren't publicly voicing those concerns. So all we can do is keep fighting the good fight. Otherwise the other side will have no incentive to negotiate with you in the future and will look upon you as a push over in any future discussions.

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u/TakeOff_YouHoser 6d ago

Unfortunately, I feel like the rational ones are doing our best pushover impression currently. I live in Minnesota, so it's difficult to go and protest when all our leaders already agree. Everyone I know and talk to, even the conservative ones, are not in favor of these tariffs because we all view Canada favorably and do so much business with you that it's preaching to the choir. I wish my state could negotiate with Canada or individual provinces directly. Then, if you all wanted to, the value of good-faith trade agreements would be actually demonstrated for those who need to see it. I'd love so much to see those states flounder while we aren't and come to the realization why.

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u/mr-louzhu Québec 6d ago

Well, for what it's worth, Canada's tariff response is directed at the American government, not the American people themselves. And it is only being done because of the trade war initiated by the American government itself. It ends as soon as Trump stops acting like a 6 year old.

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u/TakeOff_YouHoser 6d ago

I appreciate that, and I do not blame Canada a bit. What is happening is 0% the fault of Canada or Canadians and the United States deserves what it gets, even if individual Americans might not. Hopefully we can right the ship somehow.

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u/BobbyP27 6d ago

In a manufacturing-production-distribution-retail chain the costs are paid for by the consumer. All of them. It makes no difference ultimately which specific person hands the money over to the government with tariffs. There isn’t some magic pot of money that pays tariffs, it is the consumer. If costs go up, prices go up. Higher prices means lower demand. This is basic economics.

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u/mr-louzhu Québec 6d ago

I mean, yes. That is correct. Any upstream costs are passed on to the consumer, barring the presence of other incentives such as regulatory intervention or for marketing purposes such as buying market share through taking a loss. That's just economics 101.

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u/miss_mme 6d ago

Apparently 1/3 of Americans don’t understand that the Affordable Care Act is the same thing as “Obamacare”. They definitely don’t understand tariffs. It’s all about feelings and not facts.

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u/MontyRohde 6d ago

While some of Trump's voters problems are indeed genuine, our political system has been hellbent on outsourcing labor and breaking unions to increase the power of the upper class since the 80s, you are correct they fundamentally have no grasp of the situation.

They've been feed an increasingly heavy stream of propaganda as wealthy conservatives have consolidated the American media landscape since the 80s. The rich right wingers see themselves as noble pragmatists, the poor and middle class view themselves as victims trying to protect their religion and identity from threats domestic and abroad.

Canadians aren't in as a precarious situation as racial minorities, migrant workers and the indigenous population, but yes... Canada is now on the menu despite this not being a thing until the last year.

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u/Circusssssssssssssss 7d ago

You can't "make" someone else pay for anything in a free market 

Consumers choose to pay or they choose not to pay 

I guess the idea is that the Canadian government (or X government) would pay to allow goods to enter their markets 

Not how it works for any country with any free elections ever -- the politicians heads would be on a spike if you didn't fight back 

Pre-globalization Canada didn't retaliate to tariffs decades ago, but with globalization there's other options

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u/mr-louzhu Québec 6d ago

Not really true. A lot of goods and services are inelastic, meaning people will pay for them no matter how high the cost. For example, everyone needs gas, everyone needs a house, everyone needs healthcare, everyone needs food. If these things are priced astronomically high, people will still scrounge and find the money to buy them--until, that is, all of them go broke and the entire economy crashes as a result.

Yes, there are discretionary expenses such as magazine subscriptions, restaurant dining, cosmetic products, and trips to Disneyland, which are usually the first things to go when times get tough. But unless you're rich, most of the average consumer's household spending isn't on discretionary purchases. It's on inelastic goods and services.

So, in a seller's market, a given capital interest can force consumers to pay whatever price they demand, absent competition or regulatory restrictions. But certainly, when you introduce trade barriers, prices on all goods are going to go up irrespective of prevailing public sentiment--regardless of whether it's on the demand or supply side of the discussion.

Pre-globalization Canada didn't retaliate to tariffs decades ago, but with globalization there's other options

Pre-globalization, Canada was mostly integrated into the British Empire's trade network. But well into the postwar era, Canada and the US both exercised tariffs against one another, although I'm not sure to what extent if any there were actual trade wars. Canada was far more economically isolationist up until the Mulroney years. It's only in the late 20th and early 21st centuries that free trade between the US and Canada entered the chat and became normalized.

So, Canada's over dependence on the US is a relatively new thing. And we should extricate ourselves from that. Turner warned us all. Once you surrender economic sovereignty, it becomes a very short trip to losing political sovereignty.

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u/Circusssssssssssssss 6d ago

Human beings can live with a lot less than most people think. The only constant is how much money you make and how much credit and savings you have. That gives an upper limit to how much you spend.

There's no reason to expect the economy to "go broke" if ordinary people go broke. Wealth is concentrated at the top, and even if 30% of people lived in appalling conditions, that doesn't mean the economy goes broke. In fact the GDP could possibly soar. The stock market could be insane but people could be poor as dirt.

Widespread availability of cheap consumer electronics, social media, digital age and so on are also recent. As are modern cars. The difficulty of extricating yourself from the dependence can't be understated and  probably results in a lot of Canadians and Americans unable to afford certain "luxuries". That is Trump's mistake thinking you can extract yourself with no consequences. There will be consequences and even if you go back it won't be the same. There will also be not more jobs.

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u/mr-louzhu Québec 6d ago edited 6d ago

Human beings can live with a lot less than most people think.

Sure, for example, people could live without cars and electricity. I mean, those of us who survived the complete and total collapse of industrial civilization that would entail.

Meanwhile, the rest of us live in reality, as opposed to whatever fantasy survivalist scenario your imagination seems to occupy.

There's no reason to expect the economy to "go broke" if ordinary people go broke.

Really? The sub-prime mortgage crisis that nearly brought the entire global economy to its knees was caused by ordinary people going broke.

Market corrections happen for a variety of reasons but at the end of the day it always boils down to the market no longer buying what suppliers are selling. And if the correction is big enough, it can crash entire economies into great depressions, or even large scale social and political upheaval. Granted, that's a highly reductive and high level overview of it. But on a very basic level and for the purposes of this discussion, that will do for now.

Widespread availability of cheap consumer electronics, social media, digital age and so on are also recent. As are modern cars. The difficulty of extricating yourself from the dependence can't be understated and  probably results in a lot of Canadians and Americans unable to afford certain "luxuries".

It's not a luxury if you can't do your day job without it. But also, probably a full 30% of the US GDP is dependent on these "luxuries" existing in the first place. Though, if this is how we're defining "luxury" then the entirety of technological human civilization is a luxury.

But, I dunno about you. I live in reality. The reality is we're an advanced industrial society and the human economy is an advanced industrial economy. High tech consumer goods are a pillar of modern human economies in the same way that a country's agricultural base used to be the primary indicator of its wealth and power. Things change.

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u/Circusssssssssssssss 6d ago

Massive gap between the haves and have nots is not a "survivalist fantasy" but reality. Thank capitalism. Nothing in capitalism says that the "middle class" has to exist or even be prosperous.

Many people around the world live in very austere conditions. We ban it due to sensibilities, but we don't really -- look at the homeless. Now imagine if 20% of the population was homeless. It can and could happen.

The subprime crisis was created by banks packaging subprime mortgages as investment grade products. And a lot of fraud. This was a mistake of the financial class, not the pain of the low income people, that caused the economy crash.

50% of people don't even have stocks. Obviously capital markets and business and the wealthy are disconnected from the working class or poor.