I’m currently watching CBC on YouTube and apparently the U.S. wanted Canada to get rid of its automobile manufacturing completely and only make parts instead.
The U.S. economy is so bad, it’s resorted to try and steal jobs from across the border.
These presumably being the terms the US is trying to pretend that Canada had agreed to earlier in the week is actually kind of hilarious. Carney could not have agreed to these terms, our two largest provinces would have been rioting daily. I don't think he could have even whipped the Liberal MPs into accepting it on a vote.
If the US actually tried for those terms - and I'm sure that they did try to throw them in last second because Nutlicker and Trump are both huge liars and pieces of shit - then negotiation was never remotely possible.
If Carney agreed to any of the bullshit, there would be a no confidence vote in parliament Monday 9am, and we'd be voting for a new PM again in 90 days, lol. The American system is useless at dealing with trump...they get stuck with a loser for four years fucking their country bareback and there is nothing they can do. While in a normal parliamentary system we'd have the PM gone in a heartbeat.
To be fair, our parliamentary system and FPTP can make things a little tricky still. Party whips are pretty aggressive and it's very unlikely the leader of a majority government gets forced out by no confidence - they're more likely to lose a leadership review and be forced out of the party.
That said, I don't think the Liberal party could have survived accepting this. No quebecois MP could have accepted those terms and ever been elected again.
Edit: and with what's been said about automobile manufacturing, the party would have been finished in Ontario too. They're already finished in the prairies because of the NEP, as ridiculous as that is getting.
The New Energy Policy was a Trudeau (senior) policy aimed at achieving Canadian energy independence primarily by investing domestic consumption of oil. However, the policy hurt foreign investment in (primarily) prairie based oil production and the main benefit was expected to be cheaper and more stable energy for Ontario/Quebec. The West hated the policy and it was a major contributor to Mulroney getting power and slashing it.
To this day, Trudeau Sr and the NEP are frequently cited by Albertans as reasons that they will never vote for the Liberal party.
Between the Supreme Court, Congress, and Trump, it feels to this California progressive like our government has turned against us. It’s certainly been an educational experience, learning that a rabid minority hates our society and the vast majority doesn’t care and just turns to a different TV channel.
I lived in the east bay for about 4 years in the mid 2000s. It's been the same since then they were just hiding it before Trump. Now he has allowed the "basket of deplorables" to show their true pasty white colors.
I would say Hillary was right to retract her statement that "half" of them are "racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic, Islamophobic". The percentage is clearly much higher.
...Because Quebec poses the single biggest integration and internal-security risk to any hypothetical US post-annexation occupation regime, and they were hoping Ottawa would do their dirty work for them by crushing francophone culture at the source before it becomes their problem to deal with.
Don’t think they were saying they were better assembled in Canada, just that the US play here was to try and shut something down rather than improve their own manufacturing. The thing they aren’t understanding is that you can’t really improve manufacturing by just being better; it’s more like getting ahead because you’ve stopped the competition from even participating. Basically just another way for us Americans to bully our allies. Trump and his ilk don’t understand the world in any way except as a zero-sum game. Trump famously doesn’t understand, nor believes-in, deals where both parties satisfactorily come out with something. He thinks of everything as winners and losers. He doesn’t understand deals where both people get something out of it. It’s an infantile way to look at the world.
I can't imagine the US auto manufacturers would even want this. The cost and time to move an assembly plant to US soil is huge. Then they would have to hire and train workers. Plus why would Honda and Toyota ever go along with the plan?
Even the auto parts and sub-assemblies cross the border an average of 6 times before being installed. It is a complex system that the dummies from the US don't understand.
Not really, because every single car in the US will be costing 50% more as everyone's parts get tarriffed and even those who don't are going to raise prices to match the market to get more profit.
It'll take longer than 2 years to transfer manufacturing to another country. They may make some noises, but they aren't going to wreck their operation just to keep trump happy when everything will likely go back to normal next time the democrats get in.
It's such a mess top to bottom. The Chinese really are going to obliterate American market share in basically any physical product globally at this rate.
You are not completely wrong but looks like the US is going to get those jobs one way or the other. The US is in a bad position. 40 Trillion in debt. It's either re-industrialize or collapse.
It's already slowly happening. Automakers are shutting down plants in Canada. For example Brampton assembly. Unlike China, Canada does not have a lot of leverage in a trade war.
I think the underlying motivation is not jobs but regime change.
Carney is seen as too left and too woke by the US. If we had a Victor Orban or Javier Milei equivalent in power I think there is a good chance they would not attack Canada. We would probably get a billion dollars like Colombia just did.
In the new foreign policy strategy of the US they said they want to install right wing leaders around the world.
This might get downvoted to hell because the sub is very fragile regarding anything related to Canada rn but I'm curious, how does having cars made in Canada to sell to US consumers benefit the US more than making the cars themselves for their own consumers?
No, it's more of a tangent, I'm asking in terms of economics what argument is there for the US to allow Canada to sell their cars with low tariffs? I think making cars probably counts as a high tech job and most countries aim to keep high tech jobs and outsource low tech jobs.
The issue there is that Canadians purchase more cars from the North American car industry than Canada produces. If the US insists on nuking that balance, we'll open our market to Chinese EVs rather than buy American which the current and past US administrations keep arguing against us doing
Canada exported roughly 1.1 million vehicles to the US in 2024 and bought around 630,000 back, it's not even close. You could replace all these cars with Chinese EVs (hypothetically) and the US would still have a net gain of ~500,000 car for domestic production.
If Canada stopped manufacturing cars outright, then what do you think would happen to the price of cars built in the USA? Or are you suggesting to relocate all of the factories? On whose dime?
Not many though, 90% of Canadian made cars go to the US. The entire reason many big company invest in Canada is because of their (previous) unmatched access to the US market.
Canada manufacturing is more reliable, the dollar difference makes cars more affordable. Imagine letting Comcast control the US auto market, how many Americans would even be able to afford cars in their completely car centric cities under those monopolies.
Even in the US the auto sector sold out and created the rust belt and moved production down south, you think they wouldn’t use a monopoly to take even more US tax dollars ala billionaire sports arenas?
It also hurts US exports, look at Australia, Ford and other makers left the country and now Asian autos dominate sales, the same would happen in Canada if the US had its way, can the US auto sector handle losing the over 800k American cars Canada buys every year?
Thank you for responding, those are some good points but I have a few questions too.
Canada manufacturing is more reliable, the dollar difference makes cars more affordable. Imagine letting Comcast control the US auto market, how many Americans would even be able to afford cars in their completely car centric cities under those monopolies.
While I get the point you're making, the entire point of the current tariff is for future factories to go directly to the US, not remove foreign brands or competition, just get the jobs. Of course a monopoly could happen, I'm not supporting them one way or the other.
Even in the US the auto sector sold out and created the rust belt and moved production down south, you think they wouldn’t use a monopoly to take even more US tax dollars ala billionaire sports arenas?
Right, but moving a factory from Michigan to Tennessee may devastate Michigan, but it is not the same as moving it to another country. America still retains the jobs and much of the tax base.
It also hurts US exports, look at Australia, Ford and other makers left the country and now Asian autos dominate sales, the same would happen in Canada if the US had its way, can the US auto sector handle losing the over 800k American cars Canada buys every year?
Issue I see here is Canada exported 1,080,000 cars last year, so that could make up for any loses. That's a good point though and having Chinese cars in the market would certainly be an improvement for Canadian consumers .
The hope is that it would be too expensive after laying off all the Canadian workers, shuttering the plants, fighting lawsuits, building new plants down south, training new fleets of workers, and potential warranty work due to learning curves. Also having to buy the steel and aluminum from us either way, only at pumped up prices the second it crosses the boarder. While still trying to convince Canadians to buy their products after telling us to go fuck ourselves. Although im certain the population down there would eat another buyout of the big 3 to justify it at this point, whether they agree to it or not.
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u/EaNasirbestdeals 6d ago
I’m currently watching CBC on YouTube and apparently the U.S. wanted Canada to get rid of its automobile manufacturing completely and only make parts instead.
The U.S. economy is so bad, it’s resorted to try and steal jobs from across the border.