- cross-posted to:
- politics@beehaw.org
- cross-posted to:
- politics@beehaw.org
Summary
Trump announced that 25% tariffs on imports from Canada and Mexico will take effect on February 1, though a decision on including oil remains pending.
He justified the move by citing undocumented migration, fentanyl trafficking, and trade deficits.
Trump also hinted at new tariffs on China.
Canada and Mexico plan retaliatory measures while seeking to address U.S. concerns.
If oil imports are taxed, it could raise costs for businesses and consumers, potentially contradicting Trump’s pledge to reduce living expenses.
I don’t doubt he thinks that’s possible, but what every one who repeats this idea seems to not grasp is that the US doesn’t manufacture consumer goods, and increasingly we aren’t able to farm our own food, particularly right the fuck now while we’re depopulating the country of farm labor. There’s nothing here to replace what we can’t get now. There’s no American alternative. We don’t do that, we pay other people to do it in a country with no labor protections and garbage pay and economy. No one wants to start manufacturing anything new right now in the US because it will become even less profitable the second the moron is out of office and all this stops, then there’s the fact that even if we had people who wanted to start doing all this manufacturing, it would take them often more than 5-10 years to get off the ground and that’s not even getting into finding labor in the US to do this work. While we’re being depopulated. Apparently the 1m dead from Covid simply wasn’t enough.