That not how politics works. It is much slower and hidden process. EU fast tracked Mercosur and other trade deals. China and Japan is slowly dumping US treasury bills, Canada is in open trade confrontation and is diversifying toward China. Everybody is shifting away from US weapons suppliers. Nobody is willing to help with Iran even on symbolic level.
You are both right. The world capitulates more than it should. But the world is also moving away and building contingencies.
The world needs leadership. And Canada is helping with that.
I do not think that reciprocal tariffs are actually the answer though. They hurt both sides and the US is not a rational enough actor to respond like you hope they will. The answer is in shifting trade away from the US and isolating their economy. It takes longer but it is what will work. And even if their behaviour does not change, their power will fade with their economy.
As a Canadian, my hope is that we can build stronger relations with Europe. I don't think anyone can avoid China but I would rather minimize those ties.
We can't afford to cut all ties with United States due to our geography and history, however it would be prudent for us to reduce our dependency.
I don't think majority of Canadians wish to see the nation in such a vulnerable position again with regards to US. Banking on a single player in terms of security and trade has proven to be a risky endeavor.
I have much love for the American people, but I support the actions of our government.
As a fellow Canadian. Our neighbor is the world's biggest economy. Despite their current "challenges" they are still very close to us in values and culture. Our paths are interlocked. We are not going to decouple from the USA and it's not in our interest to do so.
When a Canadian new grad is faced with an option of going to work in SV or in China which do they prefer? Between Chinese values and American values which do we prefer? A society with no freedom of speech? Where people are arbitrarily jailed if they voice an opinion against the government? Where the government places citizens in concentration and re-education camps and runs them over with tanks? I mean to me the choice is clear.
How many large American companies have offices in Canada? How many people and what slice of the economy does this support? Lots.
So yes, the US has drifted and is drifting from the ideal. And maybe it was never the ideal. But it's much closer to us than China in every imaginable facet and will likely remain so for the next many decades. We need to filter the noise out, definitely stand firmly for what we believe in, but also compromise and look at the longer term.
Europe is probably much closer in values.
Beyond that societies can change quickly. Germany, Japan, Spain, Portugal, Argentina, Peru, Chili, South Africa, every country in the USSR, and China too have changed values dramatically in short periods of time in the past 100 yrs.
Also, China is not putting out videos that say they will dominate any country in the Americas. I'd urge us to take people seriously when they say what they value: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V359k45CBY0
China could change but it is a totalitarian regime with no human rights and a terrible track record. I would be happy to see a change there towards freedom, democracy and human rights but that doesn't seem to be in the cards.
I don't have a quantitative way of measuring this but I disagree Europe and Canada are closer in values. Canada has some "Europe" in it but a lot more "North America". If you put a random American and a random Canadian in one room they'll have a lot more common than a random Canadian and a random European. Random examples are suburbia and gun ownership.
Many Canadians are dual-citizens. About a million US citizens live in Canada. Many Canadians work and travel to the US. Business, personal, family relationships etc. Similarly about a million Canadians live in the US.
I've worked a lot with Europeans and Americans (I still do, I work for a large American company with offices in both). I've traveled to the US and to Europe. If you've done that a lot then you know the difference in feeling and culture.
>Europe is probably much closer in values.
85% of Canadians live within 100 miles/160 km of the border. These are very integrated communities.
Between another statement you’ve made here (about how the Democratic Socialists of America want to abolish democracy) and this one, you don’t have much credibility. I am Canadian and would prefer we follow any path other than any you have espoused.
Sure. We're gonna agree to disagree. I guess we don't vote for the same party here.
The facts are still the facts. People like you can fantasize that somehow going over the ocean to remote countries can offset going over a truck to the world's largest economy. Or ignore the ways that our economies are so tightly coupled.
I just listened to Carney talk about this and at least he's more or less a responsible adult. He said we and the US share a lot of common thinking and values and he would like to work with the US. Where he draws the line is when the US tries to take away our ability to make independent decisions. And that's fair. But it doesn't sound like he's aligned with you and so I can only guess where your politics lie.
EDIT: Let's see if I can restore my credibility:
A record number of people immigrated from Canada in 2025: https://thehub.ca/2026/04/03/can-anyone-solve-canadas-brain-... and the article claims their most frequent destination is the US.
https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/pub/11-627-m/11-627-m2026013...
In 2020 by far the country with the most Canadian ex-pats was the USA.
You can tell here that the immigration trends are still there: https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/pub/36-28-0001/2025007/artic...
And while it seems there was a big drop in 2024 the numbers have come back up: https://www.maynardnexsen.com/publication-legal-immigration-...
Re: the DSA I'm always fascinated by the amount of mind share US politics seem to own in certain part of the Canadian public. You want to decouple from them but you obsess about their politics. I just listen to what they say and I am interested because I don't want to decouple and I see how coupled we're going to stay.
> People like you can fantasize that somehow going over the ocean to remote countries can offset going over a truck to the world's largest economy
Is it still the largest economy? By many numbers, it is not.
The United Kingdom used to be in a similar position and Ireland was like Canada. Nowadays, Ireland does not need to cave in to its neighbor's demands.
It is: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(nomi...
EDIT: Ireland very cleverly reduced corporate income taxes to lure in many multinational corporations. Kudos to them. I doubt Canada can replicate it. We have resources and resources are hard to move around. I hope we can get our economy to produce more added value products but so far that hasn't worked out.
> It is: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(nomi...
As I said, by many numbers, it is not (and you know it):
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(PPP)
I did not know that. It's not a metric I follow. I think it's unfair of you to say "and you know it". It's a good data point and I'm going to not step in and debate it .. because you know it ;) just kidding. I'm spending too much time getting emotionally attached to these stupid online threads.
> I think it's unfair of you to say "and you know it"
I apologize then, I thought that as we used the same source, you would have noticed the many references in the link you shared to the PPP ranking.
This feels more than fair. Historically it was a safe and reasonable assumption that friendly relations would persist across the border and across the broader anglosphere. That appears to be unfortunately untrue right now. Also tariffs are one thing but the whole 51st state thing was really beyond reproach. I do hope our next president will deliver an overdue apology and we can mend the fence. Until then I wish your people the best of luck.
I am an American and I support the actions of your government as well. Capitulation never works against a bully--they will always come back for more.
> I do not think that reciprocal tariffs are actually the answer though. They hurt both sides and the US is not a rational enough actor to respond like you hope they will.
Reciprocal tariffs will be crafted to specifically to avoid damaging the Canadian economy. Input to Canadian manufacturing for example won't be touched, but other sectors where the product is more of a luxury or there's an easy replacement available will be targeted. Perhaps the digital services tax or similar will make a return.
But what tool do you use to shift trade away from the US to other countries? Tariffs are perhaps the most efficient mechanism.
Create and serve better products more efficiently while the US insists preserving unproductive jobs and banning progress is more important than growth and affordability.
Learn from what they did well and what they did poorly, copy the good parts.
regulatory alignment is an obvious one
there's plenty of barriers without tariffs holding up trade between blocks and countries.
> I do not think that reciprocal tariffs are actually the answer though. They hurt both sides and the US is not a rational enough actor to respond like you hope they will. The answer is in shifting trade away from the US and isolating their economy. It takes longer but it is what will work. And even if their behaviour does not change, their power will fade with their economy.
I don't really agree. For one, they did help China, the US eventually caved because US businesses and consumers got really upset. The same can be true here. The admin doesn't care, but the business owners do. They're already being squeezed by tariffs on their parts, further damaging their exports will cause them to complain to the admin. That's something Trump has historically caved on to some extent.
Also keep in mind that the way Canada will do tariffs is the way they should be used, not blanket but strategically to have as little impact on Canadians and as much impact on US businesses as possible.
That's happening. The rest of the world is moving away from the US as a trading partner. Trump is just too flaky to deal with. Canada now exports oil to China instead of the US, for example. The EU is moving towards self-sufficiency in financial services.
What the Trump Administration does not get is that the US is no longer central to the world economy. Everyone else has a lot more productive capacity now. Trump is running on a 1980s world view.
> Canada now exports oil to China instead of the US
Lol >90% of our oil exports still go to the US. China could be good to grow our exports but it's not replacing the US.
https://www.cer-rec.gc.ca/en/data-analysis/energy-markets/ma...
Exactly, the move away from the US is both fast and slow. Fast on the things that could be swapped for an alternative straight away/short term. Slow in that there are something that will take decades to move away from and are actively being worked on but quietly.
This is the problem of the 2nd Trump admin, the first time was considered a fluke incident and didn't pan out so bad as there was a lot of longer term folks keeping things sort of in check. The 2nd time, it was apparent that there is a significant enough faction of the US population that will ensure this kind of power structure keeps coming back. Trump is but the first of many to operate like he does. There will be more like him.
I must warn some people, who knows which side of politics that will come from. Don't think 'your side' is above it, this kind of rhetoric and rot and creep in a lot quicker than one would think.
The US is desperately selling currency so it can buy the Yen so that Japan doesn’t ditch its US treasuries.
Investing in your customer so they buy your product seems to be the signature move as of late.
*Nobody is willing to help with Iran even on symbolic level*
Most people do not realize how much of a shift that is.
In the past there was always a ton of EU countries helping the US out, in whatever crap the US started. And a lot of European soldiers died. Those soldiers did not help Europe but the US, because of being allies.
Even when some European countries got called names for not helping in Iraq because they called out that the whole Weapons Of Mass destruction was a load of bull** . It did not stop others from helping the US.
Yet, now, what we see as "help" is so minimal, and even countries like Spain not just refusing but active blocking. It shows how much relationships have deteriorated.
Trump thinks of Europa like a vassal state, and every time we say no or delay, it drives him nuts. Or our best "yes", if often a "well, we need to have agreement in all the countries, see you in a few years". Do not think its coincidence, its done deliberately.
In the past when the US said something, beyond maybe France, most countries quickly followed. This is gone ... We know the world has changed, and the old order is finished.
Credit to France, Charles de Gaulle was the first to realize that the US should be blindly trusted. Macron is also a firm believer in this as well as he is well versed in Gaulle's ideas.
As for the rest of the world, yes the silence in regard to helping the US is deafening. You can see the diplomatic frustration of politicians when they have to talk about Trump and the admins actions. They cannot dismiss them but they really don't want to support them either.
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europe understood the same thing all the previous presidents have - that war with iran would massively disrupt energy and thus the global economy.
europe wanted to keep the jcpoa after the US left it
Why would they? Iran has been fairly harmless for decades, and the downsides of starting a war with Iran are pretty obvious. What's next, starting a war with Egypt or Panama, just for funsies?
Pre-Trump, some European countries might've let themselves be dragged into another one of America's pointless unwinnable no-reason wars. But with America itself all but declaring war on its European "allies"? Not a chance. Unless Iran starts sending rockets to Europe (and why would they?), they'll just stay out of it and let America clean up its own mess.
If anything, the Ukraine situation has made Europe more pro-war, with countries significantly increasing their defense budgets. If Iran had been a "post-9/11 Afghanistan invasion" scenario under another President, 2026 Europe would happily jump in to help.
No, they wouldn't. Trump has treated Europe shamefully and built a tremendous amount of ill will.
Trump also didn't go around trying to drum up support for Iran. His attitude going into the war was "I won't let anyone butt in to steal credit for my impending glorious victory." It only turned into "how dare our allies abandon us!" once it turned into a quagmire/loss, at which point it would have been a tough sell under better circumstances.
I still agree that everyone is pulling away and for good reasons, prominent among which is being pushed/shoved, but I also can't stand to see Trump's victim narrative gain traction when he chose to go it alone for the dumbest possible reason.
Better to spend those resources decarbonizing to avoid the need for the Middle East. Long-term energy security over never-ending conflicts.