What can we do to change the minds of decision makers and people in general to actually do something about preparing for the forthcoming economic/energy crises (the ones after this one!)?
Potemkin Villager wrote: ↑01 Feb 2025, 11:38
Am I missing something about tariffs?
Trump seems to think, and his acolytes truly believe, tariffs can somehow transfer wealth
from foreigners to the US and Make America Richer Again. Would love to know how this works.
Trump appears to see tariffs purely as punishment. The idea is that if the US goes around putting tariffs on countries, they will learn to be "more obedient" to the US in future trade talks and other forms of diplomacy. The message he is trying to send is "This will hurt you more than it will hurt us, so recognise that Big Man Trump is in town now and learn to obey America. Or else even higher tariffs."
The whole thing appears to be based on a misunderstanding about the current state of the global economic system. Trump genuinely believes that the US has had a bad deal, when in fact the reality is that the system has been stacked heavily in favour of the US since the early 70s (when Nixon made a purely fiat dollar the global reserve currency).
The potential consequences are almost beyond imagination, because this is not supposed to happen. You aren't supposed to allow a complete idiot this much control over the world's biggest economy and military. It could even mean the end of Western alliance -- a long-term strategic re-alignment whereby Europe and the rest of the Western world effectively "gives up" on the US as a dangerous basket case.
We must deal with reality or it will deal with us.
I sense severe buyer's regret inside the Republican party. Trump is the ultimate loose canon and there is increasing talk of dementia coming from all politcal directions in the US. It is one thing to play divide and conquer and keep your allies second guessing your next move, but so far Trump is behaving exactly like the spoilt baby he used to be portrayed as. I get the impression of chaos in his own ranks as Trump makes and reverses policies on social media apparently without even telling his own team first.
I would not be entirely surprised to see a serious attempt to get him declared as mentally unfit to rule (and I mean rule, not lead) in the coming weeks.
I would have thought that invading Cuba would be more trouble than it is worth. Their economy is threadbare and the disruption could unleash another refugee wave, these ones have a political constituency in Florida and more rights than other refugees.
Not sure about his mental state but he seemed fairly savvy in his interviews. The blaming DEI for the plane crash will probably win him few credits. Eventually the toys that are thrown out the pram will need to be retrieved and some soothing words spoken. Canada exports a lot of oil and electricity to the US but I think the tarrifs on these have been waived.
There was some low level illegal immigration from Canada over their shared border with the US and some terrorist activity from Canada around 2001. I think someone froze to death crossing in the West somewhere.
What if Canada decides to sell all or most of its oil to places other than trumpland ? Or even to restrict production rates so as to extend the life of oil reserves.
As regards electricity, the Canadians might reduce exports to trumpland, and instead encourage energy intensive industries to re-locate to Canada. aluminium production, glass making, and data centers come to mind.
Cheaper and greener energy, and a trump free zone.
"Installers and owners of emergency diesels must assume that they will have to run for a week or more"
I strongly suspect the Canadian oil production is closely integrated with the US. A part from it being exported directly to the US by pipeline instead of to either east or west coast, a lot of it is tar sands and it needs to be diluted with oil condensate (from US shale oil by pipeline) before it can be pumped south. Also, in winter, the pipelines will need to maintain minimum flows to stop them freezing up, as is the case with Alaskan oil. Canada has little leeway in that market.
I think Canada had problems with oil transportation. I don't think any oil can get from Alberta to Ontario and the more Eastern provinces, possibly due to the effect on Nimbys and also rather more underhand I think the US who didn't want the pipelines there sending THEIR oil to someone else.
I think most energy intensive industry is already in Canada but don't forget there are a lot of shared hydro facilities on the St Lawrence river and the Great Lakes. The hydraulic head is small but the flow is very high. I think the Robert Moses power plant is 3000MW shared between Canada and the US and there was an aluminium smelter in Massena on the US side when I was at a university exchange near to there. There is a lot of hydro due to come on line in Newfoundland that is looking for a user so there might be something there - even a cable across the Atlantic perhaps?
Note that both Mexico and Canada have very large trade surpluses with the US and that irritates Trump a lot. The four biggest trade deficits the US has are with China, Canada, Mexico and Vietnam and he's just put tariffs on three of them. Ross Perot was not kidding when he said NAFTA created a giant 'sucking' sound of jobs leaving the US.
