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Analyzed from 7277 words in the discussion.

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#canada#tariffs#trade#more#canadian#need#american#don#trump#dairy

Discussion (150 Comments)Read Original on HackerNews

ericmayabout 4 hours ago
> And Canada is taxing you back

This seems illogical. You can't simultaneously claim that the US is paying higher prices for Canadian goods because of US-imposed tariffs and then turn around and say only that Americans are paying a tax on buying Canadian goods on Canadian-imposed tariffs. Both countries are either paying higher prices or paying higher taxes. Canada's tariffs must also be viewed as America is taxing Canada back, or else neither can be viewed that way.

Separately you can go back prior to 2024, for example, and discuss monopolization of Canadian companies and import duties on American products which also must be treated in the same fashion for this analysis - Canadian imposed tariffs on dairy (I don't care about dairy other than it being an obvious example) would have to be claimed to be an American tax on Canadians for this to be consistent.

Whatever claim you would levy here, equally applies to Canada minus the dollar volumes depending on which country imports more and what products are imported since Canada is also implementing additional (because they've had tariffs for a while) tariffs on specific goods/services.

cwilluabout 3 hours ago
If you're going to talk about canadian dairy tariffs, please note that (a) this was originally negotiated by trump the last time he was in office, and (b) the tariff only applies when the total imports exceed a limit, which iirc has never actually been exceeded.
ericmayabout 3 hours ago
Someone else shared this article [1] and I was reading a quote I thought was interesting:

  “[Canada] has a large dairy producing constituency that it wants to protect, so they put a cap on imports that can be accessed at a competitive rate. That's what we call a ‘TRQ’ (tariff rate quota),” says Becky Rasdall Vargas, senior vice president of trade and workforce policy at the International Dairy Foods Association. Under the TRQ, Canada accepts a certain amount of dairy products duty-free, without tariffs.

  "Rather, Rasdall Vargas blames the dispute on “a systemic set of failures” by Canadian administrators that intentionally prevent American dairy exports from reaching the import cap. These protectionist measures are intended to support Canadian dairy farmers. One rule, for example, requires that Canadian dairy processors be the primary recipients of American dairy products.

  “If you’re a U.S. exporter, you're going to want to sell to your customers, not to a competitor,” she says. “Another one is that retailers aren't eligible to obtain an import license quota in Canada. There are layers upon layers of rules that ultimately prevent U.S. exporters from being able to fill those quotas.”
So I'm not sure the quota is as straightforward as many folks are making it out to be and there's more nuance there. This, assuming it is accurate, is really interesting and helps explain why US producers don't even meet the quota that was set.

[1] https://www.farmprogress.com/farm-policy/the-real-story-behi...

Throaway826about 2 hours ago
The main reason the Dairy Supply quota is in place is to stop US dairy producers from dumping dairy into Canada.

That's why the USA has never reached the tarriff limit. The big producers there would just dump 20 million litres at once if they could. They aren't interested in 1 or two.

And if they were able to do that, the Canadian producers would go under. So its kinda simple, the Dairy Supply system is there to protect the Canadian Dairy industry. If it was removed, we would be flooded with cheap, low-quality US milk.

The entire Canadian dairy industry produces less milk than Wisconsin alone. Why does the US need the Canadian market? A: They don't, they just want it anyways.

realoabout 1 hour ago
I am Canadian. Never, ever would i knowingly buy any dairy products from the USA , at any price.

We have cows too, and farmers.

SpicyLemonZestabout 3 hours ago
The limits are often covered pretty misleadingly. If you were to just order a truckload of American butter and import it, you'd be subject to the over-quota tariff regardless of whether the cap was reached. In order to get the preferential rate, you have to file a formal application to use the quota (https://www.international.gc.ca/trade-commerce/controls-cont...), which is subject to all kind of restrictions and limitations. In particular, grocery stores aren't allowed to use the butter quota at all, so if you have some fancy butter you'd like to convince Loblaws to stock you'll always have to pay the higher rate.

(I would emphasize that I don't think this is bad in some cosmic sense, and Canadians have every right to keep the shelves stocked with Canadian butter only if they would like.)

nba456_about 3 hours ago
It's never been exceeded because who's going to bother shipping dairy to Canada when you'll be taxed to hell the moment you sell any real volume.
foxyvabout 4 hours ago
I think the idea is that tariffs cut both ways. They increase prices for foreign goods as well as reduce demand for imports causing job losses in the exporting country. The original tariffs increase prices and the retaliatory tariffs reduce demand for American products causing job loss.
usefulcatabout 2 hours ago
> They increase prices for foreign goods

Not only for foreign goods. If there's a tax on imported X, domestic X producers can now charge more because the foreign producers must raise their prices to pay for the tax.

Another way to look at it is that any tariff reduces foreign competition, with all the knock-on effects that implies.

litoEabout 1 hour ago
It's not the foreign producer who must raise her prices to pay for the tax. It's the local importer. The net effect on the consumer is that the price of imported goods goes up so then, as you say, the local producers can raise their prices and increase their profits.
ericmayabout 4 hours ago
Yes but since Canada is also initiating new tariffs (they've had existing ones for specific products and industries already) so anything said here applies to Canada as well.

For example Canadian tariffs increase prices and their retaliatory tariffs also reduce demand for Canadian products leading to job losses.

davidwabout 3 hours ago
They are willing to bear some pain in order to hit back at the US administration. And they're pretty united - Doug Ford for instance is not on the same team as Mark Carney - but has been very vocal about striking back.

It's really a singular achievement to piss off such a good neighbor so badly.

foxyvabout 2 hours ago
Yup! Just like a game of chicken that goes a little too far.
tensorabout 2 hours ago
Agreed that "Canada is taxing you back" doesn't make sense. But "America is taxing Canada" makes even less sense. Sorry, just no. America is taxing Americans, Canada is taxing Canadians, these taxes harm exports and imports.

Also, we've never had fully free trade. You can whine about dairy, we can whine about unfair lumber tariffs. These are all part of CUMSA, an agreement that has been illegally violated every damn day under Trump's regime. Let's just cut to the chase. If Trump won't honour CUMSA why make any deal with him? There is no reason he'll honour any new agreement either. He was the one who negotiated CUMSA in the first place.

ericmay20 minutes ago
> But "America is taxing Canada" makes even less sense

I don’t disagree. I just wanted to point out the framing needs to be consistent, which I think you agree with.

I also agree with you with respect to free trade. Every exporter is a free trade proponent. Curious how when it comes to imports or protecting domestic industries all of a sudden every country in the planet puts up some sort of protectionist barrier.

hn_throwaway_99about 4 hours ago
I think you are reading way too much into that "you" in that sentence. I read it simply as a list and total of all the retaliatory tariffs that Canada is imposing, and the site emphasizes that this is obviously bad for American jobs, not that American consumers pay the tariffs that Canada is imposing.

This whole trade war with Canada has to be one of the dumbest fucking things I have ever witnessed, and that's saying a lot given the complete incompetence and buffoonery of the current US administration. First they had to imitate Idiocracy with the the WFC fight on the White House lawn, now they're imitating South Park by killing relations with Canada. Heck, a big joke in the original South Park movie was that it was so inconceivable that of all countries Canada is the one we'd have a war with, but Trump just wants to speed run to every country on the planet hating our guts.

c0nsumerabout 3 hours ago
For more movies about the ridiculousness of having a fight with Canada, of all places, see Canadian Bacon: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0109370/

Summary quote from IMDB: "The U.S. President, low in the opinion polls, gets talked into raising his popularity by trying to start a cold war against Canada."

ericmayabout 4 hours ago
> I think you are reading way too much into that "you" in that sentence.

Sure that's fair, but on the other hand that's what was written and the framing I think is unfair and inconsistent. Of course, others may go along happily reading it and thinking wow we created these tariffs to raise prices and Canada decided to tax us!? That's worth clearing up and being honest about, in my view.

Imagine someone writes another article and frames it as though Americans are taxing Canadians with tariffs. Surely folks would want to "clear that up" wouldn't they?

horsawlarwayabout 1 hour ago
I think it's a bit more complicated than you're implying here.

Yes - you are technically correct that each country is taxing its own citizens/businesses with tariffs. I also agree that phrasing is more honest than what the article states

But for interconnected supply chains, the result can get pretty muddled.

Ex -

Canada sells wood to a US company. US applies tariff.

That US company sells a component made of that wood back to a Canadian company. Canada applies tariff.

That Canadian company uses that component to produce a good that's sold to US consumers. US applies tariff.

etc...

For the end purchasers of the finished product - the net increase in price (the final "tax" you pay) might be a summation of various tariffs applied by both countries as they interact with each other.

The price increases at the final sale are additive, regardless of which country is capturing the tariff as tax. The real result is that the product is just more expensive to make when tariffs are in place, and so must be sold at a higher price based on the total tax applied to all parts of the product (regardless of where in the chain it was US/Canada/China/Other/Etc actually capturing a tariff).

Ex - you will pay more because of US tariffs, and more again because of Canadian tariffs in response to US tariffs.

malsheabout 4 hours ago
I see your point but it's all AI written and I doubt any human actually read it to ascertain accuracy
mullingitoverabout 4 hours ago
> This whole trade war with Canada has to be one of the dumbest fucking things I have ever witnessed, and that's saying a lot given the complete incompetence and buffoonery of the current US administration.

You'd think that, strategically, a decapitation strike is the worst thing that could happen for a nation. However, that would be incorrect: the worst thing that could happen is this, a vain and incompetent buffoon installed in the top leadership position. With no leader you're just not making decisions, but the organization can continue operating under autonomous cells. With a hyperactive incompetent leader you're speedrunning every conceivable bad decision and everyone just has to look on in horror.

nickffabout 3 hours ago
>"the worst thing that could happen is this, a vain and incompetent buffoon installed in the top leadership position."

Well, Canada repeatedly elected Justin Trudeau (now departed)... so both countries have made some... interesting decisions...

mthomsabout 3 hours ago
First, I agree with your complaint about that wording.

Aside from that, the "obvious" dairy tariffs you speak of are almost entirely theoretical. Those are anti-dumping tariffs that kick-in only when a certain threshold has been met. It never has.

That's not to say there aren't trade barriers. The US side argues that there are market barriers that make reaching those quotas impossible [0]. It's a fair point and worth discussing. But let's call it what it is: it's a dispute about opening up a potential new market. Nobody has been over-charged and no American farmers have been "ripped off" (quoting DJT).

If the end result is the same, do the details matter? Absolutely. Being overcharged or ripped off is something that gets people heated, (which is exactly why Trump uses that inflammatory language). Being denied market access because of administrative hurdles to a small-ish niche in a relatively small market like Canada? Not so much.

Please don't repeat the falsehood that dairy tariffs are an "obvious" example of where Canada has imposed fees on American companies. The truth is more nuanced.

[0] https://www.farmprogress.com/farm-policy/the-real-story-behi...

ericmayabout 3 hours ago
Fair enough, I agree the truth is more nuanced. I regret even using dairy as that has caused a lot more of a discussion about the specific item being, idk, targeted? than I would have liked and detracted from a more broad point that I wanted to make or at least discuss. Thanks for sharing that article, will take a look at that too.
llm_nerdabout 3 hours ago
> This seems illogical.

It is. When Canada imposes retaliatory tariffs, it is of course a tax on Canadians. Though it is also a market inducement, and one of the complaints of the admin is that Canada's retaliatory vehicle tariffs -- literally mirroring the tariffs the US applied to Canada -- caused a 22% drop in imports.

> import duties on American products which also must be treated in the same fashion for this analysis - Canadian imposed tariffs on dairy

Can you tell us if those import duties are in the room with us? Because you know they didn't exist, right?

There have been $0 in tariffs on US dairy. The tariffs only come into play when the US imports pass a certain volume -- and precisely the same tariffs happen in both directions -- and the US hasn't. Now the US has complained that there are administrative barriers, and maybe so, but they sure aren't clear on what they are, and lie about everything constantly.

Prior to this trade war, there was essentially 0% tariffs on products from the US. And the only reason there is a trade "deficit" is because of massive amounts of Alberta oil that the US desperately needs. I mean, it's hilarious that Trump was literally celebrating bringing back Keystone XL, and increasing the flow of Alberta oil, while simultaneously complaining essentially about that very same oil.

This is, as the WSJ named it, the stupidest trade war in history. All for yet another distraction, as Trump's entire base just desperately need to puff their little chests and celebrate when they think he is punching down on someone. Even if it makes their lives worse and their lot worse.

ericmayabout 3 hours ago
Let's set the framing correctly because I think we're starting off on the wrong foot. The US is not in a desperate need of any product from Canada. Nice to have and super important? Yea. Desperate? No. Not by any stretch of the imagination.

> There have been $0 in tariffs on US dairy. The tariffs only come into play when the US imports pass a certain volume

So there are tariffs on US dairy... Maybe the US can just say well once 50 cars are shipped in from Canada we impose 300% duties. I'm not part of team Trump here or anything, but these kinds of arguments are semantics - at the end of the day neither Canada, China, the EU, or others who claim to be free-trade economies (in some sense) are really living up to the hype, whether that's outright tariffs, or complicated regulatory or policy schemes to circle around what amounts to a tax on foreign produced goods.

> This is, as the WSJ named it, the stupidest trade war in history.

Wall Street (and the WSJ) also helped move American jobs overseas. So are you aligning with corporate America's viewpoint on trade? They also want much lower corporate taxes. :)

> All for yet another distraction, as Trump's entire base just desperately need to puff their little chests and celebrate when they think he is punching down on someone. Even if it makes their lives worse and their lot worse.

I don't know that this is a distraction and it would be a mistake to dismiss these concerns out of hand as chest-pumping.

footyabout 2 hours ago
> Let's set the framing correctly because I think we're starting off on the wrong foot. The US is not in a desperate need of any product from Canada. Nice to have and super important? Yea. Desperate? No. Not by any stretch of the imagination.

aluminium, potash, and electricity are more than "nice to have"s

llm_nerdabout 3 hours ago
> The US is not in a desperate need of any product from Canada. Nice to have and super important? Yea. Desperate? No. Not by any stretch of the imagination.

The US oil stockpile is rapidly declining, it is desperately buying up bonds to try to prop up the market ($40T debt, deficit spiralling, and now your orange goblin is talking about using the military to prop up the bond market...which good God), and now Vance is running around trying to make lemonade out of lemons and talking up how no longer being the reserve currency is a great thing. Utter idiocracy.

Canada needs absolutely nothing from the US.

> I'm not part of team Trump here or anything, but these kinds of arguments are semantics

It isn't semantics when $0 in tariffs were applied. What an utterly stupid argument. And this was all precisely negotiated into USMCA -- you know, the trade deal that your hero called the best trade deal ever -- for which we gave concessions.

Trump takes advantage of his base being catastrophically stupid and misinformed, and what a case in point.

>I don't know that this is a distraction

It is 100% a distraction, for a monumentally stupid base.

Personally I want USMCA torn up, as a Canadian. Loads of Americans are catastrophically stupid -- the most impossibly misinformed group of people on this planet -- about how privileged you have been, and what you have to lose.

mthomsabout 3 hours ago
It's amazing how confidently some people speak about a topic they know nothing about.

>Let's set the framing correctly because I think we're starting off on the wrong foot. The US is not in a desperate need of any product from Canada. Nice to have and super important? Yea. Desperate? No. Not by any stretch of the imagination.

Literally yesterday:

“This country desperately needs aluminum,” Trump said. “Selfishly, we need aluminum in this country. We don’t have it. We get it all from Canada for the most part, and we need it badly.”

Note that Trump said this within hours of claiming "we don't need anything from Canada". What else does the country need that Trump has lied about (that you seem to have bought hook, line, and sinker)? Have you considered another source of information?

Well you can start with potash (very much a critical need according to the United States Ambassador to Canada), and oil (according to the US voters), electricity (according to several million American households).

That's not even to mention current and future supplies of critical minerals. Remember how much Trump panicked when China cut off critical minerals? You'd better hope that doesn't happen again.

SmirkingRevengeabout 2 hours ago
That is definitely a flatly wrong statement. Unfortunately, it reinforces the Trumpian disinformation that tariffs are fees that other countries pay us... or something.

Trump is taxing Americans when he imposes tariffs. Canada is taxing Canadians when they impose retaliatory tariffs.

And FWIW, most economists think retaliatory tariffs are stupid - on net they cause more harm to the retaliating country than if there were no retaliation. But the politics around tariffs are stupid too. It's all stupid.

senderistaabout 2 hours ago
> And FWIW, most economists think retaliatory tariffs are stupid - on net they cause more harm to the retaliating country than if there were no retaliation. But the politics around tariffs are stupid too. It's all stupid.

You can't divorce these tariffs from their geopolitical context, which is Trump threatening to annex Canada.

sobellianabout 3 hours ago
Imagine you want to build a factory in the US. You pay tariffs on the factory equipment you need - much of it is made overseas. You pay tariffs on your input goods. And then when you try to export your customers get hit with a retaliatory tariff. I don't agree with tariffs but even if we accept some level of protectionism you can't tariff everything the way this administration wants. You have to pick what you actually want to prioritize and choose your battles.
tomjakubowskiabout 2 hours ago
A handful of people I used to work with lost their US manufacturing jobs in 2025 by exactly this mechanism. Their job was assembling products from components built in China, for export to Europe. Their inputs got new tariffs in 2025, and European retaliatory tariffs hit them on the other end. The jobs were moved to a factory in China.
NoidFonsenseabout 3 hours ago
I totally disagree. The same factory would be made infeasible without the tariff.

What do we need that shouldn't make domesticially?

sobellianabout 3 hours ago
I'm telling you as a fact that as someone working for a manufacturing startup the tariffs have only made things more expensive for us. But I'm sure the Cleveland Cliffs execs are doing great.
SmirkingRevengeabout 2 hours ago
Tariffs hurt domestic manufacturing for a number of reasons, but one of the major ones is because something like 50% of our manufacturing inputs are imported.
epolanskiabout 2 hours ago
Protectionism and tariffs simply don't work in the global world.

Capitalism will keep producing things where they make sense not where politicians want.

Exceptions make sense only to protect industries that are absolutely vital and critical for security. Ship building should be one of those for countries like US or UK.

Or when you want to kickstart an industry and need to protect it for a limited amount of time (Koreans and the Japanese both did so with some of their industrial sectors, but it was always time limited).

This administration thinks it can make every industry thrive through tariffs.

I don't see how it can work, even for a country with the resources of the US.

HWR_14about 1 hour ago
I'm having a hard time thinking about what products aren't "vital and critical for security". I guess toys?
QuantumNoodle38 minutes ago
I have anecdotal experience that makes the ~$1,600 per house hold feel like an underestimate.

We purchased a Subaru Outback right around the first round of tarrifs. We were in the market for the base trim, no bells & whistles. We ended up getting the highest trim bc all the remaining base trims were post-tarrifs and and cost $3.5k more than the pre-tarrif higher trim that was already in the lot.

Mind you the Subaru outback was assembled in IL, USA so it is not just imported entirely from Japan.

And that's not considering all the other "consuming" we do (which is quite limited being outdoor ppl).

Marsymarsabout 4 hours ago
This site looks good, and it's nice that it has data sources, but it would also be nice if it was clear about who built the site.
A_D_E_P_Tabout 4 hours ago
Claude built the site, it's obvious from the style.

Which is to say that anybody with a $200 subscription and access to Namecheap and Netlify could have built the site in one hour flat. There's no longer any need for an NGO, media nonprofit, or lobbying group to build such things; the effort required has been reduced to near-zero, so anybody can do it.

Marsymarsabout 4 hours ago
Yeah, I figured that it was LLM-build - which I'm generally okay with if there's someone willing to put their name to it so I can make my own determination about trust level.
afavourabout 4 hours ago
> There's no longer any need for an NGO, media nonprofit, or lobbying group to build such things; the effort required has been reduced to near-zero

Right but actually creating the thing is only half the story. You need to fact check it (especially with LLMs) promote it, approach journalists to bring it to their attention, etc etc etc.

In many ways making a web site has always been the easy part.

A_D_E_P_Tabout 3 hours ago
> You need to fact check it (especially with LLMs)

That's true... but with every day that passes it's increasingly less true. Today's best high-end LLMs are highly optimized towards fact checking themselves and each other. The winning move is to get a report from Claude and have both Kimi K3 and GPT-5.6-Pro adverserially review it. Then synthesize a fixed version with any one of them. Then adverserially review it again in incognito mode.

This sounds like a lot of work, but it takes literally two minutes of effort and it works amazingly well.

bpt3about 4 hours ago
Why does it matter? The data sources are cited and are publicly available.

It's basically just documenting the utter stupidity of a trade war with a close ally with whom we are tightly coupled economically.

Marsymarsabout 3 hours ago
> Why does it matter? The data sources are cited and are publicly available.

Because I don't want to click through to every data source to verify every figure and need some baseline level of trust about whether they've been correctly used.

If there's an error, I want to be able to contact the author somehow.

ryanisnanabout 4 hours ago
I like the idea behind the site, but I have some nits.

First, when you list something like a financial figure, you must also include the relevant time period. E.g. you say 16.0B in taxes collected by Canada from American exporters. But you don't list the time period.

Second, you say 313 are taxed today. What is this in reference to? Goods? People? Companies? Percentage?

The labels need some serious love.

cryptoegorophyabout 1 hour ago
From what I researched, Tarrifs that are discussed are impacting about 5% of overall trade between USA and Canada. This seems more political and clickbait than anything meaningful. 5% is not something to be concerned about unless you are directly impacted. “They” (news, politicians) just want your attention.
declan_robertsabout 3 hours ago
Canada is very unfortunately caught in the trade war between the USA and China. It's pretty easy right now for certain goods to bypass the US tariffs by being transshipped through Canada and enter the USA without tariff because of minimal processing. Chinese steel is a notable example of this.

And a lot of Canada's trade MOUs with other countries basically requires they have this special privilege. So there's gonna be fallout everywhere.

I wouldn't personally want to own Canadian dollars right now but I think they'll get this figured out.

john_strinlaiabout 2 hours ago
>Canada is very unfortunately caught in the trade war between the USA and China.

canada is very unfortunately caught in the trade war between the USA and canada

JumpCrisscrossabout 3 hours ago
> Canada is very unfortunately caught in the trade war between the USA and China

Ottawa is fighting Anchluss. The MAGA wing is entirely serious about annexing Canada.

Carney, for a change, is right. Canada is being attacked.

robocat34 minutes ago
jszymborskiabout 2 hours ago
Canada generally doesn't have much problem coordinating with the US on tariffs on Chinese goods. A primary example is Chinese Vehicles. The trouble is that by launching a trade war against Canada, the US has lost the willingness of Canadians to participate in such coordination.

Re: Canadian dollars, it's the US dollar that I believe is the more salient concern [0]

[0] https://www.morningstar.com/news/dow-jones/20260825307/bitco...

trynumber9about 1 hour ago
CAD vs USD is rather stable, varying between 0.70-0.73 the last 12 months though trending down from 0.8 in the last 60 months.
declan_robertsabout 2 hours ago
Chinese vehicles are a little more conspicuous in their origin than rolled steel and aluminum.
jszymborskiabout 2 hours ago
If steel and aluminum is imported to Canada, they face Canadian tariff rates. If the US and Canada coordinate their tariff regimes (as I illustrated with the EV example), the rolled steel and aluminum will be tariffed at a rate the US government deems adequate.

If you're suggesting that Canada is facilitating the covert smuggling of Chinese steel and aluminum then I'd require a bit more evidence. It's become fashionable for the US government to level such accusations, but as we saw with claims about fentanyl, it's all bunk.

thisisitabout 2 hours ago
It is more than Chinese steel: https://www.nytimes.com/2026/08/25/world/canada/trump-carney...

Asking them to change French programming laws, and stopping the "Buy Canadian goods" law etc.

mthomsabout 2 hours ago
>It's pretty easy right now for certain goods to bypass the US tariffs by being transshipped through Canada and enter the USA without tariff because of minimal processing.

This talking point keeps getting repeated on HN. Always without sources because the only source is a dubious White House "report" that is nothing more than a manufactured reason for buying an expensive new AI system (probably from a big donor). https://www.whitehouse.gov/wp-content/uploads/2026/08/The-Gr...

That same report equally names the European Union, India, Israel, Japan, Mexico, South Korea, and Taiwan alongside Canada. So literally every modern western economy is making this "pretty easy"? Yeah, ok.

declan_robertsabout 2 hours ago
I haven't personally seen it on HN but it has been an issue at least since the beginning of tariffs, and there's significant rules in the original NAFTA agreement to try and curb it. So it's not new, and definitely predates that report.

Here's a NYT article from April about the difficulty in preventing transhipping.

https://www.nytimes.com/2026/04/07/us/politics/tariffs-trade...

epolanskiabout 3 hours ago
No, Canada is just the last in line of this US administration's mission of alienating and pissing off every single ally while bending to enemies and Israel.
spacemuleabout 3 hours ago
Am I the only one who finds this site undecipherable?

Take this snippet for example:

  American exporters 
  $16.0B of what American exporters sell to Canada sits in headings Canada taxes today, 10.5% of the total. From 8 September it is $26.5B.
  See whose jobs
What does "sits in headings Canada taxes" mean? Whatever this means, how does it jump to $26.5B from $16.0B on a single date? Don't things have to enter for tariffs to be collected?

"See whose jobs" is even more confusing. Nothing about jobs was mentioned. It's talking, presumably about an increase in a tariff collected by Canada. I can understand this will affect certain jobs, but "See whose jobs" just confuses the situation more. I cannot figure out for the life of me what's going on.

Here's another example when you click the "nuclear option" it jumps, without context beyond "Canada’s energy supply is a fourth exposure, and a different kind" to this:

  The nuclear option

  Canada has not done this, and nothing here predicts it will. But tariffs are the smaller lever. 
  Flip the switch to see which states buy their energy from Canada, and whether they have anywhere else to buy it.

  Crude cost per gallon
  $1.86
  what everyone else charges, up 26¢ a gallon

  Both figures are prices the United States actually paid   this year: $67.17 a barrel to Canada, $77.92 a barrel 
  to everyone else, across 704 million Canadian barrels. Careful with the gap, though. It is not a pump price, 
  since refining, distribution, tax and margin all sit on top of the crude. Nor is it really a discount: Canadian 
  barrels are mostly heavy crude, and heavy crude sells below lighter grades wherever it goes, so a lot of the 
  difference is just the grade. What replacing one with the other would cost is a question this page does
  not have the data to answer.
Am I really dumb for not understanding this site, or is this the infogram equivalent of a Nigerian prince email?
magicalhippoabout 1 hour ago
> What does "sits in headings Canada taxes" mean?

My guess would be it's refering to the Harmonized System[1], used to classify goods on import and export declarations:

The HS is organized into 21 Sections, which are subdivided into 96 Chapters (Chapters 1 to 97 with Chapter 77 reserved for potential future use by the HS). The 96 HS Chapters are further subdivided into 1,228 headings and 5,612 subheadings in the current 2022 edition of the HS.

Most countries have additional subdivisions, for example in US the HS is used as a basis for the Harmonized Tariff Schedule[2].

The classification is used to determine tariffs, taxes and restrictions, but those are often applied to the broader groups, so covering say all imported aluminum, rather than say aluminum of a particular kind for use in a particular sector.

> Whatever this means, how does it jump to $26.5B from $16.0B on a single date?

Because Canada announced it will impose tariffs on more types of goods on that day, ie more headings, affecting more of the exported value.

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harmonized_System#Structure

[2]: https://hts.usitc.gov/

sadengineer22about 3 hours ago
It is AI slop, which has the veneer of sense without the substance. https://cymerys.com/w/im-becoming-ai-blind
fg137about 2 hours ago
Interesting, the domain is blocked at my workplace.
john_strinlaiabout 2 hours ago
it was only registered today. many places will block new domains, for a customizable definition of 'new'.
fg137about 2 hours ago
You are right. Tried another random newly registered domain that is parked and got blocked as well.
maxgluteabout 2 hours ago
LBH, Canada has always been real economy loser with respect US trade with ~80b goods / services deficit AFTER discounted energy - cheap crude sales to US to fuel US refinery mismatch. US doesn't have strategic domestic energy self sufficiency without Canadian crude, CAN sludge should be selling at premium (same with VZ but we see how that went). In an ideal world Canada could be making more refining and selling high margin refined fossil to global markets and not sending ~80b to US.

Which is to say, if Canada sorts out inter provincial trade, pivot to domestic goods/services and sell commodities globally at benchmark prices it on paper come out ahead. Nvm associated brain drain via US integration killed what was left of Canadian tier1 industries (not much to be done). Or half reason CAN has to sell cheap to US is US lobbying (read political meddling / foreign influence) on infra/pipelines. Or discount NORAD which LBH missiles over polar orbit aren't stopping at Canada, as if Canada needs to free ride on NA security architecture.

TLDR is Canada always loser of even happy vassal arrangement, the carrot was always stale but it dint' need to be sweet with how big US stick is. But stick not big enough to force CAN to deepthroat new rotten carrot arrangement. At least not yet.

bryanlarsenabout 2 hours ago
USMCA (and the 2 deals that preceded it) are definitely better deals for the US than they are for Canada. But they're fairly generally believed to be win-win deals; it's just that the US wins more than Canada.

If you're playing a single football game, the lesser winner is the loser. However, the economy is not a single football game. In real life the lesser winner is still a winner.

maxgluteabout 2 hours ago
>generally believed to be

Generally believed by orthodox economics whose credibility is not so hot. CUSFTA, NFTA, USMCA... there was brief decade in 90s with CUSFTA integration where rising water lift all boats, but realistically Canadian growth in 00s was on the back of commodity supercyclic and inflated real estate. In real life the winner takes home $10000 cheque, the second/third winners take home participation ribbons, and sometimes they come home battered and bloodied (US buyouts in highend because CAN champions lack of scale never could compete once barriers gone ). In real life the lesser winner still has to look at opportunity cost of playing the game in the first place. Was there a more profitable game where runners up get $5000? Which is not to say participation trophy was not the optimal play, i.e. the opportunity cost of not joining common industrial base might have been more detrimental, maybe global capital wouldn't enter Canada in first place, maybe not playing = atrophy at home. But surviving + participation prize winner not the same as a take cheque home winner.

thisisitabout 2 hours ago
They know the stick is huge but with how everything is going with US and the TACO mentality they feel US will be back on the table once the reality starts hitting.

The whole story about why the talks failed:

https://www.nytimes.com/2026/08/25/world/canada/trump-carney...

US having veto over Canada trade negotiations, dictating language policy which could cause Quebec to cede from Canada, and stop the "buy Canadian" policy put after the last tariff round etc. It not even a stick anymore it is a proper gun which blow in the face of any Canadian who agrees to these terms.

b11212 minutes ago
Not to mention? Any deal signed isn't worth a thing these days. The US is absolutely, positively not trustworthy.

Just look at the bridge deal. We negotiate a deal, build a bridge for billions, then at the last minute? Rip up a signed agreement and reneg. After the money is spent. It's pathetic. I expect better from used car salesmen. It doesn't matter why, for what reason, it reflects 100% on the US, it's not just one man.

We don't trust the US any more. It lies. It cheats. It scams. We used to buy US weapons, but now we don't trust that, either. I can imagine spending 200B on weapons, and then the software just stops working.

The US used to be the most trusted, beloved nation by Canadians. I think many Canadians would trust Iran, China, Russia more than the US now, to keep a deal.

And that?

That's a pathetic outcome, from a pathetic administration.

bpt3about 4 hours ago
I assume the data source citations are referencing Census Department API endpoints, I would make the data sources explicit by adding links.

You also might want to consider archiving the data if you aren't already given this administration's tendency to remove data that doesn't further their agenda.

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lenerdenatorabout 4 hours ago
I'm trying to think of the number of people I (an American) know who considered trade with Canada to be a real issue.

The answer I keep coming back to is I know zero people who considered that.

Does the US have a trade imbalance that causes problems, particularly in our manufacturing sector? Yes. Can tariffs kind of help with that? Also yes. Really, you need to instill some sort of sense of duty to country in business leaders, which is a far heavier lift, but this at least puts a number to it.

Does picking a tariff fight with Canada, our closest cultural ally, solve the above problem to the point where it justifies the costs? Hell no.

bryanlarsenabout 4 hours ago
America's trade imbalance with Canada is basically crude oil. Which they get at a significant discount because it's much more expensive to export anywhere else.

America then refines it and exports it as finished product or uses it internally -- one of the reasons why America has relatively cheap gasoline prices.

This "trade imbalance" is a massive benefit to America.

kevin_nisbetabout 3 hours ago
I've seen this point in a few different places and I don't know that it's understood as widely as it should be.

So just to expand on why that's the case. As a net producer of energy right now, the US produces more than it consumes. This is why it get's pointed out, that as a net producer, the trade deficit with Canada is also a surplus (or reduction in deficit) on the other side with other countries. Yes it may not be the same physical barrel that is exported vs consumed, but in a fungible way they're commodities. If you separate out that portion, we (Canada) then buy more goods from the US then we sell. And that's also just the goods trade, not including services which the US also sells more of to Canada than the other way around.

bryanlarsenabout 3 hours ago
Another poster pointed out that Trump is complaining about the trade deficit at the same time he's trying to increase that trade deficit by building the Keystone XL pipeline....
Terr_about 4 hours ago
> Does the US have a trade imbalance that causes problems, particularly in our manufacturing sector?

I have a trade imbalance with the local grocery store: I buy lots of vegetables, but they don't buy mine.

My employer has a trade imbalance with me: They buy lots of my labor, but I never buy any of theirs.

The term has become unhelpfully pejorative, the "imbalance" is often desirable and beneficial.

voidfuncabout 3 hours ago
Its all a precursor to setting up a reason to invade Canada. If Canada moves on with a threat to do something with energy then buckle up.
b1123 minutes ago
That'd be the dumbest thing the US has ever done. The next 50 years would be as Vietnam, with people indistinguishable from Americans, sneaking across the border 8000km long, to explode, and kill, and destroy. A Vietnam that never ends, and is local.

Not to mention, Canada can make nukes if it wants to. It just doesn't. It gave them up, but still has the plans.

ajmurmannabout 3 hours ago
Every side benefits from a trade. That's why the trade is made. The US is able to afford a trader imbalance because the USD is the world's reserve currency. Other countries are subsidizing our trade imbalance. It's a huge win for the US.

Tariffs will not bring back manufacturing. They increase prices of inputs, reduce incentive for competitiveness and invite retaliation. Look how well tariffs have worked for Brazil and Argentina or for the US under Smoot Hawley.

lenerdenatorabout 2 hours ago
> The US is able to afford a trader imbalance because the USD is the world's reserve currency. Other countries are subsidizing our trade imbalance. It's a huge win for the US.

The geopolitical calculations regarding China and the socioeconomic conditions of working class people in the Midwestern and Northeastern United States would beg to differ.

You need to have at least some control of your own manufacturing destiny for national security reasons, and you need somewhere for people with a high school diploma to work or they start dying deaths of despair.

ajmurmannabout 1 hour ago
I agree on the security aspect. However, tariffs aren't gonna fix that but will make it worse. We need to remove red take and lean into projects like Port Alpha and California Forever. We also need to work with our allies who are already strong on manufacturing instead of alienating them at every step possible.

The job situation is unfortunate but these jobs will not come. China has lost more jobs to automation than the US has to China. If we want people to prosper we need to build housing where the economy is and encourage people to move there.

While we have lost tons of factory jobs, we have created lots of service jobs that require similar skills. There has been a boom around jobs like solar installation, HVAC and similar. They just aren't as visible because it's a little bit everywhere, rather than a company or industry town.

SmirkingRevengeabout 2 hours ago
Also FWIW - the US is the second largest manufacturer in the world, only behind China due to it's larger population. Our productivity per worker blows China away (though they are catching up) and is the best in the world. We manufacture plenty and do it well.

This idea that we have lost manufacturing and we need some push to onshore it all again is... well... another manufactured problem that isn't.

SmirkingRevengeabout 2 hours ago
I mostly agree, except that trade imbalances are not problems and don't really cause problems.

Buying and selling don't need to be equal between buyers and sellers, and it's really just an incoherent idea.

carefulfungiabout 3 hours ago
As an American, I don't see see how you can separate this trade talk from the constant, explicit threats to Canadian sovereignty by Trump - threats he's carried out in reality against Iran, Venezuela, and Cuba. And now economically against Canada.

It isn't just "which Americans consider trade with Canada to be a real issue," it is "which Americans think Canada should become a territory of the United States."

It's just plainly absurd. It is inexplicable to me that Congress doesn't act. And infuriating to me that my representatives in Congress don't do more (even though they are in the opposition.)

senderistaabout 2 hours ago
I don't believe that annexing Canada is really a MAGA issue, even though they may claim to support it. I think it's just an inexplicable Trumpian obsession like Greenland.
convolvatronabout 4 hours ago
at this point one can't really assume it was about picking a tariff fight with Canada any more than the Gaza peace plan was about bringing peace to Gaza. guy is just a shit-thrower. that's his one move, throw some shit and see what he can get out of it. walk into a restaurant and claim that he's been treated so badly they're going to have to sign the whole thing over to him, and settle for 10 free meals and a pack of steaks from the walk-in.
enaaemabout 3 hours ago
It became an issue when Canada did not bow down to Trump's 51st state demand. With Trump's vindictive nature and narcissistic disorder, you get this situation. It is actually completely unsurprising if you think about it.
apercuabout 4 hours ago
But does America have a trade imbalance with Canada?

Canada has things that our economy needs desperately (e.g. potash).

cpercivaabout 4 hours ago
But does America have a trade imbalance with Canada?

Yes, because Canada has a lot of cheap oil which America wants. If you deduct oil, the trade deficit runs the other way.

fraserphysicsabout 3 hours ago
Yes! US agriculture (Mostly a red state industry) needs potash. Google AI says that most potash comes from (in order) Canada ("is the primary global exporter and supplies nearly 80% of U.S. imports"), Russia, Belarus, China, and "smaller volumes are supplied by countries [...]".

If I were king of Canada, I would restrict supplies of such materials needed by red states.

lenerdenatorabout 4 hours ago
I'd say that the cultural links are so strong that any actual accounting for trade imbalance is just not worth thinking about.

Some things are bigger than money.

... which, come to think of it, is something that the current administration doesn't understand, at least from a "personal net worth" standpoint, and explains why this is happening to begin with.

Mezzieabout 2 hours ago
That's one thing that I find so confusing about this. Even if we assume that the administration genuinely doesn't care and does want to annex/culturally subjugate Canada, it's really not easy to separate the two cultures and escalating this to a certain degree is going to prompt domestic backlash.

I was born in America. About half of my ancestors lived in Canada on both sides of my family, I know my Canadian cousins, I spent time in Canada growing up/was taught Canadian history as well as American history, I have a Canadian education and half of my professional network is Canadian, etc. I'm eligible for dual citizenship and am pursuing it now, as are other members of my family, whereas we never bothered before because the separation never seemed to matter. With the recent change in Canadian citizenship laws, I'd estimate at least 25% of the Great Lakes population is eligible for dual citizenship at this point.

One of my parents and some of my siblings are Ojibwe/Anishinaabe. My paternal cousins are all French Catholic. (My dad's parents were Protestant but my aunt married into an old French Catholic family and converted.)

I don't even really know how I would separate out the two nations' influence, and that's true of a lot of people, especially those of us whose families have lived here since before America and Canada existed.

mschuster91about 4 hours ago
> Really, you need to instill some sort of sense of duty to country in business leaders, which is a far heavier lift, but this at least puts a number to it.

The bigger problem is, when consumers have the choice between cheap crap from Aliexpress et al and (vastly) more expensive made-in-<own country>, usually only the affluent who want to show off will be able to choose the latter.

And that is a socially explosive thing in the long term... the masses, especially the rural ones, really do not like it if they feel that they can only afford subpar crap while the "rich urban librul elite" gets access to the good stuff.

That is the stuff that in the best case fuels populist movements, in the worst case revolutions.

(And on top of that, often enough "made-in-<own country>" is bordering the legally required limit on domestic production or is outright just slapping a label and repackaging the Thing)

apercuabout 4 hours ago
Last time I checked, Canada was the largest trading partner of 27 states, directly and indirectly. Disclaimer; I’ve lived in both countries and am a dual citizen so not unbiased.
Mamut3about 3 hours ago
There's much more than tariffs at stake. The fight here is about influence but the way Trump is handling his push to regain American influence in the Western Hemisphere is pushing several allied countries even further away — including some that have been allies for more than two centuries.

This strategy is going to fail and when it does countries will trade much more one with others currencies and less with USA and USD. When that happens the American house of cards will collapse because it will no longer be possible to print trillions of dollars and count on other countries to absorb them trusting in the American policies and agreements.

The printing dollars formula facing low single-digit inflation is coming to an end.

U all can downvote me like on the credit-card thread but this is the reality for those outside the big American walls.

ck2about 4 hours ago
imagine the level of stupid that's going down if the Dems do not also get get the Senate

this administration has three boxes it reaches into to sprinkle around daily

[CHAOS] [CORRUPTION] [CRUELTY]

hope everyone is enjoying the billion spent on golden statues in DC while you can't afford to put gas in your car

but don't worry, he still gets to fly around in his billion dollar QatarForceOne while taking $2 Million golf outings each weekend

afavourabout 4 hours ago
> imagine the level of stupid that's going down if the Dems do not also get get the Senate

The Senate, literally by design, does not represent the will of the people. Add things like gerrymandering on top and the uphill climb required of Democrats to capture the Senate keeps getting higher and higher.

abeppuabout 3 hours ago
Wait, wait, gerrymandering messes with the House, but how does gerrymandering impact control of the Senate? Don't senators need to be elected by their whole state?
ck2about 4 hours ago
how's that supreme court working out for you?

how's all those cabinet members working out for you?

that's 100% Senate, regardless what you think of its representation

we can argue the details later if we somehow survive this decade

btw all the nuclear treaties like weapons in space have been allowed to expire

and he's looking at invading Cuba and Greenland if only for the chaos

without full control over Congress the next two years are going to make the first two pale in comparison

belochabout 2 hours ago
Numbers don't tell the whole story.

1. The U.S. economy is large, but insular. Most trade is between states, not with other countries. This is why most countries shrug and accept tariffs on their goods. For them, trade with the U.S. is not as big of a deal as it's portrayed, so it's not worth risking "fireworks" over. Canada and Mexico are rare exceptions to this. Canada, particularly, is reliant on international trade and trade with the U.S.. That's why they are fighting back for a deal that's better than slow death.

2. Canada is the #1 export market for a lot of American goods. e.g. Autos. Trump is determined to destroy Canada's auto manufacturing sector and bring it all to the U.S.. That might sound good to Americans, but they need to realize that this will necessarily mean they'll lose their #1 export market. If tariff's freeze Canada out of the American market and the Canadian auto industry dies, there will be no incentive to maintain the trade barriers against Chinese autos. Thanks to heavy automation, China is producing better autos than North America can at a fraction of the cost. American autos will be more expensive than ever after a forced retreat from Mexico and Canada and will be totally unable to compete on price and quality. Then there will be the lasting hostility to American products that Trump has caused.

3. Americans should closely examine some of the demands that were in the deal Canada just walked away from. One was for Canada to follow U.S. trade policy with other countries, no questions asked, no variations allowed. e.g. If the U.S. decides Tuvalu needs to be tariffed, Canada would be obligated to as well. Canada would also need to ask permission to sign trade deals with other countries. This would have been a complete surrender of sovereignty and would have reduced Canada's international trade policy to that of an American vassal. Not even an American state! This was a completely unacceptable proposal that was likely introduced to sabotage the negotiations. Howard Lutnick's last minute arrival and direct financial interest in generating more tariff refunds is not getting enough attention.

4. Americans are mostly ignorant of the fact that one of the biggest trade wars of the last century is going on with their Northern neighbour. Of those who are aware, the overwhelming majority are not supportive. Canadians are universally aware of it and overwhelmingly in support of Carney. Canadians have been cutting travel to the U.S. and buying fewer American goods for over a year. Now they're going to do it harder, and many won't stop even after the trade-war ends. Kids are watching their parents read labels in the grocery store to make sure they're not buying American goods and asking why. Trump can negotiate a new trade deal with Carney but he can't negotiate away the sense of betrayal Canadians now feel.

5. People are saying that Canada is too small to win this trade war, but this is not even remotely true. In Canada the war is supported because it's a matter of sovereignty, which is priceless. In the U.S., it's fracturing the Republican party. In Canada, people are voluntarily boycotting American goods and services, as well as travel to the U.S.. In the U.S., there are looming mid-terms that rising costs from a fresh trade-war could help decide. The most recent tariffs imposed by Trump were likely aimed at forcing an agreement he could tout as a "huge victory" right when he needed it. Instead, he has an embarrassing fiasco blowing up in his face. He's so short on ideas that he's threatening to rename lakes! The U.S. may be big, but U.S. leadership is small, inept, and poised to lose it's hold on power. Carney has signalled that he's ready to maintain this trade-war for the two years and change needed for Trump to leave office, but a few months may be all that's required.

dom96about 3 hours ago
I don't really understand why these tariffs are taken seriously. Haven't basically all previous tariffs been cancelled and refunded?
phoronixrlyabout 3 hours ago
Did the cancelled/refunded tarrifs have serious consequences of US customers?
whatsThisBtn4about 3 hours ago
I'm afraid to comment because HN shadow bans when discussing international relations.

The wild part is that I'm quite academic, Waltz, Mearsheimer, Morgenthau are on my wall.

Okay let's get flagged for saying the uncomfortable silent part(chatGPT joke)...

Canada suffers more than the United States.

gyanchawdharyabout 2 hours ago
It does. The ones who hurt scream the loudest.
xutopiaabout 3 hours ago
How do figure Canada will suffer more?