Sometimes I want to comment on topics without doing a full piece.
According to Trump tariffs on Canada and Mexico, at 25% except on energy, which will be 10%, start tomorrow. Along with the 20% tariff on China, the cost to the US is likely to about 1% of GDP. Canada could lose as much as six percent.
Expect retaliation from both countries. Some of it will be sub-Federal, the Ontario Prime Minister has said he’ll raise prices for electricity sent to New York state, for example. Sorry folks, I know most of you didn’t vote for Trump, but…
As I’ve written before I think tariffs are good for Canada. We’ll take a substantial hit, but moving to manufacturing in Canada, buying Canadian and diversifying our export partners are all things we should have done years ago. Hopefully we’ll cancel NAFTA/USMCA: there’s no point in having treaties with the US, since they never obey them.
Israel’s stopped aid to Gaza again. Israel never met its obligations, lied that Hamas has refused to continue the truce and is preparing for war again. Not entirely a surprise but still a disappointment. Meanwhile they’ve occupied a big chunk of Syria. At least Hamas hasn’t embarrassed themselves the way Hezbollah has: they still have some hostages, and they’ve called Israel on their violations, even if the Western press lies about the facts repeatedly.
Trump, Vance and Zelensky’s Press conference blew up. Commenters are apportioning blame in various ways, I don’t much care. The bottom line is that American caused the war because everything came from the Maidan coup which was run by America. Absent that, the sequence of events never happens. Victoria Nuland ran Ukraine as a personal fiefdom for almost a decade. The US and UK convinced Ukraine to keep fighting when they had a generous peace offer on the table, and the result is probably a million and a half dead and Ukraine effectively shattered. To then turn around and act as if Ukraine owes America, rather than the other way around is to act in complete defiance of the actual history and without the least shred of honor.
Here we have Victoria Nuland in 2016, openly testifying before Congress about just how deep the US was in running Ukraine’s government after the 2014 coup.
She laid it all out: US advisors embedded in 12 Ukrainian ministries, American-trained police in 18 cities, the US Treasury… pic.twitter.com/BPQ66UO0Lp— Richard (@ricwe123) February 28, 2025
For what it’s worth, not that Zelensky will do it, but the best course in my mind would be to ask China to mediate because China is the only country in the world which has actual, significant leverage over Russia and Xi has repeatedly said he’d be willing to send peacekeepers. And if China makes any deals with Ukraine, they’ll at least get actual rebuilding, roads, ports, hospitals and so on out of it.
In the larger picture, the US is in irreversible decline. Cut out the noise and the smaller events. The US can’t afford NATO any more. Just like the collapse of the Warsaw Pact was a sign of Russia’s decline, so is the ending of NATO. US carrier groups no longer have a full set of supporting ships: America can’t make them run any more. America’s flagship aircraft builder can’t make reliable planes any more. Trump is starting a crypto reserve. Social benefits are being slashed, yet again, in massive ways. America is behind in 80% of techs and at the same time launching a concerted attack on research universities. It couldn’t build enough weapons and ammunition to fully support Ukraine and in a real war against China or Russia would run out of munitions in about two weeks, then get the shit kicked out of it. It’s also destroying the WTO and other agreements created by it: it’s dismantling its Empire because, simply, it can’t afford it any more.
America’s done. It’s still dangerous, but the decline is terminal. Everyone else needs to negotiate this decline and seek new alliances and trade partners, and take advantage of the end of enforced neoliberalism and “free” trade to re-industrialize and make their countries better able to grow the food they need and manufacture the goods they need.
Why are there no beggars in China? There used to be, now visitors report there aren’t. I can’t speak to the accuracy of the below, but if correct it seems the government decided to send them to their native towns and gave the towns enough money to give them jobs and homes.
🇨🇳 Many foreigners are curious about why there are no homeless people in China. Tbh, even as a Chinese, I find it somewhat unbelievable. It feels as if, overnight, the beggars and homeless people who used to wander the streets and ask passersby for money have all disappeared.… pic.twitter.com/dI5GhCQwD8
— 𝘊𝘰𝘳𝘳𝘪𝘯𝘦 (@OopsGuess) February 26, 2025
In more “Trump officials are malevolent children” news:
Boston Globe reports antics of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem at Vermont/Quebec library that sits on Canada-U.S. border. She repeatedly stepped over taped boundary marker in middle of the library, referring to Canada as the “51st State” every time she stood in Canada. pic.twitter.com/vFBOFzHhmA
— Steven Chase (@stevenchase) March 3, 2025
Ordinary Americans visiting Canada are advised to pretend not to be American or to constantly say “I didn’t vote for him.” Pull this sort of stunt in the wrong place, on the other hand, and you’ll be lucky not to wind up in the hospital. The idea that most Canadians aren’t proud of Canada is an American/Trumpian delusion.
Finally, I remind you that amidst all the noise there are only two big issues: the end of the American era and rise of China is one, and environmental issues (which is about more than just climate) is the other.
Au revoir from Canada.
NR
What’s really crazy about Trump breaking the USMCA is that <he negotiated it himself during his last term in office. So now he’s claiming that the U.S. is getting screwed under… his own agreement.
Of course, it’s a lie. Trump and his rich cronies are using tariffs as a backdoor method of implementing a national sales tax so they can get big tax breaks at the expense of the rest of the country. That’s his real goal here.
Mark Level
Glad to see a new post here, & just a few comments & questions:
1. First 3 paragraphs. I’m glad that Canada can effectively retaliate, on many levels. Btw, I saw a headline some 2 weeks back at YTube, didn’t open the story, but apparently even before the Comedian’s blow-up in the Oval Office, EUrope started to side more with Canada, and for the cheap gas they can’t get since Biden blew up Nordstream, they are buying cheaper LNG gas from Canada than U.S. It’s called the “free market” folks!!
2. 4th paragraph: Israel violates every agreement it makes (or is forced to make), then shrieks “Anti-Semitism” when there is any criticism. This morning I spent 10-15 minutes online trying to find out if Israel released the 2nd set of 600+ hostages/ “prisoners” it was bound to after Hamas’ 2nd hostage release. Netanyahoo claimed an (imaginary) insult by Hamas and has refused to do so. I saw one source saying Hamas would not negotiate with them until old terms were met, another claiming they would be released in 5-6 days. Nobody knows, evidently– unless another reader here does? On one news site recently I heard in the first set of releases a 34-year old man had been released who had been a prisoner since his childhood. He has gray hair.
Oh, editing mistake Ian, ” . . . and is preparing for war again. Not entirely a surprise but still a disappointment. Meanwhile they’ve occupied a big chunk of Israel.” I’m guessing you mean Western Syria, up to Mount Hermon? Or perhaps the West Bank?
3. The Zelensky debacle: Trump rightly called him out for weaponizing the “Russiagate” bullshite, but his biggest 2 faux pas were 1) refusing to kiss the ring when J.D. Vance demanded he give “thanks” to the Overlords, & 2) saying there could be no Peace negotiations with Putin, coz Putin is el Diablo. The 2nd is substantive. Aaron Mate on “Monday Mourning” this a.m. w/ Katie Halper demolished the Z claim’s that Putin violated prisoner swaps they made, the last time Z. & P. negotiated face-to-face. (Before the SMO). Zelensky’s habitually as much a liar as Blinken, Biden or Trump, of course, that’s noblesse oblige for the ruling class. Also funny that Vance called Z-man “Mister President” and Z called him “J.D.” Casual dress (a black track-suit with a Nationalist/Nazi insignia on one breast) didn’t go over well in the circumstances either.
4. Z will never ask China to mediate. He’s still playing a role (resolute Churchill, in Che Guevara Cosplay garb) that doesn’t lend itself to smart strategy or any strategy beyond blustering & demands. Looks like the Euro-Elites are united to prop up the war for maybe a year longer and get another 100,000 Ukie fighters & mercenaries killed. (Are there many Europeans who’ll take the pay to walk into a meat-grinder? Color me skeptical.) That’s the longest, I’d guess, they can sustain the failure. The German soldiers revolted to end WW I; I guess modern troops aren’t smart or independent enough to do so. Shocked to see Ireland & Spain lining up with the fools. The late great historian Evan S. Connell included a wonderful essay on the Children’s Crusade (there were actually 3, all disasters) in his book The Aztec Treasure House. This will be a remake of that, as farce.
5. American Decline: all the signs are clear. The Dems only excel at (absurd) narrative spin, the R’s like Noem only do so at trolling the (G)Libs. Which is about as hard as shooting fish in a barrel. There is no actual legislating, just letting real President Elon (Ketamine Kid) Musk blow shit up. Already people in deeply Red states started calling out their representatives, loudly, for gutting Medicare. The pols just insulted the audiences, which erupted in catcalls, & walked out . . . Expect big gains for the D’s and a majority in Congress, probably the Senate too, when they will . . . do nothing, as they did in Obama’s first term when they had solid majorities. (Okay, they might try to join Europe in a renewed war on Russia?)
6. During my original 6 month trip across Mexico & Central America (as far as renewing a visa in Costa Rica so I could pick coffee in Nicaragua for 2 more weeks) I’d see many Americans who had Maple Leaf flags on their backpacks. And in later trips, several summers, to Mexico, the same.
different clue
@NR,
That is certainly one of his big goals here. Another big goal might be abolition of the IRS and any income taxes it currently collects. That way, the US government can be deprived so deeply of money that the only way it can avoid this carefully engineered bankruptcy will be to sell all the Public Lands of all categories ( all 1.2 million square miles of them), all the objects in all the Smithsonian Museums and the National Gallery, every mile of every Federal Interstate Highway, etc. to rich private buyers.
Sell off all the TVA dams and lands, all the BPA assets, all the CVA assets, every Federal Reclamation District Dam, and pretend to have the authority to sell every Indian Reservation to private buyers. Armed Indians and armed sympathisers might be able to kill every such buyer or buyer’s agent who comes to take possession so totally and so thoroughly that Hegseth’s maganazified New Model Army will declare the Indian Wars back on and active again. Then all the boat-person Americans in America will have to decide . . . are they pro-MAGAnazi? Or pro-Indian? That might afford Canada an opportunity to ship vast quantities of insurgency-type weapons to the Indian Side of whatever Indian Wars the Maganazi Musk Administration is able to create. And Mexico might be able to ship vast quantities of such weapons over the southern border to the same sorts of Indian Defenders. And maybe smaller quantities of weapons can come in over the Caribbean.
We live in historic times, eh?
Another reason the Musk ( trump-vance) Administration is provoking Canada to this extent, as well as other countries, is to turn Canada into a genuine enemy from Canada’s own viewpoint. The point of that would be to get Canada to seal its borders against American political refugees ( perhaps out of concern that some of them might be secret MAGAnazi agents) to the point where not one political refugee American is let into Canada. This would help the New MAGAnazi Regime turn America into a ” North Korea” from which there will be no escape.
Not to say the MAGAnazi Musk Administration will necessarily succeed, but those are among their several plans and goals.
And no . . . a Harris Administration would not have done its own version of these same things.
mago
Don’t know why a comment I recently posted about zelensky and other matters got 86’d, and I don’t much care.
However, the great Z and all the adulation tossed his way over the past 3 years is a sorry mess and sham.
Of course the evil VN is a major manipulator; of course the evil empire is at the root of the Ukrainian conflict. Doesn’t make their puppet a good guy. There are no good guys in this Shakespearian drama.
Then there’s the current drivers of destruction: an obviously deranged president with his unelected ketamine addled manipulator swinging the wrecking ball here there and everywhere (and man oh man am I ever screwed along with countless others if he gets his way.)
The Middle East, China, Russia the chihuahuas along with Mexico and Canada and just about every other state and planetary inhabitants, human and animal alike are affected and maybe screwed blue, over under sideways and down.
The wealthy, too but they just don’t know it yet. They’ll find out one fine day . . .
In the meantime in between time, ain’t we got fun?
See you on the other side of crypto hell. . .