Trump tariffs: President to hit Canada, Mexico and China with tariffs
www.bbc.com
Canadian oil will be hit with a lower levy of 10%, likely by mid-February, President Trump says.

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.

  • prodajvodapavel@aggregatet.orgEnglish
    871·
    2 days ago

    He justified the move by citing undocumented migration, fentanyl trafficking, and trade deficits.

    Translation: “We’re going to artificially increase the prices of our competitors’ products so the American ruling class can profit off of giving Americans a worse deal.”

    • Snowclone@lemmy.worldEnglish
      15·
      2 days ago

      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.

      • fine_sandy_bottom@discuss.tchncs.deEnglish
        1·
        1 day ago

        Exactly. No one is thinking “right this is our big chance to build a toothbrush factory”.

        Setting aside the tariffs on the production line you need to buy from China…

        All your precursor would need to come from China anyway.

        Couple that with the cost of maintaining local safety regs and I’d be surprised if you could put a product on super market shelves thats cheaper than the tariffed one.

    • SpaceCowboy@lemmy.caEnglish
      5·
      2 days ago

      The problem with these kinds of conspiracy theories is that it assumes the conspirators are hyper-competent people.

      It’s far more plausible that they’re just idiots.

    • immutable@lemm.eeEnglish
      8·
      2 days ago

      American ruling class, “Oh would you look at that, we just found a 24.99999% price hike that we definitely have to do because economy. Still cheaper though than the Canadian and Mexican imports.”

      It’s just the rest of America that is going to get fucked.

        • CitizenKong@lemmy.worldEnglish
          3·
          1 day ago

          Fun fact: Under Hitler, while there was an economic boom (due to production switching to war preparation), wages fell on Great Depression levels and workers had to work a lot more hours. Germany was also deeply in debt, because most of this was financed by crazy lending from other countries, which Hitler had no intention of paying back.

          Also, the ones that were profiting the most off of this were oligarchs.

    • T00l_shed@lemmy.worldEnglish
      111·
      2 days ago

      Yes, but i don’t believe trump KNOWS that. Instead he’s been told to do this.