Canada will have a "robust" response if Donald Trump imposes tariffs on its goods, but Canadian leaders are split over energy as a bargaining chip.

Canadian political leaders say “nothing is off the table” when it comes to responding to potential 25% tariffs from the US, days before they could come into force.

But strains are showing in “Team Canada” when it comes to whether energy supply should be a tool in a possible tariff war with the US.

Canadian officials argue (tariffs) would undermine the US economy, increase inflation for American consumers - including raising prices at the petrol pump - and hamper investment.

They also warn tariffs could undermine national security, given Canada, a US ally, is a key source of energy and critical minerals.

  • octopus_inkEnglish
    28·
    2 days ago

    I’m a veteran. I grew up Gen-X during a time of high jingoism, with a lot of military folks in my family. It was a time and a setting where “American Exceptionalism” was uncritically accepted. If you had told me thirty years ago that one day I’d be rooting for a foreign nation standing up to the US, and saying things like, “Nothing off the table” regarding their own defiance, I’d have laughed in your face at what a fucking credulous fool you must have felt me to be.

    And yet, here we are.

  • rabber@lemmy.caEnglish
    13·
    3 days ago

    If teck trail stops selling to the US then the US no longer has a source of germanium. China already stopped selling germanium to the US back in 2023

    Which is needed to make solar panels, fiber optic cables, night vision goggles, etc

    • Maple Engineer@lemmy.world
      251·
      3 days ago

      It was never on the table. Trump is a serial fraudster and bully. He thinks that committing fraud makes him a shrewd businessman. Bullies belittle and diminish their victims to make them feel helpless. That’s what he trying to do to Canada. He thinks that he can treat countries the way that he treats suppliers by unilaterally changing the terms of contracts or simply refusing to pay and making them sue him. He was humiliated by the fact that Canada and Mexico didn’t just roll over last time he tried to unilaterally change NAFTA in favour of the US and he’s determined to make us pay for that humiliation now.

      Canada will once again target red states that form Trump’s base with painful tarrifs. Targeted countries need to work together and coordinate their efforts. We have strength in numbers.

  • ikidd@lemmy.worldEnglish
    6·
    3 days ago

    The best thing to do here would be to shut the fuck up and see if the old fool even remembers saying it, let alone get distracted by a golf ball next month.

    But of course, they can’t keep quiet and let it get forgotten like the Greenland bullshit. So we’ll have tariffs because Donny will need to show he doesn’t get pushed around.

    Fuck.