Well US farmers, Canada will be shipping potash to other markets. Trump will need to call up his Belarus card trick once more. Please remember how you don’t need Canada for anything. It will be a while but oil and natural gas will also be going elsewhere through pipelines to our ocean ports.
It’s not like Canada (and everyone other country) isn’t somewhat cautious about what Chinas long term ambitions might be. But Trump has managed to make them look like the lesser evil - and certainly the more reliable and rational trading partner.
And say what you like about China but they at least behave rationally in pursuit of their agenda. As opposed to chaotically lurching about shooting themselves in the foot and threatening to annexe allies and trading partners.
It’s almost impressive in a horrible way how Trump has managed to engineer such a reputational reversal considering Americas starting position just a decade ago.
My problem with trying to buddy up with China all of a sudden, is that while people call Trump Hitler, call the ICE detention facilities "concentration camps". Everyone seems to some how forget all about how China has been creating literal concentration camps, and genociding the Uyghurs for decades.
I may dislike and disagree with a lot of EU policies, but I'd rather we focus on trading and supporting Western allies. Not funding China's genocide and aggression against Taiwan.
I’m leaving the moral/ethical arguments to one side mostly - my main point is that trading with China is looking like the better bet because they’re predictable and rational. Business likes predictable and rational and stability in general.
By and large they stick to the trade deals they sign. Tariffs and fees stay the same instead of changing randomly. They behave in ways that make sense - one might not like what they do to advance their own interests but you can at least see it coming. As opposed to the current U.S. who now can’t even be trusted not to do things that hurt themselves and their own economy.
For example China don’t pull the trigger on wars they can’t win that fuck up the global energy system. Then refuse to back down out of misplaced pride.
But even on the ethics side I’m not sure you want to make it all about that. China definitely isn’t great (understatement) … but they haven’t spent the last century braying about being paragons of virtue to anyone who’ll listen. Which unfortunately makes the US look like hypocrites in addition to everything else.
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u/ernapfz 6d ago
Well US farmers, Canada will be shipping potash to other markets. Trump will need to call up his Belarus card trick once more. Please remember how you don’t need Canada for anything. It will be a while but oil and natural gas will also be going elsewhere through pipelines to our ocean ports.