The federal government is hosting a summit in Toronto Friday aimed at bolstering the economy in the face of Canada's rapidly changing relationship with its largest trading partner.
I think Trump wants to go back to more direct imperialism where the US uses hard power to keep its vassals inline instead of using soft and subtle methods. He wants a clear master/slave relationship.
Pretty sure he thinks soft power is woke or something. He just needs to look tough, regardless of the actual outcome. It explains threatening to double existing tariffs on Columbia over a dozen or two deportees. Backing down would make him look weak, and that wouldn’t animate his base, nevermind the economic consequences of doing that to a country that grows all our coffee.
It’s funny how he wants essentially the same thing as all these other ghouls, but wants to take the most unsubtle and ineffective route to get there. Maybe he is the harm reduction candidate?
To your question, this was already really noticeable in his first term. By being brash and uncouth and calling things what they are, rather than using doublespeak or just doing things in the shadows, he made the contradictions of imperialism really uncomfortable for a lot of people. In being direct he created the beginnings of pushback from people who would otherwise be perfectly fine with kids in cages, seizing other countries’ natural reources, etc.
Yea that’s what I’m thinking. We shouldn’t forget that he hasn’t done anything to close military bases overseas (yet?), so he’s not completely pulling out of these vassals.
But keeping these countries inline with threats only and no economic incentives will probably make them reconsider their relationship to the US especially if they can’t placate their population while the US puts pressure on them with tariffs, annexation etc.
I think Trump wants to go back to more direct imperialism where the US uses hard power to keep its vassals inline instead of using soft and subtle methods. He wants a clear master/slave relationship.
Pretty sure he thinks soft power is woke or something. He just needs to look tough, regardless of the actual outcome. It explains threatening to double existing tariffs on Columbia over a dozen or two deportees. Backing down would make him look weak, and that wouldn’t animate his base, nevermind the economic consequences of doing that to a country that grows all our coffee.
It’s funny how he wants essentially the same thing as all these other ghouls, but wants to take the most unsubtle and ineffective route to get there. Maybe he is the harm reduction candidate?
To your question, this was already really noticeable in his first term. By being brash and uncouth and calling things what they are, rather than using doublespeak or just doing things in the shadows, he made the contradictions of imperialism really uncomfortable for a lot of people. In being direct he created the beginnings of pushback from people who would otherwise be perfectly fine with kids in cages, seizing other countries’ natural reources, etc.
I think that’s probably exactly what it is. He just needs to feel manly.
Yea that’s what I’m thinking. We shouldn’t forget that he hasn’t done anything to close military bases overseas (yet?), so he’s not completely pulling out of these vassals.
But keeping these countries inline with threats only and no economic incentives will probably make them reconsider their relationship to the US especially if they can’t placate their population while the US puts pressure on them with tariffs, annexation etc.
I very much agree.