Being a global threat but "pretending" so well to be a good faith actor that people treat you and engage with you as a good faith actor, is literally the same as just being a good faith actor.

The US was a good faith actor, especially relative to its power. Now it is not. It is not good for the world's most powerful military and economy to stop "pretending" to be a good faith actor, and it is not something you should find any joy in.

Ah yes, Disney's Frozen philosophy. "Let's stop pretending having to much power is a curse."

Canada and the EU already have a trade agreement since 2016. The UK economy is about 1/5th that of the EU, not enough to move the dial, and they kind of went off in the opposite direction around that same time...

You'd need n^2 "NATO"'s then, because EU has implemented many really shitty policies too and someone would want to fight back against that too. UK may do the same.

And we already have an actual NATO example, where one member attacks countries around the world, one of those countries fights back, threathening to attack american bases even in europe if needed... and now other nato members might get involved in a war that was started by one of it's own members, that no one else really wanted, and side on the side of the agressor ( https://www.aa.com.tr/en/europe/nato-chief-reaffirms-allianc... ). To turn back into economics, what happens when EU declares an "economic war" against china, china retalites (by eg. banning exports of something we really need)... does canada go along and threathen it's own economy? Or do they form a new "NATO" with "everyone-else except EU"?

That will continue with only cars made in Canada not having Canadian tariffs. You make 100,000 cars in Canada everything above that amount is subject to tariffs.

Autos are more obvious than the dairy industry, even though Trump claimed a couple of days ago that the reason there was an imminent deal is because Canada allegedly agreed to eliminate dairy tariffs? Trade negotiations have stalled almost certainly because Canada isn't actually willing to give up dairy tariffs.

No deal is better than a bad deal.

>The Carney administration is on much firmer political ground

I don't think so. Time really isn't on Carney's side either.

Carney's new tariffs fall on those who, in aggregate, did not vote for him. The average Carney voter has been very vocal about wanting to pursue this tactic- that's why they elected him. (That average voter is an Eastern retiree whose holdings are generally in real estate, so they don't care about any other economic sector beyond that which keeps their property values high, especially compared to the feel-good Elbows Up stuff.)

But Carney's currently having trouble just keeping the country together at this point. That's why he's approving projects he really doesn't want to approve out West, like those oil pipelines, because the West has credibly signaled that that they might just ban Carney and his Eastern voting block from making law and collecting tax from them if development of their part of the country is hindered any further. But if it's not hindered, they'll grow in political power, which is also an inherent threat to Ottawa's power (just not immediately).

And yet here Carney is- for the second time now- imposing more economic roadblocks that drive up consumer prices and put more people out of work for no reason other than his voting block wanting it that way. "Just retaliate" might be the least bad option for Carney to pander to that voting block, but every concession to them drives the country closer to separation, and that has time pressure too.

There is no grand vision. Trump has an irrational love of tariffs. He just likes them, they feel right to him. It is entirely that we have a presidential system with an executive that is capable of too much unilateral action, and we elected someone to that office who is unfit for it.

  > The thing that I really struggle to understand is what the grand vision behind this is.

This is something so far removed from the way normal, constructive way people (have to) think and behave with each other as a prereq to participate in society that they will inevitably fail to see this parasitical dynamic, because there is no way they can relate to that from their own frames. Even when we learn about this we will instinctively dismiss it. It doesn't fit our frame of reference, so we decide this can't be true.

Had to look up "Maralago Accord": https://marketwise.com/investing/what-is-the-mar-a-lago-acco...

Wow, a global Great Depression II really does look like it is in the cards.

Biden gets Russia and Ukraine stuck in a quagmire in Ukraine, so Putin retaliates by getting the U.S. and Iran stuck in a quagmire in the Middle East. Wars are won by the countries that stay out of them. The Russia-Afghanistan war played a very significant role in the downfall of the Soviet Union.

The irony is that China is the big winner from all of this, simply by staying above the fray and making trade deals with all the countries that more bellicose superpowers start fighting. When your adversary is making a mistake, let him.

But it has turned out positive for Russia. Not enough patriot rockets for Ukraine, sanctions against Russia lifted and higher oil prices.

> Putin wanted Trump to decapitate the Iranian regime?

This is impractical. There is a hierarchy of thousands of Mullahs that ascend when you kill off one. There is no "head". It's a distributed hierarchy or hydra, rather than an effective dictatorship. ofc, Trump wanted to appease Bibi and Trump fired most of the advisors who object to his bad ideas, so it was a perfect storm for a global quagmire.

The Iran war is good for Russia. Regime "decapitation" does not harm Russia, oil going up is good for then. America being weakened and stuck there is good for then too.

We have fewer weapons to sell to Ukraine since we have expended a huge amount and are pulling a carrier out of Asia due to the debacle. I'm pretty sure Putin/Xi are happy to see us enter yet another Middle East quagmire.

Putin wanted the US military presence in the middle east to be severely crippled, which it is now.

He would also want the munitions stockpile to be depleted, which it is now.

Though I do agree, not literally every move Trump does is on a string from Putin and the Iran war isn't one; it sure still is mighty convenient all the same to make the US military look weak and incompetent.

With each other maybe? In practice they are very aligned.

The most ironic thing is that Chernobyl basically solidified that Europe would be dependent on Russia for the next 30 years.

It's so obvious that you'd think its intentional.

Canada having closer trade ties with China is also a case of "out of the frying pan and into the fire" for Canada.

I think people forget that China is an authoritarian ethno state with a single leader for life.

But hey, they have cheap shit, so what better wagon to hitch your country to?

There is a huge difference between breaking partnerships by fast uni-directional policies vs. slow uni-directional or bi-directional policies.

EU and even USA should start doing something reasonable. Like introducing quota on how much overall can be imported/exported to protect local markets. Like lets say 40%.

Everyone gets a piece of cake.

But lets be honest, germany (my country) also never played fair. We gained quite a lot of export strength through the Euro and overall german politics.

And its not just the energy prices, it was quite clear what the energy prices going to be but no one really invested into reducing them early or fast enough at all. No one cared. BMW new factory in hungarie though does has a lot more reneablw and was able to continue production despite hungaries energy issue.

In China a person makes 500-1000 per month, in germany the same person makes a lot more.

China you have raw resources and cheap labor and cheap energy on EVERY SINGLE point of the process. From iron ore to the assembly itself.

And it doesn't matter much anyway because with the current and future grade of automatisation, a lot less money is getting directly to the people.

We need laws enforcing the rich to pay the taxes and/or invest A LOT more a lot faster and a lot broader.

We need real politics and not this garbage happening in germany or in the USA or in Russia.

> not anywhere near the quality of, say, what German cars used to be.

To be fair, German cars aren’t anywhere near the quality that German cars used to be, either.

> quality of, say, what German cars used to be.

They are 80% there for 30% the price as a consumer it’s a tremendous deal

>and reasonable energy price

Nice Jedi Hand Wave there.

That's the issue.

China invested in producing cheap energy. Most of the rest of the world did not.

At root, economics is about turning energy into goods and services. If the root industrial input of your competitor is cheaper than the cost of that same root industrial input to you, you're gonna need some incredible efficiencies elsewhere in that production pipeline to pull even.

At this point, the EU should be all about keeping the other major powers at arm's length, (economically and militarily), while pursuing renewable electrification with all deliberate speed.

That should be everyone else' strategy going forward as well by the way. Without cheap energy in the next global economic phase, your nation or bloc is dead in the water.