In an interview on Power & Politics, (David Paterson, Ontario’s representative in Washington) told host David Cochrane that the Canadians and Americans had a 90-minute meeting and the first half-hour was “a master class” from Lutnick in breaking down the U.S. position on tariffs.
The focus of the U.S. government is dealing with its yearly deficit in federal spending, Paterson said. According to the U.S. Treasury Department, the federal government ran a $1.83 trillion US deficit in the 2024 fiscal year.
There are three ways the U.S. government is working to cut down that deficit, Paterson added.
The first is a major budget resolution that calls for billions of dollars in tax cuts, and the second is slashing the size of government through Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency. The third is tariffs, which are meant to be a new revenue source and attract investment into the United States.
To understand this as a great meeting, is to understand that if we just compete with Europe/other colonies for shifting our GDP and weapons purchases to US, even more than Europe, that we will get some merciful favoritism in the future, when Trump declares “Canada is no longer taking advantage of us, and there are zero fentanyl deaths in US, and the border line was set correctly, and we are not wasting $200B defending Canada” then maybe tariffs will be removed. This is “good cop Lutnick” making promises that “bad cop Trump” is not bound to. Calling this a good meeting is falling for BS.
Step 1: Get auto manufacturers and CAW to ensure full production capacity in Canada. Use export tariffs on energy and materials, and Potash, to reduce US auto sector capacity, and make their agriculture uncompetitive. No WTO rules respect for US. Auto parts exports to China may not be tariffed from Canada, but they are from US. Ensure decent relations with China to increase exports to China. Reciprocal trade with Europe, for their weapons and Airbus exterminating Boeing orders, but with high export deals to Europe too, and to get Canada-Europe unity in destroying US manufacturing, economy, and debt sustainability.
Step 2: IF auto manufacturers do not cooperate, and colonies choose US over Canada, then full decouple from US, and join BRICS/SCO. Chinese FDI/belt and road. Abandoning war on Russia, NORAD/US military cooperation. Canadian manufacturing is very highly subsidized. Using export tariff revenue from step 1 to subsidize it more is acceptable, but it requires cooperation from manufacturers. Having much cheaper/better value cars is a completely reasonable policy. Future of manufacturing is robotics anyway, and it will have declining employment.
Calling the US trade meeting “great”, is fulfilling US empire’s wet dream of EU/Canada going into direct war with Russia and China, while buying US weapons to do so, and sparing US soldiers in the process. The generational hatred manufactured by US propaganda that made us support this suicidal evil under Biden should not be amplified tenfold. Canada’s divisiveness with Russia, China, and Mexico has increased under this trade war already. Dead wrong direction.
Calling this trade meeting productive is the same gas lighting as Chuck Schumer calling the budget deal unacceptable for a few hours, and then betraying the US (and Canada/world) by pretending that a government shutdown gives Trump more power than the explicit unchecked power given to him in bill.
Trusting the US to keep Canada’s standard of living sustainable is a terrible mistake. We need to aggressively force them to.