President-elect to direct U.S. agencies to study trade deficits — but he’s not going through with tariffs yet

  • wise_pancake
    23·
    11 hours ago

    I’m still not forgetting all the things he’s said.

    That he can unilaterally threaten this and be cavalier about breaking our critical trade agreements means we have no option but to divest ourselves of American trade. Similarly his comments on annexing Canada are too plausible and consistent to ignore.

    That doesn’t mean not to trade, but to build up our own independent industry and finally vertically integrate instead of exporting our raw materials for the US to draw all the value on (steel, crude oil, lumber, pharma, manufacturing).

    We should also be building up our own defence sector, both as a jobs program and to increase independence – Canadian sovereignty in this century requires that we should be able to build our own aircraft, submarines, and have a nuclear arsenal of our own.

    I know we do sell arms, but we should be able to stand firm if our allies ever turn their backs on us.

    • Avid AmoebaOP
      52·
      10 hours ago

      I recently learned we don’t have any nuclear weapons. I was shocked. I was also shocked that I didn’t know that. 🥹

      • Voroxpete@sh.itjust.works
        7·
        6 hours ago

        Fun fact, Canada has had the capability of deploying nuclear weapons, but never owned them or kept them on Canadian soil.

        During the cold war the Voodoo interceptor was able to deploy dumbfire tactical nuclear rockets to intercept incoming Russian bombers over the Arctic. But the Canadian government insisted that no nuclear weapons existed on Canadian soil. This was true, but only by an extreme technicality; parts of the airbases were ceded to the US, who also provided the nukes. They were only ever stored in the parts of the bases that were “US territory”.

        • kent_ehEnglish
          4·
          6 hours ago

          But the Canadian government insisted that no nuclear weapons existed on Canadian soil. This

          So the sign at the outskirts declaring Regina to be a “nuclear weapons free zone”, while technically, is more than a bit disingenuous?

        • ElectricMoose@lemmy.world
          3·
          5 hours ago

          This is fascinating! I couldn’t find much info on that and actually, what I found implies that there were some on Canadian bases not just in Canada, but around the world. That is, from if old letters from the Diefenbaker Center are representative of history.

      • EmoPolarbearEnglish
        3·
        10 hours ago

        I thought we had a few that were in a state of disassembly that technically qualified for the purposes of international treaties as not existing.