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As I've written (repeatedly), "trade surplus/deficit" aka "balance of trade" is almost of no importance unless we trade with no other countries, at all. Whether by trade or capital flows, almost everything balances out.

None of those things has been in effect long enough to be credited with avoiding a recession, nor can any politician be credited with doing much more than staying out of the way. To the extent a recession is avoided, it's simply because the free parts of our free market are the agile parts, and...

First it'd be necessary to deny that there are some services that may not be withdrawn. Absent that, it's just a negotiation over how much "work to rule" can be stretched to apply pressure. I have no problem with occupations that fit this description: "If you start this work, you will never be...

It's possible, but the only eyes that could see it that way are clouded by ignorance. The most charitable defence of the Trump administration's position on tariffs (that I've read) is that they genuinely believe they can eventually revert to an earlier era of US government funding, in which...

I'm old, so I've had time to read a bit further back. See also: Finlandization. Maybe, but usually that's just pride/ego talking, not the thinking part of the brain.

That can't be taken seriously. If he'd picked one story and stuck to it, maybe. He already muddied the water with "national security" (eg. drug trafficking). Targeted counter-protectionism (eg. anti-dumping) tariffs have a perfectly uncontroversial pedigree, notwithstanding the purest...

There are two ways for combat vehicles to survive. 1. Absorb the hit. 2. Avoid the hit (including stand-off defences). If (1) becomes impractical for almost any heavy class of munition, it should free up weight to be traded for other things (including (2)).

Amen. Hallelujah!

No idea, but it's irrelevant. It's not me the people angry at Trump have to worry about provoking. It's Trump, so it's Trump's skin thickness they have to worry about. Sometimes Finland* has to give a shit about what Russia* thinks. *Many more candidates for the analogy, including that...

Yes, it does. In relation to what QV wrote, "in relation to the US" is a pointlessly small set. The domain of things of interest is what we can do in Canada and with countries which are not-the-US. I'm still confident the USSC is going to yank the pretext for most of the tariffs, particularly...

Please to imagine laughter. I didn't know about this (yet another) latest iteration of Trump-spikes-everyone's-indignation-meters until returning from a few quiet days away from computers. Trump's foolishly upset, and people are upset at Trump that he's foolishly upset, and there's another...

QV wrote "Export O&G, more pipes south, east and west. Develop all other resources for export markets. No counter tariffs. Drop all policy that make it harder to do business in Canada, make it much easier and more profitable." and you wrote "tariffs from the US are discouraging companies from...

Sure, it was a 100% accurate reflection of the work from which it was extracted, and besides, no-one could reasonably ever imagine that the truth could be counter-productively provocative. And certainly it was the most constructive possible way to advance that message, at that time and by those...

Sure. So if it's not merely a pejorative, there must be some objective, constructive definition of MAGA, so that there can consequently be one of Maple MAGA, so that the latter term can be objectively applied and not merely slung at someone who "sounds like" it fits, ending up in the trash bin...

There are a lot of points between "do everything Trump wants" and "pick unnecessary fights". The first is a strawman for Trump critics to beat up when challenged to not do so much of the latter; the latter is just self-destructive stupidity.

That cannot be remotely true, unless Canadian companies are so bereft of spirit that they cannot envision anything except exporting to the US at their current prices within their current cost structures. Tariffs imposed on US consumers within the US are not reasonably capable of preventing us...

Not the only one. Has anyone told Larry Niven someone partly borrowed the Thrint/Tnuctipun War?

That kind of donating isn't geographically limited to "there". It isn't as if political donations are altruistic.

Don't care. If Trump undertakes 300 things a month, I might approve of a couple of them. It's just ridiculous to try to pretend "Maple MAGA" is an innocent political descriptor, that's all.

Oh, no doubt. But people aren't going hungry due to changes in government policy because people privately choose where to spend their money. Money being wholly fungible, at least those donations amount to some tiny, tiny fraction of US government resources not being spent on the project. Some...