Category: Other

Trump’s announcement that he would levy a 25% tariff on all Canadian goods because of the large number of illegal immigrants and fentanyl that was coming across the Canadian border didn’t make a lot of sense. Compared to many other countries, the number of illegal immigrants and fentanyl arriving in the U.S. from Canada is really quite small. So what’s the real reason for this tariff war?

There is very little analysis at this point about what Trump’s real motives are. From a few articles that I have been able to uncover, here is a scenario that provides some perspective. 

Since Trump’s inauguration, there has been a bewildering onslaught of changes brought on through executive orders. One thing to realize about this is that although Trump is basically a black and white thinker who shoots from the hip, the strategy being used is much more sophisticated. It’s called “flood the zone with chaos” and was devised by Steve Bannan. The effect is to keep the opposition off guard and give the impression that Trump is in full power, even though many of his executive orders are blocked by the courts. This is explained in a podcast by the widely followed New York Times podcaster Ezra Klein.
Summary of Flood the Zone

Or you can watch the full podcast
Ezra Klein | Don’t Believe Him

While tariffs are typically used as a lever for negotiation, for Trump they are the point. They are a source of revenue to pursue his vision of a Gilded Age: “Instead of taxing our citizens to enrich other countries, we will tariff and tax foreign countries to enrich our citizens.”
Trump Tariffs Are Not a Means but an End

One of the things that’s near and dear to Trump is reducing taxes, as he did in his first term. Trump promised tax cuts numerous times on the campaign trail and said that tariffs would cover the cost. In his thinking, “tariff is the most beautiful word there is”.
Trump’s Tax Break Promises

If you look at U.S. imports by country, it’s clear that to raise a lot of revenue Trump would levy a tariff on Mexico, China and Canada.

Top U.S. import trading partners 2023
However, imposing a tariff as a means to increase revenue does not sound good. Trump was probably aware that there is a long history of strong support for free trade by economists, ever since David Ricardo’s theory of comparative advantage in 1817 (for those who remember Economics 100). 

In addition, the tariffs that Trump enacted in his first term had an overall negative impact on the economy. American firms and consumers paid the vast majority of the cost of the tariffs. There may have been some job increases in some of the targeted sectors such as steel, but sectors that relied on imported components and those in export industries faced retaliation from trade partners and were harmed.
Brookings Institution Report on Tariffs 2020

But Trump had an issue that was a winner. He had received a lot of support for his tough stand on illegal immigration and drug traffic crossing the Mexican border. So this became the reason that he was going to levy a stiff tariff on Mexico. It was a simple extension to apply the same rationale to Canada.

But the numbers don’t add up. This analyst comments that Trump’s plan is just weird and doesn’t make any sense.
Why is the U.S. imposing tariffs on Canada?

At the end of the video, there is the suggestion that Trump’s real plan is to put economic pressure on Canada to become the 51st state. 

The U.S. has a history of annexing adjacent territories. In 1845 Texas was annexed from Mexico. This was followed by the 1848 Mexican-American War in which the U.S. took the rest of the land from Texas to California.

And in 1866 a bill was introduced in Congress to annex Canada.


However, the U.S. was just recovering from the Civil War and there was no real appetite for further adventure. The bill was never passed or acted on.
1866 Bill to Annex Canada

Trump has in fact stated numerous times that Canada should become the 51st state. He hasn’t gotten much support for this idea from Canada or from the U.S., except for Canadian shark Kevin O’Leary who probably thinks there’s a great opportunity for him for a deal and he has been promoting the idea of an economic union between the U.S. and Canada. More recently Trump has admitted that although he would “love to see” Canada join the union, he seemed to acknowledge it “would be a long shot.”

On February 3 after meeting with Trudeau, Trump agreed to delay tariffs for 30 days after Trudeau agreed to appoint a fentanyl ‘czar’ and list Mexican cartels as terrorists.
Trump Pauses Tariffs

So what happens in 30 days?

Trump is very erratic and unpredictable but he can’t stand being seen as a loser (Do you remember the 2020 election? Trump never admitted that he lost). He is unlikely to completely back off from imposing tariffs. He’s already raising a number of other issues where he thinks Canada is taking advantage of the U.S. that he wants to rectify.
Trump’s Laundry List

I expect Trump will back off on tariffs that would have a serious impact on the American economy, such as the automotive sector and energy imports, and instead target specific industries, such as Canadian agricultural products and lumber.

It’s time for a ceasefire in Ukraine
— in 2023 alone there have been estimates of up to 95,000 violent deaths. 

It’s time for a ceasefire in Myanmar
— in 2023 there have been an estimated 14,000 murders. 

It’s time for a ceasefire in the Maghreb
— the death toll in 2023 is over 13,000.

It’s time for a ceasefire in Sudan
— there have been over 12,000 deaths in 2023.

It’s time for a ceasefire in Ethiopia
—there are estimates of up to 500,000 dead since this conflict started in 2018.

It’s time for a ceasefire in Syria
— where an estimated 600,000 people have been killed.

List of ongoing armed conflicts

It’s time for international intervention where real genocide is occurring.

There are estimates of as many as 500,000 people murdered in the Darfur region of Sudan since 2003. Here’s a PBS report from June 2023.
Battle in Sudan reignites conflict in Darfur

There are an estimated 43,000 Rohingyas who have been murdered in Myanmar since 2016. Here’s a Human Rights Watch report from July 2023.
Spiraling Violence Against Rohingya Refugees

List of genocides

The war in Gaza will probably end soon and there will be a ceasefire.

But why were Leftists everywhere protesting the war in Gaza with an international outcry for a ceasefire only a few weeks after Israel retaliated for a horrific massacre, when there has been nary a peep against real genocide and the many other wars that have been going on for years?

There were over 230,000 deaths in 2022 from armed conflicts in the world.
There have been about 20,000 deaths in the Gaza war.
Why doesn’t the carnage of innocent civilians in the rest of the world matter?

When it comes to Human Rights, the Left is so hypocritical they are morally bankrupt.

War and Peace – Our World in Data

I started this blog in March 2020 because there was a lack of information being provided about what was happening during the Covid pandemic. There were a lot of questions that weren’t being asked and a lot that weren’t being answered and I attempted to provide some information.

Today a major crisis exists in the Middle East. There are a lot of questions that aren’t being answered and many that aren’t even being asked.

The Israeli Defense Force (IDF) has always tried to warn civilians about areas they are targeting so that they can move to safety and avoid getting injured or killed from the fallout when bombs are dropped. It has been reported repeatedly that people in Gaza have nowhere to go. 

What about Egypt? 

The western border of Gaza is with Egypt. Directly west of that border is the Sinai desert, largely uninhabited land, an area larger than Gaza itself. This could easily provide a safe refuge for as many people from Gaza who wanted to leave their homes. But Egypt is not providing this refuge.

A constant refrain from Pro-Palestinians is that Israel has oppressed the people in Gaza with a blockade. But Egypt has also blocked its border with Gaza. 

Why do people critical of Israel’s blockade of Gaza never mention Egypt?
Why does Egypt maintain a blockade and not do anything to support their Palestinian Brothers?

A criticism of Israel that has been mounting in recent years is that it is an “apartheid state” likening its oppression of Palestinians to the oppression of blacks in South Africa. This criticism is voiced by Palestinians, human rights organizations like Amnesty International, the new left and Israeli organizations like Yesh Din, in spite of the fact that Palestinians in Israel are citizens with voting rights and there is an Arab party in the Knesset that was actually part of the coalition government in Israel in 2021. Arabs in Israel hold positions in the courts, universities, hospitals and every walk of society.

About 2 million Palestinians are Israeli citizens. About 3 million Palestinians live in refugee camps in Syria, Lebanon, and Jordan. The Palestinians who live in these camps do not have basic human rights. They do not have medical care and only limited access to education and jobs. The physical conditions of the refugee camps are really squalid. It is not unusual for children to be electrocuted from the dangling electrical wires that are strung between buildings. You can find many videos documenting their conditions of extreme poverty on Youtube. This one is by Al Jazeera.
Palestinian Refugee Camp

Why do these Arab countries turn their backs on the Palestinians whom they say they support?
If Israel is an apartheid state, what does that make Syria, Lebanon and Jordan?
Why don’t all the groups that criticize Israel for its treatment of Palestinians criticize any of the Arab countries?

A big criticism of Israel has been its policy of enabling Jewish settlements in the occupied lands of the West Bank. This has been done contrary to most interpretations of international law and has been condemned by all the Arab countries, most European countries and the United States. Opinion polls within Israel show that it generally is not supported by a majority of Israelis. 

Why does the Israeli government continue with its policy of allowing settlements in the occupied lands?

Part of the answer to this seems to be the undue influence of the religious parties in Israeli politics. In Benjamin Netanyahu’s 16 years as Prime Minister he has always had to put together a coalition made up of several minority parties in order to get enough seats to form a government. The balance of power has often been held by the small religious Israeli parties that typically get a total of about 20% of the total electoral votes. In return for their support Netanyahu promised to allow expansion of settlements.

But there is another question here.

Does the Israeli political system lead to unstable and undemocratic governments that make decisions only supported by a minority of the population?

Members of the Knesset are elected by proportional representation – the number of seats a party receives is proportional to the number of votes it receives. No party has ever won a majority, so all governments in the history of Israel have been coalitions. In the Knesset today there are 10 different political parties. The coalition government is made up of 7 parties, and 3 of them are religious parties. There have been 37 governments in Israel since 1948. In Canada over the same period there have been 23.

People in Canada should take this as a warning. British Columbia and Prince Edward Island held referendums to change their voting to proportional representation (neither one passed) and there has been a push for it at the federal level. While proportional representation might seem to be a very democratic system on paper, over time small parties are formed to take advantage of the system. When a parliament is splintered into many different political parties, some of the small parties may hold the balance of power and exert undue influence over government policy. In addition, a strong and stable government that results when a party wins a majority of seats in the legislature is difficult to achieve.