News roundup, 5 March 2025

- The Trump regime, as expected, has imposed its threatened 25% tariffs on Canada and Mexico; counter-tariffs are being imposed on some US exports. Justin Trudeau has stated something that many of us would consider at least plausible, namely the fact that Trump's tariffs are intended to soften Canada up for annexation. What's noteworthy is that in his standing up to the Americans now, Trudeau is showing more political courage than he has at any previous time in his career, much as Jean Chrétien declined to join the US and UK in their ill-conceived (not to mention criminal) adventure in Iraq only after he had announced that he would be retiring prior to the next election. That's the Liberal Party of Canada way, I think. But hey, we'll take it.

- Several provinces are already taking retaliatory action. Manitoba's Wab Kinew is focusing on "non-tariff countermeasures", including the removal of American alcohol from shelves as well as giving businesses the option to defer their payroll and sales tax. Ontario's Doug Ford has cancelled an agreement with Elon Musk's Starlink and banning US companies from procurement contracts; Ford is also exploring export levies on electricity and critical minerals. BC's David Eby is selectively pulling "red state" liquors, so you'll be able to buy California and Washington wine, but not Jack Daniels or Jim Beam. Nova Scotia's Tim Houston is not only pulling American booze but doubling tolls for US-registered commercial vehicles passing through the Cobequid Pass. Even Danielle Smith, one of only two premiers certifiably worse than Doug Ford, is now saying she "fully supports" the federal government's response and will be discussing her own government's response with her cabinet shortly.

- Tom Brodbeck is unimpressed with the level of resistance to Trump's policies in the US. Some say that this is actually a failure of the media to cover protests rather than an actual lack of protests; there are some photos of what look like big protests in this Reddit thread but I'm not sure how representative they are or even if they're being posted in accurate context.

- US Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick says that Trump is willing to meet Canada and Mexico "in the middle". Does that mean we'll have to settle for 12.5% tariffs? Or does it mean that Trump is getting spooked by crashing stock markets? Stay tuned I guess.

- Despite how Trump treated him the other day, Volodymyr Zelenskyy is not abandoning hope that Trump will come to his senses. Then again, the sad truth of the matter is that Trump and Putin hold all the cards. I suspect Ukraine will be forced to make major territorial concessions, unless Europe can somehow make up for the fact that the US has suspended all military aid to the country.

- The UK government is considering several possible alternatives to prison, including banning offenders from pubs and sporting events. I guess for many of the typical offenders such a punishment might be so devastating that it might make them think twice about reoffending?

News roundup, 4 March 2025

- The 25% tariffs on nearly all imports from Canada and Mexico ware going ahead. Canada, along with China who are being hit with 20% tariffs, are imposing a number of retaliatory measures in response; stock markets on both sides of the border have taken a beating. Doug Ford is vowing to cut off electricity exports to the US if this goes ahead. Perhaps an even more effective measure would be a potash embargo - they can find other sources of electricity a lot more easily than potash. Some also think that American fast food franchises could be replaced by Canadian ones; whether patriotism is enough to overcome marketing in the case of things like McDonalds or KFC remains to be seen, though.

- Following remarks by Volodymyr Zelenskyy that an agreement to end the war is "very far away", Trump has announced that he is pausing all military aid to Ukraine until Zelenskyy is able to satisfy him that Kyiv is "committed to good faith negotiations for peace". This will apparently be assessed entirely on Trump's subjective perceptions, just like every other judgment he makes.

- Trump has issued an executive order expanding logging on federal lands, and wants to use emergency powers to get around the habitat protection provisions of the Endangered Species Act.

- There was apparently a conspicuous lack of political expression at the Oscars over the weekend. Given that in the past people like Michael Moore often weren't shy about what they said while accepting their awards, it's kind of strange, if this report is accurate. And unsettling - it's a sign of how scared they are.

- WWE co-founder Linda McMahon has been appointed Secretary of Education by the Trump administration. They don't leave a whole lot left for the satirists to do, do they?

News roundup, 3 March 2025

- Volodymyr Zelenskyy attempted to talk some sense into Donald Trump and JD Vance in a meeting at the White House on Friday. It did not go well; Trump and Vance spent the whole time berating Zelenskyy and trying to get him to grovel, and then kicked him out of the meeting without an agreement when he didn't. Europeans were appalled; Italy is calling for an immediate summit between the EU and the US, though it's doubtful that this will change anything. The Globe and Mail's Andrew Coyne has made no bones about the scale of the disaster we are seeing; he warns that we have always underestimated just how far Trump will go, and that we're going to have to learn fast. Now it's worth noting that Coyne is a liberal (his cousin Deborah Coyne ran for the Liberal Party leadership in 2013), and a centrist or centre-right liberal at that. So he naturally sees the potential collapse of the American hegemony as an unmitigated disaster. From a more leftwing perspective, it's a bit less clear. Some hope that this could lead to a more multipolar world, where instead of a single hegemon you have a number of major powers (perhaps the US, EU, China, Russia, and India) balanced against each other. That is indeed possible, and it could lead to a good outcome in the long run. On the other hand, another possibility (probably more likely) is the US and Russia both become sufficiently weak due to their own failings that China simply becomes the new hegemon - and while the Americans have been far from benevolent overlords in much of the world I don't share the confidence of some leftists that the Chinese would be better. A third possibility that no new stable equilibrium can form and the world degenerates into chaos and, eventually, nuclear war; a fourth is something not unlike the scenario created decades ago by science fiction writer Jerry Pournelle, in which the US and Russia (the USSR in the novels) form a political union called the "CoDominium" to maintain stability, which they do but at immense social cost. Given the friendly relations between Trump and Putin, and the fact that they seem to need each other, this last scenario actually starts to look sort of plausible.

- Jagmeet Singh is calling for Donald Trump to be "uninvited" from the G7 summit that Canada is hosting in Kananaskis, Alberta in June, and for the meeting to be refocused on building a "common front" against Trump's America. This seems to be a bridge too far for the federal government; energy minister Jonathan Wilkinson was particularly dismissive, calling on Singh to "find new advisers who could provide him with more thoughtful positions". See my comments above about liberals being unable to imagine an alternative to the existing world order; it seems that in Wilkinson's mind the only possible course of action is to continue doing CPR on the old order until rigor mortis sets in.

- A "guidance document" from the US Centers for Disease Control prohibits scientists employed by the agency from co-authoring papers with anyone employed by the World Health Organization. It further orders that employees who have co-authored papers with WHO employees that were submitted before the Trump regime took power must withdraw them, or remove their names from the papers prior to publication. Because "international" is a four-letter word to the MAGA crowd, after all.

- Tesla's sales in Europe have dropped by 45% since last year, even as EV sales overall increased by 37% over the same period. The company's stock has dropped by 23% since the start of the year.

- One of the many downsides of firing huge numbers of civil servants is that you end up with a lot of disgruntled people, who may become recruitment targets for foreign intelligence.

- Kash Patel, Trump's new FBI director, wants the agency to establish a formal relationship with the Ultimate Fighting Championship. I guess he figures submission holds could be a useful technique for interrogating prisoners.