As a Canadian, "Made in the USA" is currently a mark against, and I would only consider buying that product if it was absolutely the only remotely reasonable option.
As an American, I’m doing what I can to boycott stuff made in red states. I can and do pay up to 2x more for blue state stuff (which is typically higher quality, to be honest), and go imported otherwise.
I will still buy American made stuff for sure no matter who is in power there. It doesn't matter to me. The quality of the product is what matters to me.
Between a trade war, abuse by border services, threats of annexation, economic instability taking a dump on my retirement and cost of living. For sure. I have conferences, memories in Hawaii, family in the US and I ain’t going. I actually hope life in the US becomes more uncomfortable for the average person for a while so the ideology driving MAGA becomes persona non grata for a generation or two. I’ll vote the only way I can: my money. -a slighted Canadian.
and a whole lot of stuff coming from the US to Canada, is just transhipped made in China products,
so Canadians could do well from establishing new supply chains......aaaaand reversing that trend:)
First, it's not an example I'm replying directly to the question.
Second, as a Canadian, I'm primarily concerned with the sovereignty of my country. Given both powers are expansionist, I'll take the one that isn't personally threatening me.
As mentioned in my previous comment, given a choice to deal with a non-expansionist, free democracy, I'd much quicker patronize them.
China is operating police stations in your country [1,2], subverting your elections [3,4], and got you to pass a trade agreement tilted wildly in their favor [5,6]. If you're worried about real sovereignty, your top current threat is China, that will happily pull the strings while letting you have sovereignty in name only.
[5] Canadian governments are locked in for a generation. If Canada finds the deal unsatisfactory, it cannot be cancelled completely for 31 years. China benefits much more than Canada, because of a clause allowing existing restrictions in each country to stay in place. Chinese companies get to play on a relatively level field in Canada, while maintaining wildly arbitrary practices and rules for Canadian companies in China. - https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/fipa-agreement-with-china-wha...
I'm under no illusion that the government of the People's Republic of China is a friend to Canada nor do I think any of my comments make it seem that way. I reiterate my commitment to patronize non-imperial free democracies.
I have a long history of fighting against equivocations of the US and China under previous administrations, but over the course of less than 100 days the US has declared literal economic war against all its allies and has made it clear that it is hostile to free democracies the world over.
a few years back, China did offer to buy EVERYTHING, that Alberta could produce....but not the actual place.....bet there are some realy hard talks happening right now
The bottom line is that there is only so much stuff to go around on the planet, so all that CAN happen, is a big fucking game of musical chairs, but maybe thats, a good thing.
Nor has the US. One particular person in the US has talked about that. I don't particularly see how it's justified to take it out on a country of 300 million people when the vast majority of them aren't responsible for what you object to.
The leader represents the country because the votes of the citizens put him in power. Nobody else in the US government with a similar amount of power has rejected or denied the 51st state rhetoric. This is what worries Canadians: nobody is stopping the American president. There are no checks and balances.
I guess I’ll be the “technically” guy and point out that’s not true. Trump has more votes than any other candidate, but the majority of voters were for Harris or 3rd party.
Huh, you're right[1]. Trump only got 49.80% of the popular vote.
Of course, Kennedy (who is in Trump's cabinet, and seems broadly aligned with the MAGA agenda) got another 0.49%... and Oliver (the MAGA-adjacent Libertarian candidate) got another 0.42%. Hardly the ringing endorsement of "American's didn't really pick the guy" that Canadians want to hear.
If you discount the blatant voter suppression and other forms of voter disenfranchisement. Greg Palast has an interesting article [1] on the level of disenfranchisement happening. According to the numbers calculated by him and other organizations the are _millions_ of US citizens that get their voter thrown out.
I’m a dual citizen. Either we will never have elections again because America is a theocratic dictatorship, or diplomatic and economic relations will be restored. It is only through gerrymandering and propaganda that the current clownshow is in power. Oh, and racism, that contributed too.
Don't forget to add wide-spectrum dissatisfaction with the economy and incompetence of the incumbent party's campaign team to your list.
Harris ran a very left-of-center campaign in the 2020 primary election, and soundbites from that were played on repeat in 2024 (some of which didn't age well and some of which were always unpopular in certain circles). That that would happen was an easily foreseeable consequence of making her the candidate. The incumbent party could have chosen a different candidate if they had made an earlier decision to not try to re-elect the president.
You can't cure the disease if you get the diagnosis wrong.
Trump should have been an automatic loss for the republicans,. regardless of if the Democrats were led by a literal clown who promised free balloon animals for all. He was openly fascist-leaning and repeatedly demonstrated his lack of care for the truth.
We all know that the powers that be ($$) will not allow allow for any meaningful change, and that the right is simply obstructionist when they don't have the White House, so it shouldn't matter who the Democrats ran.
The fact that even after the first Trump presidency (a disaster for anyone that isn't extremely wealthy) enough people voted for a criminal idiot surrounded by incompetent sycophants is still absolutely incredible to me. I'm still in shock even to this day.
Not only in Canada but in the whole Western world.
Travel to the US, Tesla (which is very closely associated to Trump, via Musk) are already collapsing at an unprecedented speed. The only comparable period would be Covid lockdowns. The difference is that in 2020 this was expected to be somewhat temporary, even if the duration was unknown at the time, while this time is much more sentimental - it will take decades to unwind it. It's like trust - it takes a long time to build, but you can destroy it all in a second. And Trump did just that.
