[adventured]

The parent is drastically exaggerating.

The US dropped its steel tariffs against Canada and imports ~$325 billion in goods from Canada (equal to ~19% of their economy). Canadian steel represents <2% of that.

Meanwhile the US is going to allow Infineon to buy Cypress, an important US semiconductor company.

The US will have roughly a $21.x trillion economy at the end of 2019. The scale of non-China tariffs is entirely trivial, meaningless. So far there has been very little in the way of actual hits and targeting from tariffs - on the grounds of national security or otherwise - outside of the trade conflict with China.

[oyebenny]

ELI5 please?

[lambdasquirrel]

By the numbers, the only country that has actually taken a hit with tariffs is China (in case you missed the news, Mexico bent over pretty quickly).

The response misses the point that the US is saber-rattling to keep other countries in line. China is the only country to actually challenge the US, so now the US has to show everyone who’s boss.