So this is just going to be ongoing drama the beginning of every month indefinitely? I’m not even sure what we are trying to extract from Canada at this point.
> I’m not even sure what we are trying to extract from Canada at this point.
Their energy, their focus, their attention. Your attention. All the time people spend in stress / outrage / fear / whatever in reaction to these events, that's time and energy not available to look at the news that get less coverage (which are usually the more important).
It also sucks all the air out of other internal political discussion - US trade relations take #1 priority and so everything else either gets forgotten or put on hold.
Easy way to set your opponents back when you have the upper hand like the US does.
“How can I decouple from the US as fast as possible?” is what this leads to.
Diplomacy is the art of saying “good dog” until you make it to the rock. The US will apply pressure for short term gain against allies while they move away long term.
The markets(TM) tend to have a bit of a normalcy/nothing-ever-happens bias, and are overly-willing to discount the possibility of unusual/nonsensical things happening. So, to an extent, even when tariffs were announced, the markets did not entirely believe in them.
However, they are beginning to believe in them now.
Their energy, their focus, their attention. Your attention. All the time people spend in stress / outrage / fear / whatever in reaction to these events, that's time and energy not available to look at the news that get less coverage (which are usually the more important).
It also sucks all the air out of other internal political discussion - US trade relations take #1 priority and so everything else either gets forgotten or put on hold.
Easy way to set your opponents back when you have the upper hand like the US does.