[jleyank]

Some things that are shipped from the us to foreign lands could be shipped from Canada for similar costs. Food, for example, or minerals or oil. These are things shipped in bulk “elsewhere”. Canada, as far as I can tell, has lots of such stuff.

If they can somehow manufacture things of high value (electronics, pharmaceuticals) then a cargo plane or two is sufficient. If wfh is allowed, then work can be done separately where one can live. This might alter population dynamics a bit. Japan and Korea seem to have a lot of money w/o road transport. Australia and New Zealand manage to support technological states.

Hell, they can join the EU as their products complement European states. And you assume the us won’t fracture.

[TMWNN]

> Some things that are shipped from the us to foreign lands could be shipped from Canada for similar costs. Food, for example, or minerals or oil. These are things shipped in bulk “elsewhere”. Canada, as far as I can tell, has lots of such stuff.

As of 2025, 90% of Canadian crude and 100% of natural gas goes to the US. <https://www.cer-rec.gc.ca/en/data-analysis/energy-markets/ma...> Carney has talked a lot about new pipelines, but so did Trudeau and absolutely nothing has actually happened, because BC and Ontario are 100% dead-set against them.

>If they can somehow manufacture things of high value (electronics, pharmaceuticals)

Canada has, to a first degree of approximation, no electronics manufacturing. Its COVID vaccines were 100% manufactured elsewhere.

>Australia and New Zealand manage to support technological states.

New Zealand is seeing a brain drain that makes Canada's to the US look like nothing.

Australia is a better example. But stating that another similar resource-based Anglosphere country has not gone bankrupt without a US-like next-door neighbor is not necessarily the compelling counterexample that you think it is.

>Hell, they can join the EU as their products complement European states.

Read again what I wrote about how trade cannot be so easily substituted.

>And you assume the us won’t fracture.

Sorry to shatter (ahem) your illusions, but Canada is the one with Quebec and Alberta (and <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Western_alienation> in general). Americans see themselves as Americans first and foremost.

[jleyank]

Puerto Rico makes pharmaceuticals, so if it can be built there it can be built in Canada or wherever. No high-tech workforce in PR, and tax games can be played anywhere. And Trudeau, to many people's annoyance, bought Alberta a pipeline. More can be built. This sh*t isn't going to change in a year and the problem(s) aren't going away either.

A key questions, which I lack the data to answer, is what products of the US can be substituted by Canada or other countries. Much/most of the tech manufacture isn't in the US, and neither is the pharmaceutical manufacturing. There are drug/biotech companies all over the world. The only thing that comes to mind as a US big win is the VC business. And money is horribly mobile and fickle.

Google's AI says airplanes and their engines are a US export. And Boeing has its competition along with Pratt & Whitney.