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Breakups Get Ugly
Carney and China are showing us the future and it is going to be bad for the US
mister mix
April 11, 2025
Canadian PM and Liberal Leader Mark Carney has a new anti-crime proposal:
"Tariffs are not the only American policies that are threatening our economy and our society. They're also threatening the safety of our communities," Carney said during a campaign stop in Brampton, Ont.
"Criminals are taking advantage of irresponsible American gun laws, and their weak border enforcement, to bring illegal guns into Canada."
Carney also said large U.S.-based online platforms have become "seas of racism, misogyny, antisemitism, Islamophobia and hate in all its forms" and that those platforms are being used by criminals to harm Canadians, especially children.
"My government will act," Carney said. "Today we're announcing our plan to fight crime, to protect Canadians and to build communities that are safe, secure and strong."
Canada will now toughen border security to deal with the threat to the south, have the RCMP classify guns instead of gun companies, and probably start cracking down on social networks.
As Josh Marshall points out, power is unitary. If we’ve seen anything from the last few days, it’s that Trump is weak. Krugman:
The story of the tariffs so far — at least as other countries will see it — is that Trump announced extreme policies, insisted that he would persist with those policies no matter what, then beat an ignominious retreat. In other words, Trump is a typical bully, full of swagger and tough talk, who runs away at the first sign of adversity.
China isn’t backing down. Other countries don’t want to get in bed with them, but China can still go it alone.
The tale of these two charts is ugliness on both sides, but: China has a lot of commodities that can be substituted with exports from other countries. Lots of countries grow soybeans, and export oil and natural gas. It’s hard for US citizens to buy a computer or a cell phone made anywhere but China.
Carney is making a bet that Trumpism is so toxic in Canada that running against Trumpist policies that were embraced by the Conservatives will actually make his campaign stronger.
China is betting that Trump will back down, or if he doesn’t China will hurt the US more than we hurt them.
I’d take the other countries’ sides of both of those bets.
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