Trump’s rebranding of Lake Ontario was just the beginning of multi-day effort to provoke Canada

Donald Trump sought to escalate his trade war with Canada on Sunday afternoon and issued a demand on Truth Social that Canadian companies wanting to do business with the U.S. reshore their headquarters within its borders.

His latest remarks come as Canadian officials warned that the country was prepared for an extended dispute with the U.S. after trade talks collapsed and Trump announced tariffs as high as 50 percent on some Canadian goods including dairy products and lumber. Canada has levied reciprocal tariffs against U.S. steel, aluminum and other exports.

On Sunday afternoon, the president said Canadian companies should move their headquarters and production facilities to avoid newly imposed tariffs. The duties are set to begin in 2027.

    • FirstCircle@lemmy.ml
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      4 hours ago

      I wonder if there are any Canadian organizations, non-profits, that would like a complete copy of the Epstein Files, unredacted, to analyze? I’ve read that Drumpf is in the Epstein Files, and surely an independent Epstein Files analyst with unredacted Epstein Files documents in hand could locate a Trump within them easily. Make that the Trump-Epstein files, since we’re renaming things.

  • MrSulu@lemmy.ml
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    4 hours ago

    And still, so many non-millionaire or higher Americans giving a great “ye-hah!” at this. Hopefully they’ll be significantly outvoted in the next election, but they’ll not change. The swing voters are likely liable to vote for this stupidity again in the future. Education (not indoctrination) needs to improve.

  • wuffah@lemmy.world
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    7 hours ago

    “Let all Canadian Companies that are doing business with America move to the United States, immediately. Many of them are Companies that moved out years ago due to stupid U.S. Leadership. When you move back, there are no TARIFFS!” Trump wrote.

    In a separate post, he argued that Canada was one of America’s worst trading partners, despite being its second-largest. Canada and the U.S. conduct close to $900 billion in cross-border economic activity each year, according to the U.S. trade representative.

    This man is insane and needs to be removed from office immediately by impeachment or the 25th amendment.

  • HumanOnEarth@lemmy.ca
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    8 hours ago

    To all Canadians:

    The only way we’re not going to end up another victim of this lunatic and his kind is if we all act, every one of us. I still see Starbucks overflowing. I still see people porking out on McDonald’s, Popeyes, Wendy’s. People still filling up their baskets with Coca Cola and Lays potato chips.

    What the fuck, people? We did way better when this when this all started, US produce was rotting on the shelves. He’s literally attacking us now and I would hope that could at least get us back to that point.

    You. Yes you. Stop. It’s not just a coke. It’s not just your favorite fries. It’s evidence that your dependence on US crap is too high and needs correcting.

    • skisnow@lemmy.ca
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      3 hours ago

      Also something I don’t hear said enough is: with boycotts, anything is better than nothing. If you really can’t live without Coca-Cola, that doesn’t have to stop you cutting down on everything else. Just making the small effort on the shelves to check the label goes a long way.

    • AxiomPraxis@sh.itjust.works
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      5 hours ago

      At least of partial blame is all the franchisee’s of those fast food places claiming “100% Canadian owned and operated” (I’ve seen these signs) and people falling for it, meanwhile they tithe back the licensing fees for the franchise.

      • Serinus@lemmy.world
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        5 hours ago

        From my brief research it seems it’s about a 50/50 split of profits (corporate measures in gross revenue though, so no Hollywood accounting to get out of it), and a large chunk of the corporate half goes to advertising.

    • hitmyspot@aussie.zone
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      7 hours ago

      Lol, all the USA exports is junk. Social media that’s bad for us. Food that’s bad for us. Drinksnthatbare bad for us. On an individual and societal level.

    • CalemitousVariantK@lemmy.world
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      7 hours ago

      He was medically a moron before he had a small stroke. Now he shits himself constantly, can’t remember which country ending in N he started a war with, and can’t name the president of the United States as far back as 2025. If it wasn’t for Steven Miller animating his corpse, he’d be in a burn pit under 6’ of effluent already.

    • Avid Amoeba@lemmy.ca
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      5 hours ago

      Lots but I don’t think this move isn’t crazy or wrong from the perspective of his material interest. He’s sending a message to parts of capital that aren’t under his thumb / he isn’t under theirs, that he’ll hit their bottom line unless they materially pledge allegiance. He’s trying to engineer capital flight from Canada that could hurt us enough to get us to fall in line and allow resource and market access to his side of capital to exploit and profit from our labour and natural resources. Would it work? I hope not but I wouldn’t disregard the possibility.

      If he’s serious about this, we might see him manufacture some terrorism or drugs excuse to slap massive tariffs, perhaps even sanctions on us. As his chances of losing the senate and the house in 2 months keep growing, this shit is getting more and more about his survival, so I think the chance that this not being hot air is growing.

  • ShellMonkey@piefed.socdojo.com
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    8 hours ago

    Wut?

    I can’t even imagine what kind of crazy runs through his head. Sure, let me relocate my entire damn company because some tool decided to throw a tantrum and pick a fight with one of their biggest partners because reasons that’ll get turned around whenever he gets bored with it…

    Hey Donnie, you don’t get to go making unilateral demands on an international stage, the world is not one of your casinos to bankrupt

    • JohnnyCanuck@lemmy.ca
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      2 hours ago

      This comes up a lot these days, but it’s pretty standard in Canada and the USA to call the USA “America”. It’s not just a Trump thing, or even just an American (from the USA) thing.

      In Canada we would never say we are in America. We would say we’re in North America, and maybe “The Americas”. But saying we’re in America would sound to us like you’re saying we’re part of the USA. And absolutely, without a doubt, we would not call ourselves “American”. That is 100% reserved for people from the USA.

      So I understand where the rest of the world hears the word “America” being thrown around by, well, Americans for lack of a better term (USAers?) and thinks it’s weird, but in this context, saying Canada is in America is actually kind of insulting to us Canadians.

      It’s particularly weird when speaking Spanish, where saying someone is Americano is often used for anyone from the Americas. But at least they have “estadounidense” (basically “united statesian” which I’ve never heard anyone say in English). But they also use “norteamericano” (North American) specifically for people from the USA. Ugh.

  • rhythmisaprancer@quokk.au
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    7 hours ago

    So NAFTA was really just about USA having the power. “Free trade” my foot. Hope Canada (and Mexico) can successfully navigate this. How awful.

    • 🌞 Alexander Daychilde 🌞@lemmy.world
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      6 hours ago

      NAFTA largely benefitted us both, although there were some problems - though from everything I can tell, the upsides far outweighed the downsides.

      Republicans in general have been behind most of the rise of fascism and shit, with Trump being even worse on top.

      Believe what you like, but you’re throwing the baby out with the bath water on that one.

      Nothing I’m saying defends Trump or the fascists being stupid and shooting not guns but bazookas at our own feet and firing those bazookas wildly everywhere and shitting on everything.

      • rhythmisaprancer@quokk.au
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        6 hours ago

        Believe what you like, but you’re throwing the baby out with the bath water on that one

        I need more info, I may be misinformed and likely don’t know all the things. I just remember hearing a lot of hullabaloo about it then. It seemed like it was supposed to be good for all three countries, and an agreement of sorts. I don’t understand how this stuff now can be a thing beyond Trump being seemingly unchecked.

        • 🌞 Alexander Daychilde 🌞@lemmy.world
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          5 hours ago

          It was largely a good thing for all three countries.

          What Trump is doing has nothing to do with NAFTA and everything to do with him basically doing illegal things. And stupid things.

          The reason why he’s not being stopped is that all systems have weaknesses. Our system of government was not set up to assume that the people elected would actively work against our own interests and everyone elses’ (except the oligarchs’) interests. The checks and balances have failed because the fascists have all three branches of government.

    • JollyBrancher@sh.itjust.works
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      7 hours ago

      The *MCfree trade agreement. Beautiful name. Strong name for a strong agreement. No other agreement has ever had such a great name. Believe me. A man - very strong man - told me, tears in his eyes, “Sir, this is such a great agreement.” Can you believe it?

      But an actual issue for anything is a lot of “US”-based companies have moved manufacturing to Mexico. Under NAFTA agreements. So, all former goodwill be dead and all.

  • Rhaedas@fedia.io
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    8 hours ago

    If he knew anything about business, he’d know this isn’t that simple or fast to do. If they were even willing.

    Boy, he sure is trying to deflect attention a lot, isn’t he?

  • StrawberryPigtails@discuss.tchncs.de
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    9 hours ago

    The way Trump is going we’re not going to be a world power let alone a superpower much longer. I can’t t see Canadian businesses moving to the US as being to their advantage. Plenty of disadvantages, but not many advantages.

    • im_fine_sandy@nord.pub
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      5 hours ago

      There’s no way anyone would think moving to the US is an advantage.

      Moving a company headquarters is a 5 year plan.

      It’s extraordinarily unlikely Trump will be alive in 5 years.

      No one is going to continue these stupid tariffs after he’s gone.

    • Lemmayng@lemmy.world
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      6 hours ago

      Amerikkka was never a superpower. Just a farce in a superpower-looking trenchcoat.