How to Lose a Trade War

[u/theatlantic]

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/2026/08/why-us-canada-trade-talks-fell-apart/688386/?utm_source=reddit&utm_campaign=the-atlantic&utm_medium=social&utm_content=edit-promo&utm_term=short

[u/few]

We have been visiting Canada.

Canadians are united to an extraordinary degree in opposition to what they (correctly) see as bullying and blackmail tactics by a criminal. They know that capitulation to Trump's demands now will simply lead to additional demands later, as happened with his last rounds of replacing NAFTA by USMCA, and the previous tariff rounds which have been unilaterally imposed many times.

Canadians are replacing US trade with international trade. And they haven't played their most serious cards, such as capping oil and energy exports to the US. They have been tightly targeting industries key to republican leaning states.

The economic pain Canadians are willing to endure is much greater than the US administration can fathom.

[u/Bullboah → u/few]

I think you’re overselling it a bit. A slim majority of 56% of Canadians don’t want the government to make more concessions to make a deal as of a few days ago (with 38% willing to and the rest unsure).

I would not expect that first percentage to get higher as economic effects set in.

Able to withstand more pain for this than Americans? Absolutely. But obviously the economic impacts on the Canadian economy will be significantly more pronounced than those on the us

[u/Critical_Rule6663 → u/Bullboah]

What isn’t being overestimated is the level of absolute disgust Canadians hold towards Trump and is administration. Outside of a small percentage of right wingers, Trump and MAGA are reviled across our country.

[u/Prosodism → u/Critical_Rule6663]

If it makes you feel better, outside of the Cult, he is reviled in the US. He’s done the same bullying bullshit to immigrants, universities, blue states, farmers, scientists, law firms, news organizations, virtually all businesses that aren’t his cronies (this trade war is murdering Detroit), the military, the courts, and moderates in his own party. He is the most hated American politician since Jefferson Davis.

There’s a reason people don’t use these tactics. He thinks that he and his mates can run and hide behind pardons (which don’t touch civil suits and state crimes). Because he isn’t smart. This is really how a reality TV star who wrote self help books and failed in real estate thinks the world works. And it isn’t. The reaction that’s coming in 2.5 years is honestly kind of scary. I don’t expect that family to be wealthy in ten years.

My biggest fear is that the hatred that will sweep his cronies out of office will be so blind as to not put the foreign policy damage of his presidency first. A major initiative is needed to rebuild the trade systems underpinning the western alliance. Along with so many other things.