Jedidajah Otte Wed 5 Mar 2025 10.10 EST

"Since Donald Trump began his tariff threats against Canada and his ‘jokes’ about making Canada the 51st US state, I have not bought a single product originating in the US,” said Lynne Allardice, 78, a retired business owner from New Brunswick, Canada.

“Not a single lettuce leaf or piece of fruit. I have become an avid reader of labels and have adopted an ‘anywhere but the US’ policy when shopping. I will not visit the States while Trump remains in office, and most of the people I know have adopted the same policy.”"

  • macjabeth@lemmy.world
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    16 hours ago

    trade deficits are NOT the same as a net negative spending balance

    I never said they were, genius. The point of highlighting the deficit is twofold: first, to expose how lopsided our trade agreements are, with our so-called “allies” benefiting far more than we do; and second, to showcase how badly domestic production is failing to meet demand. The best way to correct that? Tariffs. They reduce the imbalance and incentivise bringing production back home. But sure, keep pretending it’s not an issue while we hemorrhage jobs and industry to foreign nations.

    The US and UK are the only countries that DID ask of Ukraine to sign the Budapest Memorandum in exchange for military support.

    Have you actually read the Memorandum? No, you haven’t. And it shows. It also included Russia, and it never guaranteed military support - it guaranteed that Ukraine’s borders and sovereignty would be respected and that we wouldn’t infringe upon them, except in self-defense. And funnily enough, that’s exactly what Russia did in 2014 after Ukraine spent years antagonising them with NATO ambitions (e.g. the 2008 Bucharest Summit) despite NATO giving assurances it wouldn’t expand eastward past Germany during its reunification talks. But go off with your revisionist history.

    You can’t believe everything your news echo chamber tells you just because it seems to make sense that negative numbers are bad.

    Likewise, kiddo. Maybe try doing some real research before regurgitating whatever narrative makes you feel smart. It takes actual knowledge to understand why these policies exist, and right now, you’re just embarrassing yourself by parroting surface-level takes with zero depth.

    • tomi000@lemmy.world
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      6 hours ago

      Where did you get the idea that they benefit more from trade than the US does? Thats complete bullshit propaganda. Why would that be the case? Name a single economic indication please, and stop with the “its a deficit, thats a negative word, so its bad for us” logic, read up on the words youre using before spouting nonsense. The US has been running trade deficits for decades, thats your business model! Its like if Amazon started saying “oh damn our warehouse inventory is getting smaller, lets fix it by selling less stuff!”

      Ive read the memorandum. It ays what you wrote and I didnt pretend otherwise. The US is currently not respecting Ukraines borders by offering part of the country to Russia. I dont see how thats so difficult to understand.

      • macjabeth@lemmy.world
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        42 minutes ago

        My god you’re dense. I’ve already explained everything clearly and twice so far. I’ll put it in very simple to understand words for you:

        Trade Deficit = Deindustrialisation and Job Loss

        Trade Surplus = Industrialisation and Job Growth

        For someone who claims to have an understanding of macroeconomics, you clearly very much don’t. 🤦🏼

        And I’ll reiterate: the Memorandum did not guarantee military support, and yet, we’ve been providing it for the last three years for free despite them breaking their own agreement and infringing on Russia’s border security. They poked the bear, FAFO’d. The only way Ukraine keeps their sovereignty is through diplomacy and, most likely, complete detachment from NATO.