'We're respected as a country again.'

gaymen2
2 days ago
12 min read

What do you think of Trump telling reporters that "we’re respected as a country again. I was with some very important people and they said that they’ve never seen a turnaround of a country as fast as this"?

Dear John:

I shall write as plainly as I speak, in hopes that some of you slower folks in the back will pick up what's really happening in the world.

Speaking as a Canadian, who lives in Canada, but once spent a decade in the United States a beautiful decade in a several states -- where I had zero issues in a really good time. I would not step foot in your country today to pick up a prize of 10 billion dollars. Nor would I go if I was being given the Nobel Peace Prize in New York City, any offered to appear on Jimmy Fallon's Tonight Show. Or to be declared the winner of some stupid lottery for 10 billion, I simply would not go.

And that breaks my heart because I have friends, dear dear friends in the United States. Friends in North Carolina, in Florida, in South Carolina, in Georgia, in New York state , in New York City, in Maine, and Oregon, and Oregon again, and all over California.

But as much as I love them dearly, and as much as I'd like to see them, the United States has become known for one thing and one thing only since the orange twatwaffle arrived in the White House…

Whatever foibles, whatever everyday errors, whatever, for lack of a better word, fuck ups the America I used to know, was built on consisted of, or otherwise committed or had… it was known the world over first and foremost as a country of laws. Certain things were written down, argued over, then passed by the Congress, signed by the president and therefore known to be a law.

You had rights, citizens had rights, non-citizens had rights, illegal immigrants indeed even, still had some basic rights.

Your word on a document on a trade treaty, on an international agreement to accomplish something, on a global scale, previously? That word had meaning, power, importance even.

Whether the person in the White House changed, whether the Congress changed, did not matter. For, if it had passed, and been signed into law and ratified as an international agreement —- the United States stood by it. Come hell, or high water, or 1997, or whatever. You could count on death, taxes, and the good word of the United States of America on the global stage.

Now the only thing you can count on regarding the United States, is their word is meaningless. Not even worth whatever they choose to print it on.

AND ABOVE ALL, SINCE HER WORD IS USELESS, AMERICA SIMPLY CANNOT BE TRUSTED. AND HERE IS WHY THAT MATTERS.

If a nation cannot trust the United States on its word? They cannot support you in a foreign war, for example. they cannot come to your aid or defense if you are attacked, and under no circumstances can they share their own countries intelligence information gathered at great risk to operatives all over the world foreign and domestic.

It is pointless to negotiate a new trade arrangement with the United States under Donald Trump utterly pointless. Canada and Mexico humored him five years ago and did that with him anyway the USCANMEX agreement, WHICH DONALD TRUMP KNOWINGLY AGREED TO ALL THE PROVISIONS AND DECLARED IT THE BEST TRADE AGREEMENT EVER HE PERSONALLY NEGOTIATED IT! He said at the time.

I go into far more detail on why his trade stuff makese zero sense here:

Should President Trump play dirtier and be deadly serious about expelling every last Canadian from America back to Canada if they don't meet a deadline to lower tariffs to 0% on all US exports? They would have no choice but be forced to obey.

Let's take a moment and explain tariffs. I had planned an animated short film hosted by a beaver 🦫 as I thought that might hold your attention long enough to get this thru. But that's a of work, so you are getting the stop n think version. The tariffs Trump loves to prattle on about are not every day tariffs that apply to all goods in that category. They are actually what's known as Tariff Rate Quotas.

Or TRQ. What makes them different is they only apply after a certain volume of that good have passed without any tariff levied, or a relatively small tariff. And the thing with those is.. the United States has them in place to protect certain industries. Why paperclips? I guess the department of defense has decided paperclips are a national security thing? But you can see other categories there. You can see punishingly high percentages up to 350% levity against Canadian goods going to the states and

the defined categories over the rated quota. You'll see something very similar in the Canadian chart below.

Now, Canada has them too.. and these are the ones that Donald Trump is bitching about. In particular that dairy, cheese and the one for chickens. Now remember, way back at the beginning, I said these are TRQ? In the case of dairy tariff, 50,000 tons (*this number may be different but there's a tonnage allowed with no tariff applied)… 50,000 tons can cross then after that this tariff applies.

Canada does this so we will always have our own dairy, cheese and poultry supply, and other reasons.* [ Now just like your favorite teachers in high school I'm going to point out here that this next paragraph is very important yes it will be on the test and on your final exam and it's very important you grasp this next paragraph if you get nothing else from this entire answer so please take a moment take a deep breath and then read on.] NOBODY HAS EVER PAID THE TARIFF TRUMP WHINES ABOUT in 32 YEARS! Since the signing of the original North American Free trade agreement in 1993, to today, not one cent of tariff had been applied against US dairy product entering Canada — at the rate Trump's complaints about. Why? Because they have never exceeded the tonnage allowed! In fact, Canada is the 2nd largest customer for United States dairy exports. We buy $1.14 billion worth every year, a number that has steadily increased since 2014, when it was just $600 million. in fact, for the most recent yera we have numbers, 2024, our imports of your dairy products were up 5%. And all of these wonderful numbers WERE BEFORE Donald Trump decided to “fix Canadian imports of dairy” … You guys elected an idiot who doesn't understand the simple concepts I've explained. I know you all understand them, after all you're on here, you're smart people, you have two or more brain cells to rub together, and you put them to good use!

Thank you for that. And that means you are smarter than the guy elected to run your country. Congrats btw! 🎉 I guess I mean, that would scare me shitless but you're a different country you do you.

We always want to have our own food supply exactly in case if things like the recent avian flu situation for chickens, and your price of eggs problems that resulted. We have a different biosecurity regime in Canada that caught much of avian flu for chickens early and dealt with it before our food supply was at risk. The 45th president of the United States, reduced in person USDA farm inspection requirements, and relaxed certain regulations that were once the same as Canada's. Those minor changes probably played a huge role in why eggs are 6.55$ USD per dozen. You may wish to bring that up with the 45th President, as he is now the 47th President. Careful tho, word on the street is if you go against him he may have you deported to El Salvador regardless of whether or not you're from there committed a crime or whatever … so careful!! Also when COVID closed the border entirely for almost 9 months, we still had milk eggs chickens etc, because we had this TRQ in place to protect our small family run farms from being overtaken by large farming conglomerates from the USA , or just run out of business all together. *

And that leads to this — we have some food security and quality standards that are higher than the USA, & for those goods, tariffs don't apply, we simply don't allow those products in to our country. They don't meet the standards for safe food in our country. Much like the USA will not allow Kinder Egg surprise candy in the USA. American safety folks have deemed them a choking hazard. Fair enough. We feel the exact same way about the product you claim is cheese called Velveeta.

But even that I think gets across the border. So, now that you know the United States “charges” these same rated quota tariffs, and now that you know that NOBODY has paid a cent against these tariffs in 32 years, what are your demands exactly? What is it in Donald Trump’s arguments that you wish to deport all Canadians from the USA … for? Be precise, use your big boy words. Because, hey, we love Uncle Sam, but at the moment, he seems like he might be going around the bend by the Old Folk’s Home if ya know what I mean. He seems to be getting a touch of the oldtimer’s ‘problem’ if ya catch my meaning.

I’ll spell it out. YOUR LEADER MAKES NO EFFIN’ SENSE ON ANY LEVEL AND HIS CLAIMS ARE COMPLETE BULLSHIT THAT SPEAK TO A COMPLETE LACK OF UNDERSTANDING OF INTERNATIONAL TRADE, OR THE AGREEMENT HE NEGOTIATED 5 YEARS AGO — he was sharper then, less dementia you understand…

Here we are not even 5 years later and he threw all that in the trash for reasons still not explainable to any human brain with two cells to rub together. I certainly hope it accomplishes whatever the hell it is he hopes it will accomplish because it accomplished a whole bunch of things I know he didn't expect to accomplish..

The net effect of what Donald Trump has done whatever his goal is? I say that because none of the goals stated publicly make any sense despite what the maga folks seem to be convincing themselves of…

The net effect America stands more alone now than it ever has.

It has fewer allies than ever before. And those what it might still claim to possess do not trust it, and will not back it. And if an adult does not come to the fort in Washington DC and stop this fucking idiot who knows nothing about global economics macro micro or otherwise from continuing to recap it on markets and America's good word around the world, then by the time this is over here's what you will have…

Fewer allies, fewer friends.
You can't trade with somebody you can't trust, so you're going to have fewer global customers, by a lot.
Fewer jobs because, if you're not making shit that nobody out there is willing to buy, because they can't trust you, guess what?? You don't need people to make that shit.
Fewer dollars, fewer jobs, fewer incomes… that's going to mean fewer dollars rolling around in your economy. And that's going to mean either recession, or at the rate he's going, full on fucking depression. Think 1931 …dust bowl …all that ! Go ahead, laugh, say it can't happen. Just you fucking watch it's going to happen, if you leave him in place.
Fewer manufacturing jobs than you have, even today. You need to get used to the idea that Americans don't do everything best. There are countries out there that can assemble widgets, for a quarter of the price of yours. Now part of that is that they don't admire and follow the economic rules of paying people a fair wage, and they don't honor the 7-Day work week with two days off. Rules about don't pour liquid poison into the river nearby.. are optional as well there. But, don't feel left out, good news on that front —if you leave Donald Trump in place, you guys won't be at honoring those things either! So you'll be right down there at the bottom with the rest of them, fighting over nickels, when you could have been making $50 bills.

Simply put, America is at its lowest point in the global stage

since America was formed.

Barring some dramatic action, the direction most of the world sees your country going in, is sort of a swirling circular motion around a drain.

And that’s not from any draining the swamp. Case in point, everytime you hear about an exception, or a carve out from Trump’s draconian tariffs — know this, that’s likely the result of him receiving a bribe in some way, shape, or form.

You see, before Congress took over the power of tariffs themselves sometime ago, this was a notorious grift among those in power. And it’s back with Trump’s figuring out the use of the ‘fake emergency’. The man damn near crashed the bond market last week. Do you realize how fucking hard it is to crash a bond market?

——————

There is one person and one person only who sincerely believes in their heart of hearts that America is now respected on the global stage. And that might be Don Jr cuz, I'm pretty sure Don senior knows full well just how much bullshit he poured into that statement.

I will put this in writing cuz I believe it now as strongly as I ever have —- you have elected a Russian asset as president of your country. You will find that out, in the due course of time. I hope when that happens, all who ragingly supported him, are cut off from all levels of government, forever. Their poor choices and horrible characters are to be treated as not to be trusted charlatans.

And when you all discover it, and you're all roiling, pearl clutching, and all busy being deeply shocked, you know, “oh my Gods" and all the rest of it?

I'll be here I'll be here to point at every last one, you dirty rotten motherfuckers that supported this orange twatwaffle. I shall loudly proclaim,

“Haha, I told you so, we all told you so…”

Some might say that's not very Canadian of me. And to that I would say, everything that's happened in your country since January 20th at 12:00 noon has been completely not very American. IN fact, it's been downright fascist.

I don't care if you believe me.

I don't care if you like what I have to say.

I don't give a fucking shit.

But you asked, so that's what I think of whatever useless lies and belligerent bullshit, your current leader chooses to vomit out.

Respect? No. A bit of fear in places, like Greenland, and yes Canada. We're not used to a United States that bullies other countries into submission, that bullies universities, private companies, and full on destroys it's own standing on the world stage.

Its like watching your best friend, fall victim to substance abuse. You wish you could help them, but nothing will work till they hit rock bottom. And even then, they just want the help.

Perhaps the countries around the world that hold your t-bills, and other debt instruments, need to book a meeting with what's left of your government.

A&E made a whole series about the concept.

I N T E R V E N T I O N …America will you accept the help we offer today, and start getting better, or something like that ..

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Do foreigners dislike Trump because he put American needs ahead of the rest of the world? Do they fear a NATO withdrawal and a loss of their everything's free for me societies?

Hi, there. The first time I came across Donald Trump was when he was claiming that Barack Obama wasn’t even American. He said he had sent investigators to Hawaii to check, and people “wouldn’t believe” what they were finding. I waited for the other shoe to drop, for the investigation to report, and I’m still waiting. Still, for months on end, he continued to say that Obama was not American.

The takeaway from this: Donald Trump is not an honourable man. He slimes honourable opponents with transparent lies.

What you’re missing (the first thing you’re missing) is that we foreigners have access to your domestic news. We see what you see. We see someone stoking riots against peaceful protesters, and the government putting kids in cages, and rallies and speeches that include calls to physically attack people who disrespect Trump, and attacks on every organ of government and the very notion of democracy, and a COVID response that was seemingly conducted from a clown car and left more than a million Americans dead, and the violent attempt to end the peaceful transfer of power after an election. We saw him then slink off from Washington, not attending his successor’s inauguration, with dozens of boxes of secret documents to sell off, give away, or use for blackmail.

Don’t bother to deny any of it. We saw the same news that you did. The takeaway is that the man is vile and dangerous to his own country.

Oh, yes, as a Canadian, I surely didn’t appreciate having my country labelled as a “security threat.” I didn’t like his idea of stationing American military units to defend the undefended border. I didn’t like his metal tariffs on Canadian steel and aluminum. I didn’t like his cutting off Canada from American-manufactured masks, made with Canadian materials, during the pandemic. I didn’t like that he broke the American presidential tradition of making the first state visit a Canadian one. (He never actually made a state visit to Canada). I didn’t like his publicly attacking Article 5 of NATO because that put the world in peril of wider Russian aggression. I didn’t like his threats to rewrite our trade treaty to be much more lopsidedly in favour of the Americans, just because he thought he could bully his way to that result (but Canada outplayed him).

But character matters, and he is vile.

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