#usmca

[mostlysignssomeportents]

Canada sues Google

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/12/03/clementsy/#can-tech

For a country obsessed with defining itself as "not America," Canada sure likes to copy US policies, especially the really, really terrible policies – especially the really, really, really terrible digital policies.

In Canada's defense: these terrible US policies are high priority for the US Trade Representative, who leans on Canadian lawmakers to ensure that any time America decides to collectively jump off the Empire State Building, Canadian politicians throw us all off the CN Tower. And to Canada's enduring shame, the USTR never has to look very hard to find a lickspittle who's happy to sell Canadians out.

Take anti-circumvention. In 1998, Bill Clinton signed the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, a gnarly hairball of copyright law whose Section 1201 bans reverse-engineering for any purpose. Under DMCA 1201, "access controls" for copyrighted works are elevated to sacred status, and it's a felony (punishable by a five-year prison sentence and a $500k fine) to help someone bypass these access controls.

That's pretty esoteric, even today, and in 1998, it was nearly incomprehensible, except to a small group of extremely alarmed experts who ran around trying to explain to lawmakers why they should not vote for this thing. But by the time Tony Clement and James Moore (Conservative ministers in the Harper regime) introduced a law to import America's stupidest tech idea and paste it into Canada's lawbooks in 2012, the evidence against anti-circumvention was plain for anyone to see.

Under America's anti-circumvention law, any company that added an "access control" to its products instantly felonised any modification to that product. For example, it's not illegal to refill an ink cartridge, but it is illegal to bypass the access control that gets the cartridge to recognise that it's full and start working again. It's not illegal for a Canadian software developer to sell a Canadian Iphone owner an app without cutting Apple in for a 30% of the sale, but it is illegal to mod that Iphone so that it can run apps without downloading them from the App Store first. It's not illegal for a Canadian mechanic to fix a Canadian's car, but it is illegal for that mechanic to bypass the access controls that prevent third-party mechanics from decrypting the error codes the car generates.

We told Clement and Moore about this, and they ignored us. Literally: when they consulted on their proposal in 2010, we filed 6,138 comments explaining why this was a bad idea, while only 53 parties wrote in to support it. Moore publicly announced that he was discarding the objections, on the grounds that they had come from "babyish" "radical extremists":

https://www.cbc.ca/news/science/copyright-debate-turns-ugly-1.898216

For more than a decade, we've had Clement and Moore's Made-in-America law tied to our ankles. Even when Canada copies some good ideas from the US (by passing a Right to Repair law), or even some very good ideas of its own (passing an interoperability law), Canadians can't use those new rights without risking prosecution under Clement and Moore's poisoned gift to the nation:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/11/15/radical-extremists/#sex-pest

"Not America" is a pretty thin basis for a political identity anyway. There's nothing wrong with copying America's good ideas (like Right to Repair). Indeed, when it comes to tech regulation, the US has had some bangers lately, like prosecuting US tech giants for violating competition law. Given that Canada overhauled its competition law this year, the country's well-poised to tackle America's tech giants.

Which is exactly what's happening! Canada's Competition Bureau just filed a lawsuit against Google over its ad-tech monopoly, which isn't merely a big old Privacy Chernobyl, but is also a massively fraudulent enterprise that rips off both advertisers and publishers:

https://www.reuters.com/technology/canadas-antitrust-watchdog-sues-google-alleging-anti-competitive-conduct-2024-11-28/

The ad-tech industry scoops up about 51 cents out of every dollar (in the pre-digital advertising world the net take by ad agencies was more like 15%). Fucking up Google's ad-tech rip off is a much better way to Canada's press paid than the link tax the country instituted in 2023:

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2023/05/save-news-we-must-ban-surveillance-advertising

After all, what tech steals from the news isn't content (helping people find the news and giving them a forum to discuss it is good) – tech steals news's money. Ad-tech is a giant ripoff. So is the app tax – the 30% Canadian newspapers have to kick up to the Google and Apple crime families every time a subscriber renews their subscriptions in an app. Using Canadian law to force tech to stop stealing the press's money is a way better policy than forcing tech to profit-share with the news. For tech to profit-share with the news, it has to be profitable, meaning that a profit-sharing press benefits from tech's most rapacious and extractive conduct, and rather than serving as watchdogs, they're at risk of being cheerleaders.

Smashing tech power is a better policy than forcing tech to share its stolen loot with newspapers. For one thing, it gets government out of the business of deciding what is and isn't a legit news entity. Maybe you're OK with Trudeau making that call (though I'm not), but how will you feel when PM Polievre decides that Great Replacement-pushing, conspiracy-addled far right rags should receive a subsidy?

Taking on Google is a slam-dunk, not least because the US DoJ just got through prosecuting the exact same case, meaning that Canadian competition enforcers can do some good copying of their American counterparts – like, copying the exhibits, confidential memos, and successful arguments the DoJ brought before the court:

https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/justice-department-sues-google-monopolizing-digital-advertising-technologies

Indeed, this already a winning formula! Because Big Tech commits the same crimes in every jurisdiction, trustbusters are doing a brisk business by copying each others' cases. The UK Digital Markets Unit released a big, deep market study into Apple's app market monopoly, which the EU Commission used as a roadmap to bring a successful case. Then, competition enforcers in Japan and South Korea recycled the exhibits and arguments from the EU's case to bring their own successful prosecutions:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/04/10/an-injury-to-one/#is-an-injury-to-all

Canada copying the DoJ's ad-tech case is a genius move – it's the kind of south-of-the-border import that Canadians need. Though, of course, it's a long shot that the Trump regime will produce much more worth copying. Instead, Trump has vowed to slap a 25% tariff on Canadian goods as of January 20.

Which is bad news for Canada's export sector, but it definitely means that Canada no longer has to worry about keeping the US Trade Rep happy. Repealing Clement and Moore's Bill C-11 should be Parliament's first order of business. Tariff or no tariff, Canadian tech entrepreneurs could easily export software-based repair diagnostic tools, Iphone jailbreaking tooks, alternative firmware for tractors and medical implants, and alternative app stores for games consoles, phones and tablets. So long as they can accept a US payment, they can sell to US customers. This is a much bigger opportunity than, say, selling cheap medicine to Americans trying to escape Big Pharma's predation.

What's more, there's no reason this couldn't be policy under Polievre and the Tories. After all, they're supposed to be the party of "respect for private property." What could be more respectful of private property than letting the owners of computers, phones, cars, tractors, printers, medical implants, smart speakers and anything else with a microchip decide for themselves how they want to it work? What could be more respectful of copyright than arranging things so that Canadian copyright holders – like a games studio or an app company – can sell their copyrighted works to Canadian buyers, without forcing the data and the payment to make a round trip through Silicon Valley and come back 30% lighter?

Canadian politicians have bound the Canadian public and Canadian industry to onerous and expensive obligations under treaties like the USMCA (AKA NAFTA2), on promise of tariff-free access to American markets. With that access gone, why on Earth would we continue to voluntarily hobble ourselves?

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Decoding Fox News:

Last week the folks at Fox twisted themselves into knots to defend the actions of a maniacal corrupt billionaire hellbent on destroying entire government agencies without congressional oversight. They would never admit that their glorious leader, Donald J. Trump, was just a puppet for Elon Musk, a South African immigrant with extremist political leanings. During one of the celebrations involved with Donald J. Trump’s inauguration Musk performed a hand gesture that looked suspiciously like a Nazi salute. When Musk was criticized for it instead of apologizing or clarifying what he meant he posted several inappropriate jokes about Nazis on his social media platform X. Musk also enthusiastically backed an extremist staunchly anti-immigrant political party in Germany - the Alternative for Germany Party also known as AfD. At a recent rally for AfD Musk said, in an apparent reference to the Nazi era, "frankly too much of a focus on past guilt and we need to move beyond that." Musk has also publicly supported an extremist party in the UK. He’s also retweeted dozens of extremists on X (Twitter) as well as promoted several racist conspiracy theories. Openly pro-Nazi profiles have flourished on the X platform since Musk acquired it. Of course, no one on Fox News brought up Musk’s extremist political leanings. His actions to slash and burn entire government agencies were framed as saving money for American tax payers. [...]

Trump rewarded his benefactor with a position to helm the Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, a task force set up by the executive branch.

What is DOGE?

DOGE was created via an executive order on January 20, 2025

It is a task force not an official government agency

Elon Musk is a special government employee

This status means he is not required to file a public financial disclosure

He did not need to have a confirmation hearing by the House or Senate

This is no mechanism to prevent Musk from interfering with an agency that might benefit one of his six companies.

Musk is essentially policing himself.

Musk has billions of dollars of federal contracts with this companies SpaceX and Tesla.

DOGE seems to mirror many of the proposals in Project 2025

DOGE faces several lawsuits meant to limit its power

What Has DOGE Done So Far

Attempted to completely destroy USAID

Musk called the agency a criminal organization

Musk requested to cut off all payments to USAID four days into the Trump admin.

President Trump issued an executive order suspending all U.S. foreign assistance.

The Secretary of State Marco Rubio issued a stop-work order for the State Department and the U.S. Agency for International Development.

Dozens of USAID’s top leaders were placed on immediate leave

Hundreds of employees have been let go.

The USAID website was taken down

The sign on the building USAID operated in has been covered up.

Offered a buyout to federal employees

Ended all remote work for federal employees

Claimed to have found fraud in various agencies - provided no evidence of fraud

Musk has claimed payments from Health and Human Services to various groups around the country are illegal.

DOGE employees gained access to the Department of Treasury payment systems

A federal judge blocked DOGE from accessing them.

Decoding Fox News has an excellent article on Fox “News” shilling for Elon Musk and DOGE.

From the 02.12.2025 edition of Decoding Fox News:

[porterdavis]

A little USMCA background

So Donnie abrogated the USMCA Treaty between the US, Canada, and Mexico by imposing illegal tariffs on the latter two countries, citing bogus 'national security threats'. He did not identify or appeal any specific actions he deemed contrary to the Treaty, just willy-nilly saying it's over.

People sometimes forget that this Treaty was brokered at his request when he was previously president, replacing the NAFTA Treaty of 1994. He agreed to it, made a few adjustments unilaterally, to which Mexico and later Canada agreed, and signed it into law in 2020. It was HIS Treaty and he crowed mightily about it (although in reality it was just NAFTA 2.0).

This is nothing more than a cruel flex against smaller countries, the actions of a schoolyard bully. The sad part is it will cause widespread hardship in all three countries and permanently shatter the trust needed between partners.

Shame.

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

What a front cover...

* * * *

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

March 6, 2025

Heather Cox Richardson

Mar 07, 2025

This morning, Ted Hesson and Kristina Cooke of Reuters reported that the Trump administration is preparing to deport the 240,000 Ukrainians who fled Russia’s attacks on Ukraine and have temporary legal status in the United States. Foreign affairs journalist Olga Nesterova reminded Americans that “these people had to be completely financially independent, pay tax, pay all fees (around $2K) and have an affidavit from an American person to even come here.”

“This has nothing to do with strategic necessity or geopolitics,” Russia specialist Tom Nichols posted. “This is just cruelty to show [Russian president Vladimir] Putin he has a new American ally.”

The Trump administration’s turn away from traditional European alliances and toward Russia will have profound effects on U.S. standing in the world. Edward Wong and Mark Mazzetti reported in the New York Times today that senior officials in the State Department are making plans to close a dozen consulates, mostly in Western Europe, including consulates in Florence, Italy; Strasbourg, France; Hamburg, Germany; and Ponta Delgada, Portugal, as well as a consulate in Brazil and another in Turkey.

In late February, Nahal Toosi reported in Politico that President Donald Trump wants to “radically shrink” the State Department and to change its mission from diplomacy and soft power initiatives that advance democracy and human rights to focusing on transactional agreements with other governments and promoting foreign investment in the U.S.

Elon Musk and the “Department of Government Efficiency” have taken on the process of cutting the State Department budget by as much as 20%, and cutting at least some of the department’s 80,000 employees. As part of that project, DOGE’s Edward Coristine, known publicly as “Big Balls,” is embedded at the State Department.

As the U.S. retreats from its engagement with the world, China has been working to forge greater ties. China now has more global diplomatic posts than the U.S. and plays a stronger role in international organizations. Already in 2025, about 700 employees, including 450 career diplomats, have resigned from the State Department, a number that normally would reflect a year’s resignations.

Shutting embassies will hamper not just the process of fostering goodwill, but also U.S. intelligence, as embassies house officers who monitor terrorism, infectious disease, trade, commerce, militaries, and government, including those from the intelligence community. U.S. intelligence has always been formidable, but the administration appears to be weakening it.

As predicted, Trump’s turn of the U.S. toward Russia also means that allies are concerned he or members of his administration will share classified intelligence with Russia, thus exposing the identities of their operatives. They are considering new protocols for sharing information with the United States. The Five Eyes alliance between Australia, Canada, New Zealand, the United Kingdom and the U.S. has been formidable since World War II and has been key to countering first the Soviet Union and then Russia. Allied governments are now considering withholding information about sources or analyses from the U.S.

Their concern is likely heightened by the return to Trump’s personal possession of the boxes of documents containing classified information the FBI recovered in August 2022 from Mar-a-Lago. Trump took those boxes back from the Department of Justice and flew them back to Mar-a-Lago on February 28.

A CBS News/YouGov poll from February 26–28 showed that only 4% of the American people sided with Russia in its ongoing war with Ukraine.

The unpopularity of the new administration's policies is starting to show. National Republican Congressional Committee chair Richard Hudson (R-NC) told House Republicans on Tuesday to stop holding town halls after several such events have turned raucous as attendees complained about the course of the Trump administration. Trump has blamed paid “troublemakers” for the agitation, and claimed the disruptions are part of the Democrats’ “game.” “[B]ut just like our big LANDSLIDE ELECTION,” he posted on social media, “it’s not going to work for them!”

More Americans voted for someone other than Trump than voted for him.

Even aside from the angry protests, DOGE is running into trouble. In his speech before a joint session of Congress on Tuesday, Trump referred to DOGE and said it “is headed by Elon Musk, who is in the gallery tonight.” In a filing in a lawsuit against DOGE and Musk, the White House declared that Musk is neither in charge of DOGE nor an employee of it. When pressed, the White House claimed on February 26 that the acting administrator of DOGE is staffer Amy Gleason. Immediately after Trump’s statement, the plaintiffs in that case asked permission to add Trump’s statement to their lawsuit.

Musk has claimed to have found billions of dollars of waste or fraud in the government, and Trump and the White House have touted those statements. But their claims to have found massive savings have been full of errors, and most of their claims have been disproved. DOGE has already had to retract five of its seven biggest claims. As for “savings,” the government spent about $710 billion in the first month of Trump’s term, compared with about $630 billion during the same timeframe last year.

Instead of showing great savings, DOGE’s claims reveal just how poorly Musk and his team understand the work of the federal government. After forcing employees out of their positions, they have had to hire back individuals who are, in fact, crucial to the nation, including the people guarding the U.S. nuclear stockpile. In his Tuesday speech, Trump claimed that the DOGE team had found “$8 million for making mice transgender,” and added: “This is real.”

Except it’s not. The mice in question were not “transgender”; they were “transgenic,” which means they are genetically altered for use in scientific experiments to learn more about human health. For comparison, S.V. Date noted in HuffPost that in just his first month in office, Trump spent about $10.7 million in taxpayer money playing golf.

Josh Marshall of Talking Points Memo pointed out today that people reporting on the individual cuts to U.S. scientific and health-related grants are missing the larger picture: “DOGE and Donald Trump are trying to shut down advanced medical research, especially cancer research, in the United States…. They’re shutting down medicine/disease research in the federal government and the government-run and funded ecosystem of funding for most research throughout the United States. It’s not hyperbole. That’s happening.”

Republicans are starting to express some concern about Musk and DOGE. As soon as Trump took office, Musk and his DOGE team took over the Office of Personnel Management, and by February 14 they had begun a massive purge of federal workers. As protests of the cuts began, Trump urged Musk on February 22 to be “more aggressive” in cutting the government, prompting Musk to demand that all federal employees explain what they had accomplished in the past week under threat of firing. That request sparked a struggle in the executive branch as cabinet officers told the employees in their departments to ignore Musk. Then, on February 27, U.S. District Judge William Alsup found that the firings were likely illegal and temporarily halted them.

On Tuesday, Senate majority leader John Thune (R-SD) weighed in on the conflict when he told CNN that the power to hire and fire employees properly belongs to Cabinet secretaries.

Yesterday, Musk met with Republican— but no Democratic— members of Congress. Senators reportedly asked Musk—an unelected bureaucrat whose actions are likely illegal—to tell them more about what’s going on. According to Liz Goodwin, Marianna Sotomayor, and Theodoric Meyer of the Washington Post, Musk gave some of the senators his phone number and said he wanted to set up a direct line for them when they have questions, allowing them to get a near-instant response to their concerns.” Senator Lindsey Graham (R-SC) told reporters that Musk told the senators he would “create a system where members of Congress can call some central group” to get cuts they dislike reversed.

This whole exchange is bonkers. The Constitution gives Congress alone the power to make appropriations and pass the laws that decide how money is spent. Josh Marshall asks: “How on earth are we in this position where members of Congress, the ones who write the budget, appropriate and assign the money, now have to go hat in hand to beg for changes or even information from the guy who actually seems to be running the government?”

Later, Musk met with House Republicans and offered to set up a similar way for the members of the House Oversight DOGE Subcommittee to reach him. When representatives complained about the random cuts that were so upsetting constituents. Musk defended DOGE’s mistakes by saying that he “can’t bat a thousand all the time.”

This morning, U.S. District Judge John McConnell Jr. ruled in favor of a group of state attorneys general from 22 Democratic states and the District of Columbia, saying that Trump does not have the authority to freeze funding appropriated by Congress. McConnell wrote that the spending freeze "fundamentally undermines the distinct constitutional roles of each branch of our government." As Joyce White Vance explained in Civil Discourse, McConnell issued a preliminary injunction that will stay in place until the case, called New York v. Trump, works its way through the courts. The injunction applies only in the states that sued, though, leaving Republican-dominated states out in the cold.

Today, Trump convened his cabinet and, with Musk present, told the secretaries that they, and not Musk, are in charge of their departments. Dasha Burns and Kyle Cheney of Politico reported that Trump told the secretaries that Musk only has the power to make recommendations, not to make staffing or policy decisions.

Trump is also apparently feeling pressure over his tariffs of 25% on goods from Canada and Mexico and an additional 10% on imports from China that went into effect on Tuesday, which economists warned would create inflation and cut economic growth. Today, Trump first said he would exempt car and truck parts from the tariffs, then expanded exemptions to include goods covered by the U.S.-Mexico-Canada trade agreement (USMCA) Trump signed in his first term. Administration officials say other tariffs will go into effect at different times in the future.

The stock market has dropped dramatically over the past three days owing to both the tariffs and the uncertainty over their implementation. But Trump denied his abrupt change had anything to do with the stock market.

“I’m not even looking at the market,” Trump said, “because long term, the United States will be very strong with what’s happening.”

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

HEATHER COX RICHARDSON

[lost-carcosa]

[eternalistic]

“A Mexican standoff with the United States turned into a Mexican smack-down this month with the release of Mexico’s formal rebuttal to US efforts to overturn limits Mexico has ordered on the use of genetically modified (GM) corn and the weed killing chemical glyphosate.

In a 189-page report filed with a panel of the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA), Mexico laid out in stark terms why it has ordered that GM corn not be used for tortillas and dough that people eat and why it has ordered its farmers to stop using glyphosate.

“Mexico has legitimate concerns about the safety and innocuousness of genetically modified corn… and its indissoluble relationship with its technological package that includes glyphosate,” the government’s report states. Mexico cites the “use of dangerous pesticides” as a factor causing “serious health effects.”

There is “clear scientific evidence of the harmful effects of direct consumption of GM corn grain in corn flour, dough, tortilla and related products,” Mexico states. More evidence is needed, Mexico says, to determine “whether and to what extent, such risks are transmitted to food products further downstream…”

The moves are for the “purpose of contributing to food security and sovereignty” and “the health of Mexican men and women”, the Mexican government said when announcing the moves.

The US has asserted that Mexico is not basing its decision on science and is violating agreements under the USMCA trade pact. The battle has intensified over the last year and in its latest response, Mexico didn’t just reject the US arguments, but laid out in detail a wealth of scientific research that backs its concerns.”

[handcraftedloghomes]

It's #TimberTuesday!

This week we're going to talk about the "T" word - Tariffs. Did you know there are currently no Tariffs on log homes, as long as they meet certain regulations.

[sponsored-deactivated20210106]

BREAKING NEWS: Trump Signs Executive Order Pulling Back On Canada And Mexico tariffs

[geezerwench]

*ahem*

trump was the "leadership" who "created" and signed the USMCA Trade Agreement in 2020.

[readandwriteclub]

Simplistic but accurate. BTW did you know that the OG Boston Freaking Team Party was fomented because King George III made Americans pay tariffs on tea (and other things) while simultaneously giving his Oligarchy special exemptions???

[mostlysignssomeportents]

Canada shouldn’t retaliate with its US tariffs

Picks and Shovels is a new, standalone technothriller starring Marty Hench, my two-fisted, hard-fighting, tech-scam-busting forensic accountant. You can pre-order it on my latest Kickstarter, which features a brilliant audiobook read by Wil Wheaton.

Five years ago, Trump touted his "big, beautiful" replacement for NAFTA, the "free trade agreement" between the US, Mexico and Canada. Trump's NAFTA-2 was called the USMCA (US-Mexico-Canada Agreement) and it was pretty similar to NAFTA, to be honest.

That tells you a couple things: first, NAFTA was, broadly speaking a good thing for Trump and the ultra-wealthy donors who backed him (and got far richer as a result). That's why he kept it intact. NAFTA and USMCA are, at root, a way to make rich people richer by making poorer people poorer. Trump's base hated NAFTA because they (correctly) believed that it was being used to erode wages by chasing cheaper labor and more lax environmental controls in other countries. Neither NAFTA nor USMCA have any stipulations requiring exported goods to be manufactured by unionized workers, or in factories with robust environmental and workplace safety rules.

The point of NAFTA/USMCA is to goose profits by despoiling the environment, maiming workers, stealing their wages, paying them less, all while poisoning the Earth. Trump's "new" NAFTA was just the old NAFTA with some largely cosmetic changes so that Trump's base could be (temporarily) fooled into thinking Trump was righting the historic wrong of NAFTA.

However, there was one part of USMCA that marked a huge departure from NAFTA: the "IP" chapter. USCMA bound Canada and Mexico to implementing brutal new IP laws. For example, Mexico was forced to pass an anti-circumvention law that makes it a crime to tamper with "digital locks." This means that Mexican mechanics can't bypass the locks US car companies use to lock-out third party repair. Mexican farmers can't fix their own tractors. And, of course, Mexican software developers can't make alternative app stores for games consoles and mobile devices – they must sell their software through US Big Tech companies that take 30% of every sale:

https://pluralistic.net/2020/09/09/free-sample/#que-viva

Shamefully, Canada had already capitulated to most of these demands. Two Canadian Conservative Party politicians, Tony Clement and James Moore, had sold the country out in 2012, throwing away 6,138 negative responses to a consultation on a new DRM law (on the grounds that they were "babyish" views of "radical extremists"), siding instead with the 54 cranks and industry shills who supported their proposal:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/11/15/radical-extremists/#sex-pest

When Canadian politicians are pressed on why these anti-interoperability policies are good for Canada, they'll say that it's a condition of free trade, and the benefits of being able to export Canadian goods to the US without tariffs outweigh the costs of having to pay rents to American companies for consumables (like car parts or printer ink), repair, and software sales.

Sure, when Canadian software authors sell iPhone apps to Canadian customers, the payments take a round trip through Cupertino, California and return 30% short. But Canadian consumers get to buy iPhones without paying tariffs on them, and the oil, timber, and minerals we rip out of the ground can be sent to America without tariffs, either (oh, also, a few things that are still manufactured in Canada can do this, too).

Enter Trump, carrying a 25% tariff on all Canadian goods, which he has vowed to impose on his first day in office. Obviously, this demands a policy response. What should Canada do when Trump tears up his "big, beautiful" trade deal and whacks Canadian exporters? One obvious response is to impose a 25% retaliatory tariff on American exporters:

https://mishtalk.com/economics/canada-says-it-will-match-us-tariffs-if-trump-launches-trade-war/

After all, Canada and the US are one another's mutual largest trading partners. American businesses rely on selling things to Canadians, so a massive tariff on US goods will certainly make some of Trump's business-lobby backers feel pain, and maybe they'll talk some sense into him.

I think this would be a huge mistake. The most potent political lesson of the past four years is that politicians who preside over rising prices – regardless of their role in causing them – will swiftly feel the wrath of their voters. The public is furious about inflation, whether it comes from transient covid supply chain shocks, Russia's invasion of Ukraine, or cartels using "inflation" as cover for illegal, collusive price-gouging.

Canadians are very reliant on American imports of finished goods. That's another legacy of NAFTA: it crashed Canada's manufacturing sector. Canadian manufacturing companies treated the US as a "nearshore" source of non-union labor and weak environmental and safety rules, and shipped Canadian union jobs to American scabs. Canada's economy is supposedly now all about "services" but what we really export is stuff we tear out of the Earth.

Countries that are organized around resource extraction don't need fancy social safety nets or an educational system capable of producing a high-tech workforce. All you need to extract resources is a hole in the ground surrounded by guns, which explains a lot about shifts to the Canadian political climate since the Mulroney years.

Since Canada is now substantially reorganized as an open-pit mine for American manufacturers, cutting off American imports would drive the prices of everyday good sky-high, and would be political suicide.

But there's another way.

Because, of course, Canada – like any other country – has the capacity to make all kinds of things, including high-tech things. Sure, it's unlikely that Canada will launch another Research in Motion with a Blackberry smart-phone that will put the iPhone and Android in the shade. The mobile duopoly has the market sewn up, and can use predatory pricing, refusal to deal, and other anticompetitive tactics to strangle any competitor in its cradle.

But you know what Canada could make? A Canadian App Store. That's a store that Canadian software authors could use to sell Canadian apps to Canadian customers, charging, say, the standard payment processing fee of 5% rather than Apple's 30%. Canada could make app stores for the Android, Playstation and Xbox, too.

There's no reason that a Canadian app store would have to confine itself to Canadian software authors, either. Canadian app stores could offer 5% commissions on sales to US and global software authors, and provide jailbreaking kits that allows device owners all around the world to install the Canadian app stores where software authors don't get ripped off by American Big Tech companies.

Canadian companies like Honeybee already make "front-ends" for John Deere tractors – these are the components that turn a tractor into a plow, or a thresher, or another piece of heavy agricultural equipment. Honeybee struggles constantly to get its products to interface with Deere tractors, because Deere uses digital locks to block its products:

https://honeybee.ca/

Canada could produce jailbreaking kits for John Deere tractors, too – not just for Honeybee. Every ag-tech company in the world would benefit from commercially available, professionally supported John Deere jailbreaking kits. So would farmers, because these kits would restore farmers' Right to Repair their own tractors:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/05/08/about-those-kill-switched-ukrainian-tractors/

Speaking of repair: Canadian companies could jailbreak every make and model of every US automobile, and make independent, constantly updated diagnostic tools that every mechanic in the world could buy for hundreds of dollars, rather than paying the five-figure ransom that car makers charge for their own underpowered, junk versions of these tools.

Jailbreaking cars doesn't stop with repair, either. Cars like the Tesla are basically giant rent-extraction machines. If you want to use all the "features" your Tesla ships with – like access to the full charge on your battery – you have to pay tens of thousands of dollars in subscription fees over the life of the car, and when you sell your car, all that "downloadable content" is clawed back. No one will pay extra to buy your used Tesla just because you spent thousands on manufacturer upgrades, because they're all downgraded when you sign over the pink slip.

But Canadian companies could make jailbreaking kits for Teslas that unlock all the features in the car for a single low price – and again, they could sell these to every Tesla owner in the world.

Elon Musk doesn't invent anything, he just takes credit for other people's ideas, and that's as true of bad ideas as it is for good ones. Musk didn't invent the extractive Tesla rip-off: he stole it from inkjet printer companies like HP, who have used the fact that jailbreaking is illegal to turn printer ink into the most expensive fluid in the world, selling for more than $10,000/gallon.

Canadian companies could sell jailbreaking kits for inkjet printers that disconnect them from "subscription" services and disable the anti-features that check for and reject third party ink. People all over the world would buy these.

What's standing in the way of a Canadian industrial policy that focuses on raiding the sky-high margins of American monopolists with third-party add-ons, mods and jailbreaks?

Only the IP laws that Canada has agreed to in order to get tariff-free access to American markets. You know, the access that Trump has promised to end in less than a week's time?

Canada should tear up these laws – and not impose tariffs on American goods. That way, Canadians can still buy cheap American goods, and then they can save billions of dollars every year on the consumables, parts, software, and service for those goods.

This is hurting American big business where it hurts – in the ongoing rents it extracts from Canadians through IP laws like Bill C-11 (the law that bans jailbreaking). Canada could become a global high-tech export powerhouse, selling "complementary" goods that disenshittify all the worst practices of US tech monopolists, from car parts to insulin pumps.

It's the only kind of trade war that Canadian politicians can win against Americans: the kind where prices for Canadians don't go up because of tariffs; where the price of apps, repair, parts, and upgrades goes way down; and where a new, high-tech manufacturing sector pulls in vast sums from customers all over the world.

Canada can win this kind of war, even against a country as big and powerful as the USA. After all, we did it once before:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5CK3EDncjGI

Check out my Kickstarter to pre-order copies of my next novel, Picks and Shovels!

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2025/01/15/beauty-eh/#its-the-only-war-the-yankees-lost-except-for-vietnam-and-also-the-alamo-and-the-bay-of-ham

[justinspoliticalcorner]

The Guardian:

Donald Trump said on Monday he would sign an executive order imposing a 25% tariff on all products coming in to the United States from Mexico and Canada, and additional tariffs on China.

“On January 20th, as one of my many first Executive Orders, I will sign all necessary documents to charge Mexico and Canada a 25% Tariff on ALL products coming into the United States, and its ridiculous Open Borders,” Trump said in a post on Truth Social. Trump said the tariffs would remain in place until the two countries clamp down on drugs, particularly fentanyl, and migrants crossing the border illegally. In a follow-up post, Trump announced that the US “will be charging China an additional 10% Tariff, above any additional Tariffs, on all of their many products coming into the United States of America”. He said that the reason for the additional tariff was China’s failure to curb the number of drugs entering the US. China is a major producer of precursor chemicals that are acquired by drug cartels, including in Mexico, to manufacture fentanyl, a highly potent synthetic opioid. “I have had many talks with China about the massive amounts of drugs, in particular Fentanyl, being sent into the United States – But to no avail … Until such time as they stop, we will be charging China an additional 10% Tariff, above any additional Tariffs, on all of their many products coming into the United States of America.” In response, China warned that “no one will win a trade war”.

Liu Pengyu, a Chinese embassy spokesperson, said China had taken steps to combat drug trafficking after an agreement was reached last year between Joe Biden and Xi Jinping. “The Chinese side has notified the US side of the progress made in US-related law enforcement operations against narcotics,” he said in a statement. “All these prove that the idea of China knowingly allowing fentanyl precursors to flow into the United States runs completely counter to facts and reality.” Canada’s deputy prime minister, Chrystia Freeland, released a statement on Monday evening saying that the country places the highest priority on border security and the integrity of its shared border with the US. Trump and Canadian prime minister Justin Trudeau spoke on Monday night about trade and border security, Reuters reported, citing a Canadian source directly familiar with the situation. Freeland’s statement did not mention the tariffs directly. It also said that the Canada Border Services Agency, the US Drug Enforcement Administration and US Customs and Border protection “work together every single day to to disrupt the scourge of fentanyl coming from China and other countries.”

[...] A tariff is a tax placed on goods when they cross national borders. Import tariffs such as those proposed by Trump can have the effect of protecting domestic industries from foreign competition while also generating tax revenue for the government. But economists widely consider them an inefficient tool that typically leaves consumers and taxpayers bearing the brunt of higher costs.

Donald Trump vows to enact economy-crushing 25% tariffs on fellow USMCA members Mexico and Canada, and much steeper tariffs on China.

See Also:

HuffPost: Trump Says U.S. Will Impose Massive Tariffs On Mexico, Canada And China From Day 1

[npzlawyersforimmigration]

H-1B Cap Selection Process: DHS Expected to Introduce New Rule

The U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is preparing to roll out a significant change to how H-1B cap-subject petitions are selected. A proposed rule is currently under review and could reshape the lottery process for employers and foreign professionals seeking H-1B status.

At NPZ Law Group, we’re closely monitoring the development and offer a summary of what to expect.

What’s Changing?

DHS has submitted a proposed rule titled “Weighted Selection Process for Registrants and Petitioners Seeking to File Cap-Subject H-1B Petitions” for review. The rule is now under review by the Office of Management and Budget (OMB). Once OMB completes its review, the next step will be publication in the Federal Register for public comment.

Though the final version of the proposed rule has not been released, there is growing speculation that it may aim to replace the random lottery with a system that favors petitions offering higher wages or salaries. This approach would align selection with prevailing wage levels, potentially giving an edge to employers offering compensation in the higher tiers of the DOL wage structure.

Background: A Recurring Policy Debate

This isn’t the first time the H-1B selection process has been targeted for reform:

During President Trump’s administration, a similar weighted proposal was introduced but later blocked in federal court.

The Biden Administration eventually withdrew that rule, maintaining the current randomized selection system.

The current administration appears to be revisiting the same concept, but it remains to be seen how the new proposal will be structured to withstand legal scrutiny.

What Employers Should Know Now

Until the new rule is finalized and published, the random lottery system remains in place. However, employers should begin planning ahead in case the rule moves forward.

Key considerations:

Employers may need to offer competitive wage levels to remain viable under a weighted selection system.

Petition strategies might shift toward emphasizing senior-level, specialized, or high-paying roles.

Litigation is expected, which could delay or alter the implementation timeline.

NPZ Will Continue Monitoring

Any change to the H-1B selection system could have serious implications for employers planning to sponsor foreign professionals. NPZ Law Group will monitor the publication of the proposed rule and provide updates once details are available.

Contact us if you’re considering H-1B sponsorship in the upcoming fiscal year or want to explore how wage-based selection could affect your talent strategy.

Contact Information

If you or your family members have any questions about how immigration and nationality laws in the United States may affect you, or if you want to access additional information about immigration and nationality laws in the United States or Canada, please do not hesitate to contact the immigration and nationality lawyers at NPZ Law Group. You can reach us by emailing info@visaserve.com or by calling us at 201-670-0006 extension 104. We also invite you to visit our website at www.visaserve.com for more information.

[virtualnotmx]

INTERNACIONAL | 🎯 Estados Unidos alista cambios en el T-MEC Donald Trump plantea renegociar el T-MEC en 2026. La intención: proteger empleos estadounidenses y replantear el comercio con 🇲🇽 México y 🇨🇦 Canadá. 📹 Vía: @CBSNews

INTERNACIONAL | 🎯 Estados Unidos alista cambios en el T-MEC Donald Trump plantea renegociar el T-MEC en 2026. La intención: proteger empleos estadounidenses y replantear el comercio con 🇲🇽 México y 🇨🇦 Canadá. 📹 Vía: @CBSNews

[newstech24]

Commerce Secretary: Trump will renegotiate USMCA to maintain jobs in US

‘Massive Cash Present’ panel discusses billionaire GOP donor Ken Langone altering his stance on President Donald Trump’s tariffs after he hinted at commerce offers with different international locations.  President Donald Trump will doubtless renegotiate the US–Mexico–Canada Settlement (USMCA) subsequent 12 months to guard American jobs, Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick stated Sunday. Lutnick…

[questionsimmigration4]

Approved TN Visa Professions List (2025)

Find the complete list of approved TN visa professions under the USMCA agreement for Canadian and Mexican citizens. This guide covers job categories, degree requirements, and eligibility for each profession. Read more: https://blog.immigrationquestion.com/tn-visa-professions-list/