"Elbows up," Its a Trade War

Mike Myers on SNL wearing a "Canada is not for Sale" T-Shirt mouths the words "Elbows up" to the camera while making a gesture with his elbow.

If you don't know the meaning of the phrase it's a hockey reference dating back to Canadian Hockey Legend Gordie Howe and his method of playing dirty with his elbows.

That's sort of a trick question really. It's pretty much impossible to follow the madness of what that administration is thinking, planning and doing: "tarrifs-on tarrifs-off, tarrifs-on tarrifs-off, 25%, no 10%. haha you fools, it will be 25%! Naaawwwt, 10%. Its 25% in 30 days or maybe 60 or not at all...."

The whole thing is either the working of a man who doesn't know exactly what he's doing, a failed negotiation tactic or a calculated strategy to create chaos and disrupt both the Canadian as well as American economies. Or maybe its a combination of them all?

Trump is known for using "hardball" tactics during negotiations but in this instance it's a strategy that seems to be backfiring in a big way. Canadians are pissed about Trumps threats about annexing Canada and as a country it has taken the Elbows up slogan to heart, slapping back with its own retaliatory counter measures.

The tarrifs on both sides started on March 4th.

The Prime Minister and the Premier of Ontario have publicly stated that the measures it has taken are not something that Canada wants to do and they are not directed towards the American people, but rather this situation is being forced upon Canada by the Trump Administration and they have no choice but to take action in order to protect itself from threat.

• Trump delays tarrifs for another 30 days (until April 2nd) on all goods that fall under the CUSMA agreement. Canada responds by not delaying its $30 billion in retalitory tarrifs on American goods and it will continue to impose an additional $125 billion in April the American tarrifs come through. In order to get back economic stability and predictabilty, Canada is not willing to accept Trumps suspension or delays on tarrifs, but only their permanent removal.

• All American alcohol (wine, bourbon whiskey...etc) has now been removed from Ontario's liquor control board. What this means is that no American alcohol will be sold in stores across all of Ontario and no restaurants can purchase new American made alcohol in order to replenish their stocks. Ontario purchases $900 million to $1 billion + in American alcohol each year. Other provinces are following suit.

• Ontario will impose a 25% surplus on the electricity it supplies to the states of Michigan, New York and Minnesota starting Monday March 10 with the additional threat of shutting off the supply completely. New Bruswick is doing the same with Maine. Canada supplies electricity to approximately 1.5 to 1.6 million + homes in these states but it is not the sole supplier of electricity to them. The interconnected grid systems are designed to create streamlined flow of electricity to avoid disruptions. Generally both sides pool resources and work together to ensure that there are no disruptions to the grid. The surcharge will increase the cost of electricity for Americans living in parts of those states and they may also receive less reliable services (more outages and delays) if the supply line is cut off.

• Elon Musks $100 million Starlink contract was canceled in Ontario and US companies will no longer be eligible for procurement contracts in Ontario. This means that Canadians living up North in the province will not be receiving internet services that were to come from the Starlink deal and will need to wait, possibly two more years even, for other measures to take effect.

• Canada takes a united front to buy Canadian and boycott any American products. Suppliers are adding labels to their products indicating that theirs are produced in Canada or made using Canadian ingredients. Many people are opting out of purchasing anything produced in the US.

I'm personally a little annoyed that I had to switch the BBQ sauce and salad dressing brands that I like that were from the US, but you gotta do what you gotta do in such situations. Fresh produce is the most difficult aspect of groceries here because the Canadian growing season is very short so Canadian produce is a little lacking. Yesterday we did our groceries and managed to only purchase two American products - strawberries and Romain lettuce. There were no non-US alternatives for those items. For everything else we switched to products of Canada or Mexico for produce, Italy and other countries for packaged goods.

• One of the strangest moves that the Trump Administration has made is to put a 25% tarrif on Canadian Potash, which a vital component of fertilizer used by the agricultural sector across the globe. The US doesn't produce enough potash to meet its demand and is forced to import 80% of its needs from Canada. Canada is not only the closest supplier to the US but it also the largest global producer of potash in the world. It produces more than double its next leading competitor - Russian, and 5 times more than the next competitor - Belarus. Putting a tarrif on Canadian potash really only increases production costs of the American agricultural industry, which means that American farmers will pay more to fertilize their crops and the American people will pay more for food. This doesn't appear to make a lot of sense in terms of Trump "Make America Great" slogan, so the only thing that I can think of is that Trump wants to switch suppliers from Canada to maybe Russia? I'm speculating here but my guess is that he has made some sort of personal backroom deal that he will benefit from, possibly at the expense of the American people? What am I missing here?