He’s not leveraging anything. He is stalling hoping for a change in politics after the midterms and his new American advisor is telling how to maximize the politics and public relations.
Nothing is going to change due to the midterms. Congress has no leverage in any trade negotiations. Trump will still be President for another 2 years.The super majority of the GOP Congress hates Trump's trade policy. They'll still hate it in December. Doesn't matter.
Every bit of reporting on this issue I've come across indicates that a deal was close to done and then Lutnick came in the at the final hour and completely upended it, at the behest of a couple specific industry players.
He’s not leveraging anything. He is stalling hoping for a change in politics after the midterms and his new American advisor is telling how to maximize the politics and public relations.
Nothing is going to change due to the midterms. Congress has no leverage in any trade negotiations. Trump will still be President for another 2 years.The super majority of the GOP Congress hates Trump's trade policy. They'll still hate it in December. Doesn't matter.
Every bit of reporting on this issue I've come across indicates that a deal was close to done and then Lutnick came in the at the final hour and completely upended it, at the behest of a couple specific industry players.
Except for the reporting in this thread, which tells us some Democratic operative ruined the whole shebang. Face.
@co-hoosier let's look at the facts... Per the WSJ EB.
https://www.wsj.com/opinion/u-s-canada-steel-aluminum-tariffs-8f7cabf1
The Metals Lobby’s Big Steal
Americans now pay 75% more for aluminum than the rest of the world, and 64% more for steel.
By
The Editorial Board
Aug. 25, 2026 5:44 pm ET
The U.S.-Canada trade war escalated again Tuesday as Prime Minister Mark Carney announced new tariffs on some $20 billion in U.S. goods. That includes doubling Canada’s tariff rate on U.S. steel and aluminum to 50% to match Mr. Trump’s, and the political back story here is worth more attention.
Multiple press reports say that an agreement to avert a 50% U.S. tariff on $20 billion in Canadian goods broke down last week in part because of objections by the U.S. steel and aluminum lobbies. The mooted deal would have reduced those tariffs on Canadian steel and aluminum to 25% from 50%.
Call it a case study in how a narrow special interest calls the tune for the rest of the American economy. The current U.S. tariffs on metals date to Mr. Trump’s first term, originally set at 25% for steel and 10% for aluminum, in the name of national security. But his first Administration exempted Canada and Mexico to mitigate the damage to downstream U.S. users in manufacturing and construction.
Soon after taking office for a second time, Mr. Trump removed these exemptions, later raising the tariffs to 50%. After U.S. manufacturers that use steel and aluminum complained that the taxes made them less globally competitive, he imposed a 25% tariff on so-called derivative imports that contain the metals. Who knew stainless steel pots were a national-security threat?
These sky-high border taxes have caused U.S. aluminum and steel prices to soar. The price premium for U.S. aluminum over the global benchmark has increased five-fold since Mr. Trump took office a second time. Americans are now paying roughly 75% more for aluminum than the rest of the world. Steel prices in the U.S. are also about 64% higher than in northern Europe. One reason these differential are larger than 50% is because the metal tariffs are stacked on top of other tariffs on China, which is the world’s largest producer of steel and aluminum.
The metal tariffs (including copper) have raised some $46.9 billion in revenue for the government during the current fiscal year through June, plus $21.8 billion in 2025. That’s good for politicians but a nearly $70 billion tax on Americans.
The higher prices have also been great for the share prices of aluminum and steel producers. Nucor’s stock is up 66% over the last year, Steel Dynamics 74%, Century Aluminum 98% and ArcelorMittal 117%. That’s nice for their investors, but U.S. businesses that use steel and aluminum—and their customers—are paying tens of billions of dollars more as a result. Whether they know it or not, they’re drinking it in every can of soda.
Protectionists say jobs in fabricated and primary metal manufacturing have increased 22,100 since Mr. Trump took office. But overall U.S. employment in manufacturing has declined 62,000. The metals tariffs help a few favored companies in two industries at the expense of everyone else. This is how tariffs work in practice, and once in place they are difficult to repeal as lobbies form to defend them.
By the way, President Trump admitted Monday that the U.S. needs aluminum from Canada—contrary to his social-media post the same day. “This country desperately needs aluminum,” Mr. Trump said during a telephone rally for a GOP candidate in Oklahoma. “We don’t have it. We get it all from Canada for the most part, and we need it badly.”
Thanks to his latest tariffs, we’ll now be paying much more for it after Mr. Carney’s decision to double Canada’s tariffs on U.S. steel and aluminum. This may cause Mr. Trump to dig in further on his trade war. But it will also impose a cost on the industry groups egging on his protectionism and maybe teach them that their tariff border wall isn’t free.
The U.S.-Canada trade war escalated again Tuesday as Prime Minister Mark Carney announced new tariffs on some $20 billion in U.S. goods. That includes doubling Canada’s tariff rate on U.S. steel and aluminum to 50% to match Mr. Trump’s, and the political back story here is worth more attention.
I don’t trust Carney any further than I can throw him. Given his creation of a unique personal advisor position, and his strange and unprecedented hire of a U.S. active Democrat never-Trumper for that position, the political back story indeed deserves attention. Too bad we have no press willing to do a scintilla of investigation about that. Maintaining the anti-Trump narrative seemingly now has a new Canadian tinge.
We may never have been close to a deal. It appears Canada believed one thing about light and medium trucks, we believed something else. Once we clarified our position, Canada left. That fits the narrative, we didn't add anything last minute at the same point, Canada thinks our clarification was a new demand.
He’s not leveraging anything. He is stalling hoping for a change in politics after the midterms and his new American advisor is telling how to maximize the politics and public relations.
That's fair.
Not just fair. It’s a pretty brilliant and inherently correct observation which is why all the usual retards are so upset with COH in this thread.
Foreign countries have learned to play our electorate like a fiddle. They understand our internal politics much better than we understand theirs, when elections are coming, what issues are of importance, American voting trends etc.
You see the same thing in Iran. These fuckers violently shut down a massive global trade route and enough of the country is so retarded as to be more upset with their own president than the country doing the shutting down as to sway an election. And the Iranians keep playing that note understanding midterms are coming and American voters are as dumb and predictable as unmasking the monster in Scooby Doo.
What Carney is doing is little different. Starting a trade war knowing it’ll help move his political competition out of the way.
How bout this. The last two Canadian PM’s Trump has had to deal with are massive flapping cunts. Maybe that has had an effect on bilateral relations as well?
The hot takes in the Iran War thread are beyond stupid.
He’s not leveraging anything. He is stalling hoping for a change in politics after the midterms and his new American advisor is telling how to maximize the politics and public relations.
That's fair.
Not just fair. It’s a pretty brilliant and inherently correct observation which is why all the usual retards are so upset with COH in this thread.
Foreign countries have learned to play our electorate like a fiddle. They understand our internal politics much better than we understand theirs, when elections are coming, what issues are of importance, American voting trends etc.
You see the same thing in Iran. These fuckers violently shut down a massive global trade route and enough of the country is so retarded as to be more upset with their own president than the country doing the shutting down as to sway an election. And the Iranians keep playing that note understanding midterms are coming and American voters are as dumb and predictable as unmasking the monster in Scooby Doo.
What Carney is doing is little different. Starting a trade war knowing it’ll help move his political competition out of the way.
How bout this. The last two Canadian PM’s Trump has had to deal with are massive flapping cunts. Maybe that has had an effect on bilateral relations as well?
Carney started a trade war? LMAO.
Some of you have brain damage.
He’s not leveraging anything. He is stalling hoping for a change in politics after the midterms and his new American advisor is telling how to maximize the politics and public relations.
That's fair.
Not just fair. It’s a pretty brilliant and inherently correct observation which is why all the usual retards are so upset with COH in this thread.
Foreign countries have learned to play our electorate like a fiddle. They understand our internal politics much better than we understand theirs, when elections are coming, what issues are of importance, American voting trends etc.
You see the same thing in Iran. These fuckers violently shut down a massive global trade route and enough of the country is so retarded as to be more upset with their own president than the country doing the shutting down as to sway an election. And the Iranians keep playing that note understanding midterms are coming and American voters are as dumb and predictable as unmasking the monster in Scooby Doo.
What Carney is doing is little different. Starting a trade war knowing it’ll help move his political competition out of the way.
How bout this. The last two Canadian PM’s Trump has had to deal with are massive flapping cunts. Maybe that has had an effect on bilateral relations as well?
Carney started a trade war? LMAO.
Some of you have brain damage.
Speaking of brain damage. I went to Target and they made me pay 7% tax on the goods I bought. I can't believe the Indiana government started a trade war.
@arthur-dent no the domestic steel and aluminum companies freaked out that we were going to lower metal tariffs, and so they got on the horn to kill it.
@snarlcakes stupid, even for you
I'm just here to help you see the world a littler clearer. Tariffs are a tax. There is no trade war.
Earlier this year, Canadian PM created a new position in his upper management team of COO, Chief Operations Officer. The holder of this position will oversee the day-to-day PM operations and will be in daily contact with the PM.
To fill this position, Carney by-passed millions of Canadians and chose an American. But not just any American. The person hired is a well-established operative of the Democratic Party, has a well- documented history of highly partisan anti-Trump activity, and was a close adviser to many top level Democrats and worked on many pet-Democrat issues and positions.
She was hired In July. A few weeks later, on August 21, trade negotiations between the USA and Canada blew up and Carney said Canada was at war with the U.S. Canada claims lThe U.S. introduced “last minute” terms. The U.S. negotiators say Canada rejected a very good deal.
It doesn’t take much effort to connect these dots. U.S./ Canada relations, as of August 21 are in the shitter, and with a never-Trump American in the inner-circle of the PM’s office, and in constant contact with the PM, it doesn’t take a genius to know the bad blood will last through the midterms.
Never Trumpers are or were republican/conservatives, not democrats.
You get a ...
This is kind of like complaining about the kid that finally punches the bully back for the years of torment he's taken. The pearl clutching on this is nauseating. Obviously there are politics at play. Obviously its concerning. But this isn't happening in a vacuum. Its happening while one of the most morally corrupt, awful humans to ever sit in the Oval Office, is bullying one of our longest standing and best allies... for basically no good reason. I don't know if it makes it wrong, or right, or par... but at some point, most are going to resort to stuff some people don't like, to deal with our current leadership.
@co-hoosier I no longer believe you’re serious when you post. You don’t post as a conservative or a conservative Republican. You post the same as any MAGA Trumpster. I don’t know how people get sucked into that, but it happened to you. There is no doubt about that.