041 – A SPECIAL PLACE IN HELL. SERIOUSLY ?? (An Editorial)

Trump advisor Peter Navarro said today (Jun 10^th) that there is a “special place in hell” for Justin Trudeau because of Trudeau’s comments following the G7.

Here are Trudeau’s verbatim comments that supposedly justify this reaction …

“US Tariffs were kind of insulting” and Canada “will not be pushed around”.

 

In what alternative, dystopian universe is Navarro’s comment even remotely acceptable?  That special place in hell is reserved for the kind of jackasses, like Navarro, who would even consider making such a comment.

Those comments by Trudeau don’t even approach the kind of vitriol, pettiness and outright nastiness that are an integral part of Trump’s tweets almost every day.  As is so typical of bullies, their meanness is often only exceeded by their thinness of skin.

Trump blatently lies about the non-existent trade deficit that we have with Canada in order to justify his position which is just another transparent pandering to his base.  When confronted with that lie, he of course ignores it and then uses the actual 270% tariff that Canada uses to protect its dairy products as a distraction and supposed validation of his lie.

Here is an excellent, albeit complex review of the facts behind the Canadian dairy tariff.

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-business/a-guide-to-understanding-the-dairy-dispute-between-the-us-andcanada/article34802291/

As I understand it, the 270% tariff is certainly real (an extremely rare example of a fact that Trump got right), but it is exclusive to dairy products, which make up a very small portion of our trade with Canada.  It is also an aberration, since the average of all Canadian tariffs is about 3%.  Agree with their dairy tariff or not, there is at least a historic basis to it in Canada, and one with which they continue to wrestle.

My reading of it is that Trump’s argument against Canada, and their dairy industry, is much akin to Trump’s pandering to the dying coal industry here in the U.S.

Rather than lie about a supposed overall trade deficit and then justify our new tariffs because of a single tariff of Canada that certainly sounds inflammatory, why not just target a specific tariff against that one tariff?

Regardless, you do not ever trash an entire country and a historically loyal ally based upon a despicable lie and an overall misrepresentation.  That is, you don’t do that unless you possess a frightening combination of no intellectual curiosity and no shame.