In response to Donald Trump's baffling, possibly cocaine-fueled decision to launch a trade war with Canada, of all places, with the introduction of new, punitive tariffs, Canadian Prime Minister Trudeau wasted little time in both announcing retaliatory tariffs on U.S. products and giving a diplomatic response as to where he feels the blame for this latest foolishness lies:
"Americans remain our partners, our allies, and our friends. This is not about the American people. We have to believe that at some point common sense will prevail, but we see no sign of that in this action today by the U.S. administration."
For the record, that's what passes for a harsh statement in countries that have not gone off their diplomatic rockers; the Trump response will, no doubt, be a misspelled diatribe thumbed in letter-by-letter between sips of a Diet Coke.
In addition to Canada (which will be responding with dollar-for-dollar tariffs targeting U.S. steel, aluminum, and a host of other products), the new Trump tariffs target Mexico and the European Union, apparently in an intentional Trump effort to punish the nation’s closest allies while letting other nations, perhaps ones in which his daughter Ivanka has recently scored useful business trademarks, skate.
Trump's fellow Republicans are apparently "gobsmacked" and "blindsided" as well, with multiple top-ranking Republican lawmakers publicly condemning the move—Sen. Ben Sasse even groused that Trump's slogan should be "Make America 1929 Again." All of them expect a trade war—and, apparently, plan to do exactly nothing about it.
Yet House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) have shown no interest in passing legislation to block Trump’s tariffs or require congressional approval, a move that would essentially bring Capitol Hill to a standstill.
Yet again, the sheer incompetence of Trump and his hangers-on is about to shank the economy good and hard. We presume it's incompetence; we can't completely discount the possibility that these new actions are retaliation for not paying the same sorts of bribes other nations have given to the Trump family businesses.