A second consecutive SpaceX rocket has blown up soon after launch (technically a "rapid uncheduled disassembly"!), with debris causing commercial flight delays as far away as Miami and Philadelphia.
That'll cost him a bob or two. Given how much people hate Elon Musk these days, few people are particularly upset.
With all the ridiculous antics going on south of the border, it's easy for things to slip through below the radar. One such thing may have immense repercussions, but has received relatively little attention, and that is Trump's announcement of a "Crypto Strategic Reserve".
The reserve, which is slated to consist of five different cryptocurrencies ' Bitcoin, Ether, XRP, Solana and Cardano - will likely put the United States inexorably in the perilous business of buying and selling cryptocurrencies, in line with Trump's stated desire to establish the United States as the crypto capital of the world. It was mentioned only tangentially in an executive order on digital assets issued in January, but is still largely unexplained and unclassified.
Trump, of course, hopes to make vast profits from such a stockpile of the notoriously volatile and speculative investment. But, as we have already seen with Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies, they can just as easily result in huge losses. Given that cryptocurrencies are purely speculative, and not backed up by actual assets in the way that a gold reserve is, for example, many people are questioning whether the US government should be involved in such a risky venture.
The US is already known to hold about $17 billion in bitcoin from criminal seizures - digital currencies are notoriously prone to hacking and other criminal uses (just last month, North Korea hacked $1.4 billion worth of Ethereum, the largest single digital robbery ever carried out) - and it is assumed that they will now be in the market for much more, as well as in the other digital currencies mentioned, and all five currencies have seen significant spikes in value in anticipation, although followed by a sharp drop and sell-off.
There are rumours that the government is looking to obtain abound a million bitcoins alone, worth around $86 billion, which would put it in a position to substantially influence the market. If it uses these bitcoins to, for example, pay off some of its (real) debts, that could cause the value of bitcoins to drop precipititately.
The only other country that has tried this is El Salvador, whose foray into crypto as legal tender and as a national strategic reserve ended in ignominious failure, as it has had to abandon most of its crypto plans as a condition of a much-needed IMF loan.
Trump already has personal ties to various digital currencies, and even issued his own $TRUMP cryptocurrency, which promptly tanked, down over 80% since its launch (a parallel $MELANIA coin is down over 90%).
Trump, ably abetted by Elon Musk, is also doing away with many of rhe regulatory safeguards that has kept the crypto business in check for years. But, even so, there are many, even in the crypto business itself, that question whether this is something that governments should be involving themselves with. For example, is it right that a government uses taxpayers finds to backstop the price of cryptocurrencies, and worry about the lack of clarity and transparency in the reserve.
XRP, Solana and Cardano are relatively obscure digital currencies - why were they chosen? (David Sacks, Trump's crypto "czar" is known have some conflicts of interest with a couple of them.) Should one institution (the federal government) have so much power over a currency that is supposed to be decentralized. People also worry that a crypto reserve could be funded by taxpayer dollars, representing a transfer of money from everyday Americans to wealthy crypto bros and billionaires.
Some question whether the Trump administration actually understands what it is getting into. It's not even totally clear whether Trump has the legal authority to create such a reserve. The US has a strategic petroleum reserve, a strategic medical equipment stockpile, even a helium reserve, but crypto has essentially nothing backing it and no intrinsic value, so it represents a very different prospect.
The whole thing just smacks of the kind of sleaziness and amateurishness that the MAGA crowd excels in. But this particular example of Trump ineptitude could have extremely large repercussions. It could even have implications for the US dollar's role.as the world's primary reserve currency, although personally I think that particular claim may be overstated, and I have read nothing to back it up.
As Donald Trump pauses his tariffs on Mecico and Canada's auto sectors, just one day after bringing them in, and then delays most other tariffs just a day later (insofar as they are covered by the CUSMA free trade agreement), even his MAGA followers must be realizing that the man has no idea what he is doing.
Trump is making random spur-of-the-moment decisions of huge import to both the US and other countries without any real plan or justification. He just does whatever he feels like when he gets up in the morning, in what has been labelled "government by chaos". Every day is "unprecedented" in some way or other, and it doesn't feel exhilerating or inspiring, it just feels exhausting and depressing.
If his goal is to keep Canada and Mexico off-balance (and that's a big "if"), then I suppose he has achieved that, although how that helps him or America, no-one is quite sure. But he is also keeping American industry off-balance too. Trump says, "There will be a little disturbance, but we are OK with that". Most CEOs are too scared to comment publicly, but those that have are most definitely NOT OK with all the uncertainty and chaos.
As Democratic Representative Melanie Stansbury indicated with her handwritten sign that went viral after Trump's State of the Union speech, "This is NOT normal". Even Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick is starting to look like a deer in the headlights as he tries to explain Trump's random decisions and equally random reversals.
Trump's Republican cronies must know all this. They must know that the talk about "fentanyl pouring over the border" from Canada is spurious, and not the actual reason for his tariffs (and is not even real). They must know that supposedly democratic countries can't just go around talking about annexing other countries and destroying their economies until they capitulate. They must know that you can't just abandon all your old allies and multilateral organizations, and suddenly support a country that had been an implacable enemy for decades. They must know that American industry and the stock exchanges are reacting with panic.
All this is not the behaviour of a sane, serious politician. But the Republicans, thus far at least, seem willing to go along with it, repeating his nonsensical arguments to the press day after day. It's almost like they are hypnotised somehow by Trump's certainty, by his star power. When a Democratic congressman had the temerity to protest at Trump's wild State of the Union speech the other day, MAGA Republicans merely rallied round, chanting "USA! USA!" like a football crowd, or a gang of kids. As though that was a valid response, as though a supposed show of vocal patriotism outweighed everything else.
It's all kind of disturbing and sad. You have to hope that some day soon they will wake up and shake themselves, mumbling, "Wha... Where am I? What has been going on?" Because this is like a fever dream, almost completely divorced from reality. Unfortunately, though, it's all too real. Make America Great Again? If they only realized what damage they are doing, and how long (if ever) it will take to fix.
If you were thinking, hold on, Trump's tariffs on Canada can't possibly be legal, then yes, that's quite right, but probably irrelevant. An expert on international trade law lays it all out.
Firstly, yes, we have a free trade deal with the USA. Known to us as CUSMA (Canada-United States-Mexico Agreement) and to the Yanks as USCMA (and probably to the Mexicans as MUSCA, which is the easiest one to say), President Trump signed it himself in 2018 (and the final version in 2020), and it replaced the original 1994 NAFTA agreement. And yes, Trump's tariffs are a clear violation of CUSMA, which explicitly states that member countries cannot simply increase tariffs unilaterally.
And yes, there is a dispute mechanism involving a legal panel. Canada would probably win any such dispute, even if the US uses various national security defences (Trump is mainly using the International Emergency Economic Powers Act - IEEPA - to justify his tariff impositions). But if he is willing to directly contravene the wording of the Agreement, it is unlikely that he will care much about a ruling by some dispute panel.
There is also the World Trade Organization (WTO), of which the US is still technically a member, although Trump has repeatedly threatened to withdraw from it. Canada would probably win a case before the WTO too, but Trump is unlikely to abide by any decision (and could just pull out of the organization if it suited him). The WTO has no real teeth to enforce its rulings.
Of the two, the CUSMA route is probably the best bet, although, as has been said, Trump does not appear to care about the agreement, or about legalities in general. He would just steamroller through regardless. Although such a case could be brought relatively quickly (meaning within a year!), the US could stall the process of picking a panel for quite some time, and the majority on the panel is decided by (quite literally) a coin toss, which is a bit bizarre.
There is also the possibility that US domestic lawyers could challenge his use of the IEEPA, which was never intended to be used for tariffs against a friendly nation. The Government of Canada could be involved as an amicus (intervenor) in such a case.
All of these legal remedies, however, take time, and in the meantime both Canada and Mexico (and the USA!) are suffering economically. And there is no guarantee that Trump would abide by any legal decision he doesn't like; he is past the point of concern with legal niceties. It may still be worthwhile pursuing from an international optics point of view, but again, Trump does really not care about optics, and the rest of the world already knows he is in the wrong.
Seems appropriate to share this.
An Ontario photographer captured this stand-off between a Canada Goose and a Bald Eagle on a frozen lake near Burlington, ON, recently.
While you might think the conclusion was foregone, it turns out that the plucky goose fought back bravely against the eagle's attacks, and eventually the eagle gave up and flew away.
Rife with Canadian and American symbolism, this encounter might give hope to the underdog Canadians, as the US goes all out to dominate Canada through tariffs and other means, and Canada does what it can to fight back.
I thought I understood how the expected US tariffs would affect Canada. But then, the more I thought about it, the less certain I was. So, I'm going to write it down to see if it makes any sense. Some of this is based on my own interpretation of analyses like Dalhousie University's Ask An Expert. I'm no economist, but this is how I see it - am I wrong?
So, say Donald Trump, in his infinite wisdom, decides to impose a 25% tariff on imports of Canadian steel and aluminum tomorrow. The only immediate effect would be that US importers of our steel and aluminum would be paying 25% more for their goods.
So, they may decide to import less and source their steel and aluminum elsewhere (not easy, certainly in the short run). Trump expects the US steel and aluminum industries to up their game and produce more domestically, but that is also not easy, particularly in the case of aluminum (Canada accounts for 56% of US aluminum imports but only 15-20% of steel imports; the US produces a lot of its own steel, but very little aluminum).
Or US companies may continue to import from Canada, and either take a hit to their profits due to their higher costs, or, more likely, increase the prices of their end products (or some combination of the two). Bear in mind that steel and aluminum are only two of the ingredients of their final products, and, due to market considerations, they may not decide to pass on all of their cost increases anyway. So, the prices American companies charge their customers will increase, yes, but not by 25%.
Either way, thus far, Canadians are not affected at all by the tariffs. When we become affected is when we decide to import these now-more-expensive products from the US. The costs for Canadian companies importing these goods will go up but, once again, their final products will not be 25% more expensive when sold to Canadian consumers, because these US imports will not be 25% more expensive (as mentioned above), they will not typically make up 100% of the final Canadian product, and the Canadian exporters may not pass on all of their increased costs to final Canadian consumers (or they may).
So, the eventual impact on the general Canadian public may actually be minimal (but hard, even impossible, to predict). Inflation may go up a little, although it inflation is currently pretty well controlled here (unlike America's inflation situation). If the loonie continues to depreciate against the greenback, as is also likely, the effects are further diminished.
If the US tariffs are imposed on ALL American imports from Canada, however, as they are also threatening, the effects would be more widespread, but still mainly borne by American companies and American consumers, only affecting Canadians to the extent that we import affected goods from America, and again by much less than 25% (for the reasons stated above).
In addition to all that, of course, there would be an effect on Canadian producers of steel and aluminum (and other products if the tariffs are expanded). If it becomes more expensive for American companies to import from Canada, they may import less, or source their raw materials elsewhere.
This is where the sky-is-falling predictions of Canadian industry groups get their dire prognostications about the entire Canadian steel and aluminum industries closing down, with hundreds of thousands of layoffs (estimates vary from 30,000 jobs to 600,000!) and myriad insolvencies. But it's not that easy for American companies to just switch suppliers, so it seems to me that there may be some industry layoffs, but maybe not the complete decimation many commentators seem to be suggesting.
After the 2018 temporary Trump tariffs on steel and aluminum, Canadian steel exports to the USA went down by a sizeable 38%, and aluminum exports by a more modest 19%. (Note that this is specifically the effect on US exports, not total Canadian steel and aluminum production). I have not seen any figures on industry layoffs or insolvencies.
There's more, though. If, as seems more than likely, Canada responds to the US tariffs with commensurate tit-for-tat dollar-for-dollar retaliatory tariffs of its own, then the effects on Canada will be much more more pronounced. In that case, Canada would suffer the immediate affects that the US is described as suffering above, while the US would only feel the more limited secondary effects described above.
Either way, it's a race to the bottom. But what's a country to do? In the end, it's a political calculation of what people think may sway Donald Trump. And that, as we already know, is a known unknown.
So, "existential threat"? Maybe not. Pain in the ass, to be sure. "Ceases to exist as a viable country" without the US (as Trump recently claimed)? Not neither.
If you needed yet another example of how illogical and ideology-driven Donald Trump's new presidential term is, you need look no further than his roll-back of electric cars and chargers for federal government workers.
Last week, Trump ordered that 654 EV charging stations at government facilities be immediately removed and decommissioned, and about 25,000 government EVs be summarily sold. This will flood the EV market, so that the EVs will end up being sold at about 25% of their original value, resulting in a $225 million loss (the original $300 million paid for the chargers and electric vehicles is a sunk cost). Decommissioning the chargers could cost a further $50 to 100 million, and an estimated $700 million will need to be invested in new replacement cars.
That's over a billion dollars of public money wasted on a whim. You could add to that a further 6 billion in savings that the EV fleet would have realized over their working lives compared to a conventional combustion fleet, as estimated by investment consulting firm ICF. How many of the EVs to be sold are Teslas is not clear, but best buddy Elon Musk is probably going to be pissed.
And why? Why would a move like this be worth a billion dollars to Trump? It seems that economics doesn't come into the equation at all, and it is all because Donald Trump - for whatever reason - doesn't like EVs, and is scared of progress of any kind (and particularly environmental progress).
Many Canadians are trying their best to "Buy Canadian" these days, partly as a patriotic finger in the eye to Donald Trump, and partly in an attempt to wean ourselves American products so that the Trump tariffs are more limited in their effectiveness. But it's not easy, and it's not even easy to tell what is Canadian and what isn't.
As we study labels we've never even bothered to look at before, people are noticing that some products say "Made in Canada" and some say "Product of Canada". Most people probably assume that these are one and the same thing. But, it turns out, they are not. And, just to complicate things, what they do mean varies, depending on whether it relates to a food items or a non-food items.
For non-food items, Competition Bureau Canada rules that "Product of Canada" means that 98% of the item is Canadian content, while "Made in Canada" can mean anything above 51%.
For food items, "Product of Canada" means that "all or virtually all major ingredients, processing and labour used to make the food product are Canadian" (this definition comes from the Canadian Food Inspection Agency). "Made in Canada", on the other hand, merely means that the "last substantial transformation of the product occurred in Canada, even if some ingredients are from other countries". (Hence, products like olive oil can be "Made in Canada".)
Just to confuse things, there's also "Prepared in Canada", which, similar to "Made in Canada", means that the final production step occurred in Canada, but the ingredients could come from anywhere.
So, generally speaking, "Product of Canada" good, "Made in Canada" not so good (but better than nothing).
It's a good indication of how few people understand the difference between the two labels that substantially more people preferred "Made in Canada" items over "Product of Canada" until it is explained to them what the labels actually mean, when their preferences change dramatically!
