alt Hacker News> Also, as an aside, it's rude to dismiss the majority of Americans, who overwhelmingly oppose the harmful tariffs
OP didn’t say everyone who opposes the tariffs. He said people who support Canada openly stating they will impose retaliatory tariffs on red state products specifically, which is meddling with internal U.S. politics.
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This is actually true.
But I think we need to be handling it differently. We need to make some structural changes, because the reality is that every global power center is going to be waging covert trade war against red states going forward. We need something comprehensive that makes individual states difficult to target. Because this response strategy is just a new reality. And will be the reality even if the left gets into power in the US. They won't let up. It's not in their interests to do so.
It's just reason number 5 million that the reality of conservative rule has fallen so far short of the promise of conservative rule for the US. I'm not certain there was any plan put in place to anticipate and mitigate likely responses. (And punishing trade policies targeting red states was an entirely predictable response.) Just gross ineptitude from the conservatives to not be prepared for that.
I don't even agree with their policies, but for Christ's sake, if you're gonna pursue those policies, wargame all that out and be prepared.
Now we gotta suffer through amateur hour while the keystone kops drive our country into the ground for two more years. This sucks.
> retaliatory tariffs on red state products specifically, which is meddling with internal U.S. politics
As you said, they are retaliatory tariffs. This is no more meddling in politics than pissing into the wind and getting wet. Retaliatory tariffs were a foreseeable result of policy some people voted for, and now the results have splashed them.
There's no reason they shouldn't be disproportionately concentrated on those who caused them. In fact, that approaches an ideal world, right? One in which negative externalities are primarily borne by those responsible for them? And importantly, there is no negotiation, no quid-pro-quo. It is just the law of nature manifesting (you attack someone, it is expected that they will retaliate). There's no way to change that law.
There's a popular American republican trope that those who support higher taxes should be the exclusive ones paying those higher taxes. That's precisely what's happening here (tariffs = taxes). Everybody is getting what they want, except the majority of people who want a sane, fair, and predictable tariff regime built upon a foundation of mutual respect between equals – but at least this gets us closer to that. In a crap world, I can see that being progress worth celebrating.