Trump farts, world swoons

Monday evening, after a day of eating junk food and washing it down with Diet Coke, Trump was lounging about down in Mar-a-Lago when he came up with a thought. Tariffs! I’ll scare the panties off that Sheinbaum commie… tell her I’m gonna nail Mexico till they stop with the refugee convoys bringing in all the fentanyl. Come to think of it, I should tariff Canada too. Not that they have much to do with fentanyl or migrants - I just can’t stand that slippery little turd Trudeau. Trump tilts back his gold-plated La-Z-Boy and fires off a text on his Truth Social. Trudeau was apparently on the phone within minutes. Who would have thought he follows Truth Social? Claudia Sheinbaum fired off a snippy letter threatening repercussions. Trump’s tariff threats have been the top story in Canada all day. In Mexico too. Global news sites that rarely mention Canada talked about us today. I say, calm down folks! The man is still two months from office… that’s plenty of time for him to have multiple brain farts that will make you forget all about this one. Let’s wait and see what happens.

Mexico Pres seizes last opportunity to give his people the finger

You can't say "Fuck You" to the electorate any louder than by granting your country's highest honour to... Jared Kushner?!

That's what outgoing President of Mexico Enrique Pena Nieto just did! After all, he's out the door this weekend - he's got nothing to lose.

So why not?


As for the "new" NAFTA, I guess time will tell if it's better than the old one. Better for whom would be the logical question. It was already pretty damned good for corporate types who used it as cover to ship thirty dollar an hour jobs out of the US and Canada into two dollar an hour factories in Mexico.

More accolades for Chystia Freeland

If you heard Chrystia Freeland's interview on the CBC this morning, you may have cringed just a little when you heard her boasting about her buddy "Bob" Lighthizer coming to her Toronto home for dinner. Clearly, Freeland is quite impressed with herself, and is pleased to consider Bob a personal friend.

Others are not quite as impressed.

"She's way out of her league," quoth Zekelman Industries boss Barry Zekelman in a CBC story the other day.

And today we've got Konrad Yakabuski's assessment in the Globe and Mail; "We were out-negotiated, almost humiliatingly so."

I'm guessing neither Yakabuski or Zekelman will be getting dinner invites to Chrystia's house anytime soon.

Giving thanks for trade agreements

I see where Tiffany Gooch, full-time Liberal Party strategist and part-time Toronto Star op-ed writer, has crafted a paean to the derring-do of the Trudeau-Freeland negotiating team for their masterful take-down of Team Trump in the USMCA negotiations.

Yup, "our prime minister aimed high and held true to his commitment that he would only sign a deal that was good for Canadians."

Well, maybe, but I guess you'd have to ask yourself, which Canadians? The first NAFTA deal was good for some Canadians too, mainly the ones in the corner offices and on the shareholder roll. For Canadians on the shop floor, not so much.

Canadian auto-parts giant Magna built their first Mexican factory in the early '90s. Today they've got thirty-two plants in Mexico employing 28,000 Mexicans. That's the logical result of making a free-trade agreement with a third world economy. Why pay a Canadian twenty bucks an hour when a Mexican will do the same work for twenty bucks a day?

But our media and the political class still tell us every chance they get that NAFTA was good for us, and so of course this "new" deal will be too.

Being a Liberal Party shill means Gooch has to toss in the obligatory bit of virtue signalling re: this being a "progressive" trade agreement. Why, it defends the rights of workers against gender-based discrimination, don't ya know!

Protection against gender discrimination has been enshrined in Canadian law since the Charter of Rights, which predates the original NAFTA, so this is hardly a win for Canadian workers.

But isn't it nice that we're doing something for those 28,000 Mexicans working at Canadian owned auto plants in Mexico!