Jedidajah Otte Wed 5 Mar 2025 10.10 EST
"Since Donald Trump began his tariff threats against Canada and his ‘jokes’ about making Canada the 51st US state, I have not bought a single product originating in the US,” said Lynne Allardice, 78, a retired business owner from New Brunswick, Canada.
“Not a single lettuce leaf or piece of fruit. I have become an avid reader of labels and have adopted an ‘anywhere but the US’ policy when shopping. I will not visit the States while Trump remains in office, and most of the people I know have adopted the same policy.”"
I was busy but I would still like to answer this because there is so much wrong with this comment. You seem to have no basic understanding of macro-economics so I will have to put it simply: trade deficits are NOT the same as a net negative spending balance. Just like national debt is NOT the same as a negative account balance. And most importantly both give no indication of how wealthy a country really is. It is much more complicated than that on national levels. The US is benefitting greatly from its trade deficits through the resulting capital account surplus, but you can read up on that if you actually care. Tarriffs wont “fix” a problem that doesnt exist. All they do is make stuff more expensive which is basically a tax raise. Regarding debt, its statistically more like the opposite. The countries with the most debt are almost exclusively among the wealthiest. Still, no real indication and the US is not exceptionally indebted (ranked 42 by debt-per-GDP).
Regarding the war, the US has contributed 0.5% of its GDP, thats rank 17 on a list of 41 countries. The US is a huge country, you cant just compare absolute numbers. None of them asked anything in return either. Oh wait, either is wrong. The US and UK are the only countries that DID ask of Ukraine to sign the Budapest Memorandum in exchange for military support. Trump is literally violating it with his “peace suggestions”. How should any country respect the US after this if they wont keep their word in diplomatic agreements?
I am very sorry for the terrible decisions your current government is making and it makes me really sad how people like you are being misled. You cant believe everything your news echochamber tells you just because it seems to make sense that negative numbers are bad.
I wouldnt really care all that much if the US would simply self-destruct because of all their bullshit, but the peoblem is as soon as it will get really bad they will start waging wars all around the world to make up for it by trading resources for “peace”, because thats the only thing theyre actually good at. The whole world will suffer because of a huge baby with an even huger inferiority complex.