Canada is beating Trump at his own tariff game– www.dailykos.com

For all his self-created lore of being a consummate dealmaker, President Donald Trump actually sucks at deals, mostly using legal threats and actions to bully his way to his preferred outcomes.

And those outcomes aren’t even particularly good ones. There is that famous calculation that Trump would’ve made far more money had he simply put his inherited wealth into an index fund. And we’ve seen just how much he sucks at negotiating with his failed Iran and Gaza deals.

In office, his version of lawyerly threats when dealing with foreign countries is tariffs. The Supreme Court may have severely limited his ability to wield them indiscriminately as a way to bully other nations, but that doesn’t mean he’s stopped trying. His latest target is Canada, after yet another failed round of negotiations.

Canada has already retaliated, and its tariffs may have far more political bite than Trump’s.

Trump has already imposed 50% tariffs on Canadian goods. But his biggest new threat—a 50% tariff on Canadian vehicles, auto parts, and steel—isn’t supposed to hit until Jan. 1, 2027. And given his long history of backtracking on tariff decisions, there is little reason for Canada to assume those tariffs will ever be enacted as advertised. Heck, there’s a decent chance the courts get involved before they see the light of day.

But there’s an obvious political benefit to waiting until Jan. 1: the November midterm elections.

We know that Trump has finally figured out that tariffs increase prices, given his decision to import foreign beef while removing tariffs in order to try to give voters an affordability win before the elections. The last thing his party needs is further price increases on top of current inflation trends.