Trump to charge tariffs of up to 50% on ‘worst offenders’ globally

President Donald Trump has unveiled plans for new import taxes on all goods entering the US, in the biggest upheaval of the international trade order since the aftermath of World War Two.

His plan sets a baseline tariff on all imports of at least 10%, consistent with a proposal he made on the campaign last year.

Items from about 60 trade partners that the White House described as the “worst offenders”, including the European Union and China, face higher rates – payback for what Trump said unfair trade policies.

U.S. senators vote to block Trump’s Canadian tariffs in stinging, but likely symbolic, rebuke

A bipartisan coalition of U.S. senators voted in favour of ending the state of emergency that allows the Trump administration to unilaterally impose tariffs on Canadian goods, arguing that the White House overreached by targeting its northern neighbour.

The vote is the most significant Republican rebuke of the Trump administration’s second term, with four Republicans – Kentucky senators Mitch McConnell and Rand Paul, as well as Lisa Murkowski, of Alaska, and Susan Collins, of Maine – breaking rank. The vote passed 51 to 48. The win is largely symbolic because it’s unlikely to have any practical effect in Congress. The Republican-controlled House of Representatives has pledged not to intervene in Mr. Trump’s tariff agenda, and the president has veto power that can only be overridden by a two-thirds majority vote in each chamber. The fate of the resolution was unclear until votes were tallied late Wednesday evening.

‘Reciprocal’ Tariffs: See Which Countries Have the Highest Rates

President Trump unveiled sweeping tariffs on Wednesday afternoon, announcing a minimum 10 percent tariff on all trading partners as well as so-called reciprocal actions on dozens of other countries, including some of America’s biggest trading partners.

In announcing the new tariffs, his most expansive to date, Mr. Trump said that the global tariffs would help correct decades of unfair relationships and stop other countries from ripping off the United States.

China, for example, will see its tariff rate rise to 34 percent, which includes a previous blanket import tax imposed on the country’s goods earlier this year. Vietnam’s imports will be taxed at nearly 50 percent.

Canada exempt from Trump’s sweeping reciprocal tariffs, PM Carney promises countermeasures to auto, sectoral levies

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by Blazingcatfur••0•Posted inCanada, USA

A Family Business Empire, and a Culture of ‘Keeping Your Mouth Shut’

The Irving family businesses dominate Saint John, New Brunswick. They are a major employer, but residents say those jobs have come with a steep cost.

Even in a frequently fogbound port city along the Atlantic Ocean, the billowing clouds of steam rising from Canada’s largest oil refinery over Saint John, New Brunswick, are impossible to miss.

On a ridge overlooking the refinery sit six enormous tanks, each containing one million barrels of crude oil. Letters painted in dark blue spell “Irving,” the family whose businesses dominate not only Saint John, but most of New Brunswick.

The larger of the Irvings’ two local paper mills looms above the Saint John River like a medieval fortress. Irving-owned railway tracks crisscross the city, linking smaller factories owned by the family to ports under Irving control. Irving-owned building-supply stores and gas stations dot the streets in this city of 78,000 people, where park signs honor Irving contributions to their upkeep.

Worth a visit for the pics alone, but note you will have to scroll down a bit for the story which provides a slice of Carney’s support.

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by Blazingcatfur••0•Posted in"Oligarchy", Canada

I worked in NPR’s extremist ‘bubble’ for 25 years… we looked down on normal Americans

When Uri Berliner began his career at National Public Radio 25 years ago, he did so with a sense of pride and the knowledge that his stories would be heard in all corners of the nation.

‘One of the things I found really kind of inspiring was, if I worked on a story, there might be a farmer in Nebraska on his tractor first thing in the morning listening to, you know, a story I worked on,’ he told the Daily Mail.

‘That was one of the reasons I wanted to work at NPR, because of its reach to all kinds of people. But, you know, I don’t know that farmer still listens.’

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by Blazingcatfur••0•Posted in"Deep State"

The Western Elites’ War Against Democracy Is Now Out in the Open

The French authorities insist that the conviction of Marine Le Pen, which disqualifies the leader of the National Rally (RN) from standing for election as president of France, is not political. No, they say, it simply reflects the neutral ‘rule of law’ and the ‘independence of the judicial system.’

Really? Strange then, that supposedly ‘independent’ judges and officials across Europe and America have all reached remarkably similar verdicts against right-wing politicians.

It looks less like judicial independence and the old-fashioned rule of law than a globalist establishment plot to use the courts as a political weapon against the rising national populist revolt.

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by Blazingcatfur••0•Posted in"Elites vs. Populists"

Mark Carney poses a threat to national unity

Because of the vastness of Canada’s territory, the differing interests of its various regions, the abundance of competing economic and social interests, and the weakened state of democratic instruments for reconciling conflicting interests, national unity will be a perpetual challenge for whomever we choose to form our national government.

Recent polling by Pollara Strategic Insights shows a temporary decline in support for secession in Quebec but, paradoxically, support for the separatist Parti Québécois remains high. Were the PQ to win the next provincial election in Quebec as predicted, it has promised to hold another referendum on secession. And so the next federal government, no matter who forms it, will be faced yet again with a challenge to national unity on the Quebec front.

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by Blazingcatfur••0•Posted inCanada's Corrupt Liberal Government, Election 2025

Obama’s NATO Ambassador: Europe Capable of Running NATO Without US

As CEO of the Chicago Council on Global Affairs and former U.S. ambassador to NATO in the Obama administration, Ivo Daalder is a member in good standing of the foreign policy establishment. In a recent piece on the Foreign Affairs website, Daalder, after the obligatory criticism of Donald Trump’s alleged undermining of NATO, concludes that Trump has been right all along: Europe is “fully capable of ensuring [its] future security [and] [t]he time to start is now.” NATO faces the worst crisis in its 76-year history, Daalder writes, because Trump has “questioned the two core principles” of the alliance: its shared threat perception and its commitment to collective defense.

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by Blazingcatfur••0•Posted inNATO, USA

I hope she refuses that filthy Canadian lucre on principle

I’m a proud Anishinaabe who asserts my Indigenous sovereignty. That’s why I won’t vote

I was 13 when my mom taught me an important lesson: I am not Canadian — I am Anishinaabe, and it’s the reason I will not participate in a colonial political system or vote in this year’s federal election.

We were sitting on the crowded bleachers of my school gymnasium when silence fell and a familiar song followed.

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by Blazingcatfur••0•Posted inAboriginal Issues, Election 2025

John Ivison: Carney’s trick is not talking about his climate policies. So far, it’s working

Pierre Poilievre put forward a solid pitch to voters during his visit to St. John’s on Tuesday, focusing on the “lost Liberal decade” and the policies that contributed to the “poorest growth in the G7.”

He used a letter sent to political leaders by the CEOs of Canada’s 14 largest energy companies as a frame for his case, contrasting Conservative positions with those of Mark Carney’s Liberals on five key demands: the need to simplify regulations by overhauling C-69, the Impact Assessment Act; the need to ensure major projects are approved within six months; the removal of the cap on oil sands emissions the CEOs argue will shrink production; the requirement to kill the carbon tax on large emitters; and the desirability of creating ownership opportunities for Indigenous Canadians by extending federal loan guarantees.

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by Blazingcatfur••0•Posted in"Net-Zero Tyranny", Canada's Corrupt Liberal Government, Election 2025

America’s involvement in Ukraine is finally being revealed

The US was as close to being orchestrators of the battles with Russian forces as could be

The US-led coalition to help Ukraine was always more than just a production line of arms deliveries to the Kyiv government.

Much of what has been going on over the past three years has been secret: a covert collaboration between Ukraine and the West involving commanders at the highest level, and special forces out of uniform. Now the full extent of the extraordinary partnership between Ukraine and the West has been revealed after a year-long investigation by Adam Entous, a reporter at the New York Times.

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by Blazingcatfur••0•Posted in"Deep State", "Ukraine - Russia", USA

Trump Must Act to Halt the Tesla Terror Campaign

The Left’s splintering violence threatens a veto over democratic power.

Elon Musk finds himself at the fulcrum of American life. His companies are leading the field across the automotive, space, robotics, and AI industries. His ownership of the social platform X gives him significant influence over political discourse. And his DOGE initiative represents the single greatest threat to the permanent administrative state. Musk is arguably the most powerful man in the United States, including President Trump.

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by Blazingcatfur••0•Posted in"Deep State", Trump Derangement Syndrome

The Paul Chiang affair is now a ‘teachable moment’ for Canadians about Mark Carney

A fundamental moral principle: You don’t get a s’okay, all forgiven, for a stupendous lapse of judgment.

You don’t get to erase the delinquency only after the conduct breach has become public.

You don’t get to offer a palpably expedient (unsolicited and unaccepted) apology when the wrongdoing is exposed.

And you especially don’t get to do any of that — in an X post at two minutes to midnight, following reports that the RCMP is looking into the matter — when you represent a political party that has been steeped in ethical violations.

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by Blazingcatfur••0•Posted in"Canada's China Class", "China - Communist Slave State", "Foreign Interference", Canada's Corrupt Liberal Government, Election 2025

Europe’s Illegal Land-Grab: The Unlawful Palestinian Settlements You’ve Never Heard Of

Yesterday, Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz and Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich announced their commitment to “foil what they said was the Palestinian Authority’s scheme to seize land across Judea and Samaria.” Most of this vast, lawless land-grab, it turns out, has been energized and financed by the European Union (EU).

For decades, members of the media, activist groups, academics, international organizations, NGOs, and countless politicians have insisted that Jewish settlements in the West Bank are the primary obstacle to peace between Israelis and Palestinians. These settlements, the assumption goes, represent an illegal and inhumane “occupation,” and until they are dismantled and the territory handed over to a Palestinian state, there can be no resolution to the conflict.

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by Blazingcatfur••0•Posted in"Oct 7 2023"