Tag Archives: Donald Trump

Roundup: The relationship with the US has ended

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Day five of the election campaign, and two of the three leaders changed their plans in response to Trump’s tariff announcement—the Conservatives did not, and they can’t pivot because they don’t have media on their plane who can follow them if they have to change plans to respond to events, which is all the more reason why they never should have left them off.

Mark Carney returned to Ottawa to meet with his Canada-US Cabinet committee, and call several premiers including Doug Ford, before addressing the media. There were no campaign announcements today, and said that retaliatory measures will be announced next week when more tariffs are supposed to be coming from Trump, but his remarks were stark, and have been blowing up across a segment of American media—that the relationship we used to have of deepening economic integration and cooperation on security and defence is now over. That’s going to mean a significant retooling of our economy for “strategic economic autonomy,” and that this will be difficult, with no silver bullet. That also means shifting the auto sector for more global trade, which is apparently part of what he discussed with union leaders yesterday, so we’ll see if we get more details about what that could mean. Carney did say that Trump’s office has reached out to talk, so that will likely happen in a couple of days. Afterward, he headed to Montreal for a rally, and today, he plans to have an emergency virtual meeting with the first ministers.

Pierre Poilievre was in Surrey, BC, and his daily announcement was about raising the TFSA limit so long as it was tied to Canadian funds—but he made it sound like government would top-up funds (they won’t), it really only benefits those who can add another $5000 to these accounts, and more to the point, it adds a bunch of bureaucratic reporting mechanisms to prove the funds are Canadian. (Sounds like someone is adding red tape!) He did have a message to Trump to “knock it off,” which was weak and too late, but he keeps talking in terms that the relationship can simply go back to what it was if the tariffs get called off, when it can’t. Democracy has died in the US. There is no ability to trust this administration, and probably the next one. He is off to Nanaimo, BC, today.

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Jagmeet Singh, having pivoted his campaign stop, went to Windsor to announce his plan for entirely Canadian-made cars, and that he’d waive the GST on Canadian-made autos. The promise is likely impossible because supply chains were integrated for a reason, and we have too small of a market to support a purely domestic auto market (and cue all the jokes about Canadian Ladas). He is headed back to Toronto today.

In other election news, former Conservative strategist Kory Teneycke ripped Poilievre a new asshole at an Empire Club event on Wednesday about Poilievre’s inability to meet the moment in the campaign, which was why his poll numbers are tanking, and why he is heading for defeat—particularly because Poilievre has adopted way too many Trump habits to appeal to a certain segment of voters he wants to keep on-side. This as Doug Ford’s personal pollster has made it known that Poilievre’s numbers are grim in Ontario.

www.theglobeandmail.com/gift/66d740f…

— Kevin Milligan (@kevinmilligan.bsky.social) 2025-03-28T04:07:44.115Z

Ukraine Dispatch

Russia launched 86 drones plus a missile overnight Wednesday, which sparked fires and injured 21 people in Kharkiv, while shelling in Kherson killed two and damaged power supplies, in contravention of the supposed partial “ceasefire.” Russian forces have also been stepping up attacks on Sumy region. Putin wants a “temporary administration” to allow for elections in Ukraine to end the war, when all that needs to happen for him to end it is to simply send his soldiers home.

https://twitter.com/ukraine_world/status/1905252833827364873

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Roundup: Election 2025, Day One

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Around noon on Sunday, prime minister Mark Carney visited Rideau Hall and advised the Governor General to dissolve Parliament for an election. She agreed, signed the proclamation, and the 45th general election was underway. The election will be held on April 28th, making it a short five-week campaign.

Message from the Office of the Speaker of the House of Commons:

— Dale Smith (@journodale.bsky.social) 2025-03-23T18:16:45.323Z

Remember: Writs are drawn-up. 343 of them, in fact—one for every riding, because a general election is 343 separate but simultaneous elections, not a single event. Nothing gets "dropped," and certainly not a singular writ.No, it's not a "turn of phrase," and no, it's not allowed. #cdnpoli

— Dale Smith (@journodale.bsky.social) 2025-03-23T17:38:11.308Z

Mark Carney spoke afterward, and immediately promised a “Middle Class™ tax cut,” because clearly what’s needed in a time of economic uncertainty, and when we need to ramp up our defence spending and response to the economic predations of Trump, is a tax cut that will disproportionately benefit top income earners. Carney then headed to St. John’s, Newfoundland and Labrador, for his first campaign stop.

Sigh. Is it possible for everyone to remember that Cutting the lowest tax rate means 1. all tax credits are now worth less 2. And high earners benefit much more from the rate cut than anyone else. Don’t make me break out SPSD/M

— Dr Lindsay Tedds (@lindsaytedds.bsky.social) 2025-03-23T18:37:33.520Z

Pierre Poilievre got his message out early, and he took a couple of mild jabs at Trump, before doubling down on his usual nonsense about “open border” creating crime (which is completely false), and insisted that his campaign offers hope and change, and insisted that they will “restore” the promise of the country. He then headed off to Toronto for a “Canada First™” rally.

Jagmeet Singh accused the Liberals of letting the country “rot from the inside,” and that he’s about people and not billionaires. (All tens of them in Canada?) From his initial Ottawa launch, he then headed to Montreal for his first stop.

And the Green co-leaders Elizabeth May and Jonathan Pedneault called for unity during the election in order to stand up to Trump and the global oligarchs that are seeking to destroy democracy.

In the background of all of this was an interview that Danielle Smith gave to Breitbart News in the US, where she claims that she told members of the Trump administration to hold off on tariffs in order to help get Poilievre elected, because he would be more in sync with them. This is pretty shocking, if she is indeed telling the truth and not just giving some kind of boast to make herself look good for the Breitbart crowd. Poilievre insists that Trump wants Carney to win because he’ll be a pushover, and I mean, come on. Carney gave his usual points about needing respect from Trump before they’ll talk. Nevertheless, the fact that we have premiers freelancing foreign policy like this is a Very Bad Thing and they need to be reined in.

In sync with authoritarianism?Yes. Yes he would be.

— Dale Smith (@journodale.bsky.social) 2025-03-23T01:52:45.612Z

 

Ukraine Dispatch

Russia launched 147 drones at several cities across Ukraine overnight Sunday, and killed at least seven. On Saturday, Russian shelling killed three in Pokrovsk. The blaze at Russia’s Krasnodar oil depot has been burning for over five days now.

https://twitter.com/ZelenskyyUa/status/1903740311689363767

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Roundup: Delusions about Canadian defence industry capabilities

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On Sunday, following NDP leader Jagmeet Singh’s trip to Nunavut, he released an Arctic sovereignty and defence policyin a bit of pre-election posturing. The actual Arctic sovereignty stuff was reasonably fine, which mostly involves better investments in Northern and Inuit communities, but the defence part? Hoo boy. To start off, it was poorly worded in talking about “repatriating” the F-35 contract to “build the jets” in Canada, but it wasn’t immediately clear if he thought they could build the F-35s in Canada (nope), or if it meant restarting the entire process for selecting a new fighter, which again, isn’t really possible at this stage as the CF-18s are at the absolute end of their lifespan, and we can’t just turn procurements off on a dime.

As Philippe Lagassé explains, yes, we need to pivot away from American platforms, but that needs to be done in a managed and methodical way that is going to take years, and the NDP need to realise this (and so, frankly, to the Liberals given the kinds of crazy things all of the leadership contenders were saying during their debates). But seriously, guys, you can’t just claim we’ll meet all of our military obligations with Canadian industries alone. That’s not even wishful thinking—it’s full-on delusion. You may think that Bombardier’s vapourware promises sound great, because Canadian jobs, but when they can’t deliver? Those are some pretty hefty consequences to face.

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Carbon levy gaslighting

In amidst a bunch of “trutherism” about the document that Mark Carney signed on Friday to zero out the consumer carbon levy (for which they published an extra edition of the Canada Gazette to enact), the Conservative continue to insist that Carney is just going to raise it back up after an election, which seems to be admitting that he’s going to win, which is kind of funny.

Meanwhile, the Liberals are doing themselves no favours by spending the weekend praising Carney for “getting it done” in ending their own signature environmental policy. And Liberal MPs were all over social media patting themselves on the back for “listening to Canadians,” and making up outright Orwellian excuses for defeating their own gods damned policy. And then their supporters were in my replies offering up straight-up revisionist history about the carbon price and trying to blame it on Stephen Harper, I shit you not. I really, really not appreciate being gaslit about your stupid political moves, especially when they refuse to own why it became so divisive, particularly when they refused to properly explain or defend their own policies.

Ukraine Dispatch

Russian drones hit a high-rise building in Chernihiv. Contrary to the Russian propaganda that Trump has been reading, Ukrainian troops in Kursk region are not encircled, even though the Russians are pushing forward to move Ukrainian troops from the region.

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Roundup: Positive feelings about a useless meeting

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We seem to be caught in a pattern where Donald Trump will invite a world leader to the White House—yesterday it was NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte—and he goes on an unhinged rant while they’re sitting there, trying to avoid saying anything that will set him off. And yesterday’s rant included a full-on threat to annex Greenland (while Rutte tried to downplay NATO’s involvement in any way, which is true to the extent that it only operates by consensus), and went on an extended rant about Canada not working as a real country, and made up the lie that America pays for our military (not true in the slightest), before repeating the falsehood that the US subsidizes us.

Half-point to #CBCNN for not both-sidesing that caption.

— Dale Smith (@journodale.bsky.social) 2025-03-13T18:09:44.596Z

Meanwhile, Dominic LeBlanc and François-Philippe Champagne had their meeting with Howard Lutnick, with Doug Ford along for the ride as he continued to try and make himself the main character (and I watched Conservative talking head pundits also putting forward this distorted view of reality). Ford came out of the meeting, effusive about how “positive” it was and how they were going to have more meetings next week (and was later corrected that officials were going to meet, not him), while the two ministers basically talked a lot and said nothing, because nothing could be accomplished here. But they had to pretend that something came from this meeting when obviously nothing did, as there were no changes to any tariffs, and Ford’s pressure tactic around the electricity “surcharge” remains off the table again.

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Elsewhere, Trump’s pick for US ambassador to Canada had his Senate confirmation hearing, and when asked, he said that Canada is a sovereign country, and tried to claim that Trump’s expansionist rhetoric is about “negotiation tactics,” but it certainly doesn’t seem to be. And yeah, he said the bare minimum to ensure that he wasn’t PNGed before he could even arrive in the country. Closer to home, Scott Moe continues to call for capitulation to China regarding their tariff fight, because of course he did, and claimed it was about protecting Quebec’s industries over Saskatchewan’s, except Quebec doesn’t really have much of an auto sector, but Moe’s brain is pretty smooth, after all.

Ukraine Dispatch

An overnight attack on Dnipro injured three women and damaged apartment buildings. Ukrainian forces are in retreat in parts of Kursk region, which means losing a bargaining chip in possible peace negotiations. And Putin has all kinds of conditions on a possible ceasefire, because he’s not serious, and Ukraine only went along with the plan to call his bluff.

Surprise! The Russians, who have repeatedly said they don't want a ceasefire, have once again said they don't want a ceasefire

— Anne Applebaum (@anneapplebaum.bsky.social) 2025-03-13T11:42:16.938Z

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Roundup: Trump and Lutnick mock Ford’s capitulation

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The reverberations from Doug Ford’s capitulation on the electricity “surcharge” was mostly met by mocking—Howard Lutnick mocking him on Fox, and Trump mocking him after his indignant “electricity affects people’s lives,” as if the tariffs don’t. Along the way, CNN fact-checked Trump’s claims that Canada is one of the highest-tariffing countries, when in fact we’re one of the lowest (Supply Management excepted).

Closer to home, the Dominic LeBlanc announced the retaliatory tariffs to the steel and aluminium tariffs, but also clarified that the meeting with Lutnick today is about tariffs and not renegotiating NAFTA as Ford claimed. (When asked later, Ford insisted that tariffs are NAFTA, which is obvious bullshit after he got caught in a self-aggrandizing lie). Meanwhile, Danielle Smith and Ford appear to be butting heads as Smith continues to demand a diplomatic approach (as though Trump responds to diplomacy), while Scott Moe took to the microphones to demand capitulation to China on EV tariffs. Because of course he did.

So Ford lied again. (Look surprised, everyone!)

— Dale Smith (@journodale.bsky.social) 2025-03-12T14:24:05.559Z

As for Mark Carney, he had breakfast with Ford before heading to a steel plant in Hamilton (where he avoided media questions), and Ford later praised Carney for his command of numbers and business skills. Carney later remarked that he’ll meet with Trump “when there’s respect for Canadian sovereignty.” So, never?

PBO Report

The Parliamentary Budget Officer released a new report yesterday on the effects of the emissions cap, and it was trash, because it once again compared a scenario that doesn’t exist. This is a pattern with this PBO, and because he’s an independent Officer of Parliament, he gets no accountability except from maybe the media, and rest assured, they won’t hold him to any.

Ukraine Dispatch

Russia launched three missiles and 133 drones in an overnight attack Tuesday night, and a missile attack on Kryvyi Rih killed one woman. Ukraine also contends that attacks on the port in Odesa are an attack on global food security. Putin visited the Kursk region for the first time since Ukraine occupied it, while Ukraine’s top army commander says the will fight in that region as long as needed. It doesn’t look like Putin will accept the US’ ceasefire proposal, at least not without a bunch of demands of his own. (Try and look surprised).

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Roundup: Tantrums, and Ford capitulates

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The day started off with a tantrum—Donald Trump screaming that Ontario wasn’t allowed to put the “surcharge” on their electricity exports, and said he was going to make Canada pay dearly, and then threatened to ramp up the incoming steel and aluminium tariffs to 50 percent. That caused another huge panic, and by the end of the day, Doug Ford had secured a meeting with Howard Lutnick (apparently with Dominic LeBlanc), and suspended the “surcharge,” while Trump decided that the global steel and aluminium tariffs were still coming, but only at 25 percent, and those are now in effect. And that in turn will trigger more retaliatory tariffs from the Canadian federal government. Trump also went on an extended rant about annexation, but flattered Ford in the process, which made me want to throw up a little.

Guys, I’m just so tired.

I scarcely know where to begin. The regulations for that “surcharge” were released, and it reads very much like a cute attempt to pretend that they’re not tariffs for the sake of international trade, so that he can pretend this is provincial jurisdiction and not federal. After two days of bluster and going on every cable news show in the US insisting he wasn’t going to back down on this “surcharge” until the tariffs were gone, and that he was going to go even further, it took one phone call with Lutnik and Ford capitulated right as the global steel and aluminium tariffs were coming into place, so how exactly did he help Ontario or anyone? I’m at a loss. He’s also pretending that he has a role in international negotiations, neglecting in his tweet to mention that Dominic LeBlanc will be at the table with Lutnik, but on top of that, you think you’re actually going to be negotiating a renewed NAFTA? Really? Given that Trump has proven that any agreement he signs isn’t worth the paper it’s written on because he only operates in bad faith? And you still want to go ahead with this farce?

Trump needs to stop these tariffs for the sole reason that people are starting to believe that Doug Ford is a good leader, and I cannot have that

— Clare Blackwood (@clareblackwood.bsky.social) 2025-03-11T15:18:15.159Z

Meanwhile, Poilievre demanded 50 percent retaliatory tariffs if the steel and aluminium tariffs went to 50 percent, Jagmeet Singh continues to demand that Parliament be summoned to pass a package of aid for workers before the election, and Elizabeth May wants a “wartime Cabinet,” and I just can’t because it misunderstands what actually happened during the First World War. Also, Alberta’s energy minister Brian Jean thinks he’s an international negotiator too. And hey, here’s a plausible explanation for Trump’s constant tariff chaos—because affected CEOs have to pay millions to see him at Mar-a-Lago to plead their case, and he’s making a lot of money that way.

Ukraine Dispatch

Ukraine downed a ballistic missile and 70 out of 126 drones in Monday night’s attack, while Russia claims they are making progress in reclaiming Kursk region. Ukrainian drones struck two more Russian oil facilities, with explosions recorded. The US says they are resuming military aid and intelligence sharing after Ukraine said they were willing to sign onto a ceasefire proposal, but Russia has not agreed yet (and won’t agree because they don’t want a ceasefire). AP has a selection of photos from the war.

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Roundup: Carney’s transition races out of the gate

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The day after the leadership race concluded, the transition began. Mark Carney had meetings with Justin Trudeau, and met with the caucus, albeit fairly briefly, as things got underway. We learned that he’s chosen MP Marco Mendicino as his chief of staff, which sounds like it’s on an interim basis (because Mendicino apparently has designs on running for mayor of Toronto), but so long as it means Katie Telford is out of the job, that’s what matters. Carney promised the transition would be swift, and it sounds like he wants a pared-down PMO. We also learned that Carney has already put his assets, minus personal real estate, into a blind trust and submitted all of his disclosures to the Ethics Commissioner, well ahead of schedule, which blunts the Conservatives’ attacks on his wealth. (To be clear, the rules state he has four months to disclose after being sworn-in, and he’s now disclosed even before being sworn-in). The one thing I found surprising was that Carney has reached out to Jean Charest to offer him some kind of senior role, including possibly a ministerial portfolio, and that Charest declined, with talk from the reporters saying that he may also be reaching out to Christy Clark.

As for Trudeau, he held his final Cabinet meeting, and was photographed carrying his chair out of the House of Commons (as the rules allow MPs to buy their chair when they leave politics).

Photo du jour. Crédit : Reuters.

— Louis Blouin (@icilouisblouin.bsky.social) 2025-03-10T19:00:30.490Z

On the trade war front, Doug Ford went ahead with the 25 percent “surcharge” on electricity exports (but it’s not a tariff, because that would be a federal trade power), and insists he’s looking into turning off the electricity if things get worse (which may actually be impossible given the interconnection of the grids). In response, Trump’s commerce secretary continued to threaten further tariffs on steel and aluminium, dairy, lumber, and “reciprocal” tariffs where they misunderstand that the GST is on all goods and not just imported ones. BC premier David Eby wants the federal government to drop their tariff fight with China, citing farmers and BC industry being hit on both sides (but seriously, do you think China is a good-faith actor here?).

Ukraine Dispatch

Russia has launched airstrikes overnight in Kyiv, while their troops are attempting to break through in the northeastern Sumy region, across the border from Kursk. In Kursk, Russian forces continue to advance, but Ukraine’s top general insists they are not at risk of being encircled. Ukraine claims that they have hit oil refineries in two Russian regions.

https://twitter.com/ukraine_world/status/1899104651527524818

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Roundup: Moving onto the dairy front

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The trade war seemed slightly more stable yesterday as the reprieve on most goods seemed to be holding, but it took no time at all for Trump to start musing about new, invented grievances and irritants. The latest is the dairy sector, for which there are limits as to how much the US can export to Canada tariff-free, but again, Trump has blown this out of proportion in his own mind. And as a result, he threatened 250 percent tariffs on Canadian dairy…but we don’t really export to them, certainly not liquid milk in large part because of the Supply Management system, so that would have very little impact on our industry.

The thing that did have people worried was fresh news out of the New York Times that Trump’s annexation talk has moved into threats about tearing up boundary treaties, particularly around things like the Great Lakes and cross-border river systems, and moving into things like shared military operations and NORAD, and after the floated threats about the Five Eyes a couple of weeks ago, it’s hard to ignore any of these threats, and why there needs to be a very concerted effort by the government to make plans for how we’re going to deal with this once it happens, because we know that nothing is off the table with Trump any longer.

I’m generally not into White House drama, but following it becomes more necessary than I’d like to admit these days. To that end, here is a look at an explosive meeting in the Cabinet room where several cabinet secretaries unloaded on Elon Musk, which wound up reining him in (somewhat, for now). But oh, man, the absolute stupidity of what is happening in that administration is boggling. As well, here’s a look at how framing the Trump presidency through the lens of reality television helps to make some of the chaos make a little more sense.

https://twitter.com/josheakle/status/1898212255604568305

Ukraine Dispatch

After the US cut off military aid, including access to satellite imagery for Ukraine, Russia launched a major missile attack, which targeted energy infrastructure, killed four in the eastern town of Dobropillia, while another five died in attacks in the Donetsk region. The Ukrainian forces within Kursk region appear to be nearly surrounded by Russians, though there have been counteroffensives in the past few days. Ukrainian drones did attack the Kirishi refinery.

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Roundup: Another month of reprieve—maybe

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Less than a week into the trade war, and the Americans have somewhat recanted? But only somewhat. Yesterday they decided to suspend the tariffs on New NAFTA “compliant” exports from Canada until April 2nd, but no one is quite sure what that means. Nevertheless, the Canadian government is still maintaining its first tranche of retaliatory tariffs, and will not remove them until the threat is gone, but they are holding back the second tranche of retaliatory actions until April 2nd, or until Trump abandons his tariff nonsense (which could be never).

We also got word about the call that Trudeau had will Trump earlier in the week, and how heated it got, particularly on the question of dairy imports to Canada, where Trump got profane. More telling was the fentanyl question, where Trudeau pointed out the low seizures (and remember that 43 pounds seized last year was not actually all coming across the border, but apprehended within a certain radius of said border), to which Trump is apparently using a secret metric regarding progress on stopping it—proving yet again that this isn’t actually about fentanyl, and that it remains a legal fiction for Trump to abuse his authority. Also, when asked about Mélanie Joly terming the current state of affairs a “psychodrama,” Trudeau responded that he calls it “Thursday.” So, there’s that. And Trump is now posting on his socials that Trudeau is trying to use the tariffs to stay in power, which is again just him pulling it out of his ass, and MAGA-types in this country are already saying “See! That’s what I’m afraid of!” *sighs, pinches bridge of nose*

Reporter: "Your Foreign Affairs Minister [Melanie Joly] yesterday called all of this a psychodrama. How do you how do you characterize it?"Trudeau: "Thursday."#cdnpoli

— davidakin (@davidakin.bsky.social) 2025-03-06T15:21:57.509Z

Meanwhile, Doug Ford declared that he’s going to impose a 25 percent tariff on electricity exports to three American states as of Monday—but I’m not sure that he can actually do that, because trade and commerce powers are federal jurisdiction. Imposing tariffs is federal. Electricity exports are federally regulated by the Canadian Energy Regulator. But people are also insisting that Ontario’s Independent Electricity System Operator, which is a government-created entity, can apply a surcharge, which again raises questions about how this doesn’t run afoul of federal trade and commerce powers. And this is Ford we’re talking about, who always talks a big game and very rarely does he actually back it up with anything. I would remain incredibly skeptical of the whole thing.

He does, in fact, have that power: the IESO (which manages electricity sales to other jurisdictions) is wholly-owned by the Ontario government and answers to cabinet directives, in this case including a 25% surcharge to the two US grids in question.

— John Michael McGrath (@jm-mcgrath.bsky.social) 2025-03-06T20:03:28.613Z

I mean, who starts a trade war?

— Dale Smith (@journodale.bsky.social) 2025-03-07T01:35:08.662Z

Ukraine Dispatch

Russia launched another mass drone attack on Odesa, damaging energy infrastructure. Russia claims to have captured another village in eastern Ukraine, Andriivka, but there is no confirmation. While Trump’s lackies are holding meetings with opposition politicians in Ukraine, opposition leader Petro Poroshenko says he’s opposed to a wartime election. Trump is also talking about revoking the temporary protected status for some 240,000 Ukrainians in the US, and could start deporting them.

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Roundup: Offering a limited reprieve

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Because the trade war is many ways a weird power dynamic, yesterday was all about offers of reprieves. After a lengthy phone call between Justin Trudeau and Trump, there came word of a “reprieve” on tariffs for the auto sector—for a month—but at the behest of the Big Three auto companies rather than any of Trudeau’s efforts, and while there hasn’t been official word, Senior Government Sources™ are saying that Trudeau is not budging on the retaliatory measures. And why would he? The one-month reprieve came with the message from both JD Vance and Trump’s press secretary that they want those manufacturers to locate all of their factories in the US to avoid tariffs, but the “official” reason for the tariffs remains fentanyl, because Trump needs the legal fiction of a “national emergency” to use executive powers to levy tariffs rather than Congress (but he controls that, so the logic only extends so far). Oh, and now Trump is talking about agricultural carveouts, because they’re stupid and don’t realise the consequences of their actions until it’s too late.

Trump Weighs Agriculture Carveouts From Canada, Mexico Tariffswww.bloomberg.com/news/article…

— Brian Platt (@brianplatt.bsky.social) 2025-03-05T22:58:52.676Z

In provincial reactions, both Danielle Smith and Scott Moe said they were pulling American liquor from their provincial liquor control boards, a day after everyone else. Smith had to put on a big show that included one of her Alberta Sheriffs holding a big rifle to show that she was super serious about them patrolling the border (not that they can legally do much more than taxi that person to an authorised federal border agent or RCMP officer). Both Smith and Moe also insisted that they didn’t want export taxes on either oil or potash, which again, is a boneheaded move of signalling to Trump that they don’t want to play their strongest cards ever (because they’re both super geniuses). Of course, it’s not their call because those powers are federal, but it’s still a sign of how unserious either of them is in the face of an existential threat. Meanwhile, Yukon premier Raj Pillai is “considering” limiting ties with Elon Musk’s businesses, like Starlink (which seems like something they should be doing more than just considering).

There was also word that there was more progress on interprovincial trade barriers and incremental progress toward credentials recognition—with some exceptions for Quebec because of linguistic requirements (but I still have questions about how they plan to get self-regulating bodies like the colleges of physicians and surgeons to play ball).

Progress reported on internal trade barriers, but I am still unclear on credential recognition when professional bodies are self-regulated (like doctors). #cdnpoli

— Dale Smith (@journodale.bsky.social) 2025-03-06T01:13:30.326Z

Ukraine Dispatch

A Russian missile hit a hotel in Kryvyi Rih, killing three and injuring at least twenty-nine others. The Americans are cutting off the flow of intelligence to Ukraine, because they’re now on Putin’s side. A Ukrainian commander says that NATO forces are not ready for modern drone warfare. Here is an examination of the state of the war, and that it would take Russia 118 years to fully conquer Ukraine at their present rate of advancement.

If the US had continued to support Ukraine, we may have been months away from the end of the war. The Russians would not have been able to continue to fight for much longer. They were making almost no progress, taking huge casualties.

— Anne Applebaum (@anneapplebaum.bsky.social) 2025-03-05T15:19:16.697Z

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