About a month ago, Donald Trump announced extreme tariffs on Canadian, Mexican and Chinese goods. The market reacted with horror & outrage, as did our North American allies. PM Justin Trudeau and Mexico’s President Claudia Sheinbaum both got on the phone with Trump and he backed down within a few days, bizarrely declaring victory even though nothing had been achieved. Earlier this week, the idiotic cycle began again, with Trump announcing 25% tariffs on Canadian and Mexican goods, effective this week. While the Canadian government has tried to negotiate with the Trump administration, PM Trudeau has had enough of this BS, and he publicly accused Trump of acting in “bad faith” (it’s true). Soon afterwards, Trump and Trudeau got on a call which, according to the Wall Street Journal, “grew heated and included profanity.” (See update below)

President Trump signed executive orders suspending new tariffs on many imports from Mexico and Canada, two days after he imposed sweeping levies of 25 percent on two of America’s closest economic partners. The exemptions, on goods covered by the trilateral trade pact Mr. Trump signed in his first term, were a whipsaw reversal that followed days of economic turmoil. Stocks in the United States closed down 1.8 percent on Thursday.

[From The NY Times]

While I have absolutely zero faith in Trump and the vile psychopath clownshow that is the Trump administration, what I do have nominal faith in is the self-interest and greed of the business class, the MAGA donor class. And I actually think they started to make their voices heard to Trump and Congressional Republicans. As in, cut out the monthly tariff melodramas, the stock market is going haywire and we’re losing billions. The coverage from Bloomberg and WSJ show this perfectly – the business class (which supported Trump) is pissed off that Trump is doing way too much. I also think a quiet revolt in the donor class might explain why Trump is suddenly making moves to fence in Elon Musk’s DOGE too.

Update by CB: An earlier version of this story stated that Trudeau cursed out Trump. Time quoted a senior Canadian official who stated that Trump used profanity while Trudeau did not:

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said earlier Thursday that he expects Canada and the U.S. to be in a trade war for the foreseeable future after having what he called a colorful but constructive call with Trump on Wednesday.

A senior Canadian government official said the call became heated and Trump used profanity when Trump complained about protections in Canada’s dairy industry. The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity as they were not authorized to speak publicly about the call, said Trudeau did not use profanity.

[From Time]

Photos courtesy of Cover Images.