Kennedy explains how Canada could fend off U.S. tariffs: “Reduce your tariffs to zero”
Let’s suppose that, Louisiana, which has the best king cakes in the Milky Way, can produce a king cake for $10. And our friends in Alabama, they can produce a king cake. Not nearly as good as Louisiana’s, but their best they can do is to produce it for $12. understand why the the elected officials in Alabama will say, well Gianna’s King cakes ten bucks. Our king cake is $12. We want to product our King cake bakers here and now Bama. So we’re going to impose a tariff. What would that do that I suppose they impose a $4 tariff. So now the King cake. Better King cake made in Louisiana sold in Alabama would cost $14. And that would force people to buy the $12, Alabama king cake. Now, my personal opinion is that most Alabamians, who are very smart people, would pay extra for the Louisiana King Gate because it’s so much better. But that’s how tariffs work. So you have a domestic industry like, a King Cake bakery, and you want to protect it from competition to allow it to grow and, and, employ, the people in that particular country. Then you impose a tax, a tariff on folks on the outside of your country who want to sell in the country.
“I want to say this unequivocally: Canada is one of my favorite countries in the world. The American people and the people of Canada are friends, and I would like our economies to be friends—and I mean that. But lately, we have been having a gentle disagreement—some would say not so gentle—in terms of tariffs and trade and our economy.”
“When you have got your neighboring country and good friend that is eight times smaller than you are [economically] and, in terms of population, is 10 times smaller than you are, and your neighbor is selling $63 billion more in goods to you than you are selling to them, that seems kind of unfair. And the president, as we all know, has made that point very vociferously.
“In response, the Canadian government, the new Prime Minister [Mark] Carney, he has pretty much bowed up. When Pres. Trump said: ‘Well, the tariffs are uneven, so I am going to raise American tariffs.’ Carney has bowed up and said: ‘Well, Pres. Trump, you don’t believe in free trade. You are not a free trader. If you raise your tariffs, then I am going to raise mine even more.’ And that is how you get into a trade war.”
“Let’s avoid a trade war. Let’s let those good Canadian companies compete with good American companies in selling goods into the U.S., and let’s let those good American companies compete with those good Canadian companies in terms of selling goods into Canada, and may the best, cheapest product win.
“That is my respectful challenge to P.M. Carney tonight. If you think Pres. Trump is being unfair and is not a free trader, then reduce your tariffs to zero, and ask Pres. Trump to reduce our tariffs to zero on Canada, and let’s go back to being friends again.”
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Kennedy: respectful challenge to Canadian PM: reduce tariffs to zero go back to being friends again