Store house owners and hoteliers in Bellingham have been the primary to really feel the results of President Donald Trump’s aggression towards our neighbor to the North. Appalled by Trump’s insulting and repeated jibes about Canada becoming the 51st U.S. state and by his imposition of crippling 25% tariffs on Canadian goods, a major variety of Canadians who’ve repeatedly crossed the border to buy at Bellingham’s retail shops are actually staying away.
That’s simply the precursor to what’s coming for the remainder of Washington.
Tariffs imposed on items from Canada, Mexico and China are being met with the imposition of excessive retaliatory tariffs from these international locations. For Seattle and for our state, that may be very dangerous information. Exports from Washington to Canada, Mexico and China totaled practically $58 billion in 2024 whereas imports value billions of {dollars} from the three got here throughout the border or arrived on the ports of Seattle and Tacoma.
Port Commissioner Sam Cho summed up the scenario succinctly when he instructed The Seattle Instances, “It’s a double whammy for us. It’s going to be really, really harmful.”
This sudden commerce battle is totally pointless and unjustified, the reckless act of an impulsive president whose thoughts is caught in an 18th-century mercantile imaginative and prescient of world commerce. No rational individual or credible economist thinks it is a good concept, but, it appears, nobody can cease Trump’s newest folly.
It’s a marvel the huge hurt one idiot can do if given an excessive amount of energy.
See extra of David Horsey’s cartoons at: st.news/davidhorsey
View different syndicated cartoonists at: st.news/cartoons
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