And Closing a Bridge to Canada that Helps Americans Is Crazy
The Gordie Howe International Bridge from Detroit to Ontario, Canada
Congressman Juan Ciscomani has blindly followed the lead of his President, Donald Trump. This time, he voted for a tax increase, something he promised you he would never do.
The previously placid US-Canadian economic relationship has been in turmoil since the moment Trump became President. Presiding over his own increasingly divided nation, Trump launched an incomprehensible assault on our long-time neighboring ally’s sovereignty, taunting it as the US’s “51st State.”
Trump’s most disastrous foreign relations strategy is the imposition of tariffs on imported goods from other countries. He wields them as cudgels, ignoring the possibility that the foreign nations might retaliate in turn. But Canadian leaders did, and stopped buying American goods (no Kentucky Bourbon!) as well. Relations have soured so much that Trump is now threatening to block the opening of a new bridge over the Detroit River from Detroit to Windsor, Ontario. This misguided move can be seen as completely Trumpian —his America First! strategy doesn’t like even symbolic bridges outside the US.
Michiganders and Canadians are both furious, even if the Gordie Howe International Bridge (named after the all-time Detroit hockey star, a Canadian native, by the way), will likely open anyway when the Presidential threat vaporizes in another international relations about face TACO (Trump Always Chickens Out).
But how does this involve Juan Ciscomani? Last week House of Representatives Democrats pushed through a bill cancelling Trump’s Canadian tariffs. They could not have done so without the assistance of a few Republican members more in tune with their constituents than afraid of the bully-in-chief. Juan Ciscomani was not among this courageous little band. And he had two chances to be brave! First, he voted against letting the bill get to a vote on the House floor, then he opposed the bill itself.
The bill stands a good chance of passing the Senate and an excellent chance of being vetoed by Trump, who, after all, will brook no interference from another Constitutionally established branch of government.
The GOP falsely claims that tariffs are paid by the other nations. The truth, however, is that the financial hit is borne by American businesses and, eventually, consumers. The Tax Foundation, a venerable research institution, considers tariffs a kind of tax, and estimates the average US household will pay an extra $1,300 in 2026. [https://taxfoundation.org/research/all/federal/trump-tariffs-trade-war/] So, a vote for tariffs is a vote for raised taxes. And that was how Ciscomani voted.
The brouhaha over the Gordie Howe bridge is another episode in the Trump-Ciscomani comedy of international trade errors. As the mayor of Windsor, the city on the other end of the bridge said, “It’s just insane. I really can’t believe what I’m reading. The faster we can get to the midterms and hopefully see a change, the better for all of us.” [https://www.publicnotice.co/p/trump-gordie-howe-bridge]
And he’s a Canadian. Imagine how American voters must feel.
Discover more from Blog for Arizona
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.