Actually, it’s fairly likely that the UK is getting the better end of this deal.

First off, the UK is a net importer from the US already. So there’s no reason for Trump to even be chasing after them for a deal in the first place. This whole thing is supposed to be about wiping out the US’ trade deficits, but the US already runs a surplus with the UK. So why is this their first big “success”?

Second, the UK have been desparately trying to write new free trade agreements since 2016 and Brexit. They’ve been trying to hammer something out with the US for years, but neither side could agree on terms.

It’s very likely that what happened here is Trump needed a win, heard that the UK were eager to make a deal, and just told his underlings to get it done (this idiot can’t make it through a security briefing unless they break out the crayons, there’s no way he actually reads these deals), and with the sudden urgency from the White House the UK were able to get through some terms the US had previously resisted.

Of course, it’s possible the UK got ripped here as well. Like I said, they’re badly in need of new trade partners after they fucked their sweet deal with the EU. But the fact that they haven’t signed anything with the US previously, despite the urgency, strongly suggests that what they were being offered before wasn’t good enough.

It’s weird, I could have sworn we negotiated a trade deal with the US back in the nineties, and then renegotiated that same deal about eight years back. Who was the president back then? Oh, right…

Current polling still shows that only 25% of Albertans would vote to separate.

Smith, I think, knows this, and I don’t believe she actually wants a referendum to happen. I certainly don’t think she wants one to pass.

Much like Boris Johnson attaching himself to Brexit, Smith likes the way that supporting “Albertan Sovereignty” gives her an enemy to constantly rail against and blame every problem on. If Alberta seccedes, suddenly all those problems become her problems.

Transforming a province into an independent nation would be an absolutely nightmarish task, and every new problem, every compromise would be hung around your neck forever as a result. Again, look at Brexit, only a thousand times worse.

Smith, I suspect, wants the appearance of fighting for Albertan Sovereignty, but not the reality.

No. I have zero interest in your apologies. Not you, not any American whose first instinct is to tell us how sorry they are. I’m sure you’re all wonderful people, but we’re well past the point where that matters.

I never, ever, want to hear the word “Sorry” from any of your lips while I’m living with the reality that people I love might die to American bombs and bullets. I am not obligated to assuage your fucking conscience by dignifying your apologies while you all sit around hanging your heads in worthless shame.

We do not want or need your apologies. We want your rage. Get angry. Get out in the streets. Fucking do something.

And when Trump is gone and every last fascist has been hunted down and your government is run like an actual democracy, and your voters have learned how to value and respect friendships with countries outside of your own… Then you can come to us and say sorry.

Speaking as a Canadian… Yes, we know.

You guys had the most trustworthy, most reliable ally ever. The faith and trust between Canada and the US was legendary.

That’s gone now. It’ll be a century or more before you can ever rebuild that trust.

And you threw it away for this drooling moron to play tinpot dictator.

Was it worth it?

Oh, for sure, it’s absolutely possible that Trump does not understand the need for refinement infrastructure, or simply believes that its a simple problem that will solve itself. Given his approach to trying to rehome US manufacturing its clear that he has basically no understanding of industry realities.

I want to note on the “mineral deal” thing that access to rare earth minerals has nothing to do with China’s ability to constrain their supply to the US, because getting rare earth minerals is actually relatively easy. They’re found all over the Earth, although some areas do have better naturally occurring concentrations than others. Mostly, though, it’s just a matter of finding a nice large swathe of land that you can easily strip-mine.

The problem is refining them. Digging up a bunch of soil and rock is easy, getting the trace amounts of rare (hence why they’re called that) earth minerals out of the soil and rock is really hard. While it’s true that China does dominate in rare earth extraction, it really wouldn’t be all that hard for other countries to catch up to them on that score if they wanted to. But the reason China controls the worlds rare earth supply is because they also dominate in refining, which is extremely difficult, technically complex, and not easy to replicate due to the highly specialised nature of rare earth refineries.

Trump can get access to all the unprocessed rare earth minerals he likes, but it won’t solve his current problems. First off, even if Ukraine were at peace tomorrow it would take most of a decade to prospect those mineral deposits and begin extracting them at scale. But even then, it doesn’t solve the refining problem. You’d just be selling the raw deposits to China so that they can refine them and sell the refined product back to you at a huge profit.

“The main thing is that they [the Americans] don’t interfere in our affairs and don’t tell us how to live,” said a senior Russian official familiar with the Kremlin’s negotiating logic. “That they don’t hinder us in doing what we are doing.”

That being invading and subjugating weaker neighbours.

For the Chinese, this is an incredibly sensible way to respond, no question.

As a Canadian, I’m worried. This is only going to strengthen Trump’s case for giving the US direct access rate earth minerals through one sided deals in Ukraine, and by coercing or dominating Canada.

Granted, I assumed yearly, because this is apparently supposed to replace a yearly benefit that Greenland receives from Denmark.

Even if it is only one time, that’s still a lot of money that Trump seems to want to throw at something completely frivolous, rather than making a difference to the lives of Americans. Can’t see how that feels good for anyone who is struggling with the price of eggs.

For anyone who voted for Trump because your cost of living is too high… How y’all feeling about this?

Trump wants to give everyone in Greenland $10k. Where’s your $10k? What the actual fuck has this guy done to help you out so far?

How is it that DOGE has to force your grandma to walk to an office for her social security because a phone line was too expensive, but Trump has money to throw $600m a year at this?

Interesting theory. Total absence of proof.

Does the theory fit the available facts? Yes.

Do the available facts prove the theory? Absolutely not.

I’ve heard a few different theories about big plays that might be the intent here, and they all fall down on that same basic problem; The US, doesn’t have the reliability or the leverage to make it work. That’s not saying that the theories are bad - they’re all plausible enough - just that no matter what the White House thinks their play is here, it won’t work because no one has enough incentive to play nice with them. The US no longer has the economic dominance needed to force these kinds of changes, and they’re too unreliable a partner for anyone to willingly enter a a long term arrangement with them.

But then I suppose none of this is surprising when you look at Trump’s business dealings. He’s never understood any way of operating other than being an unreliable partner and screwing everyone around you, and it’s why his businesses all failed. He’s never understood the value in being a reliable partner.

Ironically, this would largely achieve Trump’s goal of lowering America’s trade deficits. A big reason why America runs such deep deficits is because the strength of the dollar makes it less attractive to buy from the US, but the dollar never weakens because it’s the global reserve.

Of course, when OPEC discussed moving away from the dollar Trump lost his shit, so it’s not like this is his actual plan. There’s no 5D chess here, they’re all idiots. Nor would intentionally devaluing the dollar to increase US exports be a smart idea, but it is something that has been seriously proposed by one of Trump’s economic advisors.

They’re also just good business sense.

Diversity, equity and inclusion are about making sure that you have a wide variety of perspectives represented within your company.

Here’s a really dumb anecdote that illustrates the point; Flaming Hot Cheetos were invented by a Latino janitor. He came up with the recipe, pitched it to higher ups, and through some serious persistence managed to get them to give it a shot. It’s sold as one of those feel good stories about coming up from nothing or whatever, but the real takeaway is that it took a god damn janitor with the dogged persistence of a god to make that idea happen, because there was no one in the rooms where the decisions happened who was able to say “Hey, maybe we’d capture the Latino market better if we made flavours that appealed to them?” A more diverse company would already have been having these kinds of ideas. How much brilliance is being lost because of bad hiring practices?

Diversity makes your business more effective. A diverse workplace can attract and keep the best talent. A diverse workplace can serve the broadest range of customers, and penetrate deeper into every market it targets. A diverse workplace can build a more healthy environment for all its employees, creating better productivity. These are all good things if you are a company that likes making money.

For those who don’t know, Canada has two types of “Sorry”.

The first is “I’m sorry for what I did.”

And the second is “I’m sorry for what I’m about to do.”

That’s the one that usually ends up adding new entries to the Geneva Conventions.

You’d be right in theory - the cost of logistics should scale with weight or volume, not price - but we’ve already seen from the price shocks over the last few years that in reality corporations will always take the opportunity to price gouge on any upstream change, even when it has no impact on their costs.

But even putting aside the fact that capitalism will take it’s cut, you’re citing the potential impact of 700% price increases, but I’m not ruling out the possibility of 7,000% increases or higher. With the potential scale of impact that we could see from climate change, and how it affects delicate ecosystems like those in which coffee grows well, that’s not outside the realm of possibility.

Others have given the detailed answer, but the really simple one is this; “How many jungle plants grow well in deserts?” If it was simply a matter of “hot = good”, surely the answer would be “all of them.”

There are specific conditions that every plant requires to grow well. Some plants are more tolerant of disruption to those conditions, some less so. Climate change affects all of those conditions. Increased global temperatures can make some places hotter, some places colder, some places wetter, some places dryer, and have all sorts of other knock on effects too.

I’m not even asking them to be our allies. I don’t need them to give a single flying fuck about us. We’ll take care of ourselves if we have to. I just need them to fix their God damn country before its too late, because that’s the one problem only they can solve.

Coffee is quite sensitive to environmental factors and only grows in certain specific regions as a result. Those factors are being upended by climate change. Coffee is going to very rapidly become a luxury product.

Billionaires don’t care. Twenty dollars or two dollars for a cup is effectively the same price to them; insignificant. It’s the rest of us that get fucked.