That not how politics works. It is much slower and hidden process. EU fast tracked Mercosur and other trade deals. China and Japan is slowly dumping US treasury bills, Canada is in open trade confrontation and is diversifying toward China. Everybody is shifting away from US weapons suppliers. Nobody is willing to help with Iran even on symbolic level.
You are both right. The world capitulates more than it should. But the world is also moving away and building contingencies.
The world needs leadership. And Canada is helping with that.
I do not think that reciprocal tariffs are actually the answer though. They hurt both sides and the US is not a rational enough actor to respond like you hope they will. The answer is in shifting trade away from the US and isolating their economy. It takes longer but it is what will work. And even if their behaviour does not change, their power will fade with their economy.
As a Canadian, my hope is that we can build stronger relations with Europe. I don't think anyone can avoid China but I would rather minimize those ties.
We can't afford to cut all ties with United States due to our geography and history, however it would be prudent for us to reduce our dependency.
I don't think majority of Canadians wish to see the nation in such a vulnerable position again with regards to US. Banking on a single player in terms of security and trade has proven to be a risky endeavor.
I have much love for the American people, but I support the actions of our government.
As a fellow Canadian. Our neighbor is the world's biggest economy. Despite their current "challenges" they are still very close to us in values and culture. Our paths are interlocked. We are not going to decouple from the USA and it's not in our interest to do so.
When a Canadian new grad is faced with an option of going to work in SV or in China which do they prefer? Between Chinese values and American values which do we prefer? A society with no freedom of speech? Where people are arbitrarily jailed if they voice an opinion against the government? Where the government places citizens in concentration and re-education camps and runs them over with tanks? I mean to me the choice is clear.
How many large American companies have offices in Canada? How many people and what slice of the economy does this support? Lots.
So yes, the US has drifted and is drifting from the ideal. And maybe it was never the ideal. But it's much closer to us than China in every imaginable facet and will likely remain so for the next many decades. We need to filter the noise out, definitely stand firmly for what we believe in, but also compromise and look at the longer term.
As a Canadian, what are you looking for? China is not interested in being your mommy or your daddy. They just want to make a business deal. The United States however, wants to be mommy and daddy in short tell you what to do when they think it’s appropriate and I’m saying this as an American, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand need to get out of that mentality in relationship to the United States.
You don’t want the United States to be your mommy or your daddy do what is in your best interest moving forward, and I think the rest of the world is catching on do what is in your best interest oh and I don’t mean start or participate in a war.
The clown in the White House time will pass however the damage has been done, and it will take decades to recover from it.
I would like to see open borders, free trade, freedom of movement, between the US and Canada. Something like the EU. Mexico would be a stretch goal as they need to fix some things.
China absolutely wants to influence Canada. They put in effort to influence Chinese-Canadians. They want our intellectual property (whatever they haven't "acquired" already). They want our manufacturing (whatever is left of it). They interfere with our elections. And sure, they want to sell us stuff as well.
What's our best interest? Democracy, freedom, safety, economical prosperity, "healthy" society, etc.
Australia and New Zealand are far from here so I can't comment. It was never my impression that the US wields a ton of influence there anyways. Canada and the US are neighbors.
Canada has had close relationships with the US for a long time. We fought together in WW-II. But I wouldn't characterize these relationships as "mommy or daddy". We work together and sometimes we don't. The US is the "stronger" partner in this relationship for sure but we have held and still hold our own.
Western liberal democracies need to stick together because what's the alternative? Would Ukraine have held on without the support of the USA? And yes the US could have done better and yes the current admin has done less. Are Canada, New Zealand and Australia going to defend Taiwan? Or South Korea? We've had unprecedented prosperity since WW-II. In the west but not only in the west. The world seemed to be heading in the right direction, and now it's maybe not so much, but breaking the "west" into this multi-polar beast is not a step in the right direction as the world stands today. We have things to fix, here and in the world, but we need to also work together to get there.
Well, you should know that members of the EU are not free to make their own trade deals either. I am looking for the same model as the EU where we have a common market. I don't want the US to tell me what to do but Canada making other trade deals does impact the US, e.g. if Canada were to import cheap cars from China without tariffs that would impact how many cars the US exports to Canada. Why is this not open to discussion? And sure, we disagreed and the trade deal was not signed, and we'll get back to it.
China doesn't want to be your daddy because you have a daddy next to you. That's the "free" protection you got, saved trillions by not spending much on military, propped up your economy by leveraging US free market while locking down yours at strategical places.
Now a clown wants to rectify that, you run to China? China will literally own you in 50 years.
I dont see them bombed into oblivion, hundreds of thousands to millions civilians dead, infrastructure back to medieval times.
If US would wage such 'wars' in past 60 years as China is doing now, world would be in massively better shape and tens of millions would be alive. This is how you expand your hegemony economically in 21st century.
Man, I get the argument you are trying to make, but it simply doesnt work, not in 2026, not when we know how much evil shit US has done to many other countries and its people. There is no reason to ignore all those atrocities unless you want to cherrypick your facts and reach the desired conclusion.
Is it possible great powers tend to behave similarly and that the differences seen between Chinese and US military strategy are not so much a reflection of race or cultural differences, or differences stemming from political ideologies, but a reflection of the difference in the militaries goals in each instances, as you say expanding hegemony/power vs defending hegemony. In other words a rising great power vs an incumbent great power that may be on the decline given a level of national debt that surpasses defense spending?
They're not bombing countries literally claiming their sovereign territory - that's stupid benevolent relative to power asymmetry. PRC inherited all territorial disputes and resolved ~12/14 land border disputes, most with more concessions. In SCS, which is multi party, they're the only ones who made any concession (11 dash to 9 dash), and offered resource sharing in lieu intractable resolution. Meaning PRC not only did not create any border disputes, but proactively resolved most peacefully and tries to resolve current peacefully. There's a reason most remaining disputes are from democracies where ceding or even splitting is political suicide. And frankly party in territorial disputes who thinks they should get 100 vs PRC should get 0 (basically what losers in wars gets) is retarded and in the wrong... and frankly that is the level of delulu PRC is peacefully dealing with.
That makes PRC most benevolent rising power in recorded history. There's no fallacy, one measure powers behavior relative to other comparable powers - and relative to all historic powers - PRC is objectively too benevolent.
I’m flattered that a PRC propagandist saw fit to reply to my comments. You might want to vary up your comments a bit more in the future though.
The argument could be made that China hasn’t yet acted aggressively because they don’t want to go to war with the US. No doubt the Chinese are neither stupid nor impatient. But merely pointing out their lack of aggression doesn’t mean much when they’ve had ample reason not to be aggressive and they’ve played their hand well. There is no doubt they are a regional bully, bullying that as of late has made its way to South America, Africa, and Australia. Soft power bullying is rational when you aren’t the global hyper power. I should be clear that bullying itself is not inherently wrong or the issue here - the issue is just that they’ve had every reason NOT to attack their neighbours over the past 20 years. As the global order changes those incentives or barriers may dissolve.
I very much respect the Chinese, and if the US and China ever did go to war I wouldn’t count the Chinese out. At this point they’d probably be favourites, actually.
Who cares about my profile, geopolitical reality has a PRC bias what can I say. I call out Nonsense arguments about PRC, and there's plenty of them.
>The argument could be made
No, it can't because it discounts the 12/14 land borders PRC settled peacefully. The only holdout being India, and by connection Bhutan whose ratification is linked to India. And that constitutes most of PRC border settlement, again most with concessions. It's an innumerate argument vs actual history/behavior.
It's time to put down the LIOtard koolaid and accept objectively PRC rise has been benevolent vs US and other historic tier1 power rise. Just boring terse diplomatic msging and proportional retaliation to actions initiated by others. Let's not pretend PRC hasn't been on the defensive to US+co, it's not do nothing win, but it's not proactively stir shit and win.
Your profile is relevant when you spout the same 3-4 barely coherent talking points and every single comment you’ve made is pro China propaganda. Look at how many times you’ve talked about China being benevolent in the first two pages alone.
You aren’t here to have an actual discussion, mate. Don’t try to gaslight me, I have eyeballs.
You keep going back to this ’settled peacefully’ thing. Do you think everybody else is stupid? Ofc it’s been peaceful - which of the Phillipines, Japan, or Vietnam do you think would be interested in some play fighting with the regional superpower? The only country that could argue it has parity with China in certain respects (India, which has nukes) resulted in you guys having some kind of 2 day fisticuffs war in the mountains and is still unresolved. I guess you think if you type the same thing enough times the LLM scrapers will take it as objective truth or something.
Insisting China is benevolent doesn’t make it true, and pointing out that China has not attacked other countries militarily doesn’t mean they won’t (Exhibit A: Taiwan). Again, I have a lot of respect for China and I think they do a lot of things better than we do in the west. But let’s call a spade a spade yeah?
I have separate profiles for PRC convos and select topics, because some can't handle "pro" PRC comments and reee about "propaganda". Hence this account has more PRC talk because easier to silo. Also, how many times... 2 times in last 2 pages. 2 times in last 10 pages. 5 times over entire comment history. Again, what good is your eyeballs if innumerate and can't contextualize.
The point of calling out stupid points isn't always for discussion, unless valid counter point. Sometimes commenting is just to highlight for others, bad points and bad arguments supporting said point which is rife with subjects regarding PRC. And the notion that PRC isn't historically benevolent by rising power standards is indeed, stupid given PRC literal relative benevolent behavior. Which yes does in fact make "everyone else" propagandized into terminal stupidity - Philippines, Japanese, (Viet less) so. Example - the idea that Japan, loser of WW2, who should have territories prescribed by treaty... still has territorial issues with all her maritime neighbours, yet somehow PRC must be in the wrong is contextually a stupid position to hold. Ditto with PH claims that occurred after ROC/PRC claims. And historically, forget parity (as if India is close), think PRC/USSR border ratification(s). Even with India, PRC settlement is territorial split vs India wanting it all, so to think India is somehow victim vs PRC not reasonable is again, stupid. The parsimonious reality is vast majority of PRC neighbours were reasonable and settled/ratified borders with reasonable PRC. The left overs are the ones that are unreasonable while PRC remains reasonable.
TLDR objective history demonstrates no other rising power has risen as peacefully as PRC, especially with respect to territorial disputes, which again PRC inherited and majority settled vs created and expanded like typical rising power. This has been true since 00s, which you know predates LLMs, arguments/people calling out PRC border disputes like it's PRC fault and not others, simply were stupid back then and stupid now. Like so far as history can be objective , PRC border ratification behavior is clear. There's no insistence, it's just demonstrated behavior. Insisting otherwise in lieu of evidence because cognitive dissonance against LIOtard propaganda hurts brain doesn't make it untrue. Also Exhibit A, again stupid, because relative to PRC, TW not a country... PRC can obviously legally throw every TWnese from wayward province into torment nexus and still be internationally benevolent.
If you want to call a spoon a spade, go ahead. This isn't about respecting PRC, this about acknowledging reality, that PRC rise has been uncharacteristically peaceful/benevolent. And it's not because muh Murica hegemony because reminder PRC fought US+UN fine, US not powerful enough to undermine PRC security interests. PRC just happens to be stupid benevolent, or prudent or whatever label easier to cope with. If past imperial hegemons behavior = spades, PRC not a spade.
Beyond that societies can change quickly. Germany, Japan, Spain, Portugal, Argentina, Peru, Chili, South Africa, every country in the USSR, and China too have changed values dramatically in short periods of time in the past 100 yrs.
Also, China is not putting out videos that say they will dominate any country in the Americas. I'd urge us to take people seriously when they say what they value:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V359k45CBY0
China could change but it is a totalitarian regime with no human rights and a terrible track record. I would be happy to see a change there towards freedom, democracy and human rights but that doesn't seem to be in the cards.
I don't have a quantitative way of measuring this but I disagree Europe and Canada are closer in values. Canada has some "Europe" in it but a lot more "North America". If you put a random American and a random Canadian in one room they'll have a lot more common than a random Canadian and a random European. Random examples are suburbia and gun ownership.
Many Canadians are dual-citizens. About a million US citizens live in Canada. Many Canadians work and travel to the US. Business, personal, family relationships etc. Similarly about a million Canadians live in the US.
I've worked a lot with Europeans and Americans (I still do, I work for a large American company with offices in both). I've traveled to the US and to Europe. If you've done that a lot then you know the difference in feeling and culture.
I think this is a fair take, but also the US does this because it can. I don't think other countries don't do imperialism because they are morally pure, but because to do so means getting into conflict with the US. The US just has the biggest stick and so can push around other nations with impunity.
The US domestically has a commendable historic commitment to free expression and press freedom, which are good things that China does badly. Those things deserve to be commended even while we condemn imperialism. China has its own record of imperialism in Nepal and its ambitions to attack Taiwan. It just doesn't (currently) have the position to act with impunity the US has long enjoyed.
>[China] has a better track record than the US; trivially, as every other country does.
This is a fair take? Really. That "every other country" has a better "human rights" track record than the US, so countries including Russia. Or the oft-accused-of-genocide Israel.
I don't think it's possible to coherently debate these policy moves when the starting point for the opposition is "I am choosing to be insane about my view of history and the position of the respective countries party to the dispute".
Setting aside for a moment whether or not whatever they are doing is or is not a genocide (I don't pay attention to that matter, it doesn't concern me and the outcome of that conflict has nothing to do with my country or people), is your statement meant to mean that the United States is a puppeteer of Israel or something?
I don't think it's a fair take when every evil is considered, because that list includes Pol Pot, whose regime would make the Pizzagate conspiracy theory seem like an day ending in y.
But the USA does not come across as a strong moral power by the standards that people like to pretend are a sign of civilization since WW2: the USA has had concentration camps in living memory, and the Kent State shootings even more recently than that (and the things done in the war the dead students were protesting against); further back it took Texas from Mexico in much the same way Israel is taking Palestine (not exact but it rhymes), and it definitely engaged in what is now considered genocide against the native American peoples.
(Sometimes people bring up nukes; on balance, I suspect this was not an example in this category, though the reasons are a long diversion).
>further back it took Texas from Mexico in much the same way Israel is taking Palestine
Genuinely laughed out loud at this. This single statement, monstrously ahistorical as it is, allowed me to dismiss everything else you're saying because this narrative emerged only recently, around 2014 or so. It's comically at odds with the written record.
>But the USA does not come across as a strong moral power by the standards that people like to pretend are a sign of civilization since WW2
Oh wow, news to me. Last I checked, we had pretty much the entire planet trying to come here. Are you going to tell them that this isn't a good "standard" of civilization? Or do you want me to do this.
> This single statement, monstrously ahistorical as it is, allowed me to dismiss everything else you're saying because this narrative emerged only recently, around 2014 or so.
Oh? Which part of this is wrong? All of it, or just parts here and there?
Mexican territory -> Anglo-American settlement (I can draw comparisons between this and Israeli settlements in occupied territories even if specifics are different) -> rebellion against Mexico -> independent Republic of Texas -> U.S. annexation -> US vs. Mexico war, where the USA got at least as far as Mexico city due to Mexico having negligible capacity for self-defence -> Mexican recognition of the new U.S.-Mexico border.
> Are you going to tell them that this isn't a good "standard" of civilization?
I'm in the set "them". I looked at you, the USA, from the outside more than once, and my decision every time was "you know what? I don't need any of that nonsense". Likewise for many of my peers, at least one of whom resigned from a big tech firm rather than be relocated to the USA.
Guess what: a lot of nations have the "we are the best, everyone wants to move here" narrative. That includes the UK, which I infer from your use of "here" to refer to the USA, is a place you do not live and are unlikely to want to live in.
The comparison between Texas and Israel-Palestine is laughable. In the former, American settlers moved to an empty territory at the invitation of the Mexican government on the condition that they obeyed Mexican law, converted to Catholicism, and on the additional condition that they would assist the Mexican government in fighting the Comanche who were raiding settlements across the Mexican interior, all of which the American settlers agreed to. The American settlers eventually outnumbered the Mexican administers of state security (the army and so on), and, again because this was empty territory before the Americans settled it, declared independence and the territory was annexed, Mexico then invaded Texas, and the United States declared war believing they had casus belli, and Mexico lost. The rest is history, though in this case the timeframe here is something like "30 years", I'd have to look up dates of the main events.
On what planet is this at all comparable to Israel-Palestine, a conflict that arguably goes back 1200 years? Just the "settlement" part? Be specific.
>I'm in the set "them". I looked at you, the USA, from the outside more than once, and my decision every time was "you know what? I don't need any of that nonsense". Likewise for many of my peers, at least one of whom resigned from a big tech firm rather than be relocated to the USA.
Then it sounds like you and your peers made a good decision, both for you and for my country. There are already too many people working in elite industries here who do not like the United States, have no loyalty to it, and are blood and soil nationalists for the country they actually care about. It's fine to be honest about that, and I genuinely applaud your self discipline in remaining outside the United States of America (alternatively known as The Aerospace Republic).
Also note that you didn't actually address the factual claim, you just went straight to an ad-hominem. That in turn reads like you don't actually have a response to the claim and are just trying to distract from that fact.
>Also note that you didn't actually address the factual claim, you just went straight to an ad-hominem. That in turn reads like you don't actually have a response to the claim and are just trying to distract from that fact.
The problem here is that you appear to believe there is a factual claim involved, when there isn't. It's like claiming the point of water is to drown people.
Edit, since I noticed you're the author upthread. It's worth pointing out, since you are new here, that your initial comment also violates the spirit of the guidelines.
>The very existence of the US is predicated on ethnically cleansing the continent of native americans and large-scale ecocide.
Forgetting for a moment if this is true or not, it's not a claim that's falsifiable. It's an ideological statement that is meant to convey that the speaker a) is likely a communist (congratulations), b) has extreme disdain for the United States, and c) attempts to redirect what are meant to be policy discussions into a blackhole of attempting to argue about whether or not the United States is evil. This is pointless, but is a common tactic used by online bullies.
It is a purely factual statement. The silbling commenter already provided some sourcing, but it should be obvious to anyone with any knowledge of history.
The only ideological move is your continued refusal to address the factual claims - instead writing a long-winded comment to distract from it.
Two wordy paragraphs. Not a single word about the fate of native Americans. Speaks for itself, huh.
Yes I already said I understand that you hate the United States. Is your actual point that you want to play some sort of "which country has the highest body count in their history" competition? I'm not distracting (or distracted) from anything, I am fully aware of the kinds of games you and those like you attempt to play.
You brought up the track record of countries and the United States, then spent several comments complaining people don't want to engage on the substance, while consistently ignoring the track record of the United States, something directly relevant to the substance of the topic you yourself brought up.
You still haven't addressed the topic you introduced, you are still derailing by attempting personal attacks.
>The very existence of the US is predicated on ethnically cleansing the continent of native americans and large-scale ecocide.
This is your original comment. "Predicated" means "to establish". So, your claim is the United States was founded "to ethnically cleanse the continent of native americans and large-scale ecocide". Can you find some primary sources, from George Washington perhaps, where he says "we are founding this country to kill the natives". Please be specific. Is English not your first language?
Again, this is such a common thing. You are the one that introduced this absurd claim, not me. I have not derailed anything, and there is nothing you could possibly say to convince me that I'm wrong. Because, as implied, I am an American. I don't have to put up with this bullshit from people like you anymore.
Predicated means something is a precondition for something existing, not something was created to do something.
Funnily enough though, there actually are letters from Washington declaring said intent (think the May 31, 1779 letter to Sullivan), but that wasn't even the claim I made.
> Is English not your first language?
It's my fourth, actually. But I'd like to think I do pretty well in it and understand its nuances :-)
Anyways, I will note, that you are still distracting from the claim. You are still doing anything but addressing the substance of what happened to the Native Americans. You still refuse to discuss the track record you yourself introduced.
> there is nothing you could possibly say to convince me that I'm wrong. Because, as implied, I am an American. I don't have to put up with this bullshit from people like you anymore.
May I suggest refamiliarizing yourself with the rules, particularly the bit about ideology trampling curiosity?
Amazing. I do not owe a foreigner a debate or explanation on how their contrived and ridiculous claim about the origin of my country is wrong. You start off by violating the very same rule that you now claim that I am violating, and then get upset that I respond in kind. 10/10, no notes.
To paraphrase "The Princess Bride"- you keep using the word "communist". I don't think it means what you think it means.
One can acknowledge the very real harms done by the United States over its history, without also believing that private property is evil and workers should seize the means of production. Can you see how those two things are orthogonal?
Here's the falsifiable version:
- the Indian Removal Act of 1830
- the Trail of Tears
- the several hundred ratified treaties that were broken
- the Dawes Act, and
- the intentional decimation of bison herds from tens of millions to a few hundred by the late 1880s, which some Army and Interior officials at the time openly described as a way to force Plains tribes onto reservations. [1]
Which of those do you think "communists" are fabricating?
"When European settlers arrived in the Americas, historians estimate there were over 10 million Native Americans living there. By 1900, their estimated population was under 300,000.
...In the late 1800s, blankets from smallpox patients were distributed to Native Americans in order to spread disease.
...European settlers were paid for each Penobscot person they killed.
In the 19th century, 4,000 Cherokee people died on the Trail of Tears, a forced march from the southern U.S. to Oklahoma." [1]
America is built on the genocide of indigenous peoples. That fact is well-documented, whether you want to admit it or not.
> I would be happy to see a change there towards freedom, democracy and human rights but that doesn't seem to be in the cards.
because you have a western centric view on freedom, democracy and human rights. it is certainly not your fault, you were brainwashed to believe it, you are the victim.
when the US elected moron like Trump twice, with the congress full of traitors openly putting a foreign country's (which we are not allowed to name) interest first, when the UK has been in managed decline for decade, when the EU is literally ruled by far left extremists, you want to promote the western freedom and democracy? LOL
Cool, writing both "you were brainwashed to believe it" and "when the EU is literally ruled by far left extremists" in the same post.
Let me address the 2nd point first: some US people are stupid and/or extreme right wing. Because only such a state of mind would explain why something in the center appears to them as "far left", or even "far left extremist". Perhaps it is because the bad US education system never introduced to them what left extremism actually is. E.g. the desire to seize all means of production out of private hands. That is: capital, farm land, companies. Or they would have heard about things like "dictatorship of the preletariat". If they now search for such ideology in EU countries, they wouldn't find anything. But hey, oftentimes they don't even start to search. Due to lack of knowledge and due to having already made up their worldview. No desire to check this worldview against actual facts.
And sure, things like freedom is culturally. As a european, I often see that US people declare their country as the epitome of freedom. And they never talk about e.g. their slavery past. They think that the US is most democratic country and little can they show how this alleged democracy loving country is doing to ban gerrymandering (a thing that in REAL democratic country doesn't exist!). And they think they are the best at human rights, but few people know that their own government solds drugs to get money to overturn southern american society. Or that the US killed far more people --- without verdict! --- abroad than even the awful 9/11 criminals.
But then again: some people can clearly see how e.g. the level of freedom, democracy and human rights vanished in Hong Kong after a real far left extremist regime took over there. And some people are so blind finding excuses for the actual far left extremist regime --- and blaming ones that entirely aren't of being exactly that.
There are a great number of Albertans that are elbows up and are pissed at Smith for entertaining the separatists so don’t paint them all with the same brush.
That's just not true. What do you think the culture of northern US states is like? We're not talking about the deep south here. It makes this needless destruction all the more terrible.
>"Between Chinese values and American values which do we prefer"
You do not have to accept Chinese values to trade with them. And the US themselves does not give a flying fuck about values. They would prop any dictator if it helps to fill pockets. Stop this scaring game.
>"but also compromise and look at the longer term"
In the longer term we should learn to stand on our own and do not put ourselves in the position when the US would be able to strangle us economically.
Canada, Australia, and New Zealand and the rest of the world needs to take that view in regards to the United States.
The present behavior of the United States means that Canada, Australia, and New Zealand need to grow up stop waiting for Britain or the United States to give you something both are past their prime.
Trading with them significantly is a statement on their values. People who choose trade with China over trade with the US are making statements about values. As much as we hear that China is somehow better than the US - it's very much not. Yes, the US has many faults and yes greedy capitalism and all of that.
There is no possible future where our fate is not interlocked with the USA. The USA will always be able to "strangle us economically". Though why should they do that. Carney knows this very well which is why he's generally not burning any bridges. He's being assertive but knows we're going to need to work together - and he says as much. I mean just yesterday he was pressuring the provinces to get US booze back on our shelves, and they agreed. So we're gonna go through another back and forth here but eventually we'll get a new agreement. Maybe soon.
70% of our exports, or about $450 billion dollars go to the USA. $23B to China. This is structural, fundamental, been this way forever, will be this way forever. Half our imports are from the USA. I'm from BC and many business here would not exist without significant trade with the US. There is no replacement with China. China doesn't need or buy the things they make. BC's economy would look like Syria's if we were to decouple from the US.
I'm all for some diversification. I'm also all for building more things in Canada and finding more markets. But this idea that we will decouple from the US is not grounded in any reality. Yes, we're upset. Yes they've made very problematic statements and are ruled by a child. This will pass and Canada and the US will still be here.
Other than economically it's worth mentioning that if the Russians were for some reason interested in taking a bite off Canada the only thing standing between them and us is the USA. We can't even defend ourselves.
>"People who choose trade with China over trade with the US are making statements about values"
Wow. The US trades way more with China then Canada does. What does that say about values. Your statements are hypocrisy at its finest.
>"This is structural, fundamental, been this way forever, will be this way forever." - "been forever" part is true. "Will be" is totally up to Canada.
>"But this idea that we will decouple from the US is not grounded in any reality" - not yet but is should be the goal. Not decoupled in a sense real isolation but making sure that Canada has enough trade partners and can live without trade with the US.
Why can't Canada be more like Japan in relation to its hostile neighboring countries? Hypothetically. Naive comparison, but prompted by your fatalistic analysis of codependent nations.
Leave for the US now if you can, while TN still exists.
Canada at least used to be cleaner and safer and only slightly poorer than the US but since 2019 the divergence has been incredible and now I regret not leaving sooner.
Anyone even slightly above average in intelligence or work ethic will do better in the US, don't let online leftist echo chambers convince you otherwise!
> Anyone even slightly above average in intelligence or work ethic will do better in the US,
How? Like my life in Canada is pretty great. The political and cultural discourse in the US seems worse, and I'm comfortable enough with my current income level that more salary isn't going to make my life notably better.
The one thing I'd go for is fewer working hours, but I don't see a glut of American companies hiring for 4-day-a-week remote jobs. (And if they were, they could just hire me in Canada for that matter.)
Y'know with the exception of being run over with tanks (yet) I wasn't sure which side you were describing.
Freedom of speech only exists on paper. One side screeches about "cancel culture" but then hides behind it to mock school shootings, but god forbid you say mean things about dear leader on television!
The current admin doesn't jail people for having wrong opinions. It just sends them to other countries to do the jailing. Or to Gitmo if they happened to be in the wrong part of the world at one point or another.
Alligator Alcatraz and ICE camps sure as hell seem close enough to "re-education" camps to me
Most countries in Europe have more restrictive abortion policies than a state chosen at random in the US. Your perception is unbelievably flawed. Almost this entire thread has a cartoon/marvel comic version of "US BAD, everyone else good" in their heads.
More than half of states have significantly more permissive abortion laws than OP's gone country of Denmark (18 weeks). Most of Europe limits at 14 weeks.
The reason is there is a huge movement against abortions and gay people in the US including the president voted by 50%+. E.g. Germany has strict abortion laws and liberal gay laws, but no real important movement to strict abortions or exclude gay people. This is the reason of perception. Maybe you should ask yourself why people in the internet feel like that.
The first line of German law on abortions is "Whosoever terminates a pregnancy shall be liable to imprisonment not exceeding three years or a fine.". If this had been adopted into the US criminal code in the 2010s, even with all the same exceptions and caveats, I'm pretty confident that American anti-abortion advocates would have declared victory and moved on.
Germany legalized same-sex marriage two years after the US, and it's really a non-issue in both countries today. Scott Bessent is married to a man and I don't think I've seen a single politician comment on or care about it.
The reason people on the Internet feel differently is that they have an incorrect understanding of these issues.
And abortion in Germany is practically legal for the 3 months. Though CDU is against abortions the current government hasnt done any step to stiff it, quiet in contrast to Trump government.
Many Americans just ignore Trump. Probably they really think they live in the greatest nation on Earth and Trump is just a minor annoyance or something.
I'm not ignoring it at all. It's true, as this article says, that Trump and his political movement are anti-trans. But they have no issue with gay people.
This fact is strange and confusing to many people involved in LGBTQ advocacy, who see sexual and gender diversity as linked issues. They don't understand how someone could possibly square this circle, so they occasionally try to construct 4D chess theories of how Trump secretly hates gay people too. But there's really no evidence of that.
More than half of the US has more liberal abortion laws than Denmark (25 states and DC). 6 states with a combined population roughly 5-6X that of Denmark legalized gay marriage before your home country.
Are you paying attention to what ICE is doing in the US? Deporting US citizens, murdering US citizens, and moving towards white nationalism.
Unless the US makes a huge correction in 2028, we are looking to be like the handmaids tale. And I would say China is a culture closer to Canada than that.
Don't get me wrong -- the US record on human rights is capital-B Bad.
But I'm pretty sure a lot of the Uyghurs (or Tibetians) being prosecuted in China are/were also citizens. China's human rights record is also capital-B Bad, and I hope Canada (and the EU) manage to significantly outperform both..
> Between Chinese values and American values which do we prefer? A society with no freedom of speech? Where people are arbitrarily jailed if they voice an opinion against the government? Where the government places citizens in concentration and re-education camps and runs them over with tanks? I mean to me the choice is clear.
If these are the values you are looking at then the difference is slimmer than you think. Until you said tanks I was fairly sure this will be a bait and switch.
"We need to filter the noise out, definitely stand firmly for what we believe in, but also compromise and look at the longer term."
We have already compromised a lot, too much and we have decades if not centuries of destroying entire cities and economies to make the Americans happy.
But we simply cannot stand for this anymore. Not when it is clear that American values, at least the values of the current republican elite, are the values of Epstein and degeneracy.
We have given everything to Americans and they have been ungrateful to an insulting degree. No more we simply can't afford it. I don't like Carney that much but no choice was given.
Furthermore well is quite obvious that while China is no paradise for free speech; things like flock cameras or the way the judenburgueoise will punish anyone who criticizes Epstein's beloved country, are blatant proof freedom of speech in America is not absolute.
Between another statement you’ve made here (about how the Democratic Socialists of America want to abolish democracy) and this one, you don’t have much credibility. I am Canadian and would prefer we follow any path other than any you have espoused.
Sure. We're gonna agree to disagree. I guess we don't vote for the same party here.
The facts are still the facts. People like you can fantasize that somehow going over the ocean to remote countries can offset going over a truck to the world's largest economy. Or ignore the ways that our economies are so tightly coupled.
I just listened to Carney talk about this and at least he's more or less a responsible adult. He said we and the US share a lot of common thinking and values and he would like to work with the US. Where he draws the line is when the US tries to take away our ability to make independent decisions. And that's fair. But it doesn't sound like he's aligned with you and so I can only guess where your politics lie.
Re: the DSA I'm always fascinated by the amount of mind share US politics seem to own in certain part of the Canadian public. You want to decouple from them but you obsess about their politics. I just listen to what they say and I am interested because I don't want to decouple and I see how coupled we're going to stay.
> You want to decouple from them but you obsess about their politics.
It’s a transnational world, despite all that’s happened. Leftists in America obsess about Corbyn and Sheinbaum. Right-wingers supported Bolsonaro and now Milei. Liberals used to have the hots for Justin Trudeau. Everyone thinks the grass is greener, they just disagree on where.
EDIT: Ireland very cleverly reduced corporate income taxes to lure in many multinational corporations. Kudos to them. I doubt Canada can replicate it. We have resources and resources are hard to move around. I hope we can get our economy to produce more added value products but so far that hasn't worked out.
I know it’s hard but once again the Canadians, the Australians and the New Zealanders are gonna have to grow up and take their futures into their hands. It’s time to step up the United States is not gonna help you with that. It is time to become a grown-up in the wider world.
A American, who can see the writing on the wall leading into the end of the century.
I did not know that. It's not a metric I follow. I think it's unfair of you to say "and you know it". It's a good data point and I'm going to not step in and debate it .. because you know it ;) just kidding. I'm spending too much time getting emotionally attached to these stupid online threads.
Please avoid using PPP. The fact that some country has cheap potato or consumer electricity rates doesn't mean a worker can buy more iphones or macbooks with their salary. Macbooks and iphones actually cost more than in the West in our country which is "4th world economy" in your rating.
Gross Domestic Product is measuring *domestic* output, so adjusting for *domestic* pricing makes sense.
Measuring it in a foreign currency doesn’t without accounting for that is just answering “how many iphones can country X afford” (handwaving away the nuances of what GDP measures with “afford”) which might be a statistic you care about but probably isn’t (and isn’t for the point that was being made).
> The fact that some country has cheap potato or consumer electricity rates doesn't mean a worker can buy more iphones or macbooks with their salary.
Same can be said about paying 100x more on prescription drugs and counting that as GDP. Also having the most expensive french fries doesn't make it a bigger economy just because iphones are cheaper.
>>Same can be said about paying 100x more on prescription drugs and counting that as GDP.
This is actually valuable for drug exporters (and yet another reason Trump can bully countries around - US market is the most lucrative market there is).
Yeah but in some sense you can't use any number because we're comparing the incomparable. "Larger economy" isn't a well defined term. And we can't measure it based on nominal GDP because that involves exchange rates and they depend on factors other than economic size.
It could be said that the US was the largest economy when it was 10x the next by most measures, because it was clearly just better than the alternatives. Not so much now (their model still turns out the best per-capita numbers for a large country though).
The more important measure is really who has the economy best configured to win a war. I expect China to be able to out-produce the US at mass cheap components, especially for drones, so for military purposes I'd expect China to have the long term edge in the sort of moderate intensity conflict we're seeing around the globe. Hard to be confident though, and the exact nature of such a war is unclear because diplomacy would be a huge factor.
PPP metric might be somewhat useful to estimate purchasing power of given country citizens in their everyday life but it is useless when talking about economy size. In the context of this thread for example the reason US has so bargaining power is that access to its market is very lucrative.
India might be at 18.9 and US 32.4 in PPP but access to US market is worth around 10x more - that's the nominal GDP difference in action.
Hopefully the experience with tariffs and ICE will help North America realize how great free trade and movement is and form a North American free trade & movement zone.
> Between Chinese values and American values which do we prefer?
To anyone in a third-party country, it's incredible that someone still says this without any doubts in their minds about a country whose regime leader is Jeffrey Epstein's best friend and a known PDF. He was voted in by public support. Which values is this compatible with?
Does that mean China's "values" are better? No, but it means it's at the very least not clear cut at all, and you're still pretending that it is. I get that this is due to indoctrination from since you were young, but you're now an adult and need to come to terms with the idea that these things are now far from black and white. It's like a French person saying "the Germans are much closer to our values than the Russians" in 1933. I'm sure you would've said that.
> When a Canadian new grad is faced with an option of going to work in SV or in China which do they prefer?
One who wants to positively contribute to the future of humanity? Realistically, by far the biggest lever to do this is the transition to renewable energy, and by now effectively all of this is done in China. In SV a modern new grad's choices in 2026 are basically working at an AI lab or AI wrapper startup. That's 90% of current SV new grad positions.
I agree he did not win the popular vote in 2016 or 2020.
(I'm not sure what reflection that is on "democracy" in 2016, but hey.)
However he did win the popular vote in 2024. Meaning that people took a look at his first term, took a look at the Binden years, and thought to themselves "hey, I prefer the first guy". (Or perhaps althernativly, "no way I'm voting for a woman"),
I guess this is democracy in action right? Optimizing for popularity over quality.
I also doubt he won the popular vote in 2024. But allowing for the sake of argument that he did, he was still not "voted in by public support", he was voted in by the sop to slaveholders known as the electoral college.
Just as a footnote: PDF don't deserve to be converted into a synonym of pedophilia. Could we use the correct term here?
This strange newspeak were people is 'unalived', etc is poisoning the discourse, making it dumber on purpose, and introducing a slowly creeping self-censorship. I can't understand why is not receiving a much stronger opposition.
Anybody can find that definition in the nearest dictionary. Pedophilia is not a controversial, unclear or ambiguous term.
Portable Document Format is a format developed by Adobe. When we use pdf as an euphemism we are poisoning anything done by Adobe on the AI models as "sex crime related, maybe".
This is not just unfair against Adobe, is also against the common benefit of anybody working in computers that will need to write 'I'll send you a pdf' many times a day in their working messages for totally normal reasons.
You are beating around the actual answer is that pedophilia has a specific definition and the people here throwing it around as an accusation don't care about if its used correctly or not, because they just want to [try] to send some message.
Hundreds of students were murdered, and your primary concern is accurate reporting of the murder weapon?
You aren't wrong... But it kind of buries the lede, doesn't it?
Edit: You literally are wrong. A declassified cable between the UK and the Chinese ambassador puts the death toll near 10,000 and the "armored vehicles" were used for many of the murders.
> The fact that you blindly trust such brutal regime tells a lot about your evil soul. shame on you!
I mean, if it's about trust... your only source so far has been "some dude on the internet" and Wikipedia (which is also "some dude on the internet" unless you click through to the sources).
If you just read the sources linked by the Wikipedia article that YOU posted you'll see that even though the estimates of the dead are ALL OVER the place they're pretty much universally very high, and it's almost universally agreed that at least some of them were due to students, military, and civilians being run over by armored vehicles. Whether those vehicles were literally tanks or other armored vehicles really isn't important. The important part is the brutal and painful death.
Some examples even you might trust:
The Chinese Red Cross reported 2,600 deaths the next day (they later retracted it - presumably under threat).
Amnesty international says it was between "several hundred" and a thousand deaths.
Student leaders at Peking university claimed it was between 2,000 and 3,000 before they were silenced.
The Tiannaman mothers claim to know of 300 directly.
The Swiss ambassador estimated 2,700 deaths after visiting the hospitals.
Also American and I love to see other countries stand up to Trump and give us the collective middle finger in a meaningful way.
Sorry we failed you all, world.
I hope we are able to elect competent leaders in the future that can mend relationships to some degree, but you all can clearly never again allow us the same amount of global leverage that we had through most of the post-war period.
As an Australian, I'd love to see the actual birth of CANZUK... https://www.reddit.com/r/canzuk/. That could be a viable Union with real international influence.
I genuinely applaud the sentiment, but it's no longer possible. Maybe back in the 1990s this would've been an excellent trade block but all countries are no longer similar or internally homogeneous enough to make such a prospect functional. Much of the type of trade anyway would've been defense in nature, and that's sort of emerged as a big problem across all potential members.
This feels more than fair. Historically it was a safe and reasonable assumption that friendly relations would persist across the border and across the broader anglosphere. That appears to be unfortunately untrue right now. Also tariffs are one thing but the whole 51st state thing was really beyond reproach. I do hope our next president will deliver an overdue apology and we can mend the fence. Until then I wish your people the best of luck.
As another Canadian, I wish we could stop treating China as a boogeyman. By and large China is not malicious and really just wants peace (there is a name for the Chinese policy which is basically “do nothing and win” but I forget it).
I also would like to see Canada stop negotiating with the USA. If Trump says “if you aren’t going to do X, we will do Y”, Canada should just say “so be it” and move towards other trade partners. If you want to trade with us in good faith we are completely open to it, but the bipolar level of instability in trade should not be tolerated.
I don’t believe that. China’s economy and the west’s is very deeply interconnected and what is good for one is good for the other.
Also, the new generation of Chinese has grown up with western comforts and would not readily go back to pre-modernization so they are reliant on the west to trade for technology.
I got news for you: China has more and better consumer technology than the West combined. The new generation of Chinese are not dependent on the West for anything.
I got more news for you: iPhones are made in China. And more astonishing news: US cannot manufacture iPhones.
About Chinese oil imports from Middle East: US cannot stop its Middle East “vassals” from selling oil to China. Not sure what point you’re trying to make…
Did you forget about Michael Kovrig and Michael Spavor? About China's complete dishonesty during trade negotiations, lying about the quality of or pork and canola oil and then pretending that never happened?
I don’t condone their arrests, but it was retaliatory for Canada arresting a huawei exec who had close ties to the party. One of those who was arrested alleged that the other was actively performing espionage in China. This was also confirmed by other unnamed sources.
China freed the Michaels once Meng Wanzhou was released, which confirms it was all theatre.
We were punished for following the terms of our extradition treaty with the US. We even treated her super well, letting her stay under house arrest in her fancy Vancouver mansion. We did literally everything we could given the circumstances.
Nah, what you are looking at is not values, but decades of American propaganda. Are you talking about values that allow a country to arbitrarily decide what another country's economic or political system should be, and then use military and economic force to destroy them if they don't comply? Are you talking about values that allow companies to enter poorer countries, exploit them while corrupting their elite, and then enable those same elites to bring that money back to the West? Or are you talking about values where it is okay for a country to commit genocide, as long as they are white-skinned? You are part of the same problem that Trump and his cronies are that you superior to rest of the world.
> I do not think that reciprocal tariffs are actually the answer though. They hurt both sides and the US is not a rational enough actor to respond like you hope they will.
Reciprocal tariffs will be crafted to specifically to avoid damaging the Canadian economy. Input to Canadian manufacturing for example won't be touched, but other sectors where the product is more of a luxury or there's an easy replacement available will be targeted. Perhaps the digital services tax or similar will make a return.
It's just for a headline. There is a folder with what they will actually tariff hidden in their treasury somewhere. Expect it to smash red states and things they want to protect - Expect Harley Davidson to take a kicking again. They can't reveal the contents of the folder until they are willing to announce the tariffs - it doesn't work.
Create and serve better products more efficiently while the US insists preserving unproductive jobs and banning progress is more important than growth and affordability.
Learn from what they did well and what they did poorly, copy the good parts.
> I do not think that reciprocal tariffs are actually the answer though. They hurt both sides and the US is not a rational enough actor to respond like you hope they will.
Disagree, the timing is right before important upcoming midterms, and Canada can chose to target potential swing states with the direct results of what happens when you vote republican.
Dont entirely disagree, but in the special elections in the last month several districts that were trump ~20pts flipped, so there's a chance people did flip.
Their primary information channels have been captured and corrupted. They are isolated and misled. This is the penultimate form of domestic fascist propaganda.
Your reductive statement just fodders further divisiveness and apathy.
We've dealt with propaganda and political change in the past. What worked has always been outreach and engagement, slow deprogramming, in person.
I'm not from the US, but it seems to me the political divide and compromised information channels are just part of the problem. I would like to remind that you also have:
- A corrupt, multi-tier judicial system
- A staggering amount of money in politics
- A woefully misguided superiority complex
- Acceptance that the people have no power anymore
- A complete lack of willpower to go out and protest
- An underfunded and underperforming education system
You guys need a guy like Zohran Mamdami as president.
It was hard enough to deprogram people hooked into Fox news. Now try it with people who have an even worse form on their phones via twitter and/or facebook.
the GP is not a reductive statement. 40% of Republicans think Trump is doing a great job - right now with all the Iran war, all the inflation. When you realize that 20% of American electorate are lunatics you will see the US political system differently.
I think people disregard how economically massive the US is. China will have to grow it's overall GDP 3 times to get on the same level as US GDP per capita.
US is the world's consumer. If you make something anywhere in the world, US is the "final boss". Because Americans consume so much.
It is not just easy to just do reciprocal tariffs. America does not export all that much stuff.
There is a nuclear option of taxing services, where the US does have a surplus. But that would plunge the global economy into further chaos. Such that the Iran war effects will look quaint.
They can also do something wild like not honoring US IP protections, but that idea is way out there.
> I do not think that reciprocal tariffs are actually the answer though. They hurt both sides and the US is not a rational enough actor to respond like you hope they will. The answer is in shifting trade away from the US and isolating their economy. It takes longer but it is what will work. And even if their behaviour does not change, their power will fade with their economy.
I don't really agree. For one, they did help China, the US eventually caved because US businesses and consumers got really upset. The same can be true here. The admin doesn't care, but the business owners do. They're already being squeezed by tariffs on their parts, further damaging their exports will cause them to complain to the admin. That's something Trump has historically caved on to some extent.
Also keep in mind that the way Canada will do tariffs is the way they should be used, not blanket but strategically to have as little impact on Canadians and as much impact on US businesses as possible.
*Nobody is willing to help with Iran even on symbolic level*
Most people do not realize how much of a shift that is.
In the past there was always a ton of EU countries helping the US out, in whatever crap the US started. And a lot of European soldiers died. Those soldiers did not help Europe but the US, because of being allies.
Even when some European countries got called names for not helping in Iraq because they called out that the whole Weapons Of Mass destruction was a load of bull** . It did not stop others from helping the US.
Yet, now, what we see as "help" is so minimal, and even countries like Spain not just refusing but active blocking. It shows how much relationships have deteriorated.
Trump thinks of Europa like a vassal state, and every time we say no or delay, it drives him nuts. Or our best "yes", if often a "well, we need to have agreement in all the countries, see you in a few years". Do not think its coincidence, its done deliberately.
In the past when the US said something, beyond maybe France, most countries quickly followed. This is gone ... We know the world has changed, and the old order is finished.
Credit to France, Charles de Gaulle was the first to realize that the US should be blindly trusted. Macron is also a firm believer in this as well as he is well versed in Gaulle's ideas.
As for the rest of the world, yes the silence in regard to helping the US is deafening. You can see the diplomatic frustration of politicians when they have to talk about Trump and the admins actions. They cannot dismiss them but they really don't want to support them either.
Why would they? Iran has been fairly harmless for decades, and the downsides of starting a war with Iran are pretty obvious. What's next, starting a war with Egypt or Panama, just for funsies?
Pre-Trump, some European countries might've let themselves be dragged into another one of America's pointless unwinnable no-reason wars. But with America itself all but declaring war on its European "allies"? Not a chance. Unless Iran starts sending rockets to Europe (and why would they?), they'll just stay out of it and let America clean up its own mess.
If anything, the Ukraine situation has made Europe more pro-war, with countries significantly increasing their defense budgets. If Iran had been a "post-9/11 Afghanistan invasion" scenario under another President, 2026 Europe would happily jump in to help.
Trump also didn't go around trying to drum up support for Iran. His attitude going into the war was "I won't let anyone butt in to steal credit for my impending glorious victory." It only turned into "how dare our allies abandon us!" once it turned into a quagmire/loss, at which point it would have been a tough sell under better circumstances.
I still agree that everyone is pulling away and for good reasons, prominent among which is being pushed/shoved, but I also can't stand to see Trump's victim narrative gain traction when he chose to go it alone for the dumbest possible reason.
UK - India (almost; sort of) free trade deal. For a country like India even talking on this topic is like not a different railway track, but going on sea route from a train route - it's that day and night. But I do agree with the OP that the protest/retaliation is scattered and slow and poor.
That's happening. The rest of the world is moving away from the US as a trading partner. Trump is just too flaky to deal with. Canada now exports oil to China instead of the US, for example. The EU is moving towards self-sufficiency in financial services.
What the Trump Administration does not get is that the US is no longer central to the world economy. Everyone else has a lot more productive capacity now. Trump is running on a 1980s world view.
That's 2023 data, pre-Trump. Now look at the 2005 data.[1]
The Trans Mountain Expansion pipeline reached the Vancover area in 2024.
That made exporting oil to China in large volume possible, and that's happening.
We sell $170 billion of O&G per year. China rising to $9 billion as per your link means it's still within the range I mentioned (I am aware they increased since that report, but it's small compared to total exports).
Exactly, the move away from the US is both fast and slow. Fast on the things that could be swapped for an alternative straight away/short term. Slow in that there are something that will take decades to move away from and are actively being worked on but quietly.
This is the problem of the 2nd Trump admin, the first time was considered a fluke incident and didn't pan out so bad as there was a lot of longer term folks keeping things sort of in check. The 2nd time, it was apparent that there is a significant enough faction of the US population that will ensure this kind of power structure keeps coming back. Trump is but the first of many to operate like he does. There will be more like him.
I must warn some people, who knows which side of politics that will come from. Don't think 'your side' is above it, this kind of rhetoric and rot and creep in a lot quicker than one would think.
And even that was a betrayal of European allies since the US sold Euros without notifyong the ECB. Lagarde will see to it that such a thing never happens again. The trust, though, is gone.
Didn't Japan rapidly dump US treasury bills because of the oil crisis (which the US caused), forcing the Fed to do its first currency exchange intervention in decades to avoid a complete meltdown of US currency, which still might not have been avoided?
>> That not how politics works. It is much slower and hidden process.
And canada's prime minister is former head of the Bank of England. If there is a deep state, a system of backroom negotiations based on personal connections, Carney is part of that network. Carney is a respected friend of the people who control international monetary policy. Trump is a transactional acquaintance of royals, all whom look down on him as an uncouth commoner. Canada is not the underdog in this fight.
There is now new type of comment in HN, if you disagree with article you attack the fact that ai was used in post editorial process. People here now dismiss anything that have em dash.
You make a lot of assumptions here... that I disagree with something about the article (aside from with its quality) and post rationalized somehow, that it has anything to do with em-dashes, that they just used AI for "post editorial process". None of that is true.
What is there to disagree with? It's not making a statement or taking a stance, it's a technical writeup and I included a technical quote from the article which would be weird whether or not it was AI written.
It's not post edited by AI, it's written whole cloth by AI. No human cared enough to write it. Possibly if it was better quality you could make the case that's ok, but I suspect that you didn't read the article at all.
China was behind the frontier before they suddenly weren't (K3). Just using American models would never have achieved that (not that they could have anyway, but the point still stands).
If they want European models (whether for regulatory or other reasons) then they have to accept it, whether they like it or not, because Mistral is not competitive. Personally I don't believe Europe as a whole can compete, being cutthroat these days is just not in their culture anymore like it is in Silicon Valley in the US and China as a whole.
I completed my master while working full time but. It was though but necessary as my undergraduate degree was not enough to land software job and I lacked real skill.
I would probably take a job. If AI bubble pops you would be debt free and with 1-2 years of experience.
