Canada should not respond to potential U.S. tariffs with retaliatory tariffs, as this would primarily harm Canadian consumers by driving up prices. Instead, Canada should leverage its industrial and technological capabilities to undermine the monopolistic rent-seeking of American corporations by legalizing and promoting third-party modifications, repairs, and alternative marketplaces for technology, agriculture, and other industries. By dismantling restrictive intellectual property laws—many of which were imposed under the USMCA trade agreement—Canada could become a global hub for jailbreaks, independent app stores, and right-to-repair solutions, thereby reducing dependence on U.S. tech monopolies and fostering a new high-tech economy that directly benefits Canadian consumers and businesses.
I guess on the one hand, it wouldn’t make a material difference because the US can and would criminalize it and the American market for the product would be non existent…
But on the OTHER hand it would make very little impact in terms of dollars and cents…
But I guess on the OTHER hand it would trigger disproportional responses because Trump is heavily funded by tech bros…
I suppose on the other hand, though, we could pivot our tech sector creating a product that will need to be locally dismantled once a friendlier president gets elected…
But, on the other hand…
I’m all for FOSS, jailbreaking, owning what is yours, right to repair… Etc etc, but trying to frame this as an appropriate or meaningful response to terriffs is nonsense. It’s drawing a line between two things that aren’t connected. And nobody would give this proposal the time of day on its own merits, the only reason it’s even making the rounds on the socials is that Cory said it.