We Must Hang Together Against The Left

American Thinker 

As the Declaration of Independence was being debated, Ben Franklin stood, proclaiming, “We must indeed hang together, or most assuredly we shall all hang separately.”  

The founding fathers would fight an empire that wanted to kill them.  We face a similar problem today, but from within. Today, we face different issues.  But make no mistake: What Franklin said echoes down to us in a truth we must acknowledge. 

We encounter a growing civil divide that is moving from warm to hot, fighting not only a derelict left that embraces bad attitudes and ideas, but also many leftists who want to harm their opponents.  The left has headed over the edge, has been heading there for years, and leftists’ resolve and rage grow with each month.  They have become a group that embraces violence, up to and including the murder of those on the center-right whom they disagree with, and particularly those most effective in our movement. 

Their leaders have an audience, a large constituency, that has slowly become numb to the left’s violent speech and actions.  Virtually one third of the Democrat party members agree that it would be good if President Trump were assassinated.  These are not a few random people.  Yes, much of the rank and file may not say these things, or be murderous people, but the big problem is that they ignore the rhetoric and real violence.  They remain silent.

That is more than unsettling. 

When you factor in the rise of Hasan Piker as one of the left’s newly minted chief spokesmen, you know there is a flood of sympathy from most leftists to using violence as a major tactic.  He wants “capitalist blood in the streets.”  He leans into Islamic superiority.  He hates this country.  The silent majority of leftists agree. 

Heck, many on the left celebrated the first “Kirkaversity,” making fun of Charlie Kirk’s murder and those who loved him.  I saw no one on the left upset or even mildly challenging this kind of disgusting behavior.  In the world of high-stakes poker, you would call this a “tell.”  They have become numb to violence and ugly rhetoric.  They now expect it, swimming in a sea of complicity.  

All this to say, Houston, we have a problem.  The left appears to want harm inflicted on MAGA-supporters, all because we support the MAGA movement, Trump, and the new conservatism.  Not only is Trump derangement syndrome real, but the 24/7 news cycle supporting TDS was highly effective.  It has made a swath of our citizenry angry enough to kill, or at least condone killing those they disagree with.

On occasion, TDS is laughable, silly, and simply juvenile.  But behind this bizarre mindset, to have nothing but contempt for Trump and his movement, an evil mindset has grown and infused itself onto many of our countrymen.  Goaded on by our media types and outlets, they have manufactured a man they disagree with into “Hitler.”  And Hitler and his supporters deserve to be hanged.

This attempt to claim their opponents are Hitlerian didn’t begin when Trump descended the escalator to run, but it began a whole new dimension in what I call Hitlerization.  New heights of vitriol, condescension, and anger have manifested.  We are in an era where the original two minutes of hate became ten.  Then 24/7.  Zero to sixty in Trump’s first month of campaigning.  When he won the first time, the left went from having a deranged mindset to an obsession so consuming that Trump was the only thing they could think about.  

Democrats made up absurd narratives to derail his presidency.  Russiagate, for example — a sick, twisted narrative with zero facts that made zero sense — became a mass psychosis our country endured for almost two years, which many on the left still believe. 

The incredible part is how many other lies and how much inappropriate behavior the left propagated besides Russiagate.  This behavior became their M.O.  Thank God Trump didn’t buckle from all they did and tried to do to him.  That is one of the few miracles I’ve witnessed in my life. 

But here’s the problem: We’ve had over a decade of this paranoid, violent mass psychosis, aimed toward effective allies of the MAGA agenda and their supporters. 

This really means all of us.  In a sense, they really would like to see us all out of the way.  It’s sick.  It’s demonic.  And it’s true.  Most on the left really hate us. 

Frankly, I prefer not to be hanged.  I hope you feel the same.  And if you do, please don’t think what I’m saying is an exaggeration.  It’s not, and they won’t stop.  They don’t want to stop.  They believe they are entitled to be this way.  It’s their twisted version of Manifest Destiny. 

We need to defeat the Democrats, politically, one more time.  We on the right are at a huge inflection point.  We face a set of midterm elections that could derail us if we lose, particularly if we lose badly.  Unfortunately, we are facing them with serious divisions manifesting — divisions that need not and should not take our eye off the ball of defeating the new, crazy, violent left. 

Influential people who claimed the MAGA mantle have morphed far from what they once represented, and who we thought they were.  They have become destructive.  They are trying to create a schism.  There is a new and fashionable Jew-hatred on the left that has invaded many on the right.  There is a faction that feels betrayed by the Iran war.  And there are the summer soldiers on our side, who for one reason or another are simply too lazy to understand the good that has been done in the past two years and just how crazed the left has become. 

Unity has something real to fear.  That is what Franklin pointed to.  And that is what we need now as a movement: unity against the real and violent pressure from the left.

The stakes are huge.  The left is emboldened by the success of its violence and unfortunately willing to sacrifice real people it disagrees with.

For us to do nothing before we lose to violent-leaning people would be cowardice.  We have so much good to fight for, but fighting against violent communists who want to destroy us should be enough.  We need to fight our own laziness, nitpicking, infighting, hesitancy, complacency, and naïveté concerning our political opponents.  We need to unify against the violent left.  Defeat it.  Come alongside our commander-in-chief and fight the good fight.  We need to re-pledge our lives, our fortunes, and our sacred honor. 

The choice: Hang together or hang separately.

Podcast thread for Sept 29

 

1 week to go.

First They Came for Our History...

American Thinker 

Government is not your friend.  It cares about its own preservation, not yours.  That’s why citizens who resist the government’s authority are tried for treason, while governments that resist the people’s authority award themselves immunity.  Ostensibly, governments are formed to protect the lives and liberties of citizens.  In practice, governments sacrifice their citizens’ lives and liberties whenever expedient (see, e.g., open borders and mass migration, COVID lockdowns and experimental “vaccines” that are neither safe nor effective, the “global warming” hoax and “green energy”-induced inflation, and the reckless European push for WWIII against the Russian Federation).

Over the course of human history, there have been “good” governments — which is to say, there have been governments remembered more for their accomplishments than for their crimes or failures.  Even those governments included venal, mendacious, immoral, and outright murderous officials among their ranks.  But when the right historical conditions arise — when the ingredients of culture, virtue, legal tradition, and circumstance come together — governments are remembered for leading their countries through calamity, war, depression, and heartbreak.  

Every once in a while, governments accomplish something that inspires not only citizens but also people around the world.  When kings, presidents, or prime ministers unite their countrymen in common cause — whether that be resisting Nazi conquest or voyaging to the moon — their governments are often remembered as “good.”  Governments that conjure dreams for their people to pursue are sometimes even remembered as “great.”  But for every Camelot, there are a hundred Iron Curtains.  Both dreams and nightmares spring from the same place: a government’s “best intentions.”

As Americans, we used to know this.  Our schools taught young students about the political virtues of our Founding Fathers.  Our towns celebrated personal freedom and condemned government tyranny.  Local self-government allowed every citizen’s voice to be heard, while regulation and bureaucracy were widely despised.  Americans understood that the best government is the one that governs least.  Why?  Because liberty exists in the space between personal sovereignty and government jurisdiction.  The more that governments control, the less that we do.  Governments do not build rights; they build prisons.  Governments do not brighten freedom’s light; they dim that light with every law and regulation.

One of the things that long separated America from the rest of the West (those nations founded on the civilizational pillars of Athens and Jerusalem) was an inherent distrust of government.  Whereas Europe celebrated its various monarchies, America celebrated the defeat of kings.  There was nothing scary about this proposition.  Members of Congress and local officials of all political stripes walked in Fourth of July parades commemorating revolution against government tyranny.  

Citizen militias were as common as high school gun clubs because self-defense was correctly understood to include defense against government overreach.  In fact, the Second Amendment’s protections for an American’s God-given right to self-preservation has always been an instrumental check on government’s natural impulse toward tyranny.  A well-armed citizenry makes it more difficult for a government to ignore its constitutional restraints by infringing upon the rights and liberties of its citizens.  (If citizens of the U.K. were well-armed, the British government would never have been able to arrest sixty-five thousand people for “speech-related offenses” over the last five years.)

For most of the last century, successive generations of American politicians have quietly deconstructed what it means to be an American and replaced it with something foreign.  Instead of recognizing that American families inherited their freedoms from ancestors who fought and died for them, politicians have reinvented America as just some nebulous “idea” available to anyone in the world.  But America is much more than an idea; it is home to a people whose ancestors risked everything — again and again — to build the greatest country in the world. 

What Americans did on this continent has never been done before, and it will likely never be done again.  Our ancestors built the foundations of self-government that enabled them to reject the bonds of empire.  Their self-rule, self-reliance, self-resilience, and personal ingenuity put America on the path toward unprecedented prosperity.  Our American ancestors crossed mountains, rivers, and uncharted territories to settle a dangerous frontier.  They fought against nature, hostile enemies, and each other as they connected the continent from coast to coast — one stream, trail, and railroad at a time.  

For two centuries, people left their home countries for the United States of America because it was the one place in the world where a person’s grit and determination could forge a new destiny.  This is real history involving real people who matter.  Of course America is a land of ideas and ideals, but it is also the product of blood, sweat, and tears.  

But we don’t hear that anymore, do we?  Outside of President Trump’s energetic efforts to celebrate America’s two-hundred-fiftieth birthday this year, politicians never recognize the Herculean achievements of past Americans.  The Founding Fathers were probably the most intelligent, virtuous, and wise collection of men to come together at any critical point in human history.  Without them, there is no declaration to the world that all men are created equal and endowed with God-given rights that include life, liberty, and the pursuit of spiritual happiness.  Without them, there is no American system of economics that values innovation and production over government-created monopolies, slavery, conquest, and central bank money-printing.  Without them, America is just Canada, a part of the British Empire with subjects who still bow down to a king.  

For such an extraordinary group of men, isn’t it strange how infrequently our politicians discuss their lives, their accomplishments, and their religious and political beliefs?  For something as historically significant as the American Revolution, isn’t it equally strange how few television shows and movies have been produced about America’s most consequential war?  It is almost as if the political Establishment and the media Establishment would prefer for Americans to forget that their country was birthed in the spirit of liberty and the rejection of Big Government tyranny.  It is as if the political and media Establishments would prefer for us to forget all the American heroes who built this country, fought and died to secure it, and bequeathed it to those of us charged with protecting it today.  If you take out the people and their sacrifices, it’s much easier to repeat the mindless refrain that America is “just an idea” open to everybody.

These increasingly less subtle attacks on our heritage make sense if the goal is to make America weak enough for globalists to destroy.  For years, Independence Day celebrations have become more about fireworks than defeating empires and tyranny.  Now the political and media Establishments have pushed the celebration of Juneteenth into direct conflict with the Fourth of July.  Just as the “1619 Project” was advanced to rewrite America’s origin story from one of liberty to slavery, Juneteenth was promoted to divide Americans against each other and erase Independence Day altogether.  If the Fourth of July is just a “white” holiday, then the celebration of freedom’s triumph over tyranny is recast as a racist celebration of “white supremacy.”  

Lutheran pastor Martin Niemöller’s “First They Came” confessional admonished his fellow intellectuals for their complicity with the Nazi Party.  The Nazis came for one group after the next, and those who stayed silent realized only too late that there was nobody left to speak out for them.  But it’s not just disappearing people that should worry us.  We should be equally concerned when governments come for our weapons, founding principles, common history, secure borders, and free speech.  

If we are not careful, America will follow much of the West in recognizing — only too late — that we allowed government tyrants to take our freedoms.  The only answer to globalist tyranny is to treat every day as Independence Day.

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This Is What Democrats Plan to Do to Trump's Family If They Win in the Midterms

Townhall 

Democrats have given a glimpse of what they plan if they win back control of either chamber of Congress.

Other than launching another impeachment attempt against President Donald Trump, it appears Democrats also plan to renew their lawfare against Trump and his family. They plan to investigate the president’s family business to find something they can use against him.

From The Independent:

If Democrats win a majority in either the House or Senate in November's midterm elections, corporate contributors funding President Donald Trump's ballroom and participants in Trump family business transactions could face immediate congressional scrutiny, according to several lawmakers, legal experts, and Capitol Hill aides.

Securing command of either chamber would give Democrats subpoena authority and the financial resources to expand oversight staff. This would allow inquiries to begin as early as February, likely triggering prolonged legal disputes that would bring the Trump family's business holdings into sharp focus.

Such congressional inquiries could define the second half of Trump's term, following two years during which his family ventured into artificial intelligence, prediction markets, drones, and cryptocurrency, while the president's personal wealth expanded by an estimated $2.2 billion.

"I don't think the Democrats are going to have patience. They're going to expect documents pretty quickly. You're not going to play the old run-out-the-clock game," noted Ashley Callen, an attorney at Jenner & Block and former general counsel to Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson.

Speaking to reporters on September 17, US House of Representatives Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries of New York stated: "We're going to hold the crooks accountable, beginning on day one."

White House spokeswoman Olivia Wales told The Independent, “Democrats have no agenda to improve the lives of the American people, just plans to obstruct and baselessly target President Trump’s commonsense agenda.”

Sen. Adam Schiff (D-CA) said corporations that did business with the president or his administration should preserve any documentation related to the dealings. He said, “We can make life very difficult for the administration if you abuse legitimate oversight requests of Congress.”

One arrangement drawing Schiff's scrutiny involves a plan to transfer part of Yosemite National Park to a commercial developer connected to Republican campaign committees. "In this administration everything is for sale, including our most precious gems like Yosemite," he remarked.

Nevertheless, Democratic lawmakers remain focused on members of the Trump family, particularly Donald Jr., who has pursued numerous commercial arrangements since his father's election in November 2024.

"The First Family has been making money hand over fist," Schiff said.

Raskin, who stands to lead the Judiciary Committee should Democrats take the House, identified Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner as "is a corporate executive that we absolutely will need to talk to,".

Raskin said Kushner ignored two formal inquiries into financial dealings involving his private equity group, Affinity Partners, and Middle Eastern "oil monarchies and governments" while Kushner participated in official diplomatic negotiations for the United States.

He emphasized agreements Kushner made with the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, and Saudi Arabia during his tenure as a presidential envoy. "That's an outrageous conflict of interest," Raskin added.

None of this is surprising. Ever since the 2020 election, Democrats have been hell-bent on using government power to target Trump, his family members, and other associates.

If they regain control of either chamber of Congress, not only are they going to launch impeachment proceedings against Trump, but they are going to pick up where they left off before they lost control of the House.

Of course, this strategy has two purposes. Attack Trump and distract from the fact that they won’t actually have any real solutions to the problems Americans face.

President Trump Announces Largest Steel Plant in U.S. History Being Built in Iowa

The iron ore from Minnesota combined with a new steel works in Iowa.  GOOD STUFF!

Today, President Donald J. Trump announced one of the largest steel plants in American history: a $15 billion Mesabi Metallics mill in Iowa. The project will create 1,750 permanent Iowa jobs, support up to 6,000 construction jobs, and is projected to add $95 billion to the U.S. economy over the next decade.

The mill will produce 7.5 million tons of steel per year in its first phase, rising to about ten million tons, using iron ore from Mesabi Metallics’ newly opened Minnesota mine — the first new iron ore mine in the United States in 50 years. {MORE}

The Question and Answer session begins at 22:40. WATCH:

Europe Asks China to Voluntarily Limit EV Exports

Conservative Treehouse 

I was quite confused by this distinctly European approach until I had dinner with a Chinese actuary working in the auto warranty insurance industry.

Europe asks China to voluntarily limit exports (mostly autos) to the European Union.  Europe doesn’t want to get China angry with them about this issue.  However, China is sending massive numbers of EVs into Europe.  Europe is losing its auto business. I couldn’t figure out why the EU didn’t take an aggressive/confrontational position.

Then I was reminded.  Europe cannot force Beijing through a trade action (tariffs, ban, EU limit etc.) because Beijing might stop selling them EV carbon credits.  If the European automakers cannot purchase Chinese EV carbon credit certificates, the fines levied by Brussels against gasoline powered autos will destroy the EU auto business.

Think about this for a while, then read the EU media report:

EuroNews –  Brussels is pressing Beijing to accept quotas on Chinese exports as negotiations enter their final stretch, with the EU threatening trade measures unless tangible progress is made by next month.

Brussels and Beijing are fighting over quotas that would limit Chinese imports to the EU market, as the Europeans seek to rebalance their trade relationship with China, Euronews has learned.

Both started intense negotiations last June over EU and Chinese access to each other’s markets, with an October deadline set by the European Commission to reach “tanglible” results. However, China is pushing hard against the EU’s attempts to protect its market.

According to one person familiar with the matter, the Commission, which is negotiating on behalf of the 27 EU countries on trade issues, wants China to accept quotas on specific products. However, it is unclear how China would accept and respect such quotas.

According to media reports, so-called “voluntary export restrictions” have been pushed by the Commission for electric vehicles. But Beijing’s trade minister rejected them in a statement earlier this month.

If China accepted such a system of restrictions, it would mean that it voluntarily limits its exports to the EU on the basis of a deal negotiated with the Commission, sparing the EU from adopting defensive trade measures that might be seen as an aggressive move by China.

Technical negotiations are in their final stretch as the October deadline is approaching. (read more)

It’s a remarkable mess, no?

Europe wants Beijing to voluntarily limit the number of EVs that come into Europe from China, in order to save their auto sector from complete collapse.  However, Europe cannot force Beijing to limit the number of EVs that come into Europe from China, or Beijing might stop selling them carbon credit certificates that will result in fines to the EU automakers that will collapse the EU auto sector.

You would think that Europe would just get rid of the net-zero carbon regulations until they can stabilize their market and get back to a reasonable energy policy.   Alas, that would mean reversing decades of climate change legislation.  The preferred route is to ask Beijing to limit hurting them.

Again, think about this.

Madness.

Donald Trump Jr. - Military Contracts

 Donald Trump Jr. just got caught trying to siphon off Canadian military contracts—and Saskatoon-based defense contractor Draganfly Inc. ($DPRO) sold out Canadian taxpayers in broad daylight to help him do it.

Just 17 days after Prime Minister Mark Carney and the Government of Canada awarded Draganfly a five-year, $24.25M CAD contract to supply up to 5,000 tactical reconnaissance drones to the Canadian Armed Forces (and support Ukraine’s front lines alongside Volodymyr Zelenskyy), Draganfly walked out the back door and sold a $5M stake to Unusual Machines ($UMAC)—the Florida drone-parts company where Donald Trump Jr. sits on the advisory board and holds over 330,000 shares. We pulled the SEC Form F-10 filings, the Department of National Defence procurement timeline, and the Canadian SEDI insider trading logs. What they reveal is a cross-border supply-chain shakedown: • THE CANADIAN LOCKOUT: Draganfly used retired Canadian generals, taxpayer-funded Ottawa testing grounds (Area X.O), and sovereign defense contracts to pump its credibility—then legally barred Canadians from buying into the $5.35 USD stock offering so Don Jr.’s company could buy in cheap. • THE $132M CASH LIE: Draganfly told the press it needed the money for "working capital," despite Q2 filings showing nearly $132M CAD in cash and $144M CAD in working capital already sitting in the vault. • THE INSIDER DUMP: Before diluting retail investors at $5.35 USD, Draganfly CEO Cameron Chell dumped 245,000 of his own shares on June 1, 2026 at $10.33 CAD (~$7.47 USD)—cashing out $2.5M CAD (51% of his personal direct stake) near the peak. • THE MAGA BOARDROOM TROJAN HORSE: While parading Canadian military brass through Parliament Hill and the Senate, Draganfly’s corporate board was stacked with Trump’s former Acting Defense Secretary Christopher C. Miller and former Acting Navy Secretary Thomas B. Modly. • THE SUPPLY-CHAIN SIPHON: Unusual Machines CEO Allan Evans openly admitted the deal is to "deepen our supplier relationships"—meaning Canadian tax dollars meant to build a tariff-proof, made-in-Canada drone industry and arm Ukraine are being routed to a Florida factory tied to the Trump family. This is ten times worse than the Kristi Noem and NovaRed Mining scandal in British Columbia. Only the first 100 drones of Draganfly’s Canadian military contract are locked in—the remaining 4,900 drones are unexercised government options.

President Trump is Looking for an AI Czar – Then This Happens

President Trump is looking for an AI Czar. Someone who will put U.S. interests above all else; use exceptional judgement; can understand the value of the technology to national defense; can see through the political smoke and mirrors that surrounds the AI narrative and simultaneously possess excellent discernment.

I’m just sayin’…

♦️𝐖³𝐏 𝐃𝐚𝐢𝐥𝐲 𝐍𝐞𝐰𝐬 𝐎𝐩𝐞𝐧 𝐓𝐡𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐝

 

W³P Daily News Open Thread. 

posted by DarkGoldenMan

Welcome to the W³P Daily News Open Thread. 

Post whatever you got in the comments section below.

This feature will post every day at 6:30am Mountain time. 

 

Scott Bessent Just Put a Two-Week Clock on Iran’s Economic Collapse

Townhall 

After months of promises that often seemed to lead nowhere, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent has finally put a timeline on Iran’s economic reckoning. 

In an interview over the weekend, Bessent said Iran is expected to make its final oil delivery to China within the next two weeks, after which, Tehran will have little left to trade and even less leverage at the bargaining table. That would allow the Treasury Department’s Operation Economic Outcast sanctions to take full effect, tightening the financial pressure on Iran until it has little choice but to accept a U.S.-written peace agreement on American terms.

"There's only 15 million more barrels of Iranian oil on the water that Iran will have nothing left to trade for anything. They will have nothing to trade for anything," the Treasury Secretary said. "Probably within the next two weeks they are going to make their final deliveries of oil to China and then they will have nothing. It is an empty set and I believe that they are feeling the pressure here and that's why they want a deal."

Without oil revenue, Iran would lose the foreign currency and tradable goods it needs to pay for imports, finance the government, and maintain its remaining economic relationships. With its economy already largely cut off from the world, and with the United States prepared to target countries and entities that provide Tehran with shadow financing, the regime is finally running out of ways to evade the pressure. 

Iran recently attempted to strike a deal, but President Trump rejected it decisively. At this stage, there is little reason to offer the regime additional grace while it continues to behave as if it holds meaningful leverage. The rejection was meant to make the point unmistakable: Tehran has no cards left to play and must accept U.S. terms.

"You saw when President Trump was leaving the White House this morning that the Iranians say they'll open the Straits within seven days. Larry, the Straits are open," Bessent said. "If you take out the Iranian oil, which we're not letting out, we're not letting it out, that we're averaging now 15 to 22 million barrels a day. It was at about 20 pre-conflict so you take out the one and a half or two Iranian barrels. Think of it this way, Larry, the score is the United States one billion, more than one billion barrels have gotten out, Iran zero."

What tariffs will really cost Canadians and Americans

 

The US and Canada have been locked in a bitter conflict since President Donald Trump launched his flagship trade policy on his return to the White House.

The latest escalation has seen tit-for-tat tariffs ramped up to outright bans on imports of certain products, with an easing of tensions looking unlikely anytime soon and further import taxes set to come into force.

Amid all the fierce political rhetoric, people are being impacted by the breakdown in relations between these North American neighbours.

Here's what will be affected most on both sides of the border.

Cars

If Trump's threat to raise tariffs on Canadian vehicles from 25% to 50% from 1 January 2027 becomes a reality, then that would deal a further blow to the automotive industry.

Cars, trucks and parts are among the main goods traded between the US, Canada and Mexico, with the manufacturing sector and supply chains stretching across borders.

Despite previous tariffs increasing costs for manufacturers, car dealerships have absorbed the "lion's share" to date, according to Bernard Yaros, lead economist at Oxford Economics.

"But that cushion is wearing thin," he adds. "The recently threatened 50% tariffs on Canadian autos, trucks, and car parts would feed through to consumer prices more readily than before."

Yaros thinks higher costs on imports to the US could accelerate a trend of manufacturers prioritising luxury cars, SUVs and pick-up trucks and push up prices in the used-car market if supplies of new but less-expensive vehicles becomes tight.

Carney has decided not to match Trump's 50% tariff threat so far, but a 25% import tax on certain American vehicles has been in place since last year.

Trump has also announced a ban on motorbikes, including mopeds, being imported from Canada, claiming the country was "discriminating" against the US. 

Homes

Construction materials such as steel, aluminium as well as lumber wood have had tariffs in place before the latest escalation, though Canada has now matched US rates on the metals at 50%.

Carney has also imposed import taxes on several US wood products, such as plywood, and even screws used to fix timber together.

That means building firms that import such materials will face higher costs and may choose to pass those on through higher prices - pushing up the cost of homes, for example.

The Forest Products Association of Canada says tariffs would "raise costs on both sides of the border", while on the US side, Bill Owens, chairman of the National Association of Home Builders (NAHB) urged Trump to make building materials exempt from his tariff agenda due to an "ongoing housing affordability crisis".

"Building material tariffs heighten market uncertainty, strain supply chains and increase construction costs," he says.

In 2024 the US imported $23bn (C$32bn, £17bn) worth of wood products, with almost half from Canada, according to a US Congress report.

But the so-called "lumber wars" between the nations on soft wood used in housebuilding are not new and stretch back decades.

Getty Images

Donald Trump and Mark Carney have both declared tariffs on each other's country

Trump says Canada wants 'benefits' of being US state after trade talks collapse

Carney faces crucial test after walking away from Trump's deal

Household items

A key factor in this episode of the tariff war is the volume of household items that have been specifically targeted as opposed to raw materials.

Carpets, washing machines, furniture, fridges and even knives, forks and spoons are set to have tariffs applied by Canada.

While there is a risk prices on some of those goods being imported from the US could rise, the more likely scenario is that consumers will turn to domestic alternatives, according to Bradley Saunders, North America economist at Capital Economics.

He says Carney's latest move has intentionally targeted goods where Canadians can "shift to domestic suppliers instead".

"Like hair care products, you really can just buy that domestically instead," he adds.

Saunders explains Carney's response aims to "minimise the impact on Canadian households as much as possible by picking very fungible goods".

The Budget Lab at Yale, which monitors the impact of US government policy on the economy, says it anticipates seeing marginal increases in furnishing and other household equipment for Americans largely due to tariffs on lumber and other materials.

Alcohol

There may not be a material impact on alcohol prices, but it's clear the trade war has had an impact on Canadians' choice of drink.

Many provinces in the country banned US alcohol sales last year in response to previous tariffs, with the American wine and spirits industry saying exports to the country dropped more than 70%.

Carney asked the provinces to restore US alcohol to the shelves during trade talks, but now that they have collapsed, it's likely the ban will return.

Saunders says there's been a big push to "buy Canadian" from politicians and it has been successful when it comes to the strong stuff.

"That's really had an impact on the American alcohol industry," he adds.

Saskatchewan and Alberta are ​the only provinces that still sell ​American alcohol, but the former has announced its own 50% charge on US imported booze, which kicked in on 8 September, when the wider Canadian tariffs do.

However, the US has now announced an outright ban on non-alcoholic beer, a long list of wine, rum and vodka products as well as beer made from malt crossing its northern border.

Japanese brewer Sapporo has said it would move some beer production from Canada to the US by the first half of 2027 as a result of tariffs.

Jobs and wider economy

While tariffs can end up hitting consumers in the pocket, there are other impacts on households.

Import taxes can complicate trade for businesses that have cross-border supply. As well as the higher costs, the uncertainty created by the trade war could put off investment plans and stunt job creation.

Saunders suggests the biggest impact on households may not just be through prices, but job losses instead.

"If you're, let's say, a bespoke furniture producer in BC [British Columbia], you're now facing a 50% tariff on your exports to the US - that could really shut the business down. I think that would be more the direct impact on households as opposed to these retaliatory measures."

Canada's forest industry employs almost 200,000 people and has called on the government to boost domestic demand through federal housing programs to make greater use of Canadian wood, though it admits "no support package can replace reliable access to our largest export market".

When it comes to US, consumers are unlikely to see much of a difference in terms of the cost of living as result of this latest battle with Canada, but frictions to trade can have longer-term economic impacts.

Such tensions also feed into concerns over the free-trade agreement between Canada, the US and Mexico, known as the USMCA. Both Canada and Mexico have said they want the USMCA extended for another 16 years, but the US has said it will not renew in its current form.

Despite the deal remaining operational, tariffs risk putting off talks in the near future, creating more uncertainty for cross-border trade.

John Iselin, associate director at the Budget Lab at Yale, estimates the cost will only be about $3 per American household on average, but when taking into account Trump's wider trade war with the rest of the world, and particularly China, the added costs rise to about $1,000 for the average family.

"It's hard to view this particular instance with Canada in isolation because we've had similar interactions with a range of other countries, all of which makes doing business harder. It's just another in a series of tariff shocks."

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cx2z4dv6vn2o