Feb
1
2026

Stay Home, Canadians, You're Drunk

Well, that's a pretty sad pic over there on your right, isn't it? Not only are the Canadians pissed with us, our local boozemakers aren't happy either. And they have a lot of extra hooch to drown their sorrows. As C. Jarrett Dieterle says, Trump's Tariff War Is Crushing American Alcohol Makers.

In recent weeks, new data has emerged from Canada showing the near-catastrophic consequences to American alcohol manufacturers from President Donald Trump's tariff wars. Yet despite clear signs that his tariff policies are backfiring, the president keeps doubling down.

Last year, in response to the administration's tariffs on goods from Canada, provincial liquor stores in Quebec and Ontario enacted a boycott on American wine and distilled spirits. Because the government operates the liquor stores in those provinces, it was relatively straightforward to simply pull all American-based alcohol from store shelves, essentially zeroing out Canadian alcohol sales for American producers.

Now, the data is starting to roll in concerning the impact of the boycott. Since 2024, there has been a jaw-dropping 91 percent decline in U.S. wine sales to Canada. In just October of last year, there was an 84 percent year-over-year drop in wine sales compared to the prior year and a 56 percent drop in distilled spirit sales. Prior to the boycott, Canada was one of the primary export markets for American wine.

I hope SCOTUS will save us from this pointless stupidity. (But I note that we don't seem to be boycotting them: the state liquor store website shows plenty of Crown Royal in stock, although the prices seem steep to me.)

Also of note:

  • Look out below! The WSJ editorialists write on The Perils of a Falling Trump Dollar. (WSJ gifted link)

    President Trump this week said he thinks a weaker dollar is “great,” but he should be careful what he wishes for. Many politicians over the years have contemplated a weaker greenback as an economic miracle cure. They often discover that a weak dollar is a liability.

    Mr. Trump made his remark Tuesday amid dollar weakness that is contributing to instability in global foreign-exchange markets. The WSJ Dollar Index, which compares the greenback to a basket of currencies, has fallen about 8% over the past year, and gold’s steady ascent, to above $5,300 per ounce this week, sends its own signal about dollar weakness. The dollar-euro exchange rate is among the most important in the global economy, and the greenback has lost about 14% of its value relative to the euro over the past year.

    I'd buy some gold, but unfortunately the ground in my backyard is frozen solid.

  • Some say the world will end in… Well, you know the rest.

    Unbeknownst to me, Jeffrey Blehar has a weekly newsletter at the National Review site. And it's unpaywalled! Check out his latest observation: ICE Can’t Fight Activist Fire with Fire.

    Yesterday morning, I offered some blunt advice to President Trump: He should either fire Kristi Noem — preferably aboard a rocket and into the sun — or absent that, demote and back-burner her as the failed face of the Department of Homeland Security. (My actual wording was a bit harsher: “Can nearly everybody within the remote orbit of DHS leadership except for Tom Homan.”) And because Trump was in one of his rare obliging moods, he evidently was already taking that advice, declaring that both Noem and Border Patrol commander Greg Bovino would be departing Minneapolis, with Homan stepping in instead. It’s an excellent and necessary first step.

    But I am also alert to the fundamental problem the federal government is faced with: How can it be permissible in a functioning civil society for one narrow segment of it to simply decide it will collectively oppose enforcement of federal immigration laws? You cannot permit activists to effectively nullify federal law out of a misplaced sense of self-righteousness or progressive fervor. You also cannot, well, shoot them — not for being obstreperous agitators, not in America. How does the government enforce the law?

    If I had an easy answer, I’d offer it right now. But I don’t, and one reason for that is that the left has had a century-long head start in the (mostly legal, if largely invidious) techniques of organization and protest. It is important to understand the methodology used by the activists here, why it is so devilishly effective, and why the Trump administration needs to be smarter about how it chooses its confrontations. And that requires a bit of a history lesson.

    Woodrow Wilson had his methods: jail (e.g., Eugene Debs) and deportation (e.g. Emma Goldman). We don't do that any more, although I assume Trump is envious thereof.