Canada

They're crushing Spanish in their own country.

The US conquered land from Mexico some centuries ago, and thus there's a large population of monolingual Spanish speakers in the south of the country.

Totally agree. "Make an outrageous demand" is one of the few tools in trumps repitoire.

Even if we did somehow ascede to it, he'd just come up with something new. The point is to have something to hang over us, not to actually get the thing.

C'est déjà bien! Faut pas se décourager :)

You know, I only learned the basics of English at school. I became bilingual through exposition to the language, which admittedly is far easier for English than French in my opinion, but still.

It’s the old “I don’t necessarily agree with what you are saying, but I would defend to the death your right to say it” ideal, and I’m 100% down for it.

That moment when Louisiana (in the U.S.) looks around and says wait, our laws are based on Napoleonic laws, we French based too right?

It is fucking wild. One might say it sounds like entitlement. But surely a "self-made man" like Donald Trump knows nothing of entitlement... /s

If there's one thing the French are good at, it's resistance

They don’t even have an official language

They do now. Since March 1st.

https://www.whitehouse.gov/fact-sheets/2025/03/fact-sheet-president-donald-j-trump-designates-english-as-the-official-language-of-the-united-states/

Doesn't diminish what you've said though.

Better off with Spanish my friend. Many more scenarios where Spanish is useful and English is unusable than with french speaking areas. I am biased though, i've worked for french companies and my wife natively speaks Spanish.

Well with a child you are the kid's source of authority, jailer, etc. if you can get Trump to view you as an authority or get him into a jail of some kind, you may have the ability to educate.

Under the current situation, I don't think you have any power over the child.

It takes even less. I think they're all but chewing their shields and loading the cow into the catapult now.

Buddy, they've been doing this for ages. Certainly ever since the end of WWII. Sometimes diplomatically, other times via interference, and when that fails, militarily. We're just kinda waking up to it now because we haven't seen as much of the second and third methods used against us before. But yeah, this isn't about stupidity, this has been their policy for a long time.

In what world can one country dictate the laws of another country

Welcome to American exceptionalism.

How arrogant of you to suggest that your entire country's medical needs are somehow more important than the financial well-being of some shareholders

In what world can one country dictate the laws of another country without there being a war?

We are talking about a country that demands regulatory concessions in foreign countries, beyond those of which are afforded to said countries' domestic businesses.

I was curious about that whole "Canada doesn't want US banks" thing that started in the beginning of our deranged trade war, and it's really stupid. Opening a bank there is oh so hard for our poor widdle conglomerate banks because... stricter regulations and an unwillingness to make 35% of their Canadian subsidiary publicly owned.

That's it. Their banks have to follow the same rules, and Trump thinks that's unfair for us.

21% of Americans are illiterate.

54% have a literacy BELOW A SIXTH GRADE LEVEL.

Are you smarter than a 5th grader was a rhetorical question.

(For the 54% a rhetorical question is ... fuckit nevermind.)

Like a third of the charter of rights and freedoms is about language laws and french/english. Even as a west coaster, I highly doubt there's a scenario where Canada doesn't side with Quebec on this front.

So option 2 it is -- but that's their endgame anyway, they're just hunting for an excuse to do it anyhow. Thats been clear ever since he dredged up Fentanyl as a boogeyman. Just hurry up and diversify trade more -- I'm fairly sure we can find other markets for most goods. Any business that's just sitting there hoping this will blow over, and/or that the government will bail them out, and isn't taking direct actions to mitigate this issue that's been months and months in the making.... deserves to fail.