Canada

Or US..only him

I'm already seeing signs of Dumpster being the one to bend the knee. While responding to questions about this, he dialed the rhetoric way back, instead pivoting away from his promise of more tariffs to "nice talk" and then other nations entirely. When was the last time he said 51st state, or Canada isn't viable? Now it's Vance on the sidelines claiming we can't win, which is relatively weak talk for him too -- and sounding increasingly less believable.

None of this means Dumpster won't flip back any moment, but it does imply we gained the upper hand and even more clearly than before. Every time that happens, it gets easier for us to hold our ground. Carney was probably already confident enough to stand firm for a lot longer and against still more intense brinksmanship anyway. But this will settle the nerves of Canadians who've neither the experience nor the mettle to patiently trust and back our PM as the economic effects become more and more real.

Conversely, every time Dumpster goes back on the offensive, we get more familiar with the cycle and confident that our response will at least buy more time and soften the impact, if not just make him look more the fool when he has to back off again. If Dumpster thought he had the upper hand right now, he'd be gloating rather than deflecting. He caved, again, and with less room to save face than before. At this point I'm more worried this crisis will "go to waste" and we'll lose the drive to follow through with our internal reformation.

There's certainly room for me to be misreading the situation, but I think Carney's in control now. The longer it takes for us to hear the next "51st state" comment, the more sure I'll be. My best guess after that would be Carney's some kind of dark horse and Dumpster actually wants him to win the election. But that's master-level 4D chess, and I've yet to see a single prediction on that basis fulfilled. He played his part so well that if there is a master plan, Dumpster isn't in on it.

No, I think Carney confidently and firmly said something the average Canadian couldn't even hear without breaking a sweat, and even Dumpster could tell a) he wasn't going to get an inch, and b) circumstances have made still clearer that we have the longer runway. Now he needs to delay (again), and I think he'll shake it up by making those 25% tariffs start much lower with automatic ramping over time. That way he can make it look a little less like he caved because they technically still started them on April 2nd.