Good morning.
Sunday in Whitewater will be sunny with a high of 74. Sunrise is 6:10 and sunset is 7:44 for 13 hours 34 minutes of daylight. The moon is a waxing gibbous with 80.9 percent of its visible disk illuminated.
On this day in 1966, Lunar Orbiter 1 takes the first photograph of Earth from orbit around the Moon.
What are successful market transactions? They are free and voluntary exchanges between buyers and sellers. In July, this website posted about the concern that Wisconsin officials had about the Trump administration’s increasing hostility to trade with Canada, Wisconsin’s neighbor and largest foreign trade partner. See, from 7.28.26, Another Federal Blow to Wisconsin’s Manufacturers (citing Wisconsin economic development leaders worried about new Trump tariffs on Canada).
Sometimes bad goes to worse, as one now sees with an escalating trade war with Canada:
The United States and Canada, historic allies along an undefended border, fell deeper into a trade war Saturday marked by angry recriminations and new tariffs that are expected to raise prices for products in both countries.
Each side blamed the other for the collapse of negotiations in Washington late Friday, leading the U.S. to impose 50% tariffs on $20 billion worth of Canadian goods and Canada setting Sept. 8 as the start of its retaliatory penalties.
President Donald Trump’s import taxes will hit about 5% of what Canada ships to the United States every year, ranging from hockey sticks to tongue depressors. Prime Minister Carney said Ottawa would respond with targeted tariff protection for industries exposed to the new U.S. duties, including some steel products. He also mentioned the dairy, appliance, agricultural equipment, pulp and paper and electronics sectors.
[…]
The political impact will likely be even bigger than the economic fallout. The countries sold each other $880 billion worth of goods and services last year.
The tariffs were initially supposed to kick in at 12:01 a.m. Wednesday. Trump extended the deadline for three days to allow talks to continue, but the countries could not reach an agreement in time.
The U.S. and Canada have wrangled for decades over trade, poking each other over sore spots such as Canadian softwood lumber imports and U.S. access to Canada’s protected dairy market.
See Paul Wiseman and Rob Gillies, US and Canada fall deeper into a trade war with new tariffs as talks collapse and blame is spread, Associated Press, August 22, 2026.
The populists insist that a trade war with Canada is necessary to set matters right between our two countries, but their approach is closer to insisting that the way to heal a relationship is through abuse. I’d say all of this is ‘come for the false economic claims, stay for the culture war‘ yet that’s probably backwards.
It’s much more like ‘come for the culture war, stick around for the false economic claims.’
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Forthcoming topics (in no particular order): Development in Downtown Whitewater (Follow-Up), the Value of a UW-Whitewater Education, A New Ethics Ordinance, Polling Places in the City (Further Considerations), and Steps for a Public Interest Campaign.
Tornado touches down on Long Island: