Thomas Cline 🇨🇦

13th Generation Canadian (1659)
Retired Fortune 500 Exec. Retweets are my notes

[Thomas Cline 🇨🇦 @ThomasCline442]

@jpuopolo Ron’s messaging and his execution are likely mutually exclusive.

He’s a weasel who would blurt out what he thinks his base wants to hear. But when it comes time to pull the trigger… he will quietly fold and not discuss it.

[Thomas Cline 🇨🇦 @ThomasCline442]

@jpuopolo You described most of the G20 nations.

[Thomas Cline 🇨🇦 @ThomasCline442]

@jkenney Why & how have we elected weakness at the provincial level coast to coast - except Sask.

[Thomas Cline 🇨🇦 @ThomasCline442]

@jpuopolo @jamiesongreer The strategy is singularly predatory, so you won’t get an answer.

[Thomas Cline 🇨🇦 @ThomasCline442]

@ctindale He is best described as one who is guilty of relentless cognitive dysentery. It was obvious even in his bow tie wearing faux journalist days.

[Thomas Cline 🇨🇦 @ThomasCline442]

@batuhanppn 5

[Joseph Puopolo @jpuopolo]

Did a little bit more digging - Worth a read.

🧵 The Cleveland-Cliffs story deserves scrutiny. Not because there's proof of wrongdoing, but because the PUBLIC RECORD shows years of alignment between its trade strategy and U.S. steel policy.

🇺🇸 Trump imposed 25% Section 232 steel tariffs in 2018. Cleveland-Cliffs became a strong supporter and later argued electrical steel products entering through Canada and Mexico were circumventing those protections.

🏛️ In 2020, Commerce opened a Section 232 investigation into products Cliffs had highlighted. Cliffs publicly praised the action and thanked Trump, USTR Robert Lighthizer and Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross.

Then 2023.

Cleveland-Cliffs + USW sought additional duties against tin mill steel from several countries, including Canada, explicitly saying they would work "together with the existing Section 232 tariffs and quotas."

Section 232 was already one layer. Cliffs wanted another.

✅ Jan. 2024: U.S. Commerce found Canadian tin mill steel was being dumped and calculated a 5.27% margin.

🇨🇦 Canada rejected the finding and challenged it under CUSMA.

❌ Feb. 2024: The independent USITC unanimously found Canadian imports were NOT causing or threatening material injury to the U.S. industry.

Result?

❌ No Canadian antidumping order from the case.

💰 Provisional Canadian duties were refundable.

Cleveland-Cliffs also lost a separate Court of International Trade challenge involving Brazilian steel.

But Section 232 remained.

That's the important distinction.

Cliffs itself warned investors that weakening Section 232 could mean more foreign steel, lower U.S. prices and potentially material consequences for its business.

Now look at the connections:

🤝 Its CEO met @RealPNavarro at the White House.

🏛️ Cliffs publicly thanked Trump, Lighthizer and Ross for Section 232 action.

👔 A former acting U.S. Trade Representative and USTR General Counsel from Trump's first administration later represented Cleveland-Cliffs in major trade litigation.

Then Trump returned.

📈 Section 232 steel tariffs: 25% → 50%

🚫 Exclusions and exemptions were eliminated or restricted.

🔩 Coverage expanded into additional downstream products, including products Cleveland-Cliffs had raised concerns about for years.

👏 Cleveland-Cliffs publicly applauded the expanded protection.

None of this proves Cleveland-Cliffs caused Trump's decisions.

But the sequence is worth examining:

🏭 Seek trade protection
✅ Commerce finds dumping
🇨🇦 Canada challenges it
❌ Independent USITC unanimously finds no injury from Canada
❌ Proposed Canadian antidumping duties don't survive
🛡️ Section 232 remains
📈 Trump returns and doubles Section 232 steel tariffs
👏 Cleveland-Cliffs applauds the result

Don't believe me? Read the Commerce findings, USITC decision, CUSMA filing, court records, SEC filings and Cleveland-Cliffs' own releases.

It's all in the public record.

#ClevelandCliffs #Stelco #Steel #Section232 #Tariffs #Canada #Trade

[Thomas Cline 🇨🇦 @ThomasCline442]

@RealPNavarro Ok FCI soap boy.

[Thomas Cline 🇨🇦 @ThomasCline442]

@RealPNavarro

[Heather Exner-Pirot @ExnerPirot]

Canadian crude shipments are bypassing a pit stop off the California coast and heading straight to Asia as skyrocketing shipping rates make the detour less economical and the nation’s oil producers look to reduce dependence on the US during an ongoing trade war.

Fallout from the Iran War has shrunk the availability of VLCCs, sending shipping rates to record highs. Combined with a greater availability of smaller Aframax vessels in the western Pacific, shipping Canadian oil directly to Asia on those vessels is now about 54% of the cost of going the long route on VLCCs.
https://t.co/EhWm7G9DVj

[Thomas Cline 🇨🇦 @ThomasCline442]

@jkenney The diploma should come with a one way ticket ‘The Fuck Outta Here’

[Thomas Cline 🇨🇦 @ThomasCline442]

@glennbeck Omg you’re such a fucking tea bagger.

[Thomas Cline 🇨🇦 @ThomasCline442]

@kinsellawarren PS the root cause of this rise of the right was the failure to deal with Bashir and end the Syrian War.

[Thomas Cline 🇨🇦 @ThomasCline442]

@kinsellawarren You are losing the battle of minds to TikTok, discord, and Reddit.

You cannot win that battle.

[Thomas Cline 🇨🇦 @ThomasCline442]

@DrJStrategy At this point… will is actually spelled w-o-u-l-d.

[Thomas Cline 🇨🇦 @ThomasCline442]

@JonFraserTF This is very junior. Not sure what your half sentence on indigenous consultation was going to be when it rattled around in your head, but the pissing contest is actually predation by the WH.
Incompetence: Smith (magpie), Ford (amateurish), Eby (financial),
Moe is the only light

[Thomas Cline 🇨🇦 @ThomasCline442]

@Acyn Did Kaitlin Collins then tell piggy that the real number is 22%?

[Thomas Cline 🇨🇦 @ThomasCline442]

@jpuopolo @PremierScottMoe Belarus couldn’t supply potash to a Walmart in Nebraska.

[Thomas Cline 🇨🇦 @ThomasCline442]

@acoyne 5). He’s such a fucking dweeb

[Thomas Cline 🇨🇦 @ThomasCline442]

@natnewswatch He will claim a deal with Putin - I mean Belarus - and Capotex will just keep buying potash from Saskatchewan