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Culture Snow Drifts We can ignore the accumulating problems of this world—or shovel our way out. During the winters of my adolescence, the sight of freshly fallen snow was accompanied by an almost-instantaneous realization that it must be removed. I can easily picture myself watching from a window as the snow accumulated in mounds and blew into drifts before having my reverie torn asunder by the exhortations of my parents. No matter where in the house they were calling from, or what window I was perched beside, their words resonated: “Peter, you need to shovel before the snow gets too deep!” “Peter, how are we going to get the car out of the garage?” “Peter, what happens if someone tries to come to the door?”  My parents, older than most when they had children, were in their fifties and sixties when I was in my teens, and while they did their share of shoveling, they knew not to push themselves too strenuously. I can still hear my father tell my mother (the more eager of the two to prove her physical fitness): “Don’t shovel too much—you have two young, healthy sons to take care of that.” Of course, I now see that it was not at all unreasonable that my parents should expect their fit, robust elder teenage son to take on some snow-removal responsibilities. Yet I concede that I did resent the task, partly because it was so foreign to me—as foreign as snow itself. Although I was born in Ohio, I spent most of my childhood in a suburb of New Orleans, where extreme weather events took the form of hurricanes but rarely involved winter weather. I have no memory of seeing a proper snowfall until we moved back to Ohio when I was 15 — which, not coincidentally, was my age when it first dawned on me that, while I was officially a writer-in-training, I had involuntarily acquired a new side gig: snow-shoveler in chief for the Tonguette household.  The signs were there when, having just moved into our new house in Ohio during the wintry December of 1998, we trekked to the downtown department store then known as Lazarus (later incorporated, in the same depressing manner of Warner Bros. and Netflix, into Macy’s). I had a bad feeling when my parents bought my brother and me all manner of winter wear: heavy coats, thick gloves, tough boots. Since I was not naturally outdoorsy or likely to take up cross-country skiing, this gear, I knew, could only be for one purpose: to survive the elements while in the process of removing snow from our property. Given my resistance to this chore, that I retained any fondness for snow is something of a miracle, but I did. Years of being homeschooled had turned me into a homebody, and my already-stated vocation of choice — writer—did nothing but encourage my instinct for cocooning. From where I sat, fallen snow provided a cozy layer of insulation between me and the big, bad world. I merely disliked being tapped to perform the physical labor involved in its removal. Yet, as adulthood and homeownership descended upon me, I found that I resisted snow-shoveling less and less each winter. I even reached a point when I began to enjoy it. Honestly, I should be featured on one of those Progressive insurance commercials about young people who have, Invasion of the Body Snatchers-style, “become their parents.”  For me, the newfound pleasure I have found in removing snow is similar to the satisfaction I take in performing any quickly executable task, like vacuuming a rug: there is instant gratification in seeing something go from messy to spiffy so quickly. As I slide the shovel up and down my driveway, I see, instantaneously, the fruits of my labors: portions of the asphalt freshly liberated from accumulated snow. Thus encouraged, I continue until the entire driveway is clear. How many problems in life can be solved so easily? Being a night owl, I sometimes put on my snow gear past midnight just for the fun of being the first on my block to make a dent in the drifts. And not being a morning person, such preemptive snow removal reduces the possibility that I will have to perform the task half-awake and bleary-eyed.  If I am shoveling during an active snowfall, I shovel with the full knowledge that the sections I have cleared will have to be cleared again, but this does not depress as much as inspires me to keep at it. Perhaps I have simply reached a stoic state of acceptance about snow and the necessity of its prompt, indeed ongoing removal—like Seneca with a shovel. I do not think that my parents were trying to impart a philosophical lesson when they ordered me to start shoveling so many winters ago. They were just trying to make the driveway useable. But their constant calls to bundle up and start shoveling do amount to kind of ersatz value system: As surely as the snow will fall every Ohio winter, the world will keep dumping its problems on us. We can either ignore, or shovel our way out. The post Snow Drifts appeared first on The American Conservative.

Foreign Affairs As Trade Talks Loom, Canada and Mexico Take Opposite Tracks Canada is opening up to China as Mexico looks to integrate more closely with the United States. The new year of 2026 has the makings of a significant point in history, between marking the semiquincentenary of the United States of America and the upcoming political battle for the midterm elections in November. Less anticipated but still of significant importance is the impending renegotiation of the United States–Mexico–Canada Agreement (USMCA), the free trade agreement that replaced the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) at the end of President Donald Trump’s first term. Though Trump has been a major critic of NAFTA over the years, the USMCA largely left NAFTA’s framework intact, preserving a broad section of commerce between the signatory countries free from import duties and controls. The updated agreement did increase IP protections, strengthened labor standards in an attempt to cut down on labor arbitrage (specifically aimed at reducing the outsourcing of American manufacturing to Mexico), and increased country of origin requirements that qualify goods like automobiles for tariff exemptions under the treaty. But the overall effect was more to tinker with the edges of the agreement than to seriously revise the North American commercial system. One major change that does differentiate the USMCA from NAFTA, however, is its system of periodic renegotiation. Unlike NAFTA, which was signed on a permanent basis, the USMCA will sunset in 16 years, and the signatories must meet and renegotiate the terms of the agreement every six years. This allows for the agreement to be updated for contemporary concerns, and effectively allows the U.S. to leverage its position as the largest market in the hemisphere to periodically obtain concessions from its neighbors to the north and south. When Trump signed the USMCA during his first term, it is unlikely that he expected to be at the table six years later to go over the terms of the agreement again. Now, however, the president again has the chance to materially alter the economic balance of the North American commercial system—this time, with a much stronger hand. Trump has already proven that he’s willing to hit Canada and Mexico with punitive tariffs and wield American economic might as a tool for extracting policy concessions, as Mexican and Canadian negotiators will be painfully aware of as they work on wrapping up the framework of a revised agreement by this summer. America’s counterparts in the USMCA have taken starkly divergent approaches to that political and economic reality. Under President Claudia Sheinbaum, Mexico has worked diligently to reconcile itself to the priorities of the Trump administration and cooperate with it on its economic and security policies. Secretary of Security and Civilian Protection Omar García Harfuch and Economy Minister Marcelo Ebrard have spent many hours conversing with their American opposites, and behind closed doors Mexico has largely acquiesced to the desires of American leadership. The country has quietly embarked on a major escalation of border control and anti-narcotics operations aimed at reducing immigration and drug trafficking into the U.S.  Sheinbaum clearly views closer integration with the U.S. economy as the key to continued Mexican economic success, and has implemented a number of measures to reduce Mexican reliance on China. In December of last year, Mexico imposed tariffs of up to 50 percent on a wide swathe of Chinese imports, ranging from raw materials to textiles to automotive parts. Sheinbaum is betting that as the U.S. continues its efforts to decouple from China by nearshoring and friendshoring, Mexican industry will reap the rewards by being the natural place to relocate portions of American supply chains. Canada, in contrast, has taken the opposite approach. Anti-American sentiment in Mexico is longstanding and deeply rooted, but Sheinbaum has waved off Trumpian threats to carry out military operations in her country or to slap Mexicans with tariffs. Canadians, on the other hand—with whom the U.S. has a long history of cooperation—were outraged by Trump’s suggestion that they should become the 51st state and infuriated that the president had the audacity to place tariffs on their exports to America. Under the new Liberal Prime Minister Mark Carney, Canada hit back, placing retaliatory tariffs on American goods and distancing itself from the U.S. on the international stage. Canadian anti-Americanism, always a latent cultural force but until recently without much political expression, has become a major factor in Canadian foreign policy. Now, Canada is turning to China as a way to counterbalance America’s overwhelming economic leverage on their domestic economy. (The U.S. buys more than 75 percent of all Canadian exports.) Carney took the stage Friday in Beijing with China’s Xi Jinping—during the first visit by a Canadian prime minister to the country in nearly a decade—to announce that China and Canada have signed a “new strategic partnership” that will significantly increase economic integration between the two countries. Chief among the included provisions is an agreement for Canada to import tens of thousands of Chinese electric cars at most-favored-nation tariff rates. (The vehicles were previously subject to import duties of 100 percent.) In return, China is cutting its tariffs on Canadian canola from 85 percent to 15 percent. The deal opens up many more avenues of cooperation between the two countries, including energy—Canada may soon be shipping oil to China in return for solar panels and batteries. But the most important effect is to patch up what had been, following American trends, a rocky relationship, and to pave the way for a much more significant Chinese influence to the north. It also means that Canada will likely come into USMCA negotiations this year emboldened and more combative than it might otherwise have been. The U.S. is not the only country that can play power games with its economy. For its part, the Trump administration has yet to make major statements on its position for the upcoming negotiations—its early focus on trade has been superseded by the lure of conflicts in the Middle East and Venezuela. Nor is the public likely to pay much attention; the mechanics of trade agreements are too dry to capture much interest. But 2026 quietly offers the Trump administration a chance to retool the North American commercial system to better serve American interests, if it is able to take advantage of the opportunity. The post As Trade Talks Loom, Canada and Mexico Take Opposite Tracks appeared first on The American Conservative.

from The HighWire with Del Bigtree: TRUTH LIVES on at https://sgtreport.tv/

from SGT Report: With over a trillion dollars a year to spend (thanks to YOU) the Pentagon is now a nation state onto its own and its tentacles reach all thecway down through Fort Huachuca through fake pastors, to mega churches and operatives like Erika Kirk. Todd Callender joins me to discuss the horrible truth […]

from Sputnik News: Russia is concerned about NATO’s increased activity in the Arctic, Russian Ambassador to Norway Nikolai Korchunov told Sputnik. As experience shows, “boosting the North Atlantic alliance’s presence in a particular region does not contribute to strengthening security but, on the contrary, leads to increased tension,” Nikolai Korchunov noted. TRUTH LIVES on at https://sgtreport.tv/ ???Why Washington […]

by Paul Serran, The Gateway Pundit: It’s a technological ‘cat and mouse’ dispute. As massive protests took to the streets of Iran for days on end, the Ayatollahs’ regime shut down the country’s internet completely. That left the insurgents relying almost solely on the Starlink services made free by Elon Musk during the confrontations. So […]

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