Donald Trump on Monday announced that on his first day in office he will sign an executive order to impose a 25% tariff on all goods from Mexico and Canada and the tariffs will remain effective until drugs such as fentanyl and all illegal immigration from these countries stops.
This if materialised will be a big hit for Canada as US is its largest trading partner and the total value of goods traded between them in 2023 was $774 Billion, out of which Canada exported $421 Billion and imported $353 Billion worth of goods.
In Fact, 78% of Canada’s goods export ends up in the US, so the US is a big market for Canada and Trump is aware of this leverage.
But Why has he decided to target Canada? Is it just about drugs and immigration or is there something more beneath the surface?
And the First is, maybe Donald Trump is telling the truth
An estimated 75,000 people died from fentanyl overdose in the US in 2023 and according to the US, China is the primary supplier of this drug.
Fentanyl also known as “China White” first arrived in the US in the 1970’s but its consumption boomed in 2010’s after which the US government launched a crackdown on goods imported from China, post which the Drug cartels changed track and started importing chemicals that are used to make fentanyl from China in either Mexico or Canada, disguised as gadgets and even shopping merchandise.
Then these chemicals are sent to drug labs in these countries where they are converted into fentanyl which is shipped across the border to the US.
Now it all makes sense why Trump is threatening Canada and Mexico but there’s a catch.
In 2023, US Customs seized 43 pounds of fentanyl at the Canadian border which is nothing in comparison with 21,100 pounds seized at the Mexican border.
And on immigration, the U.S. Border Patrol made 23,721 arrests at the Canadian border between October 2023 and September 2024 whereas 56,530 arrests were made at the Mexican border in October alone.
Canada by the way has already been taking active measures to stop this too as Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has already announced a shift in immigration policy. He acknowledged that “bad actors,” such as fake colleges and corporations, have exploited Canada’s system and revealed plans to reduce immigration targets.
So although Trump’s reasoning for the tariff threat may seem reasonable for Mexico, it doesn’t seem the same for Canada.
Which brings us to our second reason, Trump Just Doesn’t Like Canadian PM Justin Trudeau
Trump and Trudeau were once amongst the best of friends on the global stage but things quickly went sour when Trump in may of 2018 imposed tariffs on Canadian Steel and Aluminium in order to speed up the negotiations around the new NAFTA trade deal but Canada in response announced retaliatory tariffs to the tune of 16.6 Billion Dollars on steel, aluminium and hundreds of other US products.
And the relation further went downhill when this video of Justin Trudeau Mocking Donald Trump at a 2019 NATO summit went viral.
When asked about the same at a press conference, Trump Called Justin Trudeau “Two-faced” and in a series of tweets lashed out at Trudeau.
Last time however it was only Trump who had problems with Trudeau and not his white house but this time around his cabinet hates Trudeau too, as in the last few years Justin Trudeau has been in the centre of a few stories that have gotten widespread coverage in the united states particularly among conservative circles.
There was the trudeau government’s crackdown on freedom convoy, his ban on sale and transfer of handguns,
And Bill C63, that’s the one authorising police to preemptively detain someone on the suspicion that they may say something hateful in future.
Tulsi Gabbard, Trump’s new director of National Intelligence, cut an entire video in 2023 calling Trudeau an enemy of freedom in democracy.
Marco Rubio, Trump’s secretary of state put his name to this 2020 letter calling Trudeau’s Canada a massive civ for Palestinian terrorism.
Trump’s National advisor Mike Waltz has already kind of endorsed Trudeau’s opponent.
So all in all, Trump’s recent victory is a huge setback for Trudeau, as his approval numbers are already in the dumps, so the last thing he wants is a trade war with the United States and this is the reason Trudeau on friday went to meet Trump at Mar-a-lago.
Although both the parties claimed that the meeting was very productive, recent reports points to the contrary, as when Justin told trump that his tariffs would crash Canada’s economy, Trump responded that if the country could not survive without “ripping off the U.S. to the tune of $100 billion a year,” then Canada should become the United States’ 51st state, with Trudeau serving as its governor.
Canada is all set for its federal elections next year and Trump is doing his all to show how weak Trudeau is as Canada’s PM and ensure that he loses the upcoming elections.
Or maybe Trump is using this as leverage over Justin Trudeau, which brings us to our next reason.
Trump now wants to renegotiate the USMCA trade deal between the US, Canada and Mexico.
USMCA is a trade agreement signed between the 3 countries in 2018 as a replacement for NAFTA which was signed in 1992.
Donald Trump was the biggest critic of NAFTA and in his previous term had bought USMCA as its replacement, but if this is the case, why does Trump now want it to be renegotiated?
The answer is simple, NAFTA as per Trump ripped off America as it opened doors for tariff free trade between the 3 countries and since mexico among the three had the cheapest labour and resources and as a result corporations in order to save costs set up factories in Mexico to sell goods tax free in US and Canada.
And the US as a result saw major job losses in the manufacturing sector.
Now USMCA, even though claimed by Trump as a savior for America’s Manufacturing sector, is nothing but just a rebranding of NAFTA and almost 90% of its provisions are copy-pasted from NAFTA.
Although Trump wanted to make USMCA even more pro-American, he failed to do it last time due to lack of support from Congress and resistance from Mexico and Canada.
But Trump now wants to change that and maybe is using Tariffs on these countries as a leverage for him to get a favorable deal.
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