There’s a New Tariff in Town

1,797 words

President Donald Trump and Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau shake hands during a joint press conference, Monday, Feb. 13, 2017, in the East Room of the White House. (Official White House Photo by Shealah Craighead)

President Donald Trump was set to impose a 25% tariff on imports from Canada starting on Tuesday February 4. After two last-minute phone calls on Monday, Trump and Trudeau agreed on a temporary duty-free 30-day ceasefire.

Investigative news outlet Blacklock’s Reporter summarized the situation:

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau only 36 hours after pledging to lead a Team Canada fight against American tariffs yesterday offered numerous concessions in exchange for a 30-day reprieve from U.S. President Donald Trump. No legal text of an agreement was detailed: “We work together.”

The trade war was off, for now. This momentary cessation of economic hostilities between the two North American neighbours was contingent upon Canada getting its act together as far as border security and fentanyl trafficking was concerned. In addition to using surveillance technology, personnel, and appointing a so-called “fentanyl czar” Trudeau said

I just had a good call with President Trump. Canada is implementing our $1.3 billion border plan—reinforcing the border with new choppers, technology and personnel, enhanced coordination with our American partners, and increased resources to stop the flow of fentanyl. Nearly 10,000 frontline personnel are and will be working on protecting the border.

Just a few days ago, a temporary agreement forestalling these tariffs seemed like a forlorn hope. Instead of opening trade talks with the United States and the newly inaugurated American president, it looked like Justin Trudeau would stumble into a devastating trade war with Canada’s largest and most important trading partner rather than engage in any meaningful diplomacy. There is no love lost between Trump and Trudeau — it is obvious that they hate each other. Instead of engaging diplomatically with the Americans, Trudeau decided, that he would rather procrastinate and jet off to Poland to ink a deal about Canadian nuclear power when he should have been having urgent talks with Trump and American officials.

A few days earlier, when asked about the tariffs to be imposed on Canada, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said that Trudeau should have spoken with the president directly instead of irresponsibly seeding ideas about a trade war to the media. This, in part, was her response:

I think the President is going to implement those tariffs tomorrow, and he will respond to Mr. Trudeau’s comments in due time. . . The President is intent on doing this, and I think Justin Trudeau would be wise to talk to President Trump directly before pushing outlandish comments like that to the media.

Leavitt was correct about this.

Everything that President Trump has said about Canada’s unwillingness to shutter the border and control unfettered mass migration both legal and illegal, foreign students, and refugees, is true. Under the Trudeau federal regime, immigration has reached numbers that surpassed those used to settle the untamed west in the early part of the twentieth century. The difference now, of course, is that the migrants coming to the north are stepping into a ready-made country looking for handouts. Many of them are working for organized crime as well.

When the newly inaugurated president cites the manufacturing and trafficking of deadly fentanyl from Canada into the United States, he is correct. Chinese organized crime and Mexican cartels are doing a booming business with their virulent poison. These drug syndicates who are increasingly in league with one another have developed a method for a diabolical scheme, named the Vancouver Model that gains its namesake from the city of Vancouver, British Columbia, where the scheme was honed. Fentanyl is sold, money is then taken in hockey bags to provincially sanctioned casinos where it is then laundered, casino cheques are issued, and then that money is used to buy housing. And the cycle continues. Fentanyl is smuggled across the Canada-US border in huge amounts that kills millions of Americans every year. Canada is experiencing its own opioid crisis as well. Large Canadian banks are guilty of helping to launder millions of illicit funds.

Rather than deal with the ongoing opioid, housing, and immigration crises, Trudeau initially decided to invoke the image of the malevolent American to desperately cling to power. The spectre of an American takeover or just anti-Americanism more generally has been a perennial tactic of Canadian politicians. Anti-Americanism is invoked whenever it is needed by the Left or the Right depending on who needs it most at the time. Trudeau’s press conference on Saturday night, invoked this sentiment albeit in a nuanced way as he promised retaliatory tariffs if Trump made good on his threat. At the very last minute, however, Trudeau decided to actually pick up the phone and strike a last-minute deal.

Toby Lutke, the multi-billionaire founder of Shopify, one of Canada’s most successful companies, was critical of Trudeau’s response to Trump’s imposition of tariffs. He wrote a lengthy post on X:

I’m disappointed that Trump admin placed the 25% tariffs. I’m disappointed that this is our government’s response. I love Canada and want it to thrive. I built Canada’s biggest tech company here because I know it’s a special place. Canada thrives when it works with America together. Win by helping America win. Trump believes that Canada has not held its side of the bargain, and he set terms to prove that we still work together: get the borders under control and crack down on fentanyl dens. These are things that every Canadian wants its government to do, too. These are not crazy demands, even if they came from an unpopular source. These tariffs are going to be devastating to so many people’s lives and small businesses. Action has to be judged based on what it leads to, not how good it sounds or feels. Leadership is about doing what’s right, not what is popular. And hitting back will not lead to anything good. America will shrug it off. Canada will decline. It’s simply the wrong choice in a possibility space where much better options would have been available.

Although Lutke is a tech billionaire, the majority of Canada’s wealth is derived from the selling of natural resources to the United States. Apologists for the Liberal government have emphasised the need to find other trading partners to be less reliant on America. Ironically, though, the Trudeau federal regime over its decade-long tenure has been hostile to the extractive industries and pipelines that are crucial for getting oil and gas to overseas markets.

An enormous amount of trade flows back and forth between Canada and the United States on a daily basis. It is estimated at $2 billion (CAD) every single day. The two countries share the world’s longest land border; and the US-Canada trade relationship is unique in the world because of its integration and value. This crucially important relationship was nearly shattered this week by a petulant Canadian political class that would rather opine about the importance of our sovereignty without taking the necessary steps to combat organized crime and the illegal trafficking of deadly synthetic opioids.

Another point of contention is Canada’s lacklustre efforts to bolster its military. Trump is partly   correct when he says that the United States military is responsible for Canada’s defence. Canada has a small elite military in many ways, but you can fit the entire force in a football stadium along with many of its vehicles. It might ruffle feathers to say that the United States is responsible, in large part, for continental defence. According to Global Firepower the Canadian forces Canada has approximately 68,000 regular force soldiers, 27,000 reservists and approximately 5,000 paramilitary soldiers that operate in the Canadian arctic. They are good at what they do, but again, they are dwarfed by US martial power.

As far as military expenditures are concerned, Canada only spends 1.37% GDP on defence, which is under the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) minimum target of 2%. Trump has nothing but contempt for NATO and has said in the past that NATO member states should pull their own weight. He even stated publicly that NATO member states should be spending 5%. Trump wants to dispense with paying for Europe’s defense, which would be a marked change in American foreign and defence policy.

Trump has re-introduced the tariff as a tool of foreign policy: by threatening economic hardship on target countries, he has been able to win concessions. In his recent dealings with the government of Columbia, Trump used the threat of tariffs to force the Columbian government to accept deportation flights from the United States. After an initial refusal, the Columbian government relented after Trump threatened the country with 25% tariffs.

Meanwhile, on the southern front, President Trump announced on Monday February 3, 2025 that he would pause tariffs on Mexico after speaking with President Claudia Sheinbaum:

I just spoke with President Claudia Sheinbaum of Mexico. It was a very friendly conversation wherein she agreed to immediately supply 10,000 Mexican Soldiers on the Border separating Mexico and the United States. These soldiers will be specifically designated to stop the flow of fentanyl, and illegal migrants into our Country. We further agreed to immediately pause the anticipated tariffs for a one month period during which we will have negotiations headed by Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Secretary of Treasury Scott Bessent, and Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick, and high-level Representatives of Mexico. I look forward to participating in those negotiations, with President Sheinbaum, as we attempt to achieve a “deal” between our two Countries.

Instead of working with the United States and making concessions like the Columbian and Mexican governments, Canada first decided, under Trudeau’s avoidant leadership, to dig its heels in and engage in a tariff war. This was averted only at the very last minute.

It is oddly ironic that Donald Trump, in part, reminded Canadians who they really are. Although a negative identity is not the best form of nationalism, it is a start. As the late Johnathan Bowden said “energy always excites” and this crisis has definitely energized many Canadains.  Even otherwise vacuous Leftists have uncharacteristically wrapped themselves in a mild form of nationalism. Many people on the Right who have contemplated the prospect of becoming part of the Trumpian MAGA project have unconsciously reached into the depths of their own identity and decided that its ultimately up to us to rid ourselves of Trudeau and his nihilistic global cabal once and for all; but it’s something that we must do ourselves as it is our country. The good thing about this tariff crisis is it has forced Canadians to wake up from their slumber. Whatever their political leanings, people here will start to ask important questions like “Who are we?” “Where do we come from?” “What makes us different?” and “What have we achieved as a group?”. These are crucially important identitarian questions. When people —in this particular case, Canadians — begin to ask and answer these questions, they start to realize who belongs and who is alien to the once Great White North.