White House economic adviser Kevin Hassett said on Sunday he was hopeful a dispute with Canada over accusations of the deadly fentanyl opioid entering the U.S. across its northern border could be resolved by the end of March.
His comments on ABC News’s “This Week” raise the possibility that tariffs due to be reimposed by U.S. President Donald Trump at the end of the month could be stayed further.
In reality, Canada is responsible for a minuscule proportion of drug smuggling into the United States and it wasn’t immediately clear what progress Hassett was referring to.
Democratic U.S. Senator Adam Schiff from California, who appeared after Hassett on ABC, called the adviser’s comments “incomprehensible.”
The reason trump is trying to force his Mexico strategy on Canada is the plan when he divided Mexico and Canada was probably for Mexico to cave.
Instead Trudeau did and Mexico stood firm.
trump was always going to attack the weak link, he just didn’t expect it to be it to be Canada. Then had no plans on how to claim the US Canadian border was dangerous.
How did Canada, or "Trudeau"as you put it, cave? We put in place retaliatory tariffs and trump caved, as far as I can tell
Weeks ago…
When trump tried to divide them, Trudeau tried to play ball.
That’s why trump stopped talking about Mexico and attacked Canada. Eventually leading to Canada putting in place retaliatory tariffs…
If they’d have stood with Mexico since January, it wouldn’t have gotten to this point.
It’s like a drunk driver celebrating they survived the crash, you could have just never put yourself in that position in the first place buddy
Like a mature adult who wants to explore all options to avoid harm to his country. That’s not a sign of “weakness.”
And that would make sense if negotiating with a rational person…
Do you think trump is a normal president that will listen to logic and facts?
Because buddy…
I don’t know where you and Trudeau have been the last checks notes decade to still think that. Hell, even before his entrance in politics, it wasn’t exactly surprising.
We didn’t lose anything by trying. We made no significant concessions that we now have to draw back.
It legitimized his rhetoric and emboldened him…
Now Canada has admitted an imaginary problem exists and has taken steps to stop something that isn’t happening.
Only MAGAs believe that. Any remotely sane person sees the situation as you do, as evidenced by the fact that Canada is now implementing counter-tariffs and the only people wailing about how unfair it is are said MAGAs. Who would never have been satisfied or influenced by anything we did, as it turns out.
Being known as mature adults is a good thing.
Nice. A clairvoyant on the internet. Very original.
Trump had made it very clear since before his inauguration that he would be targeting Mexico, Canada, and China in his crusade against fentanyl.
Coincidentally, those three nations are also the US’ largest trading partners, where the only legal avenue for applying tarrifs within the framework of his own USMCA (the greatest trade deal, maybe ever!) is to declare a national emergency. ‘Tarrif’, after all, is his favourite word. Right after ‘make’, ‘that’ and ‘large’. He’s been obsessed with tarrifs since the 80s. Any excuse will do. And ‘fentanyl from Canada’ is the excuse that he burped up after a particularly greasy bucket of chicken.
This trade policy by royal decree has been enabled by a national and bipartisan apathy to the abuse of legal loopholes and a general contempt toward foundational principles like the separation of powers. It’s all very obvious. We don’t have to guess at trumps motives or strategy here. He has rambled about it incoherently for years at this point. Subtlety is not one of his strong points.
That’s not to mention the influence of the First Lady, Lord Ketamine himself.
Trump has also made it very clear that this isn’t really about fentanyl, that’s just a convenient excuse (he can’t impose tariffs without congress unless it’s for “national security.”)
His real purpose seems to be some combination of “if I hurt Canada then that makes America stronger somehow” and “if I hurt Canada enough then they’ll give up and submit to being conquered by America outright.” He’s said both of these things, and Trump is too cheese-brained to be an effective liar; when he shows you what he’s really like you should believe him.
It’s a war of aggression, essentially. Fentanyl is just his Gulf of Tonkin.
Right. Obvious to most except maybe those with only two brain cells strung together with spray cheese.