Don’t be fooled by the false pretenses of punishing a lack of border security behind Trump’s tariffs on Canadian industries; his trade wars are simply an expression of his desire to exert economic power onto other nations to see if he can bully them around.
On Feb. 28, President Trump took to Truth Social to confirm that the 25 per cent tariffs that went to effect on March 4 can be blamed on a lack of action to prevent the alleged flow of drugs into the U.S. from Mexico and Canada.
However, several reports, including one from The New York Times, found that exports of fentanyl — the main narcotic Trump alleged was “pouring” into the U.S. from Canada — represents a “miniscule” 0.2 per cent of seizures at Canada-U.S. borders.
The Globe and Mail recently published a similar report, calling the data Trump is using to justify tariffs “misleading.” The report outlines that the figures Trump is using to support his tariffs are incredibly unclear, not specifying which criminal charges came from these seizures, how the drugs were being trafficked nor exactly where the drugs were coming from.
By cross-referencing information from the White House with interviews including first-hand accounts from law enforcement officials and other court data, The Globe and Mail writers Kathryn Blaze Baum, Colin Freeze and Andrea Woo found that some of the seizures Trump continues to cite “may have no ties to Canada whatsoever.”
With all this data disproving Trump’s claims that Canada is massively responsible for fentanyl and other narcotic trafficking into the U.S., Trump has clearly given Canada an issue that cannot be solved. Precisely, the fentanyl trafficking issue that Trump is assigning to Canada does not exist in the way he is describing it.
It is important to note that Canada is indeed tangled in a detrimental drug crisis, but this is not the issue Trump is referring to.
So, the question becomes: Why is Trump threatening the U.S.’s closest trade partner — not to mention the livelihoods of Canadians and Americans alike that depend on threatened sectors — for seemingly very little reason?
Trump is using tariffs to subordinate Canada to the U.S., letting Canadian officials scramble to crack down on border security despite an already highly patrolled border.
Trump implied in his Truth Social post that Canada did not do enough to toughen border security during the period between tariff threats, justifying the need to put them into place. However, no amount of border control would have been sufficient to Trump because the tariffs are not truly about border security, they are about power.
Trump’s political persona largely relies on positing himself as superior to all other leaders and the U.S. as reigning above all other nations. To convey this hierarchy of power, Trump’s threat toward Canada’s economy leaves the Canadian government running to appease him — even though, for the tariffs, there is no way to do so.
The Guardian columnist Nesrine Malik calls this occurrence “the Trump doctrine,” saying that U.S. allies can either submit to “political subordination” or take back their agency and look past his immediate threats.
Trump’s proposed 25 per cent tariffs pose an incredible threat to Canadian industries, but they also pose a threat to the legitimacy in which Canadians and Americans alike will regard our leaders.
Canada’s response to Trump’s tariffs absolutely cannot be an act of mere appeasing to make peace with Trump, or our country will continue to be subordinated time and time again.
Canadians should not be deceived by the claims Trump puts behind his tariff orders. The 25 per cent tariffs are not about border security, they are about undermining Canada’s capacity to demonstrate political force to feed “manifest destiny” ideals of the U.S. reigning over all nations — including their closest allies.