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.”
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.