How Trump’s tariffs on Canada would protect the U.S. from China

Late Monday, President Donald Trump and Prime Minister Justin Trudeau separately announced 30-day pauses on tariffs they had threatened to impose. The Canadian leader announced various measures, including the appointment of a fentanyl czar and the deployment of personnel to the border, to stop the flow of the deadly opioid to the U.S.

On Saturday, Canada announced “far-reaching” tariffs of 25 percent on American goods, moments after the U.S. had imposed similar measures on Canada.

President Trump was imposing American tariffs on Canada as part of a broader package.

“Today, I have implemented a 25 percent tariff on imports from ... Canada (10 percent on Canadian Energy), and a 10 percent additional Tariff on China,” Trump announced on X Saturday afternoon. “This was done through the International Emergency Economic Powers Act because of the major threat of illegal aliens and deadly drugs killing our Citizens, including fentanyl.”

“We don’t want to be here, we didn’t ask for this,” said Prime Minister Justin Trudeau at a press conference on Saturday, when he announced Canada's retaliation. But only in the most technical sense was the Canadian leader correct. At some point, it was virtually inevitable that Washington would lose patience with foot-dragging in Ottawa.

Trump or no Trump, the U.S. was bound to do something.

“Canadians were very worried about President Trump’s statement that he would impose tariffs on their country in response to its weak control of its southern border and lack of restrictions on the export of fentanyl to the U.S.,” Charles Burton, an Ottawa-based security expert, and former Canadian diplomat, told me on Sunday. “Canadian politicians should not have been surprised by President Trump’s tariffs this weekend.”

Canadians had good reason to be concerned. On Nov. 25, Donald Trump in a Truth Social posting had promised on the first day of his presidency to “sign all necessary documents to charge Mexico and Canada a 25 percent tariff on ALL products coming into the United States, and its ridiculous Open Borders.”

Furthermore, he pledged that the new measures would last a long time: “This Tariff will remain in effect until such time as drugs, in particular fentanyl, and all illegal aliens stop this invasion of our country!”

The then-incoming president had a point. “As everyone is aware, thousands of people are pouring through Mexico and Canada, bringing Crime and Drugs at levels never seen before,” Trump correctly wrote.

People were certainly aware of the migrant flows from Mexico, which on Monday bought a temporary reprieve from Trump's threatened tariffs. But the traffic from Canada has largely escaped attention. Although far more people cross the southern border, "the world’s longest undefended border” — the one the U.S. shares with its neighbor to the north — has become the favored route of some dangerous elements.

The statistics are stunning. U.S. Border Patrol in Fiscal Year 2024 apprehended 155 suspects on the terror watchlist arriving from Mexico and 358 watchlist suspects coming from Canada.

“It was a flood we had not seen before,” said Erik Lavallee, the Border Patrol agent in charge of the Beecher Falls Station in Vermont, to the CBS Boston affiliate last March. “It was an exponential shift, something we were not expecting and it just hit us hard.”

Other parties have been taking advantage of America’s open border with Canada. Last February, for instance, Border Patrol apprehended three Chinese nationals trying to sneak into Maine at night near Fort Fairfield. A fourth Chinese national, already in immigration proceedings, was arrested on the U.S. side, apparently there by prearrangement to pick up the trio.

These migrants should be viewed with suspicion. If they wanted to live in a free society, they would have looked for a Border Patrol agent to surrender to, so they could put themselves in the asylum waiting line and get benefits from generous localities. But because these migrants were trying to avoid detection, they were obviously coming to the U.S. for no good.

Trump was right to link tariffs to border security. “If we are going to control immigration then we have to take a more strategic view of global trade flows,” Alan Tonelson, a trade expert who blogs at RealityChek, told me in the middle of last year.

“Tariffing trade partners Canada and Mexico is justified to press them to prevent illegal immigrants and opioids from entering the United States through their territories, but ultimately these issues will be settled by other, targeted measures,” said Tonelson before Trump’s tariff imposition. “In any event, we need a comprehensive rewrite of the three-country USMCA free-trade deal.”

Trade and investment now connect Canada, Mexico and the U.S. into an integrated market, which means new American tariffs will damage all three economies. Yet Washington has little choice but to secure the northern border.

“China has completely infiltrated the Canadian political system and has been allowed to use Canadian soil as a launching pad for a sustained assault on America,” says Burton. At some point — we may already be there — America will have to prioritize national security concerns over trade considerations.

“In addition to the problems Trump identified, he cannot be happy that Canada’s loose banking regulations have made it a haven for money laundering,” Burton, now at the Sinopsis think tank, notes. “Transnational criminal enterprises involved in drug smuggling therefore find Canada a highly desirable venue to base operations.”

“Canada can no longer take the United States for granted,” wrote Jean Charest, the former Canadian deputy prime minister, on Jan. 23. “President Trump is forcing us to take a hard look at ourselves — how we manage our economy, work across provinces, and define our place in the world.”

Trump, who has set his sights on expanding America’s boundaries, keeps on talking about annexing Canada as “our Cherished 51st State,” holding out the prospect of tariff-free trade if Ottawa agrees to surrender sovereignty.

Trade friction is not ideal, of course, but Trump had to do something. Trudeau until Monday afternoon was not serious about dealing with America’s legitimate national security concerns.

Gordon G. Chang is the author of “Plan Red: China’s Project to Destroy America” and “The Coming Collapse of China.” Follow him on X @GordonGChang.

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