Commitment comes after week of chaotic messaging from U.S. president

U.S. President Donald Trump says he will end a month-long pause and slap a 25 per cent tariff on most Canadian goods as of March 4, claiming he needs to take action because “drugs are still pouring into our country” despite evidence that a crackdown at the border is working.

Trump said in a social media post Thursday that fentanyl imports are killing people and the U.S. “cannot allow this scourge to continue to harm the USA” and he will levy a 25 per cent tariff on Canada “until it stops, or is seriously limited.”

He also says his threatened reciprocal tariffs on specific goods set to come into effect in April “will remain in full force and effect.”

The commitment comes after a week of chaotic messaging from the president.

  • Cyborganism@lemmy.ca
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    1 day ago

    So folding to all his demands was a lot of effort and spending for absolutely nothing.

    Fuck the US.

    • wirebeads@lemmy.ca
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      1 day ago

      Yup. I don’t know why we’d even try to appease a convicted felon and rapist.

      I wouldn’t even bother trying to deal with that Nazi pig at this point. Raise the price of all our essentials goods to them. If we’re really vindictive, hold back any sales of potash and other materials needed for their agriculture for a while. Starve the beast.

      • OldTellus@lemmy.ca
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        20 hours ago

        Start raising of oil, power and potash to compensate our losses. Keep increasing the price everytime he adds a new tarrif. Hell I would raise everytime he says ‘governor Trudeau’

        • wirebeads@lemmy.ca
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          19 hours ago

          If we made “governor trudeau” a drinking game, we’d all need new livers by 10:04 AM.

        • Perhapsjustsniffit@lemmy.ca
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          19 hours ago

          Just potash alone would kill them. That’s a huge hit to lose so much necessary fertilizer. Impact the food chain heavy and suddenly the citizens aren’t so comfy to let It all go down.

    • ahal@lemmy.ca
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      23 hours ago

      What effort and spending did we do? My understanding that it was just a bunch of platitudes or things that were already in the works.

      • Cyborganism@lemmy.ca
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        22 hours ago

        LOL! Well first of all Trump wildly exaggerated how much fentanyl was being brought into the US from Canada.

        The Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA) says it seized 4.9 kilograms of fentanyl on its side of the U.S.-Canada border between Jan. 1 to Oct. 31, 2024. The agency says that’s a 775 per cent increase from the same time period in 2023. 4.1 kilograms was intercepted outbound this year before it could be smuggled toward the Netherlands, they said in an online breakdown.

        Source

        More stats here

        They set up a border fentanyl “Czar” and spent a few millions to have a increased presence at the border with little impact. Because there’s already so little fentanyl crossing from Canada to the U.S.

        CBSA launches Operation Blizzard to target fentanyl and other synthetic narcotics

        There’s a lot more coming into Canada from the U.S. actually. But the main and biggest source is China.

        • ahal@lemmy.ca
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          22 hours ago

          I’m not disagreeing that trumps claims are bullshit? I’m wondering what the “lots of time and money” were. AFAIK, we spent a few million dollars to fly some helicopters around. We might just have very different definitions of what “a lot of money” means in the context of federal spending.

          Besides, if those millions of dollars bought us one extra month of no tariffs, that’s the investment of the century. Quite the opposite of a waste of time.

          • Cyborganism@lemmy.ca
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            21 hours ago

            Let’s agree to disagree on that one.

            The end result is the same. It only delayed the inevitable, made us waste our time and resources that we could’ve used for better things, and we’re still going to have a fucked up economy and make our lives a living hell.

            I’m already pretty mad that I had to survive through the economic crash of 2008 at the start of my adult life and I had to cancel all my life goals of having a family and shit. And now I have to deal with this bullshit when I finally achieved financial comfort. Fuck all of this. I’m mad as hell.

            • Franklin@lemmy.ca
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              19 hours ago

              Nah we didn’t bend to jack shit, Trudeau did what we were already doing and Trump called it good enough and now Trump’s changing his mind because he’s pulling from Putin’s bag of tricks: soft power projection by questioning our sovereignty. Trudeau made the right call but unfortunately it doesn’t matter.

              • OldTellus@lemmy.ca
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                20 hours ago

                Agreed. This was never about drugs, we can’t stop what isn’t happening. Trudeau bought us a month to get our shit together and prepare for the inevitable, Which we’ve done. At least we won’t be completely blindsided this time.

    • bowreality@lemmy.ca
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      20 hours ago

      That money should have gone into our economy to prepare for more domestic goods and business. Controlling what comes INTO their country is THEIR job not ours to keep shit out anyways.