Seems it was a waste of our time and money. If anything, Canada should be asking the USA to increase their own border security as guns and drugs come into Canada at a much larger scale. And why even have a fentanyl czar etc if none of our actions will stop the tariffs? This was never about the border or drugs but Trump said jump and Canada asked How high?
That’s just what popped into my mind too… We can stop the whole process and spend the money for something else
Let our border patrol keep the guns out and let the Americans keep fentanyl out.
So. We don’t have a fentanyl “czar” we have Erin O’Gorman President of the Canada Border Services Agency who has been in the position since 2022 and was not appointed at the behest of Trump. The whole situation with requested assistance to halt the bleed of illegal guns from the USA has been something we’ve advocated for for a long time but the US tends to not take Canadian affairs very seriously because we are effectively a very small country with only marginally more population than the state of California. Honestly, we’ve never been prioritized as Americans cannot be made to care that they are shit neighbours.
Additional boarder Enforcement was approved 6 months ago when Trump was elected due to the possibility of another influx of immigrants fleeing the US which happened the first time Trump was in office due to proposed travel bans. It is here to stay as instability in the US is rising. We also dropped the requirements for recruitment to branches of the military because we are taking these threats seriously. If Trump never asked for anything we would be doing the same thing.
Trump essentially just threw a tantrum, we told him we would cover it because he was asking for things already in progress but what he wanted was to crow his strong man tactics to the media which is what he got.
Do not be fooled by media exaggerating the “wins” of Trump. He’s just using flash and glitter and misdirection.
The US economy is about to crash hard. You bought yourselves a month to diversify with some political theatre.
The Canadian economy is also about to crash hard, unfortunately. Possibly worse than the US thanks to our incoming mortgage crisis
I’m not doubting you on the future crash, but what are you basing this one? Feels like they’ve been saying there would be a crash for like 5 years now.
Analysts have predicted 100 of the last 5 crashes, remember. Call heads long enough and it’ll be true eventually.
Yeah, schiff had been saying there would be another great depression for like 10 years. Never happened.
This was never about the border or drugs
You got that right. That stuff was pretty much all post-hoc improvising to attempt to make trump’s ridiculous tariff idea seem less irrational and stupid.
I’m waiting to see what nebulous and impossible task he comes up with this time in the 11th hour, one last chance for Canada to prove its worth to the imitation mob boss who’s running the country down there.
I agree though, whatever he wants this time, we should call his bluff. As much as he wants to paint Canada as the abuser stealing billions from the american economy, everyone can see that the opposite is true. Deleting our trade deal with them will be hard at first, but it will ultimately be a good thing for Canadians.
This isn’t about fentanyl. More flows into Canada from the USA than to the USA. It was just a petty excuse to start mounting pressure on Canada in a long game to attempt annexation. Trump has made this abundantly clear and even said there’s nothing Canada can do to avoid tarriffs.
Canada asked How high?
This isn’t true. Canada re-affirmed that it was going to spend money that had already been allocated and agreed to join a task force that was a Canadian proposal to begin with. The only new thing was appointing a fentanyl “czar,” which is insignificant. Mexico similarly gave up nothing new. Let’s not help Trump spin his failures into victories.
Yeah, we delayed it by a month without really doing anything. All his “demands” were met superficially.
It’s Canada benefiting from the money that was already allocated or was that done in the first place to appease the States?
If it wasn’t for Canada’s benefit then we definately should reallocate it if the tariffs actually happen this time.
It’s time Canada stopped relying on the United States for anything. If we want to be our own country, not beholden to any other country then we have to be prepared to stand on our own two feet. That means we have to stop thinking we can help every other country in the world and start thinking about how we secure Canada. And it’s going to cost because we need a functional military including the ships that will be required to patrol our coast lines. And that does not come cheap.
Actually, the money we allocated to border control occurred in December 2024, at least a month before Trump threatened tariffs. Trudeau then gave it a fun name (Fentanyl Czar) and Trump accepted that as yielding to his demands. We didn’t budge an inch, but we bought ourselves a month.
And we also bought ourselves the perception of being the “reasonable ones”, with the US being even more blatantly painted as flagrant deal-breakers.
That will be useful as we build new alliances with the rest of the world.
And while they try to make new deals.
And while they try to make new deals.
Who in their right mind would make a deal with a country/president who casually breaks deals whenever they feel like it?
Unless that other party is completely manipulating Trump in the way Putin routinely does…
Who would make a deal with someone who says that was a horrible deal who would have signed it but it was him.
This was never about the border or drugs but Trump said jump and Canada asked How high?
This, sadly. I do not think a single thing Canada will do will have Trump change his tune. He has been told Canada has been screwing the US for whatever reason, and now he wants revenge like all the other actions he has taken this term so far. Still, I think we need to at least try, that way the more sane Americans (and the rest of the world) will hopefully realize that attempts were made by Canada, programs were put into place at the US’s request, and all ignored by Trump.
He believes there is a deficit because on the books the US is paying more to Canada than Canada is paying the US. He believes it should be the other way around, he is just forgetting that Canada sends more product down to the US so they pay Canada more.
This more product is oil and natural gas May I remind you that we sell it to the US at a discount.
It’s like he’s forgotten that trade consists of both money AND goods. We’re not just passing money back and forth while secretly keeping some of the USA’s cut. Like even kids can understand this. And yes it’s even more infuriating since we’ve been good to the USA, I’m sure many countries around the world would love a neighbour like Canada.
I wonder if there has been research about how .much profits end up going to the states. It seems every company is owned by the Americans.
