Trump cuts a deal with Canada and Mexico to delay tariffs for at least 30 days.

 

Donald Trump and Justin Trudeau. Fox News.

Donald Trump has cut a deal with the leadership of Canada and Mexico that will delay tariffs for at least 30 days. Fox News. Both countries made major concessions to Trump to avoid the tariffs, which would have been at 25% for general goods and 10% for energy related items for Canada. Canadian Prime Minster Justin Trudeau gave Trump a major commitment to secure the northern US border and said he would appoint a czar to deal with the fentanyl problem. Trudeau also said he would deploy new helicopters, technology and personnel and would coordinate with the United States to deal with illegal immigration and drug smuggling. Mexico made similar commitments to deploy troops to border, 10,000 troops, and made other concessions. 

My Comment:

As expected Trump cut a deal. Why folks are surprised that he was able to pull on off when he literally wrote a book about making a deal (well, I am sure it was ghost written) is beyond me. This is what Trump is known for and the only way it wouldn't have happened is if the leadership of Mexico and/or Canada were especially stubborn. 

Of course it's not like this was anything new, Trump already had the exact same thing happen with Columbia. Columbia got annoyed with how Trump was sending them deported illegals and Trump decided to drop the hammer with threats of major tariffs. Columbia backed down so fast that the blog post I wrote about it was only valid for about five minutes before news broke. 

Trump knows that tariffs are an extremely potent weapon to use. Had a deal not been cut, Canada and Mexico would have been heading to a recession at best. They are both hugely dependent on the United States for trade while America isn't anywhere near as vulnerable. They would have been in trouble long before it started to negatively affect America. It won't work against all countries, tariffs would obviously be useless against Russia due to sanctions, but it should work well against trading partners. 

I do kind of wish that Canada had not cut a deal. I greatly dislike Justin Trudeau and I would love to see him squirm. He's the worst leader in this hemisphere and it's not close. It galls me that he's taking a victory lap before he leaves office. I'd rather have Trump kept these tariffs until Trudeau was replaced, but it's probably better for both sides that a deal is made. 

I also wonder if Trump will get further concessions. This deal is only for 30 days and the tariffs could, in theory, come into play after that. The wins here were pretty big though so I think Trump might settle with what he has gotten. Plus it's good to show that he is willing to let bygones be bygones if he gets what he wants. It's smart. 

I also appreciate that this was all over drug smuggling and illegal immigration. Something has to be done about the fentanyl problem and if any progress is to be made there there has to be major cooperation with both Mexico and Canada. Canada isn't a huge source of the drug but if Mexico cleans up their act they would be the obvious next choice. Plus, illegal immigrants are coming in over all borders and I think it's long overdue that we strengthen our controls on the northern one.