Canada’s Conservatives and Leftists Agree: Trudeau Caught Flat-Footed by Trump Tariff Threat
The leaders of Canada’s Conservative Party and of the leftist New Democratic Party (NDP) issued remarks in rare agreement on Tuesday condemning Liberal Prime Minister Justin Trudeau for not taking American President-elect Donald Trump’s threat of imposing a 25-percent tariff on Canadian goods seriously.
Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre lamented in remarks to the press on Tuesday that Canada would approach any negotiation with Trump on the economy in a position of “unprecedented weakness” due to Trudeau’s longstanding leftist policies, demanding the prime minister come up with an actionable plan to prevent Trump from imposing onerous tariffs. NDP leader Jagmeet Singh encouraged Trudeau to “fight like hell” for Canadian workers, accusing him of hiding his “head in the sand” at Trump’s remarks. Singh has not offered a detailed response to exactly how Trudeau should “fight” Trump at press time.
The president-elect alarmed leaders in both Canada and Mexico on Tuesday by announcing that he would, on his first day in office, impose a 25 percent tariff on goods imported from both countries and lift the tariff only when Ottawa and Mexico City address mass migration and drug trafficking.
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“On January 20th, as one of my many first Executive Orders, I will sign all necessary documents to charge Mexico and Canada a 25% Tariff on ALL products coming into the United States, and its ridiculous Open Borders,” Trump wrote on his social media outlet Truth Social. “This Tariff will remain in effect until such time as Drugs, in particular Fentanyl, and all Illegal Aliens stop this Invasion of our Country!”
“Both Mexico and Canada have the absolute right and power to easily solve this long simmering problem. We hereby demand that they use this power, and until such time that they do, it is time for them to pay a very big price!” he concluded.
Leftist Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum held a press conference responding to the message on Tuesday in which she showed reporters a letter she sent President-elect Trump. In it, Sheinbaum threatened to impose retaliatory tariffs and accused America of being the source of the migration and fentanyl problems. Trudeau, in contrast, said on Tuesday that he had a “good call” with Trump and that he felt they could discuss “some of the challenges that we can work on together.”
Trudeau’s apparently conciliatory tone irritated both Canadian conservatives and leftists.
“President Trump yesterday made an unjustified threat of a 25-percent tariff on our already weak and shrinking economy,” Poilievre, the Conservative leader, said on Tuesday. “Justin Trudeau and [Deputy Prime Minister] Chrystia Freeland were surprised, amazingly – Everyone else knew something like this could be coming because President Trump had been talking about it for years on the campaign trail.”
Poilievre suggested that, to address Trump’s comments, Canada “must be honest with our unprecedented weakness” after years of Trudeau’s policies.
“The United States is the greatest economic and military superpower in the world and they are our neighbor. The U.S. is responsible for $1.2 trillion of our trade,” he observed. “We trade almost twice as much with the Americans as we do with the rest of the world combined.”
“We need a plan,” Poilievre continued. “A plan to put Canada first on the economy and on security.”
Poilievre’s plan began with calling for Trudeau to “cancel all tax increases,” cut a proposed quadrupling of Canada’s “carbon tax,” and otherwise reinforce the Canadian economy by keeping money in Canadians’ pockets.
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He also called for policies to curb the fentanyl trade and other illicit drugs by undoing Trudeau’s established soft-on-drugs policy and aggressively curbing drug trafficking – which would address one of the problems Trump cited as the impetus for tariffs on Canada.
Poilievre said he would support tariffs on American products “if necessary.”
NDP leader Jagmeet Singh appeared similarly disappointed in Trudeau, but approached the problem from a different angle: Trump is a “bully,” he asserted, and Trudeau’s lack of assertiveness was dangerous to Canada.
“Justin Trudeau, you cannot keep your head in the sand,” Singh wrote on social media. “Stand up and fight like hell.”
In Parliament, Singh proclaimed, “the only thing a bully responds to is strength,” asking, “Where is our plan to fight back? Why is the prime minister not fighting like hell for Canadian jobs?” Like Poilievre, Singh indicated he would support tariffs on America if necessary to respond to Trump’s policies.
Trudeau reportedly responded by saying that Singh was “panicking” and suggesting Singh wanted him to “go to war with the United States.
In Quebec – where Trudeau’s Liberals lost a previously “safe” seat in September, a political catastrophe for the party – Premier François Legault pressured Trudeau to “do everything” possible to stop Trump from imposing the proposed tariffs.
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