Trump’s Capricious Canadian Tariffs

Jul 11, 2025 10:55 PM EDT, Fri

Trump clings to discredited claim while announcing new Canada tariffs

The American president is intensifying his trade war against an generational ally because of a misguided claim about fentanyl.

July 11, 2025, 11:15 AM EDT By Steve Benen

The plan, by all appearances, was for trade representatives from the United States and Canada to continue with trade negotiations in the hope of reaching a compromise both countries could accept. Then Donald Trump decided to make a dramatic announcement in the midst of the talks. The New York Times reported:

President Trump threatened on Thursday to impose a 35 percent tariff on Canadian imports, upending negotiations between the countries that had Canada’s representatives hopeful that a trade deal could be reached in a matter of weeks. Mr. Trump posted a letter to Prime Minister Mark Carney of Canada on social media outlining his latest threat. He said the new, higher tariff rate for Canada would go into effect on Aug. 1.

As is often the case with announcements from the American president, plenty of questions do not yet have answers. Will Trump abandon this new threat, as he’s done repeatedly in recent months? Would the tariffs apply to all Canadian goods? Would these new tariffs violate existing trade treaties and our obligations under the World Trade Organization? For now, it’s not entirely clear, though there’s been some reporting that the policy wouldn’t apply to the existing North American trade agreement.

We do know, however, how the Republican tried to justify his latest move.

“If Canada works with me to stop the flow of Fentanyl, we will, perhaps, consider an adjustment to this letter,” Trump wrote at the end of his correspondence.

In recent months, the White House has struggled to come up with a consistent rationale for the tariffs Trump apparently wants to impose. Sometimes, it’s about immigration; other times, the trade deficit. Occasionally, the focus has been on drugs, other times tax policies.

The problem with Trump’s latest claim about fentanyl, however, is that it’s plainly false — as he really ought to know by now.

“The excuse that he’s giving for these tariffs today of fentanyl is completely bogus, completely unjustified, completely false,” then-Prime Minister Justin Trudeau declared declared earlier in the year. “What he wants is to see a total collapse of the Canadian economy, because that’ll make it easier to annex us.”

That was an extraordinary comment for a variety of reasons, but his assessment about fentanyl rang true. In fact, according to U.S. Customs and Border Protection, only 43 pounds of fentanyl were found crossing the northern border in 2024 — in contrast to 21,100 pounds seized at the southern border.

It’s obviously silly to think a country would launch a trade war against a neighbor — and generational ally — over fentanyl that could fit in a single suitcase, but Trump apparently has this misguided idea stuck in his head.

This post updates our related earlier coverage.

Steve Benen is a producer for “The Rachel Maddow Show,” the editor of MaddowBlog and an MSNBC political contributor. He’s also the bestselling author of “Ministry of Truth: Democracy, Reality, and the Republicans’ War on the Recent Past.”

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