Trump drops the hammer on America’s fair-weather friends

By bending our closest neighbors to our will, we will send a message to the entire world’

President Trump’s shock and awe tactics against Democrats and the Deep State appear to be bearing fruit, but equally impressive has been his strong, unapologetic stance vis-à-vis other countries, allies and adversaries alike.

Setting the tone in a dramatic way, Trump wasted no time in responding to the refusal of Colombia’s socialist president to receive a planeload of deportees. Trump threatened harsh, escalating tariffs as well as other sanctions and penalties, and the Colombian government caved almost instantly. Score one for Trump and Trumpism!

In the days ahead, a higher stakes battle will play out with the two countries that are, in many respects, our most important allies, neighbors and trade partners: Canada and Mexico. Trump promised on the campaign trail to raise tariffs on a host of countries, including his bête noire: China. But why target seemingly harmless Canada and Mexico, specifically? He says it’s because both are failing to control the flow of illegal migrants and fetanyl across our common borders. He also says that Canada and Mexico don’t play fair in terms of trade, and thus they maintain large trade surpluses with the U.S. and drive American companies out of business.

Neither of these justifications is completely off-base, but the problem is that they are very different from one other, and Trump has set down no clear metrics for how Canada and Mexico (or any other country) can avoid tariffs. And are these tariffs fundamentally retaliatory, or are they part of a protectionist philosophy that aims to revive American manufacturing, agriculture and energy production? The answers to these questions, even for Trump’s most wholehearted supporters, are obscure, but this ambiguity appears to be intentional – strategic, even.

Many analysts believe that the purpose of these tariffs is not to restrict North American trade on a permanent basis, but to prove Trump’s seriousness to the likes of Canadian Prime Minister Trudeau and Mexican President Sheinbaum. Trump, in other words, is angling for substantial concessions from Canada and Mexico, on border enforcement, trade policy and other issues, that a more conventional American administration would never even dream of asking for.

 

Patriotic Patriot

Article URL : https://www.wnd.com/2025/02/trump-drops-the-hammer-on-americas-fair-weather-friends/