Trump ratchets up tariff tension with Canada’s Trudeau over border policies

The president has repeatedly accused Canada of allowing vast amounts of fentanyl into the US, an unsupported claim.

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United States President Donald Trump has escalated his war of words with Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, hinting at rocky negotiations as Canada seeks to deescalate a growing trade war.

On Wednesday, Trump turned to his social media platform Truth Social to give his version of a midday phone call he held with Trudeau.

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list 1 of 3 Fact check: President Donald Trump’s speech to Congress

list 2 of 3 Which US states could be hit hardest by Trump’s Canada and Mexico tariffs?

list 3 of 3 Trump exempts some automakers from Canada, Mexico tariffs for one month

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“The call ended in a ‘somewhat’ friendly manner,” Trump said, without offering specifics.

The Republican leader did, however, accuse Trudeau of doing too little to address fentanyl trafficking, an issue experts say is of minor concern along the Canadian border.

Trump also openly questioned Trudeau’s role in Canada’s upcoming federal election, attempting to raise questions about his government’s legitimacy, as he has with other world leaders.

President Donald Trump smiles at Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau on February 13, 2017 [Andrew Harnik/AP Photo]Pressure over tariffs

The high-level negotiations come one day after Trump imposed 25-percent tariffs on products from both Canada and Mexico, the US’s two largest trading partners, not to mention its neighbours.

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Those high tariffs had been looming over the two countries for some time.

Shortly after winning the presidency in November, Trump announced he planned to leverage the 25-percent tariffs to force Canada and Mexico to tighten their borders.

He also mentioned that Canada could avoid such staggering tariffs by ceding its sovereignty and becoming the 51st state in the US.

After taking office on January 20, Trump set a date in early February for the tariffs to take effect. But both Canada and Mexico offered compromises that allowed for the tariffs to be delayed, in order to avoid the anticipated harms to their economies.

For Mexico, that meant sending 10,000 National Guard troops to its border with the US. For Canada, the compromise took the form of a slate of measures including the creation of a “fentanyl tsar” and a task force to crack down on drug trafficking.

But the delay expired on Tuesday, and the US tariffs have since come into force.

Canada and Mexico immediately responded with their own retaliatory tariffs, marking the opening salvoes of the nascent trade war.

“Canadians are reasonable, and we are polite. But we will not back down from a fight. Not when our country and the wellbeing of everyone in it is at stake,” Trudeau said on Tuesday.

He warned all three countries’ economies would be harmed by a trade standoff.

Already, the steep import duties have rattled several industries, and the “big three” US automakers – Ford, Stellantis and General Motors – successfully petitioned Trump for a one-month exemption from the tariffs on Wednesday.

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Canada, meanwhile, has sought to negotiate an end to the trade war with the Trump administration, while filing a complaint over the steep tariffs with the World Trade Organization.

It has argued that the tariffs violate a free-trade agreement struck during Trump’s first term, the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA).

Focus on fentanyl

In his Truth Social post on Wednesday, Trump highlighted the illicit drug fentanyl as the sticking point in the tariff negotiations.

“Justin Trudeau, of Canada, called me to ask what could be done about Tariffs. I told him that many people have died from Fentanyl that came through the Borders of Canada and Mexico, and nothing has convinced me that it has stopped,” Trump wrote.

“He said that it’s gotten better, but I said, ‘That’s not good enough.'”

But experts have questioned whether the focus on fentanyl at the Canadian border is misplaced, given the relatively minuscule amounts crossing into the US from the north.

Canada itself has called the tariffs “unjustified“. It has pointed out that the US government’s own statistics indicate the amount of fentanyl seized along the countries’ shared border is less than 1 percent.

According to the website for the US Customs and Border Protection, only about 19.5 kilogrammes (43 pounds) were confiscated at the country’s northern border for the fiscal year 2024.

That’s out of a total of more than 9,934kg (21,900 pounds) seized coming into the US that year.

Still, on Wednesday, Trump blamed Trudeau for “Weak Border Policies” that are “responsible for the death of many people”.

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And his administration was on the defensive against accusations that it was inventing a problem in order to justify its tariffs.

At a news briefing on Wednesday, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt lashed out at a reporter who questioned Trump’s motives and noted the amount of fentanyl arriving from Canada could fit into a “carry-on suitcase”.

“ You’re asking me for what the president’s justification is for these tariffs. It’s not up to you. You’re not the president,” Leavitt replied. “Frankly, I think it’s a little bit disrespectful to the families in this country who have lost loved ones at the hands of this deadly poison.”

Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, left, and Canada’s Prime Minister Justin Trudeau speak on March 2 [Justin Tallis/Pool via AP Photo]Questioning Canada’s elections

Speaking to the CBC television show The National on Tuesday, Canada’s Finance Minister Dominic LeBlanc said his government had been working to avoid the tariffs and that he has been engaged in dialogue with his US counterpart, Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick.

But LeBlanc emphasised that no compromise would be accepted except the complete repeal of the tariffs. He called on the US to “return to respecting the free trade agreement”.

“We’re not interested in some sort of reduction of the tariffs,” LeBlanc said. “We want the free trade agreement with the United States and Mexico respected, and we’ll continue to work with the government of the United States on issues once the tariffs are lifted.”

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“This is not meeting somebody sort of halfway or reducing the tariffs,” he added. “We want to ensure Canadian goods and services can enter the United States free of tariffs.”

But Trump himself has used the tariffs as a mechanism to pressure the Canadian government to cede its sovereignty and join the US.

Trump has expressed multiple times during his second term an expansionist desire to grow US territory abroad, including by “reclaiming” the Panama Canal, something he reiterated in a joint speech to the US Congress on Tuesday.

Again on Wednesday, Trump referred to Trudeau as a “governor”, a title used for leaders of US states.

He also tried to spur questions about the legitimacy of Trudeau’s power, by writing in conspiratorial terms about Canada’s upcoming federal elections.

“He was unable to tell me when the Canadian Election is taking place, which made me curious,” Trump wrote of Trudeau. “Like, what’s going on here? I then realized he is trying to use this issue to stay in power. Good luck Justin!”

Trump has a history of questioning other leaders’ legitimacy. In February, he called another elected official, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy of Ukraine, a “dictator” for failing to hold wartime elections. Ukraine is currently fending off a full-scale invasion from Russia.

Trump’s efforts to undermine Trudeau, however, may have spurred the opposite effect.

After years of trailing Canada’s Conservative Party in the polls, Trudeau’s Liberal Party has seen a resurgence in popularity – something experts have credited, in part, to a backlash against Trump.

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Trudeau is set to step down as Liberal Party leader on March 9, with the election of his replacement.

Canada must hold a federal election no later than October 20, though the Liberal Party may initiate a vote before then.

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