Starting a third week of Team Trump that’s firing on all eight cylinders—let’s take a look at his international disruptions.
Trump slapped 25% tariffs on Mexico and Canada and 10% on China over the weekend (to take effect Tuesday) with threats to increase the rates if the targeted countries don’t reel in illegal immigration and the deadly drug, fentanyl, which is sourced in China.
In the executive order, Trump said that the tariffs stem from an “extraordinary threat posed by illegal aliens and drugs, including deadly fentanyl, [that] constitutes a national emergency.”
The tariffs have invited international criticism from leaders and citizens alike in Canada and Mexico. During his exchange with reporters on Sunday evening, Trump accused Canada of being “abusive” toward the U.S. in terms of trade.
He was particularly blunt about Canada.
“Canada has been very abusive of the United States for many years. They don’t allow our banks,” Trump claimed. “And you know that Canada does not allow banks to go in, if you think about it. That’s pretty amazing. If we have a U.S. bank, they don’t allow them to go in.”
“Canada has been very tough for oil on energy. They don’t allow our farm products in, essentially. They don’t allow a lot of things in. And we allow everything to come in as being a one-way street.”
Trump also claimed that the U.S. subsidizes Canada “by the tune of about $200 billion a year.”
“And for what? What do we get out of it? We don’t get anything out of it,” he added. “I love the people of Canada. I disagree with the leadership of Canada and something is going to happen there.”
He’s got a point. Why do we subsidize our northern neighbor who simply takes advantage of the U.S. relationship? Why should U.S. taxpayers be supporting Canada without some benefit? Plus, Canada relies on the U.S. military for their protection. Okay, then, pony up, eh?
Trump also threatened the EU.
The Republican leader also said that he will “definitely” impose tariffs against the European Union, which he said the U.S. has a $300 billion trade deficit with.
“They don’t take our cars, they don’t take our farm products, they take almost nothing,” Trump said. “And we take everything from them. Millions of cars, tremendous amounts of food and farm products. So the UK is way out of line and we’ll see the UK, but the European Union is really out of line.”
Interestingly, he also said he was cutting off American money to South Africa, in a post on Truth Social.
In this article, we learn that “the United States obligated nearly $440 million in assistance to South Africa in 2023, the most recent US government data showed.”
During his first administration, Trump said the US would investigate unproven large-scale killings of white farmers in South Africa and violent takeovers of land. Pretoria at the time said Trump was misinformed. It is unclear whether the Trump administration carried out an investigation.
I don’t believe South Africa is aligned with our interests, so why do we send welfare checks to them?
Then there’s Greenland. Trump initially raised the idea of acquiring the island during his first term and is being loud about it in his second.
Veep JD Vance on Sunday refrained from setting expectations too high about President Trump’s chances of usurping Greenland from Denmark, although he still called it “possible” and dismissed European opposition.
Trump, 78, had set his sights on acquiring the icy island since his first administration and has rekindled those aspirations in recent weeks. Vance, 40, stressed Sunday that the territory is important for US security.
“I think it’s possible,” Vance added to Fox News’ “Sunday Morning Futures” when asked about whether the US will acquire Greenland.
“It’s really important to our national security. There are sea lanes there that the Chinese use, that the Russians use,” Vance said. “Frankly, Denmark, which controls Greenland, [is] not doing its job, and it’s not being a good ally.”
Trump is also adamant about reclaiming the Panama Canal. From the same article above:
The vice president also defended Trump’s objectives of reclaiming the Panama Canal.
“They have violated a core tenet of the agreement,” Vance said, referring to Panama. “When we gave over the Panama Canal to the country of Panama, what we said is, you have to make sure that this canal respects American sovereignty and that you don’t give special benefits to the Chinese.”
The US agreed to give the canal zone to Panama in the 1970s under late former President Jimmy Carter in exchange for the South American country agreeing to keep the key waterway between the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans neutral.
Trump has long decried Cater’s decision to relinquish control of the canal, the construction for which was largely funded by the US.
On Sunday, Secretary of State Marco Rubio trekked over to Panama and met with Panamanian President José Raúl Mulino, saying he “made clear that this status quo is unacceptable,” according to a readout from the US.
There’s another reason why we need to control the Panama Canal.
The situation in the Panama Canal is worse than we thought. Not only does a Chinese company control container ports at each end of the waterway, but a Chinese construction battalion is slowly building a bridge right across the middle.
How slowly? Well, the bridge won’t be completed until 2027 and Sen. Ted Cruz thinks he knows why.
As Cruz, who is chairman of the Commerce Committee, noted at a hearing this week, “the partially-completed bridge gives China the ability to block the canal without warning…This situation poses acute risks to US national security.”
What kind of risks?
Imagine that China announces a blockade of Taiwan and that we want to surge forces from the Atlantic into the Pacific to counter it.
A US aircraft carrier is midway through the canal, passing under China’s bridge when, without warning, the unfinished bridge collapses, crushing the ship.
China pretends it’s an accident, offering its condolences to the families of the thousands of US sailors who lost their lives. Unable to break the blockade on its own, the island of Taiwan capitulates two months later, and the largest chip-manufacturing factory in the world falls into China’s hands.
Finally, as if he didn’t kick up enough dust yet, Trump weighed in on the conflict in Gaza and Israel with a stunning idea.
President Donald Trump recently floated a fantastic idea: Arab nations, he said, should accept large numbers of Gazans as refugees, a move that “could be temporary or long term.”
The accommodation would allow Israel to eliminate the remnants of Hamas, which, in turn, would allow the international community to rebuild Gaza.
Not only would such a policy enhance the prospects of peace, but it’s also humane.
Neither Jordan nor Egypt want the Palestinians in Gaza. But there is a compelling reason for Jordan to take them.
“Our rejection of the displacement of Palestinians is firm and will not change. Jordan is for Jordanians, and Palestine is for Palestinians,” the nation’s foreign minister said after Trump’s comments.
Well, the biggest problem with the statement is that it reminds us that Jordan is “Palestine.”
Jordan, with a population of over 70% Palestinians, sits principally on land set aside during the British Palestine Mandate to create a new Arab state that was to sit next to the Jewish one.
We already have a two-state solution. We just choose to ignore it.
What’s amazing is that no one else in recent memory has floated any of these ideas. Trump has not only promoted them, but has done so with an edge of belligerence. Who else has thought about our national security from the standpoint of the Arctic and China’s delcaration that they are esablishing a presence there? Who else has looked strategically at the Panama Canal and realized that China has set itself as a threat there, too? Who’s looking at our trade imbalances and doing something about it? Who has put American interests first?
Nobody. Nobody but Trump, that is.
Henry Kissinger once noted that Donald Trump, though he may not do it knowingly, was “one of those figures in history who appears from time to time to mark the end of an era and to force it to give up its old pretenses.”
And it is undeniable that many of Trump’s declarations, perhaps because they are unfettered by the norms of policy debate, end up changing the dynamics of policy.
Greenland. Panama. Canada. South Africa. Israel. Gaza. The EU. Mexico. China.
Trump is remaking American policy while we watch. It’s fascinating.
