Link to article: https://apnews.com/article/mexico-canada-us-trump-tariffs-668a06c2beba2fca1967ab628db68418
Many threats from President-elect Donald Trump regarding tariffs have led to comments from Canadian officials stating that the problems with the borders of Canada and Mexico should not be compared. This has caused a great split between Canada and Mexico as Mexico’s president, Claudia Sheinbaum, rejected those comments as she stated, “Mexico must be respected, especially by its trading partners.” She then went further by proclaiming that Canada has its own problems with fentanyl consumption and wishes they had the level of culture that Mexico has. Trump has stated that he will impose 25% tariffs on goods from Mexico and Canada unless they stem the flow of both migrants and drugs into the U.S. When it comes to the flow of migrants and drugs at the two countries’ borders, there is quite a major difference. In the past year, U.S. customs agents have seized 21,100 pounds of fentanyl at the Mexican border while only seizing 43 pounds at the Canadian Border. This goes to show the minimum efforts by Mexico to seize fentanyl before it reaches the United States. Most of the fentanyl that reaches the U.S. is made by the Mexican drug cartels using chemicals smuggled from Asia. Fentanyl is the cause of almost 70,000 overdose deaths every year in the U.S. alone.
On another note, the U.S. border made only 23,721 arrests at the Canadian border between October 2023 and September 2024 while making 56,530 arrests at the Mexican border in just the month of October. Mexico has not been fond of the comments directed from Canada and is confused as they feel like the Mexican government has stood in Canada’s corner in the past. Mexico claims that during Trump’s first term, the U.S. wanted to leave Canada out of the three country trade agreement in 2018, but Mexico stressed the importance of Canadian inclusion. Canada got a lead on Mexico by meeting with Trump first as both countries have been scrambling to get assurances and agreements before Trump takes office. According to Mexican President Sheinbaum, she and Trump agreed that Mexico wanted to focus on intelligence sharing in anti-drug efforts. On the contrary, she said that Mexico would reject any direct U.S. intervention in Mexico and would continue to maintain the tight restrictions on U.S. law enforcement agencies within Mexico.