Here’s how Trudeau can act quick to avoid Trump’s tariffs

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The dollar is already falling, the economic impact of Donald Trump’s threatened 25% tariffs will be massive unless we can avoid them.

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With the right moves, Canada can avoid these tariffs but that will require decisive action that puts jobs and economic prosperity ahead of pride.

What we need to do is quickly fix our broken immigration system, take the issue of drug smuggling as seriously as the Americans, and show how we are already working with them and where we will improve on the border.

Is the Canadian-American border really a problem?

Yes, because our closest friend and ally, and largest trading partner, says it is a problem. The Biden administration has already been raising issues about border security — the incoming Trump administration is simply saying they won’t play nice on this issue.

So, time to wake up.

Compared to the Mexican border, the issues the Americans have with their Canadian neighbours is small. The problem for us is that small numbers inside a big problem are still big numbers.

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In fiscal year 2024, which ended on Sept. 30, the U.S. Customs Border and Security Agency report there were 2,135,005 “encounters” at the southern border compared to 198,929 at the Canada-U.S. border. That means that illegal entrants into the United States from Canada amounted to 9.3% and those from Mexico were 90.7% across land borders.

Since 2022, illegal crossings across the Canada-U.S. border are up 82%, while over the same time period illegal crossings over the southern border are down 10.3%. Sure, Mexico is still a bigger problem for the Americans but if they don’t deal with the Canadian border, or we don’t, then it will just grow.

Clearly, part of the problem is what we have been doing with programs like our temporary foreign worker program and international student program.

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Of those intercepted crossing the border from Canada, American statistics show that 43,764 were Indian nationals and 36,379 were single adults, mostly men. China comes second with 12,414 people caught crossing — 9.040 of those were single adults.

Tom Homan, Trump’s already-appointed border czar, has referenced these increases and warned that Canada can’t let its system be abused as a backdoor entryway into the United States. These problems didn’t exist before and we should move to fix them quickly, the health of our economy writ large is more important than our temporary foreign worker program or the whims of international students.

End the abuse quickly.

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On drugs, seizures at the Mexican border amounted to 275,000 pounds last year compared to just 11,600 pounds from Canada. The seizures from Canada also fell dramatically from 2023 when there 55,100 pounds seized.

Marijuana has been the most commonly seized drug followed closely by cocaine, with fentanyl — the drug Trump mentioned — being small. That doesn’t mean these aren’t irritants for our American neighbours, or that there isn’t more that we could do.

In 2022, 33,400 pounds of khat was seized at the Canada-U.S. border. This is a substance the Americans consider a Schedule 1 narcotic, and we barely treat as a drug. If this is one of the issues the incoming administration wants dealt with, we would be wise to align our policies.

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There is no doubt that Donald Trump saw the story that broke a couple of weeks ago about the fentanyl super lab busted in British Columbia. The details of that story would bother any elected official, but what we need to do is make sure that he has seen the stories about the take down of a transnational drug outfit that stretched from Mexico, up into California and on into Alberta and Ontario.

Those types of coordinated operations go on all the time. Our leaders need to show not only is this already happening, but we are willing to do more. Simply appealing to the Americans in terms of cross-border friendship or the ideals of free trade won’t work with Trump, he wants action.

Let’s hope the Trudeau government is willing to consider simple steps that we can take to avoid this very real threat.

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