Use, the duties strategy for Canada and Mexico chosen by Trump

Threats of massive duties, hypothesis of retaliation, tight negotiations and a postponement with attached negotiation. Donald Trump followed the same path with Canada and Mexico the two neighboring countries that for months had put in the sight because they did not bend to his requests on Contrast to the trafficking of illegal and Fentanyl migrants. An interview with the Mexican president Claudia Sheinbaum and two with the Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau Afterwards, the commercial crisis with the two neighbors seems to be returned, at least for the moment. But “What really wants Trump from Canada and Mexico?”the New York Times is asked, according to which the president’s requests are difficult to measure and “this allows him to declare victory when he considers him appropriate”.

According to the democratic area newspaper, the only safe thing in the strategy adopted by Trump against Mexico City and Ottawa is precisely the absence of clarity in the objectives. The president has repeatedly insisted on the fact that Canada and Mexico must stop the flow of migrants to the border and the invasion of Fenanyl, a real plague for the United States. But, at least publicly, it was quite vague on the reference parameters to evaluate the level of cooperation of its neighbors. Yesterday, when asked if there was something that Trudeau could do to avoid duties, the president replied: “I don’t know”. “We have great deficits (commercial, editor’s note) with Canada as with all countries,” he told the press in the oval study, reiterating the ‘dream’ of seeing Canada becomes the 51st American state.

In the end Trump has decided to
postpone the imposition of the duties against the two countries by 30 days, argining a crisis that could have upset the global economy. But the president sang Vittoria, stressing that he had torn concessions in Canada and Mexico. The first appointed a ‘Tsar of Fenanyl’ and launched a joint force to combat organized crime and money laundering. Mexico, Trump said, has promised to strengthen the border with 10 thousand members of his national guard.

What escapes, highlights the NYT, is whether these measures are important concessions, as Trump skidded them. Trudeau, in a post on social media, described actions that are already implemented within a plan on the 1.3 billion dollars border which involves the use of additional technology and staff. In addition, according to federal data, only a small part of the total seizures of Fenanyl takes place on the border between the United States and Canada. Mexico, for its part, had already intensified borders checks before Trump’s duties threats, with consequent collapse of illegal crossings. According to the newspaper, in addition, during the first four months of Sheinbaum’s mandate, the Mexican security forces carried out seizures of Fentanyl and intensified the operations to identify and destroy the clandestine drug laboratories.

“Thrives in chaos, thrives in uncertainty,” commented John Feley, former ambassador of the United States to Panama and deputy head of the mission in Mexico, about Trump. The spokesman for the White House, Karoline Leavitt on the other hand, stressed that Trump was “incredibly clear” on his motivations for the duties, explaining that “the president is making it very clear to both Canada and Mexico and the United States will no longer be a landfill for fatal drugs and illegal human beings “.