Canada Begins Making Key Border Changes After Trudeau Meets with Trump
President-elect Donald Trump has achieved in less than four weeks what President Joe Biden never even tried in nearly four years.
Trump did this, in fact, simply by negotiating on behalf of Americans, whose interests Biden and the Democrats routinely ignore.
According to Axios, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau emerged from a meeting with Trump this weekend at the president-elect’s Mar-a-Lago residence in Palm Beach, Florida, determined to improve border security in what one Canadian official described as “a visible and muscular way.”
That comment came from Canadian Public Safety Minister Dominic LeBlanc. On Sunday, LeBlanc told the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation that he and Trudeau had spoken with Trump and Commerce Secretary nominee Howard Lutnick “about tariffs and what they would mean to the economy.”
In other words, Trump’s very public use of tariff threats as a negotiating tactic seems to have paid dividends.
“There’s already hundreds and hundreds of millions of dollars spent, but we’re going to take additional measures,” LeBlanc said.
In the nation’s early years, Republicans such as Thomas Jefferson and James Madison touted tariffs for revenue and statecraft purposes.
No self-respecting revolutionary, of course, dared to propose an income tax. Thus, tariffs effectively funded the entire federal government, a comparatively minuscule enterprise in those days.
But Jefferson and Madison also regarded tariffs as an indispensable tool when dealing with foreign governments. The Founders embraced free trade in principle, as liberty-loving people do, but they also demanded reciprocity.
By using tariffs to extract concessions from foreign leaders, therefore, Trump has harkened back to the republic’s halcyon days.
“You look at the threat of tariffs against Mexico and Canada, [which] immediately has produced action,” Republican Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas said in a clip posted to the social media platform X. The senator made those comments Sunday on CBS’ “Face the Nation.”
Cruz, in fact, repeatedly used the word “leverage” to describe Trump’s use of tariff threats.
.@SenTedCruz (R-TX) defends President-elect Trump’s vow to impose tariffs against Mexico and Canada, saying the threat itself “immediately has produced action.”
“We’ve seen the president of Mexico stand up and promise that she is going to work hand-in-hand with the president of… pic.twitter.com/iuMdaSnM7x
— Face The Nation (@FaceTheNation) December 1, 2024
Moreover, by forcing foreign leaders to negotiate for access to America’s enormous market, Trump acted from a position of strength.
“Thanks for dinner last night, President Trump. I look forward to the work we can do together, again,” Trudeau posted Saturday.
Thanks for dinner last night, President Trump. I look forward to the work we can do together, again. pic.twitter.com/lAWFMTtQt7
— Justin Trudeau (@JustinTrudeau) November 30, 2024
Of course, by making the trip to Mar-a-Lago in the first place, the prime minister acknowledged his comparative weakness.
“I look forward to groveling for your mercy,” the parody account “Justin Trudeau’s Ego” posted on Saturday.
Thank you for dinner last night, President Trump.
I look forward to groveling for your mercy, after talking like such a tough guy just a couple weeks ago.
I’m committed to boot-licking if it’ll get my picture taken, and that’s exactly what I’m going to do. pic.twitter.com/1gdd81Mqt2
— Justin Trudeau’s Ego (@Trudeaus_Ego) November 30, 2024
Meanwhile, Trump has also announced border-related concessions from Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum, though Sheinbaum quickly responded with an apparently face-saving post on X that allowed her to maintain her liberal open-borders bona fides without contradicting the substance of Trump’s announcement.
In sum, as Cruz rightly indicated, “Joe Biden and the Democrats wanted this invasion to happen” on the southern border. Thus, they had no intention of negotiating for Americans’ interests.
Trump, on the other hand, successfully chastened two liberal world leaders by channeling his inner Jeffersonian Republican, using tariffs as a legitimate tool of statecraft and thereby putting Americans first.
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