Canada is not our enemy and you are being gaslit to believe they have done something wrong. As I have covered two other times in the past they are not responsible for most of the fentanyl coming across the border. I’ve written about this here: Ok, I guess I have to do this as well: About the Canada and Mexico Tariffs and here: Trump Adviser Insists ‘Canada Has Been Taken Over by Mexican Cartels’
With Trump bullshit emergency declaration he’s decided to just continuously piss off our neighbor and make prices higher for us here in the US.
In the case of aluminum, the U.S. is more heavily reliant on imports. Roughly half of all aluminum used in the U.S. is imported, The vast majority comes from neighbor Canada. At 3.2 million tons last year, Canadian imports were twice those of the next nine countries combined. Reuters
Also another fun fact is we don’t even have the electrical capacity to mine all of the aluminum we need. Anyway, I digress. While pushing this ridiculous trade war we have the standard republican clown show where they go on the Sunday news channels and just say whatever they want (true or otherwise). Kevin Hasset and “Economic Advisor” and one of “only the best” people in the administration saying they’re a major problem in this ABC News Clip:
Jonthan Karl: “I am confused now about what you’re saying about this being a drug war and not a trade war. let’s just take Canada. you say Canada is shipping fentanyl into the United States. I don’t think that’s happening. one percent of fentanyl is being smuggled across the border. one percent. Canada’s not a major source at all of fentanyl.”
Kevin Hassett: “yes, they are a major source, and I can tell you that in the situation room I’ve seen photographs of fentanyl labs in Canada that the law enforcement folks were leaving alone. Canada’s got a big drug problem.”
First of all Mr. Hassett was certainly not in the situation room. The same room that the highest levels of all of our government used to take out Bin Laden. The situation room used for only the most important and sensitive of situations. Second of all, every single statistic says this is just not true. But, they have to go along with it to keep up the pretense that this is legal and lying has never been an issue. So, here we are.. ruining the relationship we have with CANADA. Seriously.. CANADA.
You could argue that we should produce more aluminum here in the United States. Sure, that’s a great goal but you can’t just increase capacity overnight. Not only do we not have the forges, we don’t have the electical capacity to produce it as cheaply as Canada does with their hydroelectic power. There are better ways to deal with this other than tariffs.
By way of Reuters