Outgoing Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto, U.S. President Donald Trump, and Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau sign the USMCA agreement during the G20 summit in Buenos Aires, Argentina, on November 30, 2018. Image source.

Commentary by Brian Shilhavy
Editor, Health Impact News

President Donald Trump shocked the world today by doing the unthinkable: He used “emergency powers” to issue an executive order to impose 25% tariffs on all imports from Mexico and Canada, the two largest trade partners with the United States, violating his own Free Trade Agreement between the two countries that he signed into law in 2018, during his first term.

What is the reason that Trump gave to declare this “national emergency” to ignore and violate his own trade agreement with Canada and Mexico?

Trump invoked the International Emergency Economics Power Act (IEEPA) because of “The extraordinary threat posed by illegal aliens and drugs, including fentanyl.”

Really?

This was actually the first time I have read about the “extraordinary threat posed by illegal aliens and drugs” coming across the border from Canada!

I looked up the stats on seized illegal fentanyl coming into the U.S. from 2024, and there were about 21,000 lbs. of illegal fentanyl seized at U.S. borders, and out of that 21,000 lbs., 50 lbs. came from Canada.

Yes, you read that correctly. The “national emergency” that Trump just declared which included Canada over illegal fentanyl coming across the border and violated his own Free Trade agreement, was for 50 lbs. of fentanyl in 2024.

Source.

Here is the official announcement from the White House, so that you can read it yourself:

Notice how Trump’s threat to impose a 60% tariff against China, has now been reduced to 10%, while allies to the U.S. and members of Trump’s own Free Trade Agreement got hit much worse.

Unless this Emergency Order is challenged in court and stopped by a judge before it is supposed to be implemented on Tuesday this week, the impact on the U.S. economy will be swift, and potentially devastating.

Here are some comments so far from Wall Street and financial analysts:

Trump Hits Canada, Mexico, and China With Tariffs. Markets Brace for Impact.

President Donald Trump imposed 25% tariffs on Canada and Mexico and 10% on China on Saturday—upending global commerce in what may be the start of a trade war.

“Today’s tariff announcement is necessary to hold China, Mexico, and Canada accountable for their promises to halt the flood of poisonous drugs into the United States,” the White House said Saturday evening in a post on X.

Tariffs on Canadian energy will be implemented at a lower rate of 10%, the White House said, though the timing was unclear.

Trump said he implemented the tariffs under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEP) due to the “major threat of illegal aliens and deadly drugs killing our Citizens, including fentanyl.”

Hardly any seized fentanyl comes from Canada and the government has taken measures to reduce drug trafficking and illegal migration, as has Mexico. The bulk of the trade deficit with Canada is due to Canadian energy exports. Illegal border crossings have plunged at the Southern border.

Some dissent is already showing up among Republicans. “Certain tariffs will impose a significant burden on many families, manufacturers, the forest products industry, small businesses, lobstermen, and agricultural producers,” said Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) in a post on X.

The tariffs “will have a significant impact on Maine’s economy and risk increasing costs for our residents,” she added.

The next step may be a trade war if Trump follows through on other tariff threats and countries retaliate. Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau met with his cabinet earlier in the day, according to Canadian media. Trudeau said Friday that Canada was “ready with a forceful and immediate response.” Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum has said Mexico is prepared with a “Plan A, Plan B, Plan C.”

Economists expect widespread impact.

China, Mexico, and Canada account for roughly 40% of U.S. imports, worth more than $1.3 trillion, according to the Council on Foreign Relations. The U.S. imported $529 billion in goods and services from Mexico, $482 billion from Canada, and $448 billion from China in 2023. More broadly, the U.S. imported $3.2 trillion worth of goods in the last 12 months.

What sectors are most at risk?

Energy, autos, and agriculture face some of the biggest hits. Canada supplied 60% of crude oil imports to the U.S. in 2023, about 4 million barrels a day. That crude largely flows from Alberta by pipeline to American refineries that turn it into gasoline and other products.

“Since crude oil is the largest refinery input cost, higher tariffs could immediately reduce refinery profitability,” the Congressional Research Service said in a January report.

Refiners in the Midwest rely on heavy Canadian crude, blending it with lighter sweeter domestic crude to make gasoline. Canadian crude is now discounted to WTI, but prices are almost certain to rise with tariffs because refiners have few good substitutes.

Canada also sells electricity to the U.S. from New England to the Pacific Northwest. The value of power sales from Canada to the U.S. was $3.2 billion in 2023, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration.

The auto industry may have the most to lose.

Mexico and Canada have spent decades integrating auto operations with factories near the borders for parts and final assembly of vehicles. Last year, Mexico supplied with the U.S. with nearly 43% of imported motor vehicle body parts through November, and Canada sent over 25%, according to research firm Trade Partnership Worldwide.

Nearly every major car maker would be impacted. More than 40% of Volkswagens sold in the U.S. originate from Mexico or Canada, according to The Wall Street Journal. Honda Motor, Stellantis, Nissan, and General Motors also have above-average industry exposure, the Journal reported.

Cars and parts cross borders multiple times, potentially exposing them to tariffs that could raise costs.

“The imposition of tariffs at each stage of fabrication would be disastrous,”

researchers for the Peterson Institute for International Economics said in a post on January 17.

What’s the economic impact?

Tariffs take time to work through the economy as companies seek substitute products, shift manufacturing, absorb costs, and pass on higher prices to consumers and businesses. There are both macro and microeconomic effects, and much debate about the impact.

Consumers might feel the sting through price increases for everyday items like food, beer, and gasoline.

Mexico accounts for 23% of U.S. agriculture imports, including 63% of vegetable imports and 47% of fruit and nut imports. The U.S. bought more than $3.1 billion worth of avocados and more than $2.7 billion in raspberries, blackberries, and strawberries from Mexico last year, according to Trade Partnership Worldwide data.

Along with ubiquitous avocados and berries, Mexico is a major supplier of imported beer and spirits like tequila, products that could see near-term price hikes.

Meat and whiskey could get more expensive. Americans purchased north of $3 billion in beef and pork products from Canada, for instance. Products like Canadian whisky would be pricier.

Agricultural prices are likely to react swiftly because they have short production lead times.

But manufactured goods with longer lead times may also soon be impacted, Prasad said, “even in cases where manufacturers and importers have a greater ability to absorb some of the costs of tariffs.”

“For products such as automobiles with complex supply chains for components that often cross borders multiple times, the effective tariff hikes could be even greater and, therefore, add to the price pressures,” he added. (Source.)

As a small business owner in the food industry myself for the past 25 years, I can truly say that if these tariffs are not stopped quickly, we will see massive economic unrest.

For example, for years now we have carried a very high quality whole cane sugar we import from Colombia. Most of the cane sugar grown in the U.S. is from South Florida by rich Sugar barons, and in recent years most of the sugar grown in the U.S. comes from sugar beets, not cane sugar, and most of the sugar beets grown in the U.S. are GMO varieties heavily sprayed with herbicides and pesticides, which my company would never sell.

We have had a container of the Panela sugar from Colombia in route since late 2024, but after Trump’s recent tirade against Colombia and threats to impose tariffs, our container has now been held up in customs, and we have no idea when, or if, it will be released.

We did get our heirloom corn from small-scale Mexican farmers cleared through customs earlier this month, fortunately, as we have never been able to find North American corn that can test free from herbicides like glyphosate, or test free from GMO contamination.

If these tariffs persist, food prices are absolutely going to skyrocket very quickly, and within a month or so everything Americans buy in retail stores like Walmart, Best Buy, Amazon.com, and many other places are going to dramatically increase.

And as for the “fentanyl crisis” in the U.S., this was started by the inventor of fentanyl, Paul Janssen in 1959, which is now a division of Johnson and Johnson, which along with Pfizer, are the largest producers of fentanyl in the U.S.

It is no coincidence that these same two drug companies that produce fentanyl in the U.S., are also two of the same companies that Trump awarded $billions to in 2020 to develop COVID-19 “vaccines” as well.

The “fentanyl crisis” in the U.S. was started by Big Pharma, NOT illegal versions coming across the borders. Getting the illegal versions off the streets will undoubtedly increase the sale of fentanyl from U.S. pharmaceutical companies, whom Trump loves.

This is NOT my opinion, but fact, and has been well documented over the years, even by the corporate media.

In 2020 just as the COVID Scam was being rolled out, the CBS News show 60 Minutes produced an investigative report that proved to Americans that the fentanyl crisis in the U.S. was produced and controlled by the corrupt pharmaceutical industry, exposing their criminal activities and how they deliberately bribed doctors to prescribe fentanyl with the intent to get Americans addicted to this product to increase sales, while knowing full well that it would destroy the lives of their patients.

See:

Money, dinners and strip clubs: How pharmaceutical executives bribed doctors to prescribe dangerous fentanyl drugs

The whistleblowers and prosecutors interviewed for this segment all used terminology such as “criminal”, “cartel”, “drug dealers”, etc. to describe what these pharmaceutical companies are doing.

I have produced my own trailer for this program that is only 5 minutes long.

While fentanyl is legal in the U.S. and prescribed by doctors, most Americans would be surprised to learn that it is illegal in China. China exports ZERO fentanyl.

When China gets blamed for bringing fentanyl into Mexico and Canada, it is not the drug that is imported, but the raw ingredients to make the street versions.

I did a whole exposé on this in 2024, but it was one of our least read articles, as it is just too much more convenient to blame China for everything. See:

The U.S. Fentanyl Crisis was Started by and is Fueled by Big Pharma and Their Physician Cartels, Not China and Mexican Cartels

So when Trump uses the fake fentanyl crisis to justify his tariffs, he is lying. That’s what he does, following his own master, the Father of Lies.

You belong to your father, the devil, and you want to carry out your father’s desire. He was a murderer from the beginning, not holding to the truth, for there is no truth in him.

When he lies, he speaks his native language, for he is a liar and the father of lies. (John 8:44)

And of course, the MAGA cult will never blame Trump. They blame Fauci for every crime Trump committed during his first term, and in this, his second term, the MAGA cult has a new villain to blame everything on, White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles.

Will Donald Trump ever be held accountable for his crimes against the American people? Will Americans who adore him so much ever stop listening to what comes out of his mouth, and begin, instead, to judge him by his actions?

Watch out for false prophets. They come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they are ferocious wolves.

By their fruit you will recognize them. Do people pick grapes from thornbushes, or figs from thistles?

Likewise every good tree bears good fruit, but a bad tree bears bad fruit. A good tree cannot bear bad fruit, and a bad tree cannot bear good fruit.

Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. Thus, by their fruit you will recognize them.

Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only he who does the will of my Father who is in heaven.

Many will say to me on that day, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and in your name drive out demons and perform many miracles?’

Then I will tell them plainly, ‘I never knew you. Away from me, you evildoers!’ (Matthew 7:15-23)

Comment on this article at HealthImpactNews.com.

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