Things are moving fast. We are deporting immigrants. We are threatening allies and enemies alike with tariffs. We have Allies threatening retaliation tariffs in return.  We are going to build temporary housing for immigrant detainees that Trump calls “criminal aliens” in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. Those are just a few of the things that are happening in the chaos that we call the Trump administration. We knew it was going to be a mess but I didn’t think it would start at the pace that it would.

As of Tuesday, Trump said he would enact a 25 percent tariff against Mexico and Canada. Canada is one of the largest importers of American goods. The best data I could find is that Canada 2023 exported $439.6 billion to the United States and imported $427.7 billion. Yes, there is a slight trade imbalance but, really it is pretty small. Not this huge deficit that we have been led to believe. If you look at what we import from Canada we really do not have a deficit at all. We are the leading exporter of oil in the world but we import $97 billion in crude oil from Canada. Why? Price. Simple because we can import cheaper heavy crude from Canada and export sweeter, more expensive crude oil from the USA. That heavy crude oil makes up over 20 percent of the total imports from Canada. We are made to believe that Canada is just some leech that is costing us money and jobs and when you look at the numbers it just isn’t true. Why in hell would we want to start a trade war with our closest partners beats the hell out of me? As I was typing this the Tariffs on Canada have been put on hold for 30 days.  

There appears to be a greater import/export deficit with Mexico with us exporting $322,742.5 billion and importing $480.08 billion. The biggest imports from Mexico are vehicles and parts manufactured in Mexico for American automotive companies that built manufacturing plants in Mexico. Many other products are produced in Mexico that at one time were produced here. Yes, we lost manufacturing jobs to Mexico but that is because American manufacturers built the plants and then moved the jobs.  Many of the products that are being manufactured in Mexico could be manufactured here but that was not because of Mexico, that was because the American companies wanted to lower their labor costs and increase their profits. Now the American people are going to suffer more because of the decisions of Big Industry and our government. We suffered with the loss of jobs and we will again suffer because of the tariffs. It always comes down to the people suffering. As I am writing this Trump has put on hold the tariffs for Mexico for 30 days because the Mexican Government has agreed to deploy 10,000 troops along the border. Is this a real solution or is it just a way for Trump to save face?

Trump stated when he was running for office that tariffs would not cause inflation. All the experts told us that it would. Trump lied. Now Trump is saying that we may feel some pain but will be better off in the long run. I have been on this earth for over 70 years and I have never seen prices going down so much that it made any difference. Once inflation causes a product to rise very seldom do we see it come down. Let's say the manufacturing does come back. Do you really believe that the price of a car is going to come down after car companies have invested in new manufacturing plants? I just don’t see it happening. We saw prices go up because of all the supply chain issues caused by COVID-19. I don’t believe that we saw prices fall after the supply chain issues were fixed. Once the prices go up, they seem to stay up.

Why is Trump doing this? In the executive order, Trump said the tariffs are because an “extraordinary threat posed by illegal aliens and drugs, including deadly fentanyl, constitutes a national emergency.”  If I was a betting man, I would bet that more drugs cross over from the United States to Canada not the other way around. Yes, we do have drugs coming in from Mexico but we have drugs coming in from all over the world. There are not only the cartels from Mexico but also from Venezuela and Columbia. We have the Russian Mob and the Western Balkans. We have China and Southeast Asia Miramar, Thailand, and Laos which are known as the Golden Triangle. Then we have Central Asia like Iran, Afghanistan, and Pakistan. Drugs are coming from all over the world and most are coming through legal ports of entry. They are not coming in the backpacks of immigrants coming to America for a better life. Some of the drugs are being transported by Americans for sale on the American market. I wonder what kind of outrage we are going to have when Mexican jails are filled with American Drug Smugglers. I think the action at the border is just a “Dog and Pony Show” being put on for the press and the public. I don’t think we will be putting much of a dent in Drugs in America.

I have written about how we have been having our “War on Drugs” for 50 years and it has been the costliest war in our history. We have been doing the same thing over and over again expecting different results and we have not seen that happen. I was once told that the definition of insanity was doing the same thing over and over again expecting different results. What we are doing is plainly insane. I wonder if this is really about drugs or if is it about something else. Are we trying to use our economic might against another nation like Russia is using its military might against Ukraine? Are economic tariffs more of an effort to expand Trump's Imperialistic ambitions? Those are just some of the questions that an honest News Media should be asking, but isn’t.