Trump drops the hammer on America’s fair-weather friends

President Trump’s shock and awe tactics against Democrats and the Deep State appear to be bearing fruit, but equally impressive has been his strong, unapologetic stance vis-à-vis other countries, allies and adversaries alike.

Setting the tone in a dramatic way, Trump wasted no time in responding to the refusal of Colombia’s socialist president to receive a planeload of deportees. Trump threatened harsh, escalating tariffs as well as other sanctions and penalties, and the Colombian government caved almost instantly. Score one for Trump and Trumpism!

In the days ahead, a higher stakes battle will play out with the two countries that are, in many respects, our most important allies, neighbors and trade partners: Canada and Mexico. Trump promised on the campaign trail to raise tariffs on a host of countries, including his bête noire: China. But why target seemingly harmless Canada and Mexico, specifically? He says it’s because both are failing to control the flow of illegal migrants and fetanyl across our common borders. He also says that Canada and Mexico don’t play fair in terms of trade, and thus they maintain large trade surpluses with the U.S. and drive American companies out of business.

Neither of these justifications is completely off-base, but the problem is that they are very different from one other, and Trump has set down no clear metrics for how Canada and Mexico (or any other country) can avoid tariffs. And are these tariffs fundamentally retaliatory, or are they part of a protectionist philosophy that aims to revive American manufacturing, agriculture and energy production? The answers to these questions, even for Trump’s most wholehearted supporters, are obscure, but this ambiguity appears to be intentional – strategic, even.

Many analysts believe that the purpose of these tariffs is not to restrict North American trade on a permanent basis, but to prove Trump’s seriousness to the likes of Canadian Prime Minister Trudeau and Mexican President Sheinbaum. Trump, in other words, is angling for substantial concessions from Canada and Mexico, on border enforcement, trade policy and other issues, that a more conventional American administration would never even dream of asking for.

Today we saw that this approach can induce a more cooperative attitude, i.e., force our “friends” to crack under pressure, remarkably quickly. Trump agreed to pause the tariffs on goods from Mexico for a month, in return for greater efforts on the Mexican side of the border to control fentanyl smuggling. Whether this pause will be extended, and whether Canada will buckle with similar alacrity, remains to be seen. Clearly, though, “business as usual” is no longer an option in North America, whether U.S., Canadian, and Mexican elites like it or not.

And this is why the long-term impact of Trump’s international arm-twisting could be revolutionary: by bending our closest neighbors and erstwhile friends to our will, we will send a message to the entire world that no longer is the United States of America a nation to be trifled with. No longer will we subsidize the defense of half the world without expecting anything in return. No longer will we open up our own markets to all comers, while foreign governments and their corporate allies conspire to freeze out American products and seize control of whole industries. Certainly, no longer will the U.S. accept an unlimited number of migrants in the guise of “refugees” from the four corners of the earth.

Imagine, then, how much easier it will be for President Trump and Secretary of State Rubio to negotiate with China, and Europe, and Russia, and Iran, and North Korea, and countless other nations, friend and foe alike, when the new administration has proven its mettle in a miniature “trade war” with Canada and Mexico. Why, if they aren’t already, the Panamanians and the Danes must be quaking in their boots!

The smart money says that the tariffs on Canada and Mexico aren’t really about Canada and Mexico at all – they’re about transplanting a spine into America itself, which, under President Biden, so conspicuously lacked one. Thanks to President Trump, the USA is no longer a nation to be taken for granted, derided, and abused. For the 77 million people who voted for Trump, all they can say is: “It’s about time!”