White Home commerce adviser and ex-convict Peter Navarro instructed Fox Information’ Bret Baier on Wednesday, that “Canada has been taken over, Bret, by Mexican cartels. They bring up these pill presses and printers, and the medicines that they fake, you can’t tell the difference.”
Navarro was working interference for his boss, who walked again his large commerce struggle tariffs in opposition to Canada and Mexico in lower than 48 hours. (Although he continues to flip-flop on the tariffs at a breakneck tempo.) President Donald Trump selected to proceed his assault on Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau—after folding like an affordable swimsuit—by claiming that fentanyl smuggling was an infinite drawback alongside the Canadian border.
In response to U.S. Customs and Border Safety, solely 43 kilos of fentanyl had been seized on the Canadian border in 2024. Throughout that very same interval, greater than 21,000 kilos had been seized alongside the Mexican border. So, of the greater than 21,043 kilos of fentanyl seized at our nation’s borders in 2024, roughly 0.2% of it got here via Canada.
Navarro’s wonderlandian assertion was shortly parroted, albeit with much less hyperbole, by Trump’s different minions. White Home press secretary, and front-facing lie machine, Karoline Leavitt had this to say when she was offered with these info by Senior White Home Correspondent for NBS Information Gabe Gutierrez.
Gutierrez: Respectfully. It is simply 43 kilos that had been discovered final yr. That is lower than a carry-on suitcase. Is that quite a lot of fentanyl in comparison with, say, Mexico? The overwhelming majority of the fentanyl is introduced in via Mexico, not Canada. So what else does Canada must do?
Leavitt: Nicely, I simply instructed you, final yr alone, there was a 2,000% improve in unlawful fentanyl. In case you’re asking me, you are asking me for what the president’s justification is for these tariffs. It is less than you. You are not the president, Gabe.”
Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick carried out even much less coherently when requested in regards to the incongruity by CNBC. “I think autopsy deaths, as horrible as that is, should be the statistic,” Lutnick stated, however when pressed, added: “Remember, the process in America for tariffs is that the president launched a study. And those are the rules of tariffs in America.” Huh?
In 2019, the Treasury Division deemed “the most common distribution method” for fentanyl into our nation was by the use of China and the mail. The Biden administration had been making headway on an settlement to get assist from China on their finish.
On Thursday, bipartisan laws was launched by Sen. Jim Risch, a Republican from Idaho, and Democratic Sen. Jeanne Shaheen of New Hampshire, that targets fentanyl coming into the U.S. by the use of China and Mexico. The invoice seems to be to increase the authority to sanction “state-owned or state-controlled Chinese entities, including banks,” in line with the Related Press.
For his half, Trump has pardoned Ross Ulbricht, the infamous creator of Silk Highway—an internet market for felony exercise—who prosecutors described as being “the kingpin of a worldwide digital drug-trafficking enterprise.” A lot for being robust on medication.
