Trump needs to claim there’s some sort of ‘national emergency’ to use IEEPA which is the legal mechanism required to provide executive powers to levy tariffs swiftly with no review period or congressional approval. Fentanyl is convienenly pretty much the only plausible place where the Venn Diagram overlaps on all three countries he laid tariffs against (it comes from China, the cartel smuggles it through Mexico and Canada and Canada launders the money (see what TD got fined $3 Billion for)).
Therefore the whole Fentanyl thing is a smokescreen to give him emergency powers. So really it’a not about Fentanyl and not going to be rectified by any action on it any time soon. There’s clearly a bigger ask of Canada coming and it’s incumbent of Canadians to figure that out as quickly as possible.
Think of Trump as an autocratic CEO approaching corporate governance in his way of doing what he wants. That’s the exact approach he’s taking in the US government. The stuff he says is more about what he has to say to grant him the emergency powers required to do what he actually wants. So focus less on what he says and more on the impact of what he’s trying to implement in attempt to discover the real motive of his actions.
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