Tariff threats: What does Trump want from Canada?

so what does Donald Trump really want from this country let's bring in Alex Panetta in Washington kathern Cullen in Ottawa to break this all down but we need to start with some news at a confirmation Hearing in Washington for Trump's pick for Commerce Department Howard lutnick spoke about what the White House wants from Canada let's listen shut your border and end fentel coming into this country so it is not a tariff per se it is an action of domestic policy shut your border and stop allowing fentanyl into our country killing our people so this is

a separate tariff to create action from Mexico and action from Canada and uh as far as I know they are acting swiftly and if they execute it there will be no tariff and if they don't then there will be Alex he makes it sound so simple right is that is that really it just stop the flow of Fentanyl and this goes away well that's the good news uh you know maybe Canada shows some actions at the board maybe you make a video showing a drug bust near Cornwall he let play let Trump play the video

on social media he declares a big win he's protecting America and everyone lives happily ever after no tariffs on February 1st the North American free trade continues as we've known it for 30 plus years uh by the way we're hearing this this is actually what Canada's trying to do the government is literally cobbling together video footage from the border sending it to Trump apparently Danielle Smith and Alberta as well has invited a Fox News crew down maybe it'll be enough to buy us some peace for a while and I say for a while uh because

here's the bad news letnik is threatening more tariffs as early as April 1st um I'd make a joke about the weather you know the forec cost calls for threats today and more threats in in the spring uh so we know that on his first day in office Trump signed an executive order demanding a sweeping study on Trade Practices around the world uh studies due April 1st and it's obvious he's going to use this study as a pretext for tariffs and that's exactly what lutnick warned about today he mentioned a couple of gripes with Canada Dairy

he wants to sell more to Canada Autos he wants fewer cars from Canada and Mexico so what he said today is it's going to take a couple of uh months to work out the broad tariff policy the macro issues but first the micro issue the Border Katherine I I know you're working the phones today on on what lck said what are you hearing about how what he said changes the equation interestingly Adrian people are telling me that this doesn't really change that much that in in their opinion we've already been in a multi-front tariff battle

with the United States and today's message is really similar IL to what some Canadian officials heard in November at the maralo meeting with Trump Canadian officials have PL planned for a broad range of scenarios and this is yet another possibility of what could play out in an already long list but I would suggest Adrien that you can't really view what happened today entirely as nothing has changed but because since Donald Trump first floated the idea of linking tariffs to the border the Canadian government has leaned in hard committing 1.3 billion dollar to helicopters drones and

more and letnik himself he's had one-on-one meetings with Finance Minister Dominic Leblon spent a significant amount of time with the Prime Minister just this week and Canadian officials still don't know if it's enough now letnik did say if he believes that Canada is acting quickly enough it if it executes as we heard there that it could be spared those tariffs but of course we wouldn't be out of the woods because there's this whole other basket of tariffs related to trade and we know that Trump sounds pretty convinced that enacting tariffs will make the US government

Rich you if it's clear it's going to cost Americans so there's so much hyperbole around the subject particularly around fentanyl good moment to to look at some stats when it comes to fenel according to the Americans right these are the US Customs and Border protections own numbers between October 2023 and September 2024 more than 9,500 kgr of fentanyl were seized at the US Mexico border and again compare that and you've heard this before right to the nearly 20 kilograms seized between the US and Canada those are the American numbers themselves so it's not even that

they have to take Canada's word for it I I don't think even if he knew those numbers Alex that you can convince Donald Trump that tariffs are bad like he knew those numbers months ago it hasn't changed anything he loves the concept of these tariffs so given that H how does the thinking evolve about what Canada's move is from Canada I'd expect the long game of good cop bad cop I mean good cop is plan a you you promised Trump all sorts of great stuff mutually beneficial stuff like if he behaves though I mean if

he behaves he gets border security uh you know here's a video showing that we're on it a Crackdown on drug gangs uh the stuff Canada's already announced you deliver him these wins on a silver platter and you let him take credit and then if that fails you make it darn clear there's a plan B uh deterrence the risk of mutually assured economic destruction I mean you float every possibility Under the Sun export tariffs Supply interruptions cancelling major contracts with us companies oh that border cooperation we were talking about that's paused suspended uh to be clear

this would all severely hurt Canada so you have to hope we never get uh to that point but you make clear to Trump that if he follows through with this you'll wake up every single morning of your life thinking of new ways to inflict as much political damage as possible on his party in next year's midterm elections uh like for example you know how Doug Ford talked about halting us booze purchases at the LCBO well you make a list about 50 times longer than that you leak it and you make sure he sees it and

you hope it scares him off and if it doesn't scare him off then we are in for a world of pain and Canada faces some really difficult choices about how far to go and carrying out this retaliation yeah no kidding so February 1st just really like a few days hours away at this point Katherine is is that deadline looms we've seen the premier working on this Alex just spoke about government panels or crossb conversations is any of it working I mean you can understand the logic behind it but what are you hearing from your sources

about what is getting through to him yeah I asked someone just yesterday about what works best and interestingly the example this Canadian official pointed me to was one-on-one meeting specifically mentioning Dominic lah and Howard letnik and what happens today letnik comes around he basically rhetorically kicks Canada in The Shins several times a couple of Canadian sources have mentioned to me that part of the challenge right now is figuring out who truly has influence with Trump as people are confirmed and the new Administration gets into place there's a lot of jockeying for position in the United

States a lot of people claiming they have sway so Canadian officials still working on determining what Trump's bottom line really is they continue with the plan from the first Trump Administration engage engage engage with businesses Governors anyone who can help make the case that tariffs are bad they employed that during the first NAFTA renegotiations but the thing that is different here when Canada renegotiated NAFTA Trump was able to say great deal didn't change anything for Canada now officials are telling them Trump wants results those results could be pretty painful for Canada Adrian okay so he

doesn't just want to seem to be winning he actually wants results that's that's that would be a good thing to keep in mind all right Katherine Cullen Alex Panetta thank you thank you thank you [Music]