Posted on Friday, December 20, 2024

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by Shane Harris

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Before President-elect Donald Trump has even stepped back into the Oval Office, his border and tariff policies are already producing tangible results for the American people.

This week, the Canadian government announced a spending plan that would bolster border security in order to avoid Trump’s threat to impose a 25 percent tariff on goods from both Canada and Mexico until those countries do more to stop the flow of migrants and drugs into the United States. That news came just a few weeks after Trump said that he had received assurances from Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum that she would likewise be taking measures to address the crisis at America’s southern border.

Both developments have proved critics of Trump’s border and tariff policies dead wrong and confirmed what conservatives have been saying for the past four years – that the chaos on America’s borders was always an intentional choice by the Biden administration. Trump has done more to secure the border in six weeks from his Mar-a-Lago estate than Biden has in four years from the White House.

According to The Wall Street Journal, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s administration said “it would spend $1.3 billion Canadian dollars, or the equivalent of $900 million, over a six-year period to improve border security.” In a post on X, Trudeau added that the funding pledge shows that Canada is “stepping up to keep our border strong and secure.” The leaders of several Canadian provinces have also called for stronger border patrol measures.

Trump’s timing with his tariff threat was particularly brilliant as Trudeau faces mounting political headwinds at home, with some members of his own party calling for him to step down. Two-thirds of Canadians disapprove of his performance as Prime Minister, and he is reeling from the shocking departure of Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland from his cabinet, widely regarded as one of Trudeau’s top allies. Freeland resigned earlier this month citing disagreements with Trudeau over monetary policy.

Though Trudeau and other leaders in the Canadian government have publicly maintained that a 25 percent tariff on Canadian goods would harm the United States as well as Canada, economists have warned that such a move would send the Canadian economy into a nosedive. As the Journal also reports, Bank of Canada Governor Tiff Macklem has said that Trump’s tariff proposal would be “widely disruptive” for the Canadian economy.

With Trudeau already in a political bind, he had little room to maneuver, and Trump deftly used this situation to his advantage – and to the advantage of the United States.

While the southern border has garnered most of the media attention over the last four years, the northern border has also become a problem area, particularly for drugs and dangerous individuals entering the country. Canada and the United States share the longest undefended border in the world – making it a prime target for bad actors and threats to the United States.

In total there have been more than 19,000 individuals arrested at the U.S.-Canadian border in 2024 alone. Given the fact that vast stretches of the border are completely undefended, there are perhaps tens of thousands of people who have escaped into the interior of the country since Biden took office.

Even more concerningly, according to Customs and Border Protection data, 358 suspects on the terror watchlist were arrested on the northern border in Fiscal Year 2024. On the southern border, that number was 155 over the same time period.

Overall during Biden’s tenure, 64 percent of the record 1,900 suspected terrorists captured have been apprehended at the northern border – a clear sign that individuals with ill intent toward the United States recognize it as a weak point in America’s defenses.

One of those suspected terrorists was Muhammad Shahzeb Khan, a 20-year-old Pakistani citizen. Khan was reportedly plotting to conduct an attack on a Jewish center in New York before he was apprehended by authorities just 12 miles from the U.S. border.

Moreover, the House Homeland Security Committee reported last year that “drug smuggling across the northern border has increased nearly 600 percent since Fiscal Year 2021.” Much of the deadly fentanyl that is ravaging American communities is coming in from Canada.

In light of the severity of this crisis and Trudeau’s action, Trump’s tariff threat now looks like an expert political and diplomatic move to force Canada into action to assist the United States in securing the border.

It may also have the added benefit of further exposing how Trudeau has failed his own people by allowing in vast numbers of unvetted migrants. Earlier this year, a group of U.S. Senators warned Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas that Canada’s program of admitting migrants from Gaza posed an imminent threat to the United States and Canada.

As he has been so often in his political career, Trump was once again two steps ahead of his critics and doubters. The United States and Canada are both likely to become safer as a result.

Shane Harris is a writer and political consultant from Southwest Ohio. You can follow him on X @shaneharris513.