Trump warns he’ll drop economic hammer on Canada next week

Donald Trump has loaded the trade gun. He’s pointed the gun. He hasn’t pulled the trigger one day into his latest presidential term.

But he insists it’s coming next week.

Sitting in the Oval Office for the first time in four years, Trump said he’s planning to imminently follow through with the massive tariffs he’s threatened against Canada and Mexico.

“We’re thinking in terms of 25 per cent on Mexico and Canada,” Trump told reporters Monday, as he signed various executive orders, repeating his complaints about the border and fentanyl.

“I think Feb. 1 … I think we’ll do it Feb. 1. On each.”

The timeline remains fuzzy: Trump signed an executive order demanding a report by April 1 on the border, migration and fentanyl, which singled out Canada, Mexico and China, but said it could apply to other countries.

America’s neighbours have now received a swift reminder of life under Trump as a never-ending roller-coaster of real threats, unfulfilled threats and negotiation.

Expanding American territory

It was part of a head-spinning series of executive actions that undid Biden policies on race, gender and climate change, including a re-withdrawal from both the Paris climate accord and the World Health Organization.

Unlike his first term, however, Trump isn’t limiting threats to economic action. In rhetoric at least, he’s gone a step further and begun threatening nations’ sovereignty.

There were three extraordinary words in Trump’s inaugural address, deep enough into a lengthy sentence they risked going unnoticed.

He called for expanding American territory — something the U.S. has not done in generations, and it’s not entirely clear what he was referring to.

The phrase was among a laundry list of promises sandwiched between references to reclaiming the Panama Canal and planting the U.S. flag on Mars.

It was a notable turn of phrase given his repeated musings lately about Panama, making Canada a state and annexing Greenland.

It might be a joke, or a negotiating ploy, or unserious, given how deeply unpopular annexing Canada and Greenland appears to be.

Yet it’s gained sufficient traction in the public consciousness that when members of the Proud Boys militia marched through Washington, D.C., Monday for the first time in four years, as they passed the Canadian embassy, they chanted: “Fifty-first state!”

In truth, though, Mexico was the immediate focus of Trump’s actions on Day 1.

Trump unleashed a slew of measures that declared a national emergency at the southern border; he deployed the military to the border; designated drug cartels as terrorist groups; restricted asylum and refugee resettlement; and involved the 227-year-old Alien Enemies Act to accelerate deportations.

He’s also launching a challenge against more than a century of legal understanding that someone born in the U.S. can be a citizen, regardless of their parents’ status.

Attack cartels in Mexico? ‘Could happen’

Asked if he could launch military strikes in Mexico against cartels, Trump said: “Could happen.”

He may not be annexing Mexico. But he is annexing the name of the Gulf of Mexico. Hillary Clinton burst out laughing from the audience as Trump promised, in his inaugural address, to formally instruct U.S. officials to call it the, “Gulf of America.”

It’s worth pausing amid this immigration talk to note that irregular migration has already been plummeting and has dropped more than two-thirds in recent months.

In fact, Trump inherits a country with a 4.1 per cent unemployment rate, 2.9 per cent inflation, and skyrocketing investment in manufacturing facilities.

That may explain, in part, the relative sunniness of Trump’s second inaugural address. It was combative at times, and nationalistic.

But it painted in brighter hues than his 2017 “American carnage” speech, a dark inaugural address drenched top to bottom in nationalism.

Trump’s sunnier speech

“From this day forward, our country will flourish,” were the opening words of his speech, delivered indoors because of inclement weather.

“The golden age of America begins right now. From this day forward, our country will flourish,” he said. “We will be the envy of every nation.” 

It was also a little longer than usual. Monday’s inaugural speech clocked in at about 2,800 words, lengthier than the historical average and double the length of his speech eight years ago.

He referred to his near-death experience when a would-be assassin’s bullet ripped through his ear last summer, and added: “I was saved by God to make America great again.”

But, really, it was just one prepared speech.

Trump unleashed his full id later in the day, in different improvised remarks, first to supporters in a larger hall at the Capitol and then in the local NHL arena.

He informed supporters that he had planned a more combative speech but his wife, Melania, and his Vice-President J.D. Vance convinced him to remove the most controversial lines.

He lamented that he was dissuaded from trashing some of former president Joe Biden’s pardons and from promising his own pardon for Jan. 6 convicts.

“We had some beauties,” Trump told supporters at the Capitol. “[But Melania] said, ‘It’s such a beautiful speech. You can’t put things in there that you’re going to put in.’ “

Trump later made good on his promise to issue a mass pardon for people convicted over the attack on the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, in a failed attempt to keep him in office.

Norm-smashing pardons — from 2 presidents

It wasn’t immediately clear whether the pardoned included people convicted of violence that day, but it appeared highly likely; Trump said he was pardoning 1,500 people, meaning the vast majority of people arrested in that event.

Other norm-breaking turns including Trump cashing in on a questionable meme coin in recent days; hosting tech billionaires at his inauguration and giving them better spots than members of his cabinet.

Then there’s TikTok. Trump once supported banning the social media app, but reversed his position after meeting a megadonor with a stake in it. On Monday, he signed an order to delay its shutdown, an act his critics called a lawless defiance of a bill passed by Congress.

In fact, the head of TikTok, cited as a Chinese-led national-security threat by U.S. officials, was standing at his inauguration next to Tulsi Gabbard, his pick for director of national intelligence. 

But history will show that Trump wasn’t alone in smashing norms on this day. In fact, his predecessor gave him a run for his money.

Biden’s final major act as president was to issue a sprawling, blanket pardon for much of his family. Biden’s siblings and their spouses all received a sweeping get-out-of-jail free card for any act committed since 2014, which comes weeks after Biden pardoned his son Hunter.

Republicans have long alleged that Biden’s family monetized their connections with him in ways that may have been illegal, including by not registering their work on behalf of foreign entities. They have never proven these accusations.

With the pardons for his family, Biden appeared to take that legal threat off the table. His move drew swift criticism online, even from Biden allies, who called it a lawless act, setting a dangerous precedent for Trump to exploit.

Biden did not face this degree of criticism for other 11th-hour pardons of public servants who face Trump’s potential wrath: public health leader Anthony Fauci, lawmaker Liz Cheney and military leader Mark Milley.

Trump, for his part, trashed all of Biden’s pardons in his later public appearances Monday.

But once back in the Oval Office, Trump professed to be in a great mood. He called his return a great feeling — one of the best in his life.

He said Biden’s actions have given license to future presidents to pardon every person they’ve ever known, before they leave office.

Trump said he doesn’t want to do it himself, as he said it makes you look guilty, but he added: “I guess now I have precedent to do that.”