Amid the pain of President Donald Trump’s tariffs, Premier Doug Ford sees an opening to ease the sting of a global trade war.
Ford’s meeting with U.S. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick in Washington on Thursday provided a road map on how to proceed, sources told the Star.
… Trudeau was mentioned by the Americans as an irritant and an impediment to resolving the trade standoff, insiders said.
Canada has walked itself into an unnecessary trade war with the United States’ biggest geopolitical rival, China.
The consequences are clear: new retaliatory tariffs from China are directly targeting our farmers, affecting over $3-billion worth of agrifood commodities and products.
These measures are a direct response to Canada’s decision to impose a 100 per cent tariff on Chinese electric vehicles in October, a move designed to align with U.S. trade policy and shield the North American auto sector from low-cost competition.
h/t patthedog
A Muslim charity with links to Hamas was awarded more than $7.2 million in taxpayer cash, which has now disappeared, according to a watchdog group.
An “immediate investigation” needs to be launched into The Council on American-Muslim Relations’ (CAIR) California chapter’s use of funds, according to the watchdog, who sent a complaint to the Department of Justice Thursday.
According to the Intelligent Advocacy Network (IAN), a California-based, non-partisan advocacy group, the money was given to the chapter to help re-settle impoverished immigrants in California between 2022 and 2024.
New Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney shut down President Trump’s talk of Canada potentially becoming the U.S.’s 51st state, characterizing it as “crazy” and vowing the North American neighbor will remain independent.
Carney, a former Bank of Canada and Bank of England governor who was sworn in as Canada’s leader on Friday, succeeding his predecessor Justin Trudeau, said Canada and the U.S. are “fundamentally different” nations and that Ottawa “expects respect from America and Trump.”
“We will never in any way, shape or form be a part of the U.S. America is not Canada,” Carney said.
A far-right group that claimed credit for the arrest of a Palestinian activist and permanent US resident who the Trump administration is seeking to deport claims it has submitted “thousands of names” for similar treatment.
Betar US is one of a number of rightwing, pro-Israel groups that are supporting the administration’s efforts to deport international students involved in university pro-Palestinian protests, an effort that escalated this week with the arrest of Mahmoud Khalil, an activist who recently completed his graduate studies at Columbia University.
This week, Donald Trump said Khalil’s arrest was just “the first of many to come”. Betar US quickly claimed credit on social media for providing Khalil’s name to the government.
This kind of thing is only OK when the left does it.
OTTAWA, Canada — A review of corporate documents reveals that Brookfield—the influential $900 billion Canadian investment fund from which Liberal Prime Minister-to-be Mark Carney stepped away from in order to replace Justin Trudeau as Canada’s leader—maintains over $3 billion in politically sensitive investments with Chinese state-linked real estate and energy companies, along with a substantial offshore banking presence. One of its major real estate ventures, a $750 million entry into high-end Shanghai commercial property in 2013, involved a Hong Kong tycoon affiliated with the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC)—which the CIA labels a central “united front” entity of Beijing.
Carney will ensure Canada remains a CCP branch plant.
h/t DM
WASHINGTON — The White House has directed the U.S. military to draw up options for increasing the American troop presence in Panama to achieve President Trump’s goal of “reclaiming” the Panama Canal, according to two U.S. officials familiar with the planning.
During a joint address to Congress last week, Trump said, “to further enhance our national security, my administration will be reclaiming the Panama Canal.” Since then, administration officials have not said what “reclaiming” means.
Some European counterparts thought U.S. annexation threats are a ‘joke’ during G7 meeting, Joly says
Foreign Affairs Minister Mélanie Joly says some of her G7 counterparts from Europe thought the United States is joking about annexing Canada.
Ms. Joly’s comments come after symbolic gestures and tepid comments on Canadian sovereignty at this week’s G7 meeting, which took place in the region of Charlevoix in Quebec.
“I think many of my colleagues coming here thought this issue was still a joke and that this had to be taken in a humorous way,” Ms. Joly said in a news conference concluding the G7 foreign ministers’ meeting.
Most people assumed President Trump was joking when he first brought up the idea of Canada joining the United States as a 51st state. But now the idea is becoming a serious part of the trade war that has been launched against our northern neighbor, and administration officials are regularly touting the supposed benefits of the union.
Before we start taking this too seriously, can we just stop for a moment to acknowledge that apart from everything else, the idea of Canadian statehood would be an absolute disaster for American conservatism and confine the Republican Party to the ash heap of history.
MEXICO CITY — President Sheinbaum led a mass gathering of jubilation on Sunday, days after the United States postponed for a second month 25 percent tariffs on Mexican imports, citing progress on drug smuggling and illegal immigration. Crowds waved Mexican flags as Ms. Sheinbaum praised the decision, saying, “Dialogue and respect have prevailed.”
How long Mexico can stave off President Trump’s wrath, though, is uncertain. United States 25 percent tariffs on steel and aluminum imports are at the moment set to take hold on Wednesday as planned, while the tariff pause on other Mexican goods is scheduled to expire on April 2.
Most of us take for granted the ease of filling up a gas tank or flipping a light switch — whether in Michigan or Ontario. But in the tumultuous day-to-day relationship between the United States and Canada, energy has become the latest bone of contention.
The reality right now is that this trade means that the tone and tenor of a phone call between Doug Ford and Howard Lutnick could mean a lot for my state, Michigan, and your province — positive or negative — when it comes to the cost of a gallon or kilowatt.
Ontario Premier Doug Ford and federal officials left an hours-long meeting with U.S. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick saying they feel more positive about the Canada-U.S. trading relationship after weeks of bad blood and heated rhetoric.
Speaking to reporters after the meeting, Ford said he feels like “the temperature is being lowered, the temperature’s coming down” after the bilateral talks.
Imagine you had a woke lunatic living in your attic.
Someone who contributed nothing to the household — beyond barking politically correct slogans — and yet expected full bed and board.
You might hear him or her (or “them”) stomping around late at night, yelling “Trans women are women!” or “Defund the police!”
And the next morning they’d be down with their hand out, expecting breakfast and pocket money.
President Trump’s simultaneous trade wars with Canada, Mexico, China and the European Union amount to a huge economic and political gamble: that Americans will endure months or years of economic pain in return for the distant hope of re-industrializing the American heartland.
It is enormously risky. In recent days, Mr. Trump has acknowledged, despite all his confident campaign predictions that “we are going to boom like we have never boomed before,” that the United States may be headed into a recession, fueled by his economic agenda. But in public and private he has been arguing that “a little disturbance” in the economy and the markets is a small price to pay for bringing manufacturing jobs back to America.
America is a very resilient nation making economic recovery a matter of sooner rather than later.
President Donald Trump spoke to reporters in the Oval Office on Thursday while meeting with the head of NATO and doubled down on his argument that Canada must join the United States.
“No I’m not,” Trump replied when asked if he would reconsider the latest tariffs.
