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Tariff Man's new assault on Canada is his dumbest yet
The madman theory works ... right up until it doesn't anymore.
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“We are holding Canada responsible for the fact that they are not properly maintaining their Forests, and Brush therein, and the United States is being unnecessarily invaded by filthy, polluted, and unhealthy air, the quality of which is dangerous, and totally unacceptable!” Trump screeched on social media Friday afternoon.
If only Canada knew how to rake the forests like the Finns!
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It was a typical Trump post, signifying nothing … or possibly a new trade war.
Two days later, Trump watched the World Cup finals in New Jersey along with his co-hosts, Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum and Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney — both of whom managed not to photobomb the winning Spanish team. En route home, Trump stopped to insult the nation that routinely sends firefighters to the US during wildfire season, along with their leader.
“It went good, but I told him, you got to stop these fires from coming in and poisoning our air,” he told reporters at Joint Base Andrews, adding that “maybe they should pay us some damages or something, or we should do some tariffs. But it was terrible. I mean, you had businesses closing.”
On Monday, he announced a new round of tariffs on Canadian exports … but said they had nothing to do with the wildfires.
The White House put out three proclamations imposing an additional 50 percent tariff on a sprawling list of Canadian goods, citing our northern neighbor’s "discrimination" against American cars, alcohol, and cheese.
The legal basis is a hundred-year-old statute most commonly associated with the movie Ferris Bueller’s Day Off and, before that, the Great Depression. And if courts let him use it the way he’s threatening, he’ll be free to wreak havoc on the global economy.
Anyone, anyone …
Last year, Trump careened back into office erratically barking out tariff commands.
The Constitution vests the tariff power in Congress, but the president insisted it had actually been permanently delegated to him by the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, better known as IEEPA. In February, the Supreme Court finally said he didn’t — although not before letting him illegally collect upwards of $100 billion from American businesses.
