White House economic adviser Kevin Hassett said on Sunday he was hopeful a dispute with Canada over accusations of the deadly fentanyl opioid entering the U.S. across its northern border could be resolved by the end of March.
His comments on ABC News’s “This Week” raise the possibility that tariffs due to be reimposed by U.S. President Donald Trump at the end of the month could be stayed further.
In reality, Canada is responsible for a minuscule proportion of drug smuggling into the United States and it wasn’t immediately clear what progress Hassett was referring to.
Democratic U.S. Senator Adam Schiff from California, who appeared after Hassett on ABC, called the adviser’s comments “incomprehensible.”
While fentanyl is deadly serious, the “crisis” of it flowing over the US border is the made-up emergency on which Trump bases his legitimate authority to levy these tariffs. Without an emergency he would have no legal basis to fuck around like this without violating our trade agreements (which he signed last time around), so it’s part of the narrative, regardless of any amount of truth to it.
The “crisis” will end only when they determine it is no longer useful to pursue these tactics and switch to some other type of fuckery. It’s just as likely that he will declare them resolved as a face-saving measure so he can stop the bleeding at home. Art of the deal!
“Only an idiot could have agreed to these trade deals!”
It’s rare, but occasionally he’ll truth shart.