Africa Bazaar Staff Writer
February 3, 2023
“This is a drug war, not a trade war” says President Donald J. Trump‘s Senior Trade and Manufacturing Adviser Peter Navarro, remarking on the imminent 25% tariffs on Canada, and Mexico and 10% on China.
Navarro, who served as Director of White House National Trade Council and subsequently as Director of Office of Trade and Manufacturing Policy in the first Trump administration, told reporters that the tariffs is part of President Trump’s negotiating tactics to bring people to the negotiating table and get the results he wants from these foreign leaders.
The White House announced late Monday evening that President Trump and Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum Pardo have struck a deal to pause the imminent tariffs for 30 days while they work out the nicks relating to the tariffs. Mexico has agreed to put 10,000 soldiers at the southern border permanently.
“The difference between Mexico and Canada thus far is that Canada thinks we’re fighting a trade war with them. That’s not the case here,” Navarro elucidated in his remarks. “This is a drug war and I think it’s important that if Canada, Canadian citizens themselves can understand that what we are trying to do here is stop the killing of Americans by these deadly drugs, to stop Canada from allowing terrorists on the watchlist from entering our country. That will be the way to find a resolution of this problem. So let’s see what happened.”
Navarro said President Trump and Prime Minister Justin Trudeau are scheduled to mull the tariff issues on the phone later today.
“Mexican President understands this is a drug war, not a trade war,” Navarro told White House reporters gathered outside of the West Wing on Monday. “We have an unprecedented amount of Americans dying every year from fentanyl alone, about 75,000 [people] annually,” he said, adding that number roughly equals the number of football fans that will be present at the Super Dome for the Super Bowl game this weekend and more by a large margin than the number of American soldiers lost during the Vietnam War “and this happens year after year”
Navarro stated the illicit drug trafficking pipeline begins in China. “The way this process works, it starts with China. China makes what’s called the precursor chemicals, then it’s blended by Mexican drug cartels into not just deadly fentanyl but the fentanyl is used to also spike things like heroin and speed and other deadly drugs, and that pushes the death toll to well over 100,000 a year. And then what has happened with Canada is the Mexican cartels have expanded to other areas of Canada. They’re making fentanyl there and sending it down to the U.S. from there. The Chinese are using Canada to send in small parcels below the radar. One glass of fentanyl can kill millions of Americans. Just one single glass. It’s that deadly,” he underscored before adding “If President Trump and Mexican President can agree on substantial steps towards solving these problems, which will then lead to a 30-day grace period, everybody should be happy. The U.S. is happy.”
While optimistic that the U.S. and the Canadian Prime Minister will come to some type of agreement, he also cautioned that the negotiation has a long way to go. “There’s a lot of things to be done but this is the way President Trump negotiates and you can rest assured that if we do not get cooperation from countries, then of course the tariffs will be implemented. We have no other choice, President Trump wants to save American lives.”
Asked what kind of results he expects to have from the deals, Navarro answered that the obvious results and metric of success is “to see no American dying from fentanyl and no fentanyl being seized at the border and no intelligence that tells us that Mexican cartels are making all of that.”
He added it’s “going to take some time to get to where we need to be. This is a crisis. I’m one of three people who were with the President at the senior level back in the first term. I served all 4 years. Stephen Miller and Kellyanne Conway, we got nothing but misdirection from all of the people involved in that chain—China, Mexico, and Canada. This is a key part of why Americans voted for him.”
Asked what action the Trump administration would like to see from Canada to consider a grace period similar to Mexico, Navarro said “It’s a diplomatic issue and those discussions will be between Canadian diplomats, the presidents, and the Prime Minister.”
