Trump to speak Customs with Canada officials, Mexico; Musk says USAID will be shut down

On By Littum

Chrystia Freeland, Canada’s former finance minister, appointed Trump’s tariffs in an interview about MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” today and blasted them partly as “so unjustified and so meaningless.”

“These tariffs are really imposed for completely for no reason,” Freeland said. “The pretext offered is the flickest pretext.”

The White House has said that it slap a 25% customs on Canadian goods to push the country to blow up the flow of fentanyl and immigrants into the US

Freeland pushed back on this premise and said that less than 1% of the fentanyl entering the United States moves across the northern border.

According to the White House’s fact sheet on customs, 43 pounds of fentanyl were seized at the northern border last financial year. In contrast, more than 21,000 pounds of fentanyl were seized at the southern border with Mexico in the same period, according to the administration.

“If border security was the question, this could be solved in five minutes,” said Freeland, a member of the Canadian parliament who served as the country’s finance minister from August 2020 to December 2024.

Freeland, who runs to succeed with Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, said the Canadians gathered against the Trump administration’s customs program. In response to the president’s repeated comments that Canada should become the 51st. State, she said “Our sovereignty is not marketable.”

“If you hit us, we will beat back and the whole country will be proud to do so,” she said.