Daily Caller
Trudeau’s Liberal Gov’t Tears Itself Apart As It Scrambles To Address Trump’s Tariff Threats
From the Daily Caller News Foundation
By Jason Hopkins
A top official within Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s cabinet abruptly resigned, citing growing policy disagreements on how the country should respond to tariff threats posed by President-elect Donald Trump and his “America First” economic agenda.
Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland officially resigned from Trudeau’s cabinet on Monday, according to a letter she posted publicly and delivered to the prime minister. Freeland’s letter — which came just hours before she was supposed to deliver an address on border security with the U.S. — marks the latest turmoil to beset Trudeau’s government as he deals with a more adversarial partner in the incoming Trump administration and his Liberal Party remains beleaguered with poor poll numbers.
“On Friday, you told me you no longer want me to serve as your Finance Minister and offered me another position in the cabinet,” Freeland wrote to Trudeau. “Upon reflection, I have concluded that the only honest and viable path is for me to resign from the cabinet.”
The finance minister said the two had found themselves “at odds” in the past few weeks over how to find the best path forward for the country. However, she appeared to take particular umbrage with how to approach the “aggressive economic nationalism” presented by President-elect Donald Trump, who has threatened Canada and Mexico with sweeping tariffs unless both countries do more to stop the flow of illegal immigration and illicit drugs.
The U.S.-Canada border, while never experiencing the level of activity seen annually at the southern border, has witnessed an uptick in activity in recent time. There were more than 23,000 encounters by made Border Patrol agents in fiscal year 2024, more than doubling the 10,000 encounters experienced the previous fiscal year, according to Customs and Border Protection data.
“Our country today faces a grave challenge,” Freeland wrote. “The incoming administration in the United States is pursuing a policy of aggressive economic nationalism, including a threat of 25 per cent tariffs.”
“We need to take that threat extremely seriously,” she continued. “That means keeping our fiscal powder dry today, so we have the reserves we may need for a coming tariff war.”
Trump, fresh off his electoral landslide victory over Vice President Kamala Harris earlier in November, declared on social media that he would be imposing 25% tariffs on Mexico and Canada unless their governments met his demands on illegal immigration and other issues. The threat has since set off a series of reactions from both Canadian and Mexican governments.
Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum issued a public letter that gave her government credit for the drop in migrant encounters along the southern border and blamed the U.S. for the number of guns in Mexico. Sheinbaum also notably warned that the Mexican government would have a “response in kind” if Trump moves forward with his threat to slap a 25% tariff on all of her country’s goods.
In what has been a more diplomatic approach so far, Trudeau reached out to Trump to discuss the situation, and later said he “had a good call” with the president-elect. The Liberal Party leader soon afterward visited Trump at his Mar-a-Largo residence and detailed what more the Canadian government is doing to bolster border security.
The Mexican government has already been dealing with the fallout of the tariff threats, with a slate of major international businesses suggesting that they would cease investments in the country until more clarity is given on the situation. Freeland’s resignation appears to show that the tariff threats are also wreaking havoc north of the border, with top officials disagreeing on how to respond.
“That means pushing back against ‘America First’ economic nationalism with a determined effort to fight for capital and investment and the jobs they bring,” Freeland said, speaking on how Canada should deal with Washington, D.C. “That means working in good faith and humility with the Premiers of the provinces and territories of our great and diverse country, and building a true Team Canada response.”
Trudeau, who has served as prime minister of Canada since November 2015, may not be the country’s leader following elections next year. Recent surveys indicate his Liberal Party will face a beating at the voting booth in October 2025 against the Conservative Party, led by Member of Parliament Pierre Poilievre. The Conservative Party leader is also viewed by Canadians as better equipped to work with Trump, according to a new Ipsos poll.
In response to the threat of tariffs from the incoming Trump administration, Poilievre has called for the Canadian government to beef up border security and tighten visa rules on legal immigration.
“What we are seeing is the government of Canada itself is spiraling out of control, right before our eyes and at the very worst time,” Poilievre said during a press conference Monday in reaction to the news, in which he detailed the country’s dire economic situation and political instability of the Trudeau government. “Out of control immigration has led to refugee camps opening in suburban Canada and then we have 500,000 in the country illegally, according to government estimates.”
“We cannot accept this kind of chaos, division, weakness while we’re staring down the barrel of 25% tariff from our biggest trading partner and closest ally, which by the way is headed by a newly elected president with a strong and fresh mandate, a man who can spot weakness from a mile away,” he continued.
Business
‘There Are No Sacred Cows’: Charles Payne Predicts DOGE Will Take Bite Out Of Military Industrial Complex
From the Daily Caller News Foundation
By Harold Hutchison
Fox Business host Charles Payne predicted Monday that the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) will likely cause a short-term hit to the stock market as companies that sell the Pentagon a “$500 hammer” will “take a hit.”
President-elect Donald Trump named Tesla CEO Elon Musk and former Republican presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy as co-chairs of the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) Nov. 12. Payne said that the committee had “no sacred cows” after discussing the committee’s plan to target federal spending and policies military and health care industries with former White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany and “America’s Newsroom” co-hosts Bill Hemmer and Dana Perino.
“Here is the way I look at the next Trump 2.0. I look at Trump 2.0 as not necessarily, we’re gonna get everything in the next four years, but we’re gonna put things into place to create prosperity for America that I think could last at least three decades and the key part of this is, look where they’re going – there are no sacred cows,” Payne said. “Look at what they are going after.”
WATCH:
“On Friday, you had legislation to go after the pharmacy benefit managers, right? CVS stock is cratering. Eisenhower warned us about the industrial-military complex. Well, now we’ve got a health insurance industrial complex, we got a healthcare industrial complex, we got a military industrial complex now,” Payne continued. “There are hundreds of billions of dollars floating around and guess what? It’s not necessarily good news for the stock market initially. You know, because, some of these companies that get all of this money and charge us $500 for a hammer and $1,000 for a toilet seat, they may take a hit, but ultimately, it’s better for the country and that means it’s ultimately better for the stock market.”
Republican Sen. Joni Ernst of Iowa sent Musk and Ramaswamy a seven-page letter in November with suggestions ranging from addressing unused space in buildings owned or leased by the federal government to halting uncommitted spending for COVID relief, with the proposed cuts totaling over $2 trillion.
In April, Republican Rep. Michael Waltz of Florida confronted Secretary of the Air Force Frank Kendall about the Air Force paying $90,000 for a bag of bushings. The Pentagon also paid $14,000 for a 3D-printed toilet seat and $1,280 for cups, according to a release from Republican Sen. Charles Grassley of Iowa.
Ernst released a 60-page report on Dec. 5 that covered findings from Ernst’s investigations into telework since she sent an August 2023 letter to 24 government agencies seeking a review of the issues involved with telecommuting.
Trump reportedly is planning on privatizing the United States Postal Service, which lost $9.5 billion in fiscal year 2024, according to the Washington Post.
Automotive
‘A Lot Of Government Coercion’: Study Slams ‘Forced Transition’ To EVs Consumers Don’t Seem To Want
From the Daily Caller News Foundation
By Owen Klinsky
The push for electric vehicle (EV) adoption is largely premised on misleading claims, and could bring enormous costs for U.S. consumers and the economy, a new meta-study shared exclusively with the Daily Caller News Foundation found.
Federal regulators and multinational corporations have attempted to push EVs on the American public in recent years, with the Biden-Harris administration introducing strict tailpipe emissions standards, and major automakers implementing lofty electric production targets. However, widespread EV adoption may not be as feasible as lawmakers and auto executives once claimed, with a new meta-analysis from the Institute for Energy Research (IER) noting EVs can have a variety of drawbacks for consumers when compared to their gas-powered counterparts, including elevated upfront costs, lower resale values, limited driving range and a lack of charging infrastructure.
“We argue the EV transition is going to take a lot of government coercion to make happen,” Kenny Stein, vice president of policy at IER and the study’s lead author, told the DCNF. “It is a very difficult process, and it is not a very desirable process to force.”
When Government Chooses Your Car Study; Institute for Energy Research (IER)
Much of the reason a U.S. EV transition will not occur without government force, according to the study, is cost. The price of an average EV in the first quarter of 2024 was $53,048, compared to just $35,722 for conventional vehicles, according to car shopping guide Edmunds, meaning many EVs continue to be less affordable than their gas-powered counterparts even with the U.S. Treasury Department’s $7,500 tax credit.
The IER study also cites elevated depreciation as a constraint on EV adoption, noting that the average five-year depreciation for an electric car is $43,515 compared to $27,883 for a gas-powered vehicle, according to vehicle valuation company Kelley Blue Book. The rapid depreciation is largely driven by battery replacement costs, which range from $7,000 to as much as $30,000.
In addition to sheer cost, the study found “range anxiety” — the concern among drivers that they will run out of charge before reaching their destination or a charging station — is a major source of consumer reluctance to purchase EVs. While “range anxiety” can be reduced by increasing mileage, expanding an EV’s range requires a larger battery, which in turn drives up vehicle cost and creates a difficult tradeoff for consumers.
A lack of charging infrastructure also contributes to range concerns, and has proven difficult to fix despite ample government funding, the study found. For example, the bipartisan infrastructure bill of 2021 allotted $7.5 billion to subsidize thousands of new EV charging stations, but only seven stations in four states had been built as of April.
The combination of range issues and high costs has helped drive a slackening in EV demand, with EV sales growing 50% in the first half of 2023 and 31% in the first half of 2024, less than the 71% increase in the first half of 2022. Moreover, a June poll from The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research and the University of Chicago’s Energy Policy Institute found 46% of respondents were “unlikely” or “very unlikely” to purchase an EV, while just 21% were “very” or “extremely” likely to make the change.
If thousands of new charging stations are built and demand rises due to the alleviation of range concerns, the transition would create a variety of new infrastructural challenges, namely that it would reduce the reliability of an already constrained U.S. power grid.
“Up until two years ago or so, electricity demand in the United States was flat so nobody worried about running out of electricity. But with the data center boom and AI [artificial intelligence], there’s been a sudden spike in demand for electricity, and demand is expected to continue growing,” Stein told the DCNF. “Now you’re suddenly talking about not having enough electricity to supply everyday use at the same time we are trying to force pre-existing transportation systems to run on electricity. When you combine that EVs are more expensive and less flexible with the possibility we may be running out of electricity to keep homes cool and to operate industrial facilities, the logic of pursuing [the EV transition] gets even worse.”
Electricity demand has grown by 1.3% annually for the past three years — more than double the average growth rate from 2010 to 2019, according to the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City. The surge has been driven largely by a boom in artificial intelligence and data centers, with commercial electricity accounting for 60% of growth in total U.S. power demand between 2021 and 2023.
On the supply side, the Biden-Harris Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has pushed to reshape the power grid by effectively requiring America’s existing coal plants will have to use carbon capture and storage (CCS) technology to control 90% of their carbon emissions by 2032 if they want to stay running past 2039, and certain new natural gas plants will have to cut their emissions by 90% by 2032. The EPA rule “leaves coal-heavy regions, like the one covered by the Midcontinent Independent System Operator, vulnerable to reliability problems in the near future,” Isaac Orr, a policy fellow for the Center of the American Experiment who specializes in grid analysis, previously told the DCNF.
Grid reliability is already wavering, with hundreds of millions of Americans at risk of experiencing power shortages this winter if weather conditions are harsh, according to power grid watchdog the North American Electric Reliability Corporation (NERC).
The IER study also identifies a set of “myths fueling electric vehicle policy,” including that EVs are necessarily better for the environment.
“One of the biggest sources of emissions from vehicles is tire wear, because tires are made primarily from oil, and as your tires roll along the ground, they degrade and release particulates into the air,” Stein told the DCNF. “Electric vehicles are much heavier than gas-powered cars due to their batteries, which requires them to have heavier tires that wear faster, so EVs actually have much higher particulate emissions than comparable internal combustion engine vehicles.”
A 2020 study from environmental engineering consultancy Emissions Analytics found particulate wear emissions were 1,000 times worse than exhaust emissions, with later research conducted by the consulting firm finding a Tesla Model Y produced 26% more tire emissions than a comparable hybrid vehicle.
Additionally, the IER study notes EVs require six times the mineral inputs of conventional cars, which in turn calls for emissions-intensive mining processes that produce toxic waste.
“For average Americans, the tradeoff calculation obviously is not working,” the study’s authors wrote. “This is not due to misinformation; indeed… there is plenty of pro-EV misinformation. It is simply that…there are negative tradeoffs to EVs. In designing policy, these negative factors must be considered rather than simply ignored.”
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