From the Daily Caller News Foundation

By Harold Hutchison

U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent told Fox Business host Larry Kudlow Thursday that world leaders emulating “a numbskull” like Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau could see higher tariffs from the United States.

President Donald Trump announced Monday that new tariffs on Canada, Mexico and China would go into effect, citing “vast amounts of fentanyl” pouring into the United States. After noting Trudeau’s defiant response, which included retaliatory tariffs, Bessent, during the interview by Kudlow at the Economic Club of New York, urged world leaders to negotiate.

“As President Trump has said many times, ‘tariff’ is his favorite word. I would say the ‘reciprocal’ is probably his second favorite word. And I think we have to be open to the idea. If you want to be a numbskull like Justin Trudeau and say, ‘Oh, we’re going to do this,’ then it’s going to — tariffs are going to go up,” Bessent told Kudlow. “But if you want to sit back, have a discussion with the Commerce Department, USTR, they all have my phone number too. I am happy to have a discussion with our foreign counterparts, that says that, ‘Here’s what we think you are doing.’ And the tariffs are the actual easy part. Because we know India does this on U.S. motorcycles. Germany does this on — or EU does this on American cars. That’s a quantitative number.”

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Trump delayed the imposition of the tariffs on Mexico following a conversation with Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum, thanking her for her “hard work.” Bessent said tariffs were not the only barriers American products faced.

“But, also, what are non-tariff barriers? Apple cannot sell the new iPhone 16 because of local content laws in Indonesia. Are — are you manipulating your currency? Are you suppressing the value of that? Are you unfairly subsidizing select industries either via bank lending or suppressing labor markets?” Bessent asked.

Bessent also noted fines that the European Union was imposing or threatening to impose on American tech companies like Apple, Google and X, formerly known as Twitter.

“Something that’s come to our attention recently, the EU is putting these gigantic fines on our U.S. tech companies, and that’s a form of — that’s a non-tariff barrier too,” Bessent told Kudlow. “So we’re going to look at that and then talk about what could happen on a reciprocal basis. It’s going to be — much of that will come out April 2. And we will then — it’s going to be path-dependent based on our trading partners and there will be a discussion. When Prime Minister Keir Starmer and team U.K. were in the White House on Thursday, we had a very good discussion about getting — going on all of this and more.”

From the Daily Caller News Foundation

By David Blackmon

Unlike his predecessors, President Donald Trump always seems to have energy and its impacts to the lives of all Americans at the top of his mind. Following his stemwinding acceptance speech at the Republican National Convention last August, I was able to highlight the more than 1,000 words specific to energy included in it.

The president’s high prioritization of energy and energy policy came into sharp focus again Tuesday night in his speech to a joint session of congress. None of what he said about energy received applause from the Democrats present in the House Chamber, but that was no surprise. Trump noted early in the speech there was literally nothing he could say to evoke such a response from minority party.

But ordinary Americans struggling to make ends meet after years of Biden/Harris-era inflation likely had a different reaction given that Trump’s focus on energy policy both in the speech and in action across the first six weeks of his second presidency has been focused on reforms designed to cut energy costs for everyone.

“Upon taking office, I imposed an immediate freeze on all federal hiring, a freeze on all new federal regulations,” Trump said early on. “I terminated the ridiculous green new scam. I withdrew from the unfair Paris Climate Accord, which was costing us trillions of dollars that other countries were not paying … We ended all of Biden’s environmental restrictions that were making our country far less safe and totally unaffordable. And importantly, we ended the last administration’s insane electric vehicle mandate, saving our auto workers and companies from economic destruction.”

Mr. Trump concluded that portion of the speech by pointing to his Day 1 executive order that all federal agencies must eliminate 10 old regulations for every new regulation they wish to implement. Again, this focused effort to tear down the entrenched bureaucratic state is designed boost the economy, create thousands of high paying jobs and lower prices by cutting the cost of regulatory overhead for which consumers inevitably pay.

Congress is also doing its part, having already eliminated some of the costliest Biden regulations via the Congressional Review Act.

Every action described there will, if made permanent, boost the economy and reduce the cost of energy for all Americans. Yes, even for the Democrats, some of whom audibly hissed during that portion of the speech. Amazing.

Where energy minerals are concerned, President Trump reiterated his desire to establish a U.S. presence in or control of Greenland and its enormous known reserves of rare earth minerals and other critical energy minerals.

“I also have a message tonight for the incredible people of Greenland,” Trump said. “We strongly support your right to determine your own future, and if you choose, we welcome you into the United States of America.”

Trump said Greenland is not just about energy, noting its control is also crucial for national security and even international security. “One way or the other, we’re going to get it,” he said, adding, “We will keep you safe. We will make you rich. And together we will take Greenland to heights like you have never thought possible before.”

The president also spoke about his administration’s efforts to re-establish U.S. control over the Panama Canal, noting that “a large American company (which turns out to be a BlackRock-led consortium) announced they are buying both ports around the Panama Canal and lots of other things having to do with the Panama Canal and a couple of other canals. The Panama Canal was built by Americans for Americans, not for others. But others could use it.”

Preserving the free flow of shipping through the Panama Canal during times of peace and potential war is critical to U.S. energy security given that crude oil is the most internationally traded commodity and LNG is rapidly rising on that list. The maintenance of strong energy security is among the most crucial aspects of ensuring strong national security and economic prosperity.

In reference to the amazing progress his administration has made in securing the southern border without any help from congress, Trump mocked Biden-era claims by the “media and our friends in the Democrat Party that…we must have legislation to secure the border.”

“But it turned out that all we really needed was a new president,” he concluded.

It has become starkly obvious over the last 6 weeks that the same principle applies to energy policy. The whole world has changed since Jan. 20.

David Blackmon is an energy writer and consultant based in Texas. He spent 40 years in the oil and gas business, where he specialized in public policy and communications.