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DEA’s Most Wanted in U.S. Custody: Mexico Extradites Dozens Amid Trump Trade Standoff

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Sam Cooper

In a stunning move just days before the Trump administration is set to impose sweeping tariffs over Mexico’s role in America’s fentanyl crisis, Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum engineered the largest single-day extradition of cartel leaders in history, delivering 29 top-level traffickers—including one of the most notorious figures in modern drug war history—into U.S. custody.

Among those flown north on Mexican military aircraft Thursday was Rafael Caro Quintero, the infamous cartel boss accused of ordering the brutal 1985 torture and murder of DEA agent Enrique ‘Kiki’ Camarena, a crime dramatized in the Netflix series Narcos: Mexico. Other high-profile extraditees include Antonio Oseguera Cervantes, alleged brother of Jalisco New Generation Cartel (CJNG) leader “El Mencho,” as well as key leaders from the Zetas, the Gulf Cartel, and La Nueva Familia Michoacana.

In Washington, U.S. Attorney General Pamela Bondi hailed the mass extradition as a turning point in the war on cartel violence. “As President Trump has made clear, cartels are terrorist groups, and this Department of Justice is devoted to destroying cartels and transnational gangs,” Bondi said in a press release. “We will prosecute these criminals to the fullest extent of the law in honor of the brave law enforcement agents who have dedicated their careers—and in some cases, given their lives—to protect innocent people from the scourge of violent cartels.”

DEA Acting Administrator Derek S. Maltz declared, “Today, 29 fugitive cartel members have arrived in the United States from Mexico, including one name that stands above the rest for the men and women of the DEA—Rafael Caro Quintero. This moment is extremely personal for the men and women of DEA who believe Caro Quintero is responsible for the brutal torture and murder of DEA Special Agent Enrique ‘Kiki’ Camarena.”

The defendants are collectively accused of importing massive amounts of cocaine, methamphetamine, fentanyl, and heroin into the United States, along with a litany of violent crimes including murder, money laundering, and illegal weapons trafficking. The Justice Department noted that many of these cartel leaders had long-standing U.S. extradition requests that were not honored during prior administrations but were accelerated following direct White House pressure.

As the Mexican delegation, including Foreign Secretary Juan Ramón de la Fuente and security chief Omar García Harfuch, met with Secretary of State Marco Rubio in Washington, the mass extradition signaled Sheinbaum’s readiness to make dramatic concessions to avert Trump’s threatened tariffs. The unprecedented handover also coincided with the State Department formally designating six cartels as foreign terrorist organizations.

Award-winning Mexican journalist Ioan Grillo, reporting on Sheinbaum’s transformative move, cited comments from Mike Vigil, former head of the DEA’s international operations, saying, “This is the highest number of extraditions [in one day] in the history of Mexico, without question. This is historic. … These guys unleashed a river of blood… Everybody is elated with the extraditions.”

However, the decision has ignited controversy within Mexico’s legal community, Grillo reported, noting longstanding criminal defense stances were “bulldozed.”

Juan Manuel Delgado, lawyer for Miguel Ángel Treviño, one of the most feared Zetas leaders, called the move an assault on Mexican sovereignty. “My client’s extradition tramples on due process and demonstrates that Mexico is bending entirely to U.S. will,” Delgado reportedly told CrashOut magazine.

Notably, while Mexico typically secures agreements that extradited criminals will not face the death penalty, the U.S. statement made no such assurances, raising the possibility that figures like Caro Quintero could face capital punishment.

While Mexico is in the crosshairs of Trump’s fentanyl crackdown, attention is also turning to Canada’s underreported role in the continent’s cartel problem. Organized crime experts say that over the past 15 years, cartel networks have deeply infiltrated Ontario, British Columbia, and Quebec, using Canada as both a fentanyl production hub and a gateway to launder cartel proceeds. It’s a little-known fact that the cartels started to gain presence in Canadian narco-trafficking cells almost 50 years ago, one expert told The Bureau.

However, it remains unclear whether Canada’s newly appointed Fentanyl Commissioner, Kevin Brosseau, has made any significant progress in responding to Trump’s demands for tougher action. An expert who could not be named due to the sensitivities of investigations and political discussions said cartels have thrived under Canada’s lax enforcement and weak financial crime controls. The question now is whether Brosseau will have any real impact on the concerns or simply be part of “performative” meetings run out of Ottawa, they said.

With Trump’s administration signaling that Canada will be hit next week with economic penalties if fentanyl production and money laundering continue unchecked, the Trudeau government faces growing pressure to show concrete results in combating cartel expansion within its borders.

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Hudson’s Bay Bid Raises Red Flags Over Foreign Influence

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From the Frontier Centre for Public Policy

By Scott McGregor

A billionaire’s retail ambition might also serve Beijing’s global influence strategy. Canada must look beyond the storefront

When B.C. billionaire Weihong Liu publicly declared interest in acquiring Hudson’s Bay stores, it wasn’t just a retail story—it was a signal flare in an era where foreign investment increasingly doubles as geopolitical strategy.

The Hudson’s Bay Company, founded in 1670, remains an enduring symbol of Canadian heritage. While its commercial relevance has waned in recent years, its brand is deeply etched into the national identity. That’s precisely why any potential acquisition, particularly by an investor with strong ties to the People’s Republic of China (PRC), deserves thoughtful, measured scrutiny.

Liu, a prominent figure in Vancouver’s Chinese-Canadian business community, announced her interest in acquiring several Hudson’s Bay stores on Chinese social media platform Xiaohongshu (RedNote), expressing a desire to “make the Bay great again.” Though revitalizing a Canadian retail icon may seem commendable, the timing and context of this bid suggest a broader strategic positioning—one that aligns with the People’s Republic of China’s increasingly nuanced approach to economic diplomacy, especially in countries like Canada that sit at the crossroads of American and Chinese spheres of influence.

This fits a familiar pattern. In recent years, we’ve seen examples of Chinese corporate involvement in Canadian cultural and commercial institutions, such as Huawei’s past sponsorship of Hockey Night in Canada. Even as national security concerns were raised by allies and intelligence agencies, Huawei’s logo remained a visible presence during one of the country’s most cherished broadcasts. These engagements, though often framed as commercially justified, serve another purpose: to normalize Chinese brand and state-linked presence within the fabric of Canadian identity and daily life.

What we may be witnessing is part of a broader PRC strategy to deepen economic and cultural ties with Canada at a time when U.S.-China relations remain strained. As American tariffs on Canadian goods—particularly in aluminum, lumber and dairy—have tested cross-border loyalties, Beijing has positioned itself as an alternative economic partner. Investments into cultural and heritage-linked assets like Hudson’s Bay could be seen as a symbolic extension of this effort to draw Canada further into its orbit of influence, subtly decoupling the country from the gravitational pull of its traditional allies.

From my perspective, as a professional with experience in threat finance, economic subversion and political leveraging, this does not necessarily imply nefarious intent in each case. However, it does demand a conscious awareness of how soft power is exercised through commercial influence, particularly by state-aligned actors. As I continue my research in international business law, I see how investment vehicles, trade deals and brand acquisitions can function as instruments of foreign policy—tools for shaping narratives, building alliances and shifting influence over time.

Canada must neither overreact nor overlook these developments. Open markets and cultural exchange are vital to our prosperity and pluralism. But so too is the responsibility to preserve our sovereignty—not only in the physical sense, but in the cultural and institutional dimensions that shape our national identity.

Strategic investment review processes, cultural asset protections and greater transparency around foreign corporate ownership can help strike this balance. We should be cautious not to allow historically Canadian institutions to become conduits, however unintentionally, for geopolitical leverage.

In a world where power is increasingly exercised through influence rather than force, safeguarding our heritage means understanding who is buying—and why.

Scott McGregor is the managing partner and CEO of Close Hold Intelligence Consulting.

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Bjorn Lomborg

Net zero’s cost-benefit ratio is CRAZY high

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From the Fraser Institute

By Bjørn Lomborg

The best academic estimates show that over the century, policies to achieve net zero would cost every person on Earth the equivalent of more than CAD $4,000 every year. Of course, most people in poor countries cannot afford anywhere near this. If the cost falls solely on the rich world, the price-tag adds up to almost $30,000 (CAD) per person, per year, over the century.

Canada has made a legal commitment to achieve “net zero” carbon emissions by 2050. Back in 2015, then-Prime Minister Trudeau promised that climate action will “create jobs and economic growth” and the federal government insists it will create a “strong economy.” The truth is that the net zero policy generates vast costs and very little benefit—and Canada would be better off changing direction.

Achieving net zero carbon emissions is far more daunting than politicians have ever admitted. Canada is nowhere near on track. Annual Canadian CO₂ emissions have increased 20 per cent since 1990. In the time that Trudeau was prime minister, fossil fuel energy supply actually increased over 11 per cent. Similarly, the share of fossil fuels in Canada’s total energy supply (not just electricity) increased from 75 per cent in 2015 to 77 per cent in 2023.

Over the same period, the switch from coal to gas, and a tiny 0.4 percentage point increase in the energy from solar and wind, has reduced annual CO₂ emissions by less than three per cent. On that trend, getting to zero won’t take 25 years as the Liberal government promised, but more than 160 years. One study shows that the government’s current plan which won’t even reach net-zero will cost Canada a quarter of a million jobs, seven per cent lower GDP and wages on average $8,000 lower.

Globally, achieving net-zero will be even harder. Remember, Canada makes up about 1.5 per cent of global CO₂ emissions, and while Canada is already rich with plenty of energy, the world’s poor want much more energy.

In order to achieve global net-zero by 2050, by 2030 we would already need to achieve the equivalent of removing the combined emissions of China and the United States — every year. This is in the realm of science fiction.

The painful Covid lockdowns of 2020 only reduced global emissions by about six per cent. To achieve net zero, the UN points out that we would need to have doubled those reductions in 2021, tripled them in 2022, quadrupled them in 2023, and so on. This year they would need to be sextupled, and by 2030 increased 11-fold. So far, the world hasn’t even managed to start reducing global carbon emissions, which last year hit a new record.

Data from both the International Energy Agency and the US Energy Information Administration give added cause for skepticism. Both organizations foresee the world getting more energy from renewables: an increase from today’s 16 per cent to between one-quarter to one-third of all primary energy by 2050. But that is far from a transition. On an optimistically linear trend, this means we’re a century or two away from achieving 100 percent renewables.

Politicians like to blithely suggest the shift away from fossil fuels isn’t unprecedented, because in the past we transitioned from wood to coal, from coal to oil, and from oil to gas. The truth is, humanity hasn’t made a real energy transition even once. Coal didn’t replace wood but mostly added to global energy, just like oil and gas have added further additional energy. As in the past, solar and wind are now mostly adding to our global energy output, rather than replacing fossil fuels.

Indeed, it’s worth remembering that even after two centuries, humanity’s transition away from wood is not over. More than two billion mostly poor people still depend on wood for cooking and heating, and it still provides about 5 per cent of global energy.

Like Canada, the world remains fossil fuel-based, as it delivers more than four-fifths of energy. Over the last half century, our dependence has declined only slightly from 87 per cent to 82 per cent, but in absolute terms we have increased our fossil fuel use by more than 150 per cent. On the trajectory since 1971, we will reach zero fossil fuel use some nine centuries from now, and even the fastest period of recent decline from 2014 would see us taking over three centuries.

Global warming will create more problems than benefits, so achieving net-zero would see real benefits. Over the century, the average person would experience benefits worth $700 (CAD) each year.

But net zero policies will be much more expensive. The best academic estimates show that over the century, policies to achieve net zero would cost every person on Earth the equivalent of more than CAD $4,000 every year. Of course, most people in poor countries cannot afford anywhere near this. If the cost falls solely on the rich world, the price-tag adds up to almost $30,000 (CAD) per person, per year, over the century.

Every year over the 21st century, costs would vastly outweigh benefits, and global costs would exceed benefits by over CAD 32 trillion each year.

We would see much higher transport costs, higher electricity costs, higher heating and cooling costs and — as businesses would also have to pay for all this — drastic increases in the price of food and all other necessities. Just one example: net-zero targets would likely increase gas costs some two-to-four times even by 2030, costing consumers up to $US52.6 trillion. All that makes it a policy that just doesn’t make sense—for Canada and for the world.

Bjørn Lomborg

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