International
Trump ignites tensions with Trudeau after joking Canada should become 51st US state
From LifeSiteNews
Trump’s previous statements about Trudeau as ‘weak’ and a ‘far-left lunatic’ place his recent jibe about Canada becoming the 51st US state into context, thus appearing more like a deliberate humiliation of the Canadian leader.
President-Elect Donald Trump’s second term has not yet begun, but he has already inaugurated hostilities with Justin Trudeau.
In a bid to head off Trump’s threat of massive tariffs, Trudeau flew to Mar-a-Lago last month to kiss the ring; during their dinner, Trump reportedly joked that Canada should become America’s 51st state. He was apparently taken with the jibe – and, in all likelihood, the Canada press reaction to it – and reiterated as much during a Sunday interview on NBC, as well as in a social media post.
“It was a pleasure to have dinner the other night with Governor Justin Trudeau of the Great State of Canada,” Trump wrote. “I look forward to seeing the Governor again soon so that we may continue our in depth talks on Tariffs and Trade, the results of which will be truly spectacular for all!”
This is signature Trump trolling – an obvious joke with a sting in the tail. There are several likely reasons for it. First, this is simply how Trump does business: he throws his weight around, and he intimidates. It is a power play. Trudeau showed up at Mar-a-Lago, hat in hand, and Trump unsubtly reminded him that he holds most of the cards.
No doubt the jibe was (and is) aggravating, and it is intended to be – more so because Trudeau and his team have to publicly pretend that it is not. Many Canadians see it as a put-down; Trudeau’s team has to insist that it is evidence of “mutual respect and warmth.”
There is probably an element of revenge to this, as well. One of Trudeau’s signature smears when attacking socially conservative Canadians – such as parental rights protestors – is to insist that they are either bigots, or victims of “far-right American disinformation.” Trudeau has also gone to great lengths to label federal Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre and Conservative MPs as “MAGA conservatives” – and he doesn’t mean it as a compliment. Using Trump’s signature phrase as an insult likely did not endear Trudeau to the MAGA team heading to the White House.
Indeed, in the context of Trump’s previous statements about Trudeau, his jokes seem like a deliberate humiliation. He has previously referred to Trudeau – respectfully and warmly, his team will no doubt insist – as “weak” and a “far-left lunatic.” Trump was also likely unenthused by Trudeau’s comment that he and other world leaders had “managed Mr. Trump” during his first term. There will be no “managing” him in his second term, which is likely to outlast Trudeau’s tenure in 24 Sussex. Fortunately for everyone – Canadians especially – we are likely to have a new prime minister sometime next year.
This tense relationship puts conservative Canadians in an interesting position. Some, of course, are experiencing some schadenfreude at seeing Trudeau being put in his place, especially after the prime minister tactfully used “MAGA conservative” as a pejorative for the past several years. Watching him eat his words and swallow hard is amusing.
Trudeau’s unearned arrogance is famously iron-clad, and watching Trump push him around is satisfying for some. At the same time, the threatened tariffs would be devastating for Canada, and patriotic Canadians are fully justified in finding Trump’s jokes about a “51st state” demeaning and distasteful. Calling Trudeau a “far-left lunatic” is one thing. Threatening to tank the Canadian economy is another.
Reactionary anti-Americanism is a longstanding and politically-cultivated Canadian trait, borne mostly of the insecurity that comes from living alongside the world’s reigning military and cultural superpower. Thus, there are some conservatives who may feel that Trudeau deserves their support simply for standing up for Canada. This may seem like an obvious point to make, but we must remember that Justin Trudeau is the problem here, not the solution.
Trudeau is uniquely unfit to defend Canadian interests in Washington, D.C., and not only because he has deliberately created a toxic relationship with the incoming president by essentially campaigning against him north of the border and attempting to constantly tie his ideological opponents to Trump’s MAGA movement. He is also unfit because he has denied that Canada has any core identity whatsoever: in 2015, he insisted that Canada is the first “post-national state.”
Trudeau created this looming crisis, and he did so deliberately. Patriotic Canadians owe him no loyalty whatsoever.
illegal immigration
TODD BENSMAN: What I discovered inside teeming Mexican migrant camps that proves Trump’s hardline policy is already working
From ToddBensman.com
I’m thinking right now of returning to Venezuela,’ said a man, who has been living in a makeshift tent of streets of Mexico City for eight months. ‘I’m just staying here until January 20 to see if I get [a CBP One appointment] and, if not, go back home.’
MEXICO CITY — President-elect Donald Trump won’t take office for another five weeks, but his election is already causing a sea change in America’s illegal immigration crisis.
In sprawling migrant camps across Mexico City, people are giving up their plans to cross into the United States and are instead planning to settle in Mexico or begin the long trek back home.
‘I’m just going to give up and go back to Venezuela,’ said a woman in one of the squalid encampments, where thousands of migrants have constructed tents with tarps and scrap material.
‘I have children to take care of,’ she added. ‘I’ll just go back because, with Donald Trump, it’s going to be too hard.’
This is a cruel reality for millions of people drawn to Mexico by the Biden administration’s indulgent border policies – only to find that Americans overwhelmingly rejected the misguided approach in the 2024 election.
The young mother of two had hoped to have already entered the US through President Joe Biden‘s ‘humanitarian parole’ program known as CBP One.
U.S. Customs and Border Protection has reported that, since January 2023, the federal initiative has allowed entry into the US for 771,000 migrants, at a rate of about 1,600 people a day. But that program was also quickly overwhelmed by the volume of requests resulting in a massive backlog.
Now, the Trump transition team says the program will end on Day One of the new administration.
In sprawling migrant camps across Mexico City, people are giving up their plans to cross into the United States and are instead planning to settle in Mexico or begin the long trek back home.
‘I think they’re eliminating CBP One, so I’m thinking right now of returning to Venezuela,’ said a man, who has been living in a makeshift tent of streets of Mexico City for eight months. ‘I’m just staying here until January 20 to see if I get [a CBP One appointment] and, if not, go back home.’
To the Trump team, these prospective ‘self-deportation’ cases offer some proof that the President-elect’s border security plan may already be working as intended.
Now, they hope word of this deterrent effect will spread to the home cities, towns and villages of potential future migrants and dissuade them from making the dangerous trip.
Others interviewed said they plan to find work and live inside Mexico rather than return to their even more impoverished home countries.
‘I’m going to stay here,’ said a young Colombian man wearing a red, yellow and white shirt who’d travelled with his wife through the perilous jungle between Colombia and Panama.
He says he is loath to give up now after spending thousands of dollars to smugglers to get him this far. His wife agrees.
‘We went through the trouble and expense of traveling through the Darien Gap. I’ll look for asylum here in Mexico,’ she said. ‘As soon as I have a job with work to do, it’ll be fine.’
A migrant from Angola in central Africa said there’s no turning back for him either; the journey home would be too difficult and expensive.
‘I’m going to stay here,’ said a young Colombian man wearing a red, yellow and white shirt who’d travelled with his wife through the perilous jungle between Colombia and Panama.
A migrant from Angola (above) in Central Africa said there’s no turning back for him either; the journey home would be too difficult and expensive.
‘It is not my main goal to stay here in Mexico,’ he said in broken Spanish. ‘But if it just happens, you know, I’m going to stay here.’
Trump has also threatened Mexico’s new president, Claudia Sheinbaum, that the U.S. will impose debilitating 25 percent trade tariffs on her country if she does not dispatch Mexican military and immigration services to end the flow of migrants north.
The Mexicans now routinely capture migrants and transport them south to the Mexican cities of Tapachula and Villahermosa along the Guatemalan border.
The US currently estimates about 1,600 illegal border crossings daily. That’s down from the peak of 14,000 in a single day just one year ago.
Indeed, Mexico began this program earlier in 2024 at the urging of the Biden administration, but the Trump tariff threat has reenergized the operation in some regions.
‘The Mexicans don’t want us to go farther. They want us to go back. That’s why I’m staying in Mexico City,’ a migrant named Josmer told me.
A third anticipated Trump policy also appears to be having a deterrent effect – the President-elect’s promise to begin the ‘greatest mass deportation in American history.’
Trump reiterated those plans in an interview with NBC News this weekend.
‘We’re starting with the criminals and we’ve got to do it,’ Trump told NBC’s Kristen Welker. ‘And then we’re starting with the others and we’re going to see how it goes.’
‘The Mexicans don’t want us to go farther. They want us to go back. That’s why I’m staying in Mexico City,’ a migrant named Josmer told me.
That message is apparently being received loud and clear in Mexico City.
‘He says he’s going to kick all the illegal people out of the country,’ another young mother said, as she prepared a pot of pulled chicken for dinner. She conceded, there’s ‘no point’ in trying to enter the U.S. illegally.
Not all of the migrants that I spoke to said they’d leave immediately.
At least one young Venezuelan told me that he’ll never stop trying to sneak into the US after working for six months as a barber in one of the camps.
‘We’re going to keep trying, you know, just climb the walls,’ he said. ‘[Trump] says that we’re going to get deported, but we’re going to try it again.’
By Todd Bensman as published by The Daily Mail
From LifeSiteNews
UK Health Secretary Wes Streeting announced Wednesday that he will indefinitely extend a ban on puberty blockers for minors under the age of 18. The only exception is for clinical trials.
Puberty blockers will be banned indefinitely in the U.K. for under 18-year-olds, except for clinical trials.
In May of this year, the then-government of Rishi Sunak used emergency legislation to temporarily ban puberty blockers for minors. Health Secretary Wes Streeting announced on Wednesday that he will indefinitely extend the ban on the supply and sale of puberty blockers.
The Department of Health cited the Commission on Human Medicines’ (CHM) expert advice that said there was “currently an unacceptable safety risk in the continued prescription of puberty blockers to children.”
The U.K.’s National Health Service (NHS) already halted the prescription of puberty blockers to children in March. In May, the then-Conservative government introduced a ban, preventing the prescription of puberty blockers by European or private prescribers and legally restricting the NHS’s use of the drugs to clinical trials.
The ban was upheld in July by the High Court after pro-LGBT activists brought a challenge to the ruling because they “were concerned for the safety and welfare of young trans people in the UK.”
The prohibition of prescribing harmful puberty blockers for children was prompted by the Cass Review, an extensive report by pediatrician Dr. Hilary Cass that pointed out the significant risks of the medication and the lack of evidence regarding the alleged benefits of puberty blockers.
Health Secretary Streeting said that he would “always put the safety of children first” and added that his approach would “continue to be informed by Dr [Hilary] Cass’s review, which found there was insufficient evidence to show puberty blockers were safe for under-18s.”
Earlier on the same day that the nationwide ban was announced, the Parliament of Northern Ireland had voted unanimously to permanently ban puberty blockers in order to prevent the province from becoming a “back door” for the distribution of the drugs in the U.K.
The co-founder of the advocacy group “Our Duty,” Keith Jordan, applauded the decision by Northern Ireland to ban the harmful drugs indefinitely.
“This marks a significant step in safeguarding children, preventing Northern Ireland from becoming a ‘back door’ for these unregulated treatments – a concern highlighted by Susie Green’s earlier attempts to circumvent mainland restrictions,” he said.
Susie Green is a transgender activist who set up a clinic in Northern Ireland in an attempt to circumvent the restrictions in mainland Britain.
“However, we must remain vigilant, as the demand for these drugs may drive young people to unregulated, dangerous sources,” Jordan stressed, urging lawmakers to prioritize safeguarding children.
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