From the Fraser Institute

By Kenneth P. Green

Donald Trump had a busy first day back on the job. From his desk in the Oval Office, President Trump signed a suite of executive orders including on energy and regulation, with major implications for Canada. He’s clearly rejected the primacy of a regulatory state (in favour of the legislative state), put a lock on the growth of U.S. regulation, and launched regulatory and cost controls. Essentially this means the U.S. will systemically deregulate while Canada is regulating its economy ever more heavily and broadly, making our economy even less competitive with the U.S.

Trump has also put paid to the fallacy of the great electric vehicle (EV) transition by pulling the plug on the U.S. EV mandate and federal consumer subsidies for EVs. Of course, now that the U.S. will not mandate EVs in large numbers, the massive investments Canada has made in EV and battery technology and manufacturing—on the expectation of selling EV parts and vehicles in the U.S. market—will likely see little return.

Trump’s withdrawal (for a second time) from the Paris climate agreement also puts U.S. policy further at odds with Canada. While Canada will spend huge amounts of money to attempt to comply with its climate commitments under the agreement, and hurt its energy and natural resource sectors in the process, the U.S. will not. In fact, the Trump administration will likely undo many of the things that have been done in the name of implementing the Paris agreement.

Trump‘s declaration of an energy emergency and his call for a massive increase in energy production by is also a direct threat to Canada’s energy economy. As we have seen in the past, the Americans can move very quickly to increase the supply of oil and natural gas when they put their mind to it and when regulations don’t stand in the way. A U.S. energy surge could lead to a flood of oil and gas production pretty quickly, leading the U.S. to need less and less Canadian oil and gas (as Trump has flamboyantly proclaimed).

Trump also wants to expedite energy project reviews and approvals, the exact opposite to the Trudeau government’s approach, which has frustrated the building of new pipelines and other projects. This will facilitate the U.S. ability to increase energy and natural resource production at a pace Canada cannot hope to match.

Simply put, setting aside Trump’s threatened tariffs, his day-one executive orders pose a serious threat to Canada’s energy and natural resource sectors, which remain a vital source of prosperity and revenue, and merit an immediate response from our federal government.

In an ideal world, Canada would harmonize its policy approach to the U.S. on energy and natural resources, which has, in fact, been a historical norm. But unfortunately for Canadians, the Trudeau government will likely reject Trump’s policy reforms and continue its pro-administrative state, anti-energy, anti-resource economic philosophy. And given Prime Minister Trudeau’s recent actions to prorogue Parliament, President Trump’s executive-order barrage won’t face a meaningful Canadian response for months, letting the U.S. steal a massive march on energy, natural resource and regulatory policy reforms over a Canada sitting on its hands.

Kenneth P. Green

Senior Fellow, Fraser Institute

From the Daily Caller News Foundation

By Harold Hutchison

Canada should expect Tariffs starting April 1

Secretary of Commerce-designate Howard Lutnick told a Senate committee that the threat of imposing a 25% tariff was to get Canada and Mexico to “respect” the United States and stop the flow of fentanyl into the country.

President Donald Trump nominated Lutnick, who rebuilt Cantor Fitzgerald after the financial services firm suffered massive losses in the Sept. 11, 2001 attack on the World Trade Center, to serve as Secretary of Commerce Nov. 19. Lutnick told Democratic Sen. Gary Peters of Michigan during a Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee hearing that the threatened tariffs were intended to “create action” on two major issues.

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“The short-term issue is illegal migration and worse, even still, fentanyl coming into this country and killing over a hundred thousand Americans,” Lutnick said. “There’s no war we could have that would kill a hundred thousand Americans. The president is focused on ending fentanyl coming into the country. You know that the labs in Canada are run by Mexican cartels. So, this tariff model is simply to shut their borders with respect, respect America. We are your biggest trading partner, show us the respect, shut your border and end fentanyl coming into this country.”

“So it is not a tariff, per se,” Lutnick continued. “It is an action of domestic policy. Shut your border and stop allowing fentanyl into our country, killing our people. So this is a separate tariff to create action from Mexico and action from Canada, and as far as I know, they are acting swiftly and if they execute, there will be no tariff. If they don’t, then there will be.”

Drug overdoses killed 105,007 Americans in 2023, which is slightly fewer than the 107,941 who were killed in 2022, according to the Centers for Disease Control. The Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) seized over 55 million fentanyl pills in 2023 alone, CBS News reported.

One kilogram of fentanyl can reportedly kill up to a half-million people, according to the DEA.

Almost 22,000 pounds of fentanyl were seized at the U.S. border in fiscal year 2024 with another 4,537 pounds being seized in fiscal year 2025 to date, according to statistics released by United States Customs and Border Protection. Upon taking office on Jan. 20, Trump issued several executive orders, including designating Mexican drug cartels as foreign terrorist organizations, declaring a national emergency on the southern border and setting policy on securing the border.