Grassley says Trump’s call for tariffs against Canada, Mexico “negotiating tool”

WASHINGTON — There continues to be a split between the United States, Canada and Mexico after President-elect Trump’s call to impose 25% tariffs on the two countries as penalties for fentanyl and illegal immigrants pouring into the country, potentially blowing up the trade agreement between the three countries.

Iowa Senator Chuck Grassley says it’s a negotiating tool by Trump to bring some agreement between the countries.   “He’s using it as pressure. You know it worked with China. He did sign an agreement that they were supposed to buy $200 billion more products from the United States, which I suppose because of his defeat they only ended up buying about a third of that amount, but it actually worked as a negotiating tool because I was in the White House when they signed that agreement. So we’ll have to wait and see what the negotiations bring about.”

Grassley says the United States has to use whatever tools they can to make the trade climate right.  “We’ve got enough wrong coming from other countries taking advantage of the United States that if you have a tool that’s called tariffs, but there’s other tools as well, whatever tools you use, you’d expect the United States government to fight for the interests of the United States and to stop other countries from subsidizing the products coming into the United States. That’s a violation of the rules of trade, the international rules of trade.”

Canadian officials say that problems with the two countries’ borders should not be compared, but Mexico’s president rejects those comments. U.S. customs agents seized 43 pounds of fentanyl at the Canadian border during the last fiscal year, compared with 21,100 pounds at the Mexican border. Mexico’s efforts to seize fentanyl before it reaches the U.S. have been lackluster.