‘There is no justification whatsoever for these tariffs or this treatment.’ The Conservative leader and likely next prime minister is right.
Pierre Poilievre is the leader of Canada’s Conservative Party, and likely the next prime minister after the general elections later this year.
Poilievre is exactly the type of conservative that Americans should want in power in the Great White North. He’s pledged to cut taxes and deregulate the increasingly laggard Canadian economy. He’s spoken in support of opening up more of Canada’s vast mineral resources for extraction — the lithium, cobalt, and copper needed to make the modern world, including American manufacturing, run. He’s condemned Hamas and Iran’s antisemitic terrorism. He’s argued that, in contrast to the Liberal Trudeau government, Canada should harden its borders, slow the rate of immigration, and insist that newcomers assimilate to Canadian values. He’s aligned himself with the United States and the West against common foes such as Russia and China. He’s spoken out against the rise of a radical “woke culture.”
In short, he’s exactly the type of Canadian that the new Trump administration should look forward to working with — the best Americans could ever hope to get from our friends to the north.
But when it comes to President Trump’s foolish 25 percent tariffs that have been levied on our longtime friends, neighbors, and allies? Well, Poilievre doesn’t mince words in calling out the illogical and arbitrary nature of Trump’s policy.
In a speech on Sunday, Poilievre, speaking directly to the American people, said, “There is no justification whatsoever for these tariffs or this treatment”:
You are our friends. You are our neighbors. We share the longest undefended border in the history of the world. You buy our products and we buy yours. You have a trade surplus with us when energy is excluded.
And when it is included, the deal is even better for you because you buy our oil and our gas at massive price discounts — not because we’re nice Canadians, but because here at home, we’ve made really dumb decisions to prevent us from exporting our energy to any other countries. But either way, Americans are better off with this friendship.
We share a continent. We share the same risks and the same potential enemies from around the world. Those kinds of enemies can metastasize into real dangers and actual attacks as you saw suddenly and unexpectedly on 9/11. It’s good to have friends when those sorts of things happen.
And let me ask my American friends this question. Even if you believe in tariffs, how is it possible to put a 25 percent tariff on Canada and only a 10 percent tariff on China? In what strategic mindset does that make sense? [Emphasis added.]
One would hope that President Trump and his administration are willing to listen to reason.
Watch Pierre Poilievre’s statement below:
