Trump orders massive tariff hike and announces national emergency as Canada row escalates

Trump orders massive tariff hike and announces national emergency as Canada row escalates
Donald Trump (Reuters)

President Donald Trump announced on Truth Social Tuesday that he is ordering an even greater escalation of tariffs against Canada, with a 25 to 50 percent tax on steel and aluminum imports from that country, effective Wednesday.

This comes in retaliation to the Canadian province of Ontario instituting its own 25 percent tariff on electricity exports to Minnesota, Michigan and New York, which was a salvo against Trump's initial trade war measures on the country.

"Also, Canada must immediately drop their Anti-American Farmer Tariff of 250% to 390% on various U.S. dairy products, which has long been considered outrageous," Trump wrote in his announcement. "I will shortly be declaring a National Emergency on Electricity within the threatened area. This will allow the U.S to quickly do what has to be done to alleviate this abusive threat from Canada."

Trump threatened even further actions may be taken in the near future: "If other egregious, long time Tariffs are not likewise dropped by Canada, I will substantially increase, on April 2nd, the Tariffs on Cars coming into the U.S. which will, essentially, permanently shut down the automobile manufacturing business in Canada. Those cars can easily be made in the USA! Also, Canada pays very little for National Security, relying on the United States for military protection. We are subsidizing Canada to the tune of more than 200 Billion Dollars a year. WHY??? This cannot continue."

"The only thing that makes sense is for Canada to become our cherished Fifty First State," Trump added, repeating a demand he has made several times and that Canada has rejected as ridiculous. "This would make all Tariffs, and everything else, totally disappear. Canadians’ taxes will be very substantially reduced, they will be more secure, militarily and otherwise, than ever before, there would no longer be a Northern Border problem, and the greatest and most powerful nation in the World will be bigger, better and stronger than ever — And Canada will be a big part of that."

"The artificial line of separation drawn many years ago will finally disappear, and we will have the safest and most beautiful Nation anywhere in the World — And your brilliant anthem, 'O Canada,' will continue to play, but now representing a GREAT and POWERFUL STATE within the greatest Nation that the World has ever seen!" Trump continued.

The Dow Jones plunged even further in response to Trump's announcement, with shares trading 500 points below the opening bell as of press time.

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The internet criticized President Donald Trump's response on Tuesday to the Supreme Court ruling that upheld birthright citizenship and rejected the president's executive order.

Trump posted a bizarre — and apparently sarcastic — statement on his Truth Social platform following the ruling.

"I would like to congratulate President Xi, and the Great Country of China, on their massive Birthright Citizenship WIN!" Trump wrote.

Media and political commentators responded to the president's remarks.

"Sour, miserable, and un-American, even by the denatured standards of this president," Tom Nichols, staff writer at The Atlantic, wrote on X.

"He should resign if he doesn't like the Constitution he swore to uphold. UnAmerican!" Peggy Gabour, progressive political commentator, wrote on X.

"Translation: 'I’m super jealous that a dictator got permission to flush human rights down the toilet and I didn’t,'" Patric Reynolds, comic book artist and political commentator, wrote on Bluesky.

"Sorry, but isn’t Trump born of an immigrant?" The political account Mary Shelley’s Fluoxetine wrote on Bluesky.

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House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) attempted an end-run strategy to pass President Donald Trump's anti-voting-rights SAVE America Act through Congress — only for a contingent of Republicans to block it and deal him a fresh humiliation. And MS NOW commenters were quick to react.

" Mike Johnson just tried to get the SAVE America Act through the House," said anchor Katy Tur, quoting Punchbowl News' Jake Sherman that it "went down in flames" and turning to reporter Mychael Schnell. "What exactly happened?"

For starters, said Schnell, Johnson attempted to force it through by attaching it to the annual defense budget bill, or NDAA, "a very core, important piece of must-pass legislation." It was a plan concocted by conservative hardliners, led by Rep. Anna Paulina Luna (R-FL).

"She has taken it upon herself, amid the President's pressure campaign, to pass this bill, to say that she would not pass any bills in the House unless the Senate acted on this legislation," said Schnell. "The Senate left town, so that opportunity was off the table" — but she said she would stop her protest if it were put to a vote in the House.

Meanwhile, Schnell said, "Speaker Johnson chose a different route, trying to combine the two during this procedural vote," only for 14 House Republicans to block it, leading to the failure of a routine procedural vote.

The bottom line, she continued, is that "it's a massive embarrassment and a blow to Speaker Johnson. It's never good when a rule vote fails. But the interesting thing here ... is that the left hand isn't really aware of what the right hand is doing when you talk about Republican leaders, because last week, President Trump had taken to Truth Social and said he did not want these Republicans in the House to be holding hostage these procedural rules in the NDAA in order to get the SAVE America bill passed," and Luna and Johnson still did it anyway.

As a consequence of all this, said Schnell, "the House floor is right now paralyzed" and "there is still no movement in the SAVE America Act." There's simply no path to get it passed, she said — "but conservatives and the president himself are not yet ready to accept that reality."

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President Donald Trump is "too mentally feeble" to hold office and a "crazy, stalker-ish" aide has effectively taken control of the West Wing, former RNC spokesperson Cheri Jacobus said.

Jacobus made the comments on her Tuesday YouTube show, Politics with Cheri Jacobus, about Natalie Harp, 34, an aide to Trump since 2022 who became his executive assistant when he took office in January 2025.

"Natalie Harp. She's a 34-year-old executive assistant to Trump, and she has unnerved her colleagues by leaving out letters for Trump that say things like, 'You are all that matters to me,'" Jacobus said.

"They've raised alarms ... about her feeding the president unhinged online content and being the driving force behind his bizarre Truth Social posts," she continued.

The Wall Street Journal reported that Harp compiles content for Trump's approval and then logs into his account herself, often late at night, to post it.

"What's bizarre and disturbing is that he is so vulnerable to this sort of undue influence. This is somebody who should not be in office — he is too old and too mentally feeble," Jacobus observed.

"But she's got this devotion to Trump that's just disturbing. Very, very disturbing. And other staff at the White House are concerned. And you know how disturbing the other staff at the Trump White House are — so if they're disturbed and concerned about this, my God, that's pretty bad," the former RNC official noted.

Trump's closeness to Harp was documented in Regime Change, a new book by New York Times reporters Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan, which reported Harp left Trump notes reading, "You are all that matters to me."

"All right, this woman is a danger," Jacobus said. "Very concerning. I don't know what we do about it."

"Republicans in Congress won't do anything about it. Susie Wiles isn't doing anything about it. We know Trump's kids don't care about him... Certainly, Melania isn't," she warned.

"So it looks like this crazy, stalker-ish person, this Natalie Harp, is the one who makes the decisions in this White House. Think about that. It's frightening," Jacobus concluded.

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