CAN-USA 2025 Tariff Strife (split from various pol threads)

[quadrapiper]

What Trump is doing is setting things up for April when the NA free trade agreement (or whatever crap it’s now called) expires. This is the background music for when the fat lady enters the stage and all eyes are on her.
Our banking executives should realize that they’ve been put on notice - 100%.
Dairy control board, you’re in the cross hairs as well.
Would not be surprised if the airlines and telecoms are as well but he’s not tipped his hand yet on them.

Then keep bouncing things along for as long as possible.

 

[NearingZenith]

As per the Mexican President’s posts on X:

“2. The United States is committed to working to prevent the trafficking of high-powered weapons to Mexico.”


Too bad our leadership didn’t ask for support in stopping weapons trafficking. Could have let them stop wasting our own resources…

Mexican president says tariffs delayed after ‘good’ talk with Trump - National | Globalnews.ca

Mexican president Claudia Sheinbaum said she and U.S president Trump reached "a series of agreements" during their conversation.

globalnews.ca

Yes, Trudeau didn’t concede much in the negotiations but he also didn’t gain anything other than a 30 day delay on tariffs.

Although the US now agreeing to crack down on weapons trafficking to Mexico might be more out of self-interest than care for Mexico. If Trump is actually serious about using US special forces to go after the cartels in Mexico it’s best to avoid providing the cartels weapons that are going to be used against your own troops.

 

[Fishbone Jones]

Yes, Trudeau didn’t concede much in the negotiations but he also didn’t gain anything other than a 30 day delay on tariffs.

Although the US now agreeing to crack down on weapons trafficking to Mexico might be more out of self-interest than care for Mexico. If Trump is actually serious about using US special forces to go after the cartels in Mexico it’s best to avoid providing the cartels weapons that are going to be used against your own troops.

The cartels don't need the US for that. With the amount of money in their coffers, any number of arms merchants would be glad to supply what they want.

 

[PrairieFella]

The cartels don't need the US for that. With the amount of money in their coffers, any number of arms merchants would be glad to supply what they want.

There was a really good documentary done by a Portuguese-American journalist for the show Trafficked about how the cartels get their guns. According to this documentary, alot of the guns are actually run by dirty cops in the States.

 

[daftandbarmy]

If only we had diversified the risk to our national economy when we had the chance...

https://twitter.com/x/status/1886241634142040279

 

[Haggis]

Assault boats along the St Laurence in Cornwall. Can stop for lunch at the Blue Anchor. Can actually park your boat there.

The Blue Anchor is closed. Time spent in recce is never wasted.

At that point the river is actually veering away from the border northward into QC. You want to patrol westward towards Kingston along the Seaway.

 

[Remius]

The Blue Anchor is closed. Time spent in recce is never wasted.

That sucks. Loved getting st Lawrence perch rolls there.

 

[QV]

Anyone remember this from Friday?
Maybe the Trump Administration has an actual cohesive plan and is executing it.

https://www.reuters.com/world/trump-set-impose-tariffs-mexico-canada-starting-march-1-sources-say-2025-01-31/

I think too many people fall into the media portrayal that Trump is just some dumb oaf. Its more probable Trump has a team of very smart and credentialed people in the background who have been building a plan since about early 2021, they left the line of departure two weeks ago.

 

[dapaterson]

I think too many people fall into the media portrayal that Trump is just some dumb oaf. Its more probable Trump has a team of very smart and credentialed people in the background who have been building a plan since about early 2021, they left the line of departure two weeks ago.

You mean... Folks have an ongoing Project for 2025, with someone acting as a front for them?

 

[PrairieFella]

You mean... Folks have an ongoing Project for 2025, with someone acting as a front for them?

Man is there ever some evil shit in Project 2025. Seems like they're speed running atm.

 

[OldSolduer]

The Blue Anchor is closed.

I misread that as the Blue Oyster.....

 

[IKnowNothing]

It's a line he repeated again today, saying he would "love to see Canada" join the union. But he seemed to acknowledge "it would be a long shot", saying some unnamed people "don't have a threshold for pain".
Trump says Canada would become 51st state 'if people wanted to play the game right'

Am I the only one that reads that as as bit of a power struggle? Team Trump has one camp (that he seems to agree with) that are more in favour of playing rough, but there's another strong camp that isn't willing to have the American economy face the consequences of the fight?

 

[brihard]

@Cloud Cover , getting back to this sorry:

Parliament needs to sit and pass changes to terrorism legislation + funding.

Don’t think so. They’ll wedge cartels into existing definitions. The risk self-mitigates to an extent; odds of 83 offences against cartel members are super slim, and I doubt Sinaloa is going to be sending counsel up here to fight a listing.

For the money laundering but we’ll probably need a RICO type of legal regime to capture up and downstream bits.

A RICO like act would be huge and we should have one. It would present significant challenges to Charter proof it but I believe it could be done. It would take a few years to get something coherent and comprehensive assembled though.

Extraditions will become much more regular. Charter implications.

Yeah potentially. We’re quite sensitive for mistreatment by foreign entities. We’re quite twitchy and extraditions and deportations to certain places, along with info sharing.

MLAT will need a serious overhaul to speed it up or perhaps replace it with something much more real time operationally focussed.

What’s needed here is DOJ International Assistance Group needs to be substantially beefed up so MLATs can go through in a timely manner. There’s a ton of solid criminal evidence we can really only get by MLAT and it takes effing forever. Cases will go to court halfassed rather than waiting for MLAT results. MLAT vs Jordan is a huge tension in our criminal justice system, and not one that will resolve in favour of the crown.

US drug laws are much more severe than Canadian. Likely need to be harmonized.

Unlikely to happen. Lots of Charter jurisprudence around cruel and unusual punishment. The criminal offences we have are adequate; we need more ability to investigate and get them to court in a timely manner.

Wiretap and monitoring laws, regs, equipment, procedures all need to be standardized across borders. Charter again.

Disagreed. Our legal wiretap regime is fine, and already Charter compliant. We mess with this to try to match up to the U.S., we probably break it. Conventional wiretaps are fading anyway with the shift to IP based communications; the barriers are more legal than technical. Crowns are more reticent to go for full blown Part VIs or intercept General warrants than the law allows for. They’ll insist on investigative necessity even for org crime or terrorism offences where they aren’t needed. The biggest challenge with intercept files, whether conventional wiretaps or on-device intercepts, is how extremely resource and disclosure intensive they are.

US DEA back in full swing. (Yay for me!)

Financial and property seizures, proceeds of crime etc all need to be updated.

A comprehensive proceeds of crime and property along with a RICO statute would be a major improvement. We need to be careful though, not to slide into the rampant abuse of forfeiture we see in the U.S. our police funding models at least partly protect against that.

Not going to happen in 30 days or even 6 months.

Nope.

NDA will require a change to begin daily assistance to law enforcement and CBSA.

Will it? Could CAF not provide certain capabilities such as surveillance assets as an electronic tripwire? I don’t think anyone is realistically envisioning soldiers on the border to deal with detentions.

 

[Quirky]

I think too many people fall into the media portrayal that Trump is just some dumb oaf. Its more probable Trump has a team of very smart and credentialed people in the background who have been building a plan since about early 2021, they left the line of departure two weeks ago.

Everyone in this country gets mad at Trump for putting a tax on us but will fond over JT for 8 years to get him to put more carbon tax and capital gains tax on everything. Talk about Stockholm syndrome.

 

[Remius]

Everyone in this country gets mad at Trump for putting a tax on us but will fond over JT for 8 years to get him to put more carbon tax and capital gains tax on everything. Talk about Stockholm syndrome.

Well Trump attacked Canadian sovereignty and has been trolling Canada for months. What sort of reaction were you expecting?

As for the bump in support for the outgoing leader and his performance, I suspect that anyone in that position would gain support. If PP was PM he’d also get kudos for standing up for the country. Doug Ford is all but guaranteed to win the election in Ontario because he took a hard stance. Even people that dislike him are conceding that.

If we keep going through this every 30 days and during CUSMA talks, I suspect polls will rise for whoever is in power as well.

Something something “Events dear boy, events.”

 

[Jarnhamar]

And does the commitment men 10,000 on duty at all times? Because that’s one hell of a Border Force (or awful lot of Punjabi commissionaires taken from the airports).

There's a 3 kilometer line up of people anytime there's a job opening in the GTA.

Why don't we press gang hire these people into border security? Put a CBSA fella in charge of every 100 or so.

 

[The Bread Guy]

Both

Which means they're both also true - all in the eye of the beholder

 

[foresterab]

This is the sort of success stories we need to both promote but also unfortunately highlights some of the behind the scenes legal crimes that has the US so upset. It also speaks to some loopholes that are being exploited that I view as legislatively difficult but also necessary as it needs to be comprehensive and not just a knee jerk "modify a clause" type change.

Article courtesy of the Edmonton Journal:

Police lay charges in $47M Alberta-B.C. money laundering operation: 'One of the biggest'​

Jonny Wakefield
Published Feb 02, 2025 • Last updated 17 hours ago • 3 minute read
https://edmontonjournal.com/news/crime/alberta-bc-money-laundering-charges#comments-area

On Jan. 30, 2025, the RCMP's Edmonton-based federal financial crime team announced the arrest of a B.C. man allegedly involved in organized crime and money laundering.

Article content​

A former police investigator says a recently uncovered money laundering scheme spanning B.C. and Alberta is among the largest he’s seen.

On Thursday, the RCMP’s Edmonton-based federal financial crime team announced the arrest of a B.C. man allegedly involved in organized crime and money laundering.

Investigators claim Harry Seo, 30, of Burnaby, and six others laundered proceeds of crime “via online transactions of illicit cannabis” in both provinces between September 2018 and August 2020 to the tune of $47 million. They say the criminal organization used Alberta and B.C. numbered companies, which operated as unregistered money services businesses.

Seo is also alleged to have operated illicit “cannabis-related” businesses in Edmonton and Burnaby.

Stephen Scott, a former Mountie who spent almost two decades investigating money laundering and asset forfeiture, was struck by the size of the alleged operation.

“Certainly for Alberta, it’s probably one of the biggest they’ve ever had. I’ve never seen anything in the media that comes close to that.”

Based on what police have said publicly, Scott said it is a rare case based solely on money laundering — rather than money laundering paired with other offences like drug trafficking or fraud.

Dispensaries and e-transfers​

Money service businesses are firms that transmit or convert money. The illegal money services businesses in this case received, transferred or converted dirty money through illicit cannabis sales “via a variety of online dispensaries,” police said.

The entities also received “tens of millions” through e-transfer payments. Investigators used the emails attached to the transfers to identify eight people “who received a total of $47 million in proceeds of crime.”

Seo is accused of being paid by the criminal organization for laundering the dirty money and for concealing its origins from law enforcement, regulators and financial institutions. He was arrested by Vancouver police on Dec. 30 and charged with laundering proceeds of crime, commission of an offence for a criminal organization, failing to register a money services business and unauthorized possession of cannabis for the purpose of selling.

Seo is one of the last of the alleged conspirators to be charged. RCMP say five others have already been sentenced as far back as June, including four Edmonton residents.

None of the convicted Edmontonians were named by RCMP, but they include a 25-year-old sentenced to a 12-month conditional sentence and ordered to forfeit $155,000 deemed proceeds of crime; a 30-year-old handed a 12-month conditional sentence and ordered to forfeit $105,000; a 35-year-old given a nine-month conditional sentence, who forfeited $70,000 in dirty money; and a 26-year-old handed a 10-month CSO and ordered to surrender $85,000.

An unnamed Ontario resident allegedly involved in the scheme is set to face trial in Edmonton on Nov. 3. That person is charged with failing to register a money services business under the Proceeds of Crime (Money Laundering) and Terrorist Financing Act.

RCMP Insp. John Lamming called the probe a “substantial win” in Canada’s fight against money laundering, which he said undermines the “economic integrity of Canada’s financial institutions.”

Scott said he would be interested to see more details about the case, including whether any of the unregistered money services businesses operated in public with names the public would recognize.

He is also curious about how the scheme came to light and the role played by FINTRAC, the Financial Transactions and Reports Analysis Centre of Canada.

The case also stands out because of the criminal organization allegation against Seo, Scott said, adding “it’s not a charge that’s laid very often” in money laundering cases.

B.C. in recent years has been in the spotlight for the prevalence of money laundering — though one study suggested it might be even more widespread in Alberta.

A 2019 report from the B.C. government’s Expert Panel on Money Laundering in B.C. Real Estate estimated $7 billion was laundered through B.C.’s economy in 2018, raising the cost of buying a home and financing the province’s opioid crisis. The report estimated that more than $10 billion was laundered through the Alberta economy in 2015, a figure that was met with skepticism by Alberta’s ministry of justice.

 

[Czech_pivo]

Great interview with the Governor of Kentucky - a democratic - on why tariffs against Canada is a bad idea. Note, he even calls out the BOTH Kentucky Senators, Mitch McConnell and Rand Paul, who are high ranking Republicans have said that tariffs on Canada are a bad idea. So, it seems, at least according to the Gov of Kentucky, a red state, that their 2 Senators are not in 'tariff Canada camp' of President Trump.

https://www.cnn.com/2025/02/03/politics/video/the-lead-andy-beshear-usa-tariffs-canada-whiskey-bourbon-kentucky-jake-tapper

 

[IKnowNothing]

Which means they're both also true - all in the eye of the beholder

I view DJT as an irredeemable conman that I wouldn't trust to give me last nights scores- but In this case I would actually lean to his version being more "true."

It's a lowest common denominator explanation that misrepresents the details of the actual situation via simplification- de facto vice de jure kind of thing. American banks are not technically banned, but from their perspective our regulatory regime creates an untenable competitive environment, which has resulted in them having an insignificant and inexplicably small market share for a supposedly "free trade" environment- which is kind of potato-potahtoe from their side of the fence. I don't think knowledgeable person would argue the principle of the matter, that our regulatory regime does indeed stifle competition and restrict entry. We just don't care because we like it the way it is- it serves the interest of our people.

Someone on our side trying to refute the above and position our banking industry as open and competitive by framing 113 billion in cumulative assets as being in any way meaningful is counting on audience ignorance of the scale of the banking industry to deceptively invalidate the US concerns and avoid discussing the crux of the issue- that certain of our national interests definitely do fly in the face of free trade, and that if the US pushes we may be forced to choose.

We gain nothing by meeting his lies with lies to ourselves, or by burying our heads in the sand about the nature of their grievances.