HANNAFORD： Bordering on a solution to tariffs
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Summary
Simon Hankinson, Senior Research Fellow in the Border Security and Immigration Center at the Heritage Foundation, joins me to talk about the growing number of illegal immigrants crossing the border between Canada and the United States, and why they are more likely to be coming from other countries than from the southern border.
Transcript
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Good evening, Western Standard viewers, and welcome to Hannaford, a weekly politics show.
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I'm Nigel Hannaford. It is Thursday, February the 20th, and my guest today is Simon Hankinson, a senior research fellow in the Border Security and Immigration Center at Washington's Heritage Foundation.
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Glad to see you. In a moment, we're going to be talking about President Trump's supposed goal of annexing Canada.
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Simon, let's go back to where the tariff war started.
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The presidential allegation is that Canada was slack on immigration and border control,
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and as a result, drugs and dangerous, illegal aliens were making their way south.
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Therefore, unless Canadians did something about it, there would be tariffs.
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Now, I think the evidence is that we were indeed slack on border control.
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But we're doing something about it, and we're getting tariffs anyway.
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So, this is your area, and I have to ask, how bad were we?
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And secondly, is this really all about fentanyl and terrorists anyway?
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Well, I'll just say my area is immigration and border security and not tariffs.
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Economic policy is beyond me, although I know what they are, of course.
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It was never anything like the southern border, which is half the size,
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but through which 95% of the traffic, legal and illegal, flow of human beings anyway, goods.
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There's enormous traffic between Canada and the United States.
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But across that 5,000-mile-odd border, I've been up there a couple times,
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there are just innumerable places where you can cross over without anybody getting in your way.
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So, the opportunity to bring in contraband, people and goods is relatively unlimited.
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And even though the numbers are still significantly lower than they are in the south,
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I think the people intercepted at the border coming south in the last year, October to October, give or take,
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was about 23,000 coming from Canada illegally into the U.S. and 1,000 heading the other way.
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So, the ratio is definitely in favor of people coming south and not north.
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And that's, of course, only the ones that were caught or surrendered to border authorities, border patrol.
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And you can see, when it's snowing anyway, or the snow on the ground tracks,
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and obviously much larger groups of people are coming in every month from Canada.
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So, again, not the millions that we're seeing at the southern border,
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but still significantly higher than in previous years.
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So, is there a qualitative difference between the kind of people who cross the border north to south,
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as opposed to those who come from the south and are just trying to get into the United States?
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You know, I've never seen a breakdown of exactly who they are,
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but I would suspect that the majority of people crossing illegally from Canada into the United States
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are people who haven't been in Canada very long.
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In some cases, we've heard of people flying directly into airports.
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They're at the border walking across within a day or two from India, from Bangladesh, from all kinds of countries.
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For a while, they were coming in from Mexico because there was no visa required.
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But I think the Canadians instituted a visa requirement for Mexicans sometime last year.
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So, I did see some reports emanating from the U.S. Customs Board of Control
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that there was a considerable number of people trying to cross north to south who they had apprehended
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Yes, we have a terrorist watch list of people who have some nexus that is in our system
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that ties them to a terrorist group or a terrorist individual.
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That doesn't always mean that they themselves are active, dangerous terrorists,
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but it's certainly people that we want to carefully vet and interview
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and get more information from before they are released, certainly.
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And I think the numbers were in the hundreds last year.
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And perhaps that's just because it's easier to cross over in the north and the south,
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or perhaps it's just the population of people is coming from countries
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where they're more likely to have a terrorist record in our database
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than if they came from, say, Venezuela or Guatemala or Honduras.
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So, do you get the impression that in the approximately two months,
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maybe six weeks, since President Trump put Canada on notice
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that he was concerned about two things, fentanyl and illegal aliens,
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some of whom are dangerous, how are things going?
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On the southern border, apparently, it's almost eliminated.
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What were tens of thousands in a day or now, you know, a couple of dozen people
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Do you get the impression that Canada has pulled its socks up
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and is now effectively intercepting people before they get intercepted
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Well, we've only had a month of the Trump administration.
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I saw they were significantly lower for the southern border.
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I didn't look specifically at the northern border,
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What we're seeing, though, that is encouraging is the Trudeau government,
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which I guess the days are numbered, made some effort to increase spending
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on things like helicopters, drones, surveillance towers,
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your version of the Border Patrol, and forgive me for not remembering what it's called,
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but staff and resources across the border, which is a positive step.
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And I was just reading the conservative leader Poilier's speech a couple of days ago,
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and he was outlining what he wants to do if he gets into power,
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and that does include another 2,000 border agents and, again,
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significant investment in surveillance to try to get a better handle
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on what is passing through Canada down south towards the U.S.
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So, the signs are pretty good that this is something Canadians have noticed
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that they need to make some adjustments to and some improvements to.
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Actually, it's a matter of national shame that it took a U.S. president
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to remind us of what we ought to be doing anyway,
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because this kind of thing does not make us look good.
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Nevertheless, I do believe that there is an understanding and a realization now,
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certainly in Alberta and B.C., which, you know,
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have this enormous border with Montana, that something needs to be done.
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I think that the provincial government here, under Premier Daniel Smith,
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was making moves and doing things when in Ottawa they were still wondering
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whether this was really a serious issue or not.
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Why are we still being threatened with tariffs?
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Well, I don't have any insight into how the Trump administration is, you know,
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strategizing and thinking through the big picture.
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Obviously, Mexico and Canada are very different animals in every respect.
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I mean, we're all part of the same trade agreement.
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But when it comes to the border, we would be looking for different actions from Canada
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So what their long-term game plan is, I'm afraid I can't enlighten you.
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But it doesn't seem to me, with my limited knowledge of our, what, trillion-dollar cross-border trade
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and very interlinked manufacturing, particularly in the automobile industry and energy,
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it doesn't seem to me like a trade war would be in either country's interests.
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So I would suspect that they have an off-ramp and that tariffs are not a goal in and of themselves,
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but that they are a tactic along the road to a policy aim that they're trying to achieve.
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Now, the second string, one was illegal immigrants, the other was fentanyl, drugs generally,
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but fentanyl was named as the object of interest.
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how serious was Canada's contribution to pouring fentanyl into the United States?
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Well, I mean, to be clear, we're not saying that the government of Canada
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but that they are not cracking down enough on the cartels and the smugglers
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that are bringing drugs into Canada and precursor chemicals, for example,
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to make fentanyl and then shipping it down to the United States
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We've seen some very big busts in Canada in the last few months.
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And if you add up the amount of drugs that they're able to produce,
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it obviously far exceeds the capacity of the local market,
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which has unfortunately a very high overdose rate for North America.
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So some of those drugs coming in from China or from Mexico,
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with perhaps origins in China, are headed for the U.S. border.
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I don't have a handle on the quantities that were coming through.
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But if you look at the seizures by CBP at the ports of entry from cars and trucks,
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that's only going to be a part of it because obviously there are people coming across on foot
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or by vehicles but not through a port of entry that are able to bring in drugs undetected.
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Okay, so the narrative was too many illegal immigrants, aliens, too much fentanyl coming in.
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You people in Canada have got to do something about it or we're going to apply tariffs.
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Well, I would have to say that we are starting to do something about it.
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And inherently a 5,000-mile border without a wall is a lot of it in forests and mountains and inaccessible areas.
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But we still get the tariffs, apparently, which makes me wonder, is there a further goal?
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Well, I was holidaying in your lovely country just last week
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and went and found a copy of the president's book, The Art of the Deal.
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And then you start to talk and you feel where the weak points are.
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And eventually, if you know what you want and you're firm about it, you'll get it.
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So far, that script seems to be following out reasonably well.
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And in the book, he says, you know, I'm a nice guy.
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And if people play fair by me, then I play fair by them.
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But he also says, when people treat me badly or unfairly or try to take advantage of me,
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my general attitude all my life has been to fight back very hard.
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So you have to wonder whether personal animus for Justin Trudeau is part of this.
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Mr. Trudeau has certainly consorted with Democrats.
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He has been caught saying unkind things about President Trump,
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who may be a nice guy, but he's also a proud man.
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So is part of this sticking it to Mr. Trudeau as well?
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Well, I don't have the ability to look inside the president's head.
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But judging by the four years that he was president before,
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and as you say, his book and his public statements,
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he's definitely someone for whom personal relationships are important.
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But he has a pretty long memory for a wrongs done him.
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I don't think he's had a great relationship with Trudeau personally.
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Obviously, they're on the opposite side of a lot of issues,
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So I can't tell you how much that personal relationship plays into the tactics.
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But in the long run, obviously, the president's job is to ensure prosperity
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And I'm pretty sure that's the primary goal and not settling old scores.
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Yes, well, America first is a great goal for an American president.
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And there are those of us who wish that we'd had a Canada first strategy for the last 10 years.
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But at any rate, it strikes me that perhaps different people,
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different players on this side of the border will have a better chance of resolving this.
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But of course, we're going to have different players anyway.
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How long do you think this will take to work out?
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Well, I was just reading through some of the policy proposals of the conservatives.
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And I can't predict, you probably have a much better idea than me,
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And I know the conservatives' lead has shrunk by quite a bit.
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And most of the things that Polly Everett is planning to do really align very much with
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what President Trump is trying to do for Americans.
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But when it comes to energy security, building pipelines, building houses for people,
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cutting regulation, cutting red tape, lowering taxes,
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these are all things that are right out of the Trump America first playbook.
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And look, ultimately, conservatives in America are nationalists in the sense that we believe
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the world is a community of nation states who take care of themselves first,
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but also work together cooperatively for the common good.
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And so the idea of a strong Canada taking care of Canada first,
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but also being a good partner to the U.S. for mutual prosperity is the win-win that we would be looking for.
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but I would think that that would be what a lot of Canadians would vote for
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So I'm going to be bold and say that this is probably going to end well,
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but not before a lot of people have shed some tears,
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and there's perhaps been a change of government.
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The fundamental interests of the United States and Canada seem to point that way.
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But it does depend, at least in part, on Canada doing its part on border control.
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So what I was hoping to hear from you, that we've got that under control.
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You're optimistic, I think, that we're getting there?
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I just never, ever predict what the Trump administration and President Trump is going to do,
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because that's a recipe for a reputational disaster.
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I think I should take your hand there and leave it at that.
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I really want to thank you for coming on board,
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and I hope we'll have you back again in the weeks and months to come as this situation matures.
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Certainly, and good wishes to everybody else there at the Heritage Foundation.
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Okay, well, do you want to be part of the office pool on how this works out?
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Yeah, I was going to say, let's talk offline, as they say.