Is Pete Hegseth the luckiest defense secretary in the world or what? He just got the job and his/our boss has pretty much declared war on a half dozen or so foreign countries. The latest saga—on the eve of another critical round of negotiations to free the hostages and withdraw Israeli troops—is his hare-brained proposal to evict all the Palestinians and turn Gaza into a cornucopia of Trump Towers By The Sea.
So the question is, which war comes first? You have Greenland, which might mean Denmark in a two-for-one deal, and/or Panama, and maybe Mexico, and we can’t forget Trump’s 51st state, Canada. Just in case that is not enough, how about we unite the Palestinians, who fought each other for years, and much of the Arab world and send our soldiers—minus, of course, those confused about their gender—and try to occupy some of the deadliest territory on Earth? Up to now, that has worked out so well for the world.
Let’s hear it for the headline writer at the New York Times: “Improbable” is probably the kindest way to put it.
Is anyone counting? Maybe I have this wrong, but it seems to me the only two recent wars we have hands down won were the invasions of two relatively tiny nations, Panama and Grenada. Yes, we led a 42-nation coalition to respond to Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait, but the really big ones—Vietnam, Afghanistan, and the second time in Iraq—didn’t go so well.
We know there is not much love lost between former President George H. W. Bush and Donald Trump, so perhaps the latter wants his own version of Operation Just Cause. How about we beat the Panamanians all over again and retrieve and take back the Panama Canal?
“It was not given for the benefit of others, but merely as a token of cooperation with us and Panama,” Trump said. “If the moral and legal principles of this magnanimous gesture of giving are not followed, then we will demand that the Panama Canal be returned to us, in full, and without question.”
To clear up any possible confusion, Donald Trump posted an AI-generated image of the American flag flying over the Canal:
On December 22, 2024, Al Jazeera reported that Panama’s President Jose Raul Mulino posted a recorded message on social media firmly responding to Donald Trump: “Every square meter of the Panama canal and the surrounding area belongs to Panama and will continue belonging so.”
Mulino tried to downplay the tension at his weekly press conference Thursday. He spoke of wanting to clarify confusion about China’s role in the canal — a Hong Kong consortium manages ports at both ends, but Panama controls the canal – and blamed a predecessor for establishing diplomatic relations with China. ‘It’s impossible, I can’t negotiate,’ Mulino said when asked about returning the canal to U.S. control. ‘That is done. The canal belongs to Panama.’
But it clearly wasn’t done as far as Donald Trump was concerned. Which is why he sent newly minted Secretary of State Marco Rubio to threaten the Panamanians.
According to the State Department’s official readout of the visit:
Secretary Rubio informed President Mulino and Minister Martínez-Acha that President Trump has made a preliminary determination that the current position of influence and control of the Chinese Communist Party over the Panama Canal area is a threat to the canal and represents a violation of the Treaty Concerning the Permanent Neutrality and Operation of the Panama Canal. Secretary Rubio made clear that this status quo is unacceptable and that absent immediate changes, it would require the United States to take measures necessary to protect its rights under the Treaty.
[Emphasis added.]
I mean, just between you and me, haven’t you, your friends, neighbors, and fellow workers been counting the days when we could send our soldiers to fight the Panamanians for their canal?
So, consider this the first of many apologies to a growing list of other nations and their people. And, unfortunately, I know all too well what is required of me, of us. Sadly, these new episodes of Donald Trump’s deteriorating mental state coupled with his arrogance and grandiosity make us all complicit. Because he is acting in our name, and as his pal and fellow authoritarian Victor Orban of Hungary succinctly puts it, “in 14 days, Donald Trump has already turned the world upside down.” And: “We can also say goodbye to the rules of world trade as we know them.” So, yes, Donald Trump is determined to wage war against our innocent neighbors, Canada and Mexico; threaten the Panamanians, the Danes, and the Greenlanders; and worsen the trade war with China. Oh, and as of a few days ago, he is willing to clear out Gaza for his and Musk’s and Netanyahu’s bulldozers.
It seems like a lifetime ago now, but there was a time during the Vietnam War that you couldn’t travel outside the United States without explaining yourself and America. I often found myself apologizing as our napalm destroyed so much of Vietnam and our bombs killed so many in Laos and Cambodia. Then, add the terror in Latin America spread by the right-wing militias and soldiers we trained at our School of the Americas, those who killed Maryknoll nuns in El Salvador, labor organizers in Honduras, and indigenous leaders in Guatemala.
And so, it is obviously time to say please forgive me, Canada and Mexico and the innocents in China, constant victims of their own ruthless authoritarians, and now our tariffs. Let me assure those of you in Denmark and Greenland that I sincerely believe your country is your country and not mine, and, Panama, know that I believe the same goes for your Canal.
This is the worst tendency of ours: to imagine America can and should decide the fate of others. At some time or other, all humans share the delusion they deserve more than the rest, but we Americans have been blessed/cursed with the power to impose our will. And, sadly, with very few exceptions—how about we put World War II at the top and the very foreign aid Donald Trump is determined to curtail somewhere close behind. And so here we go again.
Here is President Trump’s announcement of the decision to enact tariffs on Canada:
To justify his executive action, President Trump is invoking an emergency. Here is how the Associated Press explains the International Emergency Economic Powers Act:
This is the 1977 law that helped enable Trump to declare an economic emergency in the executive orders and implement his tariffs. There are more than three dozen active emergencies, including measures taken to respond to the 1979 Iran hostage crisis, human rights violations in Venezuela, nuclear weapon development in North Korea and multiple actions taken by China and Russia. The law enables a president to freeze and block transactions in response to ‘unusual and extraordinary’ threats outside the United States.
Let’s take a closer look at what he is claiming:
I, DONALD J. TRUMP, President of the United States of America, find that the sustained influx of illicit opioids and other drugs has profound consequences on our Nation, endangering lives and putting a severe strain on our healthcare system, public services, and communities … Canada has played a central role in these challenges, including by failing to devote sufficient attention and resources or with United States law enforcement partners to effectively stem the tide of illicit drugs …
The challenges at our southern border are foremost in the public consciousness, but our northern border is not exempt from these issues. Criminal networks are implicated in human trafficking and smuggling operations, enabling unvetted illegal migration across our northern border. There is also a growing presence of Mexican cartels operating fentanyl and nitazene synthesis labs in Canada. The flow of illicit drugs like fentanyl to the United States through both illicit distribution networks and international mail — due, in the case of the latter, to the existing administrative exemption from duty and taxes, also known as de minimis, undersection 1321 of title 19, United States Code — has created a public health crisis in the United States … And while U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) within the Department of Homeland Security seized, comparatively, much less fentanyl from Canada than from Mexico last year, fentanyl is so potent that even a very small parcel of the drug can cause many deaths and destruction to America families. In fact, the amount of fentanyl that crossed the northern border last year could kill 9.5 million Americans …
This national emergency requires decisive and immediate action, and I have decided to impose, consistent with law, ad valorem tariffs on articles that are products of Canada set forth in this order …
Maybe you, like me, have been living under the illusion that, compared to Iran, Al Qaida, ISIS, North Korea, and Russia, Canada is our friend and neighbor and hardly poses a threat to the American way of life. Maybe, like me, you imagine the Canadians to be remarkably like us, albeit with better healthcare, a better national anthem, and some really good hockey players. Perhaps, like me, you have been shocked and surprised to learn what a dreadful danger they have posed all these years.
Once upon a time, in what now seems a long-ago America, a political leader would feel compelled to offer some pretty persuasive evidence when he accused a friend and neighboring country of posing “an unusual and extraordinary threat.” At the very least some serious data to convince the American people that the 25 percent tariffs and the resulting price increases that we will soon experience are absolutely necessary to prevent a worse evil.
But we seem to lack the political will to demand such evidence. Yet, while much of America continues to sleep, Donald Trump woke the world. At the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, his call for a renewed American manifest destiny had many in Panama, Ottawa, British Columbia, Mexico City, Greenland, Denmark, and amongst the members of NATO who had lived through, read about, or just knew about our misadventures in Vietnam and Afghanistan and Iraq and were familiar with our recent history in Latin America waking up and worried. Here are just a few of the most recent provocative threats Donald Trump has made to the sovereignty of other nations. While he talks about fentanyl, he clearly desires to expand the empire he imagines he will rule:
On December 23, 2024, Donald Trump wrote on Truth Social, “For purposes of National Security and Freedom throughout the World, the United States of America feels that the ownership and control of Greenland is an absolute necessity.” A few weeks later, he posted:
These, as they say, are merely variations on a theme. The new Trumpian America, led by an authentic American “hero,” is determined to put others in their place. Here is Trump offering us a glimpse at who he imagines himself to be:
Here at home, he has told us he and his proxies are committed to vanquishing the Democrats, the liberals, the Republicans who betrayed him, the FBI who investigated him, the climate scientists, the Fauci-like health experts who mocked him when he suggested putting lights inside the body to dispense with COVID, the women who testified he sexually assaulted them, and those who believe in foreign aid and diversity. And there seems he needs to dispense with just as many living elsewhere: the Europeans who know he knows nothing of their history or his own; the smaller countries led by men and women who imagine their countries count as much as his; and those with the gall to stand up to him.
Remember when so many were concerned by Joe Biden’s obvious decline? Well, let’s be absolutely clear, there is really no method to Donald Trump’s madness. His tariffs are in no way reasonable business decisions. His is not a sensible strategy. And while it is likely the American people will fall for his hyped-up specter of a national security emergency, what those in power in Mexico and Canada know—and what we need to know—is that our neighbors are not responsible for Americans’ seemingly inexhaustible desire to drug ourselves. Our neighbors to the north and south know that they have increased their efforts to interdict the drug trade.
As for illegal immigration, President Donald Trump has convinced too many that he has a simple solution to an overwhelmingly complex problem. The reality is that this a worldwide problem.
The poor and oppressed, the victims of drought and flood and fire and one horrific war after another, will naturally leave their nations searching for more safety and security. But Trump has decided to blame our neighbors, Mexico and Canada.
Donald Trump has been lying about illegal immigration for years. He has cast almost all of those seeking entry to the United States—mothers, families, even children—as diabolic escapees from prisons and mental asylums, rapists and murderers. He has transformed the sufferers and the innocent into executioners. Almost nobody in America believes those who have committed violent crimes should be offered sanctuary. Meanwhile, as Trump pardons the criminals who savagely brutalized our Capitol police, he continues to pretend liberals and Democrats and humanitarians just want to harbor violent offenders from elsewhere. In reality, most of us believe in comprehensive immigration reform, increased opportunities to make a case for asylum, and sensible, efficient border enforcement.
Since President Trump neglected to provide compelling evidence, how about we check what is actually happening with fentanyl and the role Mexico and Canada are playing. In a January 23, 2025, Washington Post story titled “Trump falsely triples number of reported overdose deaths as he targets cartels,” Glenn Kessler reports:
The president claims that overdose deaths are really 300,000, when the government reports 90,000.
‘They’re killing our people. They’re killing 250,000, 300,000 American people a year, not 100, like has been reported for 15 years. It’s probably 300,000.’
— President Donald Trump, while signing an executive order designating drug cartels as foreign terrorist organizations, Jan. 20
Trump often exaggerates statistics to hype the scale of a crisis. He did so again when he signed an executive order targeting drug cartels — and reiterated his plan to boost tariffs on Mexico and Canada to force a crackdown on drug organizations. He told reporters that although for ‘15 years’ the number of overdose deaths was estimated at 100,000, it’s really 250,000 to 300,000 — ‘probably 300,000.’
He repeated the claim a day later, with the caveat ‘I think.’ But, as on Monday, he made more definitive statements during a Turning Point political rally in December — ‘The United States has lost 300,000 people a year’ — and at a November campaign rally — ‘We lose 300,000 people a year to drugs entering from Mexico.’
But his claim of 300,000 deaths is false. Drug overdose deaths only began to exceed 100,000 four years ago, in part a legacy of the coronavirus pandemic, but they started to decline in 2023. As of the 12 months ending in August, the most recent data available, the number of deaths was about 90,000, the CDC says.
The CDC offers this look at drug overdose deaths involving several opioid varieties for the 20-year period from 2003 to 2023:
There is this CDC chart that reveals a significant decrease in overdose deaths between 2022 and 2023:
Here is yet another CDC graph that clearly shows the yearly number of American drug overdose deaths from 2015 to January 2024. The number of overdose deaths is nowhere near the 300,000 deaths President Trump has recently claimed. And you can see the clear decline in deaths over the last few years. If anything, what might previously have been termed “an unusual and extraordinary threat” is now lessening:
Regarding Mexico’s role in the fentanyl crisis, on December 19, 2024, the Congressional Research Service (CRS) offered an updated analysis on illicit fentanyl and Mexico’s role. CRS notes that in contrast with People’s Republic of China’s lack of cooperation on fentanyl:
U.S.-Mexican cooperation on fentanyl began in 2021 … After the dialogue, the governments announced a new Bicentennial Framework for Security, Public Health, and Safe Communities focused on protecting people, preventing transborder crime, and pursuing criminal networks … In March 2023, U.S. and Mexican officials announced ‘phase two’ of the framework, focused on combatting fentanyl production, TCOs, and arms trafficking. At the 2023 HLSD, U.S. and Mexican officials highlighted increased interdictions, arrests, and indictments for arms and fentanyl trafficking. Since 2023, Mexico has extradited alleged drug kingpin Ovidio Guzmán to the United States, launched a system to track diversion of dual-use chemicals, and enacted a constitutional reform banning the production, distribution, and consumption of fentanyl. The United States and Mexico also collaborate within the Trilateral Fentanyl Committee (with Canada) and the Global Coalition to Address Synthetic Drug Threats …
By 2024, more than 800 U.S.-donated canines had been involved in close to 330 fentanyl seizure events. The State Department has donated specialized equipment to Mexico’s Prosecutor General’s Office to analyze the composition of seized drugs and has provided U.S. training for forensics personnel to detect fentanyl overdoses …
This first U.S. Customs and Border Protection chart shows the fentanyl seizures in pounds at the southern border with Mexico:
The second chart shows the great disparity between the amount of fentanyl coming in at the southern and northern borders:
Now, significantly, according to FactCheck, U.S. Customs and Border Protection acknowledges:
[I]n FY 2024 there were 21,148 pounds of fentanyl seized by officials at the southwest border – the vast majority of which was intercepted from people, largely American citizens, coming through legal ports of entry. That figure was down from the 26,718 pounds seized in FY 2023. The figures for both years are higher than the 14,104 pounds seized in FY 2022.
[Emphasis added.]
So the real problem is Americans bringing fentanyl to America. Donald Trump has taken our—let me re-emphasize this—our problem with synthetic drugs like fentanyl and put much of the blame for addiction and subsequent deaths from fentanyl on Canada and Mexico. He is punishing them with tariffs when, in reality, our problem was exacerbated by the greed of pharmaceutical companies like Purdue Pharma and the doctors they bribed to overprescribe OxyContin and oxycodone, in the process addicting millions of Americans trying to cope with their physical pain. Donald Trump has involved us in a trade war with our neighbors and with China rather than diligently work to provide treatment for our own fentanyl addicts.
Even Rupert Murdoch’s Wall Street Journal, most usually a fan, calls President Trump’s planned tariffs “The Dumbest Trade War in History.” They write:
President Trump will fire his first tariff salvo on Saturday against those notorious American adversaries . . . Mexico and Canada. They’ll get hit with a 25% border tax, while China, a real adversary, will endure 10%. This reminds us of the old Bernard Lewis joke that it’s risky to be America’s enemy but it can be fatal to be its friend.
Leaving China aside, Mr. Trump’s justification for this economic assault on the neighbors makes no sense. White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt says they’ve ‘enabled illegal drugs to pour into America.’ But drugs have flowed into the U.S. for decades, and will continue to do so as long as Americans keep using them. Neither country can stop it. Drugs may be an excuse since Mr. Trump has made clear he likes tariffs for their own sake. ‘We don’t need the products that they have,’ Mr. Trump said on Thursday. ‘We have all the oil you need. We have all the trees you need, meaning the lumber.’
Meanwhile, Canadians from every corner of the country and of every political persuasion have united, ready and willing and able to proclaim and defend their sovereignty. In an article titled “Make them pay: Canada puts Trump’s ‘first friend’ Elon Musk’s Tesla in the crosshairs of tariff war,” Business Today reports:
The tariff standoff between the US and Canada is heating up, and Tesla finds itself squarely in the crosshairs. Chrystia Freeland, Canada’s former finance minister and current Liberal Party leadership contender, has proposed a bold countermeasure: slapping 100% tariffs on select American goods, including Teslas, in direct response to President Trump’s threatened tariffs on Canadian and Mexican imports.
In an interview with The Canadian Press, Freeland made her intentions clear. ‘We need to be very targeted, very surgical, very precise,’ she said. The strategy isn’t just about economic retaliation — it’s personal. Tesla’s inclusion stems from CEO Elon Musk’s financial and operational backing of Trump, which Freeland didn’t shy away from addressing. ‘We need to look through and say who is supporting Trump and how can we make them pay a price for a tariff attack on Canada.’
Meanwhile, Canadians are joining together, building a united front:
Previous generations have fought to protect our democracy and made sacrifices to build the Canada we inherited. This is now our time. We will meet the challenge as previous generations have done, not by bending to threats but by joining together in common purpose, across partisan, regional, and cultural differences, to look out for one another, to protect our shared interests and assets, and to safeguard our democracy.
Canadians will decide Canada’s future and place in the world. What is required in this moment is solidarity among Canadians and among our political leaders – federal, provincial, territorial, Indigenous, and municipal. We call on our leaders to work together across partisan divides to forcefully affirm and defend, in word and deed, Canada’s sovereignty, to put in place measures that mitigate the consequences of any unilateral actions on workers, families, and businesses, and to increase Canada’s resiliency in an increasingly turbulent and unpredictable world.
Down south in Mexico, President Claudia Sheinbaum issued the following statement:
We categorically reject the White House’s slander against the Mexican government of having alliances with criminal organizations, as well as any intention of intervention in our territory. If such an alliance exists anywhere, it is in the United States armories that sell high-powered weapons to these criminal groups, as demonstrated by the United States Department of Justice itself in January of this year. In four months, our government has seized more than 40 tons of drugs, including 20 million doses of fentanyl. It has also arrested more than ten thousand people linked to these groups.
If the United States government and its agencies wanted to address the serious consumption of fentanyl in their country, they could, for example, combat the sale of narcotics on the streets of their main cities, which they do not do, and the money laundering generated by this illegal activity that has done so much harm to their population. They could also start a massive campaign to prevent the consumption of these drugs and take care of their young people, as we have done in Mexico. Drug consumption and distribution is in their country and that is a public health problem that they have not addressed. In addition, the synthetic opioid epidemic in the United States has its origin in the indiscriminate prescription of drugs of this type, authorized by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), as demonstrated by the lawsuit against a pharmaceutical company. Mexico does not want confrontation. We start from collaboration between neighboring countries. Mexico not only does not want fentanyl to reach the United States, but anywhere. Therefore, if the United States wants to combat criminal groups that traffic drugs and generate violence, we must work together in an integrated manner, but always under the principles of shared responsibility, mutual trust, collaboration and, above all, respect for sovereignty, which is not negotiable … I instruct the Secretary of Economy to implement Plan B that we have been working on, which includes tariff and non-tariff measures in defense of Mexico’s interests. Nothing by force; everything by reason and right.
And as Reuters reports, Mexico is fully prepared to retaliate and respond in kind if necessary:
The United States is by far Mexico’s most important foreign market, and Mexico in 2023 overtook China as top destination for U.S. exports.
Mexico has been preparing possible retaliatory tariffs on imports from the U.S., ranging from 5% to 20%, on pork, cheese, fresh produce, manufactured steel and aluminum, according to sources familiar with the matter … Economy Minister Marcelo Ebrard said on X that Trump’s tariffs were a ‘flagrant violation’ of the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement. ‘Plan B is underway,’ Ebrard said. ‘We will win!’
Finally, many of the world’s leaders immediately reacted to President Trump’s threat to take over Gaza. This New York Times headline reveals what the woke world is thinking:
And as the UK Guardian reports:
A proposal by Donald Trump that the US could ‘take over’ the Gaza Strip and that the Palestinians could live in ‘peace and harmony’ elsewhere has sparked widespread international condemnation. Trump insisted on Wednesday that ‘everybody loves’ his proposal …
Here are some global reactions to Trump’s announcement as rounded up by Reuters.
Saudi Arabian foreign ministry:
Saudi Arabia rejects any attempts to displace the Palestinians from their land. Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman has affirmed the kingdom’s position in ‘a clear and explicit manner’ that does not allow for any interpretation under any circumstances.
UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer:
They [Palestinians] must be allowed home, they must be allowed to rebuild, and we should be with them in that rebuild on the way to a two-state solution.
German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock:
Baerbock said the Gaza Strip belongs to Palestinians and their expulsion would be unacceptable and contrary to international law. ‘It would also lead to new suffering and new hatred … There must be no solution over the heads of the Palestinians.’
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and the Palestinian leadership:
Abbas said the Palestinians will not relinquish their land, rights and sacred sites, and that the Gaza Strip is an integral part of the land of the State of Palestine, along with the West Bank and East Jerusalem.
Such a response has caused the Trump administration to backtrack. In a recent post on Truth Social, Donald Trump has reversed his threat of a military presence, substituting Israeli soldiers for us and suggesting that we won’t have to seize any territory because Israel will hand over Gaza:
I am pretty sure this won’t work for the Palestinians or the rest of the world. We may be Donald Trump’s willing and unwilling accomplices, too many of us stunned, shocked, dumbfounded, and, yes, far too passive but thankfully others are active. Whether it is the Danes, the Panamanians, the Palestinians, the Mexicans, or the Canadians, they won’t be silent, and they will fight back. Donald Trump has woke the world.
