Trump Loves Tariffs. Fentanyl Is Just an Excuse.

If tariffs are a poor method of collecting revenue or strengthening trade, they're even less effective at stopping the flow of illegal drugs.

When President Donald Trump imposed his long-threatened 25 percent tariffs on most goods from Canada and Mexico last night, the White House declared the trade barriers are necessary "to combat the extraordinary threat to U.S. national security, including our public health," caused by "the flow of contraband drugs like fentanyl into the United States."

The stock market promptly plummeted. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced that Canada would respond with 25 percent tariffs of its own on $155 billion worth of goods from the U.S. (In a post on Truth Social, Trump fired back: "our Reciprocal Tariff will immediately increase by a like amount!") China declared that it would impose tariffs of up to 15 percent on U.S. agricultural imports, and President Claudia Sheinbaum of Mexico said her country would impose retaliatory tariffs as well.

Trump originally announced the new tariffs last month, but he agreed to pause their implementation when Canada and Mexico agreed to step up their border enforcement. (That order also imposed tariffs on China, which were not paused.) The White House noted in this week's announcement, "While President Trump gave both Canada and Mexico ample opportunity to curb the dangerous cartel activity and influx of lethal drugs flowing into our country, they have failed to adequately address the situation."

If tariffs are a poor method of collecting revenue or strengthening trade, they're even less effective at stopping the flow of illegal drugs across a border.

Indeed, if the tariffs are primarily intended to halt fentanyl, then it's strange to include Canada in the first place.

Of the 7,793 pounds of fentanyl seized in the U.S. since September, the BBC reports, citing U.S. Customs and Border Protection statistics, 98 percent "was intercepted at the southwest border with Mexico. Less than 1% was seized across the northern US border with Canada. The remainder was from sea routes or other US checkpoints."

"While less than 1 per cent of the fentanyl intercepted at the U.S. border comes from Canada," Trudeau commented in a statement, "we have worked relentlessly to address this scourge that affects Canadians and Americans alike." Just last week, his country's border-control agency announced Operation Blizzard, "a targeted, cross-country initiative aimed at intercepting illegal contraband arriving and leaving Canada, with a focus on fentanyl and other synthetic narcotics."

Meanwhile, expecting Mexico to make the fentanyl trade stop or else is a fool's errand.

The majority of the fentanyl that crosses either the northern or southern border is transported in small quantities concealed in passenger vehicles. As Reason's Jacob Sullum wrote last month, "Finding those small amounts among the hundreds of thousands of cars and trucks that cross into the United States from Mexico and Canada each day is a daunting task, and even attempting it in a serious way would impose intolerable burdens on international travel and trade."

There is no clear rationale for imposing tariffs on Canada in response to fentanyl coming across the northern border, and placing tariffs on Mexico will have little or no impact on its importation.

But that might not be the real point. Fentanyl might simply be Trump's excuse for doing what he wanted to do anyway: impose tariffs on friend and foe alike.

"To me, the most beautiful word in the dictionary is tariff," Trump said in October, "and it's my favorite word." In the Oval Office on January 31, he added, "We were at our richest from 1870–1913; that's when we were a tariff country." ("There were a lot of causes to America's rise. Tariffs were not the reason," the economist Chris Meissner told MarketWatch.)

Clearly, Trump is a fan of import duties. In 2018 and 2019, during his first term, Trump imposed tariffs on $380 billion worth of goods, largely from China. As the Tax Foundation economist Erica York noted on X this week, Trump has now put tariffs on "$1.4 trillion of imports, mainly from allies, over the course of a month."

On its face, Trump's new trade war directly violates the United States–Mexico–Canada Agreement (USMCA)—a deal Trump championed during his first term. But as Reason's Eric Boehm wrote in January, the USMCA "included a clause…guaranteeing each country the right to apply new tariffs for 'the protection of its own essential security interests.' If Trump sets up his tariffs as a national security issue, the U.S. could claim the USMCA allows it."

This justification would require Trump to declare a national emergency—and indeed, his February announcement alleged that "the extraordinary threat posed by illegal aliens and drugs, including deadly fentanyl, constitutes a national emergency" under the requisite statute.

Trump loves tariffs. Fentanyl is just an excuse.