NAVIGATING THE TRUTH BEHIND THE U.S. TARIFFS

KHTY TV and News - The trade war between the United States and Canada has been muddied with misinformation about Canada's deceit towards the United States. Despite a new trade de minimis agreement between the United States, Canada, and Mexico, Canada has not been playing fair. President Trump is righting the wrongs done to the United States and Americans. Canada's Premier Ford has proven how deceitful and spiteful Canada is when caught red-handed in acts of deceit. Most Canadians and Americans don't know how serious this has become, especially for Canada.

The United States' tariff regulations on international goods have long been a subject of concerned interest and heated debates. At the heart of these regulations lies the 'de minimis' exemption, a policy that allows goods valued below a certain threshold to enter the country without incurring duties. As of today, this threshold stands at $800 USD. However, the intricacies of the de minimis exemption, its implications for trade with Canada and other countries, and the broader economic impacts, are not all that they seem. Canada is crying wolf and not telling Canadians or Americans the truth. President Trump has become a scapegoat for both sides.
Daily rants vilify President Trump’s tariffs against Canada and other nations. Canadian authorities have misled Canadians into a false sense of equality in trade with the US. The reality is that after the US, Canada, and Mexico ended NAFTA, replacing it with the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA), the balance of fairness has been greatly against the US. As President Trump rightly pointed out, Canada has been “… ripping off…” the United States for many decades. But how?

Canada has a long history of fudging the truth. It’s lied about the Indigenous peoples, genocide, crimes against humanity, its own history, world history, and anything that shows that it has cheated or abused others. In fact, Canada has gotten away with so many crimes, and it blames the victims.
The recent attack on Ben Thomas in Edmonton, Alberta, is a prime example. Even the Canadian police are allowed to lie in the course of duty. As Premier Doug Ford of Ontario is doing, threatening to cut off power to millions of people, simply out of spite. Ford was very clear about making Americans suffer pain. As a former immigrant I can testify to the countless sufferings that my family has been subjected to when complaining about discrimination, cheating, lying, and thefts. President Trump didn’t just pull this out of his hat.

When NAFTA was ended in 2020, the de minimis exemptions were deliberately imbalanced by Canada, for the Canadian governments on all levels, to get an extra cut. Canadians are already being taxed into homelessness and poverty. Many children go to schools hungry. Local churches and other organizations are donating breakfasts because parents are so poor, something that has been going on for decades. After food, fuel, and other costs quadrupled, even middle-class levels are struggling. The gap between poverty and wealth has never been so wide.
Compared to the US de minimis exemptions, Canadian ones, on incoming US and international products, are abominable. Canada’s monetary value rules for courier shipments that can enter Canada duty-free are the key to the Trump complaints. A courier is any means by which a product is legally shipped.

Starting July 1, 2020, the new thresholds were clarified:

For goods from the U.S. or Mexico by courier:

• Values over $150: Duties, GST, HST, and/or PST apply for consumers.
• Values between $40 and $150: No duties, but GST, HST, and/or PST apply.
• Values $40 or less: No duties or taxes.
For goods from other countries by courier:
• Values over $20: Duties, GST, HST, and/or PST apply for consumers and businesses.
• Values $20 or less: No duties or taxes.

Exceptions include alcohol, tobacco, and cannabis. Additionally, goods ordered from a Canadian retailer but shipped from abroad or goods purchased through a Canadian address do not qualify for the de minimis exemption. Anti-avoidance rules prevent splitting shipments to stay under the threshold.
What no one counted on was that Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and his father, the late Prime Minister Pierre Elliott Trudeau, built a dynasty of disaster for Canada. Canadians and especially immigrants, have been hoodwinked into a false sense of security and supply. Most Canadians are woefully unaware that the majority of what they eat during the autumn, winter, and spring, come mainly from the United States. Most forget that before modern conventions, the United States, a much older and more established country, already provided for its people by itself. Canada is still in its infancy, with most people living in a handful of real cities, with minor cities labelled to make Canada look more established than it really is.

During the late 80s, Canada had a huge trade with other countries. It had allowed many countries to put businesses in Canada; such as Boots the Chemist, a drug store from the UK. However, spitefulness and jealousy pervaded even then when Canadians felt hard done by with so many foreign businesses instead of Canadian ones. However, what most Canadians failed to understand is that without those businesses, Canada would eventually fail. This attitude issue scared away many foreign businesses, though over 53% of businesses in Canada are currently foreign owned, providing most of Canada’s jobs. Of the remaining businesses, most are ‘mom and pop’ small businesses, and only a small number are bigger. Overall, most Canadian-owned businesses do most of their business outside of the country. What people see in places like Vancouver is just a shiny surface. From at least the 1970s, people living on Canada’s West Coast were mainly living off credit, not physical or financial assets, and they continue to do so.

The Canadian federal government has always had terrible restrictions that make starting and/or running businesses very difficult. This is why the once lucrative film and TV industry moved back to the US and abroad because the tariffs and other taxes imposed on businesses were too high. Fact – Canadians pay the highest taxes in the West for a self-acclaimed first world country. These are not just imposed at tax time, but every time a consumer buys something. Canadians pay taxes locally, provincially, and federally.

The United States supplemented Canadian goods by increasing their exemptions from $200 to $800 in 2016. This allowed the US and Canada to spend less time facilitating small-scale trade, reducing administrative burdens, and streamlining custom processes. This was implemented in the US under the Trade Facilitation and Trade Enforcement Act by the US Congress. The Congress recognized the need to update trade practices as e-commerce trade was growing.

Canada has been by far one of, not the only, biggest trading partners of the United States. However, Canada has benefited more because the US provided a higher threshold, whereas Canada did not.

Americans got access to a greater range of affordable Canadian products. These are mostly artisanal, specialty foods, or unique crafts. This benefited small to medium Canadian enterprises (SMEs), that found the US exemptions advantageous. It helped Canadian businesses gain a competitive edge in the US market. If Canadian products are kept under the US $800 threshold, they can offer more attractive prices to American buyers, fostering cross-border commerce.

While Canada is a close country, other countries also enjoyed these trade benefits. This helped international sellers engage with the American market, promoting healthy global commerce. In fact, the rise of e-commerce has amplified the relevance of the de minimis exemption. Online platforms like Amazon, eBay, and Etsy facilitate millions of transactions daily, many of which involve low-value goods. The $800 threshold helps maintain the fluidity of these transactions, contributing to the growth of the digital economy.
Despite its benefits, the de minimis exemption is not without its challenges and criticisms. Some argue that it creates an uneven playing field for domestic producers, who must compete with duty-free imports. Others raise concerns about potential revenue loss for the federal government due to the forgone duties.

Critics also point to regulatory gaps that may be exploited under the de minimis policy. For instance, there have been instances where importers split shipments to keep the value below the threshold, thereby avoiding tariffs. This practice, known as 'de minimis abuse,' undermines the integrity of the customs system.
The future of the de minimis exemption remains a topic of ongoing discussion. Policymakers must balance the need to facilitate trade with the necessity of protecting domestic industries and ensuring fair revenue collection. Potential adjustments to the threshold or stricter enforcement measures may be considered to address the current policy's shortcomings.

The de minimis exemption plays a crucial role in shaping U.S. trade dynamics, particularly with Canada and other international partners. By allowing goods valued below $800 to enter duty-free, the policy supports consumer choice, business growth, and the flourishing of e-commerce. However, addressing the challenges and criticisms associated with the exemption is essential to ensure its continued effectiveness and fairness.
As global trade evolves and digital commerce expands, the de minimis threshold will likely remain a focal point of tariff discussions, reflecting broader trends and priorities in international trade policy. Canadian businesses and sole proprietors shouldn’t be so quick to panic over the US-Canada Trade War. President Trump has plans to remove the de minimis once procedural application infrastructure has been created. However, in the meantime, both Canadians and Americans consumers should be alarmed, just yet. Canada has more complicated de minimis thresholds for importing American goods, but they are still in place, for now.

As consumers and businesses grapple with the frantic disaster that the Trudeau government has imposed on Canadians and Americans, the reality is that economically Canada’s endurance over time will falter against the US. The US economy is one of the biggest in the world. Americans will feel a pinch to begin with, but as President Trump’s ‘economic siege’ tactics are really not meant to attack Canadians, consumers and businesses will bounce back in the US. Unfortunately, Canadians will soon realize that the Canadian federal, provincial, and municipal governments have been quadruple taxing Canadians for years. Now with vegetables and fruits from the US to be extremely tariffed by the Canadian government, Canadians, who are already paying quadruple prices for food, will begin to starve as fruits and vegetables are not grown in Canada for about 8 months of the year in quantities enough to feed a nation.

Not since the 1970s have Canadian businesses seen such hard times. Unfortunately for Canada, many Canadians and immigrants are leaving because of Canada’s dishonesty. Eventually, as word spreads globally, Canada’s John A. Macdonald policy of conning immigrants to come to Canada to keep its population growing will end. The Canadian federal projections show that with a fertility rate well below sustainability, Canada could reach 0 population by as early as 2060.
The sad reality is that Canadians have been lied to for years by multiple Canadian governments. Premiers such as Premier Ford of Ontario are uttering threats against the US with little to no knowledge of the reality of what the federal Canadian government has been up to. Or is Premier Ford just doing a photo op? Regardless this just continues to show that when others point out wrongs, the Canadian governments don’t like it. Instead of being honorable, they prefer to create a fictional history to cover their deceitful tracks with lies.

Unfortunately, as is seen quite often in Canadian society, the same practices are used by other so-called professionals and even some members of the public. For immigrants and former immigrants, this practice is very familiar, something quite often used to punish them for speaking out against abuses, discrimination, and crimes against humanity.
President Trump didn’t create this mess, and he didn’t invent the idea of Canada being annexed by the United States. The plans were already in place in the 1930s. If it hadn’t been for World War II, Canada would already be part of the US. If recent information is correct, Canada may already be in the process of being given to the US by an international will that is said to be in the process of being fulfilled. Canadians may soon be begging the US to annex Canada or face mass starvation. After all President Trump is doing his job, protecting Americans and making the United States great again.