The Mechanics of Win-Win in the Americas First Post-Global--Mr. Trump Imposes Tariffs on China, Mexico and Canada: Executive Order, Fact Sheet, and Presidential Action texts

 

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A Nation without borders is not a nation at all. I will not stand by and allow our sovereignty to be eroded, our laws to be trampled, our citizens to be endangered, or our borders to be disrespected anymore. (Executive Order: Imposing Duties to Address the Flow of Illicit Drugs Across Our National Border (February 1, 2025), §1(a))

As Mr. Rubio traveled to Central America to introduce U.S. neighbors to the new realities of American foreign policy, Mr. Trump announced that the U.S. would be imposing substantial sanctions on Mexico, Canada, and China (Twitter announcement HERE). That was followed by the release of the text of  Executive Orders: (1) Imposing Duties to Address the Flow of Illicit Drugs Across Our National Border (February 1, 2025) (Canada), the text of which follows below.

 The tariffs are connected to negotiations on issues of migration and flows of proscribed narcotics into the U.S. For those who failed to take seriously the full measure of what Mr. Rubio suggested was the new Americas First win-win policy, it might be useful now to reconsider that rhetoric in light of the action that transposes Mr. Rubio's textual tropes into specific forms of action (see HERE). Mr. Trump's discussion of the America First Policy (in a Memorandum issued on 20 January, the first day of the 2nd Administration of Mr. Trump) follows below.

The situation in China and Canada will have their own dynamic. The situation in Mexico might require substantially more attention as an emerging template of the basis of the relationship between the US and its first order intertwined neighbors. The analysis by the New York Times suggest some contours.

Carlos Pérez Ricart, a political scientist at the Center for Research and Teaching in Economics in Mexico City, called the tariffs the equivalent of a “bomb” in a social media post. “Many production chains will simply cease to exist,” Dr. Pérez Ricart said, arguing that Mexican authorities need to reformulate the country’s industrial policy. “The suffering will be enormous. Recession is inevitable.”

Mexico had tried unsuccessfully to persuade the Trump administration that it was taking action to diminish China’s sway in Mexico’s economy, and that it was intensifying efforts to reduce the migration of people and the smuggling of illicit drugs into the United States. Now, in addition to the tariff-induced economic turbulence, the country faces pressure from the Trump administration’s aggressive immigration agenda. Mexico may be forced to absorb greater numbers of its own deported citizens and deportees from other countries. And the Trump administration has threatened to carry out U.S. military attacks on drug cartels operating in Mexico. Mr. Trump already designated cartels as terrorist organizations in an executive order, which could open the way for military intervention. (Simon Romero, "Mexico faces a devastating economic blow from the tariffs.")

More likely the effects of the tariffs are meant to bring the Mexican political apparatus to the bargaining table with a clearer understanding of the differences they now face in dealing with their Northern neighbor. It is clear the rule shave changed; the question remains whether or how the Mexican apparatus can salvage something of value in this new relationship.  As the  Fact Sheet: President Donald J. Trump Imposes Tariffs on Imports from Canada, Mexico and China, leverage is an essential element of the new reality--for which all objects may have multiple uses, including tariffs. But  leverage also suggests layering-- tariffs serve as an expression of countermeasures that respond to earlier declarations of national emergencies, the protection of sovereignty, and the determination that an invasion has occurred--involving both people (migration as the instrument) and stability threatening objects (narcotics and criminal activities). This is underscored in the text of the Executive Order (Canada Tariffs):

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.

This challenge threatens the fabric of our society. Gang members, smugglers, human traffickers, and illicit drugs of all kinds have poured across our borders and into our communities. Canada has played a central role in these challenges, including by failing to devote sufficient attention and resources or meaningfully coordinate with United States law enforcement partners to effectively stem the tide of illicit drugs.

Drug trafficking organizations (DTOs) are the world’s leading producers of fentanyl, methamphetamine, cocaine, and other illicit drugs, and they cultivate, process, and distribute massive quantities of narcotics that fuel addiction and violence in communities across the United States. These DTOs often collaborate with transnational cartels to smuggle illicit drugs into the United States, utilizing clandestine airstrips, maritime routes, and overland corridors.

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 * * *  has created a public health crisis in the United States, as outlined in the Presidential Memorandum of January 20, 2025 (America First Trade Policy) and Executive Order 14157 of January 20, 2025 (Designating Cartels and Other Organizations as Foreign Terrorist Organizations and Specially Designated Global Terrorists). * * * Immediate action is required to finally end this public health crisis and national emergency, which will not happen unless the compliance and cooperation of Canada is assured.

The strategy has application well beyond the first three objects of its approach:

The orders also include retaliation clauses that would ramp up tariffs if the countries respond in kind. Trump cut the levy on imports of Canadian energy to 10%, the official said. Trump officially announced plans to impose new tariffs on imports including computer chips, pharmaceuticals (without specifying which, at what level or when it would take effect), steel, aluminum, copper, oil, and gas by mid-February, expanding his administration’s trade war strategy. He said he would put new taxes on imported oil and gas on Feb. 18 and aimed to do the same for steel and aluminum this month or next month. This move is separate from scheduled tariffs — 25% on Canadian and Mexican goods and 10% on Chinese products set for Saturday, Feb. 1 — and aims to pressure Mexico, Canada, and China to address issues such as border security, drug trafficking, and migration. (Trump Officially Signs Three Executive Orders Imposing 25% Tariffs on Canada and Mexico, 10% Tariffs on China)

At the same time, the forms of 

A video recording from the White House of Mr. Trump speaking to tariffs as part of the emerging foreign policy of the United States may be accessed HERE. Now might a a useful time to review Mr. Trump's 20 January 2025 Memorandum to a number of Senior officials, and especially Section 2 (Addressing Unfair and Unbalanced Trade) and Section 3 (Economic and Trade Relations with the People’s Republic of China (PRC)). Its text follows below. The Fact Sheet: President Donald J. Trump Imposes Tariffs on Imports from Canada, Mexico and China and the Executive Order Imposing Duties to Address the Flow of Illicit Drugs Across Our National Border (February 1, 2025) also follow below.

The 2025 Telos-Paul Piccone Institute Annual Conference: China Keywords/ 中国关键词

  For those interested, a quite interesting series. This from the organizers:

Conference Description

The Telos circle falls outside many conventional intellectual categories. During the Cold War, this quality enabled us to form a bridge between the Anglosphere and eastern and central Europe. We fostered work by Soviet-bloc intellectuals, helping Western readers understand the ideological dynamics at play behind the Iron Curtain; we supported a wide variety of dissidents in their opposition to bureaucratic centralization, as we have likewise for opponents of bureaucratic governance in the West; and we brokered an encounter between Marxism and phenomenology that was vital for critical thinkers in the Soviet and the liberal democratic worlds.

We believe that the future of the TPPI now lies in a parallel reciprocal engagement with China, to which we have given steadily increasing focus for the past ten years in our annual conferences. These meetings have laid the basis for seven special issues of the journal Telos. With the Telos China Initiative, we seek to become a key bridge for a mutually regarding, critical discussion of social and political theory between China and the West, well beyond the circles of East Asia specialists.

In that spirit, the “China Keywords” conference explores key terms in contemporary Chinese political thought and tests their resources for the theorization of Chinese and Western politics and society. What critical potential do concepts like tianxia, wangdao, daobi, nei-wai, and tianren heyi carry—in both China and the West? What are their implicit assumptions? Where do they challenge ideological dogmas? Where do they ground them? How do they challenge or disrupt bureaucratized power? Likewise, how do Chinese and Western political traditions speak to each other? How do Chinese thinkers interpret both Western liberalism and thinkers critical of liberalism such as Leo Strauss and Carl Schmitt? How can an intellectual encounter between Chinese and Western thought help advance democratic political development?

Our twenty-five speakers include Huimin Jin of Sichuan University, who will be delivering a keynote address about the concepts of “cultural subjectivity” and the “cultural subject” in contemporary China. Other speakers include Stephen Angle of Wesleyan University; Joseph Bendersky of Virginia Commonwealth University; David Ownby of the University of Montreal; Adrian Pabst of the University of Kent; Zhao Sikong of the Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences; Kiron Skinner, former Director of Policy Planning at the U.S. State Department; and Zheng Qi of East China University of Political Science and Law.

In the West, China figures significantly as an object and a projection screen, its interpretive subjectivity structurally obscured. From a strategic standpoint, as well as for the development of critically engaged theory in the service of democratic development, it is essential to examine China’s perspectives, stories, ideals, and intellectual traditions. 

Keyword list and conference registration information follows below.