Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick said Tuesday night that President Donald Trump might be willing to meet Canada and Mexico “in the middle” regarding the stand-off on tariffs, illegal immigration, and drugs pouring across the American border. Lutnick also said the Trump administration would make an announcement on Wednesday.
Trump has imposed tariffs on the two countries, which have retaliated with tariffs of their own.
Speaking on Fox Business with Larry Kudlow, Lutnick began, “We talked to Canada and Mexico and said, ‘Look, you gotta close the border and you gotta end this illegal immigration. Enough is enough. If you respect us as your best trading partner, end it. And you’ve gotta end fentanyl.’”
“And the way we’re gonna describe fentanyl is very simple: autopsies to American deaths,” he declared. “They gotta end. They just gotta end. I don’t want to hear you talk about it; I want Americans to stop being murdered by opioids and fentanyl. And so they did a nice job on the border start, but the fentanyl deaths are just not declining in the way we expected.”
“So what do you think the president’s going to do?” Lutnick asked rhetorically. “He’s gonna come out today angry that Americans are still being killed. Now, both the Mexicans and the Canadians were on the phone with me all day today trying to show that they’ll do better, and the president’s listening because you know he’s very, very fair, and very reasonable, so I think he’s going to work something out with them. It’s not gonna be a ‘pause,’ none of that ‘pause’ stuff, but I think he’s gonna figure out, you do more and I’ll meet you in the middle some way.’ And we’re probably going to be announcing that tomorrow. So somewhere in the middle will likely be the outcome, the president moving with the Canadians and the Mexicans, but not all the way.”
“I think he’s gonna think about USMCA (United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement); he’s got people in USMCA; people in who are backing the way he set trade up in his first term and those people outside of it,” he explained. “You can’t just say, ‘It’s okay; people can die,” he concluded.
