June 2, 2018

Justin Trudeau Just Slammed “Insulting and Unacceptable” Trump Trade Behavior

The Canadian PM called Trump’s rationale factually inaccurate.

Matt Dunham/PA Wire via ZUMA Press

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Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau called President Trump’s trade tariffs on aluminium and steel “insulting and unacceptable” in a new video posted on Saturday by NBC’s Meet the Press on Twitter. Canada, Mexico and the European Union had previously been exempt from Trump’s 25 percent tariffs on steel imports and 10 percent tariffs on aluminum imports, but the US snapped them into effect at midnight Thursday. The US cast the decision to include the three trading giants and allies in the tariffs as an urgent matter of national security to defend local markets: “Without a strong economy, you can’t have a strong national security,” Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross said last week.

But Trudeau flatly refuted that premise in the video, which previews a longer interview set to air on Sunday, by recalling his country’s deep military relationship with the US. (NBC also made some of the details from the upcoming interview available Friday on its website.)

“The idea that, you know, our soldiers who had fought and died together on the beaches of World War II, and the mountains of Afghanistan and have stood shoulder-to-shoulder in some of the most difficult places in the world, that are always there for each other, somehow—this is insulting to them,” he told Meet the Press anchor Chuck Todd. “Next week we’re hosting the G7 summit of world leaders and the airfield, the military base, that Air Force One is going to land in was put there in World War II to protect an aluminium smelter that was providing to the military effort. The idea that we are somehow a national security threat to the United States is quite frankly insulting and unacceptable.”

“So, what do you feel as if the president wants from you in putting these tariffs up?” Todd asked.

“I don’t know,” Truedeau replied.

Calling the tariffs “illegal”, the European Commission quickly vowed to fight back with its own package, expected to hit about $7.5 billion worth of US exports, according to CNN, and will lodge a complaint with the World Trade Organization.

On Saturday afternoon, Trump tweeted an apparent response to the increasing conflict:

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WHO DOESN’T LOVE A POSITIVE STORY—OR TWO?

“Great journalism really does make a difference in this world: it can even save kids.”

That’s what a civil rights lawyer wrote to Julia Lurie, the day after her major investigation into a psychiatric hospital chain that uses foster children as “cash cows” published, letting her know he was using her findings that same day in a hearing to keep a child out of one of the facilities we investigated.

That’s awesome. As is the fact that Julia, who spent a full year reporting this challenging story, promptly heard from a Senate committee that will use her work in their own investigation of Universal Health Services. There’s no doubt her revelations will continue to have a big impact in the months and years to come.

Like another story about Mother Jones’ real-world impact.

This one, a multiyear investigation, published in 2021, exposed conditions in sugar work camps in the Dominican Republic owned by Central Romana—the conglomerate behind brands like C&H and Domino, whose product ends up in our Hershey bars and other sweets. A year ago, the Biden administration banned sugar imports from Central Romana. And just recently, we learned of a previously undisclosed investigation from the Department of Homeland Security, looking into working conditions at Central Romana. How big of a deal is this?

“This could be the first time a corporation would be held criminally liable for forced labor in their own supply chains,” according to a retired special agent we talked to.

Wow.

And it is only because Mother Jones is funded primarily by donations from readers that we can mount ambitious, yearlong—or more—investigations like these two stories that are making waves.

About that: It’s unfathomably hard in the news business right now, and we came up about $28,000 short during our recent fall fundraising campaign. We simply have to make that up soon to avoid falling further behind than can be made up for, or needing to somehow trim $1 million from our budget, like happened last year.

If you can, please support the reporting you get from Mother Jones—that exists to make a difference, not a profit—with a donation of any amount today. We need more donations than normal to come in from this specific blurb to help close our funding gap before it gets any bigger.

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