Conrad Black: Canada and Mexico Shouldn’t Be Tarred With the Same Brush Regarding Illegal Immigration, Trade Infractions

Raising tariffs is a nonsensical response to complaints about border control with a neighbouring country. In the case of the United States, the recent announcement by President-elect Donald Trump that he will raise tariffs 25 percent on Mexico and Canada unreasonably equates the conduct of both those countries towards the United States.
On the border control question, it hardly needs to be belaboured here that what has occurred on the U.S.–Mexican border is an outrage and an invasion. In general, it is the responsibility of the country whose borders are being violated to reinforce those borders and prevent their violation. Totalitarian dictatorships have been known to build border walls and impenetrable fences to keep their populations enclosed under their jurisdiction, but Canada is a thoroughly democratic state and does not prevent any law-abiding person from leaving the country.
Mexico is primarily serving as a conduit through which people from all over the world make their way to the United States. The fact that the outgoing Biden–Harris administration facilitated this is not something that should affect Canadian–American relations. Sovereign states protect their own borders, and the President-elect has already declared his intention to extend the wall that he previously started to the extent that he had planned, increase the strength of forces protecting the southern border, and ensure the necessary court facilities to deal with the volume of people claiming asylum.
Presumably, Trump is trying to encourage Canada to do a better job of keeping terrorists out of North America and specifically out of the United States, and of course we must do that. If, which seems to me unlikely, Trump clings to this blunt-force method of registering his complaint about unrelated conduct by Canada, we should prepare to impose even higher tariffs on American goods entering this country, as well as to moderate the comparative value of our currency to cushion the blow of the U.S. tariffs and undertake a number of other reprisal measures.
The first would be to impose a cost of at least $100 per head on anyone departing Canada for the United States for nonessential purposes, i.e., vacation or leisure. At the same time, we could make arrangements with a number of Caribbean countries to buy resort facilities there and offer incentivized packages of low travel costs and low accommodation costs to Canadians visiting there. This would be a severe blow to Florida and other southern states. It would then also be time to contemplate joint-venturing the development of strategic minerals and other resources in Canada with countries other than the United States.
If these responses are aired and bring no flexibility from the incoming U.S. administration—and this would be completely astonishing—it would be time to remind the world that if this is how the United States treats its closest and least offensive neighbour, the implications for the U.S. alliance system are quite profound.
If these or similar methods did not produce a sharp de-escalation of the stated American position, it would be an incredible and sinister turn of events. However, it is so improbable it doesn’t deserve further consideration.