Canada is being accused of throwing Mexico under the bus amid a tariff threat ahead of President-elect Donald Trump’s second term in the White House.
Last week, Trump threatened he would impose a blanket 25% tariff on both countries when he takes office in January unless they secured their shared borders with the US.
Canadian officials were quick to distance their country’s border issues from those of Mexico, arguing that drug smuggling and unlawful crossings at the southern border were much higher, and that Mexico was serving as a “back door” in North America for Chinese investment.
Those remarks have not gone unnoticed in Mexico.
Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum told the Associated Press this week that “Mexico must be respected, especially by its trading partners”.
She added that Canada had its own social problems with fentanyl use.
Sheinbaum’s remarks came after Canada’s US ambassador, Kirsten Hillman, told the news agency that during a recent dinner at Mar-a-Lago, Trump’s Florida residence, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau told the president-elect that the northern border was “vastly different than the Mexican border”.
