Trump Gives Us All Whiplash With More Tariffs on Canada

Donald Trump announced Tuesday that he would double his disastrous tariffs on Canada, dragging the United States further into a trade war as its stock market continues to fall.

In a lengthy post on Truth Social, the president wrote that his 25 percent tariffs on aluminum and steel coming into the U.S. would now be doubled to 50 percent, and go into effect as soon as Wednesday.

Trump’s newest round of tariffs came in response to Ontario—which is the main provider of electricity to Minnesota, New York, and Michigan—slapping a reciprocal 25 percent tariff on electricity imported to the U.S.

Those tariffs went into effect Monday, and Ontario Premier Doug Ford said he would “not hesitate to shut the electricity off completely.” Trump’s tariff war now threatens the livelihoods of the American citizens living in those states. But don’t worry, Trump wrote that he intends to announce a “National Emergency on Electricity within the threatened area.”

Trump also demanded that Canada remove its steep tariffs on U.S. dairy products—conveniently forgetting to mention that those tariffs only apply after the U.S. has made a Trump-negotiated quantity of tariff-free dairy sales to Canada.

If Canada failed to lower “other egregious, long time Tariffs,” Trump threatened to raise tariffs on imported cars from Canada into the U.S. on April 2, to “essentially, permanently shut down the automobile manufacturing business in Canada.”

“Those cars can easily be made in the USA!” Trump claimed.

Despite his specific demands, Trump revealed that in the end, the only thing that would satisfy his destructive tendencies would be total submission.

“The only thing that makes sense is for Canada to become our cherished Fifty First State,” Trump wrote. “This would make all Tariffs, and everything else, totally disappear.”

The president continued to wax poetic about the outlandish imperialist dream he intends to manifest through economic pressure.

“Canadians’ taxes will be very substantially reduced, they will be more secure, militarily and otherwise, than ever before, there would no longer be a Northern Border problem, and the greatest and most powerful nation in the World will be bigger, better and stronger than ever—And Canada will be a big part of that,” he said.

Trump claimed that getting rid of the “artificial line of separation” would create the “safest and most beautiful Nation anywhere in the World.”

Trump’s announcement comes as the U.S. stock market enters another rough week, after a major sell-off last week that caused Trump to roll back some of his tariffs and then immediately threaten more the next day. Trump’s tariff whiplash has resulted in a roiling stock market that even Fox News is having trouble defending. What’s more, it seems to have taken a sizeable bite out of Elon Musk’s net worth, and sent Tesla stock tumbling.

President Trump’s spite for our neighbors is driving the economy to the edge of recession.

The stock market plummeted after Trump announced Tuesday the doubling of tariffs on steel and aluminum imports from Canada, from 25 percent to 50 percent, with more on the way very soon.

“Based on Ontario, Canada, placing a 25% Tariff on ‘Electricity’ coming into the United States, I have instructed my Secretary of Commerce to add an ADDITIONAL 25% Tariff, to 50%, on all STEEL and ALUMINUM COMING INTO THE UNITED STATES FROM CANADA, ONE OF THE HIGHEST TARIFFING NATIONS ANYWHERE IN THE WORLD. This will go into effect TOMORROW MORNING, March 12th,” Trump wrote on Truth Social.”

These actions have led to intense uncertainty. Monday was the worst day for Nasdaq in over two years, and on Tuesday, the Dow Jones Industrial Average fell by nearly 1 percent.

Trump has tried to get out in front of this by using language intended to ease people into the fact that the stock market (and the economy) is going to look absolutely horrendous for a very long time.

“I hate to predict things like that. There is a period of transition, because what we’re doing is very big. We’re bringing wealth back to America, that’s a big thing. And there are always periods of.… It takes a little time, it takes a little time. But I think it should be great for us,” he said on Sunday when asked if he was expecting a recession this year. “Look, what I have to do is build a strong country. You can’t really watch the stock market.”

On Truth Social, Trump again stated that the only way for this tariff war to end would be for Canada to somehow become the fifty-first state.

“We are subsidizing Canada to the tune of more than 200 Billion Dollars a year. WHY??? This cannot continue. The only thing that makes sense is for Canada to become our cherished Fifty First State. This would make all Tariffs, and everything else, totally disappear.”

Trump has also placed 25 percent tariffs on goods from Mexico and 10 percent tariffs on goods from China.

Democrats are losing trust in battleground districts and struggling to connect with independent voters.

That is what new internal polling conducted by the Democratic group Navigator Research says about the party, which doesn’t bode well for next year’s midterm elections. In contested House districts, most voters believe that Democrats in Congress are “more focused on helping other people than people like me.”

Only 27 percent of independent voters in such districts believe that Democrats are focused on helping them, versus 55 percent who say they focus on others. The full findings of the poll, one of the first of battleground congressional districts since November, will be presented to House Democrats and their staff on Wednesday at their Issues Conference in Leesburg, Virginia.

The conference is supposed to help coordinate House Democrats’ messaging heading into the 2026 midterm elections, and if the results are any indication, the party needs to figure things out—and fast.

“The Democratic brand is still not where it needs to be in terms of core trust and understanding people’s challenges,” said Molly Murphy, one of the pollsters. “Even though voters are critical about Trump and some of the things he’s doing, that criticism of Trump doesn’t translate into trust in Democrats. The trust has to be earned.”

One major area that Democrats lack trust is regarding jobs and work. Only 44 percent of polled voters think that Democrats respect work, while just 39 percent think that Democrats value work. A majority of voters, 56 percent to be exact, say that they don’t believe Democrats are looking out for working people, while just 42 percent think that Democrats share their values. And only 39 percent of voters think Democrats have the right priorities.

The party has an uphill battle over the next year, as 69 percent of voters said Democrats were “too focused on being politically correct” and 51 percent said “elitist” was a good descriptor for Democrats. The party has to put together a coherent message that can reach the working people necessary to regain control of Congress, all the more necessary with the damage Donald Trump is doing to the economy and the federal government.

The question is whether the party can come up with an effective strategy that fires up the base and brings in new voters instead of weak stunts and the out-of-touch strategies touted by centrist groups like Third Way. If they don’t, not only will they lose again, but Trump and the GOP will continue to run roughshod over the country.

Donald Trump’s 2025 inaugural entourage was noticeably flush, with several of the world’s richest people—including Elon Musk, Mark Zuckerberg, Sergey Brin, Bernard Arnault, and Jeff Bezos—standing behind the president as he was sworn in.

But seven weeks later, that cohort has lost a significant sum of cash, with the five billionaires’ collective net worths tanking by a staggering $209 billion, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.

Any momentary market gains boosted by Trump’s return to the Oval Office have since vanished. The S&P 500 has lost 6.4 percent since the inauguration, largely thanks to Trump’s whiplash tariff proposals and a mass layoff sweeping the federal government under Musk’s direction.

Musk’s losses stem from a downturn on Tesla, which historically attracted a more liberal consumer base with its electric vehicles. That same base has since soured on the tech billionaire and his products, especially in some of Europe’s stronger economies, such as Germany, which has seen sales in the country fall by more than 70 percent over the last two months, reported Bloomberg. Sales in China—where Tesla has two major factories—have similarly plummeted, falling by 49 percent in February.

Bezos’s financial woes follow his decisions to support Trump’s inauguration fund in December and his increasingly tight grip on The Washington Post, which he announced would now prioritize personal liberties and free markets in its Opinions section. Amazon shares have fallen 14 percent since January 17, according to Bloomberg, which noted that Bezos dined with the president as recently as last month.

On Monday, Trump floated that the “little disruption” caused by his aggressive trade policies could go on for quite a bit longer, urging Americans to come up with a totally new calendar to measure how long they’ll be affected.

“Look, what I have to do is build a strong country,” the president told Fox Business, responding to criticism about the recent stock market drop. “You can’t really watch the stock market. If you look at China, they have a 100-year perspective. We have a quarter. We go by quarters. And you can’t go by that.”

Trump is scheduled to address U.S. business leaders Tuesday at a Business Roundtable meeting at 5 p.m.

A Justice Department official says she was fired for not letting convicted domestic abuser Mel Gibson have a gun, according to The New York Times.

Pardon attorney Liz Oyer told the Times that two weeks ago she was placed on a team working to restore gun rights to individuals with criminal convictions, as many on the right argue that the ban is too restrictive and not specific enough toward each case. Oyer did the work, culling 95 eligible candidates down to nine, and turned her list in. Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche told her to add one more name to the list: Mel Gibson. 

“They sent it back to me saying, ‘We would like you to add Mel Gibson to this memo,’” she said. She also noted a letter from Gibson’s lawyer to acting Deputy Attorney General Emil Bove that noted Donald Trump’s recent appointment of Gibson as a “Hollywood ambassador,” as well as his general fame.  

Federal law prohibits people convicted of crimes like misdemeanor state domestic violence from buying or owning a handgun.

“Giving guns back to domestic abusers is a serious matter that, in my view, is not something that I could recommend lightly, because there are real consequences that flow from people who have a history of domestic violence being in possession of firearms,” Oyer said.

Oyer was also aware of the antisemitic outburst Gibson allegedly spewed toward a cop who pulled him over for a suspected DUI in 2006. Gibson denies he used any discriminatory language. 

Oyer refused to add Gibson to the list, and was then asked if her position was “flexible.” She said it was not. 

“He then essentially explained to me that Mel Gibson has a personal relationship with President Trump and that should be sufficient basis for me to make a recommendation and that I would be wise to make the recommendation,” she said. “I literally did not sleep a wink that night because I understood that the position I was in was one that was going to either require me to compromise my strongly held views and ethics or would likely result in me losing my ability to participate in these conversations going forward.”

The next morning, Oyer was called to her office and met with security guards instructing her to leave the premises. She was fired for upholding her principles instead of doing a skeevy favor for one of the president’s buddies. 

There has been no update from the Justice Department on the gun rights restoration list.