President Donald Trump’s tariffs are far from popular both abroad (which is good) and at home (which is not good at all). The American people are already suffering under the effects of Bidenflation and are not keen on adding to the financial burden that tariffs impose.

The president asserts that imposing a 25% tariff on Mexico and Canada is a bargaining tool to coerce those governments into cracking down on the border, though putting Canada in the crosshairs is a bit strange. While the number of encounters at the northern border over the past three years was relatively high — there were 109,535 in 2022, 189,402 in 2023, and 198,929 in 2024, according to Customs and Border Patrol — it was nowhere near the millions who poured over the southern border. Indeed, those were monthly numbers at the Mexican border.

Widespread American deaths caused by imported fentanyl-tainted drugs or overdosing is itself an epidemic, and Trump ultimately sees cracking down on fentanyl as a crackdown on China. As our Nate Jackson noted earlier this week, “We’re either going to pay the price of fentanyl or endure the burden of tariffs as a negotiating move. There’s no cost-free option here, and Trump knows that all too well.”

“After speaking with President Claudia Sheinbaum of Mexico,” Trump posted on Truth Social last night, “I have agreed that Mexico will not be required to pay Tariffs on anything that falls under the USMCA Agreement. This Agreement is until April 2nd.” Evidently, he thinks progress has been made on “stopping Fentanyl.”

But just how much fentanyl comes over the border from Canada? Honestly, it wasn’t much until recently — though it was enough of a shift that papers like The Wall Street Journal reported on it a few months ago. According to the Journal, “A growing body of evidence from Canadian law-enforcement investigations shows that transnational organized-crime groups, including ones linked to Mexican cartels, are increasingly using Canada as a base from which to make drugs and export them to the U.S., Europe and Australia.”

It’s enough of an issue to President Trump that he reportedly had a heated phone call with Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau on Wednesday in which he accused the PM of not doing enough to address the fentanyl issue. Trump also asserted that the Canadian socialist was using the tariffs to help keep him in power. (The unpopular Trudeau is slated to resign as prime minister soon.)

However, in addressing the border and fentanyl crisis, Trump is perhaps throwing other priorities out — and creating messaging flip-flops while doing so. As the anti-tariff Wall Street Journal editorial board points out, “Mr. Trump originally justified the tariffs under an emergency law to combat the alleged threat of fentanyl. But he claimed Tuesday the tariffs are needed because ‘we pay subsidies to Canada and to Mexico of hundreds of billions of dollars’ and have ‘very large deficits with both of them.’”

Should these tariffs also be a method for balancing the trade deficit, then they’re actually stifling the American economy. This was perfectly exemplified by the bump in the stock market when Trump announced a pause on the tariffs for automakers.

Put simply, a trade deficit occurs when a country’s imports exceed the value of its exports. A large percentage of U.S. imports include gas and oil, electronics, machinery, etc. A trade deficit isn’t necessarily a bad thing, especially when the U.S. has the economic strength to support it.

Tariffs are a blunt instrument to accomplish a trade balance and, in a roundabout way, bolster the economy. As we have seen over the past few months, tariffs are an effective tool to get desired U.S. foreign policy outcomes. (See Colombia repatriation and the 10,000 Mexican and Canadian troops on the borders.) But in the modern marketplace, tariffs for the sake of tariffs will probably do more economic harm than good.

The American people gave President Trump and the Republican Congress a mandate, and part of that mandate was addressing the border. Another major part was fixing the inflated economy. The long-term utilization of Trump’s tariff strategy remains to be seen.