President Donald Trump repeated his suggestion that Canada become the 51st on Sunday, noting that it would not be subjected to his incoming tariffs should the country join the U.S.
"We pay hundreds of Billions of Dollars to SUBSIDIZE Canada. Why? There is no reason," Trump wrote on TRUTH Social. "We don’t need anything they have. We have unlimited Energy, should make our own Cars, and have more Lumber than we can ever use. Without this massive subsidy, Canada ceases to exist as a viable Country. Harsh but true!"
"Therefore, Canada should become our Cherished 51st State," Trump added. "Much lower taxes, and far better military protection for the people of Canada – AND NO TARIFFS!"
Trump has for weeks suggested the United States should take control of Canada through economic pressure.
TRUMP IMPOSES TARIFFS ON IMPORTS FROM CANADA, MEXICO AND CHINA: 'NATIONAL EMERGENCY'
Citing the flow of illicit drugs across the northern border, Trump signed an order Saturday to implement a 25% tariff on goods entering the United States from Canada. The order, which takes effect Tuesday, also puts a 10% duty on energy or energy resources from Canada. The order states, "gang members, smugglers, human traffickers, and illicit drugs of all kinds have poured across our borders and into our communities," adding that "Canada has played a central role in these challenges, including by failing to devote sufficient attention and resources or meaningfully coordinate with United States law enforcement partners to effectively stem the tide of illicit drugs."
Trump also said he would implement tariffs of 25% on goods from Mexico, as well as 10% on imports from China due to the flow of drugs across U.S. borders.
AMERICAN GAS ASSOCIATION REACTS TO TRUMP ANNOUNCEMENT OF ENERGY TARIFFS ON CANADA, MEXICO
Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum both vowed retaliation on Saturday.
"We categorically reject the White House's slander of the Government of Mexico for having alliances with criminal organizations, as well as any intention to interfere in our territory," Sheinbaum said, adding that she instructed her administration officials to implement "tariff and non-tariff measures in defense of Mexico's interests."
Trudeau said Canada would impose 25% tariffs on $155 billion of U.S. goods, including "immediate tariffs on $30 billion worth of goods effective Tuesday, followed by further tariffs on $125 billion worth of American products in 21 days."
"I don't think we're not at all interested in escalating, but I think that there will be a very strong demand on our government to make sure that we stand up for the deal that we have struck with the United States," Canadian Ambassador to the U.S. Kirsten Hillman told ABC News' "This Week" on Sunday.
As the United States beefs up security at its southern border as part of the Trump administration's illegal immigration crackdown, the State Department has issued the highest-level travel advisory for a specific region of northeastern Mexico near McAllen and Brownsville, Texas.
Amid gun battles, kidnappings and other crime, the State Department is also warning of IEDs on dirt roads in the Mexican state of Tamaulipas.
"[T]he state of Tamaulipas has issued a warning to avoid moving or touching improvised explosive devices (IEDs), which have been found in and around the area of Reynosa, Rio Bravo, Valle Hermoso, and San Fernando along dirt and secondary roads," a State Department travel advisory for Tamaulipas reads. "IEDs are being increasingly manufactured and used by criminal organizations in this region."
The U.S. Consulate in Mexico notes in the advisory that an IED destroyed an official Mexican government vehicle in Rio Bravo on Jan. 23, injuring its occupant.
A Spanish flier published by the Tamaulipas government on Facebook urges the public not to touch or move suspicious-looking devices along the roadside.
U.S. government employees are prohibited from traveling "in and around Reynosa and Rio Bravo outside of daylight hours and to avoid dirt roads throughout Tamaulipas," the advisory states.
Government employees also cannot travel between cities in Tamaulipas using interior Mexican highways.
"Travel advisory Level 4 is the highest level there is," said former DEA Senior Special Agent Michael Brown, currently the global director of counter-narcotics technology at Rigaku Analytical Devices. "That's a warning: Do not go there. I have experienced that, but it was in countries like Pakistan, Afghanistan, Iran, Somalia. … The area we're talking about is the state of Tamaulipas, within which you have Reynosa and Matamoros, which have a history of extreme violence in Mexico."
Brown said that what he suspects is happening is "with the sudden end of the Biden-Harris open-border policies, the cartels are no longer making billions of dollars in human trafficking."
"Now that area has been reduced significantly, meaning cartels, which may have been working together up to a week ago, are now competing for access to Reynosa and Matamoros because human smuggling is not going to stop, it's just going to be more expensive, more dangerous, and they're going to have to use traffickers, are going to have to use more selective routes in order to get around Border Patrol and … perhaps U.S. military."
The 32-year former DEA agent added that cartels using IEDs "are simply mimicking what they've seen other hostile elements do across the world … to counter other cartel movements, truck convoys, human traffickers that may be trying to sneak on to their territory."
"[U]nder the last four years of the Biden-Harris administration, nothing was done. The cartels were given carte blanche access to the United States through the open-border system. Now that's been cut off, and they've been designated as terrorist organizations," Brown said.
‘NATIONAL EMERGENCY’: TRUMP DECLARES AMBITIOUS ILLEGAL IMMIGRATION CRACKDOWN IN INAUGURAL ADDRESS
The State Department has issued a Level 4 advisory for the area due to crime and kidnapping threats. Travelers are encouraged to avoid dirt roads, unknown objects near roads and travel after dark.
"Common" organized criminal activity in the area includes gun battles, murder, armed robbery, carjacking, kidnapping, forced disappearances, extortion and sexual assault.
The recent immigration policy changes affecting cartel networks' financial success also pose a significant threat to Americans, U.S. law enforcement and military members living or stationed near the border, Brown said.
"As cartel members … come across the border with narcotics for human trafficking. Now they're armed and they're ready for conflict. They run into Border Patrol, they run into the Texas Rangers or DEA. There could be a gunfight," Brown said. "So if you're a citizen living on that border, you know that that Level 4 just doesn't stop [the violence], and we know it's going to cross the border with those trafficking individuals."
Of the millions of illegal immigrants who crossed into the United States over the last four years, "[E]ach one of those migrants had to pay a toll to a cartel or to smaller groups," Brown said. "So we're talking about billions of dollars for the last four years with absolutely no effort whatsoever on the part of the cartels."
The State Department noted in its advisory that heavily armed criminal groups often target certain areas and target "public and private passenger buses, as well as private automobiles traveling through Tamaulipas, often taking passengers and demanding ransom payments."
The Level 4 warning comes as the Trump administration begins its crackdown on illegal immigration and crime at the U.S.-Mexico border.
Brown compared the level of violence in Tamaulipas to the Middle East.
"[It] wasn't that long ago before [the] Sinaloa Cartel was executing police officers and hanging them from bridges," Brown said. "Now, we didn't even see that level of violence in Afghanistan when I was there. So, the cartels have taken violence to a whole other level. They are acting just like any terrorist organization. The only difference is their end goal is to make money. That's their ideology."
Officials deported around 2,000 illegal immigrants to Mexico last Thursday, both on the ground and in the air. Mexican officials detained roughly 5,000 migrants within its borders, Fox News reported.
Trump also ordered 1,500 active-duty troops to the southern border to boost the military presence there.
Fox News' Micharl Dorgan and Louis Casiano contributed to this report.
A member of the Sinaloa cartel was arrested in Texas by U.S. Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE) over the weekend and was found to be carrying three rifles, two pistols and more than 3,000 rounds of ammunition, sources tell Fox News.
The individual — who is from Mexico — was taken into custody in El Paso, the sources added. Across the U.S., ICE operations this past weekend resulted in more than 1,000 arrests.
The head of the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) said last year that the U.S. is facing the "most dangerous and deadly drug crisis" in its history with fentanyl and methamphetamine flowing across the border — and that the "Sinaloa and Jalisco Cartels are at the heart of this crisis."
"They operate clandestine labs in Mexico where they manufacture these drugs and then utilize their vast distribution networks to transport the drugs into the United States," DEA Administrator Anne Milgram wrote in her agency’s annual National Drug Threat Assessment.
CONSERVATIVE GROUP’S ROADMAP SHOWS HOW TRUMP CAN USE MILITARY TO THWART CARTELS
"The Sinaloa Cartel also uses border tunnels to cross drugs into the United States undetected," she added. "Most of the tunnels are not built by the cartel but are part of the border cities’ sewage and water systems."
DR. PHIL JOINS ICE TEAM AND BORDER CZAR TOM HOMAN FOR CHICAGO DEPORTATION OPERATIONS
Last week, alleged Sinaloa cartel cell leader Octavio Leal-Hernandez, who "is believed responsible for trafficking large amounts of methamphetamine, cocaine, heroin and marijuana into the United States from Mexico," entered a not guilty plea during a federal court appearance following his extradition from Mexico, the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Southern District of California said.
The alleged Sinaloa member’s arrest in El Paso comes as reports are also emerging that the Trump administration is pushing ICE to increase the number of arrests per day from a few hundred to between at least 1,200 to 1,500 people.
Citing four sources who spoke on condition of anonymity about a purported internal call with ICE officials on Saturday, The Washington Post first reported about the new objective, categorizing the 1,200 to 1,500 daily targets as "quotas," although a spokesperson for the Department of Homeland Security told Fox News, "Goals is the correct phrasing."
Fox News’ Danielle Wallace contributed to this report.
Miscommunication and confusion about a Defense Department manifest resulted in Mexico rejecting a U.S. deportation flight transporting illegal immigrants to that country this week.
Mexico was ready to accept the deportees and would have if not for the paperwork, a senior State Department official told Fox News.
Citing two U.S. defense officials and a third person familiar with the situation, NBC News reported that two Air Force C-17s bound for Guatemala carrying about 80 people each flew deportees Thursday night out of the U.S.
A third flight bound for Mexico never took off after Mexico declined to consent to the landing, the report said. Fox News Digital has reached out to the White House and the Mexican Embassy in Washington, D.C.
‘NATIONAL EMERGENCY’: TRUMP DECLARES AMBITIOUS ILLEGAL IMMIGRATION CRACKDOWN IN INAUGURAL ADDRESS
Flying deportees into a foreign country requires the cooperation of that nation's government. Cooperation was not an issue, Fox News was told.
Around 2,000 illegal immigrants were deported to Mexico on Thursday, both on the ground and in the air. In addition Mexico detained roughly 5,000 migrants within its borders.
The incident occurred as tensions over the Trump administration's tough illegal immigration policies have strained relations between the countries.
Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum has said she opposes Trump's executive orders to combat illegal immigration, including reinstating the "Remain in Mexico" policy, which requires migrants to wait in Mexico while their asylum claims play out in the U.S.
Before taking office this week, Trump promised mass deportations, initially targeting criminal illegal immigrants and tougher immigration standards and vetting procedures.
The State Department official told Fox News that Mexican cooperation has been successful all week, and that Mexico has agreed to re-implement the "Remain in Mexico" policy.
Trump also ordered 1,500 active duty troops to the southern border to boost the military presence there.
In recent days, federal immigration authorities have made hundreds of arrests, including gang members and others with criminal histories, as part of Trump's mass deportation efforts.
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