Trump Adviser Insists ‘Canada Has Been Taken Over by Mexican Cartels’

White House trade adviser Peter Navarro claimed on Wednesday that Canada had “been taken over by Mexican cartels” during an appearance on Fox News’s Special Report.

During a discussion about President Donald Trump’s new tariffs on Canada, and the justification that they were imposed due to Canada not doing enough to stop the importation of deadly fentanyl, Navarro said:

What I wanna say to every world leader who gets up in arms when all we’re asking for is fairness and to have them stop killing our people is please, listen to us. Canada could do a lot more. Canada has been taken over, Bret, by Mexican cartels. They bring up these pill presses and printers, and the medicines that they fake, you can’t tell the difference.

Host Bret Baier then questioned, “Do you have metrics that you are going to set that they have to meet this and then the tariffs go away? I mean, do we publicly know what that threshold is?”

Navarro laughed before responding, “Well, there’s 70,000 Americans dying every year, and that’s the low estimate because you don’t pick up all the deaths from the fake Xanax.”

“True, but you’re putting them all in Canada’s pocket?” Baier asked.

“No, of course not. Of course not, Bret,” replied Navarro. “But what we want to see is Canada and Mexico crack down on China. China, for whatever reason, and there is a lot of speculation as to whether they mean to do us harm with this, they don’t seem to care, okay? So, it’s up to Mexico and Canada help us do this.”

He continued, “And look, here’s the other thing. The fentanyl crisis is so toxic to our economy, Bret, because most of the people that are dying are prime-age working people.”

“I think everybody’s on board on the fentanyl threat and the fentanyl deaths,” concluded Baier. “I think there are questions about tariff policy that we’re going to dig into as it keeps on going on.”

Watch above via Fox News.