In a characteristically bombastic threat to slap hefty tariffs on Canadian and Mexican imports to the U.S. once he takes office next year, president-elect Donald Trump said he was motivated by border issues between those countries and his own.

“As everyone is aware, thousands of people are pouring through Mexico and Canada, bringing Crime and Drugs at levels never seen before,” Trump wrote Monday night on Truth Social, his social media platform.

“This Tariff will remain in effect until such time as Drugs, in particular Fentanyl, and all Illegal Aliens stop this Invasion of our Country!” effective.

“We, the United States, do have a significant challenge on our southern border. To equate the two borders is to, frankly, miss the point,” said Gordon Giffin, former U.S. ambassador to Canada.

“The dimension of it is not comparable at all and nor should the response to it be comparable.”

Illegal migration from Canada to U.S.

Illegal migration through Canada into the U.S. has grown in recent years. 

U.S. Customs and Border Protection officers recorded nearly 200,000 encounters at the northern border between October 2023 and September 2024, according to department data. That is nearly double the number recorded during the same period in 2022, and six times the number seen in 2020.

The term “encounters” includes apprehensions, people who are deemed inadmissible and those who are expelled from the U.S.

That said, the number of incidents on the Canadian border last year amounted to barely one per cent of the total number of people stopped by the U.S. Border Patrol from trying to enter the U.S. in between checkpoints.

A federal source said Trudeau raised that fact with Trump during their call Monday night. Canada has also taken steps in recent months to address U.S. concerns, including bringing back visa requirements on travellers from Mexico, and announcing new immigration measures. 

Numbers far greater on southern border

The numbers are significantly higher along the Mexican boundary.U.S. officials recorded more than two million encounters along the Mexico border between October 2023 and September 2024 — 10 times the number at the Canadian border during the same period. Each of the two previous years also saw more than two million encounters along the southern border.

Immigration Minister Marc Miller said Tuesday that, in terms of numbers, there is no comparison between the flow of migrants entering the U.S. from Canada and those entering from Mexico. 

“It’s the equivalent on a yearly basis with a significant weekend at the Mexico border.”

Miller added that it’s still a concern, regardless of the numbers.

“At the same time, it’s not something I want to not take seriously, because it is serious,” Miller said.

“We have a job to not make our problems the Americans’ problems and they have a job not to make their problems ours.”

Nations lumped together as political move, experts say

Tyler Meredith, a former fiscal policy adviser to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, said Trump might have put the two nations in the same boat to increase his negotiating power over North America as a trade region.

“Although he’s punching it in the context of a border issue — and it a border issue for Mexico, much less so for Canada — what he’s really trying to do is open the door for a renegotiation of the [Canada-United States-Mexico Agreement|,” Meredith said.

Giffin said Trump might have done so to “appear to be balanced.”

“Many in Congress, for example, on the southern border argue that the northern border should be treated just the same — not because there’s any underlying facts to support it but just for symmetry as a political matter,” Giffin told CBC News Network on Tuesday.

“We totally understand the American concern around the security and integrity of the border. It’s a concern that obviously Canadians share. The Government of Canada has exactly those same concerns,” he told reporters in Ottawa.