Offices of the Director of National Intelligence, Washington, DC. Photo courtesy DNI/Facebook.

The White House isn’t telling us what the intelligence community is telling them.

The Trump administration has threatened to use “economic force” on Canada through the implementation of massive tariffs. The United States and Canada have a free trade agreement. But the US can suspend that agreement if necessary for national security concerns. In order to impose tariffs on Canada, President Donald Trump has invoked the International Emergency Economic Powers Act. The justification is the purported flow of fentanyl into the US from Canada.

But the recently published 2025 Annual Threat Assessment does not support that justification. The Annual Threat Assessment is published by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence and “reflects the collective insights” of the Intelligence Community.” The section on Foreign Illicit Drug Actors begins with the statement that “Fentanyl and other synthetic opioids remain the most lethal drugs trafficked into the United States.” Though that may be a national security concern, the assessment notes that deaths from fentanyl are down 33 percent in the past year.

But that’s not all. The Threat Assessment says that Mexican transnational criminal organizations are “the dominant producers and suppliers of illicit drugs, including fentanyl… for the US........

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