Howard Lutnick: 75% USMCA Canada, 25% is not open to us; Gabbard on Russia hoax Obama yrs-long coup

Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick broke down the USMCA/tariff regime in plain language — 75% of Mexican and Canadian goods enter tariff-free under the existing agreement, and the tariffs Trump is imposing apply to the remaining 25% as leverage on fentanyl and border enforcement. “Canada is not open to us. They need to open their market. Unless they’re willing to open their market, they’re going to pay a tariff.” Lutnick forecast $300-$400 billion in economic opportunity for Americans and 1.5% GDP growth from the broader market-opening campaign. Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard then dropped a bombshell — over 100 documents released Friday detailing what she called a “treasonous conspiracy … directed by President Obama just weeks before he was due to leave office,” framing it as “a years-long coup against President Trump.” And LA Mayor Karen Bass claimed the National Guard — deployed to restore order after her failure to do so — was “never needed in the first place."

"75% Already Comes in Tariff Free”

Lutnick opened with the operational framing most media coverage has missed. “We have a plan called USMCA, US, Mexico, Canada Agreement. Virtually 75% of all goods coming from Mexico and Canada already come in tariff free.”

That is the baseline. The USMCA — the agreement that replaced NAFTA, negotiated during Trump’s first term — already provides tariff-free treatment for the vast majority of trade between the three countries. The framing of Trump tariffs as a wholesale trade disruption misses that 75% of the flow is unaffected.

“The president said, look, unless you stop this fentanyl and close the border, we’re just going to keep tariffs on the other 25%. And that’s what he has on.”

The 25% is the piece Trump has used as leverage. And the leverage demand is specific — fentanyl enforcement and border cooperation. The tariffs are not economic end-in-themselves for Mexico and Canada. They are an enforcement mechanism tied to transnational policy objectives.

“So don’t be confused about it.”

That is Lutnick’s direct pushback against coverage that has treated the tariffs as general protectionism. The tariffs are targeted. The 75%/25% split makes the economic disruption far smaller than the headline framing suggests.

”Canada Is Not Open to Us”

“Canada is not open to us. They need to open their market. Unless they’re willing to open their market, they’re going to pay a tariff. That’s a simple message the president has.”

Canada’s regulatory and trade barriers against U.S. goods are not theoretical. Canadian dairy tariffs have been a long-running irritant. Canadian procurement policies favor domestic suppliers in ways U.S. firms consistently find restrictive. The “open to us” framing is the reciprocity demand — American markets are substantially open to Canadian goods, and Canadian markets should be equally open to American goods.

“It’s fair trade. It’s reciprocal trade. Why should we have our country be wide open while theirs is closed?”

That is the question that has animated the Trump trade posture across both terms. It is not free trade. It is not protectionism. It is reciprocity — match what your counterparty offers. That posture is consistent and, under the current administration, being pursued via tariffs as the enforcement mechanism.

”An 80-Year Wrong”

“This is an 80 year wrong that President Trump is trying to fix.”

80 years back — to 1945, the post-WWII Bretton Woods consensus and the GATT era. Lutnick is characterizing the entire post-war international trade architecture as systematically biased against American interests. The United States, as the post-war economic hegemon, absorbed unequal market access arrangements on the theory that it could afford to subsidize allies’ reconstruction. Those arrangements persisted long after the conditions that justified them.

“Our businesses are going to really, really enjoy it. I think the president’s going to open between $300 and $400 billion of opportunity for Americans. That’s up to 1.5% GDP growth because the president’s going to open all these markets up.”

$300-$400 billion in new export opportunity. 1.5% GDP growth from market-opening activity. Those are large numbers — but they are the administration’s projections, not independent analysis. Whether the full amount materializes depends on whether trading partners open their markets in response to tariff pressure, or whether the tariffs simply raise revenue without the reciprocal market-opening.

”You Saw It With Vietnam … Indonesia”

“You saw it with Vietnam. You saw it with Indonesia. You’re going to watch all these other countries decide if they want to do business with America. Let’s just open our market up to America. That’s opportunity that President Trump is bringing.”

Vietnam and Indonesia have been the most visible recent cases of bilateral trade deals negotiated under Trump-era tariff pressure. Both countries, facing substantial U.S. tariffs, agreed to deals that opened their markets to additional U.S. exports in exchange for tariff relief. The outcome — both sides making concessions, both getting something — is the proof-of-concept for the broader tariff-as-leverage theory.

If Vietnam and Indonesia can be replicated across additional countries, the aggregate economic opportunity builds. If those cases were unique to specific circumstances, the replication may prove harder.

Bass: “Never Needed”

LA Mayor Karen Bass’s statement on the National Guard departure. “The president ordered the early release of nearly half of the National Guard from LA. Have they departed yet? What are the remaining ones doing?”

“Well, I believe they’ve departed, but they were never needed in the first place.”

“Never needed in the first place” is the framing Bass has consistently deployed. Her claim: the National Guard deployment was an unnecessary escalation by the federal government, not a response to municipal failure.

The counter-framing, consistent with the earlier videos, is that Bass’s LAPD and state police resources were insufficient to maintain order during anti-ICE riots, and the federal presence — National Guard and related federal law enforcement — was required because the sub-federal apparatus could not restore stability.

That Bass has now retroactively framed the deployment as unnecessary — the troops are leaving, therefore they were never needed — inverts the causal relationship. The troops are leaving because stability has been restored. Stability was restored because the troops were there. Bass’s framing requires skipping that middle step.

Gabbard: The Russia Collusion Bombshell

Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard then laid out what may be the most consequential intelligence-community revelation of the second term. “The implications of this are, frankly, nothing short of historic. Over 100 documents that we released on Friday really detail and provide evidence of how this treasonous conspiracy was directed by President Obama just weeks before he was due to leave office after President Trump had already gotten elected.”

“Treasonous conspiracy … directed by President Obama” is extraordinary language from a sitting DNI about a former president. It is not careful. It is not hedged. It is a direct accusation that the former president directed a specific conspiracy that meets the legal definition of treason.

Whether the underlying documents support that characterization is a separate question from whether Gabbard believes it. Her confidence, on camera, is total.

”Quite Frankly, Were Not Happy”

“What we saw occur here is as the documents we released detailed was that we had a sitting president of the United States and his cabinet and leadership team, quite frankly, who were not happy with the fact that President Trump had won the election.”

“Not happy with the fact that President Trump had won the election” — that is the motivation Gabbard is assigning. The Obama-Clinton team did not expect Trump to win in 2016. When he did, they organized a response calibrated to undermine his ability to govern.

“And so they decided that they would do everything possible to try to undermine his ability to do what voters tasked President Trump to do.”

The Manufactured Intelligence

“So creating this piece of manufactured intelligence that claims that Russia had helped Donald Trump get elected contradicted every other assessment that had been made previously in the months leading up to the election that said exactly the opposite, that Russia neither the intent nor the capability to try to quote unquote hack the United States election for the presidency of the United States.”

“Manufactured intelligence” is the specific accusation. Gabbard is claiming the Russia-helped-Trump narrative was not a good-faith intelligence assessment that changed over time. It was manufactured — intentionally created to serve a political purpose — and contradicted the pre-election assessments that Russia lacked both intent and capability to hack the U.S. election for the presidency.

That is the foundation of the broader Russiagate reassessment the administration has been pursuing. If the intelligence that animated the multi-year Russia investigation was manufactured rather than organic, the investigation itself was corrupt in its origin, and every subsequent action — the Mueller investigation, the first impeachment, the Steele dossier controversies — needs to be reassessed.

”A Years-Long Coup”

“So the effect of what President Obama and his senior national security team did was subvert the will of the American people undermining our democratic republic and enacting what would be essentially a years long coup against President Trump, who was duly elected by the American people.”

“Essentially a years long coup.” That is the claim. Not a partisan disagreement. Not an intelligence miscalculation. A coup.

The legal and political consequences of that characterization, if pursued to its implications, are enormous. Obama administration senior officials — including the former president — would face investigative scrutiny that sitting and former presidents rarely face. Gabbard’s framing establishes the predicate for that scrutiny.

Whether the administration’s follow-through matches the rhetoric is the question. Gabbard has released the documents. The DOJ and, if any predicate develops, grand juries, would be the next steps. Trump’s earlier comments about using his attorney general to prosecute retaliation do not make that follow-through illegitimate — past presidents have been accused of similar abuses from equally aggressive political opponents — but they do establish the terms under which any eventual prosecution would be received.

Three Threads, One Week

Lutnick’s trade framework explanation. Bass’s revisionist framing of the National Guard deployment. Gabbard’s Russia-collusion bombshell. Three items that compress a wide range of policy and political pressure into a single news cycle.

The administration is operating on multiple fronts simultaneously — trade policy, domestic enforcement politics, intelligence-community accountability. Each front produces its own constituency of defenders and critics. The cumulative effect is an administration that is visibly active in pursuing the agenda voters elected it to pursue.

Key Takeaways

• Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick: “Virtually 75% of all goods coming from Mexico and Canada already come in tariff free” under USMCA — tariffs apply to the remaining 25% as leverage on fentanyl and border enforcement.
• Lutnick on Canada: “Canada is not open to us … Unless they’re willing to open their market, they’re going to pay a tariff” — forecasting $300-$400 billion in new American opportunity and 1.5% GDP growth from global market-opening.
• LA Mayor Karen Bass on the National Guard: “they were never needed in the first place” — despite the troops having been deployed to stabilize anti-ICE riots she failed to contain.
• DNI Tulsi Gabbard: over 100 documents show “treasonous conspiracy was directed by President Obama just weeks before he was due to leave office” — framing it as “a years-long coup against President Trump.”
• The Russia-helped-Trump narrative was, per Gabbard, “manufactured intelligence” that “contradicted every other assessment that had been made previously … that said … Russia neither the intent nor the capability to … hack the United States election for the presidency.”