DALLAS — House Republican Conference Chairwoman Lisa McClain defended President Trump’s strong-arm tactics against Canada on trade, arguing that America’s northern neighbor has been ripping off the US.
The No. 4 House Republican, who comes from a state that borders Canada, accused Ottawa of helping other countries skirt US tariffs and of hurting American farmers.
“Canada is our neighbor. We don’t want to be in a trade war with Canada, but what we want is fair trade,” McClain (R-Mich.) told The Post when asked about the tariff battle.
“We’re at a $60 billion trade deficit,” she explained. “Since the 1990s, Canada has been putting a 250% tariff on our farmers in terms of dairy and cream. Come on. What President Trump’s trying to do is level the playing field.”
On Tuesday, Canada imposed sweeping retaliatory tariffs on some $20 billion worth of imports from the US after the Trump administration slapped duties on them two weeks ago, after negotiations between the two sides broke down.
McClain shrugged off concerns about the brewing trade war impacting critical elections in Michigan, contending that when the dust settles there will be a “fair deal.”
She also expressed confidence that Republican Mike Rogers will take down Dr. Abdul El-Sayed in her home state’s critical Senate race.
“I am optimistic, and I say that because I know Michiganders,” she explained. “What Michiganders want is they don’t want a crazy man or woman like El-Sayed. They don’t want someone who believes Temple Israel deserves the attack.”
That was a reference to El-Sayed’s response to the March attack on Temple Israel, a Michigan synagogue, earlier this year, in which a madman rammed a vehicle into it, injuring dozens. Only the perpetrator, Ayman Mohamed Ghazali, died in the terror attack.
But while El-Sayed lamented and denounced the attack, he also drew attention to the fact that Ghazali’s family was killed in Israeli strikes in Lebanon days earlier, concluding “hurt people, hurt people.” El-Sayed apologized for those remarks last month.
“Michiganders aren’t filled with hate. We actually like the Constitution. Michiganders like safe communities. They like closed borders, and they like limited government,” McClain contended.
“What El Sayed wants to give you [is he] wants to defund the police, defund ICE,” she added. “He loves transgender surgeries. He wants men to play in women’s sports. I mean, he has absolutely lost his way.”
“He’s not in touch with Michiganders.”
Back in 2020, El-Sayed told Detroit Public Radio during an interview that “I believe we need to defund the police insofar as defunding the police is disinvesting in the means of incarcerating someone or killing them on the streets.”
El-Sayed also scrubbed past tweets backing the idea. But he told The Detroit News nonetheless that he “never called for defunding.”
During his campaign, he has pushed to abolish Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).
The former public health official currently has a 1.9 percentage-point edge over Rogers in the latest RealClearPolitics aggregate of polling.
