Managing Trump (Tariffs & Everything else): 1)Canadian furniture, cabinet industry still ‘reeling’ after Trump pauses tariff spike; 2) Trump was ‘most culpable’ for Jan 6 riot and would have been convicted in court, Jack Smith told Congress in newly released testimony; 3)Trump hints that the US ‘hit’ a facility in South America
1)Canadian furniture, cabinet industry still ‘reeling’ after Trump pauses tariff spike
Courtesy Barrie360.com and Canadian Press
By Kelly Geraldine Malone, Jan. 2, 2026.
The Canadian Kitchen Cabinet Association says while it welcomes U.S. President Donald Trump’s postponement of tariff increases on furniture, cabinets and vanities, the industry is still being devastated by the duties.
Trump hit the sector with 25 per cent tariffs in October but paused a promised increase to a total of 30 per cent for upholstered furniture and to 50 per cent for cabinets and vanities that was set to take effect Jan. 1.
“Yes, 50 per cent is a relief. But our industry is still reeling from the 25 per cent,” said Luke Elias, the association’s vice-president.
“You just can’t mitigate that in the manufacturing environment overnight.”
Kitchen cabinet manufacturing is a $4.7-billion industry in Canada and Elias said the sector exports about $600 million worth of product annually. Trump’s tariffs delivered another blow to an industry already dealing with a soft Canadian housing market, he added.
Manitoba-based Elias Woodwork employs more than 400 people and exports about 80 per cent of its product to the United States. Company president Ralph Fehr said the 25 per cent tariffs are damaging but a 50 per cent duty would have been catastrophic.
“Who in the U.S. would want to pay that much extra for Canadian content?” he said. “I just don’t think that would have worked out real well.”
Fehr said his company uses American materials — such as hardwood lumber from the Appalachians — and turns them into finished products it then sells to customers in the United States.
Fehr said Ottawa espoused the virtues of exporting to the United States for decades and he’s spent 45 years building a business based on that model. “We’re kind of hoping they go to bat for us and try to come to some agreement.”
Fehr said the tariffs have taken all of the profit out of his business. For now, his company is looking to reduce costs and streamline to weather the storm.
The industry has seen layoffs since Trump’s tariffs were implemented in October, said Elias (who, despite his surname, is not connected to Elias Woodwork). Industry meetings in December saw multiple companies warn that job losses were on the horizon, he added.
“It’s very critical,” he said. “We’re in dire straits.”
Elias said that while Ottawa’s Build Canada procurement policies have been helpful, he wants to see them extended to all taxpayer incentives for the building industry, including those at the provincial level.
Elias said the federal government must also address the effect of parts imports coming in at below market value — a major irritant for the American cabinet and furniture industry.
He said low-priced parts from Asia are being brought into Canada, assembled and sold in the United States under a “made-in-Canada” label. The Canadian industry also has said these parts imports are undermining the domestic industry.
In 2020, the U.S. Commerce Department imposed anti-dumping and countervailing duty orders on cabinets from China. The American Kitchen Cabinet Alliance has accused Canada and Mexico of acting as conduits to circumvent those measures.
“China didn’t leave the U.S. market. It just changed the return address,” Luke Meisner, counsel for the American Kitchen Cabinet Alliance, said in his written testimony during a hearing on the Canada-U.S.-Mexico Agreement on trade last year.
“We closed the front door for China. Canada and Mexico became the side doors.”
Trump has said the tariffs on furniture are needed to “bolster American industry and protect national security.”
The trilateral trade agreement, widely known as CUSMA, is up for review this year and the American Kitchen Cabinet Alliance is looking to strengthen rules-of-origin requirements. Elias said American manufacturers are looking to build a “Fortress North America” that would ensure cheap products aren’t dumped in Canada or Mexico.
CUSMA negotiations are likely to be tense and Trump already has claimed he’s willing to walk away from the trade pact.
Ottawa had been working to find an off-ramp to Trump’s sectoral duties but any hope of near-term relief for Canada was dashed when Trump — angered by an Ontario-sponsored ad criticizing tariffs — called off trade talks in October.
As the CUSMA review approaches, Elias said it’s critical that the cabinet and furniture industry is not ignored in favour of higher-profile tariff targets like steel and automotives.
He said there are 3,500 companies, employing more than 25,000 Canadians, being slammed by the duties.
“You never hear about kitchen cabinets and we’re in every home.”
2) Trump was ‘most culpable’ for Jan 6 riot and would have been convicted in court, Jack Smith told Congress in newly released testimony
Courtesy: The Independent
John Bowden, December 31, 2025
Trump was ‘most culpable’ for Jan 6 riot and would have been convicted in court, Jack Smith told Congress in newly released testimony
Donald Trump was “most culpable” for the January 6 riot and would have been convicted in court had the case gone to trial, according to explosive testimony from former special counsel Jack Smith, released Wednesday afternoon by the House Judiciary Committee.
Smith led both Justice Department prosecutions of Trump: the first over the January 6, 2021 attack on the U.S. Capitol by his supporters after he lost the 2020 election, and the second over his alleged concealment of classified materials at his Mar-a-Lago club in Florida. He testified before the Judiciary panel in a closed-door session earlier in December as the committee investigates whether Trump was politically targeted by the Justice Department under Attorney General Merrick Garland and President Joe Biden.
Trump’s 2024 election victory ended the DOJ effort to hold him criminally liable. Many experts and Democrats in Congress grew frustrated with the Biden administration as a result of the DOJ’s year of delays before it directly confirmed it was investigating Trump for the attack on the Capitol; he was not indicted until August of 2023 on the election charges.
The release of the testimony by House Republicans on the afternoon of New Year’s Eve, with Congress out of session and Washington still largely emptied out for the holidays, comes as they largely failed to prove any links between Smith’s prosecutions and the Biden White House. The president’s accusations of political weaponization have largely been overshadowed by his own very public efforts in that same vein against the likes of James Comey and Letitia James.
Among the revelations in the 225 pages of Smith’s testimony were:
Trump’s actions “without question” added to the danger faced by his Vice President Mike Pence, who was in the Capitol during the riot and was targeted by Trump’s supporters, some of them chanting “Hang Mike Pence”;
Jack Smith testified before the House Judiciary Committee about the two criminal investigations into Donald Trump led by the Justice Department (AP)
Jack Smith testified before the House Judiciary Committee about the two criminal investigations into Donald Trump led by the Justice Department (AP)
The Supreme Court’s ruling on executive immunity was not an affirmation in Smith’s opinion that the president’s conduct leading up to January 6 was legal;
Smith’s case relied heavily on the testimony of Republicans who “put their allegiance to the country before the party”;
The president’s demand that Georgia officials “find” more than 11,000 votes was seen by Smith as evidence of criminal intention;
Smith had “no doubt” that the president sought political retribution against him for filing the cases.
Throughout his 2024 campaign, Trump argued that he’d done nothing illegal and that the prosecutions were political efforts to punish him and prevent his return to the White House.
Smith told the committee that he believed he could have obtained a conviction in what was seen by many as the most serious of the charges: Conspiring to deny Americans a free and fair election by pushing to overturn the 2020 election.
“Our investigation developed proof beyond a reasonable doubt that President Trump engaged in a criminal scheme to overturn the results of the 2020 election and to prevent the lawful transfer of power,” said Smith.
The former special counsel said he relied heavily on the testimony of Republican state officials for his case, similar to the investigation headed up by the bipartisan House January 6 committee in 2021.
“President Trump was by a large measure the most culpable and most responsible person in this conspiracy. These crimes were committed for his benefit. The attack that happened at the Capitol, part of this case, does not happen without him,” Smith told the lawmakers.
Asked about the violence that day, Smith said: “Our view of the evidence was that he caused it and that he exploited it and that it was forseeable to him.”
Addressing the accusation that his investigations had been politically motivated, he said he would have prosecuted on the same facts whether the person responsible had been a Democrat or a Republican, and said he had had no contact with former President Joe Biden over the investigations.
Smith’s office also oversaw the investigation into Trump’s allegedly illegal retention of White House documents at Mar-a-Lago, for which he was also criminally charged.
Trump wrote in a Truth Social post Sunday shortly after the committee’s release of Smith’s testimony that Democrats were “cheaters,” and attacked the party for not supporting voter ID. He has long claimed that the efforts to prosecute him for the January 6 riot amounted to weaponization of the Justice Department against him by Biden.
The president continues to regularly insist that the 2020 election was stolen, including recently during a press conference with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.
Pressed by Republicans to accept that the president’s statements were merely voicings of opinions protected by the First Amendment, Smith insisted in turn that Trump crossed a line by reaching out to public officials and asking them to do his bidding, as was the case in the infamous call between Trump and Georgia’s secretary of state, Brad Raffensperger, who was asked by the president to “find” more than 11,000 votes necessary to change the results in that state.
“As we said in the indictment, he was free to say that he thought he won the election. He was even free to falsely say he won the election,” said Smith. “But what he was not free to do was violate federal law and use knowingly false statements about election fraud to target a lawful government function.”
The riot on January 6 lasted for several hours as Trump initially refused, according to the House Jan. 6 investigation, to issue a video statement calling on his supporters to leave the vicinity. The president initially said that he would join the rioters at the Capitol, following a speech in front of the White House where Trump once again accused Republicans and Democrats alike of participating in election fraud.
The massive crowd descended on Capitol Hill from the White House and besieged it for several hours, battling with police and injuring dozens of officers. Perimeters were breached and protesters stormed the building, chanting out calls for violence against top officials including the vice president and then-Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, while defacing the building.
Trump speaking to supporters he had summoned to Washington, D.C., on January 6. Smith said the president was responsible for the violence that ensued (AFP/Getty)
Trump speaking to supporters he had summoned to Washington, D.C., on January 6. Smith said the president was responsible for the violence that ensued (AFP/Getty)
Lawmakers huddled in secure areas and in one case were barricaded inside the main chambers as rioters attempted to break down the door, leading to the death of one protester.
Smith refuted claims repeatedly made by Republican members of Congress after the attack that it was peaceful in any way.
“There were people who certainly had weapons at the Capitol,” Smith said. “That I recall with certainty. And there’s people who used weapons, whether they be poles or sticks or other weapons, against police officers. I know there was one officer who they took his gun. And so the use of weapons against members of law enforcement, it was outrageous.”
Even in the hours after the attack, the president was actively trying to convince members of the U.S. Senate to delay certification of the election, according to Smith. He cited testimony from Trump ally Boris Epshteyn, who told the DOJ that the White House was working to contact senators such as Lindsey Graham throughout the evening.
Smith went on to say that he was still considering charging other co-conspirators in the election conspiracy case when Trump won the election, making it a moot point.
The special counsel’s office was shut down and Smith resigned from the department in January of 2025, 10 days before Trump took office. DOJ policy prohibits the agency from investigating or prosecuting a sitting president. Shortly after Trump’s inauguration several lawyers who worked with Smith’s team were fired from the agency.
Smith told the hearing that he had no doubt that Trump wanted “retribution” against him for investigating him. He said: “So I am eyes wide open that this President will seek retribution against me if he can. I know that.”
3)Trump hints that the US ‘hit’ a facility in South America
Courtesy Barrie360.com and The Associated Press
By Michelle L. Price and Will Weissert,
Trump initially seemed to confirm a strike in what appeared to be an impromptu radio interview Friday, and when questioned Monday by reporters about “an explosion in Venezuela,” he said the U.S. struck a facility where boats accused of carrying drugs “load up.”
“There was a major explosion in the dock area where they load the boats up with drugs,” Trump said as he met in Florida with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. “They load the boats up with drugs, so we hit all the boats and now we hit the area. It’s the implementation area. There’s where they implement. And that is no longer around.”
It is part of an escalating effort to target what the Trump administration says are boats smuggling drugs bound for the United States. It moves closer to shore strikes that so far have been carried out by the military in international waters in the Caribbean Sea and eastern Pacific Ocean.
The U.S. military said it conducted another strike on Monday against a boat accused of smuggling drugs in the eastern Pacific Ocean, killing two people. The attacks have killed at least 107 people in 30 strikes since early September, according to numbers announced by the Trump administration.
Trump declined to say if the U.S. military or the CIA carried out the strike on the dock or where it occurred. He did not confirm it happened in Venezuela.
“I know exactly who it was, but I don’t want to say who it was. But you know it was along the shore,” Trump said.
Trump first referenced the strike on Friday, when he called radio host John Catsimatidis during a program on WABC radio and discussed the U.S. strikes on alleged drug-carrying boats.
“I don’t know if you read or saw, they have a big plant or a big facility where they send the, you know, where the ships come from,” Trump said. “Two nights ago, we knocked that out. So, we hit them very hard.”
Trump did not offer any additional details in the interview.
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has, in the past, typically announced every boat strike in a post on X, but there has been no post of any strike on a facility.
The Pentagon on Monday referred questions to the White House, which did not immediately respond to a message seeking more details. The press office of Venezuela’s government did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Trump’s statement.
Trump for months has suggested he may conduct land strikes in South America, in Venezuela or possibly another country, and in recent weeks has been saying the U.S. would move beyond striking boats and would strike on land “soon.”
In October, Trump confirmed he had authorized the CIA to conduct covert operations in Venezuela. The agency did not immediately respond to a message seeking comment Monday.
Along with the strikes, the U.S. has sent warships, built up military forces in the region, seized two oil tankers and pursued a third.
The Trump administration has said it is in “armed conflict” with drug cartels and seeking to stop the flow of narcotics into the United States.
Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro has insisted the real purpose of the U.S. military operations is to force him from power.
White House chief of staff Susie Wiles said in an interview with Vanity Fair published this month that Trump “wants to keep on blowing boats up until Maduro ‘cries uncle.’”