The Real Reason Trump Wants Canada (Uncut) 01-30-2025

The Real Reason Trump Wants Canada: Lies and Dark Ties to China – Exclusive Report

Hi, this is Daniela Cambone. Welcome back to the Daniela Cambone show. Today, we are taking a deep dive into analyzing and figuring out why President Donald Trump has set his sights on Canada.

We all know he’s threatened economic force with 25% tariffs, and he’s even talked about Canada possibly becoming the 51st state, but why? We’re going to get to the bottom of this today with my guest who has an interesting theory as to why Donald Trump wants Canada so bad. He is Sam Cooper. He’s a Canadian investigative journalist.

He’s also the founder of the Bureau.News and the author of Willful Blindness, How a Network of Narcos, Tycoons, and CCP Agents Have Infiltrated the West. Sam, so nice to meet you. Welcome to the show.

Great to be with you, Daniela. Yeah, I want to give a shout out to our mutual friend, Jonathan Roth, who reached out to me and said, you got to speak to my friend, Sam, who’s done incredible work here and just written a mind-blowing book as to kind of piecing the pieces together here. And it makes sense now as to why Donald Trump has really set his sights on Canada.

So I want to get to the bottom of this with you today. So like I said, welcome to the show. Your book title kind of gives it away, how China is really the missing piece of the puzzle here.

Tell us your thesis, Sam. Yeah, I mean, you’re right to point to my book. The very first edition on the cover, it shows a graphic photo of Vancouver on a world map with fentanyl pills exploding out of Vancouver and going around the world.

So you could say that for 10 years, I’ve been researching the thesis that Canada has become a node of essentially Chinese infiltration and organized crime activity, especially in Vancouver. And this was hard for people to believe, but Vancouver has become a production hub for China and a transshipment hub for fentanyl precursors to the point where it’s now established, even though I was well ahead of the curve in writing up this thesis, that Canada is a fentanyl exporter nation. And so this gets to what Donald Trump is saying.

It’s hard for many people to believe that Canada could be put in the same category as Mexico in terms of endangering the United States with fentanyl, with illegal immigration and human trafficking. But my research has shown that, indeed, this is the fear and concern of U.S. intelligence community, U.S. military and law enforcement, really for decades, that Canada’s weak enforcement against transnational crime, weak control of borders has allowed international organized crime with linkages to hostile states, most specifically China, but also Iran, Middle Eastern states that are not friends of the United States, have set up very strongly in Canada. So I do think that as a Canadian, I have to say I’m not pleased with Donald Trump’s rhetoric.

I think there’s a lot of the art of the deal going on when he he’s trolling and saying, you’re going to be the 51st state. But I do say that there’s very deep concerns that Canada is being used by China in a very sophisticated, economic and really criminal way. I do think that’s correct.

Wow. Well, you have just dropped a massive truth bomb for many who, you know, I know that some are going to be watching saying, oh, we know this story. But for many, including myself, I mean, I had never seen it from this optic.

So take us take us back, Sam, because you are an investigative journalist for Canadians. We’ve seen you on Global. You work for the Vancouver Sun, the province.

How did you break this story? How did you get wind of this? When did it start? Well, it’s been over 10 years of research. I mean, the short story is I started as a cub reporter with the Vancouver province and Sun. I was, you know, I like to follow financial markets.

I cut my teeth sort of reading about the U.S. subprime crisis and how financial fraud had torpedoed, you know, the American dream. And I saw in Vancouver very much the Canadian dream was being destroyed. No one could afford homes.

It wasn’t apparent why. And so I put on sort of my my my boot leather reporting, my financial and sort of legal chops as a young reporter. And I discovered that massive inflows of funds, mysterious money, mostly from China and Hong Kong, had about a 30 percent influence each year on Vancouver’s market real estate market.

And this was strange because, as you know, as everyone knows, China has communist capital control. So this was illegitimate money at scale into Vancouver homes, just causing prices to skyrocket. And to cut to the chase, I discovered that Canadian regulated casinos, first and foremost, currency shops and real estate development were being used at scale for Chinese money launderers.

It’s called the Vancouver model of money laundering. And as I unwound and broke that story, 2017, it becomes front page news of how B.C. government casinos are used in this money laundering model. And to get to the end of the story before filling in all the blanks, eventually I learned that Chinese state sponsored.

So we’re talking about Chinese intelligence. Chinese military was directly involved with these underground Chinese criminal networks that were facilitating this massive money laundering, which tied into fentanyl, cocaine, money moving around the world. So the drugs are coming in through Vancouver, then spreading across Canada and getting down into the United States.

Absolutely. And just to break that down more slightly, as you know, the fentanyl precursors themselves are often not illegal. So China ships the precursors into the West Coast of Mexico and the West Coast of Canada, because we know that U.S. law enforcement isn’t is going to have a much stronger control on the American West Coast.

And so Vancouver is used for those precursor hubs that the precursor to come in. They’re they’re printed up in pill presses and super labs, they call them factories in British Columbia and shipped around the world. And the money collected from those sales.

This is where these massive piles of warehouse drug cash, they’re collected in Vancouver. And ultra wealthy businessmen, Chinese Communist Party officials, they call them whale gamblers, gangsters fly into Vancouver. They take this drug cash, walk into casinos, the money is laundered and it goes back to these Chinese factories and the precursors come in again.

That’s the Vancouver model and it works with the Mexican cartels as well. So the Chinese are aware of this weak link. You name politicians and business elite, including former ambassador to Canada, Dominic Barton, who you say facilitated and helped the criminal enterprises get a secure hold in the West.

Well, when I name a person like Dominic Barton, as one of my U.S. intelligence community friends calls him, he would be the consigliere, so to speak, of international business at a high level. Right. So his involvement with McKinsey and sort of their ties to the opioid trade are different than the the underground Chinese fentanyl I’m talking about.

But I would say that Mr. Barton and really elites around the world, but very specifically in Canada, are involved in direct dealings with Chinese state owned enterprises. And in my research, which is supported by the U.S. intelligence and Canadian intelligence community, these either consigliere’s like Mr. Barton, people that are pushing trade with China or industrialists, whether they be in Quebec, whether they be in Melbourne, whether they be in Europe, that do dealings with Chinese state owned enterprises and push their governments to do more dealings are under the table. You know, I say involved in Chinese intelligence influence operations, there’s a quid pro quo in those dealings.

So wait, but let me ask you, because a quick Google search of Dominic Barton shows to me he’s currently the chairman of Rio Tinto and Leapfrog Investments, based in London. He previously serves as a Canadian ambassador to China. So what was his response? Did you ever hear from Dominic Barton? No, I tried to question Mr. Barton when he was called to testify in Canada’s, it’s called the Canada-China Committee.

This is a few years ago. I was one of the reporters that sat down and watched as a conservative politician named Garnett Genuis asked, would Mr. Barton disclose what his or McKinsey’s relationship was with these state owned enterprises in China? And we’ve never had the answer. So when I point to people like the Demerais family in Montreal and their power corporation, which is, according to intelligence, involved in dealings with Chinese state owned enterprises, which I say are involved in Chinese intelligence.

I have not heard back from people like Demerais or Mr. Barton or people at that level. But let me tell you this, Alex Jaski, the well-known academic investigator of Chinese intelligence operations, says people at the level of Mr. George Soros have been targeted in these sort of elite trade influence operations. And so the question here is whether those people sort of wittingly acquiesce or do they know that they’re being targeted for influence in China’s trade? And so I think that question would extend to Mr. Mark Carney, who’s now running for the liberal leadership as well.

Well, I want to say, because you know, the Demerais family ties to Paul Martin. So how far back does this go? Is it just so entrenched and tied to the liberal government? I would say, in my own view, absolutely. And I’ll cite you a former high level RCMP investigator named Gary Clement.

He has written op-eds for my entity, the Bureau.News. I cited him in my book, Willful Blindness. And what he and his cohorts who were involved in Hong Kong when Canadian police and intelligence was concerned with China’s influence in Canada, they say that Power Corporation and Jean Chrétien, the former liberal prime minister, have direct dealings with entities such as CITIC, which is a major global investment vehicle for Chinese princelings. That’s the clans that run China.

And as the U.S. military says, CITIC is involved in Chinese military operations. So Mr. Chrétien, Power Corporation and the Demerais, whether wittingly or not, are involved in business relationships that Canadian intelligence, U.S. intelligence and the U.S. military has concerns with. And to square the circle here, I believe this circles back to what President Trump is concerned with in Canada, in Panama and other nations.

So obviously, your research and reporting took part under Trudeau’s tenure. He’s aware of this. Has he commented on it? Have you spoken to Prime Minister Trudeau or received comment from his office on this, Sam? I have repeatedly sought comment from Justin Trudeau’s office and his top officials.

Specifically, I’ll give you an example. In my book, I write about a donation that comes from a Vancouver-based tycoon who is a People’s Liberation Army military veteran, who my documented research connects to B.C. casino money laundering investigations. And I asked Mr. Trudeau and his staff, can you explain this donation and does it not seem suspicious? And essentially, they gave a boilerplate answer to the effect that the Liberal Party of Canada follows all relevant election financing rules.

And, you know, in my book, I stress that the photographs of Mr. Trudeau with individuals that are documented officials essentially in China’s foreign influence arm, which is the United Front, they’re difficult to explain away. And I do think I have some inkling of feeling that the U.S. government is also concerned with those types of funding relationships Mr. Trudeau has. But to reiterate, I haven’t had a response from Mr. Trudeau.

I’ll add this. Even a U.S. congressional report in 2023 now points to concerns of a major donation to Mr. Trudeau’s foundation that reportedly came from a United Front official that was tasked by Beijing. Very suspicious.

Well, this begs my next question, I think you just answered it. And it’s not a naive question, OK? But why do all the politicians, if this is if this is true, turn a blind eye because it’s just lining their pockets, Sam? For me, there’s a baseline here, and that’s why my book was called Willful Blindness, at a high level trade policy, whether it’s in the United Kingdom now, whether it’s been Germany, certainly Canada, even the United States, there are many elite business persons and politicians that push for those deeper trade ties with Beijing. So you could say that Justin Trudeau, Jean Chrétien, Paul Martin, even some conservative party leaders in Canada have bent over to take, let’s just say, funds from funds from China and have turned a blind eye to the what I call the dark underpinnings, which is trade based money laundering, fentanyl money laundering, fentanyl deaths.

And yeah, yeah, right. This is what Donald Trump is now saying. Well, but yeah, and I guess I wanted to say your question, are there actual dirty payoffs, you know, old school bags of cash going to politicians? I was being a little diplomatic.

I don’t have the evidence that Mr. Trudeau has received a bag of cash in a back alley. But I do have the evidence that he’s being funded by people that are connected to organized crime. That’s indisputable.

Trump has been clear about why he wants to do it to Mexico, citing China. Now, from what I’ve seen, he hasn’t linked China to Canada yet. Obviously, he is aware of this backdoor, right? I mean, do you have any insights as to perhaps he has mentioned China? But like I said, from the reports I’ve seen, he hasn’t tied China to Canada yet.

Or why would he possibly not say it? That’s a great question. I would go back in time by saying that I reported on a letter from Marco Rubio, you know, now Secretary of State a few months ago. He wrote to Canada’s trade minister, Mary Ng, and said, why is Canada a backdoor for slave produced goods in Xinjiang that have been blocked by the United States and then rerouted through Canada, trans-shipped and come and stopped again at the U.S. border? So that’s not about fentanyl, but that is about a now senior Trump official telling Canada’s trade minister, you’re not doing anything to stop these bad goods from China and you’re hurting the United States.

So I do believe that Trump’s office at a high level is concerned about China. Why he hasn’t directly said, you know, what lower level officials that I talk to say that Canada triads in that is Chinese organized crime in Toronto and Vancouver are command and control for the fentanyl money laundering of the type that was run through Toronto Dominion Bank. They’re the bosses of Mexican cartel money laundering in Canada, and that’s very strange.

Mr. Trump hasn’t said that yet. But what he did say the other day when people essentially reporters asked, are you just trying to, you know, is this a ploy to get Canada to redo its trade deal? And he said, no, there’s massive fentanyl coming from Canada. And as you know, as everyone knows, that fentanyl originates in China.

Amazing. This is amazing. So.

What’s next for you? I mean, Sam, I always ask my fellow colleagues in journalism, you as an investigative reporter. Were you ever tried to be silenced about your reporting? I was, and, you know, this is a story I’ll tell you that really troubles me. In June 2023, after I broke the international stories of China’s election interference in Canada, I was asked to testify in Canada’s parliament about my knowledge of how.

Politicians that criticize China in Canada are targeted in Chinese nefarious operations, so I testified, Daniela, I gave my evidence as a Canadian citizen. Two days later, an RCMP national security unit knocked on my door of my home. I was about to go out to dinner with a family member.

They said, no, we need to talk to you. We have learned of a serious threat to a Canadian investigative reporter in relation to their reporting on China. OK, this is two days after I fulfilled my duty as a citizen and said some pretty serious things in evidence in Canada’s parliament.

So obviously, I haven’t been silenced, but my life has been altered. I had to take security measures. I live under certain threats.

And I’ll tell you, it’s not just of the violent type, it’s legal threats. How has it changed me? I just believe this is so important, not only for Canada, but I plan to report and have reported for the Bureau on these same issues in the United States. And, you know, to be honest, Daniela, it hurts me to say it, but it’s made my opinion of Canada’s goodness as a state change since I received those warnings.

It’s made me think that like a lot of Canadians that have the capacity, do I need to think about getting closer to being, you know, involved in American business? Do I do I need to run my business from Canada if I’m not protected here? Sam, you’re leaving me speechless and with goosebumps. You know, I read a great op-ed the other day, to your point, a great op-ed about how Canada for decades we’ve lived off of this image of being like Switzerland, squeaky clean, and now it’s really come back to haunt us. Yeah, it’s really come back to haunt us.

And it for based on what you’re saying, it’s all just been one big mirage. Yeah, I mean, I feel that we’ve been we were taught as Canadians that we’re so good. We often have a like kind of a elitist view to the people in the U.S. and we’ve been wrong.

I believe that. Yeah. And to your point about customs, if I could just say one thing, because when people say, what do you miss about living in Canada? And there are many things about I miss, but probably the number one thing I don’t miss.

Is how I was. Routinely treated by Canadian customs agents. Not the land agents, but when you’re flying into Canada and this is where I think Canadian border gets it all wrong, they’re so focused on what did you buy? Right, as opposed to the American who are really just looking for guns and drugs.

But the Canadians are so focused on did you buy a new because I’m coming back from Europe. Did you buy a new handbag looking through every inch square inch of my wallet to find a receipt? And it’s like it’s so misplaced because the main focus of the border should be exactly that. Drug, guns, human trafficking.

Not whether I bought a designer bag overseas. Anyway, I just wanted to vent that for a second, I’m happy you said that because I just think we’ve been very we we’ve been very small minded as a nation. We’re not looking at the big important things where we’re focusing on the unimportant little details.

And it’s just, yeah, you know, I feel the same frustration just just getting the third degree over just, you know, just ridiculous, ridiculous, petty, petty, petty issues. Would you OK, well, I found this interesting. What was your take on how, you know, when the first instance of the threats of the tariffs we saw Justin Trudeau immediately run to Mar-a-Lago and immediately just show all of Canada’s cards telling Donald Trump basically, well, if you do this, it will destroy Canada.

In my opinion, just adding leverage to President Donald Trump, that’s exactly what he wants to hear. Trudeau didn’t read the art of the deal, apparently. But to your point, you know, if this is all true and the reporting, like you say, and I believe what you’ve reported here, then, yeah, Donald Trump, President Donald Trump does have a right to go after Canada.

And like you, as a Canadian, I’m I’m saying it. Yeah, it’s the same thing with Panama. People said, is he crazy? Why is he you know, is he going to take Panama? But I’ve already reported for over a year now.

And I cited in my book that people that are very high level in Hong Kong, that is businessmen in shipping, are connected to Chinese military intelligence. And they’re, of course, using Panama like a I don’t know, a dirty laundromat in a way. And that’s what, you know, I do believe if I want to get ahead of myself, what I hear from the U.S. national security community is we’re dangerously close to war with China, you know, over the Taiwan issue.

And I see that, you know, as part of President Trump’s very, you know, for a Canadian, very rude language, I’m sure, you know, Denmark is feeling the same way. But there are big things shaking and moving in the world right now. What’s next for you, Sam? I know you’ve launched the bureau.

Why did you why what propelled you to launch this and kind of get away from the mainstream news? I mean, you are working for the big names up in Canada. Yeah, I was working for Global News. I had worked for the Vancouver Sun.

I wanted to report more on the United States, perhaps from the United States. My book had launched as the number one seller on Amazon in 2021. So that was indicating to me that my brand of detailed, you know, rigorous journalism matched with the same sort of assessments that intelligence analysts make, you know, high level geopolitics.

I was always told, Danielle, in newsrooms, people don’t want to read, you know, this detailed, you know, and I said, no, they do. And I proved it. My book did well, actually.

Right. And so now I could do it on my own digital site. And, you know, I can make my own partnerships as we’re doing right now with great journalists and the world is changing with podcasts.

So I’m in a position to do that. That’s that’s really that was my plan. And so far, so good.

Well, you’re speaking to my soul, because that’s why I that’s the exact reason I have broken away from mainstream media. Many, many years ago, Sam, what’s what’s next for you? What are you going to are you going to just keep reporting and following this this case or are you on to something new? What’s next for you? Right now, I am focusing on this big story of, you know, this Mexico, Canada, Donald Trump, where is it going and how does my knowledge, my leading knowledge fit in, you know, to tell Canadians, Americans, you know, what’s behind the rhetoric and the negotiations? I plan to definitely report more from the United States in this coming year. My my business may even change to become, you know, more American connected.

And so that’s a big part of my I plan to probably report from Taiwan later this year. That’s a huge story as we move, unfortunately, closer to war. I have a lot of good contacts in Taiwan’s government that would like me to report more.

So those are that’s what’s coming up immediately for me this year. Wow. Wow.

Well, I wish you continued success. Keep doing the incredible work you are doing. Honestly, because you are risking.

I don’t want to say it, but you are risking a lot. A lot like the way a lot. So I just want to say a lot.

Yeah. Yeah. And I have a feeling you might get invited down to Washington soon because everyone’s reading this book.

I urge everyone to check it out. Woeful Blindness and the Bureau. Dot News, right? Dot News.

You got it right. Yeah. The Bureau.

Dot News. Okay. Final question.

With the shakeup we’re seeing, obviously, in Canadian politics, if a conservative government comes into power, would you be hopeful there’d be a change? Yeah, that’s the great question that I honestly, Daniel, I ponder that at night. In some ways, has Canada gone too far and are its institutions eroded due to what I’m reporting on? And I hope I do think that, you know, Alberta’s premier has had a lot of good points, even though she’s getting slammed for it in Canada by what I would call sort of a failed establishment. The conservative government has a chance of bringing a change about, but it will take very forceful actions that will anger, hopefully, you know, a minor, a minority of the population, a very powerful minority.

So it remains to be seen. Yeah. That’s another thing that baffles my mind.

And I’m not, you’re just getting me going. We’ve had Premier Smith on the show and I see all my other journalism pals, you know, all products of the CBC posting traitor Danielle Smith. And I’m thinking, what? Don’t even get me started.

Yeah, I know. I’m thinking she’s at least trying to salvage the relationship here between Canada and the United States. I’m glad we talked, Danielle, because apparently we agree on a lot.

I mean, there’s a set mindset in Canada, especially in elite media, that let’s be honest, it’s a failed mindset. It hasn’t gotten to where it should be, right? And kudos to… And I want to say this, I’m a product of a lifelong liberal family. I mean, my family voted for the Liberals for the longest time.

But at one point you have to say, look, it’s not working anymore. And they’ve taken the wrong road. At one point, you just have to break away.

Yeah, you have to be innovative. And look, if you’re dealing with a disruptor and an innovator on the order of President Trump, yeah, if you love Canada, you need people that can meet that, work with it. Oh, Sam, my new best friend.

Thank you so much. Like I said, continued success. All the best.

And stay warm. I know you’re in Ottawa. It’s frigid temperatures there.

Stay warm. I will, great talking. And thank you for watching.

What a great episode, folks. I hope you enjoyed it as much as I did. Be sure to sign up to the Daniela Comboni show to stay on top of all these great, great, great interviews.

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