Trump Says Nothing Canada, Mexico, China Can Do to Stop Tariffs on SaturdayThe Trump administration will impose tariffs on Mexico, Canada, and China starting on Feb. 1 over the countries’ roles in the flow of illicit fentanyl into the United States. The tariffs on Mexico and Canada will be 25 percent. The levy on China will be 10 percent.

These tariffs will be on top of existing levies, Trump said. He noted, however, that tariffs on Canadian oil imports will “probably” be set at 10 percent, rather than 25 percent. The president said that there’s nothing China, Canada, or Mexico can do to prevent the tariffs from going into effect on Saturday. “No, not right now,” he told reporters in the Oval Office.

Trump noted that the United States has significant trade deficits with all three countries. Huge quantities of fentanyl are pouring into the U.S., he said. “We’re not looking for a concession. We’ll just see what happens,” he said. (More)

Young Adult Mortality 70 Percent Higher Than ExpectedYoung Americans are dying at unprecedented rates, with a new study showing a surge in mortality driven by drug poisoning, alcohol-related deaths, and emerging health challenges. Young adult deaths in 2023 were 70 percent higher than they would have been if pre-2011 trends had continued.

“One surprising thing about the increases in these causes of death are that these are causes of death that primarily kill people at much older ages,” Elizabeth Wrigley-Field, associate professor of sociology, associate director at Minnesota Population Center, and study author, told The Epoch Times.

The study, published in JAMA Network Open, examined over 3.3 million deaths of Americans aged 25–44 between 1999 and 2023. Unnatural causes of death like drug poisoning were the leading cause of death in young adults, constituting a third of all deaths in 2023. Drug poisoning has been the leading cause of death among young adults since 2014. (More)

Norway Seizes 2 Ships Over Baltic Sea Cable BreakagesPolice in Norway seized and boarded a Norwegian ship with an all-Russian crew on suspicion of involvement in causing damage to a telecoms cable under the Baltic Sea on Friday. The Silver Dania cargo ship was grabbed at the request of Latvia and with the assistance of the Norwegian coast guard, police in the city of Tromso said. Tromso lies in the far north of the Nordic nation.

“It is suspected that the ship has been involved in serious damage to a fiber cable in the Baltic Sea between Latvia and Sweden,” the police said in a statement.

The Silver Dania’s owner, the Silver Sea shipping group, denied that it had been involved in the undersea cable damage, Norway’s TV2 channel reported. Sweden and Latvia are investigating the suspected sabotage on Sunday of the cable linking the two countries, and Swedish police seized and boarded the Maltese-flagged cargo ship Vezhen on suspicion it was behind the damage. (More)

How did you enjoy today’s Morning Brief? Tell us what you think here.