The law was celebrated as a historical step in the right direction – the highlight of more than a decade of work between Republicans and Democrats in Washington to operate against dirty money.
The corporate transparency act (CTA) aimed against drug cartels and other dangerous criminals that use shadowy shell companies to move their poorly applicable profits. The cross-party law, which was issued in 2021 at the end of Donald Trump’s first term as US president, was regarded as an urgently needed reform of America’s ability to combat financial crime.
But four years later and now again in office, Trump has severely restricted the reach of the law, while he used fentanyl trade as a justification for a potentially devastating trade war against Canada.
“The fact that in the same month in which the White House explains a maximum fight against Fentanyl, which for this purpose contains tariffs in Canada and Mexico, will also give a public explanation that it will not enforce none of our most important ways to combat fentanyl. Transparency International Us, which also has a Canadian chapter.
The decision of the Trump government comes that the president continues to say that fatal opioids flow from Canada, although its government’s own data show less than one percent of the fentanyl that the US border officers came across the northern border in the last financial year.
“A reason to impose harmful tariffs”
“Canada, one of the largest allies in our country, has long worked with the United States in border security and demonstrated a common commitment to coping with joint challenges, including fentanyl trade,” said the Senator of Michigan, Gary Peters, the Senate Homeland Security Committee, in a statement to CBC Windsor.
“While President Trump Kanada criticized the fact that he did not take fentanyl problems seriously – used as reasons for the impression of harmful tariffs – his administration also works to weaken laws that have been passed by the congress that helps the law enforcement authorities to combat the use of shell companies to finance illegal activities such as drug trafficking,” said Peters.
For the first time, the CTA had forced smaller companies to reveal the names of their true owners of the US financial department, which they would then store in a safe database that is accessible by the law enforcement authorities. Canada has a similar property register that is publicly searching.
But the Trump government at the beginning of March announced The enforcement of punishments against US citizens and companies that do not adhere to the law would be set.
Two days later, Trump hit Canada and Mexico With wide 25 percent tariffs, say No country has done enough to curb the river of Fentanyl in the US Trump, has thrown back some tariffs since then, but threatened to lay it out in April.
The fentanyl problem on the northern border was basically a red herring anyway.-Brian Mass, NDP MP, Windsor West, party critic for the border relationships in Canada-USA
In recent times, the administration has mixed the requirements of owner reporting for US citizens and companies as a whole. a ruleWhat it will conclude this year at a certain point in time that limits the application of the law to foreign companies that can do business in the USA
Brian Mass, MP of the New Democratic Party for the Windsor West Riding, which stands directly opposite Detroit, said that the Trump government’s decision would make it difficult for the investigators on both sides of the border, to pursue illegal middle flows – which is “really in the heart of the operation” of the organized crime.
“Everything is getting darker,” said Mass, the NDP critic for the border relationships in Canada-USA. “That is no doubt.”
The fact, another anti -corruption group, said the change Would take 99 percent of companies that the law originally dealt with “effectively abstinve the most important anti-money laundering law in a generation”.
Greytak called it “a terribly confusing incentive to come from an administration with transparency of international USA that otherwise fought to fight Fentanyl and other drug trafficking”.
Reason for changing the legal application
Trump and finance minister Scott Bessent alleged The requirements for the ownership report of the CTA were “stressful” and an “economic threat”, especially for small companies.
It seems to be a reversal of 2019 when the first Trump administration recommended The invoice at the time, which said that “companies in the United States have committed companies and limited liability companies to disclose their economic owners, a measure that will help use malignant actors to use these companies for criminal profits”.
However, the supportive declaration stated that legislators would have to improve legislators, some of them by protecting small companies against inappropriately stressful disclosure obligations “.
The congress did just that, said Greytak. He and other supporters of the law say that the reporting process is relatively simple. Companies just have to fill A form online This asks for information such as names and addresses and a copy of the government’s identification.
“This law has been developed over a dozen years in several administrations – many iterations and revisions of this calculation, many hearings on this bill, a lot of examination – and we believe that the end product was very well tailored to counter the threat here,” said Greytak.
Mass said “It is not surprising” that Trump supported the weakening of the law.
“You want less accountability for where your money goes to Washington, DC, and in the fundraising campaign and the donors and the corporate elite,” he said.
“And the fentanyl problem on the northern border was basically a red herring anyway.”
US President Donald Trump says that “massive” quantities of fentanylic crossings from Canada to the USA are crossed to the United States, but in fact less than one percent of the synthetic opioids on the northern border are less than one percent confiscated.
Mass riding contains a large part of the windsor, one of the Canadian cities expected to be the most injured tariffs. This also includes the ambassador bridge, on which we cross around 300 million US dollars in goods between Canada and the USA every day.
Windsor is also no stranger to the opioid crisis, so the fentanyl problem hits near home, said mass.
“We are your point where the entry and output of the drugs can take place, and also weapons.”
Mass said that he would “like to” hire more border officers, in particular those with a “ability that has more to deal with the financial world”, in response to the latest measures by the Trump government.
In Washington, two senators who supported the CTA require that the financial department “the legal basis” declared to change the law.
“We encourage the CTA to fully implement so that law enforcement agencies across the country have access to information that is necessary to prevent human trafficking, terrorist financing, border smuggling, drug distribution and many other categories of criminal activities” March 10th letter.
It is unclear whether the senators have received an answer. Both your offices and the finance department have not returned a request for comments on this story after publication time.
Other supporters have argued that the government’s move does not hold in court.
Shadowy Shell Companies “are a popular instrument” US opponent “and” Fentanyl dealers, money laundering and tax fraud, “said Ian Gary, Executive Director of the Coalition fact, in a statement after the financial department for the first time announced its change in the application of the law.
“The hollowing out of the corporate transparency act is a unconstitutional subversion of the intention of the congress, which will not survive the judicial examination,” he added.
