It's going to be 25% on Canada and Mexico and 10% on China. US President Donal Trump will impose tariffs on Saturday of 25% on Canada and Mexico and 10% on China, three of its biggest trading partners, White House announced on Friday.
The hefty tariff is expected to set the stage for a damaging trade war and political confrontation. Trump has also threatened to follow up with a further wave of tariffs against the European Union.
Goods exported from Canada and Mexico to the US will be hit with a 25% tariff, while products from China face a 10% levy, the White House press secretary, Karoline Leavitt, told reporters on Friday.
The US administration did not give exact details of the tariffs, which Trump has repeatedly said would start 1 February. Trump later suggested that oil from Canada, which exports millions of barrels of crude per day to the US, would “probably” face a lower tariff of 10% and that he expected his administration would impose duties related to oil and gas around 18 February.
While the president insisted that nothing could be done by Canada, Mexico and China right now to forestall tariffs, officials were said to be scrambling to find a way out. According to the Wall Street Journal, several situations are under consideration in a bid to strike an 11th-hour deal.
The press secretary dismissed reports that the US would delay implementation of the tariffs by a month as “false”, claiming that “starting tomorrow, those tariffs will be in place”.
Canada has pledged to retaliate with a “forceful but reasonable” response. Mexico has also drawn up plans, but declined to provide details. China has said it will “firmly defend” its interests.
The US is also looking at tariffs on drugs, steel, aluminum, copper, computer chips and “things associated with chips”, Trump said. He also threatened the EU, which he claimed had treated the US “horribly”, with substantial action.
The president has claimed imposing duties on goods from overseas will raise hundreds of billions of dollars for the federal government, while forcing countries – even two of America’s closest allies – to bend to his demands.
Economists have repeatedly warned that higher tariffs, a key pillar of Trump’s economic strategy, risk raising prices for millions of Americans, challenging the president’s pledge to bring down prices “rapidly” amid a wave of frustration over the cost of living, says The Guardian.
Trump acknowledged on Friday that his tariffs could cause “temporary short-term disruption”, but expressed hope that Americans would understand why they had been imposed. “Tariffs don’t cause inflation,” he claimed. “They cause success.”
Investors appear apprehensive, too. Stocks on Wall Street fell after the White House press briefing, with the Dow Jones industrial average closing down 0.75% in New York.
After his election victory in November, the president homed in on Canada and Mexico, the US’s neighbours, and China, demanding they do more to stop “illegal aliens” and drugs such as fentanyl from crossing into the US. Trump said he would impose tariffs immediately upon entering office, but hours after his inauguration said he would do so on 1 February instead.
“We have plan A, plan B and plan C for whatever the US government decides,” Claudia Sheinbaum, the Mexican president, said on Friday. The country has previously signaled that it would “have to” respond with duties of its own if hit with US tariffs.
Justin Trudeau, the Canadian prime minister, warned of potentially “difficult times” if Trump proceeds with tariffs.
On Trudeau’s warning that Canada would put forward a “forceful but reasonable” response to US duties, Leavitt shot back at the White House press briefing: “I think Justin Trudeau would be wise to talk to President Trump directly before pushing outlandish comments like that to the media.”
Chrystia Freeland, Canada’s former trade negotiator and finance minister, who is vying to succeed Trudeau, proposed a 100% tariff on all Tesla vehicles and on US wine, beer and spirits. “We need to be very targeted, very surgical, very precise,” she told the Canadian Press – in this case, targeting the Tesla chief, Elon Musk, at the heart of Trump’s inner circle.
Trump, who mooted a 20% universal tariff on all foreign imports from across the world while running for re-election, has made clear that other key markets, including the European Union, are also in his sights.
