President Donald Trump will delay his sweeping 25% tariffs on Mexico until April 2 for any goods that are covered by an existing trade deal, he announced Thursday—with a similar exemption expected for Canadian goods.
President Donald Trump addresses a joint session of Congress at the Capitol in Washington, Tuesday, ... [+]
Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick told CNBC his expectation is that Trump will “come to the agreement today” that goods compliant with the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement that Trump negotiated in his first term would be exempt until April 2, when Trump has said reciprocal tariffs will take effect.
In a post on Truth Social about an hour after Lutnick’s original comments on CNBC, Trump said he and Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum agreed they will not pay tariffs on anything covered by USMCA until April, a move Trump said was “an accommodation, and out of respect for” Sheinbaum.
Trump enacted 25% tariffs on Canada and Mexico on Tuesday because he was displeased with their response to fentanyl crossing the border into the U.S., though he has since made a number of changes to the tariffs, including granting a one-month delay for automakers.
“Hopefully Mexico and Canada will have done a good enough job on fentanyl that this part of the conversation will be off the table and it will move just to the reciprocal tariff conversation,” Lutnick said.
This story is developing and will be updated.
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Stock market losses pulled back following Lutnick’s comments, as the benchmark S&P 500 moved from a more than 1.5% daily loss to a roughly 0.7% daily drop by late morning. Stocks are still down significantly this week in large part due to tariff news, with the S&P down nearly 3% since Friday, hitting its lowest level since pre-election.
Trump Exempts Carmakers From Canada And Mexico Tariffs For One Month (Forbes)