President Donald Trump said on Monday the planned tariffs on Mexico and Canada are “on time” and “on schedule” to be enacted early next month after being delayed in early February after leaders in both countries pledged to improve their border policies.
President Donald Trump speaks during a joint press conference with France's President Emmanuel ... [+]
Trump told reporters Monday the tariffs are on track to go into effect when the 30-day pauses are up early in March, adding the tariffs will be “very good for” the U.S. and make it “extremely liquid and rich again.”
“We’ve been mistreated by many countries, not just Canada and Mexico,” Trump said Monday, criticizing past U.S. leadership for implementing the deals and adding: “We’ve been taken advantage of. We were led by, in some cases, fools.”
Trump directed the U.S. to place 25% tariffs on Mexico and Canada, on Feb. 1, but agreed to a 30-day pause of the tariffs on Feb. 3 after both Canada and Mexico agreed to more border protection efforts.
A separate 10% tariff on China was implemented Feb. 1, with Trump saying steeper tariffs could follow.
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“The tariffs will go forward … We’re going to make up a lot of territory,” Trump said Monday, also speaking about reciprocal tariffs he has hinted at implementing in April. “All we want is reciprocal—we want reciprocity, we want to have the same. So, if somebody charges us, we charge them, it’s very simple.”
Trump had long promised he would impose tariffs on imported goods despite economists and business leaders warning they could have negative impacts on the economy. The White House said the tariffs against Canada and Mexico were in response to the national emergency that was caused by “the extraordinary threat posed by illegal aliens and drugs, including deadly fentanyl.” In a fact sheet about the tariffs, the White House said, “previous Administrations failed to fully leverage America’s economic position as a tool to secure our borders against illegal migration and combat the scourge of fentanyl, preferring to let problems fester.”
Canada hired a fentanyl czar to accelerate the country’s “work to detect, disrupt, and dismantle the fentanyl trade”—depsite not much fentanyl coming from the U.S.’ northern border—and it agreed to designate Mexican drug cartels as terrorist organizations, the Associated Press reported. Its $900 million border security package that Trump touted as part of the deal, however, had been offered weeks prior and was not a new agreement to stop the tariffs, but rather was expanded. Mexico’s president Claudia Sheinbaum agreed to station 10,000 Mexican soldiers on the U.S.’ southern border, Trump announced on Truth Social, and agreed to have negotiations headed by members of Trump’s cabinet to achieve a “deal” between the two countries regarding the tariffs and flow of fentanyl.
When Trump was first discussing the 25% tariffs, both the Mexican and Canadian governments announced plans to install retaliatory tariffs on U.S. imports if the U.S. instilled its tariffs.
Trump says tariffs on Canada and Mexico 'will go forward' (CNBC)