President Donald Trump is outraged that Americans are footing an unfair financial burden, citing a 2020 trade deal called the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement that he signed.
The president claimed during a White House press conference Monday that the impacts of the USMCA will be alleviated with a 25% tariff on all Canadian and Mexican goods starting next week, and unwittingly criticized himself after rebuking America’s neighbors.
“I mean, who can blame them if they made these great deals with the United States, took advantage of the United States on manufacturing?” Trump said Monday. “On just about anything, every aspect you can imagine, they took advantage.”
He continued, “I look at some of these agreements, I’d read them at night, and I’d say, ‘Who would ever sign a thing like this?’ So the tariffs will go forward, yes, and we’re gonna make up a lot of territory. All we want is reciprocal. We want reciprocity.”
Trump praised the USMCA in 2020 as the “best agreement we’ve ever made” and lauded it for replacing the “nightmare” North American Free Trade Agreement ratified under former President Bill Clinton, calling it the “worst trade deal ever made.”
He criticized NAFTA repeatedly during his 2016 presidential campaign against former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, blaming her at the time for her husband’s actions.
“It’s an improvement at the margins but far from perfect and not nearly as different as Trump claims,” said Jared Bernstein, the economic adviser to former President Joe Biden, in January 2020 of USMCA. “In fact, there will almost surely be no notable difference in trade flows.”
Trump made tariffs an integral part of his 2024 campaign and has taken strides, via executive orders, to get the ball rolling on implementing them on Canada, Mexico and China. Economists warn that these tariffs will have devastating effects on American consumers.
However, on Monday, Trump said his tariffs wouldn’t harm everyday Americans.
“It’ll be very good for our country,” he said. “Our country will be extremely liquid and rich again.”