President Claudia Sheinbaum announced Tuesday that Mexico will respond to the United States’ 25% tariffs on Mexican exports with its own “tariff and non-tariff measures.”
Speaking at her morning press conference some eight hours after the United States tariffs on Mexican and Canadian exports took effect, Sheinbaum said that the “unilateral decision” of the U.S. government “affects national and foreign companies that operate in our country and affects our people.”
“Therefore, we have decided to respond with tariff and non-tariff measures,” she said, adding that she will announce the measures this Sunday in Mexico City’s central square, the Zócalo.
Sheinbaum stressed that Mexico doesn’t want to enter into “an economic or trade confrontation” with the U.S. saying that such a situation is the “opposite” of what the North American region “should be doing.”
The countries of North America, she said, should be “integrating our economies more to strengthen our region in the face of the economic and trade progress of other regions.”
Sheinbaum said it was “inconceivable that no thought is given” to the harm the tariffs on Mexican exports will cause to United citizens and companies.
She also said that the implementation of tariffs will halt job creation in both Mexico and the United States.
“Nobody wins with this decision. On the contrary, it affects the people we represent,” Sheinbaum said.
The president said that her government “will continue to seek dialogue” with its United States counterpart “in order to find an alternative” to the tariffs imposed by U.S. President Donald Trump due to what the White House said was a failure by Mexico and Canada to take adequate action against “the influx of lethal drugs” to the U.S.
Sheinbaum called on “the people of Mexico” to “confront this challenge together and maintain unity.”
“I reiterate it’s time for the defense of Mexico and its sovereignty,” she said.
By not announcing Mexico’s retaliatory measures until Sunday, Sheinbaum buys herself time to perhaps reach a deal with Trump this week. In early February, she was also able to stave off the 25% tariffs for one month after committing to deploy 10,000 National Guard troops to Mexico’s northern border as part of an agreement with the U.S. president.
On Monday afternoon, Trump dashed Sheinbaum’s hopes of reaching a new agreement to avert the tariffs, announcing that 25% duties on all Mexican and Canadian exports to the U.S. would take effect as scheduled on Tuesday.
The U.S. government has also imposed an additional 10% tariff on Chinese imports, prompting Beijing to retaliate with tariffs of up to 15% on a wide array of U.S. farm exports, according to the Associated Press.
AP reported that “Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said his country would slap tariffs on more than [US] $100 billion of American goods over the course of 21 days.”
Tariffs imposed despite Mexico’s actions against cartels and decline in illegal migration to US
The U.S. tariffs on Mexican and Canadian exports took effect at 12:01 a.m. Tuesday, just over six weeks after Trump took office for his second term.
The U.S. government implemented the tariffs on Mexico despite the Mexican government’s significant efforts to combat cartels and their illicit activities.
In addition to deploying additional troops to the northern border as part of efforts to stem the flow of fentanyl to the U.S., the federal government has seized more than 112 tonnes of drugs since Sheinbaum took office on Oct. 1, according to data presented by Security Minister Omar García Harfuch last week.
Mexican authorities have also arrested more than 13,000 people for high-impact crimes such as murder, kidnapping and extortion, seized more than 6,500 firearms and dismantled hundreds of clandestine meth labs over the past five months.
Federal authorities intercept more than 20 million fentanyl doses in Sinaloa
Last Thursday, the government extradited 29 cartel figures to the United States, a move that came a week after the U.S. government designated six Mexican cartels as foreign terrorist organizations. Sheinbaum has repeatedly stressed that her government is willing to collaborate with the United States on security issues as long as Mexico’s sovereignty is respected.
Despite all these actions, and more, the United States still implemented 25% tariffs on its southern neighbor, in violation of the USMCA free trade pact.
The duties were imposed on Mexico and Canada despite United States Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick’s declaration on Sunday that both U.S. neighbors “have done a reasonable job on the border” and “we’ve had the lowest crossings ever [of migrants] under Donald Trump because of his ability to negotiate with Canada and Mexico.”
On Tuesday, Lutnick told CNBC that if Mexico and Canada “can stop the flow of fentanyl and they can prove to the president they can stop the flow of fentanyl then the president of course can remove these tariffs.”
“But you’ve seen it, it has not been a statistically relevant reduction of [fentanyl-related] deaths in America, it’s just black and white. And we told them it was outcome based,” he said.
“I understand that Canada says it’s only a small amount of fentanyl [coming into the U.S. via its northern border], it can only kill 9 million Americans, it’s not that much, whereas the flow of fentanyl from Mexico could kill everyone in America. I mean, you got to be kidding me! It’s got to stop and it’s got to stop really right away,” Lutnick said.
“… Hopefully Mexico will understand that this is not a trade war, this is a drug war. Hopefully they understand that, we keep saying it again and again and again,” he said.
For his part, Trump posted a one-sentence message to his Truth Social account on Tuesday morning: “IF COMPANIES MOVE TO THE UNITED STATES, THERE ARE NO TARIFFS!!!”
On Monday, he said that what companies will “have to do is build their car plants, frankly, and other things in the United States, in which case they have no tariffs.”
AP reported that the tariffs on Mexico and Canada “may be short-lived if the U.S. economy suffers.”
For months, the Mexican government has focused on pointing out that United States tariffs on Mexican exports would have a detrimental effect on the U.S. economy. Economy Minister Marcelo Ebrard has said that 25% tariffs would cause the loss of 400,000 jobs in the United States and increase prices for U.S. consumers.
US once again accuses Mexican government of affording ‘safe havens’ to cartels
In a “fact sheet” issued on Monday, the White House said that Trump was proceeding with the tariffs on Mexican and Canadian exports “under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act to combat the extraordinary threat to U.S. national security, including our public health posed by unchecked drug trafficking.”
“While President Trump gave both Canada and Mexico ample opportunity to curb the dangerous cartel activity and influx of lethal drugs flowing into our country, they have failed to adequately address the situation,” the White House said.
The White House asserted that “Mexican drug trafficking organizations, the world’s leading fentanyl traffickers, operate unhindered due to an intolerable relationship with the government of Mexico.”
“The government of Mexico has afforded safe havens for the cartels to engage in the manufacturing and transportation of dangerous narcotics, which collectively have led to the overdose deaths of hundreds of thousands of American victims,” it added.
The White House made the same claim just over a month ago. Unsurprisingly, Sheinbaum rejected the assertion.
On Monday, the White House also said that “cartel violence, including armed drones and roadside IEDs [improvised explosive devices], are coming in closer and closer proximity to the U.S.-Mexico border as cartels are more actively targeting one another as well as Mexican military and law enforcement personnel.”
Cartels’ “alliance with the Mexican government endangers the national security of the United States, and we must eradicate the influence of these dangerous cartels,” it added.
The White House also said that “when voters overwhelmingly elected Donald J. Trump as President, they gave him a mandate to seal the border.”
“That is exactly what he is doing,” it added.
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