United States President Donald Trump said Thursday that he is going ahead with his plan to impose 25% tariffs on exports to the U.S. from Mexico and Canada, and the White House press secretary confirmed on Friday they would take effect this Saturday.
Speaking to reporters in the Oval Office, Trump said that that the tariff announcement was coming on Saturday.
On Friday, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt confirmed that the tariffs would be implemented, as planned, on Saturday Feb. 1.
“I was just with the president in the Oval Office and I can confirm that … the president will be implementing tomorrow 25% tariffs on Mexico, 25% tariffs on Canada and a 10% tariff on China for the illegal fentanyl that they have sourced and allowed to distribute into our country, which has killed tens of millions of Americans,” she said.
Leavitt said that a Reuters report stating that the tariffs wouldn’t be implemented until March 1 was “false.”
She said she didn’t have any information about products that would be exempt from the tariffs.
“I don’t have an update or readout for you on the exemptions but those tariffs will be for public consumption in about 24 hours tomorrow so you can read them then,” Leavitt said.
On Thursday, Trump said “we’ll be announcing the tariffs on Canada and Mexico for a number of reasons.”
“Number one is the people that have poured into our country so horribly and so much,” he said in reference to migrants that have entered the United States via its southern and northern borders.
“Number two are the drugs, fentanyl and everything else, that have come into the country and number three are the massive subsidies that we’re giving to Canada and to Mexico in the form of [trade] deficits,” Trump said.
“I’ll be putting the tariff of 25% on Canada and separately 25% on Mexico and we will really have to do that because we have very big deficits with those countries. Those tariffs may or may not rise with time,” he said.
Trump said on Friday afternoon that there was “nothing” Mexico, Canada and China could do on Friday night to forestall the implementation of the tariffs on Saturday.
“Not right now,” he said, telling reporters that his tariff threat wasn’t a negotiating tool.
“It’s a pure economic [decision],” he said.
Trump said on Thursday that Mexico and Canada — the United States’ USMCA free trade partners — “have never been good to us on trade.”
The economies of Mexico, the United States and Canada are highly integrated, but the U.S. president said that the U.S. doesn’t need “the products that they have.”
“We have all the oil you need. We have all the the trees you need, meaning the lumber,” Trump said.
With regard to oil from Mexico and Canada, he said that the United States “may or may not” impose tariffs.
“It depends on what their price is — if the oil is properly priced, if they treat us properly, which they don’t,” Trump said.
He said on his first day in office that his administration could impose 25% tariffs on Mexico and Canada on Feb. 1, but the Mexican government remained confident that he wouldn’t act on his threat.
Leavitt said Tuesday that Trump intended to go ahead with his tariff plan, but Howard Lutnick, Trump’s nominee for commerce secretary, said Wednesday that Mexico and Canada could avoid blanket 25% tariffs on their exports if they acted quickly to stop the flow of fentanyl to the U.S.
“As far as I know, they are acting swiftly, and if they execute it, there will be no tariff. And if they don’t, there will be,” Lutnick said.
Trump, based on his comments on Thursday and Leavitt’s remarks on Friday, is not yet satisfied with the efforts made by Mexico and Canada, even though Mexican authorities regularly make large drug busts and the number of migrants crossing into the U.S. between official ports of entry has declined significantly in recent months.
‘We have plan A, plan B, plan C,’ says Sheinbaum
Speaking at her morning press conference on Friday, President Claudia Sheinbaum said that her government is prepared for whatever decision the Trump administration takes with regard to tariffs.
“We have plan A, plan B, plan C for whatever the United States government decides,” she said.
“… We’re going to wait with a cool head, as I have always said,” Sheinbaum said, adding that her government would maintain dialogue with its U.S. counterpart.
#EnLaMañanera | “Tenemos Plan A, Plan B y Plan C para lo que decida el Gobierno de #EU; siempre vamos a defender la dignidad de #México”: la presidenta Claudia Sheinbaum responde a posibles aranceles de 25% que prometió imponer Trump a partir del 1 de febrero pic.twitter.com/gqsuZZPOI3
— El Financiero (@ElFinanciero_Mx) January 31, 2025
Economy Minister Marcelo Ebrard reiterated that tariffs on Mexican exports would have an adverse impact on consumers in the United States.
“You have to take into account … that Mexico is the main exporter [to the United States] of final goods such as cars, computers, televisions and refrigerators,” he told Sheinbaum’s press conference.
“… United States consumers would be affected” by the tariffs, Ebrard said.
“In first place because prices will be higher. The price of all those products will rise 25%,” he said.
Ebrard also said that a 25% tariff on Mexican exports would diminish the availability of Mexican-made (or grown) products in the United States, and that the duty could cause supply chain problems in a range of sectors including the auto industry.
The “main impact,” he stressed, is that “millions of families in the United States will have to pay 25% more” for a wide range of products including Mexican fruit, vegetables, meat and beer.
After Trump pledged in November to implement a 25% tariff on Mexican and Canadian exports, Ebrard said that the United States would be shooting itself in the foot if the plan eventuated.
The economy minister said on Nov. 27 that 400,000 jobs would be lost in the United States if the 25% tariff was imposed on Mexican exports. He stressed that Trump’s proposed tariff would affect companies in the United States that operate in Mexico, particularly automakers that have long had a manufacturing presence here such as General Motors, Stellantis and Ford. On Friday, Ebrard stood by his previous remarks.
The imposition of blanket 25% tariffs on Mexican and Canadian exports to the United States would violate the terms of the USMCA, but Trump appears unconcerned about that.
The U.S. president — who issued an “America First Trade Policy” memorandum on his first day as president that laid the groundwork for his proposed tariffs — also appears unconcerned about the impact of the duties on U.S. consumers, even though he has pledged to make life more affordable.
Mexico News Daily
