By World News Research

US President Donald Trump will impose tariffs on Saturday of 25% on Mexico, 25% on Canada, and 10% on China, says the White House.

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said the Canada and Mexico duties were in response to "the illegal fentanyl that they have sourced and allowed to distribute into our country, which has killed tens of millions of Americans".

Around the same time, a delegation of senior Canadian officials was preparing to meet with President Donald Trump’s border czar in a bid to stave off withering new tariffs, Trump himself essentially told them from afar: Don’t bother.

“No,” he said when asked by a reporter in the Oval Office if there was anything Canada, Mexico, or China could do to forestall the new tariffs he’d promised to apply by February 1. “Not right now.”

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said the Canada and Mexico duties were in response to "the illegal fentanyl that they have sourced and allowed to distribute into our country, which has killed tens of millions of Americans".

During the election campaign, Trump threatened to hit Chinese-made products with tariffs of up to 60% but held off on any immediate action.

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said on Friday: "It's not what we want, but if he moves forward, we will also act."

Canada and Mexico have already said that they would respond to US tariffs with measures of their own, while also seeking to assure Washington that they were taking action to address concerns about their US borders.

After threatening for months to impose steep tariffs on the United States neighbors, Trump’s vow to follow through on them should hardly come as a surprise. With the deadline due, officials said the tariffs would be available for public inspection by midday Saturday. Still, until the final hours before Trump’s start-of-month deadline, many on Wall Street and Capitol Hill – not to mention in Ottawa and Mexico City – held out hope he might back off.

Eventually, we’re going to put tariffs on chips. We’re going to put tariffs on oil and gas. That’ll happen fairly soon,” Trump said later in the day, suggesting “around” February 18.

“We’re going to be putting tariffs on steel, aluminum, and ultimately copper. Copper will take a little longer, but it will happen quickly,” Trump said.

Trump also announced intentions to impose tariffs on pharmaceuticals, calling it part of a broader strategy to revive US industries. “We’re going to build a tariff wall to bring pharmaceuticals back to America,” he said. “The way to do that is by putting up a wall, a tariff wall.”

Placing significant tariffs on the United States’ biggest trading partners serves as a gamble that taxing American companies for imported goods will ultimately punish the countries that make stuff Americans want, and bring those nations to the negotiating table. But it’s a risky bet that could easily backfire on American consumers and the economy.

Earlier this month, a top Chinese official warned against protectionism as Trump's return to the presidency renews the threat of a trade war between the world's two biggest economies - but did not mention the US by name.

Addressing the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, Ding Xuexiang, Vice Premier of China, said his country was looking for a "win-win" solution to trade tensions and wanted to expand its imports.

China, Canada, and Mexico are the top US trading partners, accounting for 40% of the goods imported into the US last year, and fears are rising that the new steep levies could kick off a major trade war as well as push up prices in the US.

If US imports of oil from Canada and Mexico are hit with levies it risks undermining Trump's promise to bring down the cost of living.

Tariffs are an import tax on goods that are produced abroad.

In theory, taxing items coming into a country means people are less likely to buy them as they become more expensive.

The intention is that they buy cheaper local products instead - boosting a country's economy.

But the cost of tariffs on imported energy could be passed on to businesses and consumers, which may increase the prices of everything from petrol to groceries.

Around 40% of the crude that runs through US oil refineries is imported, and the vast majority of it comes from Canada.

On Friday, Trump agreed tariff costs are sometimes passed along to consumers and that his plans may cause disruption in the short-term.

Mark Carney, the former head of Canada's and England's central banks, told BBC Newsnight on Friday that the tariffs will hit economic growth and drive up inflation.

"They're going to damage the US's reputation around the world," said Carney, who is also in the running to replace Prime Minister Trudeau as leader of Canada's Liberal Party.

The proposed tariffs expected on Saturday would hit a far wider range of goods than anything Trump has previously imposed. During his first term, Trump’s tariffs hit roughly $380 billion of foreign goods, according to estimates from the Tax Foundation. The proposed tariffs on the nation’s three largest trading partners would hit about $1.4 trillion of imported goods if there are no exemptions, the Tax Foundation said.

The figures underscore how aggressive and risky Trump’s tariffs would be, especially given how much prices have spiked since then. “The administration is playing with fire,” said Joe Brusuelas, chief economist at RSM.

Brusuelas noted that the vast majority of imported US avocadoes are from Mexico, which faces a 25% tariff. “Go ahead and spike taxes on avocados ahead of the Super Bowl and watch how that turns out,” he said.

When Trump announced the tariffs against Canada and Mexico in November in a post on Truth Social, for instance, he said his goal was to better control the US’s “ridiculous Open Borders”.

 

 

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