Trump says 25% tariffs on Mexico and Canada go into effect tomorrow

WashingtonLast January, Canada and Mexico reached a 30-day truce in extremis just before they were due to take effect. This time, it seems that US President Donald Trump has assured that there is no room for a second postponement. "The tariffs are ready. They will go into effect tomorrow," the president told reporters during the press conference he held to announce that the Taiwanese chip company, TSMC, will invest 100 billion dollars to create a chip facility in Arizona. An additional 10% for China is also maintained, which is added to the 10% that already went into effect last month and also adds to other taxes already in place for Chinese imports.

For days now, confusion and chaos have been hovering over the tariffs in Mexico and Canada. Last week, Trump generated false hopes when he mixed up the tariffs against his neighbors with those of the EU and said they would come into effect on April 2. This made it seem as though the new government was granting its main trading partners an extra month of grace. After the Mexican peso and the Canadian dollar rose against the dollar, a member of the White House had to come out to clarify that the tariffs would go into effect on March 4 and that only after that would it be evaluated whether they would be paused again or changes made. The next day, Trump corrected himself by telling Truth Social that, in addition to applying the 25% tariffs starting March 4, he would also apply an additional 10% to China.

The confusion, however, did not stop there. On Sunday night, Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick acknowledged on Fox that border crossings have fallen (one of the demands linked to the tariffs) and that Mexico and Canada are also studying imposing tariffs on China, as requested by the US. For all these reasons, Lutnick assured that the tariffs could be less than 25% and it seemed that the door was also open to another truce.

From the beginning, Trump has linked the application of tariffs in Mexico and Canada with the reinforcement of the border to avoid the entry of migrants and fentanyl. The president is using trade tariffs to try to solve other problems that have no relation whatsoever.