Report: Mexico Delays Response to US Tariffs, Hopes to Avert Trade War
Mexico’s president, Claudia Sheinbaum, reportedly hopes to deescalate a trade war by delaying a response to U.S. tariffs until she talks with President Donald Trump Thursday (March 6).
Sheinbaum said Tuesday (March 4) that Mexico will announce the details of its plans for retaliatory tariffs on U.S. goods Sunday (March 9), waiting to do so until after call that she and Trump have planned for Thursday, the Associated Press (AP) reported Tuesday.
The delay suggests Mexico hopes to deescalate the trade war, according to the report.
“There is no motive or reason, nor justification that supports this decision that will affect our people and our nations,” Sheinbaum said of the imposition of tariffs by the U.S., per the report.
Trump has said that he imposed the tariffs to pressure Mexico to halt the flow of drugs from the country to the U.S., according to the report.
Sheinbaum denied allegations that drug traffickers have a relationship with the Mexican government and said that during her time in office the country has seized more than a ton of fentanyl, dismantled 329 methamphetamine labs, and sent 29 members of drug cartels to the U.S., per the report.
Trump’s blanket 25% tariffs against Mexico and Canada went into force Tuesday, as did a 20% levy on imports from China.
While Mexico promised to announce its own tariffs on U.S. exports later this week, the two other trading partners responded immediately. China slapped a 15% duty on several classes of U.S. exports, and Canada retaliated with levies on a reported $107 billion of goods coming from the U.S.
Trump announced his plans to impose new tariffs on the three countries Thursday (Feb. 27), writing in a post on Truth Social that the tariffs aim to deter the importation of drugs from Mexico and Canada and the manufacturing and supply of drugs by China.
“We cannot allow this scourge to continue to harm the USA, and therefore, until it stops, or is seriously limited, the proposed TARIFFS scheduled to go into effect on MARCH FOURTH will, indeed, go into effect, as scheduled,” Trump wrote in the post.
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