 "U.S. President Donald Trump holds an executive order about tariffs increase, flanked by U.S. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington, D.C. File image/ Reuters")
US President Donald Trump’s Secretary of Commerce, Howard Lutnick, said on Sunday that the US tariffs on Canada and Mexico will go into effect on Tuesday. However, he maintained that Trump would determine whether to stick to the plan of imposing 25 per cent tariffs. Lutnick said that both Mexico and Canada have done “a lot” to address Trump’s concerns about border crossings.
However, he highlighted that the two nations haven’t done enough to address Trump’s worries about “fentanyl deaths in America”. The remarks from the Commerce secretary came during his interview with Fox News. Lutnick revealed that the POTUS was thinking about “how exactly he wants to play it with Mexico and Canada, and that is a fluid situation."
Meanwhile, the president has also vowed to impose an additional 10 per cent tariff on China on Tuesday, which is “set,” Lutnick confirmed. The recent remarks from Lutnick suggest that the US is hoping Mexico and Canada would make a last-ditch diplomatic effort to lower the tariffs or avert the measures altogether, something which has happened before.
‘He is going to think about it’: Lutnick
During the interview with Fox News, the Commerce Secretary made it clear that the decision would completely lie in the hands of the president. “He’s going to think about it. He’s going to put them into place on Tuesday. The Canadians and the Mexicans have been talking to him,” Lutnick said.
Last week, Mexico extradited dozens of prisoners to the US, including a drug trafficker wanted since the 1980s, in a bid to try to ward off the expected tariffs. Trump also indicated that he may extend the global trade war to Canada’s lumber industry after directing the Department of Commerce to probe dumping into the US market.
China, on the other hand, does not appear to have any room to manoeuvre as of now. “They either end the subsidies and they end making these ingredients from fentanyl, or he’s going to put tariffs on there,” Lutnick said. Meanwhile, Beijing has vowed to take countermeasures to defend its interests. Last week, China said that it has tightened controls on precursor chemicals and fentanyl-like substances.
Impact Shorts
More Shorts“If they think they’re going to retaliate, remember they have so Much more than they sell to us than we sell to them,” Lutnick said. In the midst of all this, a poll released on Sunday by CBS News said that Trump narrowly got a positive rating for handling the economy but not on inflation.
With inputs from agencies.