After receiving a call from Mexico’s president, Claudia Sheinbaum, the United States has made the announcement that it will not raise the tariffs it imposes.
On Thursday, her counterpart, US President Donald Trump, released the news and hailed the pronouncement as a diplomatic breakthrough.
I just had a great deal of fun with Claudia Sheinbaum, the president of Mexico, in that we are increasingly getting to know and understand one another, Trump wrote.
Because of both the Border’s problems and assets, the complexities of a deal with Mexico are ” oarecarily different from those of other nations.”
He explained that he and Sheinbaum had agreed to maintain US tariffs for a 90-day period at their current rates.
On August 1, Mexico was just one day away from a tariff increase. Trump had threatened to impose 30% tariffs on Mexican imports earlier this month on July 11 on Truth Social.
A number of individualized tariff announcements, written in the form of letters to US trading partners, were included in that threat. Brazil received 50% tariffs on one country.
Trump attributed Mexico’s refusal to halt the fentanyl-based criminal cartels he claimed were “pouring these drugs into our country” in his letter to the country.
Mexico has been assisting me in securing the border, but what Mexico has done is insufficient, Trump wrote at the time.
“Mexico continues to be trying to turn North America into a playground for narcotics traffickers. I can’t allow that to happen, of course”!
The threatened 30-percent tariff was the same one that was initially imposed on the European Union, which negotiated a reduction of the proposed tariff with Trump over the previous week.
The US will continue to impose a 25% tariff on its steel, aluminum, and copper products and a 50% tariff on those made in Mexico as a result of Thursday’s announcement.
Any Mexican imports that are not subject to an existing free trade agreement, the US-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA), are also subject to a 25-percent tax, which Trump has referred to as a “fentanyl tariff.”
Additionally, Trump stated on Thursday that “Mexico has agreed to immediately remove its Non-Tarif Trade Barriers, of which there were many”.
“We will be talking to Mexico over the course of the next 90 days, with the intention of signing a trade agreement in the 90-day period, or longer.”
Sheinbaum herself sent a brief message outlining their appeal and highlighting the ongoing discussions between their two governments.
Sheinbaum remarked, “We had a very good call with US President Donald Trump.” We negotiated a 90-day period of dialogue to reach a long-term agreement and avoided the tariff increase that was scheduled for tomorrow.
Trump had set a tariff hike deadline of August 1, but he’s already making deals with nations like South Korea, Japan, and Indonesia.
These agreements have resulted in lower import taxes than the initial announcement rates, rather than avoiding tariffs altogether.
Trump has attempted to use tariffs to boost domestic production and lessen what he perceives as undesirable deficits with US trading partners.
He has also used them to boost domestic policy objectives, including by urging border-controlling nations like Mexico to increase border enforcement.
However, experts have cautioned that higher prices for consumers could be caused by tariffs on imported goods into the US. Trump’s start-and-stop approach to tariffs has also sparked worries about economic instability because it only announced them and then delayed them.
In April, Trump first made individual “reciprocal” tariffs on foreign trading partners. These tariffs were delayed, and they were made public this month with their most recent revisions.
Trump, however, has refrained from raising concerns and asserted that his tariff campaign will result in US billions in taxes.
Trump once said, “Targets is the most beautiful word in the dictionary,” placing it next to terms like “love” and “religion.”
Source: Aljazeera
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