Trump suspends the 25% tariffs announced against Mexico after reaching an agreement with Sheinbaum
- Author, Drafting
- Author’s title, BBC News World
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The president of the United States, Donald Trump, suspended for a month the 25% tariffs announced against Mexico over the weekend.
The president reported on his social Truth network that he held a “very friendly conversation” with the president of Mexico, Claudia Sheinbaum.
Minutes before, the president had confirmed the agreement through a brief message posted on the social network X, in which she announced that she promised to reinforce the border with the United States with 10 thousand members of the National Guard who will be responsible for avoiding the Drug trafficking, particularly of fentanyl.
“It was a good conversation with President Trump with much respect for our relationship and sovereignty,” Sheinbaum wrote.
At a press conference he delivered more details about the dialogue.
Sheinbaum said Donald Trump asked him how long he wanted to pause these tariffs, to which she replied “we are going to pause him forever,” laughing.
Then he added: “I said, well, we are going to pause a month and I am sure that in this month we will be able to give results, good results to their people, good results to the people of Mexico.”
The United States, meanwhile, promised to work to avoid high -power arms trafficking towards Mexico, the president said.
“For the first time, the US government says we are going to work together to prevent high power weapons from entering Mexico,” he said.
On Mexican agents who will be sent to the border between the two countries, Trump reported that “they will be specifically designated to stop the flow of fentanyl and illegal immigrants to our country.”
The US President announced that there will be negotiations headed by the Secretary of State, Marco Rubio; The Treasury Secretary, Scott Besent; and the Secretary of Commerce, Howard Lutnick, in addition to high -level representatives of Mexico.
On Saturday Trump signed an executive order that imposed 25% tariffs on the products imported from Mexico and Canada and a 10% tax to China.
The measure would take effect early on Tuesday, according to the White House.
So far, tariffs announced against Canadian and Chinese products remain standing.
The Republican blames Mexico of the “avalanche” of Fentanilo that enters his country and justifies the measure, an unpublished blow to the Free Trade Agreement, with which “illegal migrants represent a threat to the security of the USA”.
It is not the first time
In 2018, during his first term, Trump imposed 25% tariffs on steel and 10% aluminum. The then Mexican president, Enrique Peña Nieto, responded with taxes from 10% to 25% to materials made with steel, pork, various types of cheeses, apples, potatoes, blueberries and American bourbon.
However, after reaching an agreement with Mexico to reduce the arrival of immigrants through its southern border, Trump reversed in 2019 his plans to impose tariffs on all Mexican products.
That same year, he threatened to impose tariffs of 5% on all Mexican imports and a subsequent gradual increase to 25%.
After several days of intense negotiations, on June 7, 2019, an agreement between the two countries was reached to avoid these tariffs, which included commitments from Mexico to increase security at its borders and contain the passage of migrants.
Mexico and the USA have one of the closest commercial relations in the world.
If countries do not reach an agreement, tariffs could put into play a 30 -year -old free trade system that has built a highly integrated economy between the three North American countries, with auto parts that sometimes cross borders several times before the final assembly .
This interconnection has been possible thanks to the treaty between Mexico, the United States and Canada (T-MEC), successor of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) signed in 1994.
For Mexico, the US market is fundamental, since more than 80% of its exports are aimed at its neighbor.
And on the United States side, the Mexican economy is also key due to the deep interconnection in supply chains.
How do tariffs work? Tariffs are nothing more than a tax on imported products. They are paid by the importer of the country that applies the tariff, in this case, the American importer, when the foreign product arrives to customs.
As the importer has to pay a higher price, it usually transfers a part of that extra cost, or all the additional cost, to US consumers.
That makes the effects of the tariffs sit on both sides of the border.
Migration, security, trade
During the press conference on Monday, Sheinbaum delivered more details about the phone call with Trump.
He said they had talked about the issue of commercial deficit.
“I told him that it was not a deficit, that we were commercial partners, that this was the result of being commercial partners and that it was the best way to continue competing against China and other regions of the world,” he said.
He added that during the conversation he expressed his desire to collaborate, “without losing sovereignty, with respect to our territories.”
On the subject of how the work will be done during the next month, the president explained that three work tables between the two countries will work, responsible for addressing migration, security, and trade issues.
On the other hand, he referred to arms trafficking.
“In the conversation he was not very informed. I told him that in Mexico there are rocket launches that come from the US illegally. So how are these weapons of high power pass from the US to Mexico?” He says he asked him.
“What we agreed was to work on it.”
The members of the National Guard who will be deployed at the border, added the president, have the objective of reducing the traffic of fentanyl and argued that “for humanitarian reasons” Mexico must help the US to avoid the consumption crisis of that drug.
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