Trump tariffs: US hits Mexico, Canada and China with import taxes – live updates

Will Grant
Central America and Cuba correspondent

Image source, Getty Images

All week, the Mexican President, Claudia Sheinbaum, has been
bullish about the threat of tariffs from the Trump Administration. She felt
confident they wouldn’t be imposed, she said, and if they were, her government
had a “Plan A, a Plan B and a Plan C” to deal with the fallout. The
exact nature of those contingency plans would be revealed at the time, she
insisted.

Well, it seems that moment the US’s neighbours in North
America had hoped to avoid has arrived and Mexicans – both business leaders and
ordinary citizens – are looking for President Sheinbaum to reveal her hand.
Most expect her to follow through with retaliatory tariffs on US products as
she repeatedly said Mexico would be forced to, in the lead up to this
trade dispute.

Beyond that, President Trump has tied these tariffs to the issue
of fentanyl trafficking. But her administration says that the Mexican military
has done a great deal on the issue – including suffering numerous casualties.
The side which needs to do more, she argues, is the United States, to work
harder on the demand side as the world’s biggest market for illegal drugs. And,
crucially, stem the tide of illegal weapons heading south, from the US, into
the arms of the Mexican cartels. The two sides remain far apart on that issue.

Still, with Mexico having recently replaced China as the US’s
biggest trading partner, the sums involved run into the hundreds of billions of
dollars of cross-border trade each year. As such, there are real life
consequences in Mexico for companies big and small in this trade spat, and
Mexican diplomats will be hoping to bring it to as swift a conclusion as
possible.