{"id":589,"date":"2025-01-23T16:00:41","date_gmt":"2025-01-23T16:00:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.insuracarelife.com\/blog\/trumps-threatens-tariffs-feb-1-on-canada-mexico-and-china\/"},"modified":"2025-01-23T16:00:41","modified_gmt":"2025-01-23T16:00:41","slug":"trumps-threatens-tariffs-feb-1-on-canada-mexico-and-china","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.insuracarelife.com\/blog\/trumps-threatens-tariffs-feb-1-on-canada-mexico-and-china\/","title":{"rendered":"Trumps Threatens Tariffs Feb. 1 on Canada, Mexico and China"},"content":{"rendered":"<div data-testid=\"companionColumn-0\">\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">When President Trump did not follow through with his promise to immediately impose new tariffs on his first day in office, business executives and others who support international trade breathed a sigh of relief.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">That relief was short-lived. On Monday night, just hours after his inauguration speech, Mr. Trump said he planned to put a 25 percent tariff on products from Canada and Mexico beginning on Feb. 1, claiming that the countries were allowing \u201cmass numbers of people and fentanyl\u201d to come to the United States.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">On Tuesday evening, Mr. Trump said he would also put an additional 10 percent tariff on Chinese products by the same date, accusing China of sending fentanyl to Mexico and Canada, which was then crossing into the United States.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Mr. Trump\u2019s threats leave just 10 days before significant levies could go into effect on the United States\u2019 three largest trading partners, a move that could throw American diplomatic relationships and global supply chains into disarray.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div data-testid=\"companionColumn-1\">\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Mexico, China and Canada account for more than a third of the goods and services that are imported to or bought from the United States, supporting tens of millions of American jobs. Together, the countries purchased more than $1 trillion of U.S. exports and provided nearly $1.5 trillion of goods and services to the United States in 2023, the last year government data is available.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">While tariffs have long been used by the United States as punishment for unfair trading practices, Mr. Trump\u2019s first use of them is aimed at an entirely different outcome: tightening American borders against immigrants and illegal drugs.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">These goals could mean that Mr. Trump\u2019s tariffs are less likely to go into effect, or that they are more likely to be removed if they do take effect. That is in contrast to other tariffs that his team is planning, which would seek to reorder global supply chains and raise revenue for the government.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">It\u2019s also not clear which products the tariffs would apply to if they are imposed. One person familiar with the Trump administration\u2019s deliberations said they had been considering tariffs on all imports from those countries, as well as looking at tariffs on specific goods, like cars, steel and aluminum. The Trump administration did not immediately respond to a request for comment.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Stock markets have mostly shrugged off Mr. Trump\u2019s tariff statements and closed yesterday at near record highs.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div data-testid=\"companionColumn-2\">\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Officials in Canada, Mexico and China have been working to draw up lists of American products on which they could impose their own tariffs in retaliation, if Mr. Trump chooses to move forward.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">But they are also responding to Mr. Trump in ways that suggest his threats of tariffs are working. The Canadian and Mexican governments in particular have been rushing to try to forestall tariffs, dispatching officials to reassure the Trump team that they are trying to address his concerns.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">The Mexican government has been expanding <a class=\"css-yywogo\" href=\"https:\/\/www.gob.mx\/sspc\/prensa\/el-gabinete-de-seguridad-del-gobierno-de-mexico-informa-acciones-relevantes-del-jueves-26-de-diciembre-de-2024\" title=\"\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" target=\"_blank\">migration deterrence efforts<\/a> and increasing seizures of illicit opioids. Canada has also committed fresh resources to patrol its border, including deploying two new Blackhawk helicopters and buying 60 U.S.-made drones to surveil the border. Canada\u2019s immigration department said that irregular migrant crossings are down by 86 percent in the last two months, a byproduct of a tightening of its visa rules. Illegal crossings at the U.S.-Mexico border are near a four-year low.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">It\u2019s unclear if the Chinese government has taken any new steps in response to Mr. Trump\u2019s recent tariff threats, but Mr. Trump said that he had discussed fentanyl, as well as trade and other issues, in a phone call last Friday with Chinese leader Xi Jinping.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">The Chinese government had made commitments to the United States, both during the Trump and Biden administrations, to stem exports of fentanyl and precursors. During Mr. Trump\u2019s first term, China introduced a ban on fentanyl and began coordinating efforts with the United States to catch traffickers. And in 2023, Mr. Xi and former President Joseph R. Biden Jr. agreed to a series of bilateral talks on narcotics after they met in Woodside, Calif.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div data-testid=\"companionColumn-3\">\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Asked if the United States and China had spoken about the prospect of 10 percent tariffs on Chinese products, Mao Ning, a spokeswoman for China\u2019s Foreign Ministry, said at a news briefing in Beijing on Wednesday that China was \u201cwilling\u201d to communicate with the United States to expand cooperation and manage the two countries\u2019 differences.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">\u201cWe always believe there is no winner in a tariff or trade war,\u201d she added. \u201cWe will always firmly safeguard our national interests.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">In a Senate confirmation hearing last week, Scott Bessent, the nominee for Treasury secretary, listed three main reasons that the Trump administration might deploy tariffs. Some tariffs could be aimed at remedying unfair trade practices, while others could raise revenue for the federal budget.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">He added that Mr. Trump, as a skilled negotiator, had \u201cadded a third use of tariffs.\u201d Tariffs could be used for negotiations, including for Mexico on the fentanyl crisis, he said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Douglas A. Irwin, an economic historian at Dartmouth College, said there had been a few instances in history when U.S. leaders had linked trade actions to non-trade related goals \u2014 like President Nixon conditioning the return of Okinawa to Japan on its adopting export restraints in textiles \u2014 but that Mr. Trump was \u201cvery overt and transactional in his approach.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div data-testid=\"companionColumn-4\">\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">\u201cIt is pretty unique and unusual,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Business owners have expressed concern about the prospect of fresh tariffs. Economists <a class=\"css-yywogo\" href=\"https:\/\/www.piie.com\/blogs\/realtime-economics\/2025\/trumps-threatened-tariffs-projected-damage-economies-us-canada-mexico\" title=\"\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" target=\"_blank\">have estimated<\/a> that a 25 percent tariff on goods from Canada and Mexico could shrink the size of the U.S. economy by hundreds of billions of dollars, as well as potentially nullifying the trade agreement between the three countries, which requires its members to abstain from such moves.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">The economies of Mexico and Canada in particular are closely integrated with the U.S. economy. Supply chains for various goods snake back and forth across North American borders, traveling between fields, factories and stores in each country as they are transformed from raw materials into finished products.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">A single car and its parts may cross the U.S.-Canada border multiple times as it is assembled. A pair of bluejeans could be made with cotton, fabric and buttons from the United States, but sewn in a factory in Mexico. Farmers in the United States send corn and soybeans south of the border to be incorporated into packaged food and animal feed; Mexican farms send American grocery stores cheap avocados, mangos and tomatoes, even in the dead of winter.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">If a 25 percent tariff is added each time that one of those products crosses the U.S. border, it could significantly raise the cost of goods Americans buy and even force U.S. manufacturers to shutter operations.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">\u201cThe supply chain challenges we\u2019ve faced in recent years will appear mild compared to what\u2019s on the horizon,\u201d said Jonathan Colehower, managing director of global supply chain management at UST, a consulting company.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">The tariff threats recall incidents during Mr. Trump\u2019s first term. In the spring of 2019, Mr. Trump vowed to close the U.S. border with Mexico, then threatened 5 percent tariffs on all Mexican products, which would ratchet up to 25 percent unless the country stemmed the flow of migrants and asylum seekers. Mr. Trump ultimately decided not to go through with those threats.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-798hid etfikam0\">Matina Stevis-Gridneff<!-- --> and <!-- -->Siyi Zhao<!-- --> contributed research and reporting.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>When President Trump did not follow through with his promise to immediately impose new tariffs on his first day in office, business executives and others who support international trade breathed a sigh of relief. That relief was short-lived. On Monday night, just hours after his inauguration speech, Mr. Trump said he planned to put a [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":590,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[201,203,200,202,199,198,197],"class_list":["post-589","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-blog","tag-canada","tag-china","tag-feb","tag-mexico","tag-tariffs","tag-threatens","tag-trumps"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.insuracarelife.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/589","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.insuracarelife.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.insuracarelife.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.insuracarelife.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.insuracarelife.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=589"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.insuracarelife.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/589\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.insuracarelife.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/590"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.insuracarelife.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=589"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.insuracarelife.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=589"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.insuracarelife.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=589"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}