US president Donald Trump and his Mexican counterpart, Claudia Sheinbaum, have announced a one-month “pause” in threatened US tariffs following what the president of Mexico described as “a good conversation” between the two leaders.
The US president upended US-Mexico ties over the weekend when he announced 25 per cent levies on trade and accused Ms Sheinbaum’s administration of engaging in an “intolerable alliance” with Mexican crime groups.
Ms Sheinbaum rejected that “slanderous” accusation, but on Monday morning struck a softer note as she announced “a series of agreements” with Mr Trump.
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Mexico had agreed to send 10,000 members of its national guard “to prevent drug trafficking from Mexico to the US, in particular of fentanyl”. In return, the US had agreed to work to prevent high-powered weapons crossing the border into Mexico.
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The tariffs – which had been scheduled to come into force on Tuesday - would be paused for one month as a result, Ms Sheinbaum added.
Mr Trump’s round of announced tariffs included 25 per cent on Mexican and Canadian goods, plus 10 per cent on China. Threatened tariffs on Colombia were withdrawn after an agreement on migration flights.
Canada and China have thus far taken a different approach from Mexico’s. Over the weekend, Canada announced retaliatory levies of 25 per cent on US goods. Politicians have urged Canadians to buy local products in anticipation of a trade war.
China vowed to file a case against the United States at the World Trade Organisation and to take “corresponding countermeasures to firmly safeguard its rights and interests”.
Mr Trump signalled on Sunday that Europe could be his next target, telling the BBC that tariffs “will definitely happen with the European Union” and could come “pretty soon”.
European leaders said on Monday that a trade war with the United States would destabilise economies on both sides of the Atlantic.
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Mr Trump said the tariffs on Mexico would be paused for a month during negotiations involving senior Mexican officials, US secretary of state Marco Rubio, US treasury secretary Scott Bessent and US commerce secretary Howard Lutnick.
“I look forward to participating in those negotiations, with President Sheinbaum, as we attempt to achieve a ‘deal’ between our two countries,” he added.
Speaking at her daily press conference in Mexico City, Ms Sheinbaum told reporters that, at the end of a 30- to 45-minute conversation with Mr Trump, she had joked with the US president that she would like to see tariffs suspended “forever”.
However, she believed a one-month reprieve represented “a good deal”. – Guardian/New York Times
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