U.S. President Trump imposed a 25% tariff on Mexico and Canada.
On February 1, 2025, President Trump imposed a 25% tariff on all the products being imported from Mexico and Canada, which led to retaliation tariffs on the US from Canada and Mexico.
The White House said President Trump was “taking bold action to hold Mexico, Canada, and China accountable to their promises of halting illegal immigration and stopping poisonous fentanyl and other drugs from flowing into our country.” Trump claims that these countries are not fulfilling their promises, and as a result, fentanyl and other drugs are flowing into the country.
Canadian Prime Minister Trudeau and Sheinbaum, the President of Mexico, agreed to work together to push back Trump’s tariff program. Trudeau sees the Tariff as a threat to the country and an act of betrayal against its “closest ally and neighbor,” says the Canadian Prime Minister. He further talks about how this decision will not only harm Canadians but the American people too, and it will have real consequences.
Tariffs are a tax on imported goods that are a barrier that raises prices for consumers and businesses. This eliminates foreign competition encouraging consumers to buy domestic products, boosting profits and growth within the industry.
In a press conference, Claudia Sheinbaum the president of Mexico responded to Trump and said, “If the people United States government and its agencies wanted to address the serious consumption of fentanyl in their country, they could, for example, combat the sale of narcotics on the streets of their main cities, which they do not do, and the money laundering generated by this illegal activity that has done so much harm to their population.”
Many people feel that the tariffs will only cause problems for the U.S. and hardships for the people. Ms.Hickman, an AP US History teacher at BASE High School says, “I don’t recommend imposing harsh tariffs on other countries. I have read that Trump thinks that he’s going to bring this back to the way it was before. However, if you look at that in history, tariffs have caused a lot of hardship for people, even going back as far as Andrew Jackson when he imposed a bunch of tariffs, there was inflation as a result.”
Mary Lovely, an economist says that the average household will have to pay $1,200 more a year on produce because of the new tariffs Trump implemented. In an interview on PBS NewsHour. “Kimberly Clausing and I have run the numbers on this latest round of tariff threats, and we find that for the average household, it would be about $ 1,200 more per year or a consumer loss of $1,200. That number would rise if President Trump then goes ahead with other threats that he has made to raise tariffs on the European Union.”
Shortly after Trump imposed tariffs on Mexico and Canada, Canada ordered tariffs of 25% (approximately $20 billion worth of U.S. goods) on American imports, as a retaliation.
On February 3, 2025, just hours before the tariff on the U.S. was to take effect President Trump struck a deal with the leaders of Canada and Mexico to hold off on the tariffs for 30 days as they come to an agreement. Additionally, President Trump expanded steel and Aluminum tariffs to all countries, modifying the tariffs he originally opposed in 2018 under 232 of the Trade Expansion Act of 1962.
