Foreign News
Trump imposes tariffs but Canada and Mexico hit back
US President Donald Trump has announced sweeping new tariffs on all goods imported from America’s three largest trading partners, China, Mexico and Canada.
Trump said the US would impose tariffs beginning on Tuesday of 25% on Canada and Mexico, and 10% on China. Canadian energy faces a lower 10% tariff.
He had threatened to impose the import taxes if the three countries did not address his concerns about illegal immigration and drug trafficking.
Both Canada and Mexico said they are preparing retaliatory tariffs of their own.
Trump has indicated he is ready to escalate the duties if the countries retaliate.
Together, China, Mexico and Canada accounted for more than 40% of imports into the US last year.
“Today’s tariff announcement is necessary to hold China, Mexico, and Canada accountable for their promises to halt the flood of poisonous drugs into the United States,” the White House said in a statement on X on Saturday.
Trump posted on his Truth Social platform: “This was done through the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA) because of the major threat of illegal aliens and deadly drugs killing our Citizens, including fentanyl.”
A tariff is a domestic tax levied on goods as they enter the country, proportional to the value of the import. They are a central part of Trump’s economic vision.
He sees them as a way of growing the US economy, protecting jobs and raising tax revenue – and in this case, pushing for policy action from allies.
In her response, Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum called allegations that the Mexican government had alliances with criminal organisations “slander”.
The White House, in its announcement, accused Mexico’s government of having “an intolerable alliance” with Mexican drug trafficking organisations.
In a statement, Sheinbaum called on the US to do more to clamp down on the illegal flow of guns south to arm the cartels.
Her country is willing to work with the US, she said. “Problems are not resolved by imposing tariffs, but by talking.”
She has instructed her economy minister to respond with tariff and non-tariff measures. They are expected to include retaliatory tariffs of 25% on US goods.
Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said his country will also respond.
“We don’t want to be here, we didn’t ask for this,” he said in a news conference late on Saturday.
“But we will not back down in standing up for Canadians.”
His government will impose 25% tariffs on $155bn worth of American goods – $30bn will come into force on Tuesday and another $125bn in 21 days.
Targeted items include American beer, wine, bourbon, fruits and fruit juices, vegetables, perfumes, clothing and shoes, as well as household appliances, sporting goods and furniture. Lumber and plastics will also face levies.
Non-tariff measures being considered are related to critical minerals and procurement, although Trudeau did not offer more detail.
The prime minister pushed back on the suggestion the shared border posed a security concern, saying less than 1% of fentanyl going into the United States comes from Canada.
In a bid to avoid the tariffs altogether, Ottawa had promised to implement C$1.3bn ($900m; £700m) of new security measures along its US border.
“Tariffs are not the best way we can work together to save lives,” Trudeau said.
He also said he had not spoken to Trump since the inauguration, but would keep lines open with US counterparts.
China said in a statement that it is strongly dissatisfied with the levies and “firmly opposes” them.
It added that it would file a lawsuit with the World Trade Organization against the US for its “wrongful practice” and would take countermeasures to “safeguard its own rights and interests”.
China’s vice-premier Ding Xuexiang told the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, last month that his country was looking for a “win-win” solution to trade tensions and wanted to expand its imports.
Canada, Mexico and the US have deeply integrated economies, with an estimated $2bn (£1.6bn) worth of manufactured goods crossing the borders daily.
Economists say the tariffs and subsequent retaliation could raise prices on a wide range of products, from cars, lumber, and steel to food like frozen French fries, avocados, and tomatoes, to alcohol.
The auto sector could be especially hard hit. Auto parts cross the three borders multiple times before a final vehicle is assembled. TD Economics suggest the average US car price could increase by around $3,000.
A January report by the Peterson Institute for International Economics suggested blanket 25% tariffs on Canada and Mexico would slow growth and accelerate inflation in all three countries.
On Friday, Trump acknowledged there could be “some temporary, short-term disruption” from the tariffs.
The Canadian Chamber of Commerce released a statement saying tariffs will have “immediate and direct consequences on Canadian and American livelihoods” and will “drastically increase the cost of everything for everyone”.
US industry groups have also raised alarm bells.
The National Homebuilders Association said the levies could increase housing costs.
The Farmers for Free Trade said, with many US farmers already struggling, “adding tariffs to the mix would only exacerbate the situation across much of rural America”.
The US Retail Industry Leaders Association, which includes big names such as Home Depot, Target and Walgreens among its more than 200 members, expressed hope tariffs could still be averted.
The White House, explaining on Saturday why it was targeting its top trading partners, said Mexican cartels were responsible for trafficking fentanyl, methamphetamine and other drugs.
It said tariffs on Canada would remain until it “co-operates with the US against drug traffickers and on border security”.
Lastly, it said “China plays the central role in the fentanyl crisis” with exports of the lethal synthetic painkiller.
Both the northern and southern US borders have reported drug seizures, though amounts at the border with Canada are considerably lower than those with Mexico, according to official data,
US border agents seized 43lbs (19.5kg) of fentanyl at the northern border between October 2023 and last September, compared to more than 21,000lbs (9,525.4kg) at the southern border.
Still, recent reports from Canadian intelligence agencies suggest a growing number of transnational organised crime groups are manufacturing drugs in Canada.
Ashley Davis, a Republican lobbyist for businesses, who represents major US companies, including Walmart and Boeing, and has been involved in discussions about tariffs, told the BBC’s World Business Report she thinks Trump will pull back on the tariffs in North America if he can point to progress on the issues he has raised as complaints – especially immigration.
“You have to remember – the border and China are the two biggest issues that Americans voted him on in the elections in November. Anything he can do to claim wins on that, I think he’s going to do,” she said.
A canal in a suburb of Argentina’s capital Buenos Aires turned bright red on Thursday, alarming local residents.
Pictures and videos show the intensely coloured water flowing into an estuary, the Rio de la Plata, which borders an ecological reserve.
Local media reports suggest the colour may have been caused by the dumping of textile dye, or by chemical waste from a nearby depot.
The Environment Ministry said in a statement that water samples had been taken from the Sarandí canal to determine the cause of the colour change.
By late afternoon the colour of the water had lost some of its intensity, the AFP news agency reported.
Residents have claimed that many local companies dispose of toxic waste in the waterway, which runs through an area of leather processing and textile factories some 10km (6 miles) from the centre of the capital.
A resident, a woman called Silvia, told local news channel C5N that although it is has turned red now, “other times it was yellow, with an acidic smell that makes us sick even in the throat”. “I live a block from the stream. Today, it has no smell. There are not many factories in the area, although there are warehouses.”
Another resident, Maria Ducomls, told AFP industries in the region dump waste in the water, and said she had seen it coloured differently in the past – “bluish, a little green, pink, a little lilac, with grease on top”.
[BBC]
President Donald Trump has signed an executive order sanctioning the International Criminal Court, accusing it of “illegitimate and baseless actions targeting America and our close ally Israel”.
The measure places financial and visa restrictions on individuals and their families who assist in ICC investigations of American citizens or allies.
Trump signed the measure as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was visiting Washington.
Last November, the ICC issued an arrest warrant for Netanyahu over alleged war crimes in Gaza, which Israel denies. The ICC also issued a warrant for a Hamas commander.
A White House fact sheet circulated earlier on Thursday accused the Hague-based ICC of creating a “shameful moral equivalency” between Hamas and Israel by issuing the warrants at the same time.
Trump’s executive order said the ICC’s recent actions “set a dangerous precedent” that endangered Americans by exposing them to “harassment, abuse and possible arrest”.
“This malign conduct in turn threatens to infringe upon the sovereignty of the United States and undermines the critical national security and foreign policy work of the United States government and our allies, including Israel,” the order said.
It adds that “both nations [the US and Israel] are thriving democracies with militaries that strictly adhere to the laws of war”.
The US is not a member of the ICC and has repeatedly rejected any jurisdiction by the body over American officials or citizens.
India’s Foreign Minister S Jaishankar has told parliament the government is working with the US to ensure Indian citizens are not mistreated while being deported.
His statement came a day after a US military flight brought back 104 Indians accused of entering the US illegally.
One of the deportees told the BBC they had been handcuffed throughout the 40-hour flight, sparking criticism.
But Jaishankar said he had been told by the US that women and children were not restrained. Deportation flights to India had been taking place for several years and US procedures allowed for the use of restraints, he added.
Deportation in the US is organised and executed by the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).
“We have been informed by ICE that women and children are not restrained,” Jaishankar said.
He added that according to ICE, the needs of deportees during transit, including for food and medical attention, were attended to and deportees could be unrestrained during bathroom breaks.
“There has been no change from past procedure,” he added.
However Jaspal Singh, one of the deportees on the flight that landed in Amritsar city in the state of Punjab on Wednesday, told BBC Punjabi that he was shackled throughout the flight.
“We were tortured in many ways. My hands and feet were tied after we were put on the plane. The plane stopped at several places,” he said, adding that he was unshackled only after the plane landed in Amritsar.
The US has not given further details of how deportees were treated on the flight. Officials have said that enforcing immigration laws is “critically important to the national security and public safety of the United States” and it was US policy to “faithfully execute the immigration laws against all inadmissible and removable aliens”.
The US border patrol chief posted video showing deportees in shackles, saying the deportation flight to India was the “farthest deportation flight yet using military transport”.
President Donald Trump has made the mass deportation of undocumented foreign nationals a key policy. The US is said to have identified about 18,000 Indian nationals it believes entered illegally.
Trump has said India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi had assured him that the country would “do what’s right” in accepting US deportations.
In his statement on Thursday, Jaishankar said all countries had an obligation to take back their nationals who had entered other countries illegally. They often faced dangerous journeys and inhumane working conditions once they had reached their destinations, he said.
Fraudulent Indian travel agencies are known to take huge sums of money from people desperate to travel abroad for work, and then make them undertake dangerous journeys to avoid being caught by immigration officials.
Jaspal said he had taken a loan of 4m rupees ($46,000; £37,000] to travel to the US, a dangerous journey that took months and during which he saw bodies in the jungle of other migrants who had died on the route.
[BBC]
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