Mexican president orders retaliatory tariffs on U.S. after Trump imposes 25% duty
Move comes hours after U.S. president placed levies on Mexico, Canada and China
Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum said on Saturday she ordered her economy minister to implement tariff and non-tariff measures to defend Mexico's interests, after the U.S. slapped across-the-board tariffs on Mexican goods.
U.S. President Donald Trump signed an order earlier Saturday to impose stiff tariffs on imports from Mexico, Canada and China in an effort force the three countries to stop the spread and manufacturing of fentanyl, in addition to pressuring Canada and Mexico to limit any illegal immigration into the U.S.
In a lengthy post on X, Sheinbaum stressed her government does not seek confrontation with its northern neighbour but collaboration and dialogue.
The leftist leader, who has repeatedly sought to calm tensions with Trump, touted her government's record since she took office in October, seizing 20 million doses of the deadly synthetic opioid fentanyl, in addition to detaining more than 10,000 individuals tied to drug trafficking.
"We categorically reject the White House's slander that the Mexican government has alliances with criminal organizations, as well as any intention of meddling in our territory," Sheinbaum wrote.
"If the United States government and its agencies wanted to address the serious fentanyl consumption in their country, they could fight the sale of drugs on the streets of their major cities, which they don't do and the laundering of money that this illegal activity generates that has done so much harm to its population."
Trump declared an economic emergency to put duties of 10 per cent on all imports from China and 25 per cent on imports from Mexico. He also posed 25 per cent duties on virtually all goods from Canada, with the exception of a 10 per cent rate on Canadian oil.
Trump's order also includes a mechanism to escalate the rates if the countries retaliate against the United States, as Mexico and Canada have now said they will do.
China's Ministry of Commerce says the tariff, slated to go into effect on Tuesday, "seriously violates" the rules of the World Trade Organization, and it plans to challenge the levies to the WTO.
Trump is making a major political bet that his actions will not significantly worsen inflation, cause financial aftershocks that could destabilize the worldwide economy or provoke a voter backlash.
With the tariffs, the Republican president is honouring promises that are at the core of his economic and national security philosophy. But the announcement showed his seriousness around the issue as some Trump allies had played down the threat of higher import taxes as mere negotiating tactics.
Trump has said the government should raise more of its revenues from tariffs, as it did before the income tax became part of the U.S. Constitution in 1913. He claims, despite economic evidence to the contrary, that the U.S. was at its wealthiest in the 1890s under then-president William McKinley.
Democrats were quick to say that any inflation going forward was the result of Trump, who is about to start his third week back as president.
"You're worried about grocery prices. Don's raising prices with his tariffs," Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer of New York posted on X, formerly Twitter.
"You're worried about tomato prices. Wait till Trump's Mexico tariffs raise your tomato prices. You're worried about car prices. Wait till Trump's Canada tariffs raise your car prices," he wrote in a series of posts.
With files from The Associated Press and CBC News