U.S. President Donald Trump on Wednesday raised hopes for another month-long pause on steep new tariffs on imports from Mexico and Canada, saying they could take effect on April 2, and floated a 25% “reciprocal” tariff on European cars and other goods.
A White House official, however, said Trump’s previous March 4 deadline for the 25% tariffs on Mexican and Canadian goods remained in effect “as of this moment,” pending his review of Mexican and Canadian actions to secure their borders and halt the flow of migrants and the opioid fentanyl into the U.S. Trump sowed confusion during his first cabinet meeting on Wednesday, when he was asked about the timing for the start of the duties for Canada and Mexico and replied that it would be April 2.
“I have to tell you that, you know, on April 2, I was going to do it on April 1,” Trump said. “But I’m a little bit superstitious, I made it April 2, the tariffs go on. Not all ofthem but a lot of them.”
Trump’s comments prompted jumps in the value of the Canadian dollar and Mexican peso versus the greenback.
Canada’s Finance Ministry and Mexico’s Economy Ministry both declined to comment on Trump’s remarks.
U.S. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick said the fentanyl-related actions were paused for 30 days but referred to “overall” tariffs on April 2. He did not specify whether the March 4 deadline was still in effect.
“So the big transaction is April 2, but the fentanyl-related things, we’re working hard on the border,”
Lutnick said during the cabinet meeting. “At the end of that 30 days, they have to prove to the president that they’ve satisfied him in that regard. If they have, he’ll give them a pause, or he won’t.”
EU Tariff Rate
Trump has targeted early April for imposing reciprocal tariffs that would match the import duty rates of other countries and offset their other restrictions. His trade advisers consider European countries’ value added taxes to be akin to a tariff.
Trump, asked whether he has decided on a tariff rate for goods from the European Union, replied: “We have made a decision, and we’ll be announcing it very soon, and it’ll be 25%, generally speaking, and that’ll be on cars, and all of the things.”
He said the EU is a “different case” from Canada and takes advantage of the U.S. in different ways.
“They don’t accept our cars. They don’t accept, essentially our farm products,” Trump said, adding that the EU was formed “in order to screw the United States.”
Roberta Metsola, president of the European Parliament, is in Washington and will meet U.S. lawmakers on Wednesday, a spokesman said. She is not slated to meet with any Trump administration officials.
New U.S. Trade Representative Confirmed
Also on Wednesday, the U.S. Senate voted 56-43 to confirm Jamieson Greer as Trump’s new U.S. Trade Representative, putting a veteran of the Republican president’s first-term trade wars fully on the job.
Greer, who served as chief of staff to former USTR Robert Lighthizer, won the support of five Democrats, including both senators from Michigan, the center of the U.S. auto industry.
Trade groups welcomed Greer’s confirmation, lauding his commitment to consulting with industry and standing up for U.S. businesses, farmers and workers. “We share Ambassador Greer’s desire for an active and pragmatic trade policy that creates
U.S. jobs and more resilient supply chains,” said Jake Colvin, president of the National Foreign Trade Council.
Greer told senators during his Senate confirmation hearing that he wanted to quickly renegotiate the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement on trade to ensure China does not use it as a back door to the U.S. market to avoid other tariffs.
“Right out of the gate, I expect that we’ll be taking a second look at the USMCA,” Greer said.
Asked what changes he would like to see in the pact, Greer zeroed in on further tightening automotive content rules.
“I think we should look at the rule of origin for automobiles and aerospace and other things to look and see if we need to have any kind of restriction on content or value added from foreign countries of concern, or non-market economies,” he said, using language that U.S. trade officials often use to describe China.
(Reporting by David Lawder and Andrea Shalal; additional reporting by Bo Erickson and Ryan Jones in Washington, Brendan O’Boyle in Mexico City and Ismail Shakil in Ottawa; Editing by Dan Burns, David Gregorio and Paul Simao)
