South America

Canada, Mexico and China respond to Trump tariff threats

A spokesman for China’s embassy in Washington DC told the BBC: “No-one will win a trade war or a tariff war.”

The international pushback came a day after Trump announced his plans for his first day in office, on 20 January, in a post on his social media website, Truth Social.

Trudeau said his country was prepared to work with the US in “constructive ways”.

“This is a relationship that we know takes a certain amount of working on, and that’s what we’ll do,” Trudeau told reporters.

In a phone call with Trump, Trudeau said the pair discussed trade and border security, with the prime minister pointing out that the number of migrants crossing the Canadian border was much smaller compared with the US-Mexico border.

Trump’s team declined to confirm the phone call.

But Trump spokesman Steven Cheung added that world leaders had sought to “develop stronger relationships” with Trump “because he represents global peace and stability”.

Mexico’s President Sheinbaum told reporters on Tuesday that neither threats nor tariffs would solve the “migration phenomenon” or drug consumption in the US.

Reading from a letter that she said she would send to Trump, Sheinbaum also warned that Mexico would retaliate by imposing its own taxes on US imports, which would “put common enterprises at risk”.

She said Mexico had taken steps to tackle illegal migration into the US and that “caravans of migrants no longer reach the border”.

The issue of drugs, she added, “is a problem of public health and consumption in your country’s society”.

Sheinbaum, who took office last month, noted that US car manufacturers produce some of their parts in Mexico and Canada.

“If tariffs go up, who will it hurt? General Motors,” she said.

Meanwhile, a spokesman for China’s embassy in Washington, Liu Pengyu, told the BBC that “China-US economic and trade co-operation is mutually beneficial in nature”.

He denied that China allows chemicals used in the manufacture of illegal drugs – including fentanyl – to be smuggled to the US.

“China has responded to US request for verifying clues on certain cases and taken action,” Liu said.

“All these prove that the idea of China knowingly allowing fentanyl precursors to flow into the United States runs completely counter to facts and reality.”

President Joe Biden has left in place the tariffs on China that Trump introduced in his first term, and added a few more of his own.

Currently, a majority of what the two countries sell to each other is subject to tariffs – 66.4% of US imports from China and 58.3% of Chinese imports from the US.


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