Donald Trump vows March 4 tariffs for Mexico, Canada; China faces extra 10pc – World

US President Donald Trump said on Thursday that his proposed 25 per cent tariffs on Mexican and Canadian goods would go into effect on March 4 as scheduled because drugs were still pouring into the US from those countries.

Trump also said he would impose an additional 10pc duty on Chinese goods on that day. This would appear to be on top of the 10pc tariff that he levied on February 4 on imports from China.

Trump said drugs were still coming into the US at “very high and unacceptable levels”, with a large percentage of them being the deadly opioid fentanyl.

“We cannot allow this scourge to continue to harm the USA, and therefore, until it stops, or is seriously limited, the proposed tariffs scheduled to go into effect on March 4 will, indeed, go into effect, as scheduled,” Trump said in a post on his Truth Social media site. “China will likewise be charged an additional 10pc tariff on that date.”

The statement cleared up some confusion on Wednesday over deadlines for the punishing tariffs on Canadian and Mexican goods that Trump has threatened over the fentanyl crisis and US border security.

Trump’s comments on the matter during his first cabinet meeting on Wednesday seemed to suggest that he may push the deadline back for about one month, until April 4.

Comments from Trump administration officials indicated that the April deadline was for Trump’s “reciprocal tariffs” matching import duty rates of other countries and offsetting their other restrictions. His trade advisers consider European countries’ value added taxes to be akin to a tariff.

Kevin Hassett, the top White House economic adviser, told CNBC television that Trump would determine new tariffs after a study is completed by April 1.

“The schedule is that there’s a study coming out on April 1, and after that, the president is going to decide what to do about tariff policies for all countries,” he said, but specifically mentioning Mexico and Canada.

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