Trump threatens sweeping tariffs on China, Mexico and Canada

President-elect Donald Trump threatened on Monday to impose sweeping new tariffs on China, Canada and Mexico on his first day as US President to crack down on illegal immigration and drugs.

Trump said he would impost a 25% tax on all products entering the country from Canada and Mexico, and an additional 10% tariff on goods from China as one of his first acts as president of the US.

The US is the largest importer of goods in the world, with Mexico, China and Canada its top three suppliers according to the latest census data.

The threatened tariffs — if implemented — risk pushing prices for food, autos and other goods in the US up.

Trump made the threats in a post on his Truth Social website where he pointed to an influx of people migrating to the US as an explanation for his new economic policy.

“On January 20th, as one of my many first Executive Orders, I will sign all necessary documents to charge Mexico and Canada a 25% Tariff on ALL products coming into the United States, and its ridiculous Open Borders,” he wrote.

Trump said that the tariffs would remain in place until “such time as Drugs, in particular Fentanyl, and all Illegal Aliens stop this Invasion of our Country!”

He added that Mexico and Canada had the ability to solve the issue of “people pouring through Mexico and Canada, bringing Crime and Drugs at levels never seen before.”

Trump blames China

Trump also blamed China for the Fentanyl drug crisis in the US, saying that he had “had many talks with China about the massive amounts of drugs, in particular Fentanyl, being sent into the United States – But to no avail.”

The president-elect said that until China stopped sending drugs to the US, he would be “charging China an additional 10% Tariff, above any additional Tariffs, on all of their many products coming into the United States of America.”

The Chinese Embassy in Washington said on Monday in response to the post that there would be losers on both sides if the US and China were to engage in a trade war.

“China-US economic and trade cooperation is mutually beneficial in nature,” embassy spokesman Liu Pengyu posted on X.

It is unclear if Trump will go through with the threats of tariffs. His nominee for treasury secretary Scott Bessent has on several occasions said that tariffs are a means of negotiation.

In a Fox News op-ed published last week, Bessent said tariffs were a “useful tool for achieving the president’s foreign policy objectives.”

It wouldn’t be the first time Trump has imposed higher tariffs. In his first term, other countries retaliated with tariffs of their own. Canada, for example, announced billions of new duties in 2018 against the US in response to taxes on Canadian steel and aluminium.

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Last week, a senior Chinese commerce official said that higher tariffs on Chinese exports would backfire in the US by raising domestic prices for consumers.

Vice Commerce Minister Wang Shouwen also said China’s economy can manage the impact of such “external shocks.”

Although the president-elect made no mention of Europe, he proposed several times during the campaign trail that he would impose a 10% tariff on European Union goods exported to the US — a measure that would profoundly disrupt trade between the EU and the US.