Mexican President Faring Better Than Canadian Premier Under Trump’s Tariff Pressure, but Neither Is Yet Out of the Woods

Facing the ire of Mexico’s neighbor to the north, President Sheinbaum seems to have weathered the storm better than Prime Minister Trudeau of Canada. Neither, though, is yet out of the woods, as President Trump threatens tariffs. Mr. Trump announced a suspension of tariffs on Mexico for another month, citing the trilateral pact of his first term, the 2018 U.S.-Mexico-Canada agreement. “After speaking with President Claudia Sheinbaum of Mexico, I have agreed that Mexico will not be required to pay tariffs on anything that falls under the USMCA Agreement,” Mr. Trump wrote on TruthSocial.Ms. Sheinbaum, who won a presidential election last year after being hand-picked by the former left-populist president, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, assumed office in October. She reacted cautiously to Mr. Trump’s threat of tariffs. In contrast, Mr. Trudeau, widely seen as at the end of his premiership, has made fiery speeches against the American president. “I think she’s right in not overreacting,” a former Mexican official who was a top USMCA negotiator and supported a Sheinbaum opponent in the election, Ildefonso Guajardo, tells the Sun. “The way to work with Trump is not to confront him immediately,” he says. The back and forth on trade with the neighbors, meanwhile, is rattling markets. “These tariffs that the president is imposing, and then maybe exempting, and maybe pulling back, they are impacting vast quantities of the American economy,” a former Clinton administration trade official, Nelson Cunningham, told Yahoo Finance. “How can you plan if you are making automobiles, or light bulbs, or air conditioners, and you have goods that are flowing across the borders every day?”Tariffs also violate the spirit of the USMCA, Mr. Guajardo says. Mr. Trump can “either maintain his claim that he negotiated the best trade agreement in the history of the U.S., or he can recognize that he is a bad negotiator,” he says. Since the 1920s America’s overriding interest in Mexico has been to “have a stable, prosperous neighbor who doesn’t give you any grief, and who will never become an ally of somebody else,” a former Mexican foreign minister, Jorge Castaneda, tells the Sun. Under tariff threats, some Mexicans are now considering “other partners,” he adds. “So do the Americans really want Mexico to go start flirting with China? Really?” When Mr. Trump announced tariffs on America’s two neighbors, seemingly leaving little if any room for a reprieve, Mr. Trudeau, whose Liberal party is in an election mode, gathered reporters to denounce the president and detail major retaliatory measures. “We will continue to be in a trade war that was launched by the United States for the foreseeable future,” he told reporters Thursday.After a Wednesday Ottawa-Washington phone call, which Mr. Trudeau dubbed “colorful” and tense, Mr. Trump remained unmoved about Canadian tariffs. Ms. Sheinbaum, though, was much more cautious. The Mexican president initially said she would detail her response during a major Mexico City rally on Sunday. Her supporters were “getting out of their heads,” Mr. Guajardo, now a consultant for Canadian businesses, says. They urged Ms. Sheinbaum to toughen up her response. Yet, she kept a cool head, as “she can’t afford to go to the extreme,” Mr. Guajardo says. The result on Thursday was a suspension of all tariffs on Mexico that relate to the USMCA. “This Agreement is until April 2nd,” Mr. Trump wrote.“I did this as an accommodation, and out of respect for, President Sheinbaum,” Mr. Trump added. “Our relationship has been a very good one, and we are working hard, together, on the Border, both in terms of stopping Illegal Aliens from entering the United States and, likewise, stopping Fentanyl.”On her end, Ms. Sheinbaum posted a “thank you” note on X to Mr. Trump: “We had an excellent and respectful call in which we agreed that our work and collaboration have given unprecedented results within the framework of respect for our sovereignty.”Ms. Sheinbaum vowed to work with Mr. Trump on issues involving the border, migration, crime, and fentanyl. The two agreed on the tariff suspension until April 2, “when the United States will announce reciprocal tariffs for all countries,” Ms. Sheinbaum wrote.The reprieve, though, might be short-lived, as Mr. Trump has long said that “tariff” is his favorite word in the English language. Here at Mexico City, and at Ottawa as well, many hoped that their neighbor would refocus his trade ire elsewhere. For a long time Beijing has exported its Communist policies to America and around the world, “and tariffs are one way to push back on this,” Secretary Bessent told a Sun columnist, Larry Kundlow, Thursday at the New York Economic Club.

Mexican President Faring Better Than Canadian Premier Under Trump’s Tariff Pressure, but Neither Is Yet Out of the Woods

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