From avocados to autos, Trump tariffs on Canada and Mexico could hit close to home
The 25% tax that President Donald Trump plans to slap as soon as Saturday on imports from Canada and Mexico could drive up the price of everything from gasoline to pickup trucks to the guacamole dip that features so prominently at American Super Bowl p...
WASHINGTON — The 25% tax that President Donald Trump plans to slap on imports from Canada and Mexico as soon as Saturday could drive up the price of everything from gasoline and pickup trucks, to Super Bowl party guacamole dip.
The tariffs would also invite retaliation. Doug Ford, the premier of Ontario, has already vowed to counterpunch by pulling American alcohol off store shelves in the Canadian province – no idle threat; Canada is the world’s No. 2 market for America’s distilled spirits (behind the 27-nation European Union).
Trump’s tariffs threaten to blow up the trade agreement he himself negotiated with America’s neighbors in his first term. His U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement – “the fairest, most balanced, and beneficial trade agreement we have ever signed into law,’’ Trump once declared — was supposed to bring predictability to North American trade, giving businesses the confidence to make investments.
But when it comes to the self-proclaimed “Tariff Man,’’ Trump and his passion for plastering taxes on foreign goods, nothing is predictable, and nothing is ever really settled.
“Tariffs at those levels and at that scope would effectively destroy the agreement that Trump himself negotiated and always brags about,’’ said Scott Lincicome, a trade analyst at the libertarian Cato Institute.
The president says the 25% levies are designed to pressure America’s two neighbors to do more to stop the flow of undocumented immigrants and fentanyl into the United States.
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