The director of the U.S. Treasury Department has pointed out one potentially fruitful path for America’s neighbors as traders across the world await if U.S. President Donald Trump would once again postpone imposing new tariffs on Canada and Mexico.
When asked if nearby nations could evade U.S. tariffs, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent responded, “I do think one very interesting proposal that the Mexican government has made is perhaps matching the U.S. on our China tariffs,” in a Friday afternoon interview with Bloomberg TV.
“I think it’d be a nice gesture if the Canadians did it also, so in a way, we could have ‘Fortress North America’ from the flood of Chinese imports that’s coming out of the most unbalanced economy in the history of modern times,” Bessent stated. He underlined that the Commerce Department and the U.S. trade representative, not the Treasury Department, are in charge of tariff discussions.
In a social media tweet on Thursday, Trump stated that his proposed 25% import taxes on goods from Canada and Mexico would “go into effect, as scheduled” on Tuesday. With a reduced levy of 10%, Canadian energy goods are expected to receive a small reprieve.
Following Trump’s announcement on February 3 of a 30-day halt to these tariffs, March 4 has emerged as the new deadline. He said at the time that the reprieve was because Canada and Mexico were taking action to allay his worries about illegal immigration and drug trafficking. Trump, meanwhile, claimed on Thursday that alcohol is “still pouring into our Country from Mexico and Canada at very high and unacceptable levels.”
Bessent’s remarks followed a report by Bloomberg News that Mexico is prepared to increase tariffs on Chinese imports in an effort to evade the duties that Trump has promised.
