Donald Trump said he planned to hit goods from China with a new 10% tariff, the latest salvo in the US president’s steadily escalating trade fights.
Imports from China already face taxes at the border of at least 10%, after a Trump tariff order that went into effect earlier this month.
Trump also said on Thursday he intended to move forward with threatened 25% tariffs on imports from Canada and Mexico, which are set to come into effect on 4 March.
Trump’s comments came as officials from Mexico and Canada were in Washington for discussions aimed at heading off that plan.
On social media, Trump wrote that he did not think enough action had been taken to address the flow of fentanyl to the US.
“Drugs are still pouring into our Country from Mexico and Canada at very high and unacceptable levels,” he wrote, adding that “a large percentage” of the drugs were made in China.
Trump’s call for an additional 10% levy on goods from China – which he said would also go into effect on Tuesday – had not been previously announced, though during his presidential campaign he backed border taxes on Chinese products of as much as 60%.
Trump’s comments, which called for drug flow to stop or be “severely limited”, seemed to set the stage for Mexico and Canada to negotiate, said trade expert Christine McDaniel, a senior research fellow at the Mercatus Center at George Washington University.
Trump tariffs, Mexico, US politics, United States, China-US relations, Canada
