The United States has unveiled a two -stage tariff plan, in which Canada and Mexico are exposed to initial trade threats within days, and then exposed to broader threats again this spring.
In summary, it is: maybe tariffs now and maybe more tariffs later.
The details were created on Wednesday at the hearing to confirm the US Senate for the person selected to lead President Donald Trump, Howard Lutnick.
It happened as Canadian officials who have recently dealt with hectic efforts to prevent US officials from making tariffs as if from February 1, and even a video that shows the Canadian border enforcement.
The candidate for commercial ministers put this two -stage approach in an exchange with the Senator of Michigan, Gary Peters, who spoke out about what a cross -border trade war could mean for his state.
Lutnick said that phase 1 is essentially an emergency campaign to deal with the fentanyl crisis: “You know that the (drug) laboratories in Canada are managed by Mexican cartels,” replied Lutnick. “Respect America. If we are your biggest trading partner, show us respect. Close your limit. And end fentanyl to this country.”
Although only about one percent of illegal drugs that enter the United States there.
Lutnick noticed that Canada and Mexico apparently take measures. Canada, for example, has announced a number of measures at the border, migration and crime, causing the positive reaction of Washington.
Create video content for Trump
Nevertheless, Canadian civil servants are reluctantly prepared for Trump that Trump’s threat of imposing the tariffs on February 1st, and to comply with decades of North American free trade shops.
Ottawa officers have contacted various American colleagues, including Lutnick, and heard little that she calmed down.
An answer that you have received repeatedly: You have to personally convince Trump with direct evidence of the security measures that Canada has taken.
For this purpose, Canadian civil servants have combined video material to illustrate the efforts to prevent the illegal movement across the border. You have sent us this film material in the past few weeks, including a helicopter country in the snow.
Some provincial minors are also involved: On Wednesday, Alberta Premier Danielle Smith invited a Fox News crew in Coutts, Alta, to the border to see border control measures and promise additional measures to the provincial police.
“We are confident that these FOX messages will show the appearances of our province and our country, the commitment of our nation,” said Smith.
Canada says that it is as clear as possible as the numerous measures took.
“The administration is completely informed about Canada’s border measures,” Kirsten Hillman, Canada’s ambassador in the USA, told CBC News.
“But as Mr. Lutnick said in his testimony … The administration wants to see that Canada is doing in our plan. We are. We have new equipment, including helicopter and monitoring equipment that are used. We climb with a Canada-US strike Fights for organized crime and drug smuggling.
And Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said Canada’s Prime Minister that he spoke to Lutnick this week on the 80th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz’s death camp in Poland.
Lutnick alluded to these talks on Wednesday.
“I know that they behave quickly,” he said about Mexico and Canada. “And if you run, there will be no tariff. And if this is not the case, it will be.”
In her first briefing of the White House, press spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt said that on the basis of her conversation with US President Donald Trump, he met 25 percent tariffs on Canada on February 1st.
The longer -term threat: April 1st
But then the other shoe risks. Lutnick made it clear that the United States looks at a wide range of tariff options, which is informed by a study that the President asked by his officials until April 1.
Lutnick made it clear in his confirmation hearing that scores with Canada will decrease in spring, and specially mentioned dairy and car production.
He told a Wisconsin democrat, Tammy Baldwin that he would like to export more US milk products to Canada: “Canada … treats our dairy farmers terrible. That has to end.”
And then he told Peters, the Democrat from Michigan that his goal would be to bring the jobs for car manufacturers back from other North American countries: “Car production went to Canada, it went to Mexico. It is important that this returns back after Michigan After Ohio. “
The message underlines Trump’s long -term complaints about the way certain rules for the car trade were implemented from the North American pact, which he signed in 2018.
O’clock | What Lutnick had to say about Trump’s tariff plans:
The candidate of trading secretary Howard Lutnick was asked on Wednesday after a hearing about the potential effects of tariffs. Lutnick, who apparently could suggest in phases, stated Zölle as to how they pointed out border problems with Canada and Mexico as a “short -term” problem. Lutnick quoted fentanyl and undocumented migrants as concerns for the Trump administration, but did not provide any details about his claims than requesting an end to the movement of fentanyl to the USA
Lutnick revealed that his own long -term preference for broad tariffs in entire countries are to punish unfair trading practices instead of engaging the tariffs against certain products.
“I prefer general,” he said, commenting on sector sector battles. “If you select a product in Mexico (for example), you will choose a product. You know, we choose avocados. You pick white corn. We choose tomatoes. You pick yellow corn. I have discussed this with the president – is land from land.
It seems that even if Canada and Mexico escape from the tariff threatened for February 1st, the problem continues for months.
