Mexican president optimistic Trump won’t impose tariffs

Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum gives a media briefing from the National Palace in Mexico City, Wednesday, Oct. 2, 2024, the morning after her inauguration. (AP Photo/Fernando Llano) (Fernando Llano/AP)

Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum said Wednesday she was confident that her country could avoid being hit with 25 per cent tariffs by her U.S. counterpart Donald Trump on February 1.

“We don’t think it will happen,” Sheinbaum said at her morning press conference.

“And if it does happen, we also have our plan,” she added, declining to give details.

“There are conversations. There’s dialogue,” the leftwing leader added.

Trump has threatened to slap steep tariffs on Mexico and Canada starting on Saturday because of their failure to stop illegal immigration and drug trafficking into the United States.

On Tuesday, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said there had been “a historic level of cooperation from Mexico,” but added that “February 1 is still on the books” for tariffs.

During his first term (2017-2021), Trump successfully used the threat of tariffs to pressure Mexico to reduce the number of Central American migrants arriving at the southern US border.

In theory, Mexico and Canada should be protected against U.S. tariffs by a regional free trade agreement that was renegotiated under Trump.

The United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA), which replaced the previous NAFTA accord on July 1, 2020, is due to be reviewed by July next year.

Sheinbaum recently presented a plan to replace Chinese imports with domestically produced goods -- an apparent bid to ease Washington’s concerns that Chinese companies want to use Mexico as a backdoor into the United States.

Mexico replaced China in 2023 as the largest trading partner with the United States, which buys 83 percent of its exports.