Mexico and Canada reach deals with Trump to avert tariffs for at least a month

MEXICO CITY — Mexico and Canada have managed to avoid U.S. tariffs — for now — after their leaders came to last-minute agreements with President Trump. But barring another 11th-hour deal, tariffs on goods from China were scheduled to go into force Tuesday, raising the specter of a trade war that could roil the global economy and punish American consumers.

Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum and Trump said Monday that they had come to an accord that delays for at least a month Trump’s threat of 25% tariffs on all Mexican goods imported by the United States.

Mexico promised to reinforce its northern border with 10,000 national guard members in order to combat migration and the trafficking of illegal drugs. The country has long stationed thousands of troops along its northern border. It sent about 15,000 members of its armed forces there in 2019, the last time Trump threatened — but then walked back — tariffs.

In Canada, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said tariffs on goods from his country had also been averted for at least one month. He said on X that Canada would also further militarize its border with the U.S. with “new choppers, technology and personnel” and would appoint a “Fentanyl Czar.”

President Trump, shown holding an executive order, had announced over the weekend that heavy tariffs on goods from Mexico, Canada and China would take effect Tuesday.

(Evan Vucci / Associated Press)

On Saturday, Trump signed executive orders placing duties of 25% on imported goods from Mexico and Canada, with a 10% rate on Canadian energy products. He also imposed a 10% tax on all imports from China.

Trump said the tariffs were necessary because the three countries haven’t done enough to stop the flow of unauthorized immigrants and drugs into the United States. The White House insisted the measures would remain in place “until the crisis is alleviated,” with Trump saying “nothing” would stop him from imposing the tariffs.

The last-minute deals with Canada and Mexico followed a now-familiar Trump script: Make a radical threat, and then announce a final hour accord, insisting that the targeted government had caved in to Trump’s demands.

A similar scenario unfolded last month with Colombia, after it turned back U.S.-bound military flights filled with deportees from the United States, triggering a diplomatic crisis.

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Trump imposed tariffs on Colombian exports to the United States, but then pulled back, saying Colombian President Gustavo Petro had agreed to receive military flights with Colombian deportees — something that the Latin nation’s leader never publicly confirmed.

In Mexico, experts have questioned whether sending national guard members troops to the border will do much to reduce the smuggling of migrants and fentanyl, a synthetic opioid that is extremely potent and difficult to detect.

“You don’t stop fentanyl with soldiers,” said Arturo Rocha, who has served as a senior migration official in the Mexican government. He added that even before Trump took office, Border Patrol encounters with migrants had fallen sharply, thanks in part to Mexico’s efforts to keep them from reaching the U.S. border.

“The level of migrants irregularly crossing into the U.S. is remarkably low,” he said.

This month, Border Patrol apprehensions are on track to hit their lowest levels since 2017, according to Adam Isacson, an analyst at the Washington Office on Latin America.

Since Trump took office, Sheinbaum, like other world leaders, has had to navigate a delicate balance between appeasing the U.S. leader and not being seen by her domestic audience as bowing to Washington’s every demand.

“What a circus,” said Juan Carlos Moreno-Brid, an economics professor at the National Autonomous University of Mexico.

Because Mexico’s economy is enmeshed with that of the U.S., Sheinbaum, he said, must continue to take Trump’s tariff threats seriously, even if it’s clear that he is using them primarily as a negotiating tactic.

“If we call his bluff, it might end up not being a bluff,” said Moreno-Brid, comparing Trump to “a child with a gun in his hand.”

U.S.-Mexico trade in goods tops $800 billion annually, and the United States accounts for nearly 83% of Mexico’s exports.

Experts said tariffs would devastate Mexico’s already shaky economy, possibly tipping it into recession. Many believe that would only fuel organized crime and prompt more migration to the U.S.

In Canada, many wondered why their country was being targeted by Trump’s tariff threats at all.

“Less than 1% of fentanyl and less than 1% of illegal crossings into the United States come from Canada,” Trudeau said in a speech over the weekend. He urged his fellow citizens to not buy American-made products and announced retaliatory tariffs on U.S. farm goods and other products in Republican-led states — measures that are now on hold.

He questioned why Trump was picking fights with one of America’s staunchest allies.

Since winning election in the fall, Trump has repeatedly belittled Canada, saying that he would like to make it America’s “51st state.”

Trump’s tariffs against China were slated to take effect Tuesday. Economists say a potential trade war with China would stifle economic growth, create higher prices for U.S. consumers and lead to job losses.

Linthicum reported from Albuquerque and McDonnell from Mexico City. Special correspondent Cecilia Sánchez Vidal in Mexico City and Times staff writer Don Lee in Washington contributed to this report.