Many world leaders have responded to the Trump tariffs that the president-elect says will be enacted on the first day of his administration. In several posts on social media, Donald Trump shares that he will impose through executive orders a 25% tariff on Mexico and Canada as well as an additional 10% tariff on China. He positions these taxes as actions made against Mexico and Canada for not preventing enough illegal aliens from entering the US, and also blames them and China for the increase in fentanyl in the country. Here’s how Justin Trudeau, Claudia Sheinbaum, and China’s leaders have responded to these tariffs.
How have world leaders reacted to Trump’s proposed tariffs?
China, Canada, and Mexico have reacted in different ways to Trump’s proposed tariffs.
Canada
Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said that he had a 10-minute call with Trump that was a “good conversation,” as reported by BBC. They discussed border security and trade, with Trudeau saying that the volume of migrants going through the Canadian border was much lower than than the Mexican border.
Per The Guardian, he said that they “obviously talked a bout laying out the facts, talking about how the intense and effective connections between our two countries flow back and forth.”
On Wednesday, he plans on meeting with the leaders of other Canadian provinces and territories to discuss how to deal with the new tariffs and border control.
Mexico
Claudia Sheinbaum, Mexico’s president, says that she will warn Trump in a letter about the tariffs likely raising job losses and inflation in the US and Mexico. In a statement made at a press conference on Tuesday, via Reuters, she is concerned that tariffs will snowball: “To one tariff will follow another in response and so on, until we put our common businesses at risk.”
Additionally, she will seek a phone call with Trump and send a letter to Trudeau. Considering that various U.S. carmaking plants for General Motors and Ford are based in the country, she added, “What sense is there?”
On the subject of weapons and drugs, Sheinbaum said that “we do not produce weapons, we do not consume the synthetic drugs” and pointed out that people in her country “are being killed by crime that is responding to the demand in [the United States].”
China
The response from China has been firmer. Liu Pengyu, a spokesperson for the Chinese embassy, says that the country was already dealing with drug trafficking as part of a deal between Xi Jinping and Joe Biden.
In a statement, he said their “progress made in US-related law enforcement operations against narcotics” shows that the country is not “knowingly allowing fentanyl precursors to flow into the United States.”
A spokesperson for China’s foreign ministry also warned the US that it should not “take China’s goodwill for granted” in its cooperation in counternarcotic operations.
