The President of the United States, Donald Trump, opened the front of the trade wars on Monday by confirming his desire to impose customs duties of 25% on products coming from Canadian and Mexican neighbors, from 1is FEBRUARY.
“We are considering [des droits de douane] of the order of 25% on Mexico and Canada, because they leave a large number of people […] enter [aux États-Unis]and a lot of fentanyl too,” the president declared at the White House, a few hours after his inauguration.
He added that he believed these surcharges could come into effect on 1is FEBRUARY.
During his campaign, Donald Trump affirmed that he would quickly introduce customs duties of 25% on all products coming from Mexico and Canada, if these countries did not curb the entry of drugs and illegal migrants into the United States. United.
The two neighbors of the United States are however theoretically protected by a free trade agreement signed during Mr. Trump’s first term, and which the latter then presented as the “best possible”.
During his campaign, the Republican billionaire also threatened to significantly increase customs duties on imports from China, not ruling out the possibility that they could reach 60%, or even more.
Asked about his intentions towards China, Donald Trump replied on Monday that he would speak with President Xi Jinping.
A little earlier, during his first speech as 47e President of the United States, Mr. Trump announced “the review of our trade system to protect American families and workers”.
“Instead of taxing our citizens to enrich other countries, we will impose customs duties and taxes on foreign countries to enrich our citizens,” he said.
“I always say that “tariffs“(customs duties, in French, Editor’s note) is one of the most beautiful words in the dictionary,” he joked a little later in front of supporters gathered in Washington.
-If foreign companies want to escape U.S. trade barriers, “the only thing they can do is build factories in the United States and hire Americans with very good salaries,” Howard Lutnick said Monday. , Donald Trump’s candidate for Secretary of Commerce.
Riposte
With China, Canada and Mexico being major suppliers to the United States, experts expect that an increase in customs duties will lead to a rebound in inflation, a prospect that Donald Trump and his teams dismiss.
American companies also anticipate retaliation from the countries concerned in the form of additional customs duties, which would penalize their own exports.
Canada is preparing to retaliate with “a strong response,” Canadian Foreign Minister Mélanie Joly said on Monday, before Trump expressed his desire to raise customs duties on 1is FEBRUARY.
The eurozone – which exports more products to the United States than it imports – is also in the new president’s sights.
Europeans “are tough, very tough. They don’t buy our cars, or our agricultural products, they buy almost nothing,” Trump said Monday evening at the White House. “So we are going to solve this problem by imposing customs duties or by forcing Europeans to buy our oil […] and our gas.”
The European Union is “ready to defend its economic interests” if necessary, assured Monday in Brussels the European Commissioner for the Economy, Valdis Dombrovskis, adding that a potential trade conflict would have a “substantial economic cost for everyone, including the United States.
One of Donald Trump’s most senior economic advisors, Stephen Moore, recently estimated in an interview with AFP that the increase in customs duties would be painless for Americans, thanks to the tax cuts planned at the same time by the new government.
“Products made in the United States will be taxed less, those from China will be more. When you take stock, you may have some price changes, but no overall increase,” he assured.
