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US, Canada diplomats discuss trade amid new tariff announcement by Trump

by By Voice Of America/IBNS | @twfindia 06 Mar 2025, 09:40 am

Top diplomats from the United States and Canada held talks Wednesday that included discussion of trade, while U.S. President Donald Trump delayed a new 25% tariff on vehicle imports from Canada and Mexico for a month.

The U.S. State Department said Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Canadian Foreign Minister Mélanie Joly collaborated on “shared global challenges, secure borders, reciprocal trade, and economic prosperity.”

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters that Trump spoke with top officials at automakers Ford, General Motors and Stellantis before announcing the tariff delays. She said Trump urged the automakers to move their Mexican and Canadian production to the United States to avoid the tariffs altogether.

Trump’s new levies on the two biggest U.S. trading partners remain in place for other products, although Leavitt said the president is open to hearing the case for other possible exemptions.

Trump announced the vehicle tariff delay in a statement after speaking earlier in the day with Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, who, according to The Associated Press, is not willing to lift Canada's retaliatory tariffs if Trump leaves any tariffs on Canada.

Doug Ford, the Ontario provincial premier, said that if the U.S. tariff on Canadian vehicle exports to the U.S. remained in place, production at Canadian auto plants would start to shut down in about 10 days.

"People are going to lose their jobs," he said.

The heads of Canada’s provinces said they were taking action to bolster trade within Canada and with countries abroad, in order to reduce their dependence on a single market, in reference to the United States.

Trump imposed the duties on Mexico and Canada on Tuesday, along with doubling tariffs on Chinese imported goods, to 20%. His action caused stock markets to plunge and threatened to boost the price of U.S. consumer goods and products that businesses need to operate.

Mexico, Canada and China all said Tuesday they would retaliate against Trump’s tariffs by increasing their own against U.S. products sent to their countries.

Trump said on his Truth Social media platform that Trudeau called him Wednesday morning to ask what could be done about the new U.S. tax.

“I told him that many people have died from Fentanyl that came through the Borders of Canada and Mexico, and nothing has convinced me that it has stopped,” the president wrote. “He said that it’s gotten better, but I said, ‘That’s not good enough.’ The call ended in a ‘somewhat’ friendly manner!”

Earlier in the week, Trudeau said Canada had surged personnel and equipment to the border to stop the flow of fentanyl to the United States, as Trump had demanded as a possible path to averting the new tariff on Canadian imports.

“Because of this work — in partnership with the United States — fentanyl seizures from Canada have dropped 97% between December 2024 and January 2025 to a near-zero low of 0.03 pounds seized by U.S. Customs and Border Protection,” Trudeau said.

U.S. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick told Bloomberg Television that Trump’s new tariffs will not be fully eliminated.

“There are going to be tariffs, let's be clear," Lutnick said. "But what [Trump is] thinking about is which sections of the market that can maybe — maybe — he'll consider giving them relief until we get to, of course, April 2,” when Trump has said he will impose reciprocal tariffs on countries around the world that tax imports from the U.S.

The Canadian government said that nothing less than abandoning the new U.S. tariffs was acceptable.

"We're not interested in meeting in the middle and having some reduced tariff. Canada wants the tariffs removed," Canadian Finance Minister Dominic LeBlanc told the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation.

In a speech Tuesday night to the U.S. Congress, Trump acknowledged the tariff turmoil, saying, “Tariffs are about making America rich again and making America great again. There will be a little disturbance, but we’re OK with that. It won’t be much.”

Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum said she would announce her country’s counter-tariff increase against U.S. goods on Sunday.

China placed tariffs of up to 15% on a wide array of U.S. farm exports. It also expanded the number of U.S. companies subject to export controls and other restrictions by about two dozen.

Some information for this story was provided by The Associated Press, Agence France-Presse and Reuters.