TMTPOST -- U.S. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick indicated on Sunday the new tariffs on Canada and Mexico  set to be implemented on Tuesday may be lower than the 25% figure U.S. President Donald Trump was planning.

Credit：Xinhua News Agency

In his interview with Fox News on Sunday, Lutnick acknowledged the Trump administration would impose additional tariffs on Canada and Mexico on March 4, but noting Trump will determine the exact tariff rates and the situation is “fluid”.

“There are going to be tariffs on Tuesday on Mexico and Canada,” Lutnick said.” “Exactly what they are, we’re going to leave that for the president and his team to negotiate.” He added that both Canada and Mexico have done a reasonable job on securing their borders with the United States, though the flow of fentanyl into the country still continues.

As to the extra 10% tariffs Trump threatened to impose on China, Lutnick maintained that new tariffs are expected to be announced on March 4. The secreatary said Trump was expected to raise tariffs on China on Tuesday unless the country ends fentanyl trafficking into the US.

Trump last Thursday vowed to implement his planned levies on Mexco and Canada on March 4, next Tuesday, as scheduled, and threatened an extra 10% tariffs on China the same day.

Trump said his proposed tariffs on Mexico and Canada will enter effect on March 4 as the two countries still allow illicit drugs to pour into the U.S. at the “at very high and unacceptable levels”. “We cannot allow this scourge to continue to harm the USA, and therefore, until it stops, or is seriously limited, the proposed TARIFFS scheduled to go into effect on MARCH FOURTH will, indeed, go into effect, as scheduled,” Trump said in a post on his social media platform Truth Social on Thursday.

Trump in the post also slammed China for its role as a main producer and supplier of the aforementioned drugs, much of them in the form of Fentanyl. “China will likewise be charged extra 10% Tariff” on March 4, Trump wrote. A White House official confirmed later Thursday that the new duties means additional U.S. tariffs on Chinese imports will total 20%.  

Mexican Deputy Economy Minister Vidal Llerenas on Thursday said that Mexico could adopt further trade measures beyond tariffs it has slapped on cheap goods mostly from China, including counterfeit products, which had entered under previous low-cost exemptions known as "de minimis."

It was reported on Friday that Mexican officials wanted to hike tariffs on Chinese goods and increase their imports from U.S. in a bid to avoid upcoming U.S. duties. U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent the same day urged Canada to follow suit after Mexico proposed matching U.S. tariffs on China, and describing such proposal a “very interesting” one. “I think it would be a nice gesture if the Canadians did it also, so in a way we could have ‘Fortress North America’ from the flood of Chinese imports,” then he said.

If the United States persists a a further 10 % tariff on goods imported from China on the pretext of fentanyl-related issues, China will take all necessary countermeasures to protect China's legitimate rights and interests, said a spokesperson with the Ministry of Commerce of China (MOFCOM) on Friday.

The U.S. has repeatedly ignored objective facts, and has previously imposed an additional 10 percent tariff on China using a similar pretext and is now threatening to impose more tariffs once again, the spokesperson said. 

The spokesperson said China firmly opposed the new U.S. threat of 10% tariffs, and slammed such actions as an outright blame-shifting that is not only unhelpful to the resolving of its own problems but also likely to increase the burden on U.S. businesses and consumers while undermining the stability of global supply chains.

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