US President Donald Trump plans to impose a 25 percent tariff on Saturday on the country's two neighbors—Canada and Mexico—and is also considering a similar measure against China. The US president stated that he would decide by Thursday night whether to include oil in the list of products subject to the new levy.
"We will be announcing tariffs on Canada and Mexico for a number of reasons," the president told reporters in the Oval Office of the White House on Thursday.
He cited illegal immigration, drug smuggling, and the massive subsidies that the US provides to Canada and Mexico in the form of trade deficits as reasons for the tariffs.
"I will be imposing a 25 percent tariff on Canada and, separately, a 25 percent tariff on Mexico. We will really have to do that because we have very large trade deficits with those countries. These tariffs may or may not increase over time," said the president.
Responding to a question, Trump said he would decide Thursday night whether to include oil among the items subject to tariffs.
"We're going to make that determination probably tonight regarding oil, because they send us oil. It depends on what the price is—if the oil is priced fairly, if they treat us properly, which they don’t," he said.
"Mexico and Canada have never been good to us on trade," Trump said, adding that the two countries have treated the US "very unfairly" in trade dealings.
He asserted that the US would be able to recover "very quickly" as it "does not need" the products they supply.
"We have all the oil we need. We have all the trees we need, meaning lumber. We have more than almost anybody in those two categories. In terms of oil, we have more than anybody," he said.
"We don't need anybody’s trees; we have great lumber in this country. We just need to free them up environmentally, which I can do very quickly," he said.
"We don't need what they have. For us to be subsidizing Canada to the tune of USD 175 billion a year and subsidizing Mexico to the tune of USD 250 billion to USD 300 billion a year is unacceptable," he said.
Trump also said he was considering actions against China for shipping fentanyl into the US.
"Because of that, they are causing us hundreds of thousands of deaths. China is going to end up paying a tariff for that as well. We are in the process of determining what it’s going to be," he said.
"China has to stop sending fentanyl into our country and killing our people," Trump stated.
Fentanyl is an extremely potent synthetic opioid, which the US Drug Enforcement Administration reports as the deadliest drug threat in the country.
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