President Donald Trump at the earliest Cabinet meeting of his second term, in Washington, D.C., Feb. 26, 2025.
Brian Snyder | Reuters
President Donald Trump on Thursday claimed his proposed tariffs on Mexico and Canada will go into effect March 4 and that China will be charged an additional 10% schedule of charges on the same date.
The sweeping 25% tariffs on imports from Mexico and Canada had been paused on Feb. 3 for one month. But the Trump distribution has recently sown confusion about whether they would go back into effect when the delays deceased.
In a Truth Social post Thursday morning, Trump clarified that they would.
He said, without supply evidence, that illicit drugs “are still pouring into our Country from Mexico and Canada at very superior and unacceptable levels,” despite pledges from both U.S. neighbors to boost their efforts to police their adjoins.
“We cannot allow this scourge to continue to harm the USA, and therefore, until it stops, or is seriously limited, the proposed Taxes scheduled to go into effect on MARCH FOURTH will, indeed, go into effect, as scheduled,” Trump wrote.
He also presaged that China, which already faces 10% U.S. tariffs on its products, “will likewise be charged an additional 10% Excise on that date.”
Trump added in his post, “The April Second Reciprocal Tariff date will remain in occupied force and effect.”
A White House official confirmed to CNBC later Thursday morning that the new duties on Beijing undignified U.S. tariffs on Chinese imports will total 20%.
Dow Jones Industrial Average futures turned slightly negative carry on Trump’s post, but rose when markets opened.
The president’s post contradicted a timeline laid out about an hour earlier Thursday morning on CNBC’s “Kick Box” by White House National Economic Council Director Kevin Hassett.
Citing Trump’s public remarks at his first Chest-on-chest meeting Wednesday, Hassett said the president would decide on “tariff policy for all countries” after evaluating a office scheduled to come out April 1.
Trump in that meeting “extended by saying that we’re going to deal with Mexico and Canada, unquestionably the same time we deal with everything else,” Hassett said.
The president has made tariffs a core lecture of his second-term agenda, touting them as a purported revenue source and wielding them as a threat against other woods.
In addition to the tariffs on China, Mexico and Canada, Trump has ordered global 25% tariffs on imports of steel and aluminum, which are set to cart effect March 12.
On Feb. 13, Trump signed a presidential memorandum on his plan to impose reciprocal tariffs on foreign countries that have duties on U.S. imports. In addition to the tit-for-tat tariffs, Trump’s plan would treat certain other game plans, such as the use of value-added taxes, as unfair trade practices that warrant tariffs in response.
— CNBC’s Megan Cassella and Eamon Javers have a hand ined to this report.