President Donald Trump dropped a threat to impose tariffs on billions of dollars’ worth of Mexican goods entering the country if Mexico didn’t do more to stop illegal immigrants from crossing the nation’s southern border.
The President made the announcement yesterday on Twitter.
“I am pleased to inform you that The United States of America has reached a signed agreement with Mexico. The Tariffs scheduled to be implemented by the U.S. on Monday, against Mexico, are hereby indefinitely suspended. Mexico, in turn, has agreed to take strong measures to stem the tide of Migration through Mexico, and to our Southern Border,” the President wrote.
“This is being done to greatly reduce, or eliminate, Illegal Immigration coming from Mexico and into the United States. Details of the agreement will be released shortly by the State Department. Thank you!” he added.
The President had threatened to impose 5% tariffs on Mexican goods entering the U.S. unless Mexico did more to prevent migrants from coming up through Mexico from Central America to try and gain entry into the U.S.
Mexico announced it would be sending 6,000 National Guard troops to its southern border with Guatemala to try and stanch the flow of migrants.
The U.S. State Department announced in March that it would discontinue financial aid to El Salvador, Honduras and Guatemala if those countries didn’t do more to check migration.
The deal announced last night did not include the details of financial aid to the countries in question, but Mexican officials said they were pleased with the agreement.
“I think it’s a fair balance,” Mexico’s Foreign Minister Marcelo Ebrard said last night, addressing reporters from outside the U.S. State Department, “because they had more drastic measures proposed at the start and we agreed to some middle point.”
President Trump had originally threatened to increase the tariffs by 5% for every month Mexico failed to reach a deal, until it reached 25% on October 1.
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