The Trump administration could announce a pathway for tariff relief on Mexican and Canadian goods covered by North America’s free trade agreement as soon as tomorrow, Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick said Tuesday.
“Both the Mexicans and the Canadians were on the phone with me all day today trying to show that they’ll do better, and the president’s listening, because you know he’s very, very fair and very reasonable,” Lutnick said in an interview with Fox Business. “So I think he’s going to work something out with them — it’s not going to be a pause, none of that pause stuff, but I think he’s going to figure out: you do more and I’ll meet you in the middle some way and we’re going to probably announcing that tomorrow.”
Lutnick did not explicitly say what President Donald Trump was considering after imposing an across-the-board tariff on all goods from Canada and Mexico that went into effect overnight. Lutnick said that the tariffs would likely land “somewhere in the middle” with Trump “moving with the Canadians and Mexicans, but not all the way.”
Lutnick discounted the notion that the tariffs would be fully rolled back, pointing instead to the U.S.-Mexico-Canada trade pact negotiated during Trump’s first term.
“If you live under those rules, then the president is considering giving you relief,” Lutnick said. “If you haven’t lived under those rules, well, then you have to pay the tariff.”
The comments from Lutnick were the first public signal since the tariffs were imposed that Trump may be wavering after stocks dipped globally following the administration’s announcement of the largest set of new tariffs in nearly a century. From New York to London and Tokyo, equities sank — with the S&P 500 returning to pre-election levels.
Trump had previously delayed the Canada and Mexico tariffs for a month before allowing them to move forward.
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