Mexico and US to talk Thursday, Sheinbaum says
Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum told reporters this morning that she expects to speak with Trump on Thursday, probably in the morning, according to NBC News.
Mexico has not yet declared retaliatory tariffs on the U.S., though Sheinbaum said on Tuesday that those would be announced this weekend.
— Jesse Pound
Trump may exclude auto industry from tariffs on Canada and Mexico, Lutnick says
President Donald Trump could exclude some sectors from the 25% tariffs imposed on Canada and Mexico, Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick told Bloomberg Television in an interview.
“The president gets to make the decision,” Lutnick said. “There will be some categories left out. It could well be autos, could be others as well.”
Lutnick said Trump is considering excluding sectors that are compliant with the United States-Mexico-Canada trade agreement’s content provisions
“My understanding is the Big Three say they produce cars that are compliant under USMCA, which means they have sufficient U.S content in them to be part of the USMCA agreement,” Lutnick said of Ford, General Motors and Stellantis. “That’s part of our discussion and the president’s really thinking about that.”
Lutnick said he expects the White House will make an announcement this afternoon and that the changes could be “somewhere in the middle” rather than a complete rollback.
— Spencer Kimball
Trump says tariffs will cause ‘a little disturbance’
President Donald Trump acknowledged that his tariffs on major U.S. trading partners will create “a little disturbance” during a joint session of Congress.
“Tariffs are about making America rich again and making America great again. And it’s happening, and it will happen rather quickly,” Trump said during the address Tuesday night.
“There will be a little disturbance, but we’re okay with that,” Trump said. “It won’t be much.”
— Hakyung Kim
Tariffs rock U.S. stock market
The implementation of President Donald Trump’s has roiled the U.S. stock market this week as investors worry the levies will hamper the economy.
The Dow, S&P 500 and Nasdaq Composite have all slid around 3% over Monday and Tuesday’s sessions. With that, the blue-chip Dow is on track for its worst week since the regional banking crisis in March 2023. It would also mark the biggest weekly slide for the broad S&P 500 and tech-heavy Nasdaq going back to September.
To be sure, stock futures popped on Wednesday morning amid mounting hopes of a compromise on Trump’s policy for import taxes. Follow live markets updates throughout the day here.
The three major indexes this week
Trump could scale back Canada, Mexico tariffs Wednesday, Lutnick says
President Donald Trump could announce tariff compromise deals with Canada and Mexico as soon as Wednesday, likely involving the scaling back of at least part of the new 25% levies on goods from both countries, Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick said Tuesday.
“Both the Mexicans and the Canadians are on the phone with me all day today, trying to show that they’ll do better,” Lutnick said Tuesday afternoon. “And the President is listening because, you know, he’s very, very fair and very reasonable. So I think he’s going to work something out with them,” he said on “Fox Business.”
Trump, who has held up tariffs as an all-powerful negotiating tool, based the policy on allegations that the neighboring countries were failing to stem the flow of drugs and crime into the U.S.
— Kevin Breuninger, Sarah Min
Canada appeals to WTO over U.S. tariffs
Canada has appealed to the World Trade Organization over the imposition of tariffs by President Donald Trump.
Canada’s ambassador to the WTO, Nadia Theodore, said Ottawa has “requested WTO consultations” with the U.S. “in regard to its unjustified tariffs on Canada.”
“The U.S. decision leaves us with no choice but to respond to protect Canadian interests,” Theodore said in a post on LinkedIn Tuesday. “This was not the outcome we hoped for. And we urge the U.S. administration to reconsider their tariffs.”
A WTO official confirmed to CNBC that Canada has requested consultations, the first step in the organization’s process to resolve trade disputes.
— Spencer Kimball
China officials say they are ready to ‘fight till the end’
Chinese officials are taking an aggressive stance toward the U.S. tariff escalation, including a post from the Chinese Embassy in the US on X.
“If war is what the U.S. wants, be it a tariff war, a trade war or any other type of war, we’re ready to fight till the end,” the post said.
China Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Lin Jian echoed those remarks while also calling the U.S. reasoning of fentanyl for the tariffs a “flimsy excuse.”
“If the U.S. has other agenda in mind and if harming China’s interests is what the U.S. wants, we’re ready to fight till the end. We urge the U.S. to stop being domineering and return to the right track of dialogue and cooperation at an early date,” the spokesperson said.
— Jesse Pound
