Trump imposes tariffs on Canada, Mexico and China, raising prospect of inflation and trade conflict

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A drone view shows trucks waiting in line near the Zaragoza-Ysleta border crossing bridge to cross into the US, in Ciudad Juarez, Mexico January 31, 2025. (Reuters)
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Updated 02 February 2025
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Trump imposes tariffs on Canada, Mexico and China, raising prospect of inflation and trade conflict

  • Trump declared an economic emergency in order to place duties of 10 percent on all imports from China and 25 percent on imports from Mexico and Canada
  • Trump said his decision was necessary “to protect Americans,” although it could throw the global economy and his own political mandate to combat inflation into possible turmoil

PALM BEACH, Florida: President Donald Trump on Saturday signed an order to impose stiff tariffs on imports from Mexico, Canada and China — fulfilling one of his post-campaign commitments to voters that also carries the risk of sparking higher inflation and disrupting businesses across North America.
Trump’s order also includes a mechanism to escalate the rates if the countries retaliate against the US, as they are possibly prepared to do.
The decision throws the global economy and Trump’s own political mandate to combat inflation into possible turmoil, though the Republican president posted on social media that it was necessary “to protect Americans.”
The tariffs risk an economic standoff with America’s two largest trading partners in Mexico and Canada, upending a decades-old trade relationship with the possibility of harsh reprisals by those two nations. The tariffs also if sustained could cause inflation to significantly worsen, possibly eroding voters’ trust that Trump could as promised lower the prices of groceries, gasoline, housing, autos and other goods.

Trump declared an economic emergency in order to place duties of 10 percent on all imports from China and 25 percent on imports from Mexico and Canada. But energy imported from Canada, including oil, natural gas and electricity, would be taxed at a 10 percent rate.
The tariffs would go into effect on Tuesday, setting a showdown in North America that could potentially sabotage economic growth. A new analysis by the Budget Lab at Yale laid out the possible damage to the US economy, saying the average US household would lose the equivalent of $1,170 in income from the taxes. Economic growth would slow and inflation would worsen — and the situation could be worse if Canada, Mexico and China retaliate.

For the moment, Mexico plans to stay cool-headed as it weighs its options.
Mexico President Claudia Sheinbaum, appearing Saturday at an event promoting a government housing program outside Mexico City said, “I’m calm, I’ve been saying since yesterday, because I know that Mexico’s economy is very powerful, very strong.”

A senior administration official, insisting on anonymity to brief reporters, said the lower rate on energy reflected a desire to minimize any disruptive increases on the price of gasoline or utilities. That’s a sign White House officials understand the gamble they’re taking on inflation. Price spikes under former President Joe Biden led to voter frustration that helped to return Trump to the White House last year.
The order signed by Trump contained no mechanism for granting exceptions, the official said, a possible blow to homebuilders who rely on Canadian lumber as well as farmers, automakers and other industries.
The Trump administration put the tariffs in place to force the three countries to stop the spread and manufacturing of fentanyl, in addition to pressuring Canada and Mexico to limit any illegal immigration into the United States.




Flags fly above the Peace Arch monument on the border between the US and Canada at Peace Arch Park on February 1, 2025 in Blaine, Washington.(Getty Images via AFP)

The official did not provide specific benchmarks that could be met to lift the new tariffs, saying only that the best measure would be fewer Americans dying from fentanyl addiction.
The order would also allow for tariffs on Canadian imports of less than $800. Imports below that sum are currently able to cross into the United States without customs and duties.
“It doesn’t make much economic sense,’’ said William Reinsch, senior adviser at the Center for Strategic and International Studies and a former US trade official. “Historically, most of our tariffs on raw materials have been low because we want to get cheaper materials so our manufacturers will be competitive ... Now, what’s he talking about? He’s talking about tariffs on raw materials. I don’t get the economics of it.’’
The Republican president is making a major political bet that his actions will not significantly worsen inflation, cause financial aftershocks that could destabilize the worldwide economy or provoke a voter backlash. AP VoteCast, an extensive survey of the electorate in last year’s election, found that the US was split on support for tariffs.
With the tariffs, Trump is honoring promises that are at the core of his economic and national security philosophy. But the announcement showed his seriousness around the issue as some Trump allies had played down the threat of higher import taxes as mere negotiating tactics.
The president is preparing more import taxes in a sign that tariffs will be an ongoing part of his second term. On Friday, he mentioned imported computer chips, steel, oil and natural gas, as well as against copper, pharmaceutical drugs and imports from the European Union — moves that could essentially pit the US against much of the global economy.
It is unclear how the tariffs could affect the business investments that Trump said would happen because of his plans to cut corporate tax rates and remove regulations. Tariffs tend to raise prices for consumers and businesses by making it more expensive to bring in foreign goods.




A truck carrying vehicles drives into the US at the Otay Mesa Port of Entry, on the US-Mexico border on February 1, 2025 in San Diego, California. (Getty Images via AFP)

Many voters turned to Trump in the November election on the belief that he could better handle the inflation that spiked under Biden. But inflation expectations are creeping upward in the University of Michigan’s index of consumer sentiment as respondents expect prices to rise by 3.3 percent. That would be higher than the actual 2.9 percent annual inflation rate in December’s consumer price index.
Trump has said that the government should raise more of its revenues from tariffs, as it did before the income tax became part of the Constitution in 1913. He claims, despite economic evidence to the contrary, that the US was at its wealthiest in the 1890s under President William McKinley.
“We were the richest country in the world,” Trump said Friday. “We were a tariff country.”
Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has told Canadians that they could be facing difficult times ahead, but that Ottawa was prepared to respond with retaliatory tariffs if needed and that the US penalties would be self-sabotaging.
Trudeau said Canada is addressing Trump’s calls on border security by implementing a CDN$1.3 billion ($900 million) border plan that includes helicopters, new canine teams and imaging tools.
Trump still has to get a budget, tax cuts and an increase to the government’s legal borrowing authority through Congress. The outcome of his tariff plans could strengthen his hand or weaken it.
Democrats were quick to say that any inflation going forward was the result of Trump, who is about to start his third week back as president.
“You’re worried about grocery prices. Don’s raising prices with his tariffs,” Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer of New York posted on X. “You’re worried about tomato prices. Wait till Trump’s Mexico tariffs raise your tomato prices. … You’re worried about car prices. Wait till Trump’s Canada tariffs raise your car prices,” he wrote in a series of posts.


Protesters on International Women’s Day demand equal rights, end to discrimination, sexual violence

Updated 56 min 16 sec ago
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Protesters on International Women’s Day demand equal rights, end to discrimination, sexual violence

  • On the Asian side of Turkiye’s biggest city Istanbul, a rally in Kadikoy saw members of dozens of women’s groups listen to speeches, dance and sing
  • In many other European countries, women also protested against violence, for better access to gender-specific health care, equal pay and other issues

ISTANBUL: Women took to the streets of cities across Europe, Africa and elsewhere to mark International Women’s Day with demands for ending inequality and gender-based violence.
On the Asian side of Turkiye’s biggest city Istanbul, a rally in Kadikoy saw members of dozens of women’s groups listen to speeches, dance and sing in the spring sunshine.
The colorful protest was overseen by a large police presence, including officers in riot gear and a water cannon truck.
The government of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan declared 2025 the Year of the Family. Protesters pushed back against the idea of women’s role being confined to marriage and motherhood, carrying banners reading “Family will not bind us to life” and “We will not be sacrificed to the family.”
Critics have accused the government of overseeing restrictions on women’s rights and not doing enough to tackle violence against women.
Erdogan in 2021 withdrew Turkiye from a European treaty, dubbed the Istanbul Convention, that protects women from domestic violence. Turkiye’s We Will Stop Femicides Platform says 394 women were killed by men in 2024.
“There is bullying at work, pressure from husbands and fathers at home and pressure from patriarchal society. We demand that this pressure be reduced even further,” Yaz Gulgun, 52, said.
Women across Europe and Africa march against discrimination
In many other European countries, women also protested against violence, for better access to gender-specific health care, equal pay and other issues in which they don’t get the same treatment as men.
In Poland, activists opened a center across from the parliament building in Warsaw where women can go to have abortions with pills, either alone or with other women.
Opening the center on International Women’s Day across from the legislature was a symbolic challenge to authorities in the traditionally Roman Catholic nation, which has one of Europe’s most restrictive abortion laws.
From Athens to Madrid, Paris, Munich, Zurich and Belgrade and in many more cities across the continent, women marched to demand an end to treatment as second-class citizens in society, politics, family and at work.
In Madrid, protesters held up big hand-drawn pictures depicting Gisele Pélicot, the woman who was drugged by her now ex-husband in France over the course of a decade so that she could be raped by dozens of men while unconscious.
Pélicot has become a symbol for women all over Europe in the fight against sexual violence.
In the Nigerian capital of Lagos, thousands of women gathered at the Mobolaji Johnson Stadium, dancing and signing and celebrating their womanhood.
Many were dressed in purple — the traditional color of the women’s liberation movement.
In Russia, the women’s day celebrations had a more official tone, with honor guard soldiers presenting yellow tulips to girls and women during a celebration in St. Petersburg.
Germany’s president warns of backlash against progress already made
In Berlin, German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier called for stronger efforts to achieve equality and warned against tendencies to roll back progress already made.
“Globally, we are seeing populist parties trying to create the impression that equality is something like a fixed idea of progressive forces,” he said. He gave an example of ” large tech companies that have long prided themselves on their modernity and are now, at the behest of a new American administration, setting up diversity programs and raving about a new ‘masculine energy’ in companies and society.”


UK govt cuts funding for Islamophobia reporting service 

Updated 08 March 2025
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UK govt cuts funding for Islamophobia reporting service 

  • Tell Mama, founded in 2012, provides ‘invaluable’ data, police sources tell The Guardian
  • The organization, which received 10,700 reports of Islamophobia last year, faces closure

LONDON: The UK government is ending funding for Islamophobia reporting service Tell Mama, The Guardian reported on Saturday.

The project, founded in 2012, is now facing closure weeks after it reported a record number of anti-Muslim hate incidents across the country.

Since its launch, Tell Mama has been wholly funded by the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government.

The ministry told Tell Mama that no grant would be provided by the end of March, without providing alternative arrangements.

Data provided by the service to police under a 2015 sharing agreement has been “invaluable” for monitoring community cohesion and responding to threats, police sources told The Guardian.

Tell Mama received 10,700 reports of Islamophobia last year, with 9,600 being verified. Muslims were the most targeted group in hate attacks in the year ending March 2024, according to police figures. They made up 38 percent of victims nationwide.

Tell Mama’s founder Fiyaz Mughal said its resources were being cut while “the far right and ­populists across Europe are growing significantly. There are going to be more individuals targeted, we know that in the current environment, and where are they going to go?

“This is an injustice at a time where I have never seen anti-Muslim rhetoric become so mainstream.”

Tell Mama provides a crucial point of contact for vulnerable people who often feel unable to contact the police, Mughal said.

“I’m not aware of any other organisation that can do this work and even if a new agency tried, it would take them 10 to 15 years to reach where Tell Mama is,” he added.

On Feb. 28, the government announced a new working group on anti-Muslim hatred that will create a new definition of Islamophobia and “support a wider stream of work to tackle the unacceptable incidents of anti-Muslim hatred.”

But Mughal accused the government of “saying one thing and doing another,” adding: “Labour talks a lot about countering Islamophobia but they are cutting the only project doing anything on a national scale — supporting victims, working with numerous police forces and supporting prosecutions.”

The National Police Chiefs’ Council said Tell Mama’s contributions “have allowed for the effective analysis of community tensions and informed actions to reduce such tensions.”

A spokesperson for the ministry responsible for the cut said: “Religious and racial hatred has absolutely no place in our society, and we will not tolerate Islamophobia in any form.

“This year we have made up to £1 million ($1.29 million) of funding available to Tell Mama to provide support for victims of Islamophobia, and we will set out our approach to future funding in due course.”


Polish PM says appeasement led to ‘more bombs’ from Russia in Ukraine

Updated 08 March 2025
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Polish PM says appeasement led to ‘more bombs’ from Russia in Ukraine

  • “More bombs, more aggression, more victims,” Tusk wrote on X

WARSAW: Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk on Saturday slammed deadly Russian overnight strikes on Ukraine as the result of “what happens when someone appeases barbarians.”


“More bombs, more aggression, more victims. Another tragic night in Ukraine,” Tusk wrote on X, formerly Twitter, following Russian attacks that killed at least 14 people in Ukraine’s east and northeast.


UK says Australia ‘considering’ joining group to protect Ukraine peace

Updated 08 March 2025
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UK says Australia ‘considering’ joining group to protect Ukraine peace

  • European countries have been rushing to boost support for Ukraine
  • Several European states have said they would be willing to deploy troops to Ukraine as a “security guarantee“

LONDON: The UK on Saturday said that Australia’s Prime Minister Anthony Albanese was considering joining a group of countries prepared to protect an eventual ceasefire in the Russia-Ukraine war.
Britain and France have been leading efforts to form the so-called “coalition of the willing,” with the United States’ long-term commitment to Europe’s security now in doubt under President Donald Trump.
British Prime Minister Keir Starmer “spoke to the Prime Minister of Australia Anthony Albanese this morning,” the UK leader’s office said on Saturday.
“He welcomed Prime Minister Albanese’s commitment to consider contributing to a Coalition of the Willing for Ukraine and looked forward to the Chiefs of Defense meeting in Paris on Tuesday.”
European countries have been rushing to boost support for Ukraine as Trump pursues direct talks with Russian leader Vladimir Putin to end Moscow’s three-year-long invasion of Ukraine.
Several European states have said they would be willing to deploy troops to Ukraine as a “security guarantee.”
Key details about the “coalition of the willing” have not been specified, but the grouping was mentioned by Starmer during a summit of European leaders in London last Sunday aimed at guaranteeing “lasting peace” in Ukraine.
British officials have held talks with around 20 countries interested in being part of the group, a UK official said on Thursday.
The official refused to name the nations but said they were “largely European and Commonwealth partners.”
Earlier this week, Albanese told journalists that Australia was “ready to assist” Ukraine.
“There’s discussion at the moment about potential peacekeeping,” he said. “From my government’s perspective, we’re open to consideration of any proposals going forward.”


Trump’s Scottish golf resort vandalized with pro-Palestine graffiti

Updated 08 March 2025
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Trump’s Scottish golf resort vandalized with pro-Palestine graffiti

  • Local media on Saturday showed images of red paint scrawled across walls at the course with the slogans “Free Gaza” and “Free Palestine“
  • “Gaza is not for sale” was also painted on one of the greens and holes dug up on the course

LONDON: US President Donald Trump’s Turnberry golf resort in Scotland has been daubed with pro-Palestinian graffiti, with a protest group claiming responsibility.
Local media on Saturday showed images of red paint scrawled across walls at the course with the slogans “Free Gaza” and “Free Palestine” as well as insults against Trump.
“Gaza is not for sale” was also painted on one of the greens and holes dug up on the course.
Palestine Action said it caused the damage, posting on social media platform X: “Whilst Trump attempts to treat Gaza as his property, he should know his own property is within reach.”
Last month, Trump enraged the Arab world by declaring unexpectedly that the United States would take over Gaza, resettle its over 2-million Palestinian population and develop it into the “Riviera of the Middle East.”
Police Scotland said it was investigating.
“Around 4.40am on Saturday, 8 March, 2025, we received a report of damage to the golf course and a premises on Maidens Road, Turnberry,” a Police Scotland spokesperson said, adding that enquiries were ongoing.
Separately on Saturday, a man waving a Palestinian flag climbed the Big Ben tower at London’s Palace of Westminster.