Trump faces moment of reckoning on trade after delaying tariffs

Then, after conversations with Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum and Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, Trump put the tariffs on pause. While the new duties on China have gone into effect – and have prompted retaliatory measures from Beijing – markets have viewed those US moves as less disruptive and smaller in scope.

By contrast, if US had engaged in an escalating series of tariffs with Canada and Mexico, which accounted for more than $1.57tn (£1.24tn) in goods in 2023, the global economic effect could have been catastrophic.

That possibly dire development has been averted, for now, with Trump and his administration declaring at least a partial victory.

The details of what Canada and Mexico conceded, however, paint a more complicated picture.

While Canada agreed to form a joint anti-crime strike force with the US and appoint a “fentanyl tsar”, the concrete steps it detailed were all part of a border-security package Canada had previously announced.

Mexico pledged stepped up drug enforcement and 10,000 troops to patrol the US-Mexico border – but those numbers mirror the deployments the nation made in 2019 and again in 2021

In a month’s time, Trump will again have to decide if Canada and Mexico are doing enough to satisfy his demands – or whether the delayed tariffs will go into effect.

Solid figures demonstrating progress, however, may be hard to come by.

By the administration’s own measures, US immigration officials only seized 43lbs (19.5kg) of fentanyl and caught 193,540 people crossing at the US-Canada border in 2024. The numbers are much higher for the US-Mexico border, but undocumented crossings – and drug seizures- are down there, as well.