Mexico Says Trump’s New Tariff “Has No Legal Basis”
President Sheinbaum says 50% steel and aluminum tariff is ‘unjust’
HAVANA TIMES – The United States’ 50% tariff on imports of steel and aluminum — which took effect today — is “unjust,” “unsustainable” and “has no legal basis,” President Claudia Sheinbaum said Wednesday.
Economy Minister Marcelo Ebrard said Tuesday that Mexico would seek an exclusion from the tariff, which doubles the 25% duty that the United States imposed on steel and aluminum imports in March. If it doesn’t get one, the Mexican government will announce its response next week, Sheinbaum said.
U.S. President Donald Trump announced his plan to double the tariff on steel and aluminum imports last Friday.
“We’re going to bring it from 25% to 50% — the tariffs on steel into the United States of America, which will even further secure the steel industry in the United States,” he said at an event in Pennsylvania.
Trump signed an executive order to impose the higher tariff on Tuesday.
“I have determined that it is necessary to increase the previously described steel and aluminum tariffs to adjust the imports of steel and aluminum articles and their derivative articles so that such imports will not threaten to impair the national security,” Trump said in the order.
“In my judgment, the increased tariffs will more effectively counter foreign countries that continue to offload low-priced, excess steel and aluminum in the United States market and thereby undercut the competitiveness of the United States steel and aluminum industries.”
A White House fact sheet said that Trump is “taking action to end unfair trade practices and the global dumping of steel and aluminum.”
“Foreign nations have been flooding the United States market with cheap steel and aluminum, often subsidized by their governments,” the White House said.
Last year, the United States and Mexico announced a series of steps aimed at curbing the circumvention of previous U.S. tariffs on steel and aluminum, particularly targeting products from China shipped through Mexico.
The new 50% tariff, like the 25% one it replaced, was imposed in accordance with Section 232 of the United States Trade Expansion Act, rather than the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA), which Trump has used to impose separate duties on most countries from around the world, including Mexico.
Mexico is the world’s second-largest exporter of steel, aluminum and products derived from those metals to the United States, according to 2024 data from the U.S. Department of Commerce. The value of those Mexican exports to the U.S. was US $34.83 billion last year, second only to China.
Sheinbaum: ‘It’s a measure we consider unjust’
Sheinbaum responded to the implementation of the higher tariff at her Wednesday morning press conference.
“It’s a measure we consider unjust,” she told reporters.
“It’s a measure for the whole world, not just for Mexico, the tariff is increased for all countries of the world with the exception of Great Britain, which stays at 25%,” Sheinbaum said.
“… In the case of Mexico, firstly, it’s unjust … because as we have said several times, Mexico imports more [from the United States] than it exports in steel and aluminum. Formally, a tariff is imposed when there is a deficit,” she said.
“… Secondly, from our perspective, it has no legal basis because there is a trade agreement,” Sheinbaum said, referring to the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement, or USMCA.
She noted that the United States imposed the steel and aluminum tariff for national security reasons, before highlighting that “yesterday the White House spokeswoman said there is good collaboration with Mexico in all terms, including on the issue of security.”
I like Sheinbaum. Her measured responses to Trump’s idiocy have proven so far to be successful. But if this response of calling the steel and aluminum tariffs “unjust” is the best she has, the schoolyard bully Trump is going to eat her lunch. Calling a convicted felon and adjudicated rapist’s actions unjust is water on a ducks back. She is going to have to at try to do better than that.