All these are just excuses for Trump not to look bad. Trump clearly announced those tariffs, saw the consequences and saw that he had no option but to not go ahead with the tariffs.
But of course he couldn't just come out and end the tariffs admitting that he made a bad move by imposing them in the first place. So what did he do? Brokered a sort of agreement with these countries, came out and said we've reached an agreement, and used the agreement as an excuse to halt the tariffs.
First they'll say it's halted just for 30 days and after the 30 days it would be gone permanently. All just so Trump doesn't look bad.
This is the most likely explanation because Trump wasn't saying the reason he's imposing the tariffs is because Mexico and Canada are not cooperating with border efforts.
Look at an excerpt from this article from NPR.org:
President Trump's tariffs on Mexico, Canada and China have an official rationale: the failure to stop fentanyl smuggling into the United States.
In his public statements, though, the president keeps neglecting this reason, giving others instead...In any case, the president's Truth Social post made no mention of drug traffic.
Also an Economist (Peter Morici) NPR interviewed said this:
Peter Morici: No. This is ridiculous. Canada is not a real source of fentanyl. It’s not a real source of immigrants
Simple! Trump wasn't giving drugs or smuggling as a reason for imposing the tariffs, so why all of a sudden that is crucial to the whole thing? Why all of a sudden an agreement on that is enough to stop the tariffs?
People are saying he was withholding that reason and giving other reasons, that's not convincing at all. It's more convincing that he/his team just came up with that last minute as an excuse to withhold the tariffs because the tariffs were about to cause way more consequences than Trump thought.
Trump thought tariffs would boost the American economy and promote American Made goods.
This is from BBC.co.uk:
Mr Trump first brought up the idea during his 2024 presidential election campaign.
He argues that introducing these taxes will allow for a boost in US manufacturing.
Mr Trump hopes that they will grow the US economy, protect jobs and raise the amount of money the US receives from tax.
Trump didn't see the consequences coming so once he saw the backlash, he made a U-turn and in order to not look bad for this U-turn he's using an agreement to fight drugs and illegal migration as an excuse for why he made the U-turn.
The End
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