Trump Confirms 25% Tariffs Against Mexico and Canada Will Start Tuesday: ‘No Room Left’ for Negotiations

Screenshot via CNN.

President Donald Trump confirmed his 25% tariffs on goods from Canada and Mexico, plus another 10% on China, would start Tuesday, telling reporters Monday there was “no room left” for any further negotiations.

Trump’s original plan was for the tariffs to take effect in early February, but made last-minute deals to hit the pause button. He did not seem willing to do so again despite the reciprocal tariffs threatened by the other countries, posting last week on Truth Social that the tariffs “will, indeed, go into effect, as scheduled” and striking an identical tone Monday afternoon while taking questions from reporters gathered in the Roosevelt Room Monday afternoon on a range of subjects from Ukraine to the economy.

In two key segments aired on CNN, the president spoke about the 25% tariffs against Canada and Mexico, plus a separate additional tariff planned for goods from China.

“Very importantly, tomorrow, tariffs: 25% on Canada and 25% on Mexico, and that’ll start,” said Trump. “So they’re going to have to have a tariff, so what they have to do is build their car plants, frankly, and other things in the United States, in which case they have no tariffs. In other words, you build — and this is exactly what Mr. Wei is doing by building here. Otherwise they’ll build — if they did them in Taiwan to send them here, they’ll have 25% or 30% or 50% or whatever the number may be someday — it will go only up — but by doing it here, he has no tariff. So he’s way ahead of the game.”

“And I would just say this,” he said, “to people in Canada or Mexico, if they’re going to build car plants, the people that are doing them are much better off building here because we have the market. We’re the market where they sell the most. And so I think it’s going to be very exciting, very exciting for the automobile companies, very exciting for — I can think of any  — as an example, North Carolina. They had the great — I used to go there to buy furniture for hotels, and it’s been wiped out. That business all went to other countries, and now it’s all going to come back into North Carolina, the furniture, furniture manufacturing business.”

Later during the press conference, another reporter asked Trump, “On the tariffs there any room left for Canada and Mexico to make a deal before midnight? And should we expect those Chinese tariffs, the extra 10%, to take effect?”

“No room left, for Mexico or for Canada,” Trump replied. “No. The tariffs, you know, they’re all set. They go into effect tomorrow.”

“And just so you understand,” he added, “vast amounts of fentanyl have poured into our country from, from Mexico and, as you know, also from China, where it goes to Mexico, and goes to Canada, and China also had an additional ten, so it’s ten plus ten. And and it comes in from Canada and it comes in from Mexico. And that’s a very important thing to say.”

Watch the clip above via CNN.