President Biden called Trump’s tariff threats “counterproductive” during a visit to a fire house on Thanksgiving day.
President Joe Biden on Thursday criticized President-elect Donald Trump’s announcement that he will implement 25% tariffs on Canada and Mexico, saying the comments were “counterproductive.”
“I hope he rethinks it, and I think it’s a counterproductive thing to do,” Biden said, responding to a reporter’s question about his reaction.
“The last thing we need to do is begin to screw up those relationships,” he said during a Thanksgiving Day visit to a fire station in Nantucket, Massachusetts.
Trump said Monday on Truth Social that one of his first executive orders would be to hit Mexico and Canada with a blanket 25% tariff. Mexico and Canada are the second and third top suppliers of goods to the U.S., according to the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative. The U.S. imports the most goods from China.
Trump, of course, is already lying about his conversation with Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum, and pretending he’s solved a problem of his own making on his alternative facts social media platform:
Donald Trump seemed to offer alternative facts on Wednesday about his recent call with Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum and was swiftly rebutted by the leader herself, prompting mockery on social media.
In a post on his Truth Social platform, the U.S. president-elect declared that Sheinbaum had “agreed to stop Migration through Mexico, and into the United States, effectively closing our Southern Border.”
Shortly afterward, Sheinbaum shared a Spanish-language message about the conversation, writing, “We reiterate that Mexico’s position is not to close borders, but to build bridges between governments and communities.”
Both leaders characterized the call as positive. The two spoke after Trump on Monday threatened to impose a 25% tax on all products entering the country from Canada and Mexico as soon as he takes office. Trump said, “This Tariff will remain in effect until such time as Drugs, in particular Fentanyl, and all Illegal Aliens stop this Invasion of our Country!” He also threatened to put an “additional 10%” tariff on goods from China.
This week’s news was somewhat reminiscent of Trump’s claim ahead of the 2016 election that he would make Mexico pay for “100%” of a proposed wall at the U.S. border. Enrique Peña Nieto, Mexico’s president at the time, disagreed. Mexico did not pay.
Trump might want to find someone else to try to bully, because so far it doesn’t look like things are going so well with Mexico.
Looks like Claudia Sheinbaum is not going to put up with his bullsh*t… 🍿 apnews.com/article/mexi…
— Lauren Windsor (@laurenwindsor.bsky.social) November 26, 2024 at 9:14 PM
Amber Holden is a journalist and columnist for the L Caribbean Press Center. She writes about politics, health, business, and finance.
Her hobbies include reading, writing, traveling, and spending time with her family.
