Canada and Mexico have responded after President Donald Trump imposed huge tariffs, with Canadian PM Justin Trudeau warning his actions will have ‘real consequences for the American people’.
President Trump has been back in The White House for nearly two weeks, and he’s made a ton of amendments to the way the US is run in that short space of time.
Heck, Trump broke records for the number of executive orders signed on his first day as president, with changes to passports and immigration among some of his first moves.
The Trump administration has also imposed higher tariff imports on countries like China, Canada and Mexico, with import tariffs at 25 percent for Mexico and Canada, while there’s ten percent tariffs on goods from China.
As you can imagine, the new changes haven’t gone down well with Canadian, Mexican and Chinese officials.
Donald Trump has introduced many executive orders (Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)
Speaking shorty before the hiked tariffs were detailed on Saturday (February 1), Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said: “We’re ready with a response, a purposeful, forceful but reasonable, immediate response.”
And during a press briefing on Friday (January 31st), Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum said: “We have Plan A, Plan B, Plan C, depending on what the government of the United States decides.
“It is very important for the people of Mexico to know that we will always defend the dignity of our people, that we will always defend respect for our sovereignty, and engage in dialogue as equals, as we have always stated, without subordination.”
Both the Canadian and Mexican president announced counter-tariffs on Saturday evening as a direct response to Trump’s executive order.
The Canadian prime minister has hit back (DAVE CHAN/AFP via Getty Images)
Canada is imposing 25 percent tariffs on CA $155 billion of US goods.
Trudeau said: “It will have real consequences for you, the American people.”
Speaking in an address on Saturday, the Canadian prime minister added: “The actions taken by the White House split us apart instead of bringing us together.”
Meanwhile, Sheinbaum revealed in a post on Twitter that she’s ordered her economic minister to implement measures to protect Mexico’s best interests.
Claudia Sheinbaum is taking measures too (ALFREDO ESTRELLA/AFP via Getty Images)
“We categorically reject the White House’s slander that the Mexican government has alliances with criminal organisations, as well as any intention of meddling in our territory,” Mexico’s president wrote.
“If the United States government and its agencies wanted to address the serious fentanyl consumption in their country, they could fight the sale of drugs on the streets of their major cities, which they don’t do, and the laundering of money that this illegal activity generates that has done so much harm to its population.”
President of Mexico Claudia Sheinbaum has argued the ‘entire world’ will still call the Gulf by its original name.
Within the first 24 hours of being sworn in as the President of the United States for the second time, Donald Trump wasted no time signing off on multiple executive orders.
By January 21, the White House’s website listed 25 executive orders including one about ‘restoring names that honor American greatness’.
Donald Trump’s executive order
The order argues that it’s ‘in the national interest to promote the extraordinary heritage of our Nation and ensure future generations of American citizens celebrate the legacy of our American heroes’, and so the naming of the US’ ‘national treasures, including breathtaking natural wonders and historic works of art, should honor the contributions of visionary and patriotic Americans in our Nation’s rich past’.
Two examples listed including the renaming of North America’s highest peak to ‘Mount McKinley’ to honor President McKinley. And the second? Well, the Gulf of Mexico being renamed as ‘Gulf of America’.
The order notes the area as being ‘an integral asset to our once burgeoning Nation and has remained an indelible part of America’ and ‘a crucial artery for America’s early trade and global commerce’.
Reflecting on its ‘remarkable body of water’ alongside ‘natural resources and wildlife,’ it resolved: “The Gulf will continue to play a pivotal role in shaping America’s future and the global economy, and in recognition of this flourishing economic resource and its critical importance to our Nation’s economy and its people, I am directing that it officially be renamed the Gulf of America.”
And Mexico’s president Claudia Sheinbaum has since addressed the executive order, arguing Trump can call the Gulf whatever he likes, but it will ultimately always be known as the Gulf of Mexico to the rest of the world.
Mexico’s response to Donald Trump
Trump signed off on the Gulf of Mexico now being known as the Gulf of America (CHIP SOMODEVILLA/POOL/AFP via Getty Images)
In a briefing on the morning of Tuesday (January 21), Sheinbaum said, as quoted by DW.com: “He says that he will call it the ‘Gulf of America’ on its continental shelf. For us it is still the Gulf of Mexico and for the entire world it is still the Gulf of Mexico.”
Elsewhere in the speech, she noted it’s ‘important to always keep a cool head and refer to signed agreements, beyond actual speeches’.
She added: “Regarding the decrees that President Donald Trump signed yesterday, I would like to say the following: The people of Mexico can be sure that we will always defend our sovereignty and our independence.”
