Trump says tariffs on Canada, Mexico and China take effect on Tuesday

President Donald Trump said Thursday that tariffs on goods from Canada and Mexico will increase sharply on March 4 and, in an unexpected move, also announced an additional 10% tax on Chinese goods taking effect then.

In a post on his social media site Truth Social, the president said he was acting to confront a continuing influx of illicit drugs.

“Drugs are still pouring into our Country from Mexico and Canada at very high and unacceptable levels. A large percentage of these Drugs, much of them in the form of Fentanyl, are made in, and supplied by, China,” the president wrote. “We cannot allow this scourge to continue to harm the USA.”

In early February, Trump announced the levies on Canadian and Mexican merchandise and then delayed them by one month after discussions with the heads of those countries. The new 10% tax on Chinese goods that he declared Thursday is in addition to a 10% levy that took effect in early February.

The latest action will bring the total import fee on some Chinese goods to 45%.

In recent days, Trump has given conflicting signals about his plans, appearing to suggest as recently as Wednesday that the Canada and Mexico tariffs might be delayed again until early April.

Thursday’s social media statement, which seemed designed to clarify a muddled outlook, comes amid signs that the president’s near daily musings on tariffs are taking a toll on consumers and investors.

Consumer confidence dipped and expectations of future inflation rose in the latest University of Michigan survey. At the same time, the Dow Jones Industrial Average has dropped more than 2% in the last month, surrendering almost all of its post-election gains.

Until recently, Wall Street largely shrugged off Trump’s tariff talk, seeing it as a negotiating strategy designed to win concessions from foreign nations. But as the president has widened his goals from discrete foreign policy objectives to broader aims of raising significant government revenue and reshaping the global trade order, opinion is starting to shift.

On Thursday, economists at J.P. Morgan said Trump’s recent remarks were “increasing the odds” that some tariffs will be implemented.

Along with the tariffs Trump confirmed Thursday, new import taxes on steel and aluminum are scheduled to take effect on March 12. The president also has promised to impose new taxes on goods from the European Union and on automobiles, semiconductors, copper and pharmaceuticals.

He has also called for a comprehensive overhaul of U.S. trade policy that will match the tariffs other countries apply to American goods, which could dramatically escalate trade barriers.

Democrats, meanwhile, say the president’s trade policy will fuel inflation, which remains above the Federal Reserve’s 2% price-stability target.

While the president often claims that foreigners pay U.S. tariffs, it’s American importers who pay them to U.S. customs officials when they collect goods at U.S. ports. Ultimately, the burden of that tax is shared by the American importer, the foreign producer and the final customer, to varying degrees depending upon specific market conditions.

“Trump is driving the U.S. economy straight into a wall and expecting American families to serve as human crash test dummies. Slapping tariffs on everything Americans buy from Canada, Mexico, and China will mean higher prices on groceries, gas and cars, with fewer jobs and lower pay when our closest trading partners respond to Trump’s trade war by buying fewer American products,” said Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Oregon), the senior Democrat on the Senate Finance Committee.

The embassies of the three countries did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Trump decided to move forward with tariffs on goods from the nation’s three largest trade partners after they made “insufficient progress” curbing the flow of fentanyl into the United States, a White House official said, speaking on the condition of anonymity to explain the president’s thinking.

While fewer unauthorized migrants are crossing U.S. borders, the president credits his administration’s tougher policies rather than stepped-up enforcement by Canada and Mexico. Trump also remains concerned about continuing shipments of illicit drugs, blaming China for shipping the chemical ingredients for fentanyl to drug-cartel labs in both U.S. neighbors, said the official.

Trump believes that Canada, Mexico and China share responsibility for an influx of fentanyl that has killed more than 250,000 Americans via overdoses in the past several years, the official added.

Thursday’s Truth Social post came after Trump made contradictory remarks in recent days over his tariff plans. But while talks continue with Canadian and Mexican diplomats, the White House official reiterated that Trump is set on imposing the new import taxes.

“This is locked in,” the official said.

Business groups are alarmed by the prospect of new tariffs, fearing costly supply chain disruptions. Concern is especially high in the auto industry, which operates as a North American unit, shipping vehicle components across U.S. borders multiple times before completing production.

The White House regards those costs as worth bearing to reduce the number of fentanyl overdoses.

“We’re prioritizing American lives over economics,” the official said.