Photo Courtesy of AP
WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump confirmed that his 25% tariffs on imports from Canada and Mexico will take effect on Saturday, but he’s still weighing whether to include oil from these countries in the new taxes.
“We may or may not,” Trump said Thursday in the Oval Office when asked about imposing tariffs on oil. “We’ll likely make that decision tonight.”
Trump’s decision will depend on whether he considers the price of oil from Canada and Mexico to be fair. However, his main justification for the tariffs centers around addressing illegal immigration and the smuggling of chemicals used to make fentanyl, rather than economic factors.
If Trump proceeds with tariffs on Canadian and Mexican oil, it could undermine his repeated promises to lower inflation by reducing energy costs. Tariffs could drive up consumer prices, including gasoline, which would contradict Trump’s earlier vows to slash energy costs by 50% within a year — a key promise he made during his 2024 presidential campaign.
“One year from January 20, we will have your energy prices cut in half all over the country,” Trump said during a town hall in Pennsylvania last year.
An AP VoteCast survey found that 80% of voters were concerned about gas prices, and Trump won nearly 6 in 10 of those voters. The U.S. imported almost 4.6 million barrels of oil per day from Canada in October, along with 563,000 barrels from Mexico, according to the Energy Information Administration. In comparison, U.S. daily production that month averaged about 13.5 million barrels.
Matthew Holmes, executive vice president of the Canadian Chamber of Commerce, warned that Trump’s tariffs would harm U.S. consumers by raising costs. “This is a lose-lose,” Holmes said. “We will keep working with partners to show President Trump and Americans that this doesn’t make life more affordable; it makes life more expensive.”
Despite concerns raised by many economic analysts about the impact of tariffs on the U.S. economy, Trump dismissed the risks. “We don’t need the products they have,” Trump said. “We have all the oil you need. We have all the trees you need, meaning lumber.”
Trump also reiterated his plan to impose a 10% tariff on chemicals imported from China, which are used to make fentanyl.
Oil prices were trading at around $73 per barrel on Thursday afternoon. Prices had surged to over $120 per barrel in June 2022 under President Joe Biden, coinciding with a broader inflation spike that led to public dissatisfaction with the Democratic administration.
AAA reports that gas prices are averaging $3.12 per gallon nationwide, nearly the same as they were a year ago.
Later Thursday, Trump threatened additional tariffs on countries considering alternatives to the U.S. dollar for global trade. The president had previously warned the BRICS nations — Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa, Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran, and the UAE — that they would face tariffs if they attempted to replace the U.S. dollar.
Russian President Vladimir Putin has suggested that sanctions against his country and others have spurred the need for a substitute to the U.S. dollar. Trump responded with a stark warning on social media: “We are going to require a commitment from these seemingly hostile countries that they will neither create a new BRICS currency, nor back any other currency to replace the mighty U.S. Dollar or they will face 100% tariffs and should expect to say goodbye to selling into the wonderful U.S. economy.”
