President Trump on Thursday threatened to hit Mexico with new tariffs, escalating his immigration fight with America’s largest trading partner. And with that, he showed, once again, that he’s ready to employ trade as an all-purpose tool for his policy goals.
Mr. Trump is juggling multiple trade conflicts today, with allies and rivals alike. His demands, often first disclosed through Twitter, have caught trading partners off guard.
Just eight months ago, Mr. Trump’s negotiators struck a deal with Mexican and Canadian officials that they said would replace the North American Free Trade Agreement. His new threat comes even before Congress has approved the deal, and signals to American partners that continuing disputes and threats are now the norm in global trade — at least as long as Mr. Trump is in office.
Of course, Mexico isn’t Mr. Trump’s only target. Far from it. In fact, what he’s taking on is broader than any particular country. He is challenging the post-World War II consensus that free trade enriches the world.
Here’s a look at the many fronts in Mr. Trump’s war on the world’s established trade relationships.
Japan
President Trump has called the relationship between the United States and Japan “a treasured alliance,” and says he enjoys a close relationship with Prime Minister Shinzo Abe. That hasn’t exempted Tokyo from his threats.
Though he has postponed his decision, Mr. Trump still says he will put tariffs on Japanese auto imports unless the two sides reach a trade deal. The White House wants greater access to the Japanese market for American farmers and ranchers. He also wants Japanese automakers to build more factories in the United States so more cars can be assembled by American workers.
Striking a deal is crucial for Mr. Abe, whose yearslong effort to rev up Japanese growth faces a major challenge from an economic slowdown in China, a major buyer of Japanese equipment and goods. Adding to the political pressure on Mr. Abe, Mr. Trump has said any deal would wait until after Japanese elections in July.
Mexico
The Mexican conflict was supposed to be over.
But on Thursday, Mr. Trump reignited trade tensions by threatening to impose tariffs on Mexico beginning June 10 unless it stops the flow of undocumented immigrants across the border into the United States.
If he follows through on the threat, severe disruptions could be felt on both sides of the border. Thanks in part to the tariffs on China, Mexico is now the largest trading partner for the United States, accounting for more than $150 billion in trade in the first three months of this year, according to IHS Markit Global Trade Atlas, a data provider.
Trade has already been hindered because of shifts in how American personnel police the border, leading to longer waits. And just as he has with Japan, Mr. Trump has also threatened to put tariffs on imports of cars made in Mexico. A number of American and Japanese auto factories are based in Mexico, with supply chains that run deeply into the United States.
Mr. Trump’s threat calls into question the fate of the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement, the successor to the North American Free Trade Agreement, which was hammered out late last year between the three countries. Already the United States has lifted tariffs on metal imports from both Mexico and Canada as a way to get the deal ratified. But Congress has signaled some skepticism, showing how Mr. Trump — whatever the fate of his various conflicts — has changed the tenor of the discussion on trade in the United States.
Europe
The prospect of punishing tariffs from the United States has loomed for several months after steel and aluminum tariffs imposed last year rattled American allies in Europe.
President Trump has contended that imports of foreign cars and car parts are causing harm to the American automobile industry and threatening national security.
“The European Union treats us, I would say, worse than China. They’re just smaller,” President Trump said in May. “They send Mercedes-Benzes in here like they are cookies.”
He has threatened tariffs of 25 percent on the millions of foreign cars and car parts imported by the United States each year. The move could inflict damage in states like Alabama and South Carolina, which are home to big Mercedes-Benz and BMW assembly plants.
Earlier this month, the White House put off a decision on imposing these tariffs, leaving six months to negotiate a trade deal to address the problem.
The United States was already struggling in negotiations with the European Union, which has refused to consider demands to allow more American agricultural products into Europe. The Trump administration says that a deal without agriculture would not pass Congress, but populist politicians in Europe have seized on some American products and practices — like the use of chlorine to sterilize chickens — to justify retaining trade barriers.
Countries like France and Belgium have also balked at joining talks because of the Trump administration’s refusal in 2017 to sign a global pact on climate change. And leaders of the Green coalition in the European Parliament have said that they will not sign trade agreements with countries that have not ratified the climate accord.
Canada
Last fall President Trump had appeared to reach a settlement over trade differences with Canada with the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement, the revised Nafta. Among other things, the pact is supposed to make it easier to sell American dairy products in Canada. But Mr. Trump’s announcement on Thursday could derail his efforts to secure congressional approval of the pact.
Canada has been in an uncomfortable middle ground in the trade war between the United States and China. It became the center of a diplomatic row after Canadian authorities arrested Meng Wanzhou, a top executive at the Chinese tech company Huawei who was wanted on fraud charges by United States officials. Perhaps in retaliation, China has arrested two Canadians and accused them of espionage, and has placed restrictions on some Canadian agricultural products.
“China and the United States have escalated their dispute, and Canada has been caught in the crossfire,” Carolyn A. Wilkins, senior deputy governor at the Bank of Canada, said in a speech on Thursday.
Mr. Trump has implied he would intervene in Ms. Meng’s extradition to the United States if it would help Washington land a trade deal with Beijing.
But the new North American trade deal signed this past fall also included a clause, known as the “China clause,” which many saw as a blatant push to block any free trade deal between China and Canada.