Trade & Manufacturing - June 2019

Mexico and the United States Reach Agreement on Immigration Issues, Causing President Trump to Withdraw His Threat to Impose Escalating Tariffs on Imports from Mexico -

Late on Friday, June 7, 2019, the United States and Mexico announced that they reached an agreement which will require Mexico to take steps to address the issue of illegal immigration at the US.-Mexico border. In a joint statement issued late Friday, the two countries explained that Mexico would take “unprecedented” enforcement steps to “curb irregular migration” at the border, including the deployment of Mexico’s national guard to stop migrants from reaching the United States. According to the joint statement, Mexico also agreed to require some migrants to wait in Mexico while their asylum claims are pending before U.S. immigration authorities. If Mexico’s actions “do not have the expected results,” however, the United States may take additional measures to address the illegal immigration issue. The two countries continue to discuss these issues.

The announcement resolved the issues created by the most recent steps taken by President Trump to force Mexico to address his concerns about illegal immigration. On May 30, 2019, the President announced that he intended to impose tariffs of five percent “on all goods imported from Mexico,” and that he would increase these tariffs by 5 percentage points each month up to a maximum of 25 percent in October 2019, unless and until Mexico substantially stopped the flow of immigrants to the United States’ southern border. He added that, if no agreement was reached between Mexico and the United States, the additional tariffs could be imposed on June 10, 2019.