US President Donald Trump announced he reached a deal with Mexico and Canada to remove metal tariffs, clearing the path to the approval of the North American Free Trade Agreement. The announcement came during speech at the convention of estate agents in Washington DC on Friday.
“I’m pleased to announce that we’ve just reached an agreement with Canada and Mexico, and we’ll be selling our product into those countries without the imposition of tariffs, or major tariffs”, the US President said.
“That deal is going to be a fantastic deal for our country and hopefully Congress will approve the USMCA quickly, and then the great farmers and manufacturers and steel plants will make our economy even more successful than it already is, if that’s possible, which it is possible”, he added.
Following the agreement, the United States will scrap the tariffs of 25 per cent on steel and 10 per cent on aluminium against the two neighbouring countries, which the Trump’s administration imposed in March 2018 on “national security grounds.”
In exchange, Canada and Mexico will eliminate retaliatory tariffs on US products, which included pork, beef and bourbon.
Canada imposed tariffs against around $12 billion in US goods, while Mexico imposed levies of around three billion dollars on US exports.
The agreements will remove a major hurdle on the way of the approval of a new North American Trade Pact and it’s expected to benefit all three countries.