Trump announces one-month delay of US tariffs on cars from Canada and Mexico

President Donald Trump has given Mexico and Canada a one-month reprieve from vehicle tariffs, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt announced on Wednesday.

“We spoke with the Big Three auto dealers.  We are going to give a one-month exemption on any autos coming through USMCA,” Trump said in a statement Leavitt read in a White House briefing. Stellantis, Ford, and General Motors were among the dealers included.

“He told them they should get on it, start investing, start moving, shift production here to the United States of America, where they will pay no tariff. That’s the ultimate goal,” she added.

“Reciprocal tariffs will still go into effect on April 2.  But at the request of the companies associated with USMCA, the president is giving them an exemption for one month so they’re not at an economic disadvantage.”

In tweets on his Truth Social platform, the president stated that after meeting with Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, he determined that the improvements Trudeau highlighted in terms of preventing fentanyl and illegal immigrants from entering the United States were "not good enough" to lift the tariffs.

The president will talk with Claudia Sheinbaum of Mexico on Thursday.

Trump's decision to extend the extension comes ahead of his planned global retaliatory tariffs, which will be revealed on April 2. These tariffs would not allow for any exclusions, Leavitt told reporters.

Tariffs on Mexico and Canada have been a source of uncertainty for months, ever since Trump initially threatened them shortly after his victory. Last month, Trump stated that he would impose tariffs on the two nations on February 4, only to declare that he was delaying the action by a month the day before the levies were to be collected. Trump stated this week that the nations had not done enough in the previous month to curb the supply of fentanyl, and the tariffs went into effect at midnight on Tuesday.