The Mexico Secretariat of Economy issued two notices April 10 amending the Mexican tariff schedule and making related changes to the PROSEC sectoral promotion and IMMEX maquiladora programs. Notably, the notices reverse tariff cuts previously implemented for footwear, textiles and apparel in February. The changes were detailed in two circulars issued by the Mexican Confederation of Customs Broker Associations (CAAAREM) the following day and posted by Mexican consultancy AJR Foreign Trade.

Toyota does support the renegotiated NAFTA, a top executive said at a trade conference in Washington, even though it will require the company to change some of its sourcing to meet the new 75 percent autos rule of origin. Doug Murtha, vice president of corporate strategy and planning for Toyota's North American division, said that the addition of $3 billion in U.S investments were, "to some extent, changes we had to make for USMCA."

Though “it appears” President Donald Trump’s threat to close the southern border “is (most likely) off the table for the time being” (see 1904040018), a bottleneck in the flow of import goods to the U.S. through Mexican ports of entry is likely to worsen, blogged customs expert Ted Murphy with Baker & McKenzie Friday. The Department of Homeland Security is still reassigning Customs and Border Protection agents “to help deal with the increase in the number of migrants seeking to enter the United States,” said Murphy. Roughly 750 CBP agents have been deployed so far, but the number could climb as high as 2,000, he said. With “fewer agents to handle cargo clearance, it is leading to increasing delays at many of the land border crossings," he said. "We expect this trend to continue, and likely to get worse, in the short term.” Trump, meeting with reporters at the White House Friday, denied changing his mind on the border closure. "I may shut it down at some point, but I’d rather do tariffs" on automobiles entering the U.S. from Mexico, he said. "Mexico, I have to say, has been very, very good" in reducing the flow of migrants into the U.S. "over the last four days, since I talked about shutting down the border," said Trump. "If they continue that, everything will be fine. If they don’t, we’re going to tariff their cars at 25 percent coming into the United States. ... That means we make money as opposed to lose money. We probably bring those car companies back into the United States."

President Donald Trump denied he said Mexico has a year to improve drug interdiction (see 1904040030), but, for the second day in a row, he suggested Mexico is improving its control of migration, so he won't need to close the border soon. "I don't think we'll ever have to close the border because the penalty of tariffs on cars coming into the United States from Mexico at 25 percent will be massive," Trump told White House reporters a few hours after he made the one-year remark, on April 4.

Canada may pursue an increase in its retaliatory tariffs on U.S. goods as part of an effort to convince President Donald Trump to end the U.S. tariffs on steel and aluminum from Canada, the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation said in a March 29 report. Mexico too is said to be considering an expansion to its retaliatory tariffs (see 1903140025). Additional tariffs on the U.S. are hoped to push Trump toward lifting the metals tariffs as part of U.S.-Mexico-Canada free trade deal, the CBC reported.

After 25 Republican House members met with President Donald Trump and U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer to talk about how to ratify the new NAFTA, Rep. Vern Buchanan, R-Fla., said on Fox Business News March 26 that he thinks Congress can do it before the August recess.

After 25 Republican House members met with President Donald Trump and U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer to talk about how to ratify the new NAFTA, Rep. Vern Buchanan, R-Fla., said on Fox Business News March 26 that he thinks Congress can do it before the August recess.

Mexico is renewing temporary tariff increases on steel products under 186 tariff subheadings, according to a notice in the March 25 Diario Oficial. The across-the-board 15 percent tariff had originally been imposed on the same 186 tariff subheadings in June 2018, before apparently expiring on Jan. 31, 2019. The renewed tariff increases take effect March 26, and will remain in place for six months, the notice said.

United Steelworkers Canadian Director Ken Neumann and Quebec Director Alain Croteau say that quotas on Canadian steel and aluminum exports to the U.S. are not acceptable, and that Canada's parliament should not ratify the new NAFTA until the tariffs on the metals are lifted. “The federal government, Prime Minister Trudeau himself, and all party leaders must be very clear with the Americans that this trade agreement will not be ratified until tariffs and quotas are removed from the equation,” Neumann and Croteau said in a joint statement March 22.

The Mexican government is considering adding new products to a list of U.S. goods that face higher tariffs in response to U.S. tariffs on steel and aluminum. During a March 6 meeting "of the Foreign Trade Commission of the Mexican Senate, Luz Maria de la Mora-Sanchez, Foreign Trade Undersecretary of Mexico’s Ministry of Economy, announced that the Mexican government is planning to include additional items on its list of U.S. products subject to retaliatory measures," law firm Thompson Hine said in a blog post. The additional goods may be finalized by April, Thompson Hine said.