Donald Trump pauses higher tariffs on Mexico for 90 days

After a phone call with his Mexican counterpart, Donald Trump will give the country another three months to clinch a trade deal.

Donald Trump announced the pause after a phone call with Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum.

The United States will enter a 90-day negotiating period with Mexico over trade as 25 per cent tariff rates stay in place, President Donald Trump said.

Mr Trump, posting on his Truth Social platform, said a phone conversation he had with Mexican leader Claudia Sheinbaum was “very successful in that, more and more, we are getting to know and understand each other.”

He said that goods from Mexico imported into the US would continue to face a 25 per cent tariff that the US president has ostensibly linked to fentanyl trafficking.

The Republican said that autos would face a 25 per cent tariffs, while copper, aluminium and steel would be taxed at 50 per cent.

Mr Trump said that Mexico would end its “Non Tariff Trade Barriers,” but he didn’t provide specifics.

In a July letter he had threatened tariffs of 30 per cent on goods from Mexico.

Ms Sheinbaum said the three month reprieve would be used to build a long-term deal

“We avoided the tariff increase announced for tomorrow and we got 90 days to build a long-term agreement through dialogue,” she wrote on X.

Some goods continue to be protected from the tariffs by the 2020 US Mexico Canada Agreement, or USMCA, which Mr Trump negotiated during his first term.

But Mr Trump appeared to have soured on that deal, which is up for renegotiation next year. One of his first significant moves as president was to tariff goods from both Mexico and Canada earlier this year.

Census Bureau figures show that the US ran a $171.5 billion trade imbalance with Mexico last year. That means the US bought more goods from Mexico than it sold to the country.

The imbalance with Mexico has grown in the aftermath of the USMCA as it was only $63.3 billion in 2016, the year before Trump started his first term in office.

Besides addressing fentanyl trafficking, Mr Trump has made it a goal to close the trade gap.