The nation’s leading business trade associations warned that President’s Trump’s decision to slap tariffs on Mexico to force it to halt mass immigration into the United States could backfire and undermine a key policy goal of the administration: passage of the U.S.–Mexico–Canada Agreement on trade. Just hours before Trump’s announcement Thursday, Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador brought the USMCA before his legislature for ratification.
National Association of Manufacturers President Jay Timmons said the tariffs would have “devastating” consequences for his group’s members. “Manufacturers have been working hard to secure passage of the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement and the last thing we want to do is put that landmark deal — and the two million manufacturing jobs that depend on North American trade — in jeopardy,” Timmons warned.
