US President Donald Trump has announced that he had suspended plans to impose tariffs on Mexico, saying on Twitter that the country “has agreed to take strong measures” to stem the flow of Central American migrants into the US.
However, the deal the two neighbors agreed to falls short of some of the dramatic overhauls the US had pushed for.
A “US-Mexico Joint Declaration” released by the US Department of State late on Friday said that the US “will immediately expand the implementation” of a program that returns asylum seekers who cross the southern border to Mexico while their claims are adjudicated.
Photo: AP
Mexico would “offer jobs, healthcare and education” to those people, the agreement stated.
Mexico has also agreed, it said, to take “unprecedented steps to increase enforcement to curb irregular migration,” including the deployment of the Mexican National Guard throughout the country, especially on its southern border with Guatemala.
Mexico is taking “decisive action to dismantle human smuggling and trafficking organizations, as well as their illicit financial and transportation networks,” the department said.
The move puts to an end — for now — a threat that had sparked dire warnings from members of Trump’s own party, who said the tariffs would damage the economy, drive up prices for consumers and imperil an updated North American trade pact.
Trump’s Friday night tweet marked a sharp reversal from earlier in the day, when White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders told reporters: “Our position has not changed. The tariffs are going forward as of Monday.”
Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador said on Twitter: “Thanks to the support of all Mexicans, the imposition of tariffs on Mexican products exported to the USA has been avoided.”
He called for a gathering to celebrate in Tijuana yesterday.
The changes, in part, continue steps the Trump administration was already taking.
The US announced in December last year that it would make some asylum seekers wait in Mexico while their cases were being proceeded — a begrudging agreement with Mexico that has taken months to scale and that has been plagued with glitches, including wrong court dates, travel problems and issues with lawyers reaching their clients.
US Department of Homeland Security officials have been ramping up slowly and were already working to spread the program along the border before the latest blowup.
About 10,000 people have been returned to Mexico to wait out the processing of their immigration cases since the program began on Jan. 29.
More than 100,000 migrants are crossing the US border each month, but not everyone claims asylum and migrants can wait an entire year before making a claim.
Any sizable increase might also be difficult to achieve.
At the San Ysidro crossing alone, Mexico had been prepared to accept up to 120 asylum seekers per week, but for the first six weeks only 40 people per week were returned.
The US government has signed defense cooperation agreements with Japan and the Philippines to boost the deterrence capabilities of countries in the first island chain, a report by the National Security Bureau (NSB) showed. The main countries on the first island chain include the two nations and Taiwan. The bureau is to present the report at a meeting of the legislature’s Foreign Affairs and National Defense Committee tomorrow. The US military has deployed Typhon missile systems to Japan’s Yamaguchi Prefecture and Zambales province in the Philippines during their joint military exercises. It has also installed NMESIS anti-ship systems in Japan’s Okinawa
‘WIN-WIN’: The Philippines, and central and eastern European countries are important potential drone cooperation partners, Minister of Foreign Affairs Lin Chia-lung said Minister of Foreign Affairs Lin Chia-lung (林佳龍) in an interview published yesterday confirmed that there are joint ventures between Taiwan and Poland in the drone industry. Lin made the remark in an exclusive interview with the Chinese-language Liberty Times (the Taipei Times’ sister paper). The government-backed Taiwan Excellence Drone International Business Opportunities Alliance and the Polish Chamber of Unmanned Systems on Wednesday last week signed a memorandum of understanding in Poland to develop a “non-China” supply chain for drones and work together on key technologies. Asked if Taiwan prioritized Poland among central and eastern European countries in drone collaboration, Lin
TRAGEDY STRIKES TAIPEI: The suspect died after falling off a building after he threw smoke grenades into Taipei Main Station and went on a killing spree in Zhongshan A 27-year-old suspect allegedly threw smoke grenades in Taipei Main Station and then proceeded to Zhongshan MRT Station in a random killing spree that resulted in the death of the suspect and two other civilians, and seven injured, including one in critical condition, as of press time last night. The suspect, identified as a man surnamed Chang Wen (張文), allegedly began the attack at Taipei Main Station, the Taipei Fire Department said, adding that it received a report at 5:24pm that smoke grenades had been thrown in the station. One man in his 50s was rushed to hospital after a cardiac arrest
ON ALERT: Taiwan’s partners would issue warnings if China attempted to use Interpol to target Taiwanese, and the global body has mechanisms to prevent it, an official said China has stationed two to four people specializing in Taiwan affairs at its embassies in several democratic countries to monitor and harass Taiwanese, actions that the host nations would not tolerate, National Security Bureau (NSB) Director-General Tsai Ming-yen (蔡明彥) said yesterday. Tsai made the comments at a meeting of the legislature’s Foreign Affairs and National Defense Committee, which asked him and Minister of National Defense Wellington Koo (顧立雄) to report on potential conflicts in the Taiwan Strait and military preparedness. Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Legislator Michelle Lin (林楚茵) expressed concern that Beijing has posted personnel from China’s Taiwan Affairs Office to its
RSS