“For Canada and Mexico, the existing fentanyl/migration … orders remain in effect, and are unaffected by this order,” the White House fact sheet said.

“This means USMCA (U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement) compliant goods will continue to see a 0% tariff, non-USMCA compliant goods will see a 25% tariff, and non-USMCA compliant energy and potash will see a 10% tariff. In the event the existing fentanyl/migration … orders are terminated, USMCA compliant goods would continue to receive preferential treatment, while non-USMCA compliant goods would be subject to a 12% reciprocal tariff.”

Widespread 10 per cent tariffs

President Donald Trump said on Wednesday that he would impose a 10 per cent baseline tariff on all imports to the United States and higher duties on dozens of the country’s biggest trading partners.

Trading partners are expected to respond with countermeasures of their own that could lead to dramatically higher prices for everything from bicycles to wine. U.S. stock futures sank following his announcement.

“It’s our declaration of independence,” Trump said at an event in the White House Rose Garden.

Trump displayed a poster that listed reciprocal tariffs, including 34 per cent on China and 20 per cent on the European Union, as a response to duties put on U.S. goods.

A White House official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said those penalties will take effect on April 9 and will apply to about 60 countries in all.

The baseline 10 per cent tariff will take effect on Saturday, the official said.

Following his remarks, Trump signed an order to remove a “de minimis” tariff exemption on low-cost products. Trump is also planning other tariffs targeting semiconductors, pharmaceuticals, and potentially critical minerals, the official said.

Trump’s barrage of penalties has rattled financial markets and businesses that have relied on trading arrangements that have been in place since the middle of last century.

Auto tariffs to take effect

The administration has said the new tariffs will take effect immediately after Trump announces them, though it has not yet published the official notice required for enforcement.

The administration, however, did publish an official notice that a separate set of tariffs on auto imports that Trump announced last week will take effect starting on April 3.

Trump has already imposed 20 per cent duties on all imports from China and 25 per cent duties on steel and aluminum and extended them to nearly $150 billion worth of downstream products.

His advisers say the tariffs will return strategically vital manufacturing capabilities to the United States.

Outside economists have warned that tariffs could slow the global economy, raise the risk of recession, and increase living costs for the average U.S. family by thousands of dollars. Businesses have complained that Trump’s barrage of threats has made it difficult to plan their operations.

Tariff concerns have already slowed manufacturing activity across the globe, while also spurring sales of autos and other imported products as consumers rush to make purchases before prices rise.

Financial markets were volatile as investors awaited Trump’s announcement. U.S. stocks have erased nearly $5 trillion of value since February.

— Additional reporting by Kanishka Singh and Steve Holland

The post Canada, Mexico not subject to new global rates as Trump announces new tariffs appeared first on Alberta Farmer Express.

In a sign of the escalating squeeze on food supplies and rising prices, a government source told Reuters that India could restrict sugar exports for the first time in six years to prevent a surge in domestic prices.

Meanwhile Indonesia, the world’s biggest palm oil exporter, will remove a subsidy on bulk cooking oil and replace it with a price cap on the raw materials for local refiners.

“It is a major issue, and frankly I think the problem is even bigger ahead of us than it is behind us,” Gita Gopinath, first deputy managing director of the International Monetary Fund, told Reuters of rising food security concerns.

Protectionism is looming large at Davos, prompting calls for urgent negotiations to avoid a full-blown trade war.

“It’s very important for the leaders of the world to sit at the table with calm and talk about how we will manage trade and food and investment,” Jay Collins, vice-chairman of banking, capital markets and advisory at Citigroup told the Reuters Global Markets Forum in Davos.

“There’s a lot of conversations actually with the G7 happening here in the past 48 hours,” Collins said.

Hoarding

For residents in countries in sub-Saharan Africa, for instance, 40 per cent of their consumption is spent on food, Gopinath said. As well as a “huge hit to the cost of living,” price rises have given rise to hoarding by governments.

“We have about 20 plus countries that have put restrictions on exports of food and the fertilizers, and that can only compound the problem and make things worse,” she said on Monday.

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, which Moscow describes as a “special military operation,” has led to a sudden crunch in a crisis that was already in the offing.

“We were facing an extraordinary food crisis before Ukraine, food costs, commodity prices, shipping costs were already doubling, tripling, quadrupling,” David Beasley, executive director for the United Nations’ World Food Programme, said.

The number of people “marching to starvation” has risen from 80 million to 276 million over the last four to five years, Beasley told Reuters in an interview in Davos.

“To keep the ports closed as the harvest season is now coming in Ukraine in July and August, it means a declaration of war on global food supply,” he said.

Many companies at Davos have been in touch about how they can act to address the food crisis, Beasley added.

‘Not sustainable’

“Agriculture has to be part of the solution to climate change and has to tackle food security,” Erik Fyrwald, CEO of Syngenta Group, said during a panel discussion on Monday.

Fyrwald said Syngenta has demonstration farms that show how farming practices such as not tilling the soil and covering crops in the winter to prevent soil erosion were better for soil, food security and climate change.

Another potential solution to the food crisis is to tackle waste, Gilberto Tomazoni, CEO of JBS, the world’s largest meat processor, told a WEF panel on Tuesday.

“Humanity is faced with two big emergencies at the same time, we need to face climate change and we need to produce more to feed a growing population,” Tomazoni said.

“And the way we are producing today is not sustainable. This is our big, big challenge. Food waste, we need to take on this situation,” Tomazoni added.

— Reporting for Reuters by Jessica DiNapoli, Dan Burns and Divya Chowdhury.

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