Trump Announces New Tariffs Until Mexico Stops Migrants

President Trump has vowed to slap new tariffs on all goods from Mexico—and to keep increasing them until the country stops migrants coming to the US. On June 10, the US "will impose a 5% Tariff on all goods coming into our Country from Mexico, until such time as illegal migrants coming through Mexico, and into our Country, STOP," the president tweeted Thursday. "The Tariff will gradually increase until the Illegal Immigration problem is remedied at which time the Tariffs will be removed." The White House says the tariffs will rise to 10% on July 1, then go up 5% each month after that until they hit 25% on Oct. 1, reports the Washington Post. Earlier Thursday, Trump told reporters he was going to make his biggest statement on the border so far.

Trump said in a statement that after October, the tariffs will remain at 25% "until Mexico substantially stops the illegal inflow of aliens coming through its territory." The surprise announcement came on the day that Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador began to ratify the USCMA trade deal with US and Canada, which could now be in jeopardy, reports Reuters. The tariffs could devastate Mexico's economy, though experts including trade lawyer Daniel Ujczo suspect Trump will backtrack on the move, as he did with his threat to seal the border in March. "This seems more theater and tactics than a strategy to solve the migration crisis and rebalance North American trade," Ujczo tells the AP. (Earlier this month, Trump lifted tariffs on Mexico and Canada.)