{"id":425513,"date":"2024-11-29T12:41:18","date_gmt":"2024-11-29T12:41:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/?p=425513"},"modified":"-0001-11-30T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"-0001-11-29T14:00:00","slug":"Biden-slams-Trump-tariff-threats-as-counterproductive","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/Biden-slams-Trump-tariff-threats-as-counterproductive\/","title":{"rendered":"Biden slams Trump tariff threats as ‘counterproductive’"},"content":{"rendered":"

President Joe Biden on Thursday warned against damaging relations with Canada and Mexico, after Donald Trump threatened to slap tariffs on both US neighbors when he takes office in January.<\/p>\n

“I think it’s a counterproductive thing to do,”\u00a0Biden told reporters when asked about his successor’s plan.<\/p>\n

“The last thing we need to do is begin to screw up those relationships. I think we got them in a good place,” he said during a visit to a fire department in Nantucket, Massachusetts, where he is spending his last Thanksgiving holiday as president.<\/p>\n

Trump sent jitters through global markets on Monday when he announced on social media that one of his first presidential actions would be to impose 25-percent tariffs on Mexico and Canada — which share a free trade pact with the United States — and add a 10-percent tariff on China.<\/p>\n

Pledging that tariffs would only be removed from the US neighbors when illegal immigration and drug trafficking stop, he reaffirmed his intent to use trade as a cudgel against allies and rivals alike.<\/p>\n

After expressing opposition to Trump’s threats in a letter, Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum spoke by phone with the Republican president-elect on Wednesday.<\/p>\n

Both leaders described the call positively, though there was disagreement in what had actually been discussed.<\/p>\n

Trump claimed that Sheinbaum had agreed to “stop migration through Mexico, and into the United States, effectively closing our Southern Border.”<\/p>\n

The Mexican president quickly pointed out that she had only explained Mexico’s current “comprehensive strategy” on migration.<\/p>\n

“Thanks to this, migrants and caravans are attended to before they reach the border,” she said on X.<\/p>\n

“We reiterate that Mexico’s position is not to close borders but to build bridges between government and peoples,” she added.<\/p>\n

When asked about the dispute at her daily press conference on Thursday, Sheinbaum said: “I can assure you… that we would never — we would not be capable — of proposing that we were going to close the border.”<\/p>\n

The Mexican government had warned that Trump’s tariffs would be met with retaliation, potentially endangering American jobs, with Sheinbaum’s economy minister saying it would be “a shot in the foot.”<\/p>\n

Sheinbaum said Thursday that after her talks with Trump, “there is not going to be a potential tariff war.”<\/p>\n

“The important thing was to address the approach he made,” she said, adding that she believed dialogue with Trump would be constructive.<\/p>\n

Biden on Thursday also talked about the importance of maintaining a working relationship with China.<\/p>\n

“We’ve set up a hotline between President Xi and myself, as well as our military, a direct line,” Biden said, adding he was “confident” that his Chinese counterpart “doesn’t want to make a mistake.”<\/p>\n

“I’m not saying that he is our best buddy, but he understands what’s at stake.”<\/p>\n

des\/md<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Biden spoke to reporters in Nantucket, Massachusetts, where he is spending his last Thanksgiving holiday as president with family<\/p>\n

-Mandel NGAN
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President Joe Biden on Thursday warned against damaging relations with Canada and Mexico, after Donald…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23812],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-425513","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-national"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/425513","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=425513"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/425513\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=425513"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=425513"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=425513"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}