Mexican president says retaliatory duties against U.S.

Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum on Feb. 1 ordered the implementation of a plan to impose retaliatory duties against the U.S. to protect the country's interests.

"I instruct the Minister of Economy to implement Plan B, which we are working on, which includes tariff and non-tariff measures to protect Mexico's interests," she wrote on social network X (former Twitter).

The state leader stressed that the country's authorities "categorically reject the White House's slander against the Mexican government about ties to criminal organizations, as well as any intention to interfere in our territory."

"If such an alliance exists anywhere, it is the U.S. armories that sell powerful weapons to these criminal groups, as demonstrated by the U.S. Department of Justice itself in January of this year," Sheinbaum emphasized.

According to her, during the last four months, Mexican authorities seized more than 40 tons of drugs, including 20 million doses of fentanyl. More than 10 thousand people associated with these groups were also arrested.

The Mexican president drew attention to the fact that if the US had a desire to solve "the problem of serious fentanyl consumption" on the territory of their country, "they could, for example, fight the sale of drugs on the streets of their main cities, which they do not do, and the laundering of money obtained as a result of this."

Meanwhile, as Sheinbaum emphasized, Mexico does not want confrontation, so it always starts with cooperation between neighboring countries. Therefore, if the United States is interested in fighting the spread of fetanyl, it needs to work together with its neighbors in a comprehensive manner and in accordance with the principles of shared responsibility, mutual trust and, above all, respect for sovereignty.

"To that end, I propose that President [U.S. Donald] Trump create a working group with our best public health and safety experts. Problems are not solved by imposing tariffs, but by negotiation and dialog, as we have done in recent weeks," she concluded.

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Earlier in the day, Trump signed an executive order imposing trade tariffs on goods from Canada, China and Mexico. As the American president pointed out, at the current moment China, Canada and Mexico will not be able to do anything to prevent the impending imposition of duties. According to him, Canada is responsible for significant amounts of drug smuggling into the United States.

In response, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said that the country has an equal, strong and reasonable response to Trump's imposition of duties. He specified that the Canadian side does not want to impose retaliatory measures against the US, while if the American side "takes this step", Canada will be forced to act.

Later, Chinese economist Andrew Leung told Izvestia that the tariffs imposed by Trump on imports of goods from China and Mexico will lead to an increase in consumer prices in the United States itself.