Trump calls off tariffs on Mexico after migration deal

The US and Mexico have reached an agreement to stave off import tariffs on Mexican goods, officials confirmed on Friday evening.

U.S. President Donald Trump had threatened to impose 5% import tariffs on all Mexican goods starting on Monday if Mexico did not commit to do more to tighten its borders.

In a joint declaration after three days of talks in Washington, both countries said Mexico agreed to immediately expand along the entire border a program that sends migrants seeking asylum in the United States to Mexico while they await adjudication of their cases.

“Thanks to the support of all Mexicans, the imposition of tariffs on Mexican products exported to the USA has been avoided,” the Mexican president, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, tweeted.

The country also agreed to increase enforcement to contain the flow of migrants headed to the US, including by deploying national guard troops to its southern border and cracking down on human smuggling organizations, the declaration said.

Friday’s agreement did not include the Trump administration’s proposal to return asylum seekers from Guatemala to Mexico, and Honduran and Salvadoran asylum seekers to Guatemala, Mexico’s foreign minister, Marcelo Ebrard, said.

“I think it’s a fair balance they had more drastic measures and proposals at the start and we reached some middle point,” he said, adding the national guard deployment would start on Monday.

Ebrard also highlighted US support in the agreement for a Mexican proposal to jointly address underlying causes of migration from Central America.

Mexico and US officials had been negotiating for three days in Washington DC, and businesses were bracing for the Monday deadline. A tax on all Mexican goods, which would increase every month up to 25% under Trump’s plan, would have had enormous economic implications for both countries. Americans bought $378bn worth of Mexican imports last year, led by cars and auto parts.