President Donald Trump said that the 25% tax on Canadian and Mexican goods will take effect from February 1 and he is considering whether to tax the two neighboring countries' oil.
President Trump added that his decision would be based on whether the oil prices charged by the two trading partners were fair.
President Trump has set a Feb. 1 deadline to impose 25 percent tariffs on imports from Mexico and Canada in a bid to push the U.S.’s two largest trading partners to take action to stop illegal immigrants and fentanyl shipments from crossing the border into the U.S. But Trump said on Jan. 31 that tariffs may or may not increase after that.
According to the Energy Information Administration, the United States imported nearly 4.6 million barrels of oil per day from Canada and 563,000 barrels from Mexico in October 2024. Daily U.S. production that month also averaged nearly 13.5 million barrels per day.
Oil prices were trading at around $73 a barrel on the afternoon of January 30. Oil prices had skyrocketed in June 2022 under President Joe Biden to more than $120 a barrel, a period that coincided with the highest inflation in four decades.
Also on January 30, President Trump threatened to impose additional tariffs on countries seeking alternatives to the US dollar as a global currency. Previously, in November 2024, Trump made a similar threat to the BRICS group.
