World reacts to Trump’s order for tariffs on Canada, Mexico and China, as he warns Europe will be next

London — Canadian sports fans, angry at President Trump’s unilateral imposition of 25% tariffs on virtually everything imported from Canada, reacted icily to the Star-Spangled Banner as it was sung at hockey and basketball games over the weekend. Many booed the U.S. national anthem in an uncharacteristic show of frustration after more than 150 years of peaceful, friendly relations along the vast border separating the neighbors.

The reaction was representative of hurt feelings both north and south of the U.S. mainland’s borders on Monday. Top officials in Canada and Mexico, which both faced 25% tariffs with the stroke of Mr. Trump’s pen on Saturday, were expected to hold conversations with the White House on the way forward in a new trade war that Mr. Trump had threatened for months. Both countries vowed to respond with their own trade measures.

Mexico’s President Claudia Sheinbaum announced in a brief statement Monday on social media that, after a phone call with Mr. Trump, the tariffs imposed on her country were “on pause for one month from now” Monday. She said Mr. Trump had agreed to put the measures on hold after she committed to reinforcing Mexico’s border with the U.S. “with 10,000 members of the National Guard to prevent drug trafficking from Mexico to the United States.”

Mr. Trump confirmed the pause in his own social media post, saying the newly deployed Mexican forces “will be specifically designated to stop the flow of fentanyl, and illegal migrants into our Country.”

Sheinbaum said Mr. Trump had “committed to working to prevent the trafficking of high-powered weapons to Mexico.”

China was also hit by a new raft of tariffs and has warned that it, too, will respond in kind. America’s major allies and trade partners in Europe, meanwhile, have been warned by Mr. Trump that the European Union is next on his list, while the United Kingdom appears to have a chance to negotiate a trade deal, but will find itself torn between its next-door neighbors and its storied “special relationship” with the U.S. if it hopes to dodge the same fate.

Canada is the biggest export market for products coming from 36 U.S. states, according to the Reuters news agency, while Mexico is broadly considered the U.S.’ largest trading partner overall.

Below is a look at some of the reaction from the countries now facing new U.S. tariffs, which will come into effect on Tuesday, and those which might still be hoping to avoid them.

Canada:

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said his government had no choice but to strike back with 25% tariffs of its own on more than $150 billion worth of U.S.-made imports.

“First, I want to speak directly to Americans, our closest friends and neighbors,” said Trudeau. “This is a choice that, yes, will harm Canadians, but beyond that, it will have real consequences for you, the American people.”

“Like the American tariffs, our response will also be far reaching and include everyday items such as American beer, wine and bourbon. Fruits and fruit juices including orange juice, along with vegetables, perfume, clothing and shoes. It will include major consumer products like household appliances, furniture and sports equipment, and materials like lumber and plastics, along with much, much more.”

“Now is the time to choose products made right here in Canada,” Trudeau added to his own constituents in a post on social media. “Check the labels. Let’s do our part. Wherever we can, choose Canada.”

The first round of Canada’s tariffs will kick in at the stroke of midnight on Monday evening – on $30 billion worth of U.S. goods. In 21 days, the remainder of the tariffs, covering an additional $125 billion worth of products, will kick in unless some new agreement is reached between the countries. The delay, said Trudeau, was aimed at giving Canadian companies time to seek supply chain options to soften the financial blow.

Speaking to ABC News on Sunday, Canada’s Ambassador to the U.S. Kirsten Hillman said many people in her country “just don’t understand where this is coming from… and probably, there’s a little bit of hurt.”

Mexico: 

Canada’s government is now looking south of the U.S. border, hoping to band together and increase trade ties with Mexico to help both nations absorb the impact of Mr. Trump’s tariffs. The two countries have agreed “to enhance the strong bilateral relations” they share and officials have had extensive bilateral meetings with their counterparts.

President Sheinbaum, who haD already mocked Mr.Trump’s move to rename the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America, said on social media before the pause was announced that countermeasures against the U.S. tariffs would soon be implemented.

“I’ve instructed my economy minister to implement the plan B we’ve been working on, which includes tariff and non-tariff measures in defense of Mexico’s interests,” Sheinbaum said, without specifying which U.S. goods her government might target, or whether she would seek to match the 25% retaliatory tariffs set to be imposed by Canada.

Mexican goods exported to the U.S. are wide-ranging, and include vehicles and other auto industry components, crude oil, natural gas, avocados, tomatoes, pork and cheese.

China: 

For Beijing, it was deja-vu. During Mr. Trump’s first term, he slapped 25% tariffs on $200 billion worth of Chinese goods, then 10% on an additional $300 billion worth of imports, which meant virtually everything Chinese was tariffed.

China’s Ministry of Commerce released a statement over the weekend saying Beijing was “strongly dissatisfied and firmly opposes” the new 10% tariffs, that the U.S.’s “unilateral increase in tariffs seriously violates WTO rules,” and that China “will file a lawsuit with the World Trade Organization and take corresponding countermeasures,” which implies Beijing will impose 10% retaliatory tariffs on select U.S.-made goods.

In a Sunday statement, the Chinese Foreign Ministry didn’t drop any hints as to what measures might be coming, but it said called “on the United States to correct its wrongdoings, maintain the hard-won positive dynamics in the counternarcotics cooperation, and promote a steady, sound and sustainable development of China-U.S. relationship.”

The ministry said the U.S. should “view and solve its own fentanyl issue in an objective and rational way,” rather than “threatening other countries with arbitrary tariff hikes.” 

Mr. Trump said he was imposing the new 10% tariff on Chinese goods in part due to what he considers Beijing’s failure to stem the flow of fentanyl and chemicals used to make the drug. 

The foreign ministry in Beijing said China was “one of the world’s toughest countries on counternarcotics, both in terms of policy and its implementation.”

The European Union: 

Mr. Trump said over the weekend that tariffs on the European Union were coming, but he did not say when or how steep they would be. 

“It will definitely happen with the European Union. I can tell you that because they’ve really taken advantage of us,” the U.S. president told reporters Sunday. “They don’t take our cars, they don’t take our farm products. They take almost nothing and we take everything from them.”

European leaders were meeting Monday in Brussels, where they were discussing how to collectively address the threat.  

“We were listening carefully to those words, and of course we are preparing also on our side,” EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas said Monday in Brussels, adding a warning that “there are no winners in trade wars.”

If the Trump administration “starts a trade war [with Europe], then the one laughing on the side is China,” said Kallas. “We are very interlinked.”

Chancellor Olaf Scholz, the leader of Europe’s biggest economy, Germany, said the EU was strong enough to take the blow and respond to any U.S. tariffs, but added that “the goal should be that things result in cooperation” within Europe.

For a quick fact check on Mr. Trump’s criticism: He’s not wrong about the lop-sided trade relationship between the U.S. and its close allies across the Atlantic. Through November 2024, the EU ran a trade deficit of $78 billion with the U.S., according to the Bureau of Economic Analysis, and reports indicate that’s on track to be a new record.

The question many economic analysts and politicians across the world will keep asking, however, is whether huge tariffs taxing that trade are likely to help balance the books.

The United Kingdom:

Speaking to reporters early on Monday, Mr. Trump said “the U.K. is out of line but… I think that one can be worked out,” suggesting his administration was at least willing to negotiate with London over a new bilateral trade deal.

British Prime Minister Keir Starmer said Sunday that he had spoken with Mr. Trump and stressed that he wants “a strong trading relationship” with the U.S., but the U.K. leader, five years after the “Brexit” withdrawal from the European Union, may now find himself caught between the formidable trade forces of the EU on his doorstep and Washington.

Mr. Trump’s tariffs on the EU and his looming, if tempered threat to hit Britain with the same will complicate Starmer’s nascent efforts to “reset” U.K. trade ties with the EU. He’s at the helm of the U.K.’s first Labour Party government in a decade and a half, and it was the former Conservative leadership that ushered in Brexit and soured the long-standing close ties with Europe.

Starmer has moved cautiously as he sets out to mend fences with the EU, wary of riling up conservative voters who supported Brexit and who, to some degree, now support populist politicians such as the Trump-aligned, anti-immigration leader of the Reform U.K. party, Nigel Farage.

The prime minister has ruled out rejoining the EU customs union or its single currency market, and he’s so far resisted pressure from the continent to ease post-Brexit restrictions on U.K. and EU citizens living and working on either side of the border, at least for young people.

But he still needs to get U.K.-EU trade moving again, and the extent to which he chooses to keep the bloc next door at arm’s length, or to try to reinstate the close trade ties of before Brexit, could directly impact his chances of nailing down a favorable new trade agreement with Washington.

Speaking Monday, a spokesperson for Starmer’s government called the U.K.’s trade relationship with the U.S. “fair and balanced,” calling Washington “an indispensable ally and one of our closest trading partners.”