Bessent offers away the sport on the Mexico/Canada tariff technique

It’s getting easier to connect the dots on the North American trade fight.

Trump has scheduled 25% tariffs on Canada and Mexico for Tuesday at midnight but the market doesn’t really think it’s going to happen. The Trump admin has repeatedly said it’s about fentanyl but that’s obviously a canard.

The question has always been: What does the US really want?

Trump himself has hinted many times it was about trade deficits but that’s a tough problem to solve. I expect him to continue to push for reopening USMCA sooner but that might not be the big ‘ask’.

Earlier, a Bloomberg ‘source’ report said Mexico was open to tariffs on China to avoid Trump duties. Now (coincidentally) Treasury Secretary Bessent is speaking with Bloomberg and saying that a proposal from Mexico on matching US tariffs on China is ‘very interesting’ and that it would “be a nice gesture” if Canada does the same.

Hint. Hint.

“I do think one very interesting proposal that
the Mexican government has made is perhaps matching the US on our China
tariffs,” Bessent said in an interview.

“I
think it would be a nice gesture if the Canadians did it also, so in a
way we could have ‘Fortress North America’ from the flood of Chinese
imports,” he said.

This is all getting pretty transparent. That all aligns with comments earlier this week from the Mexican president who sounded very dismissive of the tariff threat.

Canada is the problem though as running on anti-Trump, no-deal politics is playing very well domestically for the Liberals, who look like the might mount a comeback for the ages under Mark Carney.

It sets up an interesting week.