Trump tariffs live updates: White House says Canada’s efforts ‘not good enough,’ open to exemptions

Former Ford CEO Mark Fields told CNBC on Wednesday that it “would be really bad” if the delayed tariffs on the auto industry do take effect.

Fields pointed out that the tariffs would in theory apply to auto parts that go back and forth across the border, which could compound the potential price increases and put stress on the supply chain.

“It’s not only going to be hard on the automakers, but it’s going to be really hard on the supply base, because they’re still reeling from Covid, the semiconductor shortage, and just their overall finances are much weaker in some cases than the automakers,” Fields said on “Closing Bell: Overtime.”

The former executive added that he believes Trump “regrets” not pushing for more U.S. production of autos during his first term and is now trying to renegotiate.

— Jesse Pound

The back-and-forth nature of the tariff rollout from the White House and the retaliations from trade partners may be starting to weigh on investor confidence.

Michael Reynolds, vice president of investment strategy at Glenmede, said the tariffs could prove to be damaging to the economy but the duration and details of the policies would be key.

“There are so many paths we could go down — whether it’s tariffs are the new terms of trade going forward, or whether they lead to negotiated outcomes that actually bring tariffs down globally. There’s just such a wide opportunity set of outcomes here that it’s really hard to gauge with any certainty what direction we may be going,” Reynolds said.

The investor said his team is not making “major bets” right now, instead waiting to see how the situation develops.

— Jesse Pound

President Donald Trump’s tariffs on “external” agriculture products could put some pressure on inflation, according to Bank of America.

“Amid the slew of tariff headlines from the Trump administration, levies on agricultural products could be an additional source of upside inflation risks,” analyst Antonio Gabriel wrote in a note on Wednesday.

On Monday, the president said in a social media post that “Tariffs will go on external product on April 2nd.” While the magnitude of the impending tariffs is unclear, Gabriel noted that the weight of food at home in the U.S. consumer price index is about 8%.

“Sizeable tariffs on food imports could put upside pressure on inflation, particularly on the headline, in a context where U.S. inflation is sticky to begin with,” he continued.

— Sean Conlon

White House spokesperson Karoline Leavitt said President Trump was “open” to additional tariff exemptions beyond the pause on auto levies announced Wednesday.

“The president is open to hearing about additional exemptions. He always has open dialogue, and he’ll always do what he believes is right for the American people,” Leavitt said.

However, Leavitt also said that there would be no exemptions to the broader reciprocal tariffs that Trump plans to implement on April 2.

— Jesse Pound

Trump will give top automakers a one-month exemption from his 25% tariffs on Canada and Mexico, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said.

The new tariffs will be temporarily lifted “on any autos coming through” the trilateral trade deal with the U.S., Canada and Mexico, known as the USMCA.

Trump’s plan for “reciprocal tariffs” on other foreign countries “will still go into effect on April 2,” Leavitt said. “But at the request of the companies associated with USMCA, the president is giving them an exemption for one month so they are not at an economic disadvantage.”

The decision came after Trump spoke with the heads of Ford, General Motors and Stellantis, known as the “Big Three” automakers, Leavitt said.

Earlier Wednesday, Trump and Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau spoke over the phone for 50 minutes, a Canadian government source told CNBC.

Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick and Vice President JD Vance were also on that call, the source said.

— Kevin Breuninger

Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick said Trump’s tariffs will cause “higher prices” — but he maintained that only some products would be affected, and that the price hikes would be temporary.

Lutnick insisted that those rising prices should not be considered inflation.

“As the president said last night, there’s going to be a short period of time where there will be some higher prices on certain products,” the cabinet secretary said on Fox News.

“It’s not inflation, that’s nonsense. It’s certain products for a short period of time,” he said.

Lutnick was responding to recent comments from the CEOs of Target and Best Buy, who both said that Trump’s new tariffs will result in higher consumer prices.

— Kevin Breuninger

President Donald Trump said on Wednesday that he believes Canada’s fentanyl efforts are “not good enough.”

“Justin Trudeau, of Canada, called me to ask what could be done about Tariffs,” the president said in a post on Truth Social. “I told him that many people have died from Fentanyl that came through the Borders of Canada and Mexico, and nothing has convinced me that it has stopped. He said that it’s gotten better, but I said, ‘That’s not good enough.’ The call ended in a ‘somewhat’ friendly manner! He was unable to tell me when the Canadian Election is taking place, which made me curious, like, what’s going on here? I then realized he is trying to use this issue to stay in power. Good luck Justin!”

In a separate Truth Social post, President Trump also said that Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is mostly to blame for the problems Trump has with Canada.

“For anyone who is interested, I also told Governor Justin Trudeau of Canada that he largely caused the problems we have with them because of his Weak Border Policies, which allowed tremendous amounts of Fentanyl, and Illegal Aliens, to pour into the United States,” Trump said. “These Policies are responsible for the death of many people!”

— Sean Conlon

Trump and Trudeau have spoken since the U.S. imposed 25% tariffs on Canada and Ottawa responded with countermeasures, Lutnick said.

“He spoke today to Justin Trudeau this morning, and I was on that call,” Lutnick said in a Fox News interview Wednesday afternoon.

Lutnick also said that Trump, after speaking with leading automakers on Tuesday, “was leaning towards helping them out for just this month.”

The tariffs took effect Tuesday, ratcheting up trade war fears and roiling the U.S. stock market.

Lutnick has suggested that Trump, at some point Wednesday, could announce changes to his tariffs on Canada and Mexico that meet both countries somewhere “in the middle.”

— Kevin Breuninger

The U.S. administration is considering delaying tariffs on automobiles from Mexico and Canada by one month, Bloomberg News reported, citing people familiar with the matter.

Administration officials met with the heads of Ford, General Motors and Stellantis on Tuesday, with another meeting set for Wednesday, the Bloomberg report said.

Similarly, Reuters reported Trump held a call Tuesday with the CEOs of the Big Three automakers about a potential tariff delay, citing sources.

The report comes after Lutnick indicated Wednesday morning that automakers could be one of the sectors that sees tariff relief in a compromise deal.

— Jesse Pound

China has filed a revised request for consultations at the World Trade Organization over the additional 10% tariffs Trump has imposed, according to the international body.

Beijing originally appealed to the WTO on Feb. 4 after Trump imposed his first round of 10% levies. Trump has imposed tariffs totaling 20% against China with the additional duties he enacted on Tuesday.

Consultations are the first step in the WTO process to resolve trade disputes between nations.

— Spencer Kimball

Bernstein cut its earnings estimates and lowered its price target on Constellation Brands, the maker of big alcoholic beverage brands like Modelo, Corona and Pacifico.

“It’s official — 25% tariffs on Mexican imports are here … We cut our EPS estimates by ~25%, and continue STZ outperform with a new (lower) target price of $230,” Bernstein analyst Nadine Sarwat said in a note Wednesday. “We have long guided to the impact tariffs would have to our numbers, and today we take the knife to our model.”

Constellation is the most exposed name in Bernstein’s European and American beverages coverage universe, with about 84% of fiscal 2025 earnings net sales being super premium Mexican beer imports, she noted.

“Any resolution to these tariffs offers meaningful upside not included in our numbers,” she added. “But the uncertainty is not over for Constellation, namely very weak scanner data.”

— Tanaya Macheel

A Bank of America analysis said the Trump administration’s tariffs are unlikely to be a permanent fixture.

“Zombie tariffs walk among us,” economist Carlos Capistran wrote in a Wednesday note. “These latest events are in line with our view that tariffs are both ‘alive and dead’ at the same time. On the one hand, tariffs were enacted, but on the other, comments made by Secretary Lutnick signal that there may be some relief down the road for Canada and Mexico, and as soon as March 5.”

“We believe that today’s developments are consistent with our call that tariffs are likely temporary, and that threats of tariffs on Canada and Mexico will last until a new USMCA 2.0 is renegotiated,” he wrote.

The United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement, or USMCA, is a free trade deal that Trump signed during his first term as president, replacing the North American Free Trade Agreement, or NAFTA. While a revision to the USMCA is scheduled for mid-2026, Capistran said Canada and Mexico would benefit by opening a full revision before that date.

— Lisa Kailai Han

Top Trump trade advisor Peter Navarro pushed back after Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau accused the U.S. of imposing stiff tariffs based on false claims about the flow of fentanyl from Canada.

“It would be really useful if he just toned stuff down,” Navarro said in a CNN interview.

“He’s campaigning right now,” Navarro said of Trudeau, who announced in January that he would step down as prime minister.

After the 25% tariffs on Canadian imports — and Ottawa’s countermeasures against the U.S. — kicked in Tuesday, Trudeau slammed Trump’s move as a “very dumb thing to do.”

Trudeau also pushed back on the Trump administration’s claims about Canada’s efforts to combat fentanyl trafficking, calling them “totally false.”

Navarro on CNN also declined to offer any new details about possible compromises that the U.S. could strike with Canada and Mexico, after Lutnick suggested those deals would likely come Wednesday.

And Navarro brushed off the festering uncertainty in the stock market that Trump’s tariff policies have helped cause.

“We’ve had two days of volatility in markets and everybody’s hair is on fire,” he said.

— Kevin Breuninger

The Trump administration is adamant that its 25% tariffs on Canada and Mexico are not about stoking a trade war, but are instead about waging a “drug war” against the flow of the deadly opioid fentanyl into the U.S.

But U.S. Customs and Border Protection seized a miniscule 0.03 pounds of fentanyl at the northern border in January, according to the agency’s own data.

And the amount of fentanyl seized there has consistently been a small fraction of what is intercepted by CBP agents at the U.S. border with Mexico.

For instance, 43 pounds of the drug were seized at the northern border in fiscal year 2024, versus 21,148 pounds taken at the U.S. southwest border in the same period, CBP data show.

Additionally, those 43 pounds may not all have been seized at the border itself: CBP’s website suggests the data also covers illicit drugs interdicted “between ports of entry.”

A recent Globe and Mail investigation, meanwhile, found that much of the fentanyl discovered in northern states had come from Mexico.

Trump, in his address to a joint session of Congress on Tuesday night, nevertheless said, “we need Mexico and Canada to do much more than they’ve done, and they have to stop the fentanyl and drugs pouring into the U.S.A.”

— Kevin Breuninger

Trump and Canada Prime Minister Justin Trudeau are expected to talk Wednesday, people familiar with the matter told Reuters and CNN.

The talks come a day after Trump imposed sweeping tariffs against Canada and Trudeau retaliated with levies on U.S. goods.

Trudeau directly appealed to Trump in an address Tuesday, calling the tariffs “dumb.” The prime minister accused Trump of seeking to collapse the Canadian economy in order to make it easier to annex the country. Trump has repeatedly suggested that Canada should become the U.S.’ 51st state.

“The United States launched a trade war against Canada — their closest partner and ally, the closest friend,” Trudeau said Tuesday. “At the same time, they’re talking about working positively with Russia, appeasing Vladimir Putin, a lying, murderous dictator. Make that make sense.”

— Spencer Kimball

Mexico President Claudia Sheinbaum told reporters that she expects to speak with Trump on Thursday, probably in the morning, according to NBC News.

Mexico has not yet declared retaliatory tariffs on the U.S., though Sheinbaum said Tuesday that those would be announced this weekend.

— Jesse Pound

Trump could exclude some sectors from the 25% tariffs imposed on Canada and Mexico, Lutnick told Bloomberg Television in an interview.

“The president gets to make the decision,” Lutnick said. “There will be some categories left out. It could well be autos, could be others as well.”

Lutnick said Trump is considering excluding sectors that are compliant with the United States-Mexico-Canada trade agreement’s content provisions.

“My understanding is the Big Three say they produce cars that are compliant under USMCA, which means they have sufficient U.S. content in them to be part of the USMCA agreement,” Lutnick said of Ford, General Motors and Stellantis. “That’s part of our discussion, and the president’s really thinking about that.”

Lutnick said he expects the White House will make an announcement Wednesday and that the changes could be “somewhere in the middle” rather than a complete rollback.

— Spencer Kimball

Trump acknowledged during a joint session of Congress that his tariffs on major U.S. trading partners will create “a little disturbance.”

“Tariffs are about making America rich again and making America great again. And it’s happening, and it will happen rather quickly,” Trump said during the address Tuesday night.

“There will be a little disturbance, but we’re okay with that,” Trump said. “It won’t be much.”

— Hakyung Kim

The implementation of Trump’s tariffs has roiled the U.S. stock market this week as investors worry the levies will hamper the economy.

The Dow, S&P 500 and Nasdaq Composite have all slid about 3% over Monday’s and Tuesday’s sessions. With that, the blue-chip Dow is on track for its worst week since the regional banking crisis in March 2023. It would also mark the biggest weekly slide for the broad S&P 500 and tech-heavy Nasdaq going back to September.

Stock futures popped Wednesday morning, however, amid mounting hopes of a compromise on Trump’s policy for import taxes. Follow live markets updates throughout the day here.

Trump could announce tariff compromise deals with Canada and Mexico as soon as Wednesday, likely involving the scaling back of at least part of the new 25% levies on goods from both countries, Lutnick said Tuesday.

“Both the Mexicans and the Canadians are on the phone with me all day today, trying to show that they’ll do better,” Lutnick said Tuesday. “And the President is listening because, you know, he’s very, very fair and very reasonable. So I think he’s going to work something out with them,” he said on “Fox Business.”

Trump, who has held up tariffs as an all-powerful negotiating tool, based the policy on allegations that the neighboring countries were failing to stem the flow of drugs and crime into the U.S.

— Kevin Breuninger, Sarah Min

Canada has appealed to the World Trade Organization over Trump’s imposition of tariffs.

Canada’s ambassador to the WTO, Nadia Theodore, said Ottawa has “requested WTO consultations” with the U.S. “in regard to its unjustified tariffs on Canada.”

“The U.S. decision leaves us with no choice but to respond to protect Canadian interests,” Theodore said in a LinkedIn post Tuesday. “This was not the outcome we hoped for. And we urge the U.S. administration to reconsider their tariffs.”

A WTO official confirmed to CNBC that Canada has requested consultations, the first step in the organization’s process to resolve trade disputes.

— Spencer Kimball

Chinese officials are taking an aggressive stance toward the U.S. tariff escalation, including a post on X by the Chinese Embassy in the U.S.

“If war is what the U.S. wants, be it a tariff war, a trade war or any other type of war, we’re ready to fight till the end,” the post said.

Lin echoed those remarks while also calling the U.S.’ fentanyl-related explanation for the tariffs a “flimsy excuse.”

“If the U.S. has other agenda in mind and if harming China’s interests is what the U.S. wants, we’re ready to fight till the end. We urge the U.S. to stop being domineering and return to the right track of dialogue and cooperation at an early date,” the spokesperson said.

— Jesse Pound