President Donald Trump signed three executive orders Saturday to impose new tariffs on Mexico, Canada and China starting Tuesday. 

New 25% duties will apply to all imports from Mexico and Canada, with Canadian energy exports facing a reduced 10% duty rate, according to a White House fact sheet first published by Punchbowl News. A separate 10% duty, on top of any pre-existing tariffs, will apply to Chinese products.  

A White House official confirmed to Agri-Pulse that all three executive orders have been signed.

“The extraordinary threat posed by illegal aliens and drugs, including deadly fentanyl, constitutes a national emergency,” the fact sheet reads. The document goes on to accuse China and Mexico of failing to take sufficient action against drug cartels and cites a “growing presence” in Canada.

The tariffs will remain in place “until the crisis is alleviated,” the fact sheet says.

The executive order also includes a clause allowing the president to increase the tariff rate and scope if the countries retaliate.

The president first suggested in November that he could slap new tariffs on Mexico and Canada unless they took steps to curb the flow of fentanyl and illegal migrants across the U.S. border. Both countries rushed to demonstrate tougher measures – with Canada deploying helicopters, dogs and drones to the border and Mexico offering to accept non-Mexico migrant deportations as a concession to the president.

But Trump was not swayed. The president told reporters Friday afternoon that he was no longer seeking concessions and that there was nothing either country could do to avoid new tariffs.

The tariffs mark the first time a president has used powers granted under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act of 1977 to impose tariffs – although Richard Nixon used a precursor to adopt a broad tariff on U.S. imports. It is also among the first occasions a president has used tariffs to advance policy goals unrelated to trade or economic policy, Dan Mullaney, who served as an assistant U.S. trade representative through Trump’s first term, told Agri-Pulse.

“This is a bit of a Rubicon that’s being crossed,” said Mullaney, who is now a nonresident senior fellow at the Atlantic Council. If implemented, Mullaney added, it could portend further use of tariffs to further other policy objectives in areas like defense spending among partners.

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The U.S. has a free trade agreement with Mexico and Canada establishing duty-free trade, which Trump negotiated in his first term. The U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement, however, has a carve-out allowing parties to impose tariffs for national security reasons.

Absent any last-minute reprisals or rollbacks, the sweeping scope of the new tariffs make it the largest trade action of Trump’s two terms in office so far. The new tariffs cover imports that make up more of the U.S. gross domestic product than all of Trump’s first-term tariffs combined, according to Brad Setser, a senior fellow at the Council of Foreign Relations.

The tariffs will apply to industries varying from automobiles, lumber, consumer electronics, and agricultural products like beef, avocados, vegetables and, of course, fertilizer. Economists and analysts have warned in recent weeks of impending price hikes in some sectors, including fertilizer, and a stronger dollar that could weigh on U.S. ag exports.

Both Canada and Mexico have indicated that they are ready to retaliate, with U.S. agricultural products among the goods under consideration for new duties. Canada's Conservative Party leader, Pierre Poilievre, who is running to lead the country in the upcoming federal elections, urged Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to respond by implementing a "Canada First plan." Among Poilievre's proposals was a "dollar-for-dollar tariffs" crafted to exert maximum harm on U.S. exporters while minimizing the impact to Canadian consumers and a reduction to barriers to interprovincial trade.

Farm groups were still lobbying the president to adjust course on Friday evening and avert a trade war that puts agriculture in the crossfire. In a statement, National Farmers Union President Rob Larew warned the tariffs had landed at a turbulent time for U.S. farmers.

“This comes at a time of deep uncertainty for farmers—commodity prices are volatile, input costs remain high, and we still lack an updated farm bill,” he said. American Farm Bureau Federation President Zippy Duvall wrote to the president to urge him to consider the plight of U.S. farmers and their exposure to retaliation before pursuing new tariffs.

House Agriculture Committee Ranking Member Angie Craig, D-Minn., also warned of the implications for U.S. agriculture producers.

“At a time when farmers are struggling with high input costs and the American people continue to struggle with the cost of groceries, these tariffs will make it more expensive for farmers to grow food and for consumers to buy it,” Craig said in a statement.

Meanwhile, committee Chair Glen "GT" Thompson, R-Pa., said in his own statement that Trump's tariff policy "has been an effective tool in leveling the global playing field and ensuring fair trade for American producers." He cited the president's use of tariff threats last month to spur concessions from Colombia over migrant deportations as one such example. 

"America’s producers deserve an administration that will fight for them," Thompson added. 

Rep. Adrian Smith, R-Neb., who chairs the Ways and Means trade subcommittee, also applauded the tariff announcement in an email to Agri-Pulse via a spokesperson, but encouraged "the administration to remain vigilant and prepared to mitigate the impact of potential retaliation on our domestic industries."

Trump’s opening tariff salvo puts Republican congressional leaders in a tough spot as they weigh whether to push back on the president’s trade approach. Farmers in Senate Majority Leader John Thune’s home state of South Dakota suffered some of the largest export losses in the upper Midwest during Trump’s first-term, according to reporting from the Argus Leader, a Sioux Falls newspaper.

Thune has previously argued that tariffs can be an effective trade tool when wielded in a targeted and selective way.

Republican senators from other rural states are also warning of economic blowback. Sen. Susan Collins shared her concerns for Maine in an X post Friday.

Canada, she said, is Maine’s most important trading partner. “From fisheries to potato farmers to paper mills, these tariffs will have a significant impact on Maine’s economy and risk increasing costs for our residents.”

House Republicans have also been skeptical of the value of sweeping tariffs across U.S. imports. In comments to Agri-Pulse in November, GOP Rep. Greg Murphy, N.C., insisted that tariffs should be used only to offset unfair trade practices from other countries.

Congress is responsible for U.S. trade but delegates certain tariff powers to the president. Accordingly, lawmakers could exert congressional oversight, but it is unlikely to do so with the new president, Mullaney argued.

“Congress likes to protect its constitutional prerogative on tariffs. So, I would anticipate there'd be some feelings [in] Congress that Congress needs to have a say in the imposition,” Mullaney said. But he added that lawmakers in recent years have been reluctant to rein in presidential powers.

“Institutionally and interest-wise, they would have an interest in doing that. But the history… has not really seen Congress pushing back very much.”