President Donald Trump is willing to consider additional tariff exclusions, after announcing a temporary carve-out for cars from Canada and Mexico, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters on Wednesday.
“The president is open to hearing about additional exemptions,” she said during her weekly press briefing.
Leavitt also said the administration would grant vehicles that qualify for duty-free trade under the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement a one-month reprieve from the new 25% duties on the U.S.’ neighbors.
The president held a call with leaders of the largest U.S. automakers – Stellantis, Ford and General Motors – after the tariffs went into effect on Tuesday. The industry has been particularly vocal about the impact of tariffs on North American supply chains, warning that the new duties could lead to cost increases greater than 25% because components cross U.S. borders multiple times during production.
Her comments come just one day after Iowa Republican Sen. Chuck Grassley said he expects lawmakers to petition the president for specific waivers. He himself said he would want to see multiple agricultural inputs exempted from the duties, including Canadian piglets and potash.
“There's going to be some requests of individual senators and congressmen to ask for some waivers,” Grassley told reporters on Tuesday.
Leavitt reaffirmed during the press conference that the president is still pressing ahead with plans to introduce a reciprocal tariff next month on countries that maintain tariff rates higher than the U.S.’
“Reciprocal tariffs will still go into effect April 2,” Leavitt said, quoting directly from a statement from Trump.
Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick on Tuesday afternoon and again on Wednesday morning teased a deal with Canada and Mexico that might see the U.S. pare back tariffs, citing ongoing conversations with both countries’ governments.
On Wednesday afternoon, however, Trump seemed to suggest that his own negotiations with Canada had not been productive. In a Truth Social post Trump said he had spoken with Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and told him efforts to date to stem the flow of fentanyl across the border are “not good enough.”
“[N]othing has convinced me that it has stopped,” Trump wrote, adding that, “The call ended in a ‘somewhat’ friendly manner!”
Drug seizures across the Canadian border account for less than 1% of total U.S. seizures, according to Customs and Border Protection data. Some have questioned the merits of imposing broad tariffs on a major trading partner over what may be a minor drug trafficking route.
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Andrew Brandt, director of trade policy at the U.S. Grains Council, told Agri-Pulse this week that many of the farmers he'd spoken to are behind the president’s push for more reciprocal trading relationships and attempts to leverage tariffs to open new markets for U.S. agriculture, citing trade barriers that limit U.S. ag exports to countries like China and Brazil – which maintains a steep tariff on ethanol.
“This may be the opportunity to fix that," Brandt said. But he added, "I don’t know that we think we have a lot of problems with Mexico and Canada.”
On Tuesday night, Trump suggested during his address to a joint session of Congress that U.S. farmers and producers would have to “bear with him” as the tariffs go into effect and acknowledged that U.S. producers may experience “a little bit of an adjustment period” following April when reciprocal tariffs are set to go into effect.
But he insisted his trade policy would lead to long-term gains for U.S. farmers.
“Our farmers are going to have a field day right now," he said. "So to our farmers, have a lot of fun.”
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