国际英语资讯:Spotlight: Trumps Mexico tariffs draw wide opposition, risk upending USMCA trade deal_时事

国际英语资讯:Spotlight: Trumps Mexico tariffs draw wide opposition, risk upending USMCA trade deal

"Lighthizer is not happy," an administration official told The Wall Street Journal (WSJ).

Filemon Vela, U.S. Congressman from southern Texas, called Trump's tariff plan "erratic and nonsensical," saying in a statement that the decision is to "turn one problem into another."

Among U.S. states, Texas has the longest stretch of the border with Mexico. Sharing about 2,000-km border with Texas, Mexico is the state's largest trading partner. According to the U.S. Department of Commerce, Texas imported around 107 billion U.S. dollars of goods from Mexico last year, representing 35 percent of the state's total import.

Experts believed Trump's surprise plan to levy tariffs on all goods imported to the United States from Mexico would strike a hammer blow to Texas, threatening the state's economy and causing financial pain for the state's businesses and consumers.

Stephanie Leutert, director of Mexico Security Initiative at University of Texas at Austin, tweeted "Beyond this being terrible policy, it's ridiculous to think that Mexico could stop migration."

She also warned American consumers of rising prices of commodities, retweeting that "Dear America, get ready to pay more for pretty much everything until Mexico solves a problem that no country in the world has ever been able to fix."

USMCA TRADE DEAL IN QUESTION

At a time when the Trump administration is pushing for congressional approval of the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA), a proposed replacement for the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), such a tariff threat is believed to hamper the ratification of the new trade deal as it needs to pass in the three nations' respective legislatures.