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President Donald Trump said Thursday night that the United States would impose a 5 percent tariff on all Mexican goods starting next month until "such time as illegal migrants coming through Mexico, and into our Country, STOP."
Trump said on Twitter that the tariffs would gradually increase "until the Illegal Immigration problem is remedied."
The president gave no further details on the tariffs, but an administration briefing was scheduled for 8 p.m.
Normally, Congress, not the president, has the authority to raise taxes and tariffs, but the president can do so by declaring special circumstances that constitute a threat to national security.
That's the basis under which Trump raised tariffs on steel and aluminum imports on other countries in March 2018. The president has long argued that what he calls illegal immigration is an existential threat to the country's security.
It wasn't immediately clear what impact the tariffs would have on the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement, or USMCA, a renegotiated version of the North American Free Trade Agreement. Earlier Thursday, Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador asked Mexico's Senate to ratify the deal, which he, Trump and Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau signed in November.
Vice President Mike Pence was in Ottawa, the Canadian capital, on Thursday to promote the agreement.
This is a developing story. Refresh this page for updates.