March 7, 2025 – US President Donald Trump has delayed until April 2 the imposition of 25% tariffs on most imports from Canada and Mexico following discussions with both the countries. Yesterday, March 6, Trump signed executive orders to delay the levies on imports which come under the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA).

This is expected to provide relief to the auto industry which looked to be hit the hardest after Trump announced additional tariffs on Canada, Mexico and China just after he took office. This decision had sparked fears of a global trade war and markets across the world saw intense sell-off on the back of uncertain global cues.

Now that Trump has scaled back the levies temporarily, Canada has also put off imposing counter-tariffs on $125 billion worth of US goods. This was announced by Canada’s Finance Minister Dominic LeBlanc.

“Canada will not proceed with the second wave of tariffs on $125B of US products until April 2nd, while we continue to work for the removal of all tariffs,” LeBlanc posted on X.

On March 4, the first phase of Canada’s retaliatory tariffs on $30 billion worth of US goods had come into effect. These initial tariffs are expected to stay intact.