Trump's Tariff 'Delay'

International Trade attorney Andrew McAllister was interviewed for a CNN article examining the latest developments involving tariffs on goods from Mexico and Canada. President Donald Trump announced a delay until April 2, 2025, for the implementation of tariffs on products that comply with the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement's (USMCA) rules of origin; a senior administration official cited by CNN said that currently, about half of U.S. imports from Mexico and close to 40 percent of imports from Canada comply with the free trade agreement's terms. One of the reasons for the low compliance rate is that a number of goods, such as computers and petroleum, were not subject to tariffs even before the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), which USMCA replaced, took effect, so companies did not take the extra step of ensuring compliance. Mr. McAllister added another reason is that some products may technically be compliant but are not declared as such because the "ordinary duty rate has been very small or zero," and saving such a small amount of money might not be worth it, given the mountain of paper work and thousands of dollars in compliance costs.

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