Mexican president says will wait before responding to US metals tariffs

MEXICO CITY, March 12 (Reuters) - Mexico's President Claudia Sheinbaum on Wednesday said her government will not immediately retaliate to new 25% tariffs imposed by the U.S. on all steel and aluminum imports and instead will wait for a possible resolution in the coming weeks.

U.S. President Donald Trump's increased tariffs on all steel and aluminum imports took effect "with no exceptions or exemptions", escalating the global trade war.

"We will wait until April 2 and from then we will see whether our definition of reciprocal tariffs will be applied too," Sheinbaum said at her daily morning press conference.
Trump has argued that the tariffs are a necessary tool to restore the country's manufacturing capacity and create new jobs. Mexican officials have said the tariffs are unjustified, pointing to data that shows the U.S. runs a steel and aluminum trade surplus with Mexico.
The tariffs threaten an already fragile Mexican economy that is teetering towards a technical recession and faces the highest budget deficit since the 1980s. While Sheinbaum has proven to be an adept negotiator with Trump- achieving a pause on other tariffs- she may struggle to see the same results for steel and aluminum.
Trump imposed a 25% tariff on steel and a 10% tariff on aluminum imports in 2018 during his first term. The tariffs helped boost U.S. production and employment in those industries, but the impact was offset by negative downstream effects on sectors that relied on the metals. Trump lifted the tariffs on Mexico and Canada by mid-2019.
Mexico Economy Minister Marcelo Ebrard has previously criticized the tariffs as unreasonable.

"It's unfair according to President Trump's own arguments. Because we, I repeat, have more (steel) imports than exports," Ebrard said at a press conference in February.
Mexico's steel chamber Cancero has warned the tariffs would hit three-quarters of Mexican steel exports worth $2.1 billion, and has called for retaliatory tariffs on U.S. steel.