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Mexico dismisses Trump's proposed tariffs on imported autos
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IANS | 26 May, 2018
Mexico's Economy Minister Ildefonso Guajardo has dismissed as "bombast"
the latest US proposal to impose tariffs on imports of foreign vehicles
and auto parts. Appearing on a television news show on Friday,
the minister, who heads Mexico's negotiating team in talks with the US
and Canada to renegotiate the 1994 North American Free Trade Agreement
(NAFTA), rejected the idea of introducing a new, higher tax on vehicles
imported into the US, Xinhua reported. "What one has to
understand is that our strategy and negotiating process cannot change
because of this bombast that they launched over there," said Guajardo. US
President Donald Trump said on Wednesday that he has instructed
Secretary of Commerce Wilbur Ross to consider initiating a national
security investigation into automobile imports. Ross has
initiated a so-called Section 232 investigation into the national
security implications of automobile imports, according to the US
Commerce Department. Guajardo ridiculed the idea, joking that
"over there, on the comedy shows, they say that having a Mercedes in
Manhattan is a national security risk." The US proposal was
widely seen as an attempt to pressure Mexico into agreeing to other US
demands, such as changes to the rules of origin for automobiles, but the
tactic failed to sway Mexico. "The more noise this bombast
makes, the more we should concentrate and commit to a solid, well
thought out strategy," Guajardo added. He estimated there is a
40 per cent chance NAFTA's partners will be able to negotiate a new
deal before Mexico holds presidential elections on July 1. The
trade deal has been under negotiation since August on the insistence of
Trump, who believes the terms benefit Mexico and Canada at his
country's expense. According to Mexico, NAFTA has benefited
the North American automobile industry as a whole, today the world's
third-largest, after the European Union and China. Each
US-made automobile contains $3,800-worth of Mexican parts, while each
Mexican-made vehicle contains $5,500-worth of US parts, Mexican
government figures show. The NAFTA region manufactures 18 million vehicles a year, with 12.5 million produced in the US.
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