Steven Mnuchin says Mexico and Canada will be exempt from Trump's tariffs if NAFTA is reworked

Update 11:24 a.m. ET: Carl Quintanilla, the CNBC reporter who initially shared Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin's comments, amended his original transcription of Mnuchin's remarks to include a stated caveat about renegotiating the North American Free Trade Agreement. "To the extent we're successful in renegotiating NAFTA, those tariffs won't apply to Mexico and Canada," Quintanilla quoted Mnuchin as saying in his updated transcription. Our original story appears below.

Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said Tuesday morning that Canada and Mexico would be exempted from President Trump's forthcoming tariffs. The tariffs, which Trump announced in a surprise move last week, would levy a 25 percent tax on steel imports and a 10 percent tax on aluminum imports.

Members of Trump's own party have criticized the move, as it may negatively affect allies and spark retaliatory taxes against American goods. Mnuchin told reporters in Washington, D.C., that "those tariffs won't apply to Mexico or Canada," per CNBC's Carl Quintanilla. "We're not looking to get into trade wars."

The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

Sign up

Politico's Jake Sherman noted that Mnuchin has been out of step with administration policy in the past — most notably during negotiations for the sweeping tax bill that passed last year — so his comments Tuesday must be taken with a grain of salt. But on Monday, the president himself hinted that Canada and Mexico could exempt themselves from the tariffs if they agree to renegotiate the North American Free Trade Agreement. "Tariffs on steel and aluminum will only come off if new and fair NAFTA agreement is signed," he wrote.