When the Mexican Senate voted last week to approve a 50 per cent tariff rate on a broad swathe of trading partners – China, India, Brazil, South Korea, Vietnam and Taiwan among them – politicians from President Claudia Sheinbaum’s ruling Morena party pretended they did it for their own reasons. Nobody in Asia believes that this is a bold declaration of economic independence, however. It’s seen instead as opening a new and unexpected front in United States President Donald Trump’s trade war on the world.
The vote waived the senators’ usual right to discuss amendments in committees, and it passed 76-5, with the opposition abstaining. Officials grandly delivered the usual lines that accompany measures cutting off trade: That they would protect local industry, that revenue would increase by almost US$3 billion, that there would be more money to spend on supporting the unemployed.
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