Trump announces 25% tariffs on imports from Canada, Mexico

President Donald Trump has announced 25% tariffs on all goods coming into the US from Canada and Mexico from February 1, even as he has issued a wide-ranging executive order asking his government agencies to evaluate trade relationships, deficits, tariffs and possibilities of trade agreements by April.

- Jayashree Nandi

NEW DELHI: President Donald Trump signed an executive order soon after taking office on Monday directing the US' withdrawal from the Paris climate agreement, weakening what has, over the past four years especially, become a global movement to combat the climate crisis.

This is the second time Trump is ordering the US to abandon the Paris agreement — he did so in a 2017 order as well — and the process is expected to take a year. The last time, it took longer, and the US' withdrawal was to kick in a day after Joe Biden took office, which means it never happened.

The Paris agreement is aimed at keeping long-term global warming to below 1.5 degrees Celsius over pre-industrial levels — the average between 1850 and 1900 — and, if that is not possible, limiting it to below 2 degrees Celsius. The US is the second largest carbon dioxide emitter in the world (after China) currently, but also, historically, the largest polluter. But Trump's order termed the Paris agreement one of several such global compacts that channel US "taxpayer dollars to countries that do not require, or merit, financial assistance in the interests of the American people".

The order also sought to immediately cease or revoke any purported financial commitment made by the US under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC).

"The United States Ambassador to the United Nations shall immediately submit formal written notification of the United States' withdrawal from the Paris Agreement under the UNFCCC. The notice shall be submitted to the Secretary-General of the United Nations... The United States will consider its withdrawal from the Agreement and any attendant obligations to be effective immediately upon this provision of notification," the executive order said.