What The Hell America!

Welcome back to World Brief, where we’re looking at Canada, Mexico, and China vowing retaliatory tariffs on the United States; a suspension of U.S. military aid to Ukraine; and an Arab proposal for Gaza’s reconstruction.

Sweeping Tariffs

At midnight on March 4, U.S. President Donald Trump’s long-threatened trade war with the country’s three largest trading partners became a reality. Canada and Mexico dodged the tariffs last month, but not this time. The United States imposed 25 percent duties on almost all goods from its northern and southern neighbors, while hitting China with another round of 10 percent tariffs—on top of the 10 percent announced last month.

Welcome back to World Brief, where we’re looking at Canada, Mexico, and China vowing retaliatory tariffs on the United States; a suspension of U.S. military aid to Ukraine; and an Arab proposal for Gaza’s reconstruction.

Sweeping Tariffs

At midnight on March 4, U.S. President Donald Trump’s long-threatened trade war with the country’s three largest trading partners became a reality. Canada and Mexico dodged the tariffs last month, but not this time. The United States imposed 25 percent duties on almost all goods from its northern and southern neighbors, while hitting China with another round of 10 percent tariffs—on top of the 10 percent announced last month.

Trump’s reasoning for doing so was the countries’ alleged failure to stem the flow of fentanyl and immigrants into the United States.

Canada and Mexico have scrambled over the past month to prove to Trump that they are sufficiently tackling the drug trade, but the U.S. president warned last week during his cabinet meeting that it was “going to be hard to satisfy” him in that regard. He also cited a litany of other grievances against Canada, including the U.S. trade imbalance with the country and the amount that Ottawa spends on defense. On Tuesday, he added yet another complaint, saying—incorrectly—that Canada doesn’t allow U.S. banks to operate in the country.

Having failed to satisfy Trump’s shifting demands, Canada, Mexico, and China are now hitting back.

In a fiery speech on Tuesday, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau accused Trump of trying to engineer “a total collapse of the Canadian economy because that will make it easier for him to annex us.” He announced 25 percent retaliatory tariffs on $155 billion worth of U.S. imports; duties on $30 billion of that will start immediately.

“Today, the United States launched a trade war against Canada, their closest partner and ally, their closest friend,” Trudeau said. “At the same time, they’re talking about working positively with Russia, appeasing Vladimir Putin, a lying, murderous dictator. Make that make sense.”

Ontario Premier Doug Ford added his own threats to the United States. “We will not hesitate to shut off their power, as well,” he said. The province supplies energy to states such as Michigan, Minnesota, and New York.

South of Washington, Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum also vowed retaliatory measures, to be announced this coming Sunday. “We don’t want to enter into a trade war,” Sheinbaum said, adding that she hopes her scheduled meeting with Trump on Thursday avoids the need for such a response. Like Trudeau, Sheinbaum emphasized Mexico’s right to sovereignty in the face of U.S. aggression.

China, for its part, announced new 10 to 15 percent tariffs on U.S. agricultural goods—including chicken, corn, pork, and soybeans—to go into effect on March 10. These retaliatory measures apply to a wider range of products than China’s initial tariffs against the United States last month, and they target U.S. farmers who are heavily reliant on the Chinese market.

“The U.S. once again uses the fentanyl issue as a pretext to threaten China with additional tariffs on its exports to the U.S.,” Chinese embassy spokesperson Liu Pengyu told Foreign Policy. “China deplores and opposes this move, and will take what is necessary to firmly defend its legitimate interests.”

Taken together, Canada, Mexico, and China account for more than 40 percent of U.S. imports. Economists warn that the U.S. economy could become collateral damage in the trade war. Stocks tumbled globally on Tuesday morning, with the S&P 500 falling 1 percent after taking its biggest drop of the year yesterday ahead of the tariffs going into effect. The Peterson Institute for International Economics has estimated that the duties will cost U.S. households more than $1,200 a year—and that projection came before the additional 10 percent tariffs on China were announced.

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What We’re Following

Freezing military assistance. The Trump administration temporarily suspended all U.S. military aid to Ukraine on Monday. The mandate affects more than $1 billion in arms and munitions currently in production and on order, and it signals the White House’s most drastic blow yet to Kyiv in the war against Russia.

The military aid suspension puts the United States in direct opposition with NATO, which has pledged to continue backing Kyiv to ensure Europe’s security. The United States has provided Ukraine with $66.5 billion in military assistance since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine began in February 2022. At the same time, the Trump administration is reportedly considering potentially removing some sanctions on Russia, which experts suggest is a bid by the administration to appease the Kremlin as part of negotiations over Ukraine.

U.S.-Ukraine relations hit a new low last Friday, when Trump’s heated televised meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky resulted in the Ukrainian leader leaving Washington early without having secured any security guarantees and Trump announcing a pause in ongoing discussions surrounding a critical minerals deal.

But recent diplomatic efforts on both sides could change things. On Tuesday, Zelensky said the Oval Office blowup was “regrettable” and that he was ready to work with the Trump administration to achieve a lasting peace. And Trump advisors told Reuters on Tuesday that the U.S. president wants to announce the signing of the critical minerals deal with Ukraine during his address to Congress Tuesday night. The deal has not been signed yet, and Ukrainian officials have not commented on the agreement.

Alternatives for Gaza. Arab leaders convened in Cairo on Tuesday to endorse a $53 billion reconstruction plan for Gaza that is meant to be a counterproposal to Trump’s Gaza relocation plan. Presented by Egypt, the Arab proposal lays out a three-phase approach to the “recovery and reconstruction” of the territory, with certainties that Palestinians would be allowed to remain in the area. It also says that Gaza would be run temporarily by a “Gaza administration committee under the umbrella of the Palestinian government” that’s composed of qualified technocrats.

“Any malicious attempts to displace Palestinians or annex any part of occupied Palestinian territories would lead to new phases of conflict, undermine stability opportunities, expand conflict into other countries in the region, and pose a clear threat to peace foundations in the Middle East,” the plan warns, alluding to Trump’s desire to displace the roughly 2.1 million Palestinians living in Gaza to neighboring countries to allow for U.S.-led real estate opportunities.

Egypt’s proposal would have Gulf states and other wealthy donors foot the bill, according to Egyptian Foreign Minister Badr Abdelatty. The United Nations estimated that the total cost of reconstruction will be around $53 billion. The proposal also urges the United Nations Security Council to deploy peacekeeping troops to Gaza and the West Bank.

Maori heritage. New Zealand’s parliamentary speaker, Gerry Brownlee, told lawmakers on Tuesday that he will no longer entertain complaints about the use of the country’s Maori name, Aotearoa, after one legislator tried to have it banned. “Aotearoa is regularly used as a name of New Zealand,” Brownlee said. “It appears on our passports, and it appears on our currency.”

Last month, Green Party member Ricardo Menéndez March used the term Aotearoa (meaning “land of the long white cloud”) while speaking to a government minister. Foreign Minister Winston Peters objected to its use and asked Brownlee to ban it. New Zealand has three official languages: English, Te Reo Maori, and New Zealand Sign Language. All three are permitted in Parliament.

The dispute highlights political and social contention over how the country grapples with its colonial past and Indigenous heritage. In November 2024, tens of thousands of New Zealanders rallied before Parliament to oppose a bill that sought to dilute Maori rights, with some legislators performing a haka (or Maori war dance) on the parliamentary floor in solidarity.

Odds and Ends

Heroes don’t always wear capes. Some look like 88-year-old Australian James Harrison, whose legacy is the roughly 2.4 million babies that he saved during his lifetime. Known as the “man with the golden arm,” Harrison donated blood plasma every two weeks from his 18th birthday to age 81 (or 1,173 times), as his blood contained a rare antibody that was used to help pregnant people whose immune systems attack their own fetuses. He “never missed a single appointment,” Lifeblood agency said, and he “expected nothing in return.” Harrison died on March 3 at age 88.