WASHINGTON, June 7, 2019 — President Trump on Friday announced that Americans will not have to pay the five percent tax he recently threatened to impose on Mexican imports, citing an agreement reached with the Mexican government following negotiations led by Vice President Pence.
“I am pleased to inform you that The United States of America has reached a signed agreement with Mexico,” Trump said in a tweet Friday night, adding that the tariffs he’d proposed last week were “hereby indefinitely suspended.”
The Mexican government, Trump said, “has agreed to take strong measures” to curb the flow of migrants passing through their country from South and Central America en route to the United States.
A “US-Mexico Joint Declaration” posted to the State Department website elaborated on the President’s announcement by stating that the two governments “will work together to immediately implement a durable solution” to the influx of migrants seeking asylum in the United States, which the declaration called a “shared challenge.”
According to the declaration, Mexico will deploy its national guard forces throughout the country, with a particular focus on the Mexico-Guatemala border.
For the Trump administration’s part, the declaration references an expansion of “existing Migrant Protection Protocols” across the entire US-Mexico border. But that policy has already been ruled unlawful by a three judge panel of the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals after a coalition of immigration advocacy groups filed suit, alleging that it violates the asylum provisions of the Immigration and Nationality Act.
The policy remains in effect, however, because the panel stayed its ruling pending an appeal to the full Ninth Circuit or the Supreme Court.
