President Donald Trump on Thursday threatened to double tariffs on Mexico if leaders there don’t stop migrant caravans headed toward the U.S. border.
Doubling the duty would take it to 20%. The administration imposed the existing 10% tariff on most Mexican goods in July under Section 301 of the Trade Act of 1974, in a presidential memorandum published in the Federal Register on July 28.
The United States bought $481.6 billion in Mexican goods through September, more than from any other country, according to Census Bureau data.
No federal agency has published a dollar estimate of what doubling the tariff would cost U.S. companies or consumers. The White House and the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative did not provide one when asked Thursday.
The Congressional Budget Office estimated in February that foreign exporters absorb 5% of tariff costs and that U.S. consumers bear the remaining 95%. It told Congress in May that the share absorbed by foreign exporters may have risen to 10% to 15% by the end of 2025. The agency has not turned either estimate into a dollar figure.
The Tax Foundation estimates all tariffs now in place will cost the average U.S. household about $820 this year, with about $130 of that attributable to duties on Canadian and Mexican goods, using a model dated August 2026.
“MEXICO MUST STOP THEM, NOW, and if they do not do so, the Tariffs on Mexico will be IMMEDIATELY DOUBLED,” Trump wrote Thursday morning in a Truth Social post.
The U.S. president added: “There will be no leniency!”
Trump tied the threat to last week’s elections in the post, writing that “with the perceived loss by the Republicans in the Midterms – I WAS NOT ON THE BALLOT – the INVASION of our Country is taking place again.” Democrats will control both chambers of Congress starting in January, according to the latest election results reported by The Center Square.
Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum said at her Thursday morning news conference that no migrant caravan has reached the northern border since Trump took office. She said two caravans are moving now, one in Arriaga, Chiapas, that started with 500 to 600 people and is down to fewer than 100, and another from Honduras. Mexico tells them there is no way into the U.S. and helps them return home, she said, and most do.
The Mexican Embassy in Washington pointed The Center Square to a statement from Ambassador Roberto Lazzeri and did not answer questions about whether Mexico would retaliate.
U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer, asked on CNBC’s “Squawk Box” Thursday whether doubling Mexico’s tariffs was likely, did not say. He said Trump is prepared to take whatever measures he needs, economic or otherwise, to hold the gains he made at the border, and that he would work with the president if he takes economic measures. Greer did not name the legal authority or a tariff rate.
Greer said in the same interview that most food enters from Canada and Mexico without duties and that the vast majority of food has never been subject to tariffs.
USTR’s notice implementing the memorandum exempts goods that cannot be produced in sufficient quantities in the U.S., among other categories, although the exempt products are listed by tariff subheading rather than by category.
Democrats have said they want to end Trump’s tariffs. Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., introduced a bill in September that would terminate and refund the duties, and it has 29 cosponsors as of Thursday, according to the congressional record. U.S. Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., who is in line to chair the Senate Finance Committee, said in a Nov. 4 statement that he would use the panel to “reassert congressional authority over our country’s trade policy to bring down costs, end Trump’s disastrous and corrupt tariffs, reestablish critical trade partnerships, and hold trade cheats accountable.”
The White House did not respond to questions about the legal authority or what Mexico would have to do to avoid the increase. The offices of Wyden and Schumer did not respond to questions about what would replace the tariff revenue.
USTR has a second Section 301 investigation open on Mexico. The agency opened it in March into structural excess manufacturing capacity, naming Mexico as one of 16 economies and citing its $197 billion goods trade surplus with the U.S. and growth in its steel capacity, according to the initiation notice published in the Federal Register.
The comment period closed in May, according to the office’s website. USTR has published no determination since and did not answer questions about whether one is coming.
