US President Donald Trump's move to impose a five per cent tariff on all Mexican goods in response to migrant border crossings would be "disastrous," Mexico's top diplomat for North America said Thursday, vowing to retaliate.
"It's disastrous. If this threat is carried out, it would be extremely serious," said Jesus Seade, under-secretary for North American affairs at the Mexican foreign ministry.
"If this is put in place, we must respond vigorously," he told a press conference.
Trump earlier tweeted that he would impose the tariff starting on June 10, and that it would "gradually increase until the Illegal Immigration problem is remedied."
In Mexico, which sends 80 per cent of its exports to the United States, the reaction was a mix of incredulity and anger.
Seade had been planning to hold an upbeat press conference to mark the start of the ratification process this week for the United States-Mexico-Canada (USMCA) agreement, the new trade deal intended to replace Trump's much-hated NAFTA.
Instead, it turned into a bitter reaction to Trump's tariff announcement.
"There is no justification for doing this over migration," said Seade.
"The right thing to do would be to say, 'An eye for an eye,' but that would just mean everyone ends up in the jungle."
Seade said the announcement had taken Mexico by surprise, even though Trump had tweeted earlier in the day that he was planning a "dramatic" policy announcement about the border.
"It was impossible to foresee something of this magnitude. We didn't see this coming," he said.
"We will have to discuss this with the United States and decide amongst ourselves how to respond."
Seade, who was President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador's top delegate to the USMCA talks when the latter was president-elect, had thus far navigated relations with the Trump administration relatively smoothly.
The same is true of Lopez Obrador, an anti-establishment leftist who won a landslide election victory last year. He has so far brushed off Trump's repeated attacks on Mexico, refusing to be dragged into a fight.
Seade said that would not do this time.
"I'm not going to let the president (Lopez Obrador) say, 'I'm not going to respond,'" he said.
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