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The US will press ahead with steep tariffs on Canada and Mexico from Tuesday, Donald Trump has said, setting the stage for a trade war with his country’s two largest economic partners.

Hours before his administration was due to hit America’s closest neighbors with sweeping import duties, the US president claimed there was “no room left” for a deal to avoid their imposition. The announcement led to a sharp sell-off on Wall Street.

All Mexican exports to the US are set to face a levy of 25% under the plans. Most Canadian exports will face a 25% tariff, with energy products facing a 10% duty.

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The action is set to prompt swift retaliation. “We’re ready,” said the Canadian foreign minister, Mélanie Joly.

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The rift between Washington and Kyiv over a potential ceasefire in the war with Russia deepened on Monday as Donald Trump expressed new outrage at Volodymyr Zelenskyy for saying that the end of the war could be “very, very far away”.

In a post to social media on Monday, Trump posted a link to an Associated Press story outlining Zelenskyy’s comments and said: “This is the worst statement that could have been made by Zelenskyy, and America will not put up with it for much longer!

“It is what I was saying, this guy doesn’t want there to be Peace as long as he has America’s backing and, Europe, in the meeting they had with Zelenskyy, stated flatly that they cannot do the job without the US,” Trump continued.

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The S&P 500 retreated on Monday, extending February’s rout and turning red for the year after President Donald Trump’s confirmation of forthcoming tariffs ratcheted up economic concerns.

The S&P 500 fell 2.1%, bringing its year-to-date performance to a loss of nearly 1%. The Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped 789 points, or 1.8%. The Nasdaq Composite slid 3%, weighed down by Nvidia’s decline of more than 9%.

All three indexes traded higher earlier in the session, with the Dow at one point up nearly 200 points. Stocks took a notable leg down in afternoon trading following Trump’s reiteration that 25% levies on imports from Mexico and Canada would go into effect on Tuesday, dashing investors’ hopes of a last-minute deal to avert the full tariffs on the two U.S. allies.

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As Mr. Trump prepares to push ahead with a new round of tariffs on the United States’ neighbors to the north and south, he has expressed a special brand of loathing for Canada. The bullying of a country whose most prominent stereotype is that its people are “nice” has led to political upheaval in Canada and created both consternation and speculation about why Mr. Trump wants to engage in a trade war with one of America’s biggest trading partners.

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Intrigue abounds in Canada about why Mr. Trump has repeatedly belittled a neighbor and threatened to destabilize its economy with tariffs, a process that has brought relations between the two countries to a low point not seen in decades.

In contrast to the close and supportive relationship that Mr. Trudeau, who is entering his final week in office, enjoyed with another U.S. president, Barack Obama, his relationship with Mr. Trump has been fractious.

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'No room left for Mexico or Canada' to make a deal, Trump says

U.S. President Donald Trump says his long-threatened trade war is going ahead with tariffs on Canadian goods set to take effect just after midnight and there's nothing Canada can do to stop them.

Speaking to reporters at the White House, Trump said the United States has been "a laughingstock for years and years" and he needs to take trade action against its continental neighbours.

He said Canada has allowed fentanyl to flood into the U.S. despite data that shows the claim is false.

"Very importantly, tomorrow, tariffs, 25 per cent on Canada and 25 per cent on Mexico, and that will start. So, they're gonna have to have a tariff," Trump said.

The American side deliberately orchestrated the confrontation during President Volodymyr Zelensky's visit to the White House, Friedrich Merz, the head of Germany's Christian Democratic Union (CDU) and the likely chancellor, said on March 3.

"It was not a spontaneous reaction to interventions by Zelensky, but obviously a manufactured escalation in this meeting in the Oval Office," Merz said at a press conference in Hamburg.

The visit was expected to mark the signing of a long-debated agreement between Ukraine and the U.S. on jointly developing Ukraine's mineral resources.

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U.S. President Donald Trump will discuss on March 3 the possible suspension or complete cancellation of military aid to Ukraine, including weapons pledged by the Biden administration, The New York Times (NYT) reported, citing an undisclosed source.

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An unnamed administration official told NYT that Trump will meet on March 3 with his top national security aides, including Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, to review and potentially act on a range of policy options for Ukraine.

Among the issues to be considered will be the suspension or cancellation of U.S. military aid to Ukraine, including the latest shipments of ammunition and equipment authorized during the Biden administration, the official said.

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In a few short weeks, President Trump has severely damaged the government’s ability to fight climate change, upending American environmental policy with moves that could have lasting implications for the country, and the planet.

With a flurry of actions that have stretched the limits of presidential power, Mr. Trump has gutted federal climate efforts, rolled back regulations aimed at limiting pollution and given a major boost to the fossil fuel industry.

He is abandoning efforts to reduce global warming, even as the world has reached record levels of heat that scientists say is driven largely by the burning of fossil fuels. Every corner of the world is now experiencing the effects of these rising temperatures in the form of deadlier hurricanes, floods, wildfires and droughts, as well as species extinction.

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Keir Starmer has said Europe is “at a crossroads in history” and must act to support Ukraine to secure a lasting peace as he confirmed the UK and France would lead a “coalition of the willing” to help end the fighting.

After a crucial defence summit in London, Starmer said any plan for a lasting ceasefire would have to be “delivered together” with the US to provide a deterrence to Russia, as he continued attempts to repair frayed ties between Kyiv and Washington.

Starmer announced a deal that would allow Ukraine to use £1.6bn of export finance to buy more than 5,000 air defence missiles, to be made by Thales in Belfast and therefore creating jobs, as part of the government’s plan to boost economic growth.

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President Trump says he wants a quick cease-fire in Ukraine. But President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia appears to be in no rush, and the blowup on Friday between Mr. Trump and Ukraine’s president may give Russia’s leader the kind of ammunition he needs to prolong the fight.

With the American alliance with Ukraine suffering a dramatic, public rupture, Mr. Putin now seems even more likely to hold out for a deal on his terms — and he could even be tempted to expand his push on the battlefield.

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For the Kremlin, perhaps the most important message came in later remarks by Mr. Trump, who suggested that if Ukraine did not agree to a “cease-fire now,” the war-torn country would have to “fight it out” without American help.

That could set up an outcome that Mr. Putin has long sought, at the cost of tens of thousands of Russian lives: a dominant position over Ukraine and wide-ranging concessions from the West.

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Ukrainians have rallied behind Volodymyr Zelenskyy after his mauling on Friday in the White House, and have accused Donald Trump and the US vice-president, JD Vance, of deliberately and cynically “starting a brawl”.

There was widespread support for Ukraine’s president at home and dismay at his car-crash encounter in the Oval Office. There was also praise for Zelenskyy’s insistence that a peace deal without security guarantees was meaningless, and that Russia could not be trusted.

The bitter fallout continued on Saturday. There were reports that Trump – who claimed Zelenskyy had “disrespected” him and was “not ready for peace” – was planning to cut off all military supplies to Ukraine.

Senior Ukrainian officials said that without meaningful security pledges any ceasefire deal with Moscow would not last.

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