NEW YORK: Republican US presidential candidate Donald Trump on Sunday suggested he could impose tariffs higher than 200 percent on vehicles imported from Mexico, saying his aim would be to prevent the selling of cars from Mexico into the United States.

“All I’m doing is saying ‘I’ll put 200 or 500, I don’t care.’ I’ll put a number where they can’t sell one car,” he said during a Fox News interview that aired on Sunday. “I don’t want them hurting our car companies.” Trump, facing Democrat Kamala Harris in a tight race, has previously pledged that if elected again as president he would set a 100 percent duty on imported cars and trucks with the goal of aiding the domestic auto industry.

While speaking at a rally last week in Juneau, Wisconsin, Trump doubled the figure. “When I use 200 I’m using it as a number,” he said during the Fox News interview. “I don’t want their car. They will not be able to sell cars. I’m not going to let them build a factory right across the border and sell millions of cars into the United States and destroy Detroit further.”

Trump previously threatened large tariffs on cars from Mexico as president and as a candidate in 2016. Imposing up to 25 percent tariffs on Mexican autos and components could have severe impacts on the industry and hike vehicle costs, automakers said in 2019. At Trump’s instigation, in 2018 the United States, Mexico and Canada renegotiated North America’s free-trade agreement, adding provisions that US officials said would keep more of the heavily regionalized auto manufacturing sector in the United States. – Reuters