President Donald Trump threatened to impose 25% prices on American imports from countries that buy Venezuela oil.
Trump described this decision as a “secondary rate” aimed at punishing the country of Latin America “for many reasons”, especially “allegedly” sending gang members to the United States.
In addition, Trump suggested that he softened his prices plans on imports from other countries, saying that he “could give many country breaks”.
The markets ended the day above after the comments, which seemed to confirm information that he narrows the taxes he planned to announce on April 2.
Trump previously declared that he was trying to impose “reciprocal” prices on countries around the world, describing the plans of a system by which “they charge us, we will invoice them”.
But on Monday, he suggested that the White House could be “more pleasant than that” with regard to new prices.
“We can take less than what they charge because they billed us so much, I don’t think they could take it,” he said, while recognizing that some countries could be spared measures.
The main sharing indices in the United States, which has fallen strongly in recent weeks after Trump’s pricing threats, all increased on Monday.
The S&P 500 closed 1.7% more, the industrial average of Dow Jones closed 1.2% while the Nasdaq finished 2.2% in advance.
Prices are a tax on imports. They are paid by the company which buys the goods as opposed to the company abroad which sells the product.
Since its entry into office in January, Trump has repeatedly used prices – or threat – in order to obtain a lever effect in a range of disputes, some of which are linked to trade.
He said on Monday that he was still planning to impose prices on specific products, including cars, wood and computer chips, saying that the possibility of such measures was already helping to stimulate investments in the United States.
His latest threat to Venezuela is expected to put pressure on current oil buyers – including China, India and Spain – to reduce their relations in the country, which provided a critical rescue buoy to the Venezuelan government.
Trump has already increased prices on Chinese imports to at least 20% since February. He told journalists that he had the last announcement to add in addition to existing direct debits.
For Venezuela, China is the largest buyer of its oil, serving as a destination for more than half of the exports in the Latin American country last year.
But Venezuela is not a great source of crude for China, which imported more than 11 million barrels per day last year.
The United States is an important Buyer of Venezuelan oil, following exemptions from the economic sanctions granted to the American oil company Chevron.
The Trump administration previously pointed out its intention to end these exemptions.
Monday, the administration updated its order, giving Chevron until May 27 to complete its operations in Venezuela, extending the deadline for two months.
Chevron refused to comment.
Oil prices have increased by more than 1% after the announcement.
