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The pause came after Trump spoke with leaders of the Big Three automakers — Ford, General Motors and Stellantis — on Wednesday, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said.

Asked if 30 days was enough for the auto sector to prepare for the new taxes, Leavitt said Trump was blunt with the automakers seeking an exemption: “He told them that they should get on it, start investing, start moving, shift production here to the United States of America where they will pay no tariff.�

Trump long promised to impose tariffs, but his opening weeks in the White House involved aggressive threats and surprise suspensions, leaving allies unclear at what the U.S. president is actually trying to achieve.

The White House repeatedly insisted it would not grant exemptions and the sudden turnaround reflects the economic and political problems being created by Trump's day-old tariffs.

While the Republican president sees them as enriching the United States, his plans to tax imports have alienated allies and caused anxiety about slower economic growth and accelerating inflation.

Based off various Trump administration statements, the tariffs on Canada, Mexico and China imposed Tuesday are about stopping illegal immigration, blocking fentanyl smuggling, closing the trade gap, balancing the federal budget and other nations showing more respect for Trump.

All of that left Canada, a long-standing ally, determined to stand up against Trump with their own retaliatory tariffs, rejecting a White House overture to possibly reduce some of tariffs imposed on Tuesday.

"We are not going to back down," Ontario Premier Doug Ford said after speaking with the Canadian prime minister. "We will not budge. Zero tariffs and that is it."

Ford said the auto sector in the United States and Canada would last about 10 days before they start shutting down the assembly lines because of the tariffs.

"People are going to lose their jobs," he said.

Pausing the 25% taxes on autos traded through the North American trade pact USMCA will only delay a broader reckoning to take place on April 2, when Trump is scheduled to impose broad "reciprocal" tariffs to match the taxes and subsidies that other countries charge on imports.

U.S. automaker Ford said in a statement: "We will continue to have a healthy and candid dialogue with the Administration to help achieve a bright future for our industry and U.S. manufacturing."

GM thanked Trump "for his approach, which enables American automakers like GM to compete and invest domestically."

Other industries are also likely to seek exemptions from the import taxes.

"A number of industries have reached out to us to ask us for exemptions to the tariffs," Vice President JD Vance said Wednesday.

Trump had a phone call on Wednesday with Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, as U.S. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick suggested the administration looked to meet Canada and Mexico "in the middle."

But Trudeau refused to lift Canada's retaliatory tariffs so long as Trump continues with his new taxes on imports from Canada, a senior government official said on condition of anonymity.

The prospect of a trade war appears to be an ongoing feature of the Trump administration. In addition to his upcoming reciprocal tariffs that could strike the European Union, India, Brazil, South Korea, Canada and Mexico, Trump wants to tax imports of computer chips, pharmaceutical drugs and autos. He also closed exemptions on his 2018 steel and aluminum tariffs and is investigating tariffs on copper as well.

Tariffs are taxes paid by importers in the countries receiving the goods, so the cost could largely be passed along to U.S. consumers and businesses in the form of higher prices.

In his Tuesday night speech to a joint session of Congress, Trump tried to minimize the financial pain as a " little disturbance."

"It may be a little bit of an adjustment period," he said after claiming farmers would benefit from reciprocal tariffs on countries that have tariffs on U.S. exports. "You have to bear with me again and this will be even better."

On Tuesday, Trump put 25% taxes on imports from Mexico and Canada, taxing Canadian energy products such as oil and electricity at a lower 10% rate. The president also doubled the 10% tariff he placed on China to 20%.

The administration claims that the tariffs are about stopping the smuggling of drugs such as fentanyl, with aides asserting that this is about a "drug war" rather than a "trade war." U.S. customs agents seized just 43 pounds of fentanyl at the northern border the last fiscal year.

Trudeau said Tuesday his country would place tariffs on over $100 billion of American goods over the course of 21 days, stressing that the United States had abandoned a long-standing friendship.

"Today, the United States launched a trade war against Canada, their closest partner and ally, their closest friend. At the same time, they are talking about working positively with Russia, appeasing Vladimir Putin, a lying, murderous dictator. Make that make sense," Trudeau said Tuesday.

Mexico indicated it would announce its own countermeasures on Sunday.

Beijing responded with tariffs of up to 15% on a wide array of U.S. farm exports. It also expanded the number of U.S. companies subject to export controls and other restrictions by about two dozen.