Colombian President Gustavo Petro backed down within hours after blocking two repatriation flights of illegal immigrants who had been deported from the U.S. when Trump threatened to impose 25% tariffs on his smaller country.

Experts predict Canada and Mexico will similarly “cave” to Trump’s demands for them and China to do more to counter illegal immigrants and drugs or have tariffs imposed on them this Saturday, but those same experts predict China could present a greater test for the president.

“They’re going to have to verbalize tough,” American Enterprise Institute senior fellow Steven Kamin told the Washington Examiner. “But I think that probably when push comes to shove my guess is they’ll cave just because, humiliating as it is, that’s what Trump wants.”

“Tariff” has become one of the president’s favorite words. He has sought to underscore his populist credentials by criticizing trade deals of old and trade deficits with trade partners.

Days after his historic win last November against former Vice President Kamala Harris, Trump announced he would impose 10% tariffs on China and 25% levies on Mexico and Canada if they did not do more to stop illegal immigration or the trafficking of fentanyl into the U.S.

Hours after his inauguration last week, he directed his administration, through a first-day executive memorandum, to conduct a comprehensive review of the U.S.’s trade policies by April 1 before proposing a Feb. 1 deadline for the tariffs on China, Canada, and Mexico.

As recently as this week, during his appearance at the House Republican retreat at his hotel and golf course in Miami, Trump emphasized the importance of tariffs and previewed the possibility of universal levies.

“We are going to look at pharmaceuticals, drugs. We are going to look at chips, semiconductors, and we are going to look at steel and some other industries, and you are going to see things happening,” Trump told House Republicans. “The only way to get out of this is to build your plant. If you want to stop paying taxes or tariffs, build here in America.”

During her first briefing as White House press secretary on Tuesday, Karoline Leavitt reiterated that the Feb. 1 date for Canada and Mexico “still holds” and that Trump “is very much still considering” the same deadline for China.

People familiar with internal deliberations at the White House indicated to the Washington Examiner that Trump’s trade team, led by Peter Navarro, is crafting tariff options for the president to introduce on Feb. 1 immediately but declined to provide details on those discussions.

However, on Wednesday, Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum downplayed the likelihood that Trump would impose the tariffs, telling reporters that she does not “think it will happen.” Canada and Mexico should be protected by the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement, but that trade deal is scheduled to be reviewed by July next year, with the tariffs being a possible bargaining chip before those negotiations.

“If it does happen, we also have our plan,” Sheinbaum said. “There are conversations. There’s dialogue.”

Canadian Foreign Minister Melanie Joly, who was in Washington on Wednesday to meet with Secretary of State Marco Rubio, teased coordination between her country and the European Union to respond to any Trump tariffs.

“It is clear that we have to be extremely pragmatic when it comes to working with Europeans and also with Britain, with the U.K., on this,” Joly said earlier this week.

Alex Durante, a Tax Foundation senior economist, contended the advantage of tariffs as a bargaining chip comes with disadvantages, particularly if Trump does not follow through on his threats.

“The more that you announce that it’s a negotiating tactic, it becomes a less effective tool over time,” Durante told the Washington Examiner.

For Durante, who, like AEI’s Kamin, is a Federal Reserve Board and White House Council of Economic Advisers alumnus, tariffs can also “spook the markets” and increase consumer prices, an argument White House National Economic Council Director Kevin Hassett has dismissed.

“If you spend $1.5 trillion a year more on government spending, you’re going to get inflation,” Hassett told Fox News on Monday. “If you don’t let people drill, baby, drill, then energy prices are going to go up and so you’re going to get inflation.”

The U.S.’s trade deficit with Canada is driven by its dependence on its northern neighbor for oil and natural gas. The U.S. is also dependent on Mexico for energy, cheap labor for motor vehicles and auto parts, and fruit and vegetables.

But although the White House has defended Trump’s strategy, Gary Hufbauer, a Peterson Institute for International Economics nonresident senior fellow, is more interested in what else the president is hoping to pursue through the tariffs, including putting pressure on Canada and Mexico to work closer with the U.S. as opposed to with China.

“It’s really not so clear what he wants [with China],” the former Treasury Department aide told the Washington Examiner. “The list of U.S. demands against China is very long, but the immediate objectives, I think … one, is to sell half of TikTok to some U.S. consortium in the next month, and the second, which is a little longer term, but in his phase one trade negotiation with China.”

The White House has celebrated Trump’s tariff win against Colombia last weekend, citing it as an example of it being “clear to the world that America is respected again.”    

“President Trump will continue to fiercely protect our nation’s sovereignty, and he expects all other nations of the world to fully cooperate in accepting the deportation of their citizens illegally present in the United States,” Leavitt told reporters on Sunday.

Trump announced earlier that day he was imposing emergency 25% tariffs on all Colombian goods being imported into the U.S., which would have increased to 50% next week. He also implemented a travel ban, visa revocations, and visa sanctions on Colombian government officials, the country’s ruling party members, their family members, their allies, and their supporters amid International Emergency Economic Powers Act Treasury, banking, and financial sanctions.

“These measures are just the beginning,” Trump wrote on social media.