Even as Mexico President Claudia Sheinbaum attempts to quell concerns over Donald Trump’s threat of 25% tariffs, economists are looking glumly at the trouble ahead should the US president-elect actually follow through.

Another check on the administration could be the fear of tariff-induced inflation. Americans’ experience of the highest price rises in 40 years helped doom Kamala Harris’s election bid. Mr Trump may not want to be seen as the architect behind surging prices of everything from Americans’ breakfast avocados to their newest set of wheels.

The president-elect said that he would impose the across-the-board tariffs on Day 1 and that they would stay in place until Canada, Mexico and China halted the flow of drugs and migrants.