Oil futures ticked lower Friday and were on track for weekly losses as traders awaited a decision by President Donald Trump on tariffs on imports from Canada and Mexico.
Price moves
- West Texas Intermediate crude CL00-0.07% for March delivery CL.1-0.08% CLH25-0.11% fell 18 cents, or 0.2%, to $72.55 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange, on track for a weekly fall of 2.8%.
- March Brent crude BRNH25-0.07%, the global benchmark, was off 22 cents, or 0.3%, at $76.65 a barrel on ICE Futures Europe, headed for a weekly decline of 2.4%. The more actively traded April contract BRN00-0.01% BRNJ25-0.03% was down 21 cents, or 0.3%, at $75.68 a barrel.
Market drivers
On Thursday, Trump reiterated a threat to impose 25% tariffs on imports from Canada and Mexico as early as Saturday. He said a decision on whether to include oil imports would be made Thursday night, but no announcement has so far been made.
The U.S. imported 4.42 million barrels of oil per day from Canada in 2023, representing 52% of total U.S. oil imports, according to the Energy Information Administration. Mexico comes in at a distant second, representing 11% of U.S. oil imports, at 910,000 barrels per day.
In addition to punitive tariffs on Canada and Mexico, Trump has threatened a raft of other levies on trading partners, including a universal tariff.
Read: Here’s how much gas could cost you if Trump’s threatened tariffs go through
Fears of tariffs, however, have been “price-negative as global trade partners including Canada and Germany have already revised 2025 GDP forecasts considerably lower due to just the risk of tariffs adversely impacting business sentiment and consumer confidence,” analysts at Sevens Report Research wrote in a note.
However, the prospect of more tightly enforced sanctions on Russia has provided support for crude, they said. Overall, “the longer-term risks in the oil market still appear skewed to the downside given the growing sense of uncertainty surrounding global economic growth and the prospects that geopolitical tensions will be resolved as a result of the rapid action and increased pressure the Trump administration is threatening Russia with,” they wrote.
