From New York Times, I'm Michael Bobaro.

This is the Daily.

On Monday, North America came within hours of a multi-billion-dollar trade war

that was poised to hobble the economies of Mexico and Canada.

Today, my colleagues, Anna Swanson, Matina Stavis Gridneff, and Simone Romero, on the last-minute negotiations

that headed off the crisis for now.

It's Tuesday, February 4th.

So friends, welcome. Anna, you are joining us from Washington, D.C., Matina, from Toronto, Canada, and Simone from Mexico City. Thank you all for being here on very short notice. We appreciate it.

Thanks.

Thank you. Good to be here.

Thanks for having us. And the reason we wanted you to be here is because we want to make sense

of a very fast-moving story playing out in all three of the countries where you are based,

involving the leaders from each of those countries that brought us to the verge of a historic

and very consequential trade war between them.

I want to start with you.

What had been President Trump's original plan for what this morning would look like?

The plan before the plan changed.

Yeah, his plan was to impose sweeping tariffs on

America's three biggest trading partners. So a 25% tariff on Canada and Mexico, virtually across

the board, except a lower tariff on Canadian oil, and 10% tariff on China. And that would include everything from cars, lumber,

natural gas, beer, vegetables, pretty much everything that we're importing from those countries.

Okay. And let's put China aside for just a moment, since it has felt like this was primarily about our neighbors to the

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