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President Donald Trump signaled he could impose fresh tariffs on agricultural products, including Canadian fertilizer and Indian rice, the latest sign that protracted negotiations with two U.S. trading partners could drag on.

Trump spoke Monday at a White House event to announce billions in new aid for U.S. farmers, some of whom said cheaper imports were making it difficult for their products to compete in the marketplace.

The president said he would “take care” of supposed dumping of Indian rice into the U.S. Some farmers have blamed imports for falling rice prices, saying countries such as India, Vietnam and Thailand are undercutting their crops.

“They shouldn’t be dumping,” Trump said. “I mean, I heard that, I heard that from others. You can’t do that.”

India is the world’s largest rice exporter — expected to sell about 25 million tons this season — with much of it heading to Asia and Africa. Global rice prices have been under pressure this year as production stays near a record and major buyer Indonesia seeks to limit purchases.

The U.S. sells more rice abroad than it brings in, while the nation’s purchases so far this year are led by imports from Thailand, followed by India, according to U.S. Department of Agriculture data.

India’s Ministry of Commerce and Industry didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment. The Indian Rice Exporters Federation said in a statement that exports to the U.S. remain demand-led, with major American producers not growing a similar crop to Indian basmati.

“While the U.S. is an important destination, India’s rice exports are well-diversified across global markets,” it added. India exported 274,213 tons of basmati rice and 61,341 tons of non-basmati varieties to the U.S. in the fiscal year ended March 31, the group said.

Trump similarly suggested he could target fertilizer imported from Canada to boost domestic production.

“A lot of it does come in from Canada, and so we’ll end up putting very severe tariffs on that, if we have to, because that’s the way you want to bolster here,” Trump said. “And we can do it here. We can all do that here.”

The U.S. president is facing mounting pressure to address high consumer prices and persistent inflation, which has created voter dissatisfaction that poses a political risk for Republicans heading into next year’s midterm elections. That includes gripes from farmers, a reliable pro-Trump constituency that has nonetheless struggled in part due to market factors including the president’s tariff regime.

Tariffs on fertilizers largely sourced from abroad could renew concerns from American farmers, who have grappled with rising input costs in recent years. Canada is the biggest supplier of potash to the U.S.

Shipments from the country have so far been minimally affected thanks to a tariff carveout for goods included in the North American trade agreement. But the addition of any fees would be on top of the hurdles that farmers have already faced with phosphate, another key crop input that is largely imported.

Both fertilizers were added to America’s list of critical minerals in November, a move that farmers hoped would protect global trade flows and support domestic output.

Both Canada and India have sought trade agreements to stabilize their trading relationships with the U.S., though negotiators have struggled to strike deals. Trump placed 50% tariffs on Indian goods in August to penalize it for its trade barriers and purchases of Russian oil. A team of U.S. officials is set to visit India this week to continue talks, though a breakthrough agreement to lower the tariffs is not expected.

Trump has previously threatened to increase tariffs on Canadian products by 10%, which would have increased the country’s tariff rate on goods not covered by the USMCA trade deal to 45%, in response to an advertisement from Ontario that criticized his trade agenda. In recent days, Trump has also suggested letting that trilateral deal lapse.

Threats to Mexico

Trump also threatened Monday to impose an additional 5% tariff on Mexican goods over a long-running water dispute, reigniting diplomatic tensions that had flared earlier this year over water shortages in the borderlands.

In a social media post, Trump accused Mexico of failing to provide more than 800,000 acre-feet of water — or more than 260 billion gallons — under a 1944 treaty mediating the distribution of water from three rivers: the Rio Grande, the Colorado and the Tijuana. The president said Mexico needed to “release 200,000 acre-feet of water before December 31st, and the rest must come soon after.”

The threat was the latest aggressive action Trump has taken against some of America’s biggest trading partners. In October, Trump raised the nominal tariff rate for Canadian products from 25% to 35%, and he has also threatened to raise Mexico’s tariff rate from 25% to 30%. If Trump follows through on his threat for an additional water tariff, tariffs on Mexican products could increase to a maximum of 35% — though most imported goods from Canada and Mexico have duty-free exemptions.

Mexico’s president, Claudia Sheinbaum, has acknowledged that her country had fallen short of its treaty commitments, saying that a yearslong drought had significantly hindered the country’s ability to provide the full amount of water the agreement called for. Sheinbaum’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Rising temperatures and long droughts have made water more scarce, making the water from rivers Mexico and the United States share all the more valuable.

When Trump threatened in April to raise tariffs over the issue, Sheinbaum took a conciliatory stance: She immediately transferred some of Mexico’s water reserves and agreed to give the United States a larger share of the flow of water from the Rio Grande through October.

At the time, the Mexican borderlands were enduring extreme drought conditions, and the country’s water reserves were at historic lows. Now the drought has subsided, and a strong rainy season has replenished much of Mexico’s water reserves.

But Mexican farmers have pressed their government to oppose further concessions to the United States in what has been a yearslong dispute over the countries’ shared rivers. In 2020, tensions over water sharing exploded into violence, and Mexican farmers seized control of a dam in the border region in an effort to shut off water deliveries to the U.S.

Mexican farmers and their supporters have blockaded commercial shipping at the border in protest over water rights. In Juárez, farmers recently blocked some 7,000 trucks loaded with car parts and other goods from crossing into the United States, according to local officials.

Information for this article was contributed by Skylar Woodhouse, Ilena Peng, Megan Durisin, Shruti Srivastava, Jon Herskovitz and Pratik Parij of Bloomberg (WPNS) and by Chris Cameron of The New York Times.