Mexico’s president responded Tuesday morning to ongoing U.S.-imposed tomato tariffs and recently announced tariffs on Mexican steel exports.

On Monday, the U.S. Department of Commerce announced that it would impose tariffs on imports of some Mexican steel products. That’s in response to its finding that exporters benefit from state subsidies. A copy of the decision memo is included at the end of this story. 

During his Tuesday morning press conference, President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, known as AMLO, said he had “confidence that we’ll be able to confront this new challenge.”

In a press release, the national organization representing steel and iron businesses rejected the claim that their industry is subsidized. They also said affected businesses would be working with the Mexican government to reverse Commerce’s preliminary decision. 

AMLO also addressed ongoing impacts from nearly 18% tariffs on Mexican tomatoes, saying they are negatively impacting growers.

That was a welcome message to Alfredo Diaz, head of the country’s protected horticulture association.

“It gives us a lot of hope that finally the Mexican government gets involved to do the strong political lobbying that we need,” he said.