Donald Trump said tariffs of 25 per cent on products from Canada and Mexico could be introduced as early as February, hours after taking office as US president on Monday.

Speaking at the White House while signing various orders shortly after his inauguration, Trump said, “We’re thinking in terms of 25 per cent on Mexico and Canada, because they’re allowing vast number of people … to come in.”

“I think we’ll do it Feb. 1,” Trump added, referring to the potential start date for the tariffs.

Earlier on Monday, the Wall Street Journal reported that Trump did not intend to impose tariffs on trading partners like Canada, Mexico, and China.

Instead, he planned to instruct the authorities to assess trade relations with China and its neighbours on the North American continent, the Wall Street Journal reported, citing a summary of a planned memorandum and Trump’s advisers.

Shortly after winning the election in November, Trump threatened to impose tariffs on goods from Canada, Mexico, and China.

There are also fears in the EU that Trump could impose new tariffs.

Tariffs are a type of surcharge on imported goods. They are paid as goods enter the country.

Trump imposed a range of tariffs on imported goods during his first term in office from 2017 to 2021.

The first 90 Palestinian prisoners to be released by Israel under the terms of the Gaza ceasefire deal were freed hours after an agreement took effect on Sunday.

This is to halt the fighting that has devastated the coastal territory; local media cited Israeli authorities as confirming.

Local media outlets, including the Times of Israel, cited the prison authority as confirming the release, saying that most of the freed prisoners were women and minors.

The majority of the detainees came from the West Bank, while others were from East Jerusalem, according to the reports.

Palestinian media has showed the footage and pictures of what they said were released prisoners arriving in Ramallah.

On Sunday, the Palestinian militant organisation Hamas released the first three Israeli hostages as part of the ceasefire agreement.

They were transferred by the Palestinian militant group Hamas to the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) on Sunday afternoon.

Among those transferred were three women, named by the Israeli military as Romi Gonen, Emily Damari and Doron Steinbrecher.

They were then transferred to Israeli forces and transported to a hospital in Tel Aviv, where they were greeted by family.

A Hamas spokesman had confirmed that four more Israeli hostages would be released next Saturday.

This will be part of the deal to exchange 33 hostages for 1,904 Palestinian prisoners held in Israeli jails over the course of six weeks.

Following months of stalemate in the 15-month Gaza war, a three-stage ceasefire agreement between Israel and Hamas was brokered on Wednesday, capping months-long efforts by the U.S.

Others are; Egypt and Qatar to mediate between the warring parties.

The first stage of the ceasefire agreement also foresaw the Israeli military withdrawing from densely populated areas of the Gaza Strip.

SpaceX founder Elon Musk congratulated his rival Jeff Bezos on the successful maiden test-launch of his heavy-lift rocket New Glenn on Thursday.

“Congratulations on reaching orbit on the first attempt’’ Musk wrote on X, the social media platform he owns, tagging Bezos in his post.

Amazon founder Bezos established his rocket company Blue Origin nearly 25 years ago.

But he has seen Musk’s SpaceX come to dominate the U.S. commercial space industry and obtain lucrative government contracts.

SpaceX’s unscrewed mega rocket Star ship, developed to carry astronauts to the moon, failed during its first two launches in 2023.

But the spacecraft has now made it into Earth’s orbit on several occasions, and the next test launch is planned for later Thursday.