Sen. Roy Blunt Roy Dean BluntSenate to push funding bill vote up against shutdown deadline Social media platforms put muscle into National Voter Registration Day Senate GOP faces pivotal moment on pick for Supreme Court MORE (R-Mo.) said Sunday that President Trump Donald John TrumpSteele Dossier sub-source was subject of FBI counterintelligence probe Pelosi slams Trump executive order on pre-existing conditions: It 'isn't worth the paper it's signed on' Trump 'no longer angry' at Romney because of Supreme Court stance MORE’s use of tariffs as leverage in negotiations with Mexico also sends a message to China amid an ongoing trade war between Washington and Beijing.

“I think the biggest message here is not to Mexico but to China that the president is clearly willing to use tariffs,” Blunt said on CBS’s “Face the Nation,” adding that, despite his own reservations about tariffs, “the president believes tariffs are a significant positive economic tool … something he has always said should be part of our arsenal.”

Sen. @RoyBlunt says “the biggest message” with the Mexican tariffs is not to Mexico but to China. He says it shows “that the president is clearly willing to use tariffs” because he views them as a “significant positive economic tool.” pic.twitter.com/IRXeXHuu0M — Face The Nation (@FaceTheNation) June 9, 2019

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Trump announced Friday that the promised 5 percent tariffs on imports would be suspended after Mexico had committed to take further action on border enforcement.

Asked about reports that many of the provisions had been reached already in March, Blunt on Sunday responded: “I don’t know that they were.

"No deal is done till it’s done and announced,” he added, citing the last-minute collapse of trade talks between the U.S. and China after Beijing backtracked on earlier commitments on piracy and intellectual property.

Blount praised the Mexican government and President Andrés Manuel López Obrador for their part in the negotiations as well as remarks by López Obrador at a rally Saturday.

“The new president of Mexico has surprised me with his willingness to reach out,” Blunt said, calling the agreement “a big win for both sides.”

In the Saturday rally in Tijuana, López Obrador celebrated the resolution of the talks, with his foreign minister, Marcelo Ebrard, saying the country emerged from the talks “with our dignity intact.”