WASHINGTON >> President Donald Trump said Monday that he expects to put 25% tariffs on Canada and Mexico starting Feb. 1, while declining to flesh out his plans for taxing Chinese imports.

Trump made the announcement in response to reporters’ questions while signing executive actions in the Oval Office on his first day back in the White House.

Trump threatened tariffs of as much as 60% on China during his campaign, but appeared to temper his plans after a phone call last week with Chinese President Xi Jinping. He said Monday there would be more discussions with his counterpart in the world’s second largest economy.

“We’re going to have meetings and calls with President Xi,” Trump said.

Trump is placing a big bet that his executive actions can cut energy prices and tame inflation and that the tariffs will strengthen the economy instead of exposing consumers to higher prices. But it’s unclear whether his orders will be enough to foster the growing economy with lower prices that he promised voters.

Trump specifically blamed the inflation on the $1.9 trillion in pandemic aid provided in 2021 by then-President Joe Biden, while saying that his predecessor’s policies restricted oil drilling despite domestic output being near record levels.

“The inflation crisis was caused by massive overspending,” Trump said in his inaugural address.

Orders on Monday included opening up the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in Alaska to oil drilling and easing the regulatory burdens on oil and natural gas production. He also declared a national energy emergency in hopes of jumpstarting more electricity production in the competition with China to build out technologies such as artificial intelligence that rely on data centers using massive amounts of energy.

Trump also signed a directive telling federal agencies to conduct a 30-day review of how they can help to lower the costs of housing, health care, food, energy and home appliances as well as finding ways to bring more people into the workforce.

Another measure he signed will keep the social media platform TikTok open for 75 days so it can find a U.S. buyer, instead of shutting it down.

Trump also signed a measure telling federal agencies to study trade policies and have the Treasury and Commerce departments advise on how to create an “External Revenue Service” for collecting customs and duties tied to trade. The measure set a series of April deadlines.

Still, Trump wanted to make clear Monday in his speeches that he was eager to impose taxes on imports.

Trump pledged in his inaugural address that tariffs would be coming and said foreign countries would be paying the trade penalties, even though those taxes are paid by domestic importers and often passed along to consumers. Trump later Monday said tariffs would “make us rich as hell.”

A top official with the Canadian government said it would be prepared for almost all possibilities regarding the status of trade with the United States.

“Perhaps he’s made decisions to sort of suspend the threat of tariffs over a whole slate of countries. We will wait and see,” Canadian Finance Minister Dominic LeBlanc said. “Mr. Trump has been in a previous mandate unpredictable, so our job is to make sure we are ready for any scenario.”

Overall, the Republican faces an array of challenges with fulfilling his ambitions to lower prices.