Thank you! Your submission has been received!
Oops! Something went wrong while submitting the form.
“Donald Trump says he will hit China, Mexico and Canada with new tariffs on day one of his presidency, in an effort to force them to crack down on illegal immigration and drug smuggling into the US. The US president-elect said he would sign an executive order imposing a 25% tariff on all goods coming from Mexico and Canada.” BBC
“Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau promised President-elect Donald Trump that Canada would toughen controls over the long undefended joint border, a senior Canadian official said on Sunday. Trudeau flew to Florida on Friday to have dinner with Trump.” Reuters
“Mexico's President Claudia Sheinbaum said [last] Thursday she and U.S. President-elect Donald Trump had agreed to maintain a good relationship in a friendly phone call that appeared to ease tensions between the top trading partners amid tariff threats… Mexico has in recent months increased enforcement significantly, helping keep down numbers of migrants arriving at the U.S. border…
“Following Wednesday's call, Trump said on social-media platform Truth Social that Sheinbaum had ‘agreed to stop migration through Mexico, and into the United States, effectively closing our Southern Border.’ Sheinbaum appeared to refute this on X, saying they had discussed Mexico's strategies to curtail migration into the U.S. but Mexico's policy was ‘not to close borders, but to build bridges between governments and their peoples.’” Reuters
The left is critical of the tariffs, arguing that they will increase costs for US consumers.
“[These tariffs] would likely crush American consumers… Contrary to what Trump has said, American companies would pay the tariffs—costs they would pass along to customers. ‘We never want to raise prices,’ Walmart CFO John David Rainey told CNBC last week. ‘Our model is everyday low prices. But there probably will be cases where prices will go up for consumers’ if Trump’s tariffs take effect.”
Eric Lutz, Vanity Fair
“Any reduction in U.S.-bound fentanyl is a good thing, but even sealing the nation’s northern and southern borders won’t fix the problem — not when China is producing record amounts of fentanyl and increasingly shipping it directly into the United States. Trump is now threatening China with up to 60 percent tariffs on imported goods, despite the fact that his last attempt at a Chinese trade war ended with American consumers and businesses paying $48 billion more than they needed to for imported goods…
“Trump is also hindered from implementing his ruinous tariffs by an unexpected opponent: His past self. Trump in 2020 negotiated the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement, or USMCA, which largely replaced NAFTA with a new set of trade rules. Any effort to impose the tariffs Trump is proposing would violate the language of Trump’s own deal.”
Max Burns, The Hill
“All this raises the question of why any trading partner would ever bother to negotiate a trade accord with the U.S. ever again. The uncertainty Trump has already injected into the trading system, even before taking office, should raise a red flag in Congress.”
Inu Manak, The Hill
“As soon as tariffs were enacted in [Trump’s] first term, his administration was besieged by lobbyists, who filed thousands of requests for special exemptions and carve-outs to allow their clients to import goods and parts without paying the tariffs. And who found favor with the Trump administration?…
“According to one study, companies that had donated to Republican candidates were more likely to get their exemption requests approved; one of the researchers called it ‘a very effective spoils system.’ While small businesses lacked the resources to file for exclusions, bigger corporations and their chief executives could expend the time and money necessary to claim carve-outs… In a second term, Trump won’t just be doling out favors; he’ll also deliver punishments.”
Paul Waldman, MSNBC
The right is divided about the tariffs.
The right is divided about the tariffs.
“Trump doesn't fear a trade war as much as he fears falling short on his other priorities. He needs to put pressure on Mexico to reverse Joe Biden's policies on border security and asylum-request processing, and Trump wants Mexico to stop migrant waves from reaching the border in the first place. Trump used tariffs to great effect in his first term as a stick to force Mexico to deal with the migrants rather than the US…
“The border crisis and utter chaos on immigration policy largely drove voters back to Trump. That also includes the fentanyl plague that has run ferociously through the rural and working-class communities of America, and China is one of the chief suppliers of its precursors… The best leverage Trump has at hand is trade policy and the power of the American consumer market.”
Ed Morrissey, Hot Air
“China isn't shy about its use of power in the world; neither are Russia or Iran. Xi Jinping has never apologized for his aggressive use of military threat against the Philippines or Taiwan; he has never shied away from the use of economic sticks and carrots against weaker countries. Vladimir Putin is fully willing to invade his neighbors and cut off oil supply to his enemies. Iran has spread its terror proxies across the Middle East, cudgeling entire governments into doing its will…
“Geopolitics is not a place of laws and regulations, enforced by neutral arbiters. It is a jungle, and the laws of the jungle apply. The best hope for the world is that the strongest also happen to be the best. But if the best refuse to be the strongest, someone else will be… The unapologetic American, confident in the interests of his country, is the best option for stability and growth in a cruel world.”
Ben Shapiro, Creators
Others argue, “Mr. Trump’s tariffs, if imposed, would shatter the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement that he negotiated and signed in his first term. The pact’s terms say it can’t be reviewed until 2026, and then the parties have another decade to negotiate new terms or abandon it…
“In 2019 Mr. Trump said the USMCA would be ‘the best and most important trade deal ever made by the USA.’ If he blows it up based on his own short-term political needs, he’ll send a message around the world that his—and America’s—treaty word can’t be trusted…
“U.S. trading partners and allies everywhere will get the message, and China will be courting them with promises of a more reliable export market. Using trade to punish allies is especially short-sighted if you want their help against Chinese mercantilism.”
Editorial Board, Wall Street Journal
