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Trump announces new tariffs on Canada, Mexico and China
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Trump confirms on social media he authorized airstrikes on Somalia
02:43 – Source: CNN
• Tariffs: President Donald Trump has announced aggressive new tariffs on Canada, Mexico and China, amounting to a significant new tax on imports from the three biggest US trade partners. Experts warn it could have widespread effects on the American economy.
• Immigration moves: Secretary of State Marco Rubio arrives in Panama today for his first trip as the top US diplomat. The stop in Central America comes as Trump enacts his sweeping immigration crackdown, including revoking legal status for many more migrants. Meanwhile, Trump announced Venezuela has “agreed to receive” deportees from the US following a meeting between an administration envoy and the country’s leader, Nicolás Maduro, on Friday.
• DNC elects new chair: Ken Martin, the leader of the Minnesota Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party, was elected chair of the Democratic National Committee on Saturday. It comes as Democrats have grappled with the most effective way to challenge the torrent of actions from the Trump White House.
• Netanyahu visit: The Israeli prime minister will meet with Trump on Tuesday, becoming the first world leader to have a formal meeting with the US president since his inauguration.
The Distilled Spirits Council of the United States, the Mexican Chamber of the Tequila Industry and Spirits Canada said in a joint statement shared with CNN on Saturday that they are “deeply concerned that U.S. tariffs on imported spirits from Canada and Mexico will significantly harm all three countries.”
The statement added the groups worry the tariffs will “lead to a cycle of retaliatory tariffs that negatively impacts our shared industry.”
Trump announced Saturday that he was imposing the tariffs, which will amount to a 25% duty on all imports from Mexico and most goods from Canada and an additional 10% tariff on Chinese goods imported into the US.
Last year, the US imported $46 billion of agricultural products from Mexico, according to US Department of Agriculture data. That includes $8.3 billion worth of fresh vegetables, $5.9 billion of beer and $5 billion of distilled spirits.
Constellation Brands, which imports Modelo — the best-selling beer in America in 2023 — and Corona beer, as well as Casa Noble tequila from Mexico, could see its costs leap 16% under Trump’s proposed tariff and would likely have to raise prices by about 4.5%, Chris Carey, a Wells Fargo equity analyst, said in a November note.
A few weeks before Donald Trump was sworn in as president, members of his transition team went to the Treasury Department to talk about the handover of power.
But what is normally a routine discussion turned into an alarming series of interactions for a handful of top career Treasury officials.
Trump’s team, which included members of Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency, peppered Treasury officials about one of the department’s most sensitive and critical functions: processing trillions of dollars in government payments a year.
Through a series of specific requests, Trump’s landing team attempted to lift the hood on the department’s Bureau of the Fiscal Service, an arcane branch that distributes nearly 90 percent of all federal payments, including Social Security benefits, tax refunds and payments to federal workers and contractors. That adds up to a billion annual transactions totaling more than $5 trillion.
A month later, this obscure Treasury office is now a key battlefront in a wider war being waged by Trump and his allies over federal spending. Signs of the fight emerged this week.
The top civil servant at the Treasury Department, David Lebryk, left unexpectedly on Friday after Trump-affiliated officials expressed interest in stopping certain payments made by the federal government, according to three people familiar with the situation.
WIth Lebryk out, Musk’s DOGE associates at Treasury now have full access to the government’s payments system.
Under the tariffs President Donald Trump announced Saturday — a 25% tariff on all goods from Mexico and most goods from Canada and a 10% tariff on all goods from China — Americans could pay a lot more for a wide range of goods.
For instance, the US imported $87 billion worth of motor vehicles and $64 billion worth of vehicle parts from Mexico last year, not accounting for December, according to Commerce Department data. Both are likely to get more expensive almost immediately after any new tariffs that impact Mexican car exports to the US.
Gas, fresh produce and consumer electronics — some of the top goods the US imports from Mexico, China and Canada — could also get more expensive with blanket tariffs.
The tariffs announced by President Donald Trump on Saturday amount to a starting gun on what could escalate into a global trade war, perhaps inviting retaliation from Mexico, Canada and China in the form of higher tariffs on goods that the United States exports to those countries.
While Trump cited undocumented migration and the flow of drugs as the reason behind the tariffs, potential retaliation or a trade war could lead to higher costs, disrupted supply chains and job losses.
In a call with reporters Saturday, a Trump administration official said any retaliation from Mexico, China or Canada would likely result in even higher tariffs for that country.
By the time Trump signed the tariffs Saturday afternoon, a top aide suggested nothing less than a complete stop in illegal immigration and an end to US fentanyl deaths would satisfy Trump’s demands.
“There’s going to be a wide range of metrics. In Donald Trump’s golden age, we will have only legal immigration, and we will have zero Americans dying from Chinese slash Mexican slash Canadian fentanyl,” the White House official said.
While the United States is not the manufacturing-focused economy it once was, it still consumes tens of millions of tons of steel a year, feeding industries such as automaking, oil production, construction and infrastructure.
Canada and Mexico are the largest and third-largest exporters of steel to the United States, respectively. In his first term, President Donald Trump imposed tariffs of 25% on steel imports from most nations worldwide effective June 2018. But Mexico and Canada, under their free trade deals with the United States, were exempt from those tariffs.
Canada now accounts for nearly a quarter of steel imported by American businesses by weight, while Mexico accounts for about 12%, according to government data provided by the American Iron and Steel Institute, an industry trade group.
Overall, steel imported by American businesses plunged 27% between 2017, the year before the tariffs, and 2019, the first full year of the tariffs, although some of that decline was due to decreased steel consumption. Domestic steel production rose in the same period but only equaled about two-thirds of the drops in imports.
Despite the competitive lift that the domestic steel industry has received from tariffs, domestic production was down about 2% last year compared with 2023, and down nearly 10% from where it stood a decade ago.
Automakers have operated as if Canada, Mexico and the United States were one unified market for decades, moving vehicles and parts across borders as they assemble vehicles. Even cars assembled at US auto plants all have parts that come from both Mexico and Canada, and vehicles assembled in those two countries have parts that come from US factories.
Accordingly, there is no such thing as an all-American vehicle. Even the Ford F-150 pickup, America’s best-selling vehicle model for more than 40 years, gets less than half of its parts from US factories.
So tariffs on exports crossing the US borders with Canada and Mexico are bound to raise the price to produce passenger cars and trucks and lead to Americans paying more for their vehicles, as automakers likely pass those costs onto consumers.
Auto companies may cut back production of some models to see how the fight over tariffs plays out, which could not only cause temporary job losses but also deplete the supply of vehicles that are already on dealerships’ lots and showrooms. That limited supply itself could quickly lead to higher prices.
In 2024, US auto plants produced 10.4 million vehicles, according to data from S&P Global Mobility. Nearly half of that production is for European or Asian brands, such as Toyota, Honda, BMW and Mercedes. Some of those vehicles are exported to buyers in Canada and Mexico, which might now retaliate by placing their own tariffs on US goods.
Mexico auto plants produced 4 million passenger vehicles, including some of the Chevrolet Blazer and Ram heavy-duty pickups, while Canadian assembly lines turned out 1.3 million, including the Ford Edge and Chevrolet Silverado. About 70% of them are shipped to US buyers.
Canada did “nothing to provoke tariffs” from the United States but is “prepared and ready to fight” for its residents, said Jonathan Wilkinson, the country’s energy and natural resources minister.
Wilkinson said in a post on X that he seeks to reassure Canadians following the move by President Donald Trump to impose a 25% tariff on all US imports from Canada, excluding energy products, which are subject to a 10% tariff.
Canadian leaders in recent weeks have said they were preparing to retaliate on any action taken by Trump with a slew of tariffs against American goods.
The US will respond with “likely increased tariffs” should Mexico, Canada or China fight back against the new tariffs announced Saturday, said Peter Navarro, President Donald Trump’s top trade adviser.
This clause, which is part of the executive order announcing the new taxes on foreign imports, could amplify trade war concerns. That could make goods like produce and consumer electronics — which are already set to become more expensive after the new tariffs take effect — even more costly.
Mexico and Canada have already threatened to respond to any new tariffs with retaliatory taxes on US goods, which could hurt domestic, export-heavy industries like oil.
US tariffs likely will not be a one-sided affair.
“I think the likelihood of some kind of retaliation is very high,” said Douglas Porter, chief economist at BMO Capital Markets.
History shows that’s the case, and leaders in Canada, Mexico, China and other targeted countries have already stated they won’t stand idly by, instead countering with tariffs of their own.
During Trump’s first term, US-produced items such as automobiles, soybeans and whiskey were targeted with retaliatory tariffs.
And as tit-for-tats escalate into trade wars, “no one wins,” Porter said.
While Porter noted that the US is in a position of strength and could “lose less,” history, research and economics show that it’s the producers and consumers who ultimately pay more in the end.
The US International Trade Commission said in a 2023 study that US importers “bore nearly the full cost” of more limited tariffs imposed during the first Trump administration. The 2018 tariffs on intermediate and final goods resulted in consumers paying an additional $419 per year, according to estimates from the Federal Reserve Bank of New York.
President Donald Trump announced new tariffs on Mexico, Canada and China on Saturday. The tariffs could strain Americans’ wallets, as these are the three biggest US trade partners.
Here’s where a 25% tariff on Mexican and Canadian goods could hit Americans hardest:
Cars and car parts: The US imported $87 billion worth of motor vehicles and $64 billion worth of vehicle parts from Mexico last year, not accounting for December, according to Commerce Department data. Motor vehicles were also the second-largest good the US imported from Canada last year through November, for a total of $34 billion.
US car companies have been able to keep production costs down by hiring lower-wage workers, particularly in Mexico, where much of their production has shifted to in recent years. That cost saving could essentially be erased if there’s a 25% tariff.
Food and alcoholic beverages: Last year, the US imported $46 billion of agricultural products from Mexico, according to US Department of Agriculture data. The biggest category of agricultural imports from Mexico last year was fresh fruits, of which the US imported $9 billion worth, with avocados accounting for $3.1 billion of that total.
These products now all stand to cost consumers more, especially since grocers and farmers tend to operate on very low profit margin compared to other industries.
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer blasted President Donald Trump over tariffs he announced Saturday on the nation’s three largest trading partners — Canada, Mexico and China.
Schumer stressed that the tariffs “will likely hit Americans in their wallets” and said lawmakers should instead be focusing on “going hard against competitors who rig the game, like China, rather than attacking our allies.”
Mexico, China and Canada are the United States’ three largest trade partners.
In 2023, Mexico overtook China as the top nation exporting goods to the US, marking the first time in two decades China was not the top-ranking exporter.
Tariffs that the first Trump administration put in place, which the Biden administration largely maintained, have negatively impacted the amount of goods the US imports from China. Mexican and Canadian goods have been imported in the US virtually duty-free as a result of the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement.
Mexico maintained that top position last year as well, exporting $467 billion worth of goods to the US, followed by China and Canada, which exported $401 billion and $377 billion worth of goods, respectively.
That’s according to Commerce Department figures from last year through November, the most recent month of available data.
Collectively, the three countries accounted for 42% of the nearly $3 trillion worth of goods the US imported worldwide last year.
Canada was the top country the US exported goods to last year, valued at $322 billion, followed by Mexico and China, which received $309 billion and $131 billion worth of goods from the US, respectively. US exports to the three countries accounted for over 40% of the $1.9 trillion worth of goods the US exported globally last year.
The Trump administration, in imposing steep tariffs Saturday against imports from three of its biggest trading partners, opted to apply a more moderate duty on energy imports from Canada to “minimize any disruptive effects” domestically.
“The 10% rate on energy will minimize any disruptive effects we might have on gasoline and home heating oil prices,” Peter Navarro, President Donald Trump’s trade adviser, said Saturday in a call with reporters.
It includes “all” energy products, including electricity, natural gas and oil, Navarro said.
“This was an intelligent decision that was made, and we are going forward there.”
President Donald Trump announced new tariffs on Mexico, Canada and China — signing them at his Mar-a-Lago club on Saturday.
It’s a reversal of virtually duty-free trade between the three nations that has existed for several years.
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt previewed the tariffs during a Friday briefing for reporters — saying they would amount to a 25% duty on Mexico and Canada and a 10% tariff on China “for illegal fentanyl they have sourced and allowed to distribute into our country, which has killed tens of millions of Americans.”
Saturday’s tariffs amount to a starting gun on what could escalate into a global trade war, with the potential for higher costs, disrupted supply chains and a loss of jobs. Even Trump acknowledged the potential for adverse consequences on American consumers.
Tariffs are one of the few policies Trump has consistently supported for decades, a rare through-line from his days as a New York developer to his time in public office (with another being immigration). As a candidate, he swore he’d use tariffs — which he has called the fourth-most beautiful word in the dictionary, behind “God,” “love” and “religion” — to wield US leverage abroad.
President Donald Trump is expected to announce shortly new tariffs on Mexico, Canada and China. Tariffs were a consistent campaign promise from Trump, and as recently as Friday the White House reiterated that tariffs would be announced on Saturday.
The announcement could include 25% across-the-board tariffs on Canada and Mexico and 10% across-the-board tariffs on China. But it’s still unclear what the ultimate scope will be or when they’ll be implemented.
In the wake of the worst American air disaster in two decades, the understaffed and cash-strapped National Transportation Safety Board scrambled to keep investigators from leaving after they were offered deferred resignation as part of a sweeping program from the Trump administration.
An internal National Transportation Safety Board memo informed NTSB employees Friday that they would not be eligible for the program.
Multiple sources confirmed to CNN that all 400 staffers at the NTSB, an independent and apolitical agency that does not report to the executive branch, received the email titled “Fork in the Road” — effectively offering a buyout from the government, as part of the Trump team’s mission to purge the federal workforce.
That message, dated 9:41 p.m. ET Tuesday, went out barely 23 hours before an American Airlines regional jet operated by PSA Airlines and a US Army Black Hawk helicopter collided in a tremendous fireball, plunging all 67 on board the two aircraft into the icy Potomac River below.
The disaster apparently left top brass at the agency scrambling behind the scenes to find a way to exempt employees from the Trump administration’s offer. On Friday, the head of the NTSB sent a message to any employee who agreed to administration’s initial message to “rescind their deferred resignation letter immediately” with the Office of Personnel Management.
One source said the initial message came as a shock to staffers, including highly specialized investigators, many of whom are nearing retirement.
Another source told CNN they know investigators who were seriously considering accepting the offer.
On Friday, NTSB Chair Jennifer Homendy sent an agency-wide email to say the agency was “granted a full exemption” to the deferred resignation program. The move “means this program is not available to NTSB employees.”
Vice President JD Vance baselessly claimed that the lack of air traffic control staffing at Reagan National Airport was linked to the previous administration’s dedication to maintaining DEI policies.
“This is not saying that the person who was at the controls is a DEI hire, but let’s just say, first of all, we should investigate everything, but let’s just say the person at the controls didn’t have enough staffing around him or her because we were turning people away because of DEI reasons,” Vance said in an interview clip with Fox News anchor Maria Bartiromo and posted on X.
Vance alluded to the baseless notion from President Donald Trump suggesting the diversity requirements for the Federal Aviation Administration was linked to the airplane that crashed into a Black Hawk helicopter over the Potomac River Wednesday night, when asked if there was any evidence that anyone at the control Wednesday night were diversity, equity and inclusion hires.
The vice president continued to defend the comments of the president, noting that Trump was not calling out one worker who was hired because of DEI but reiterating that the plane crash could be traced back to the lack of air traffic control staffing.
Trump has sought to baselessly blame Democrats and diversity initiatives in the federal government since the collision earlier this week.
Newly elected Democratic National Committee Chair Ken Martin previewed plans for the party to take an aggressive stance toward pushing back against President Donald Trump.
Speaking to reporters for the first time after clinching the DNC chairmanship, Martin — the former leader of the Minnesota Democratic Party — emphasized he believes Democrats need to be more aggressive moving forward as Republicans control the White House and both legislative branches.
“Right now, the Democratic Party, we’ve been engaged in this internal fight; now we need to take our fight to Donald Trump and the Republicans,” Martin said.
Combatting misinformation is another focus Martin outlined for the party, saying the DNC would revamp its war room in the coming months. He also spoke about the need to boost infrastructure for Democrats heading into elections for this year’s races, along with those in 2026 and 2028.
He said he will conduct a review of what happened in the 2024 election. Martin would not detail how long he expects the review to take but pledged to release the findings to DNC members.
Martin said one of the lessons already taken from the last election was that Democrats must define themselves. “We can’t just spend all of our time in this space of pushing back and also defining Donald Trump, we also have to define ourselves,” he said.
President Donald Trump’s allies, including Vice President JD Vance, are making calls to shore up support for both Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Tulsi Gabbard following their confirmation hearings this week, two sources familiar with the situation told CNN.
Kennedy, Trump’s nominee to lead the Department of Health and Human Services, and Gabbard, his pick to lead the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, both faced sharp questions from Democrats — and several Republicans — this week in what amounted to the most direct skepticism from GOP senators over Trump’s nominees to date.
People close to Trump and those helping to confirm his nominees are most concerned about Gabbard’s confirmation chances, specifically after the former Democratic congresswoman from Hawaii refused to say whether she believed the actions of Edward Snowden were traitorous to the US.
One White House official told CNN that while they are working to assuage concerns regarding Gabbard, they have had “encouraging conversations” with lawmakers, adding that the nominee met privately with senators following her hearing before the Senate Intelligence Committee. The official said Gabbard clarified her position on Snowden and her broader views regarding the United States’ use of surveillance during the meetings. One White House official believes she’s helped assuage some concerns in those private sessions.
Kennedy, meanwhile, faced bipartisan grilling during two days of Senate confirmation hearings as he attempted to downplay his anti-vaccine rhetoric and win over senators wary of his controversial stances. Sen. Bill Cassidy, a Louisiana Republican who practiced medicine for 30 years, acknowledged that Kennedy is now trying to downplay his anti-vaccine rhetoric despite an extensive, recorded history of his baselessly linking vaccines to autism in children.
President Donald Trump and Egypt’s President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi spoke Saturday about a number of topics, including “the release of hostages from Gaza,” per a White House readout of the conversation.
The readout from the Egyptian side offers slightly more details of the call between the two leaders, and said that Egypt’s leader invited Trump to visit Egypt “at the soonest opportunity.”
Statement from Arab nations: Sisi has repeatedly rejected any suggestions of resettling Palestinians outside the Gaza Strip, as efforts to secure an enduring ceasefire there continue. And just today, a key group of Arab nations — including Egypt — said they “firmly” reject any efforts to resettle or evict Palestinians from Gaza, following Trump’s statement last week that he wanted to “clean out” the enclave and move its population to neighboring countries.
More background: On Saturday, Hamas freed three more hostages in the latest round of releases under the ceasefire deal with Israel. Following the release of the hostages, Israel freed nearly 200 Palestinian prisoners.