More stories

  • in

    Trump’s Tariff Threat Pits Canada Against Mexico

    If President-elect Donald J. Trump’s threat of hefty tariffs on Canada and Mexico was intended as a divide-and-conquer strategy, early signs show that it might be working.After his missive on Monday, in which he said he planned to impose a 25 percent tariff on all imports from both of the United States’ neighbors, Ottawa and Mexico City followed starkly different approaches.Mexico took a tough stance, threatening to retaliate with its own tariffs on U.S. goods. Canada, instead, emphasized that it was much closer aligned to the United States than Mexico.The trade agreement between the three North American nations has been carefully maintained over the past three decades through a delicate balance between the United States and its two key allies.As Mr. Trump prepares to take office, his willingness to tear that up to pressure the two countries on migration could open the door to the United States-Mexico-Canada agreement being replaced by separate bilateral deals with the United States.Chrystia Freeland, Canada’s finance minister, has tried to show that Canada is aligned with Mr. Trump’s hawkish attitude toward China.Blair Gable/ReutersWe are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

  • in

    Crony Capitalism Is Coming to America

    It’s late 2025, and Donald Trump has done what he said he would do: impose high tariffs — taxes on imports — on goods coming from abroad, with extremely high tariffs on imports from China. These tariffs have had exactly the effect many economists predicted, although Trump insisted otherwise: higher prices for American buyers.Let’s say you have a business that relies on imported parts — maybe from China, maybe from Mexico, maybe from somewhere else. What do you do?Well, U.S. trade law gives the executive branch broad discretion in tariff-setting, including the ability to grant exemptions in special cases. So you apply for one of those exemptions. Will your request be granted?In principle, the answer should depend on whether having to pay those tariffs imposes real hardship and threatens American jobs. In practice, you can safely guess that other criteria will play a role. How much money have you contributed to Republicans? When you hold business retreats, are they at Trump golf courses and resorts?I’m not engaging in idle speculation here. Trump imposed significant tariffs during his first term, and many businesses applied for exemptions. Who got them? A recently published statistical analysis found that companies with Republican ties, as measured by their 2016 campaign contributions, were significantly more likely (and those with Democratic ties less likely) to have their applications approved.But that was only a small-scale rehearsal for what could be coming. While we don’t have specifics yet, the tariff proposals Trump floated during the campaign were far wider in scope and, in the case of China, far higher than anything we saw the first time around; the potential for political favoritism will be an order of magnitude greater.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

  • in

    Los inmigrantes en todo EE. UU. se preparan para las medidas de Trump

    La promesa del presidente electo de llevar a cabo deportaciones masivas ha empujado a los inmigrantes a buscar medidas de protección y asesoramiento.El presidente electo Donald Trump ha prometido reducir drásticamente la inmigración, tanto legal como ilegal, y aumentar las deportaciones desde el primer día.Los inmigrantes se apresuran a adelantarse a la ofensiva.Los residentes nacidos en el extranjero han estado saturando las líneas telefónicas de los abogados de inmigración. Están abarrotando las reuniones informativas organizadas por organizaciones sin fines de lucro. Y están tomando todas las medidas posibles para protegerse de las medidas radicales que Trump ha prometido emprender tras su toma de posesión el 20 de enero.“Gente que debería estar asustada está viniendo, y gente que está bien con una green card se está apresurando a venir”, dijo Inna Simakovsky, abogada de inmigración en Columbus, Ohio, quien añadió que su equipo se ha visto desbordado por las consultas. “Todo el mundo tiene miedo”, dijo.Las personas con tarjeta de residencia permanente, o green card, quieren convertirse en ciudadanos lo antes posible. Las personas que tienen un estatus legal precario o entraron ilegalmente en el país se apresuran a solicitar asilo, porque incluso si la petición es débil, tener un caso pendiente los protegería —con los protocolos actuales— de la deportación. Las personas que tienen una relación con algún ciudadano estadounidense están tramitando su matrimonio con rapidez, lo que les da derecho a solicitar la green card.En total, hay unos 13 millones de personas con residencia legal permanente. Y se calcula que había 11,3 millones de personas indocumentadas en 2022, la última cifra disponible.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

  • in

    Los Angeles City Council Passes ‘Sanctuary’ Ordinance in Response to Trump

    The swift action, two weeks after Donald J. Trump’s presidential win, signaled a sense of urgency from city leaders.The Los Angeles City Council passed a so-called sanctuary ordinance on Tuesday that would prohibit city resources from being used to carry out federal immigration enforcement, the first deportation-related move by a major U.S. city since Donald J. Trump won the presidential election two weeks ago.Though Los Angeles had already declared itself a “city of sanctuary” during Mr. Trump’s first term, it had done so only through a resolution and an executive directive rather than by establishing a new city ordinance. The ordinance passed on Tuesday would enshrine protections in city law and give them more legal weight, officials said.The unanimous vote came a week after Mayor Karen Bass called for “swift action” to protect immigrants in Los Angeles, and it required the expediting of a draft ordinance that was introduced last year. The ordinance will now go to Ms. Bass for her signature and would take effect 10 days after she signs it.The leaders of the Los Angeles Unified School District, the nation’s second largest school system, were also poised to enact their own immigrant protections later on Tuesday.The prompt actions by Los Angeles leaders signaled a sense of urgency to protect the city’s large immigrant population ahead of the inauguration of President-elect Trump, who has promised to pursue mass deportations of undocumented immigrants across the country.The ordinance would prohibit the use of city resources — including city workers and city property — to arrest or detain someone as part of a federal immigration enforcement effort. It would also bar city employees from asking about someone’s citizenship or immigration status. (The Los Angeles Police Department has had an order in place since 1979 that prohibits its officers from asking about immigration status or making arrests because of someone’s legal status.)We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

  • in

    N.Y.C. Helped Migrant Accused of Killing Laken Riley Move to Georgia, Witness Says

    In other testimony, law enforcement witnesses placed the suspect, José Ibarra, at the scene of Ms. Riley’s killing, mainly through cellphone and GPS tracking data.Details of how the Venezuelan migrant charged with killing Laken Riley ended up in Athens, Ga., came into sharper focus on Monday, the second day of a trial that is being closely followed by supporters of President-elect Donald J. Trump’s planned immigration crackdown.The migrant, José Ibarra, was apprehended by the Border Patrol when he entered the country illegally in 2022 near El Paso. Like many migrants, he was released with temporary permission to stay in the country, and he headed to New York.A former roommate of Mr. Ibarra’s testified that she met Mr. Ibarra last year in New York City and traveled with him to Athens in September 2023 after Mr. Ibarra’s brother told them they could find jobs there.They lived for a while with Mr. Ibarra’s wife and mother-in-law at a Crowne Plaza hotel in Queens that had been converted to a migrant shelter, the roommate, Rosbeli Flores-Bello, said. And for a few weeks, she added, she and Mr. Ibarra lived in a car parked on the street by the hotel.Ms. Flores-Bello said that Mr. Ibarra’s brother Diego had constantly called him in New York, telling him to move to Athens because there were good work opportunities.Laken Riley was a nursing student at Augusta University in Georgia.Augusta University, via Associated PressWe are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

  • in

    Biden’s Policies Offer a Starting Point for Trump’s Border Crackdown

    Mr. Trump has criticized the Biden administration for what he calls its lax handling of the border — but it has left him with tools he can use to shut down the border.President-elect Donald Trump has spent the last year railing against the Biden administration’s immigration policies, saying they left the border wide open and risked American security.But actions taken by President Biden in the past year, including a sweeping asylum ban and more streamlined deportation procedures, may make it easier for Mr. Trump to fulfill his promise to shut down the border and turn back migrants as quickly as possible.To be sure, Mr. Biden’s vision for immigration is different from Mr. Trump’s. While the White House has enacted stricter regulations at the border, it has also emphasized legal pathways to enter the country and offered temporary legal status to migrants from certain troubled countries.After promising a more humane immigration policy when he took office in 2021, Mr. Biden was confronted with a worldwide surge in migration that put pressure on the southern U.S. border. By his second year in office, annual border arrests topped 2 million.As chaotic scenes emerged of migrants crowding at the border, Republicans like Mr. Trump argued that the Democrats were unable to govern and protect American cities, and they urged a crackdown on immigration. Republican governors such as Greg Abbott of Texas and Ron DeSantis of Florida sent thousands of migrants by bus and plane to Democratic northern cities to highlight the border crisis.President Biden visiting Brownsville, Texas, in February, where he received an operational briefing from U.S. border officials. Kenny Holston/The New York TimesWe are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

  • in

    Nonprofits Vow a New Resistance. Will Donors Pay Up?

    In Donald J. Trump’s first term as president, some of his toughest opponents were not elected Democrats but left-leaning nonprofit groups. They bogged down his immigration and environmental policies with lawsuits and protests and were rewarded with a huge “Trump bump” in donations.Now, some of those groups are promising to do it all over again.“Trump’s gotta get past all of us,” Anthony D. Romero, the executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union, wrote on the nonprofit’s website the day after the election.“Trump’s bigotry, misogyny, anti-climate and anti-wildlife zealotry — all will be defeated,” Kieran Suckling, the executive director of an environmental nonprofit called the Center for Biological Diversity, wrote in an email to potential donors.That bravado masks uncertainty. This time could be a lot harder. Mr. Trump’s administration could learn from past mistakes and avoid the procedural errors that made its rules easier to challenge. And the higher courts are seeded with judges appointed by Mr. Trump.Another problem: Nonprofits are finding that some supporters are not energized by another round of “resistance.” Instead they have been left exhausted, wondering whether their donations made any difference. Some are afraid that they could be targeted for retaliation by Mr. Trump and his allies for donating to groups that oppose his administration.“The response from donors has been shock, anger and depression, sprinkled in with a few checks,” said Vincent Warren, the executive director of the Center for Constitutional Rights, which challenged several of Mr. Trump’s previous immigration policies in court. “It’s not been a flood.”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

  • in

    Trump Picks Kristi Noem for Homeland Security Secretary

    President-elect Donald J. Trump selected Gov. Kristi Noem of South Dakota on Tuesday to run the Homeland Security Department, a critical position in charge of the nation’s immigration system.Mr. Trump has made an immigration crackdown a central element of his administration’s promises, with pledges to not only more aggressively police the border but to also carry out a wide-scale deportation operation throughout the country.Ms. Noem will play a crucial role in helping Mr. Trump deliver on those promises as she will be in charge of agencies that enforce immigration laws, including U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and U.S. Customs and Border Protection.In a statement on social media, Mr. Trump called Ms. Noem “very strong on Border Security,” noting that she sent National Guard troops to the Texas-Mexico border as governor. Ms. Noem, in her own social media statement, pledged to “secure the border and restore safety to American communities so families will again have the opportunity to pursue the American Dream.”If she is confirmed by the Senate, Ms. Noem will lead an agency that oversees entities including the Coast Guard and the Secret Service, which has weathered criticism over two attempts on Mr. Trump’s life during the presidential campaign.History suggests it will be challenging to keep Mr. Trump satisfied: During his first term, Mr. Trump cycled through six homeland security leaders.During her time as governor, Ms. Noem has made immigration a key talking point. She has been a fierce critic of the Biden administration’s immigration policies.“Biden’s open border policies are facilitating illegal border crossings,” she said in a post on X earlier this year. “This invasion must end. The federal government has to stop violating federal law. And we need to go back to President Trump’s successful immigration policies immediately.”Ms. Noem has taken action on immigration enforcement as well: In line with other Republican state leaders, she sent National Guard troops in 2023 to help Gov. Greg Abbott of Texas police the border.“The border crisis is growing worse under President Biden’s willful inaction,” she said in a statement in 2023. “Across the country, crime rates, drug overdoses, and human trafficking have all skyrocketed because our border remains a warzone.” In 2021, as the Biden administration struggled to deal with an influx of migrants at the border, Ms. Noem said repeatedly that she would refuse entry to anyone who was not authorized to be in the country.“My message to illegal immigrants is — Call me when you’re an American. In the meantime, South Dakota will not be accepting any relocation of illegal immigrants from President Biden,” she said on Facebook in April 2021.Ms. Noem became a subject of controversy when she revealed in a memoir that she shot and killed a family dog she was training because it was “dangerous to anyone she came in contact with.” More