Presidential Election of 2024

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      Trump’s Tariff Threat Roils Global Markets

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      The dollar gained and investors sold off stocks after the president-elect promised to levy new restrictions on the United States’ biggest trade partners. President-elect Donald Trump’s economic policy is already roiling global markets.Brendan McDermid/ReutersThe other Trump trade Investors and policymakers are getting a dose of Trumponomics déjà vu this morning.Global stocks are falling, and the dollar is climbing. The volatility comes after President-elect Donald Trump’s vow to impose tariffs on the United States’ biggest trading partners — Canada, China and Mexico — on Day 1 in office in an apparent effort to clamp down on the flow of cross-border drugs, like fentanyl, and migrants.The latest:Trump wants to impose 25 percent tariffs on Canada and Mexico “on ALL products coming into the United States,” he said on Truth Social. He also wants an “additional” 10 percent tariff on imports from China, which Trump blames for the fentanyl crisis, a charge that Beijing has repeatedly disputed.The Canadian dollar and Mexican peso fell sharply against the dollar. Europe, Japan and South Korea weren’t even mentioned in Trump’s announcement, but stocks have fallen there, too. That suggests rising fears that a new trade war could scramble global supply chains and dent profits.Automakers are some of the hardest hit stocks, with Volkswagen, Stellantis and Nissan, which run manufacturing operations in Mexico, all down.Today’s losses have reversed some of yesterday’s “Bessent bounce” rally. Investors were relieved after Trump picked Scott Bessent, the market-friendly hedge fund mogul, to run the Treasury Department.But the reverberations show that it’s Trump calling the shots. The president-elect has made no secret of his desire to use tariffs to further his America-first agenda, and he has yet to announce his pick to be U.S. Trade Representative. (Another tariff supporter, Robert Lighthizer, is in the running.)Trump’s latest threats may be just a negotiating tactic. That’s the belief of some Trump backers, including Bill Ackman, the billionaire financier. But they are a reminder of how Trump set off alarm bells across diplomatic channels and international markets during his first term often via social media posts. “Waking up to check the tweets for any policy announcements could become the norm,” Mohit Kumar, an economist at Jefferies, wrote in a note this morning.Prime Minister Justin Trudeau of Canada spoke to Trump about trade and border security after the president-elect’s announcement, The Times reported. China pushed back. “No one will win a trade war,” a spokesman for the Chinese Embassy in Washington said in a statement.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

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      Barack Obama’s Big Lesson

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      We cover an analysis of the 2024 election. It remains Barack Obama’s most underrated political skill: his appeal to working-class voters, including those who are white.Obama won most voters without a four-year college degree in his two presidential campaigns. Those majorities helped him win Florida, Iowa, Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin in both campaigns. He even won Indiana and North Carolina once.He did so by both speaking to the economic frustration that resulted from years of slow-growing wages and signaling that he, like most Americans, was moderate on social issues. He made clear that he understood people’s anxiety about the speed of cultural change.He talked about “an awesome God” in the 2004 speech that made him a national figure. He rejected sweeping new policies like single-payer health care. He traveled to the University of Notre Dame as president and said he wanted to reduce the number of abortions. He supported civil unions rather than same-sex marriage when most voters felt similarly.He went on MTV and complained about people who wore their pants too low. (“Some people might not want to see your underwear — I’m one of them,” Obama said.) He took a middle ground on immigration, criticizing both family separations and companies that undercut “American wages by hiring illegal workers.”As time has passed, I think some people have forgotten how conservative Obama could sound. This approach sometimes angered progressives. They called him a sellout, a neoliberal and “the deporter in chief.” But Obama was genuinely moderate in some ways. He also hated treating political disagreements as existential and opponents as the enemy.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

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      There Is No Excuse for the Bullying of Sarah McBride

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      It’s hard to imagine how terrifying it must be to be a trans person, or the parent of one, in America right now.Donald Trump and his party, having triumphed in an election in which they demonized trans people, seem hellbent on driving them out of public life. Democrats, some of whom blame the party for staking out positions on trans issues that they couldn’t publicly defend, are shellshocked and confused. Democratic leaders have been far too quiet as congressional Republicans, giddy and vengeful in victory, seek to humiliate their new colleague, Representative-elect Sarah McBride, a Democrat from Delaware, by barring her and other trans people from using the appropriate single-sex bathrooms in the Capitol.I say this as someone who has been called a TERF, a contemptuous acronym that stands for Trans-Exclusionary Radical Feminist, more times than I can count. For a decade now, I’ve been trying to balance a belief in the rights of trans people with my skepticism of some trans activist positions. I’ve written with a degree of sympathy about feminists who’ve been ostracized for wanting to maintain women’s-only spaces. I believe that the science behind youth gender medicine is unsettled, and I dislike jargon like “sex assigned at birth” that tries to mystify or elide the reality of biological sex. (Except for rare exceptions, doctors don’t “assign” sex, they identify it.) I care very little about sports, but it seems dishonest to deny that male puberty tends to confer advantages on trans women athletes.Occasionally, I receive angry or plaintive messages from trans people accusing me of helping America down a slippery slope that has brought us to our lamentable present, when discrimination against trans people has been normalized to a degree that recently seemed unthinkable. During Trump’s first presidential campaign, he said his trans supporter Caitlyn Jenner was welcome to use whatever bathroom she wanted at Trump Tower. At the time, North Carolina’s bathroom bill, which resulted in economically painful boycotts of the state, was widely seen as a self-inflicted wound.Eight years later, anti-trans rhetoric was a central part of the Trump campaign; between Oct. 7 and Oct. 20, more than 41 percent of pro-Trump ads promoted anti-trans messages. Over a dozen states now have laws restricting trans people’s access to single-sex bathrooms. In the face of this onslaught against a tiny and vulnerable group of people, there’s pressure on liberals to keep any qualms we might have about elements of progressive gender ideology to ourselves.That’s one reason, despite my interest in sex and gender, I haven’t written about these debates as much as I otherwise might have. But I’m increasingly convinced that this widespread reticence hasn’t served anyone very well. The basic right of trans people to live in safety and dignity, free from discrimination, should be uncontested. But evolving ideas about sex and gender create new complexities and conflicts, and when progressives refuse to talk about them forthrightly, instead defaulting to clichés like “trans women are women,” people can feel lied to and become radicalized.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

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      End of Trump Cases Leaves Limits on Presidential Criminality Unclear

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      Donald J. Trump is set to regain office without clarity on the scope of presidential immunity and with a lingering cloud over whether outside special counsels can investigate high-level wrongdoing.The end of the two federal criminal cases against President-elect Donald J. Trump on Monday left momentous, unsettled questions about constraints on criminal wrongdoing by presidents, from the scope of presidential immunity to whether the Justice Department may continue to appoint outside special counsels to investigate high-level wrongdoing.Both cases against Mr. Trump — for his attempt to overturn the 2020 election and his later hoarding of classified government documents and obstruction of efforts to retrieve them — were short-circuited by the fact that he won the 2024 election before they could be definitively resolved.Jack Smith, the special counsel who brought both cases against Mr. Trump, asked courts on Monday to shut them down. The prosecutor cited the Justice Department’s longstanding view that the Constitution implicitly grants temporary immunity to sitting presidents, lest any prosecution distract them from their official duties.The result is not just that Mr. Trump appears set to escape any criminal accountability for his actions. (Mr. Smith left the door open to, in theory, refiling the charges after Mr. Trump leaves office, but the statute of limitations is likely to have run by then.) It also means that two open constitutional questions the cases have raised appear likely to go without definitive answers as Mr. Trump takes office.One is the extent of the protection from prosecution offered to former presidents by the Supreme Court’s ruling this summer establishing that they have a type of broad but not fully defined immunity for official acts taken while in office.The other is whether, when a president is suspected of committing crimes, the Justice Department can avoid conflicts of interest by bringing in an outside prosecutor to lead a semi-independent investigation into the matter.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

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      Crony Capitalism Is Coming to America

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      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

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      Newsom Challenges Trump on Electric Vehicle Tax Credits

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      Gov. Gavin Newsom said California would fill the void for residents if the Trump administration killed a $7,500 E.V. tax credit.California will step in and provide rebates to eligible residents who buy electric vehicles if President-elect Donald J. Trump ends the $7,500 federal E.V. tax credit, Gov. Gavin Newsom said on Monday.“We will intervene if the Trump administration eliminates the federal tax credit, doubling down on our commitment to clean air and green jobs in California,” Mr. Newsom, a Democrat, said in a statement. “We’re not turning back on a clean transportation future — we’re going to make it more affordable for people to drive vehicles that don’t pollute.”Mr. Newsom’s proposal comes as California officials gird for an extended battle with the incoming Trump administration over environmental policy, immigration and other issues. As he did during his first term, Mr. Trump is expected to try once again to block California’s authority to set auto emissions limits that are stricter than federal standards.Already, Mr. Newsom has called a special session of the California Legislature for December, in part to discuss an increase in funding for litigation. During Mr. Trump’s first term, California sued his administration more than 120 times.Mr. Trump cannot unilaterally eliminate the electric vehicle tax credits, which are part of the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022. Congress would have to amend the law or pass a new one to erase the credits. But his transition team has indicated that the president-elect wants the credits gone.Under the law, consumers can lower the purchase price of an electric, plug-in hybrid or fuel-cell vehicle by up to $7,500 for a new vehicle and up to $4,000 for a used one. There are some restrictions, including income ceilings, for those who qualify.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

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      The Markets Cheer Trump’s Treasury Pick, Scott Bessent

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      Investors seemed to signal their approval for Scott Bessent as a safe choice to implement the president-elect’s economic agenda.Stocks and bonds are gaining on Monday, as investors seem to cheer the pick of Scott Bessent to run the Treasury Department.Dominic Gwinn/Middle East Images/AFP via Getty ImagesA steady hand Stocks and bonds are rising on Monday, and the dollar is down. On the first trading day since Donald Trump chose the billionaire financier Scott Bessent as his pick for Treasury secretary, investors seem to be signaling they like the choice.The hedge fund mogul is seen as a steady hand to enact the president-elect’s economic vision — and, just as important, oversee the $28 trillion Treasuries market. “Investors prefer orthodoxy, predictability, and coherence from economic policy; there were fears that some of the candidates may not possess those attributes. Bessent does,” Paul Donovan, chief economist of UBS Global Wealth Management, wrote in a research note on Monday.The Key Square Group founder overcame serious opposition from some in Trump’s inner circle. Elon Musk derided Bessent as a “business-as-usual choice” and threw his weight behind Howard Lutnick, the C.E.O. of Cantor Fitzgerald. When Trump tapped Lutnick to lead the Commerce Department instead, Bessent was left to fight it out against the likes of Mark Rowan, the boss of Apollo Global Management, the private equity giant.Bessent won a “knife fight” to get the nod. On Wall Street, a document was circulated suggesting that his Key Square hedge fund had underperformed the booming markets. Bessent’s ascent is notable in that he doesn’t appear to have been on Trump’s radar during his first administration.His background as a former Democratic donor who worked with George Soros, a villain for the right, has also been scrutinized. (Interesting fact: Bessent furnished the progressive billionaire financier with key data that prompted Soros to make one of his most famous trades: shorting the British pound.) Some Trump backers, including Palmer Luckey, the defense tech entrepreneur, worried about Bessent’s commitment to the president-elect’s America-first agenda.Investors appear to have fewer qualms. Bessent gets high marks as a fiscal conservative and a champion of growth — at Key Square, he told clients that Trumponomics would usher in an “economic lollapalooza” — through deregulation and lower taxes.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

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

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      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