Tariffs on Canada and Mexico to take effect but may not be at 25% Trump threatened – US politics live

Donald Trump’s plan to impose tariffs on Canada, Mexico and China could force American consumers to pay an average of $1,200 more per year, a prominent economic thinktank warns.

An analysis from the Peterson Institute for International Economics found that the tariffs would prompt retaliation from foreign governments, harming economic growth and leading to higher import costs that would be passed on to American households. Here’s more:

This past weekend, President Donald Trump announced the largest tax increase in at least a generation (since 1993 or before), with the imposition of 25 percent tariffs on most goods from Canada and Mexico (aside from Canadian energy, which faces a 10 percent tariff), alongside a 10 percent increase in tariffs on goods from China. The direct cost of these actions to the typical, or median, US household would be a tax increase of more than $1,200 a year.

These announcements mark the first wave of tariffs expected to come from the new Trump administration. Trump has threatened the entire world with tariffs. Further, governments abroad will retaliate; both Canada and Mexico have already announced retaliatory measures. Future waves of US tariffs and retaliation will increase these substantial consumer costs alongside the other economic harms of tariffs: reduced economic growth, a shrinking export sector, and supply chain disruption. …

While exchange rate movements or declines in exporter prices could reduce consumer harm, prior evidence is clear that exchange rate effects have only a partial dampening effect (with any alleviation coming at the expense of the export sector). Careful analysis of the 2018–19 trade war with China consistently found that foreign exporters to the United States did not lower prices when hit with US tariffs; US buyers of imports bore the tax burden.

Donald Trump’s blitz on federal science agencies has increased the risk of endangered species going extinct, fired government experts have warned.

The new administration, and its so-called “department of government efficiency”, led by the billionaire Elon Musk, has fired thousands of employees at science agencies, with funding halted at the National Institutes of Health and the National Science Foundation.

Nick Gladstone, a cave biologist for nearly a decade, was a lead recovery biologist with the US Fish and Wildlife Service for 15 federally endangered cave and subterranean invertebrates – including rare beetles and spiders – in central Texas. He is one of more than 400 probationary employees fired at the agency this month.

“Without my position filled, these species will be neglected for years to come,” Gladstone said. He said his firing left these species, among the most at risk under the Endangered Species Act, in particular danger due to the difficulty in finding and protecting them as their habitats face threats from development.

Republicans in red states across the US have been pushing a slew of anti-LGBTQ+ measures targeting same-sex marriages with an aim of ultimately securing a supreme court ban on the federally protected right.

The recent wave of Republican-led bills targeting same-sex marriage comes amid a second Donald Trump presidency in which his administration has taken on more emboldened attacks against LGBTQ+ communities across the country, as seen through a flurry of executive orders he signed, assailing various LGBTQ+ rights.

Numerous Republican lawmakers across red states have followed suit in both rhetoric and the introduction of bills, sparking concerns across LGBTQ+ and civil rights organizations over their social and political effects.

In Oklahoma last month, a day after Trump’s inauguration, the Republican state senator Dusty Deevers introduced a series of bills targeting LGBTQ+ rights, among them the Promote Child Thriving act.

A natalist conference featuring speakers including self-described eugenicists and promoters of race science, apparently including the man behind a previously pseudonymous race-science influencer account, and the founder of a startup offering IQ screening for IVF embryos, will be held at a hotel and conference venue operated by the public University of Texas, Austin.

Details of the conference have emerged as a prominent supporter of pro-natalist positions, tech billionaire Elon Musk, lays waste to US government agencies under the banner of his “Doge” initiative, with the blessing of Donald Trump.

Natalism in its current often rightwing iteration encourages high birth rates, and Musk has been a vocal proponent. He also maintains a large compound home near Austin, where reportedly he plans to house some of his children and two of their mothers.

The Natal conference website embeds a Musk post on X, reading: “If birth rates continue to plummet, human civilization will end.” Musk, who reportedly has at least 13 children by four mothers, was in recent days confronted on X by musician Grimes and rightwing influencer Ashley St Clair over his alleged neglect of the children he has fathered with them.

With less than two weeks to go before a 14 March deadline, Republicans and Democrats in the US Congress appear to be nowhere close to a deal to avert a government shutdown that would throw Washington into deeper turmoil, Reuters reported.

The talks have been complicated by Donald Trump, who has ignored spending laws passed by Congress, suspended foreign aid and fired tens of thousands of federal workers.

Both sides say his actions are the biggest sticking point as they seek to reach a deal that would provide government funding beyond 14 March, when it is due to expire.

Democrats say they are trying to secure guarantees that would prevent Trump and his budget-slashing point person, billionaire Elon Musk, from firing more workers or cancelling more government programs.

“We will continue to make clear that the law has to be followed,” House Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries told reporters late last week.

Republicans say Democrats are trying to undo Trump’s actions, which they call a nonstarter.

“The bigger issue is the Democrats’ insistence on putting poison pills into the bill that would restrict the president’s abilities,” Republican Senator Susan Collins of Maine told reporters last week.

Collins said she is “very close” to an agreement with Democrats that would fund the government at current levels until 30 September, the end of the fiscal year. Trump has said on social media that he supports that approach.

Joan E Greve

Several major Republican donors are throwing their financial support behind the primary opponent of Ed Gainey, who became Pittsburgh’s first Black mayor in 2022 and now faces a difficult re-election fight this year, in a seemingly concerted effort to oust the progressive leader.

The Democratic primary battle between Gainey and Corey O’Connor, the Allegheny county controller, is shaping up to be one of the biggest tests of the progressive movement since Donald Trump’s victory last November. The victor of the 20 May primary is widely expected to win the general election, and with few major races on the ballot this year, Gainey’s re-election could provide a morale boost for progressives still reeling from Democrats’ losses in the 2024 races.

The mayoral race may also offer insight into the broader political environment in Pennsylvania, a pivotal battleground state that Trump won by roughly 2 points last year. While Trump made marginal gains in Philadelphia and its surrounding counties, his performance in Allegheny county, which covers Pittsburgh, remained virtually unchanged from four years earlier. Trump won just 22% of the Pittsburgh vote, while 77% went to Kamala Harris.

Freed Israeli hostage Eli Sharabi has been invited to Washington to meet Donald Trump this week, his brother told Israeli media on Sunday.

Sharabi, who was released from Gaza after 16 months in captivity, expects to meet Trump with other freed hostages on Tuesday, after the US president watched him describe the severe hunger and violence he endured on Israeli television.

Excerpts from Sharabi’s moving interview on Israel’s Channel 12 “were shown to Trump, with English subtitles, and he was shocked once again, but also expressed great sympathy for those who survived captivity”, his brother Sharon said, according to a translation from the Israeli newspaper Haaretz.

Israeli advocacy groups, including the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (Aipac), have posted subtitled versions of the interview online.

When Sharabi and two other hostages, Or Levy and Ohad Ben Ami, were released on 8 February alongside after nearly 500 days in captivity, their physical condition outraged Israelis, and Trump. Sharabi was at home in Be’eri kibbutz with his British-born wife and their two teenage daughters when Hamas attacked on 7 October 2023.

Hello and welcome to the US politics live blog. My name is Tom Ambrose and I’ll be bringing you the latest news lines over the next few hours.

We start with news that Donald Trump’s commerce secretary, Howard Lutnick, said on Sunday that US tariffs on Canada and Mexico will go into effect on Tuesday, but the president would determine whether to stick with the planned 25% level.

“That is a fluid situation,” Lutnick told the Fox News program Sunday Morning Futures. “There are going to be tariffs on Tuesday on Mexico and Canada. Exactly what they are, we’re going to leave that for the president and his team to negotiate.”

Lutnick’s comments were the first indication from Trump’s administration that it may not impose the full threatened 25% tariffs on all goods from Mexico and non-energy imports from Canada.

He said the two countries have “done a reasonable job” securing their borders with the United States, though he maintained the deadly drug fentanyl continues to flow into the country.

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