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Trump announces picks for FDA, CDC; Novartis seeks bolt-on deals, raises guidance; RFK Jr., Elon Musk may find banning ads difficult; and more

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Trump announces picks for FDA, CDC; Novartis seeks bolt-on deals, raises guidance; RFK Jr., Elon Musk may find banning ads difficult; and more
President-elect Donald Trump announced leadership picks for health agencies: Marty Makary for FDA, Dave Weldon for CDC, and Janette Nesheiwat for surgeon general. Novartis raised sales guidance and acquired Kate Therapeutics for $1.1B. Amgen named Howard Chang as new CSO. Merck’s subcutaneous Keytruda passed Phase 3 testing.

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Israeli and Lebanese leaders accept ceasefire deal, says Biden

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Israeli and Lebanese leaders accept ceasefire deal, says Biden

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Israeli and Lebanese leaders have accepted a US-brokered ceasefire deal, US President Joe Biden said on Tuesday, raising hopes of an end to the year-long hostilities between Israel’s forces and Hizbollah.

Speaking from the White House, Biden said the deal would take effect at 04.00 local time in Lebanon on Wednesday.

Israel’s security cabinet voted to approve the plan on Tuesday night, and it must also be approved by Lebanon’s caretaker government.

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“Under the deal reached today . . . the fighting across the Lebanese-Israeli border will end,” Biden said. “This is designed to be a permanent cessation of hostilities.”

Under the terms of the deal, Israel’s forces will gradually withdraw from Lebanon over a period of 60 days, and be replaced by the Lebanese army. Hizbollah, the Lebanese militant group, will be barred from rebuilding its infrastructure in southern parts of the country.

The US and France will work with Israel and Lebanon for the ceasefire deal to be fully implemented, Biden said, adding there would be no US troops deployed in southern Lebanon. 

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said earlier on Tuesday evening that Israel was ready to implement the deal, but that the “duration of the ceasefire depends on what will happen in Lebanon”.

He also insisted he had reached “full understandings” with the US that Israel will maintain “full military freedom of action” in the event that Iran-backed Hizbollah violates the agreement.

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“If Hizbollah violates the agreement and tries to arm itself — we will attack,” Netanyahu said.

“If it tries to rebuild terrorist infrastructure near the border — we will attack. If it launches a rocket, if it digs a tunnel, if it brings in a truck with missiles — we will attack.”

As Netanyahu spoke, the Israeli military conducted heavy air strikes across Lebanon, including several neighbourhoods in central Beirut previously untouched by the conflict, unleashing fresh panic in the Lebanese capital.

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Diplomats hope the deal will pave the way for an end to one of the bloodiest rounds of fighting in decades of conflict between Israel and Hizbollah.

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US President-elect Donald Trump’s national security adviser Mike Waltz welcomed the agreement.

“I’m glad to see concrete steps towards de-escalation in the Middle East,” he said in a post on X.

Waltz added Iran was the “root cause of chaos & terror” in the Middle East and said the Trump administration “will not tolerate the status quo of their support for terrorism”.

The latest hostilities between Israeli forces and Hizbollah erupted last year when the group began firing rockets at Israel in solidarity with Hamas, after its deadly October 7 attack on the Jewish state.

Israel responded to the Palestinian militant group’s killings in southern parts of the country by invading Gaza, devastating much of the coastal enclave.

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The fighting between Israel and Hizbollah has since killed more than 3,700 Lebanese and more than 140 Israelis, as well as forcing people from their homes on both sides of the border. More than 1mn Lebanese and about 60,000 Israelis have been displaced.

For most of the past year, the fighting between Hizbollah and Israel was largely confined to exchanges of fire in a narrow strip of land either side of the Blue Line, the UN-demarcated border between the two countries.

But in recent months it has escalated into a full-blown war, with Israel carrying out a ferocious bombardment of targets across Lebanon before launching a ground invasion in October.

The offensive dealt a series of devastating blows to Hizbollah, killing its longtime leader Hassan Nasrallah, and damaging large amounts of its weapons and infrastructure as well as destroying broad swaths of the country’s east and south.

Hizbollah and its patron Iran said most of the last year that they would not agree to a ceasefire without an end to the war in Gaza.

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But Hizbollah has since changed its position, and Israel’s offensive in Gaza continues.

Biden said his administration would also pursue an effort to revive talks among Turkey, Egypt, Qatar and Israel on a ceasefire in Gaza.

He added normalisation between Israel and Saudi Arabia, and establishing a Palestinian state, “remains possible”. Doing so “will require making some hard choices,” he said.

“Now Israel must be bold in turning tactical gains against Iran and its proxies into a coherent strategy that secures Israel’s long term safety and advances a broader peace and prosperity in the region,” Biden said.

Cartography by Cleve Jones in London

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Stock market today: S&P 500, Dow notch fresh records as Wall Street shrugs off Trump’s tariff threat

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Stock market today: S&P 500, Dow notch fresh records as Wall Street shrugs off Trump’s tariff threat

US stocks on Tuesday shrugged off President-elect Donald Trump’s threat to impose new tariffs on China, Canada, and Mexico, with two major indexes securing fresh records.

The S&P 500 (^GSPC) rose nearly 0.6% to nab a record close, while the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite (^IXIC) also jumped about 0.6%. The Dow Jones Industrial Average (^DJI) reversed earlier losses to finish the day up around 0.3% as it reclaimed another back-to-back record.

The index had been under pressure for most of the day after drugmaker Amgen (AMGN) tumbled as much as 12% on weight-loss data that failed to impress Wall Street. Shares pared losses by the end of the trading session, closing down around 5%.

Markets were initially caught off guard by Trump’s pledge late Monday to slap big tariffs on the US’s biggest trading partners on his first day in office. His comments fired up trade war fears and dented Wall Street’s hopes that Treasury Secretary nominee Scott Bessent would rein in any extreme moves by the new administration.

Carmaker stocks, both domestic and abroad, fell on the heels of Trump’s “America First” push. Nissan (7201.T) and Honda Motor (HMC), which have auto plants in Mexico, came under pressure, along with Ford (F), General Motors (GM), and Stellantis (STLA).

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Outside of possible tariffs, investors also digested the release of the minutes from the Federal Open Market Committee meeting ended Nov. 7, which showed officials prefer a gradual pace of interest rate cuts if the economy remains on solid footing.

“Participants anticipated that if the data came in about as expected, with inflation continuing to move down sustainably to 2% and the economy remaining near maximum employment, it would likely be appropriate to move gradually toward a more neutral stance of policy over time,” the minutes read.

Some officials noted that a resurgence of inflation, which has remained sticky, along with a downturn in the labor market, could force the central bank to pause its easing cycle.

The release sets the stage for the October reading of the Personal Consumption Expenditures (PCE) index, the Fed’s preferred inflation gauge, on Wednesday.

LIVE 13 updates
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  • Dow, S&P 500 secure fresh records

    It was another record-setting day on Wall Street as investors shrugged off President-elect Donald Trump’s threat to impose new tariffs on China, Canada, and Mexico.

    Both the S&P 500 (^GSPC) and Dow Jones Industrial Average (^DJI) each secured record closing highs, with all three major indexes finishing the session in the green.

    The benchmark S&P 500 rose nearly 0.6%, while the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite (^IXIC) also jumped about 0.6%. The Dow Jones Industrial Average (^DJI) reversed earlier losses to finish the day up around 0.3%.

  •  Josh Schafer

    Americans are feeling better about the labor market

    After several months of downbeat data to end the summer had workers feeling sour about the prospect of finding a new job, consumers feelings about the labor market may be rounding a corner.

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    On Tuesday, fresh data from the Conference Board’s Consumer Confidence survey for the month showed the difference between respondents who believe jobs are “plentiful” and those saying jobs are “hard to get” ticked up for the second-straight month. The metric, known as the labor market differential, ticked up to a reading of 18.2% in November, up from the cycle low of 12.7% seen in September.

    “This slightly improved read on the jobs market is certainly boosting confidence and if it weren’t an election year, it would be the sole focus of consumers,” Wells Fargo senior economist Tim Quinlan wrote in a note to clients on Tuesday.

    Overall, the upbeat labor market outlooked helped propel consumer confidence to a reading of 111.7 in November, above the 109.6 seen in October and the highest level in more than a year.

    “November’s increase was mainly driven by more positive consumer assessments of the present situation, particularly regarding the labor market,” said Dana Peterson, chief economist at The Conference Board. “Compared to October, consumers were also substantially more optimistic about future job availability, which reached its highest level in almost three years.”

  •  Josh Schafer

    Fed officials see gradual interest rate cuts with a pause possible if ‘inflation remained elevated’

    Minutes from the Federal Reserve’s November meeting released on Tuesday showed officials prefer a “gradual” interest rate cutting cycle if the economy continues on it’s current trajectory.

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    “Participants anticipated that if the data came in about as expected, with inflation continuing to move down sustainably to 2 percent and the economy remaining near maximum employment, it would likely be appropriate to move gradually toward a more neutral stance of policy over time,” the minutes read.

    But recent sticky inflation prints have caught officials’ attention. In a recent speech, Fed Governor Michelle Bowman highlighted that in the past few months, when measures of inflation excluding gas and autos have largely moved sideways, the Fed’s progress toward its 2% goal has “stalled.” Should that trend continue, the central bank may opt to pause interest rate cuts.

    “Some participants noted that the Committee could pause its easing of the policy rate and hold it at a restrictive level if inflation remained elevated, and some remarked that policy easing could be accelerated if the labor market turned down or economic activity faltered,” the minutes read.

  • Alexandra Canal

    Rivian stock climbs on $6.6 billion loan

    Rivian stock (RIVN) is jumping, rising over 4% in afternoon trade.

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    Yahoo Finance’s Pras Subramanian tells us why:

    Late Monday, Rivian said it won a “conditional commitment” from the Department of Energy (DOE) for a $6.6 billion loan, highlighting the company’s improving capital condition.

    The loan, part of the DOE’s Energy’s Advanced Technology Vehicle Manufacturing (ATVM) program, would support the construction of Rivian’s upcoming assembly plant located outside of Atlanta.

    Rivian paused development of the site back in March due to concerns about its capital position. At the time, Rivian said building its upcoming R2 vehicles at its existing Normal, Ill., plant instead would save the company over $2 billion in costs.

    If finalized, the new DOE loan would restart Rivan’s plans to develop the Georgia assembly plant.

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    “This loan would enable Rivian to more aggressively scale our US manufacturing footprint for our competitively priced R2 and R3 vehicles that emphasize both capability and affordability,” CEO RJ Scaringe said in a statement. “A robust ecosystem of US companies developing and manufacturing EVs is critical for the US to maintain its long-term leadership in transportation.”

    Read more here.

  • Alexandra Canal

    Bitcoin retreats in push to $100,000

    Bitcoin prices (BTC-USD) retreated about 2% on Tuesday as the cryptocurrency’s bid to reach the $100,000 milestone lost steam.

    The largest digital currency, which posted its longest losing streak since Trump’s election win, traded just around $92,500 per token in early afternoon trade.

    Trump’s win pushed bitcoin prices to all-time highs in the immediate aftermath of the election, with the administration viewed as generally more friendly to the alternative asset class.

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    In July, Trump attended a bitcoin conference in Nashville and has since pledged to usher in more supportive regulation. His promises also include appointing a crypto Presidential Advisory Council and firing current SEC Chair Gary Gensler.

    But markets are now weighing new promises from the President-elect, which include possible tariffs on all Mexican and Canadian imports. That could lead to more risk-aversion sentiment on Wall Street.

    Other crypto-adjacent names mimicked bitcoin’s moves to the downside.

    Shares of MicroStrategy (MSTR), which owns nearly 280,000 bitcoins, dropped around 3%. Last week, the company announced the purchase of an additional 51,780 bitcoins for $4.6 billion. The company now holds $16.5 billion worth of bitcoin.

    Coinbase (COIN), which allows crypto trading on its platform, saw shares fall roughly 2%.

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  • Alexandra Canal

    Amgen drags Dow lower after weight loss drug data fails to impress

    Amgen (AMGN) was the biggest laggard in the Dow on Tuesday, falling as much as 12% after its weight loss drug met Wall Street expectations but was only on par with competitors like Eli Lilly (LLY).

    Yahoo Finance’s Anjalee Khemlani reports:

    The company reported 20% weight loss from the drug MariTide in patients after 52 weeks in a phase II study. By comparison, current market leaders Eli Lilly (LLY) and Novo Nordisk (NVO) have products that provide weight loss between 14% and 24%. Analysts on an investor call with Amgen Tuesday morning characterized the data as “in line” with the currently available products.

    Mizuho’s healthcare sector expert Jared Holz said, on the surface, the data would draw more interest, but because Amgen is late to the weight-loss market — with a phase III trial still needed — it is at a disadvantage.

    In addition, “AMGN did not disclose which dose it plans to move forward, but would guess that the higher doses are driving better weight loss so need to consider how the side effect profile looks in these specific formulations,” Holz wrote in a note to clients.

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    Read more here.

  • Alexandra Canal

    Mexico, Canada respond to Trump’s tariff threats

    Mexico will retaliate if President-elect Donald Trump follows through on his recent tariff threats, the country’s President Claudia Sheinbaum said.

    Late on Monday, Trump said in a post to his Truth Social account that he plans to enact a 25% tariff on all Mexican and Canadian imports. He said the levies would remain in effect until those countries address illegal immigration to the US and drug trafficking.

    Sheinbaum said on Tuesday that tariffs would lead to increased job losses and inflation. “To one tariff will come another and so on, until we put our common businesses at risk,” she told reporters in a briefing.

    The companies most exposed to the tariffs include automakers with plants in Mexico, such as Nissan, Honda Motor (HMC), Ford (FORD), Stellantis (STLA), and General Motors (GM), among others.

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    “Why impose a tax that puts them at risk?” Sheinbaum asked. “It’s not acceptable.”

    The Mexican leader said she plans to send a letter to Trump, urging for more dialogue and collaboration between the two countries.

    Meanwhile, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said on Tuesday morning that he’s agreed to meet with his provincial and territorial counterparts this week to discuss US-Canada relations.

    “This is a relationship that we know takes a certain amount of working on,” Trudeau said. “And that’s what we’ll do.”

  • Dani Romero

    New home sales slump to lowest level in almost two years

    Sales of new single-family homes plummeted in October to the lowest level in about two years as mortgage rates remained elevated during the month.

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    New home sales dropped 17.3% in October to a seasonally adjusted rate of 610,000 units, down from September’s revised rate of 738,000, according to Census Bureau data released on Tuesday. Analysts surveyed by Bloomberg had expected a pace of 725,000.

    The median sales price of new houses sold was $437,300, up from $426,300 the previous month.

    Mortgage rates marched higher during the month of October, discouraging buyers from purchasing a new home.

    Builders have adapted accordingly. DR Horton (DHI) CEO Paul Romanowski told investors and analysts on the homebuilder’s fourth quarter earnings call in late October that the company’s executives “expect incentives will have to remain elevated in order to maintain affordability and monthly payments that our buyers are looking for.”

  •  Josh Schafer

    Consumer confidence rises to highest level since July 2023

    American consumers continue to feel more upbeat about the outlook for the US economy.

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    The latest US consumer confidence index reading from the Conference Board was 111.7, above the 109.6 seen in October and the highest level in more than a year. The expectations index, which is based on consumers’ short-term outlook for income, business, and labor market conditions, ticked up 0.4 points to 92.3, significantly above the threshold of 80 that typically signals recession ahead.

    Less than 64% of respondents said they believe a US recession is “somewhat” or “very likely” in the next 12 months, marking the lowest number of consumers fearing an incoming recession since the Conference Board began asking the question in July 2022.

    “November’s increase was mainly driven by more positive consumer assessments of the present situation, particularly regarding the labor market,” said Dana Peterson, chief economist at The Conference Board. “Compared to October, consumers were also substantially more optimistic about future job availability, which reached its highest level in almost three years.”

    In November, 33.4% of consumers said jobs were “plentiful,” down from the 34.1% seen in October. But the number of respondents saying jobs were “hard to get” also fell to 15.2% from 17.6% seen the month prior.

  • Alexandra Canal

    Stocks open mixed

    US stocks opened mixed to kick off Tuesday’s trading session, with the Dow Jones Industrial Average (^DJI) dropping 0.3% after the index notched its latest record.

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    The S&P 500 (^GSPC) inched up roughly 0.3%, while the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite (^IXIC) jumped about 0.4% as investors weighed the latest tariff threat from President-elect Donald Trump.

  • Dani Romero

    Home price growth slowed in September

    US home prices rose in September, but the pace of price increases moderated on an annual basis.

    The S&P Case-Shiller National Home Price Index increased 3.9% from a year ago, a smaller increase from the 4.2% annual gain seen in August.

    Prices rose 0.3% over the prior month in September on a seasonally adjusted basis, unchanged from August’s monthly increase.

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    The index tracking home prices in the 20 largest metropolitan areas gained 0.2% in September from August, lower than a Bloomberg consensus estimate of 0.3% and August’’s 0.4%. The 20-city index jumped 4.6% compared to last September. August’s annual gain was 5.2%.

    “Home price growth stalled in the third quarter, after a steady start to 2024,” Brian Luke, head of commodities, real & digital assets at S&P Dow Jones Indices, wrote in a press release. “The slight downtick could be attributed to technical factors as the seasonally adjusted figures boasted a 16th consecutive all-time high.”

  • Jenny McCall

    Good morning. Here’s what’s happening today.

    Economic data: S&P CoreLogic 20-city (August); New home sales (October); Conference Board Consumer Confidence (November); Richmond Fed manufacturing index (November), FOMC Meeting Minutes (November meeting)

    Earnings: Abercrombie & Fitch (ANF), Autodesk (ADSK), Best Buy (BBY), Burlington Stores (BURL), CrowdStrike (CRWD), Dell (DELL), HP (HPQ), Kohl’s (KSS), Manchester United (MANU), Urban Outfitters (URBN), Workday (WDAY)

    Here are some of the biggest stories you may have missed overnight and early this morning:

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    Wall Street still hasn’t got a handle on Trump

    US finalizes $7.86B chips manufacturing award for Intel

    Trump pledges 25% tariffs on Canada and Mexico, 35% on China

    How a breakup could upend Google (and the tech world)

    Best Buy stock sinks after broad earnings miss

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    Bitcoin retreats from $100K in worst spell since Trump’s win

    4 ways Bessent’s honeymoon as Trump’s Treasury pick could end

  • Brian Sozzi

    Flash analysis: Another ugly quarter from Best Buy

    Looking for some pre-holiday cheer? Well, you won’t find any in the earnings out of Best Buy (BBY) this morning.

    A couple of things stood out:

    I can’t say the report is surprising, given the discretionary category weakness we have seen in earnings reports this month from Walmart (WMT), Target (TGT), Home Depot (HD), and Lowe’s (LOW). But the declines for Best Buy suggest it will have a slog of a holiday season.

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    Yahoo Finance senior reporter Brooke DiPalma will have coverage on Best Buy throughout the morning, so stay plugged in here. Yahoo Finance will also be serving up live analysis out of the gate at 9 a.m. ET today — which you can catch here.

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Donald Trump says he will hit China, Canada and Mexico with new tariffs

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Donald Trump says he will hit China, Canada and Mexico with new tariffs

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Donald Trump has said he will impose tariffs of 25 per cent on all imports from Canada and Mexico, and an extra 10 per cent on Chinese goods, accusing the countries of permitting illegal migration and drug trafficking.

In a post on his social media site Truth Social, Trump said he would impose the tariffs on Canada and Mexico on his first day in office “on ALL products coming into the United States, and its ridiculous open borders”, which would remain in place “until such time as Drugs, in particular Fentanyl, and all Illegal Aliens stop this Invasion of our Country”.

Trump said the tariffs on China would apply to all imports and would come on top of existing levies, as he criticised Beijing for failing to follow through on promises to impose the death penalty for people dealing fentanyl, a deadly synthetic opioid.

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The Canadian dollar fell 0.9 per cent against the US dollar to a four-year low, while the Mexican peso shed 1.3 per cent, adding to a sharp depreciation this year. China’s onshore renminbi slipped 0.1 per cent to Rmb7.25.

The announcements serve as opening shots in Trump’s confrontational new trade policy, following an election in which he campaigned on broad tariffs and lambasted the US’s trading partners. Trump had previously threatened to impose a blanket tariff of more than 60 per cent on all Chinese imports.

“Stiff new tariffs on imports from the US’s three largest trading partners would significantly increase costs and disrupt business across all economies involved,” said Erica York of the Tax Foundation, a Washington-based think-tank. “Even the threat of tariffs can have a chilling effect.”

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China hit back at Trump’s comments, which state television CCTV labelled “irresponsible”. Beijing has sought to present itself as a guardian of open trade, despite accusations of heavily subsidising its manufacturers and maintaining tight barriers on international companies’ access to parts of its domestic market.

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“Economic globalisation is an irreversible historical trend,” China’s vice-president Han Zheng said on Tuesday at the opening of a global supply chain expo in Beijing. He added that China would “work to build an open world economic system and safeguard the stability and unimpeded functioning of the global industrial supply chain”.

Trump had in particular targeted Mexico on the campaign trail, threatening to impose “whatever tariffs are required — 100 per cent, 200 per cent, 1,000 per cent” to stop Chinese cars from crossing the southern border.

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He has also warned Mexico’s President Claudia Sheinbaum he would impose tariffs of 25 per cent if she did not crack down on the “onslaught of criminals and drugs” crossing the border.

The levies could be imposed using executive powers that would override the USMCA, the free trade agreement Trump signed with Canada and Mexico during his first term as president.

“There’s a lot of integration of North American manufacturing in a lot of sectors, particularly autos, so this would be pretty disruptive for a lot of US companies and industries,” said Warren Maruyama, former general counsel at the Office of the US Trade Representative. “Tariffs are inflationary and will drive up prices,” he added.

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Ricardo Monreal, leader of Mexico’s ruling party in the lower house of congress, said tariffs would “not solve the underlying issue” at the border. “Escalating trade retaliation would only hurt people’s pockets,” he wrote on X.

Diego Marroquín Bitar at the Wilson Center think-tank warned that unilateral tariffs “would shatter confidence in USMCA and harm all three economies”.

In a joint statement, Canada’s deputy prime minister Chrystia Freeland and public safety minister Dominic LeBlanc hailed the bilateral relationship with the US as “one of the strongest and closest . . . particularly when it comes to trade and border security”.

They also noted that Canada “buys more from the United States than China, Japan, France and the UK combined”, and last year supplied “60 per cent of US crude oil imports”.

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“Even if this is a negotiating strategy, I don’t see what Canada has to offer that Trump is not already getting,” said Carlo Dade at the Canada West Foundation.

While Trump put tariffs at the centre of his economic pitch to voters, President Joe Biden has also increased levies on Chinese imports. In May, Biden’s administration sharply increased tariffs on a range of imported clean-energy technologies, including boosting tariffs on electric vehicles from China to 100 per cent.

Biden’s administration has also pushed Beijing for several years to crack down on the production of ingredients for fentanyl, which it estimated claimed the lives of almost 75,000 Americans in 2023. Beijing this year agreed to impose controls on chemicals crucial to manufacturing fentanyl following meetings with senior US officials.

Additional reporting by William Sandlund and Haohsiang Ko in Hong Kong, Christine Murray in Mexico City, Ilya Gridneff in Toronto, Joe Leahy in Beijing and Alex Rogers in Washington

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