Politics
Trump slaps major tariffs on Mexico, Canada and China, setting the stage for trade war
Washington — President Trump slapped sweeping tariffs on goods from Mexico, Canada and China on Saturday, sending shock waves through the global supply chain and sparking fears of a disruptive trade war that could dramatically raise costs for U.S. consumers.
Trump signed executive orders placing duties of 25% on imports from Mexico and Canada, except for a 10% rate on Canadian energy products. He imposed a 10% tax on all imports from China.
The White House said the tariffs would go into effect on Tuesday, and could be raised if the targeted countries retaliate with tariffs of their own, as they have threatened. In a post on Truth Social, the president said he was taxing imports from those countries because he blames them for the flow of undocumented immigrants and drugs into the United States.
The three nations are America’s top trading partners, supplying the U.S. with food, medicine, oil, cars, timber and electronics.
Employees work in a Honda car plant in 2014, in Celaya, in the central Mexican state of Guanajuato.
(Eduardo Verdugo / Associated Press)
The tariffs against Canada and Mexico upend a trade pact that dates back three decades and is the linchpin of many tightly integrated industries across North America. Trump himself signed the newest version of the trade accord during his first term, praising the 2020 U.S.-Mexico-Canada-Agreement as “the fairest, most balanced and beneficial trade agreement we have ever signed into law.”
The tariffs threaten to deeply disrupt the economies of Mexico, Canada and China and drive up consumer prices in the U.S.
Experts say some effects will be significant and quickly felt, with American consumers likely finding higher prices for fresh vegetables and fruits and other perishable imports in a matter of days.
“Foreigners don’t pay the tariffs, American businesses and consumers do,” said Jock O’Connell, a trade expert at Beacon Economics, a Los Angeles-based research firm.
Americans are still smarting from a surge of food prices in the wake of the pandemic. High inflation was widely considered an important factor in Trump’s election, and the president has promised to bring down prices for groceries and other goods. But these new tariffs are almost certain to do the opposite, economists say.
The U.S. imports more than $900 billion of products from Canada and Mexico, and a 25% tariff is huge given that goods have crossed North American borders duty-free for many years.
“Is the Trump administration comfortable with hiking the price of avocados and guacamole ahead of the Super Bowl?” said Joseph Brusuelas, chief economist at the accounting firm RSM US, adding that he was not joking.
For many other products, prices may start to increase only as inventories are depleted. Car prices will almost surely rise. U.S. auto manufacturing is so interlinked with Mexico and Canada, with parts going back and forth across borders many times, that analysts say they’re not really American cars but North American cars.
Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer condemned the tariffs and the effect they would have on the auto industry in her state, which Trump flipped in 2024: “A 25 percent tariff will hurt American auto workers and consumers, raise prices on cars, groceries, and energy for working families and put countless jobs at risk. Trump’s middle-class tax hike will cripple our economy and hit working-class, blue-collar families especially hard.”
Gas prices may also rise, especially in the Great Lakes and Rocky Mountain West, which depend on Canadian oil. Trump has repeatedly talked about bringing down the cost of gas, but the U.S. still imports billions of dollars of crude — and ramping up domestic production isn’t so easy or quick.
Steam rises at Suncor’s oil sands facility near Fort McMurray, Canada, in September 2023.
(Victor R. Caivano / Associated Press)
The 10% tariffs on China will add to 10% to 25% duties that Trump imposed on many Chinese imports during his first term, and which former President Biden kept in place. That will hit American household pocketbooks broadly because China is such a big supplier of consumer items.
Under the U.S.-Mexico-Canada trade agreement, any country has the right to pull out at any time. And a U.S. president can impose new tariffs without approval from Congress by invoking the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, which authorizes executive action to counter threats to national security, foreign policy or the economy.
Trump had been warning for months that he planned to impose tariffs on imports in a bid to lure manufacturing back to the United States. Campaigning before the November election, he vowed at one point to establish an across-the-board tax of 10% or 20% on all goods entering the U.S. At another, he threatened a 200% tariff on vehicles from Mexico.
“Come make your product in America,” he told companies in a speech at the World Economic Forum earlier this year. If not, he said, “then very simply you will have to pay a tariff.”
But Trump sees tariffs also as a negotiating tactic to extract compromises from other nations on matters that have little to do with trade.
His executive order imposing tariffs against Canada blames the country for “failing to devote sufficient attention and resources or meaningfully coordinate with United States law enforcement partners to effectively stem the tide of illicit drugs.”
He has said that Mexico must suffer tariffs because it hasn’t done more to stop migrants from reaching the U.S. border.
But experts questioned Canada and Mexico’s ability to further curb drug and people smuggling. A 2022 report commissioned by the U.S. Congress found that “Canada is not known to be a major source of fentanyl, other synthetic opioids or precursor chemicals to the United States, a conclusion primarily drawn from seizure data.”
Others said the tariffs have the potential to spur more migration.
Economies in Mexico and Canada rely much more heavily on the U.S. than the other way around, and the threat of tariffs has made the peso and Canadian dollar very volatile in recent weeks.
The value of Mexico’s exports and imports amounts to almost 90% of the country’s gross domestic product, according to World Bank data. Economists warn that even a small increase in tariffs on goods destined to the U.S. poses serious risks for the economy.
“Under the worst-case scenario, the Mexican economy will fall into recession, the currency will depreciate, and inflation will rise,” reads a report released by the economic research firm Moody’s Analytics.
Analysts say that if tariffs drag down the Mexican economy, more Mexican workers without proper documentation will seek to enter the U.S. “If Mexico goes into a recession, you’ll see a surge in immigration,” said economist Brusuelas.
Migrants make their way to a Border Patrol van after crossing illegally and waiting to apply for asylum between two border walls separating Mexico and the United States on Jan. 21 in San Diego.
(Gregory Bull / Associated Press)
Evan Ellis, a research professor of Latin American studies at the U.S. Army War College’s Strategic Studies Institute, described tariffs as a “catastrophic risk.”
“If you essentially deep-six the Mexican economy … there are people who are going to once again flow across the U.S. border,” he said.
The country’s economy is already on shaky ground. Mexico faces its largest budget deficit since the 1980s. Data show 36% of the population lives in poverty with 7% living in extreme poverty.
A severe recession in Mexico in the 1990s contributed to some 5 million Mexicans immigrating to the U.S.
Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum has insisted that Mexico has a plan to counter tariffs.
“We are prepared for any scenario,” she told journalists on Friday, although she said that Mexico had been “doing everything in our power” to prevent tariffs. “What do we want? That dialogue with respect prevails.”
Canadian officials have also promised an aggressive response.
“Being smart means retaliating where it hurts,” said Chrystia Freeland, the former finance minister who represented Canada in USMCA negotiations. “Our counterpunch must be dollar-for-dollar — and it must be precisely and painfully targeted: Florida orange growers, Wisconsin dairy farmers, Michigan dishwasher manufacturers, and much more.”
If China, Canada and Mexico retaliate by slapping tariffs on American products entering their markets, that will very likely slow the volume of trade. The ripple effects will be felt across the entire supply chain, hurting business and employment at ports, warehouses and other logistics and transportation operations.
Higher inflation from tariffs may hit Los Angeles especially hard coming soon after the fires, which appear to be pushing up prices for rents and other services and products.
“The timing couldn’t be worse. It will make for a double whammy for Southern California,” said Sung Won Sohn, professor of finance and economics at Loyola Marymount University.
During his first term, Trump in 2018 imposed tariffs on steel from Mexico and other countries, prompting counter-tariffs on American farm goods and straining U.S.-Mexico relations.
At the time, he also threatened broader tariffs on all Mexican goods, but he eventually backed off after American business leaders complained that it would hurt them and his administration extracted a promise from Mexican authorities to do more to stop migrants from reaching the U.S. border.
Marcelo Ebrard, Mexico’s economy secretary, suggested last year that the only goal of tariffs is to achieve political gains, given the makeup of the highly integrated global economy.
“The United States economy is not a manufacturing economy,” said Ebrard. “And I’m sorry, but it will not be that way again.”
Linthicum reported from Albuquerque, N.M., and Lee reported from Washington.
Politics
Rubio sanctions Cuban groups with ties to US nonprofit network funded by communist donor Neville Roy Singham
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Secretary of State Marco Rubio put U.S. organizations on notice: they can no longer do business with a key Cuban organization that has spent over six decades – since the launch of Fidel Castro’s communist revolution in 1959 – cultivating relationships with U.S. activists and groups, many of them now funded by communist American tycoon Neville Roy Singham.
The sanctions target the Cuban Institute of Friendship with the Peoples, known by its Spanish acronym ICAP, an organization founded by Castro in 1960 to spread Marxist ideology and support for Cuba. Long ago, U.S. officials and intelligence assessments concluded ICAP is a key component of Cuba’s intelligence apparatus.
“For decades, Cuba has been the world capital for radical left-wing terrorism,” Rubio said. “The regime in Havana has recruited, trained and backed violent Marxist and third-worldist movements across our hemisphere and beyond.”
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Marco Rubio moves to put sanctions on a group that Fidel Castro established in 1960 to spread Cuba’s communist influence in the world. (Sven Creutzmann/Mambo Photography/Getty Images; Nathan Posner/Anadolu via Getty Images)
Earlier this year, ICAP worked with U.S. nonprofits, including the People’s Forum, Progressive International and CodePink, to organize a March “convoy” that included controversial Marxist streamer Hasan Piker landing in Cuba to support Cuba’s communist party.
The trip has since attracted federal scrutiny, with CodePink co-founder Medea Benjamin confirming she received questions from federal officials about the trip, investigating whether she violated sanctions.
Late last month, Fox News Digital published a three-part series, reporting that federal investigators are examining Cuba’s alleged malign foreign influence operation in the U.S., investigating a network of 145 groups with collective revenues of about $1 billion, promoting Cuba’s agenda and communist ideology.
“Today, we are targeting the network that enables and funds Cuba’s subversive and radical operations,” Rubio said.
The groups working closely with ICAP include the People’s Forum, CodePink, BreakThrough News and Tricontinental, funded by Singham, a Marxist tech tycoon living in Shanghai. As reported, Singham has pumped $285 million into nonprofits since 2017 that have built very close relationships with ICAP and the communist government of Cuba.
Singham is married to CodePink co-founder Jodie Evans.
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ICAP is today led by Fernando González Llort, one of five former Cuban intelligence officers, known as the “Cuban Five,” convicted in the U.S. years ago on espionage-related charges and released after spending time in jail.
Critics say ICAP acts as a gateway for revolutionaries from around the world to get embedded in the propaganda, organizing tactics and strategic goals of the Communist Party of Cuba. ICAP has denied wrongdoing and says it’s a civil society organization.
ICAP was one of five entities that Rubio designated as off-limits under sanctions authorities established by President Donald Trump’s Cuba executive order. The sanctions also target Cuba’s Ministry of the Revolutionary Armed Forces (MINFAR), the Committees for the Defense of the Revolution (CDR), Minera La Victoria S.A. and the state-run tourism company Amistur Cuba S.A., which has arranged trips to Cuba with U.S. nonprofits in the Singham network.
Experts said the move signals that the Trump administration is focused not only on the Cuban government but also on U.S. institutions that U.S. officials believe help project Cuban influence internationally.
A declassified CIA report from the Cold War era, “Cuba: Castro’s Propaganda Apparatus and Foreign Policy,” described Cuba’s international propaganda and influence activities as a central component of Castro’s foreign policy strategy. The report named ICAP among organizations that act as important instruments for cultivating sympathetic political movements abroad and extending Cuban influence beyond the island.
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One of the most notable examples was the Venceremos Brigade, a Cuba solidarity program established in 1969 that brought generations of American activists to the island through exchanges organized with Cuban authorities and institutions including ICAP.
The program became one of the most visible pipelines connecting American activists to the Cuban revolutionary government.
Today, the Venceremos Brigade operates as a fiscally-sponsored project of the People’s Forum.
Lawmakers and federal authorities are examining whether organizations funded by Singham have acted on behalf of foreign interests without properly registering and have helped amplify messaging favorable to the Chinese Communist Party and the Communist Party of Cuba.
Cuba’s President Miguel Diaz-Canel (C) listens to Progressive International’s general coordinator, David Adler, during an event at the Cuban Institute for Friendship with the Peoples (ICAP) in Havana, on March 21, 2026. (Ernesto Mastrascusa/AFP via Getty Images)
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During the recent convoy in March, Progressive International co-founder David Adler appeared alongside Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Canel and ICAP President González at an official event hosted by ICAP.
Years ago, Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass participated in Venceremos Brigade trips, a connection that her mayoral candidate Spencer Pratt resurfaced during her campaign. Bass has denied any wrongdoing.
Supporters of such exchanges describe them as educational and humanitarian programs intended to foster international understanding. Critics argue they function as political influence operations designed to build support for the Cuban regime and its ideological objectives.
The Cuban government condemned Rubio’s sanctions shortly after the announcement.
President Miguel Díaz-Canel accused the United States of escalating economic pressure against Cuba and attempting to intensify tensions between the two countries.
Hasan Piker, a Democratic Socialists of America member, and CodePink co-founder Jodie Evans meet in Havana, Cuba, as part of a “United Front” supporting the communist regime. (CodePink via Storyful)
“The Treasury Department has added new names of Cuban leaders, organizations and companies to an illegitimate sanctions list,” Díaz-Canel wrote on social media. “They are aimed at reinforcing the blockade measures and the scenario of conflict between Cuba and the United States.”
Rubio’s warning extended beyond the sanctioned entities.
The action signals that the administration is increasingly focused on the networks, partnerships and influence channels that U.S. officials believe have helped advance Cuban interests abroad long after the Cold War officially ended.
“Anyone providing services to these sanctioned actors is at risk of sanctions themselves,” he said. “Foreign banks and other companies that provide services to these entities should freeze those activities.”
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Fox News Digital’s Reagan Schroeder contributed to this report.
Politics
Commentary: No, Mr. Hilton, our elections are not ‘a joke.’ It’s time for you to stand up to Trump
Well, that didn’t take long.
A day after California’s primary election, President Trump took to social media with baseless claims of election fraud — predictable, but also dangerous.
“Look what’s happening in California, the Dumocrats, right before our very eyes, are stealing the Vote,” Trump wrote in one post.
“There’s BIG cheating by the Dumocrats in California,” he wrote in another, apparently enamored of his latest juvenile slur.
Never mind that his candidate, Steve Hilton, is in the lead — for now anyway.
California has once again become the main dish on Trump’s buffet of bull-hockey as he continues to undermine democracy and consolidate authoritarian power, using this disingenuous and patently untrue narrative that American elections are rigged by shadowy Democratic forces working in collusion with illegal immigrants.
That last part is called the Great Replacement Theory, the idea that “elites” are replacing white people — and white voters — with Black and brown immigrants in a bid to destroy white culture. It’s at the heart of Trump’s voter fraud allegations.
The twist this time is that Hilton, the man who wants to represent all Californians, seems to be jumping on the election fraud conspiracy train with the president. I get it, there’s the MAGA base to feed, and it’s a base that feasts on outrage and fakery. Serving up resentment glazed with lies and propaganda has been the MAGA playbook for years under Trump, a strategy that no one can deny has been heartbreakingly effective.
But Hilton is a smart man and must certainly know that voter fraud is rare, to the point of being inconsequential to election outcomes. Hilton by his own admission understands voting patterns, and that in this cycle, Republicans have voted early and often by mail, despite Trump’s claims that all vote-by-mail should be suspect. So Hilton understands that early votes have skewed his way, and that later vote tallies will likely favor Democrats.
And Hilton is definitely intelligent enough to expect that in a state where Democrats outnumber Republicans nearly three to one, he will not keep the top spot in this primary, and a slim chance remains that he will not make it into the top two. That’s just simple math.
So if Hilton truly seeks to represent this state as its top elected executive, now is the time to renounce election fraud myths and stand up to Trump’s lies. If Hilton can’t say that he believes our recent election was free and fair, then he has no business being our governor.
Unfortunately, that doesn’t seem to be the path he’s taking, even as it seems increasingly likely that he will advance to the general election.
This week, speaking with far-right podcaster and former Turning Point USA creative director Benny Johnson (who was allegedly duped into working for a Russian influence operation), Hilton said that while “so far we’re not seeing any signs” of cheating, “we’re going to be all over it. We’re not going to let them do that.”
Hilton was responding to a question from Johnson on whether Hilton will sue over “cheating.”
On a post-election appearance with Laura Ingraham, the conservative Fox News host who has repeatedly promoted the Great Replacement Theory, Hilton delved into more conspiracy.
“Just to really underline the point that you made about the corruption,” he told Ingraham an anecdote about supposed fraud in a previous election cycle when a “whistleblower” at the post office told him that they were instructed that a handwritten postmark was acceptable when sorting ballots to deliver to the county registrar.
“It’s just unbelievable, and of course, that’s why so many people don’t believe the results, but it just undermines confidence,” he told Ingraham, certainly knowing that the post office forwarding a ballot on to a county registrar in no way means it will be certified or counted. Would we really want the USPS deciding which ballots to deliver? Disingenuous on Hilton’s part at best.
“The whole thing is a joke,” Hilton went on to say of California elections, which of course, is absurd.
Thursday, when I asked Hilton’s team to speak with him about his views on voter fraud, they sent back a response that focused on the slowness of the California vote count; voter rolls Hilton has described as “wildly inaccurate,” which is a wildly inaccurate claim; and two instances of actual fraud with voter registration — not examples of votes that were counted.
To be sure, all those items are important. Any malfeasance should be punished, and the system should always strive to improve.
But how hard is it to simply be against fraud, while accurately acknowledging that it is rare and our current system provides accurate results?
I am against voter registration fraud. I am against vote fraud. I am absolutely pro-democracy, including policies such as mail-in voting that increase participation.
I do not believe that there is widespread fraud in the California primary, or in American elections in general, because the evidence does not support that conspiracy. I do not believe that Democrats are running a decades-long, nationwide conspiracy to replace white voters with votes from Black and brown undocumented immigrants, because that is both false and racist.
Pretty basic stuff, and statements in line with the values and common sense of the majority of Californians Hilton says he will represent.
If Hilton can’t come out and clearly say that Trump is wrong — about fraud and about the Great Replacement Theory — can he really be trusted to represent the values of the Golden State?
new video loaded: Jan. 6 Rioter Hired by Pentagon
transcript
transcript
Jan. 6 Rioter Hired by Pentagon
Elias Irizarry, who pleaded guilty to climbing through a broken window at the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, now works for an office responsible for uncovering and defending against terrorism plots at the Pentagon.
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“Full pardon or commutation?” “Full pardon.”
By Alisa Shodiyev Kaff
June 4, 2026
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