Politics
What Trump's nominations say about where trade and other economic policies might go
WASHINGTON — Some of President-elect Donald Trump’s Cabinet nominations have raised hopes that his trade and other economic actions will not be wildly disruptive or bring back inflation. But that could turn out to be wishful thinking.
Based on the record of his first term in the Oval Office and on his current statements of his intent, Trump’s second term may see a break from the largely bipartisan consensus that has shaped U.S. economic policy for more than 50 years.
That consensus has centered on a push for more foreign trade, less government regulation of business, tax cuts and other fiscal stimulus when necessary to sustain steady growth and low unemployment. Though Republicans tended to put more emphasis on one element or another than Democrats, the overall thrust remained pretty much the same.
And supporters of that approach took heart when Trump picked billionaire investor Scott Bessent to be his Treasury secretary. Bessent is a familiar name in the hedge fund world, and for some years he worked under the longtime financier and Democratic backer George Soros. Wall Street immediately cheered the selection by pushing up stock prices.
But on the very next trading day after naming Bessent, Trump announced plans to slap 25% tariffs on Canada and Mexico, as well as 10% more on Chinese goods that are already taxed heavily thanks to the trade war he launched in his first term. The goal was to press Mexico in particular to curb border inflows of fentanyl and migrants.
On the campaign trail, Trump proposed tariffs of up to 20% on all countries and 60% on China.
And on Wednesday, Trump said he would bring back Peter Navarro as a senior trade and manufacturing advisor. The fiery China hawk and former UC Irvine professor clashed with other, more moderate top officials in Trump’s first administration. Navarro was recently released from a four-month prison sentence for defying a congressional subpoena related to the Jan. 6 Capitol attack in 2021. (Navarro didn’t respond to text messages seeking comment.)
“If there was any illusion that the choice of Bessent was going to have an ameliorating effect, that got completely blown out of the water,” said Christopher Rupkey, chief economist at the Wall Street research firm Fwdbonds, predicting more fireworks inside the White House, and outside.
“At some point companies are going to go down to Mar-a-Lago (Trump’s estate) and start to complain loudly,” Rupkey said.
In some respects, Trump’s picks for other Cabinet and major economic-related posts in the White House are also a reprisal of his past performance. There are billionaires, notably Elon Musk, named to head a new department on government efficiency; and traditional conservative economists, such as Kevin Hassett, an alumnus of the American Enterprise Institute, who’s been tapped as director of the National Economic Council, a key role in helping formulate White House economic policies.
And at least some of Trump’s nominees are unlikely candidates, particularly Rep. Lori Chavez-DeRemer (R-Oregon), a Latina who has been a rare Republican supporter of greater organizing rights for unions and had the backing of the Teamsters’ leader.
Heidi Shierholz, president of the left-leaning Economic Policy Institute, applauded Trump’s choice of Chavez-DeRemer as secretary of Labor. Chavez-DeRemer has personal connections to the labor movement. But Shierholz wondered what difference she would be able to make. As with Trump’s Labor secretary in his first term, Alex Acosta, she said Chavez-DeRemer was likely to face significant constraints.
“Trump doesn’t suffer dissent; I don’t have high hopes,” Shierholz said.
“Trump’s eclectic style is fully on exhibit in his Cabinet selections,” said Michael Genovese, author of “The Modern Presidency” and head of the Global Policy Institute at Loyola Marymount University. Even so, he said, “the single common denominator in staff and cabinet selection has been loyalty to Donald Trump. … Trump likes to break things, and he has a lot of folks around him who are more than willing to do the breaking.”
Genovese added: “After his frustrations in the first term where insiders undermined the president’s wishes, he will not tolerate such insubordination in term two.”
Moreover, if Trump’s first term provides a guide, his economic and other policies also may be strongly influenced by a kitchen cabinet of informal advisors and an inner circle of confidantes who share his instincts and views on the economy, particularly his predilection for tariffs as a primary weapon for rebuilding American manufacturing and reducing the U.S. trade deficit.
That impulse toward protectionism and away from the global economy could again set off a major fight inside the GOP as two fundamentally conflicting visions collide.
One focuses on boosting domestic manufacturing, which could be helped by a reversal of trade deficits and a lessening role of the dollar. This “America First” strategy seeks a return to the policies that prevailed early in the last century, when U.S. manufacturing was protected from overseas competition by high tariff walls — that is, high surcharges on imported goods that make them too expensive to compete with U.S. products.
The other approach, more favored by Wall Street, sees an open global market as offering lower prices for consumers and more opportunities for American companies to tap capital markets and expand abroad.
American multinational firms and their affiliates spent about $200 billion on plant and equipment in 2022 and employed some 14 million outside the U.S., the latest year for which data were available from the Commerce Department. Their overall foreign sales: more than $8 trillion, with almost half in Europe and most of the rest in Asia.
Globalists are not convinced that reducing the trade deficit is vital to U.S. interests.
And they note that countries previously responded to high U.S. tariffs by increasing their own taxes on American goods. Economists say that will almost certainly push up consumer price inflation, which has been receding from nearly double digits in 2022 but remains about a percentage point above policymakers’ 2% target for core inflation.
“All tariffs on all products all the time, of 10% to 20%, are pretty alarming to business leaders,” said Jeffrey Sonnenfeld, a professor at the Yale School of Management and an expert on leadership and corporate governance.
Trump picked billionaire investor Scott Bessent to be his Treasury secretary.
(Vincent Alban / Bloomberg via Getty Images)
Sonnenfeld said Trump’s appointment of Bessent was “hugely reassuring” and suggested that he could, if confirmed by the Senate as expected, bring a moderating influence.
“Scott Bessent is definitely the adult in the room,” Sonnenfeld said, contrasting him with another wealthy Wall Street boss, Howard Lutnick, Trump’s choice for Commerce secretary.
“There’ll be some natural tension between Lutnick and Bessent as things unfold,” he said.
Michael Pettis, an American professor of finance at Peking University in Beijing and a nonresident senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, agreed that Bessent was an excellent choice.
As in the first term, China is likely to be a key target of Trump’s foreign investment and trade battles, including tariffs, which President Biden has kept in place while adding more restrictions on Chinese access to American technologies.
“Scott Bessent understands the economy systemically,” Pettis said. “I think he could be a very positive influence. The real question is, to what extent he will determine Treasury and economic policy generally?”
Bessent has talked about tariffs as a negotiating tool, and more recently argued for targeted tariff increases on national security grounds as well as to establish a more level playing field. And he spoke of a need for a “more activist approach internationally.”
In recent days, Trump also appointed as the United States trade representative Jamieson Greer, the former chief of staff for Robert Lighthizer, the USTR in Trump’s first term who renegotiated the North American Free Trade Agreement and pushed through tough trade measures against China.
What’s clear to some who have been following Trump’s appointments is that he wants to avoid the internecine warring in the White House that marked the early months of his first term and to be more forceful in implementing his agenda.
“I think there is a strong economic plan that reasonable minds may disagree on. Tariffs will be part of the overarching plan,” said Daniel Ujczo, senior counsel specializing in trade at the Ohio-based law firm Thompson Hine.
“This administration will not be handcuffed by the old orthodoxy of what you can or cannot do,” he said. “I think there’s a recognition in this administration that these voters elected them to do something. Voters were less concerned about what that something was.”
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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