Trump’s tariff threat

President-elect Donald Trump’s threat of 25 percent, across-the-board tariffs on Mexico and Canada has already shocked the system. The US dollar rose against its neighbors’ currencies, as stocks dropped and rose.

Floating an additional tariff on China is one thing, but adding America’s two neighbors makes the move especially ambitious. If implemented, the US would effectively levy tariffs against its top three trading partners, which together make up around 40 to 50 percent of total trade between America and the world. That’s revolutionary.

One thing that’s for certain is that tariffs would hurt the countries they target more than they hurt the US. More than 75 percent of Mexican and Canadian exports are to the Land of the Free. The percentage of total US exports to the two is almost five times smaller. All players know this reality — what changes is their approaches.

Canadian prime minister Justin Trudeau had what he described as a “good call” with Trump following the threat. He said he’d convene a meeting with his provincial counterparts this week to discuss the issue. “There’s work to do but we know how to do it,”  Trudeau said on Parliament Hill this Tuesday. Ontario premier Doug Ford chimed in, saying that comparing Canada to Mexico is “the most insulting thing I’ve ever heard from our friends and closest allies… like a family member stabbing you right in the heart.”

Down south, things got feistier still. Mexican senator Óscar Cantón, from the governing MORENA Party, warned that if the tariffs are implemented, they’ll run to China.

“China is now an economic power that is the real threat to the American empire, and so, if they don’t give you any other possibility of economic trade, then you can go where you can sell your products,” Cantón said before the Mexican Senate’s session commenced.

While making the conversation all about China is a good way to capture American ears, that’s not how supply chains work. The US is well aware of Sino-Mexican relations, with China becoming the country’s fastest-growing investor, but again, the US has more pull in Mexico than anywhere else.

Less combative than the senator, Mexican president Claudia Sheinbaum said in a letter to Trump, “One tariff will follow another in response and so on, until we put our common businesses at risk.”

One point of comparison: when Trump threatened to pull foreign aid from Mexico during his first term if Mexico did not enforce its side of the southern border, Andrés Manuel López Obrador chafed at being strongarmed, but ultimately complied with US policy desires.

-Juan P. Villasmil

On our radar

TRANSITION THREAT Multiple Trump nominees were allegedly the subject of violent threats last night and this morning, including “bombs” and “swatting,” according to Trump transition spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt. Elise Stefanik, who is slated to be the second Trump administration’s ambassador to the United Nations, confirmed her house was the target of a bomb threat, as did EPA pick Lee Zeldin and potential labor secretary Lori Chavez-DeRemer.

A NEW CEASEFIRE Israel and Hezbollah, the militant group based in Lebanon, reached a ceasefire deal this week, dampening tensions on at least one front of war in the Middle East. Southern Lebanon and northern Israel have been trading bombs for fourteen months in the aftermath of the October 7 attacks on Israel, and Israel recently took out top Hezbollah commanders with targeted pager explosions. 

HOMAN TO MAN Trump’s incoming border czar Tom Homan cautioned that he is willing to jail Democratic governors who try to stop the president-elect’s mass deportation plans. Denver mayor Mike Johnston affirmed he’d be willing to face arrest and jail time to prevent federal law enforcement from carrying out deportations. Homan responded, “You are absolutely breaking the law,” adding, it’s a “felony if you knowingly harbor and conceal an illegal alien from immigration authorities.” 

The Kamala campaign’s deep dive

Four members of the Harris campaign joined the liberal podcast Pod Save America to perform an autopsy on their 2024 election efforts, leaving Democrats with plenty to chew on and Republicans with even more to mock. Although, nearly everyone agreed that there wasn’t much by the way of self reflection among the former Kamala crew, as they mostly blamed Trump and voters for their brutal loss earlier this month. Some longtime listeners of the podcast even accused the hosts of giving a “softball interview” meant more to resuscitate the careers of the fallen Harris campaign officials than to really figure out what went wrong.

The pod bros notably did not ask any questions about the impact of the Biden administration’s policy on the Israel-Hamas war on Harris hemorrhaging support from progressives. Even more broadly, they did not discuss the plethora of foreign conflicts that sprung up amid the past four years, marking worldwide instability and sparking domestic concerns about American national security.

The crew insisted that Harris was totally clear about her policy positions… but simultaneously acknowledged that while they sought to create daylight between Harris and Biden, they did not point to any specific differences on the issues. “We were never going to satisfy anybody,” senior advisor Stephanie Cutter alleged.

Harris’s campaign officials also addressed the Joe Rogan podcast snub, saying that they could not make the time for the interview and also that their “data” told them appearing on Rogan’s show wouldn’t have made a difference to the electorate anyway. Trump’s 50 million views on his Rogan appearance would like a word.

The one moment of honesty? Senior advisor David Plouffe admitted that the Harris campaign’s internal polling never showed the vice president leading Trump, despite numerous public polls suggesting the opposite. 

–Amber Duke

DoGE gets congressional subcommittee

If Elon Musk is a “genius” and businessman Vivek Ramaswamy is “also a genius,” “what on earth are we doing putting MTG at the head of their subcommittee?” a senior House Republican asked Cockburn this week about the newly-created Department of Government Efficiency (DoGE) subcommittee that is ostensibly designed to partner with Musk.

Cockburn has been trying to answer the question of MTG’s elevation all week; apparently the Georgia firebrand has been trying to be more of a team player to the GOP, but why put her at the top of this potentially very powerful committee? Why are Republicans letting the richest man in the world have a direct line of access to one of the handful of rabble-rousers who almost ousted Speaker Mike Johnson?

MTG’s rise alongside Comer is embittering many on the right side of the aisle. The DoGE subcommittee is notably underneath the umbrella of the Oversight Committee, which will also ostensibly give more power to Representative James Comer. 

“Oversight is where this Congress sends the initiatives it wants to kill,” a longtime House GOP staffer said to Cockburn, trying to explain the conundrum. Comer’s Oversight Committee was one of the hosts of the GOP’s high-profile failure to impeach President Joe Biden. “GOP leadership wanted to kill a Biden impeachment, so they gave it to Comer. Now they want to strangle DoGE, so they gave it to MTG.”

“If Mike Johnson wanted DoGE to work, the last person he would put in charge is MTG,” Cockburn was cautioned.

Over on the Senate side, failed Senate GOP Leader candidate Rick Scott is taking the helm of the DoGE caucus alongside Senator Joni Ernst, his caucus co-creator.

All of this raises the biggest question of all: why are the House and Senate GOPs putting some of their least popular and most polarizing messengers in charge of dealing with one of Musk’s top priorities?

–Cockburn