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    Trump’s Tariffs Would Reverse Decades of Integration Between U.S. and Mexico

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    Ties between the United States and Mexico have deepened over 30 years of free trade, creating both benefits and irritants.When Dennis Nixon started working at a regional bank in Laredo, Texas, in 1975, there was just a trickle of trade across the border with Mexico. Now, nearly a billion dollars of commerce and more than 15,000 trucks roll over the line every day just a quarter mile from his office, binding the economies of the United States and Mexico together.Laredo is America’s busiest port, and a conduit for car parts, gasoline, avocados and computers. “You cannot pick it apart anymore,” Mr. Nixon said of the U.S. and Mexican economies. Thirty years of economic integration under a free trade deal has created “interdependencies and relationships that you don’t always understand and measure, until something goes wrong,” he said.Now that something is looming: 25 percent tariffs on Mexican products, which President Trump plans to impose on Saturday as he looks to pressure the Mexican government to do more to curb illegal immigration. Mr. Trump is also expected to hit Canada with 25 percent levies and impose a 10 percent tax on Chinese imports.A longtime proponent of tariffs and a critic of free trade deals, Mr. Trump seems unafraid to upend America’s closest economic relationships. He is focusing on strengthening the border against illegal immigration and the flow of fentanyl, two areas that he spoke about often during his 2024 campaign.But the president has other beefs with Mexico, including the economic competition it poses for U.S. workers. The president and his supporters believe that imports of cars and steel from Mexico are weakening U.S. manufacturers. And they say the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement, the trade deal Mr. Trump signed in 2020 to replace the North American Free Trade Agreement, needs to be updated — or perhaps, in some minds, scrapped.Many businesses say ties between the countries run deeper than most Americans realize, and policies like tariffs that seek to sever them would be painful. Of all the world’s major economic partners, the United States and Mexico are among the most integrated — linked by business, trade, tourism, familial ties, remittances and culture. It’s a closeness that at times generates discontent and efforts to distance the relationship, but also brings many benefits.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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    Trump Moves to Invalidate Recent Labor Agreements With Federal Workers

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    In the latest effort to put his stamp on the federal work force, President Trump on Friday issued a memorandum invalidating government labor contracts finalized in the last 30 days before a presidential inauguration.The policy applies to certain contracts negotiated toward the end of the Biden administration, the memo says. Such “last-minute, lame-duck” agreements, it states, “are purposefully designed to circumvent the will of the people” and “inhibit the President’s authority to manage the executive branch.”Unions at several agencies rushed to negotiate collective bargaining agreements ahead of Mr. Trump’s inauguration to preserve some practices of the previous administration, like remote work, and insulate them from changes that could make it easier to fire civil servants.The memo appears to allude to such practices, which it calls “inefficient and ineffective,” and cites an agreement with the Education Department that attempts to preserve remote work arrangements. The memo says the agreements could be undone if they have not yet been approved by an “applicable” agency head.Other agencies, like the Social Security Administration, approved new collective bargaining agreements outside the 30-day window, presumably leaving them unaffected by the memo.It was unclear if the memo would survive legal pushback initiated by federal employee unions, though it appeared to anticipate legal challenges, noting that it should remain in force if a portion alluding to prohibited bargaining agreements from the Biden administration is found to be invalid.“Federal employees should know that approved union contracts are enforceable by law, and the president does not have the authority to make unilateral changes to those agreements,” Everett Kelley, the president of the American Federation of Government Employees, said in a statement. “Members will not be intimidated. If our contracts are violated, we will aggressively defend them.” More

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    Trump Will Hit Mexico, Canada and China With Tariffs

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    President Trump plans to impose stiff tariffs on Mexico, Canada and China on Saturday, a move aimed at pressuring America’s largest trading partners into accepting more migrants and halting the flow of migrants and drugs into the United States.Mr. Trump will put a 25 percent tariff on goods from Mexico and Canada, along with a 10 percent tariff on Chinese products, Karoline Leavitt, the White House press secretary, said in a news briefing Friday.Speaking to reporters in the Oval Office on Friday, Mr. Trump said the tariffs were punishment for Canada, Mexico and China allowing drugs and migrants to flood into the United States.Mr. Trump’s decision to hit America’s trading partners with tariff could mark the beginning of a disruptive and damaging trade war, one that is far messier than the conflict that defined Mr. Trump’s first term.Back then, Mr. Trump placed tariffs on nearly two-thirds of Chinese imports, resulting in China hitting the U.S. with levies of its own. Mr. Trump also imposed tariffs on steel and aluminum, inciting retaliation from the European Union, Mexico and Canada.While the tariffs against allies were viewed as controversial, they were relatively limited in scope. It remains to be seen exactly what products Mr. Trump’s new tariffs apply to, but the president has implied that they would be expansive and cover imports from Canada and Mexico, close allies of the United States.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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    Ahead of Possible Tariffs, No Rush to Get Goods In From Canada and Mexico

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    Companies in the United States do not appear to be making a concerted effort to rush in shipments from Mexico and Canada ahead of the high tariffs that President Trump has threatened to impose on Saturday.Mr. Trump said after taking office that the United States would apply tariffs of 25 percent on imports from Canada and Mexico, contending that they were allowing “mass numbers of people to come in and fentanyl to come in.”The tariffs would raise the cost of imports significantly, especially since tariffs are not applied to most goods under the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement, the trade deal that Mr. Trump signed in 2020. Canada and Mexico together account for 30 percent of U.S. trade. Many industries could be saddled with extra costs, including the vast auto operations that straddle the U.S. borders with Mexico and Canada.Mr. Trump could withdraw his threat or reduce the tariff if he decides Canada and Mexico are doing more to address his complaints, Howard Lutnick, the president’s nominee to lead the Commerce Department, suggested on Wednesday.With the tariff deadline near, some data shows higher freight volumes on road and rail, but the increases are not especially large, and transportation experts say rail and trucking companies have the capacity to cope. The situation, they said, is quite different from 2021 and 2022, when a deluge of imports overwhelmed supply chains, causing shipping costs to skyrocket and helping fuel a rapid acceleration of inflation.“The industry’s probably never been in a better spot to deal with significant changes in the marketplace,” said Scott Shannon, vice president of North America cross-border at C.H. Robinson, a freight forwarder.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More