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They Want More Babies. Now They Have Friends in the Trump White House.

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The American conservative movement has long worked to put the nuclear family at the center of cultural and economic life. Lately, it has added a twist. It wants to make those families bigger.As fertility rates have declined, a “pronatalist” cluster on the right wing has been making the argument that public policy should encourage more childbearing. With President Trump’s return to office, this group appears to have gotten closer to the center of power than ever before.Broadly speaking, they want measures like more support for families with several children; speedier and cheaper options for higher education that would allow Americans to start procreating earlier; help for those having trouble conceiving; and initiatives that elevate childbearing to a national service.Steps like the move by Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy, a father of nine, to direct federal funds toward places with high marriage rates and birthrates are exactly what many have in mind.Movement on their priorities, however, has been slow. And in some cases, pronatalists have found the White House’s actions counterproductive.“So much has happened, and so much has been such a mixed bag,” said Patrick Brown, a fellow at the conservative Ethics and Public Policy Center who is focused on family policy. “That’s going to be the tension, that angel on one shoulder and the devil on the other. At this stage, the devil seems to be winning out.”Fertility Rates Are Falling Across the WorldBut faster in some countries than in others.

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The average number of children born to a woman in select countries and regions
E.U. refers to European Union countries, even before the bloc was formed.Source: The World BankBy The New York TimesWe 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’s Tariffs Could Help Tesla, by Hurting Its Rivals More

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    The electric car company led by Elon Musk builds all the cars it sells in the United States in California and Texas, shielding it from tariffs that could devastate competitors.As President Trump puts new tariffs on goods from China and threatens a trade war with allies like Mexico and Canada, one global company is likely to suffer less than most of its competitors: Tesla.But the electric car maker led by Elon Musk, which accounts for a third of the billionaire’s wealth, is also vulnerable if relations with China worsen. That country is the company’s second-largest market after the United States and it produces more cars there than anywhere else.Tesla has built largely self-sufficient supply chains in the United States and China, a rarity in a world of interconnected trade. As a result, the tariffs imposed by the Trump administration on Chinese goods, and the continuing threat to put them on Mexican and Canadian products, might help Tesla by hurting its competitors more.Although there is no evidence that Mr. Musk is shaping trade policies, the tariffs are one of several measures adopted by the Trump administration that may benefit Tesla at the expense of its rivals. On Wednesday, Mr. Trump paused 25 percent tariffs on most autos and parts made in Canada and Mexico, but the reprieve expires in a month, leaving automakers in the United States that depend on foreign supply chains in a state of uncertainty.The Tesla factory in Austin, Texas, in 2023. Cars produced here will be shielded from tariffs that will hurt Tesla competitors. Go Nakamura/ReutersThe administration is also trying to eliminate financial support for the construction of fast-charging stations for electric vehicles, a move that could handicap companies seeking to compete with Tesla’s extensive network. And it is attempting to cut or eliminate loans and subsidies that competitors like Ford Motor and Rivian are using to finance electric vehicle and battery factories.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 Backers, Including Elon Musk, Clash With Far Right Over Immigrant Workers and H-1B Visas

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    Tech Makes an Economic Case for Skilled Immigrants. Will Trump Bite?

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    Silicon Valley hopes that tech giants like Elon Musk could help to push the incoming Trump administration toward offering more visas to highly skilled foreign workers.Aaron Levie, the chief executive of the cloud software company Box, said he was more hopeful than he had been at any point in the past 15 years that America could soon accept more highly educated immigrants — the sort of skilled foreigners he hires as software engineers.Mr. Levie recently posted on X that America’s immigration policies for high-skilled workers are “not responsive to the market,” and that Elon Musk, with his position in president-elect Donald J. Trump’s orbit, could fix them.“I agree,” Mr. Musk replied. The thread quickly filled with other tech workers and executives sharing stories of trying to get visas for themselves and their employees.Welcoming more high-skilled immigrants is “one of the highest leverage — maybe the highest leverage — thing you could do to make sure that America stays at the forefront,” Mr. Levie said in an interview.The technology industry considers that argument about economic competitiveness as one that could persuade Mr. Trump to allow increased levels of immigration for highly skilled workers. But the industry’s optimism clashes with past experience: The president-elect did not expand skill-based legal immigration during his first term in office. Instead, his immigration officials curbed visa programs for educated workers by overseeing them more stringently.And while some in Silicon Valley and corporate America are hoping that this time will be different, Washington policy analysts, lawyers and visa holders themselves are less certain.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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    Is Trump More Flexible on China Than His Hawkish Cabinet Picks Suggest?

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    President-elect Donald J. Trump is assembling a team of aides bent on confrontation with China. But he also has advisers who do business there, including Elon Musk.They are the new class of cold warriors, guns pointed at China.President-elect Donald J. Trump has chosen cabinet secretaries and a national security adviser who stress the need to confront China across the entire security and economic spectrum: military posture, trade, technology, espionage, human rights and Taiwan.Those choices could open a new era of conflict with a nuclear-armed nation that has the world’s largest standing army and second-largest economy, and where many top officials see the United States as a superpower in decline.Mr. Trump’s hawkish advisers so far include Marco Rubio, a Florida senator named as secretary of state; Michael Waltz, a Florida congressman tapped for national security adviser; and Pete Hegseth, a former Fox News television personality designated to be defense secretary. Cabinet secretaries must be confirmed by the Senate, although Mr. Trump has floated the idea of getting around that by using recess appointments.Those men are more explicitly hostile to China than their counterparts in the Biden administration, though President Biden has taken an aggressive tack with China and continued some of the policies from Mr. Trump’s first term. A consensus has solidified among Democrats and Republicans in Washington that China must be constrained because it is the nation most capable of upending American global dominance.Yet there are signs that Mr. Trump might consider a more moderate approach on trade, perhaps to avoid upsetting a roaring stock market nurtured by Mr. Biden.Mr. Trump with President Xi Jinping of China in Beijing in November 2017. Mr. Trump hosted Mr. Xi at Mar-a-Lago earlier that year, but their budding relationship eventually fell apart over a trade war that Mr. Trump started.Doug Mills/The New York TimesWe 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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    How Elon Musk Might Use His Pull With Trump to Help Tesla

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    Although Donald Trump has opposed policies that favor electric cars, if he becomes president he could ease regulatory scrutiny of Tesla or protect lucrative credits and subsidies.Former President Donald J. Trump has promised, if he is re-elected, to do away with Biden administration policies that encourage the use and production of electric cars. Yet one of his biggest supporters is Elon Musk, the chief executive of Tesla, which makes nearly half the electric vehicles sold in the United States.Whether or not Mr. Trump would carry out his threats against battery-powered cars and trucks, a second Trump administration could still be good for Tesla and Mr. Musk, auto and political experts say.Mr. Musk has spent more than $75 million to support the Trump campaign and is running a get-out-the-vote effort on the former president’s behalf in Pennsylvania. That will almost surely earn Mr. Musk the kind of access he would need to promote Tesla.But Mr. Musk would also have to confront a big gap between his Washington wish list and Mr. Trump’s agenda.While Mr. Musk rarely acknowledges it, Tesla has collected billions of dollars from programs championed by Democrats like President Biden that Mr. Trump and other Republicans have vowed to dismantle.In Michigan, a battleground state and home to many auto factories, the Trump campaign has run ads that claim that Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic presidential nominee, wants to “end all gas-powered cars” — a position that she does not hold.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