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Trumps Threatens Tariffs Feb. 1 on Canada, Mexico and China

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When President Trump did not follow through with his promise to immediately impose new tariffs on his first day in office, business executives and others who support international trade breathed a sigh of relief.That relief was short-lived. On Monday night, just hours after his inauguration speech, Mr. Trump said he planned to put a 25 percent tariff on products from Canada and Mexico beginning on Feb. 1, claiming that the countries were allowing “mass numbers of people and fentanyl” to come to the United States.On Tuesday evening, Mr. Trump said he would also put an additional 10 percent tariff on Chinese products by the same date, accusing China of sending fentanyl to Mexico and Canada, which was then crossing into the United States.Mr. Trump’s threats leave just 10 days before significant levies could go into effect on the United States’ three largest trading partners, a move that could throw American diplomatic relationships and global supply chains into disarray.Mexico, China and Canada account for more than a third of the goods and services that are imported to or bought from the United States, supporting tens of millions of American jobs. Together, the countries purchased more than $1 trillion of U.S. exports and provided nearly $1.5 trillion of goods and services to the United States in 2023, the last year government data is available.While tariffs have long been used by the United States as punishment for unfair trading practices, Mr. Trump’s first use of them is aimed at an entirely different outcome: tightening American borders against immigrants and illegal drugs.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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    The Federal Work Force Grew Briskly Under Biden. It’s Still Historically Low.

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    Government agencies that shrank in President-elect Trump’s first term have mostly bounced back, and some have become even larger.When it comes to the federal payroll, two seemingly contradictory things are true.One, the Biden administration went on a hiring spree that expanded the government work force at the fastest pace since the 1980s. And two, it remains near a record low as a share of overall employment.In the four years separating President-elect Donald J. Trump’s two terms, the federal civilian head count has risen by about 4.4 percent, according to the Labor Department, to just over three million, including the Postal Service.But that’s a much slower pace than private payrolls have grown over the past four years. And it leaves the federal government at 1.9 percent of total employment, down from more than 3 percent in the 1980s.The incoming administration promises to erase whole sections of the federal bureaucracy: Vivek Ramaswamy, co-chair of what Mr. Trump is calling the Department of Government Efficiency, has said 75 percent of the work force could go, in pursuit of $2 trillion in cuts. But it will be a challenge to find cuts without depleting services.“When we’re looking at the numbers of the federal work force, it’s still about the same size as it was in the 1960s,” said Max Stier, president of the Partnership for Public Service, a think tank. “The narrative out there is the federal government work force is growing topsy-turvy, and the reality is that it’s actually shrinking,”Compared with the overall work force, the federal employee base has been shrinking for decadesNot including the armed forces, federal government employees as a share of all nonfarm workers are near an all-time low.

    Federal employment includes the Postal Service.Source: Bureau of Labor StatisticsBy The New York TimesHow Big Are Agencies, and Have They Grown or Shrunk? The number of people who work in the federal government’s largest departments, and how they’ve changed in size since 2020.

    Note: Total work force numbers are as of March 2024.Source: Office of Personnel ManagementBy 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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    Remote Work for Civil Servants Faces a Challenge Under Trump

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    Federal employees and others in the capital have grown attached to work-from-home arrangements. But hybrid work may disappear in the second Trump era.When the Social Security Administration agreed to a five-year extension of work-from-home arrangements for tens of thousands of employees in early December, many at the agency expressed relief.But the reprieve may be short-lived. At a news conference two weeks later, President-elect Donald J. Trump railed against the deal and said he would go to court to undo it. “If people don’t come back to work, come back into the office,” he said, “they’re going to be dismissed.”The back-and-forth previewed what is likely to be one of the earliest points of contention of Mr. Trump’s second administration. Over the past few years, many federal workers have organized their lives around hybrid arrangements that help them juggle work and family responsibilities, and have gone so far as to demand that the Biden administration preserve the status quo. Some have rushed to join the roughly one-quarter to one-third of federal workers who are unionized, so that telework policies will be negotiable.But to the president-elect and his allies, the work-from-home arrangements are not only a glaring example of liberal permissiveness run amok — “a gift to a union,” Mr. Trump said — but also a tantalizing opportunity to clear the federal government of obstructionist workers and to vastly shrink its reach.In a Wall Street Journal column in November, Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy, the businessmen tapped to lead Mr. Trump’s government efficiency commission, said they would welcome “a wave of voluntary terminations” triggered by forcing federal employees to work from an office five days a week.Many private-sector employers have recently announced such policies, arguing that in-person work improves communication, mentoring and collaboration.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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    I.R.S. Commissioner to Quit as Trump Takes Office

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    Daniel Werfel, the commissioner of the Internal Revenue Service, told the agency’s employees that he would end his term early and step down on Monday as President-elect Donald J. Trump takes office.Mr. Trump has said he plans to nominate Billy Long, a former Republican congressman, to the role. Past presidents have treated the tax collector’s leader as a nonpartisan job that continues between administrations of different parties. President Biden chose Mr. Werfel, a former career civil servant and management consultant, to attempt a renaissance of the I.R.S., which Democrats have infused with billions in new funding that Republicans are now eager to cancel.In a message to employees, Mr. Werfel said he had decided to step down after he concluded that it was the best way to support the next administration. Douglas O’Donnell, a career civil servant at the I.R.S. who currently has the No. 2 job, will serve as the acting commissioner, Mr. Werfel said.“While leaving a job you love is never easy, I take comfort in knowing that the civil servant leaders and employees at the I.R.S. are the exact right team to effectively steward this organization forward until a new I.R.S. commissioner is confirmed,” he wrote.With more than 80,000 employees, the I.R.S. is a central part of the federal government, collecting nearly $5 trillion in tax revenue last fiscal year. With $60 billion in additional funding approved by Democrats, the agency has in recent years tried to beef up tax collection for wealthy Americans and update its antiquated technology systems.The I.R.S. has long been a villain to Republicans, who attack it as a political tool for Democrats. Mr. Long, Mr. Trump’s pick to lead the agency, has scant tax experience beyond promoting a pandemic-era tax credit for small businesses that the I.R.S. has tried to shut down because of abuse. Republicans have already canceled $20 billion of the $80 billion Democrats originally envisioned for the I.R.S., and they have frozen $20 billion more. More

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    What Did Trump’s Tax Cuts Do?

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    Economic upheaval caused by the pandemic has clouded analysts’ ability to understand the effects of the 2017 tax law. Republicans call it a huge success and want to extend it anyway.Seven years ago, when Republicans passed the most significant overhaul of the tax code in a generation, they were sure the law would supercharge investment, raise wages and shift the American economy into a higher gear.So did it?The answer, at least for now, is largely lost to history.A pandemic and a surge in inflation convulsed the global economy not long after the law passed in 2017, scrambling the data that analysts would have typically relied on to draw conclusions about whether the tax cuts helped the economy grow the way Republicans had promised.As a result, policymakers in Washington are now relying on only a partial understanding of the law’s past as they weigh committing roughly $5 trillion toward continuing it.“Basically, from 2020 the data is kind of useless,” said Alan Auerbach, an economics professor at the University of California, Berkeley, who counts Kevin Hassett, a top economic adviser to President-elect Donald J. Trump, among his former students.Economists have focused on just two years before the coronavirus pandemic, 2018 and 2019, to measure the law’s consequences for the most important economy in the world. But that’s a limited window for trying to discern whether the tax cuts prompted a cycle of investment and growth that can take years to play out.“In terms of looking at longer-run effects, pretty much just forget about it,” Mr. Auerbach said. “There’s just no way to control for the effects of Covid.”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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    Defending Michigan’s Auto Industry, Whitmer Warns of Tariff Risks

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    Gov. Gretchen Whitmer addressed the Detroit Auto Show, saying that tariffs should not be used “to punish our closest trading partners,” like Canada.Gov. Gretchen Whitmer of Michigan, a leading Democrat from a critical battleground state, on Wednesday subtly warned against President-elect Donald J. Trump’s tariff threats targeting Canada, even as she stressed her broader willingness to work with him on the cusp of his second inauguration.Her speech, at the Detroit Auto Show, offered among the clearest examples yet of how Democrats from states that Mr. Trump carried are seeking to balance fresh overtures to the incoming president with their staunch opposition to some of his policy proposals.Speaking at a convention center just across the Detroit River from Windsor, Ont., Ms. Whitmer described strong cultural and industrial ties between the two cities.Using tariffs as punishment, she said, risks “damaging supply chains, slowing production lines and cutting jobs on both sides of the border.”Ms. Whitmer did not mention Mr. Trump by name as she broached the subject, but he has threatened to impose tariffs on imports from Canada if the country does not reduce the flow of migrants and fentanyl to the United States. The Ontario Premier Doug Ford has discussed retaliation, including threatening to disrupt the electricity supply from the province to the United States.“I am not opposed to tariffs outright, but we cannot treat them like a one-size-fits-all solution, and we certainly shouldn’t use them to punish our closest trading partners,” Ms. Whitmer said, arguing that such an approach could embolden China.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

  • 113 Shares126 Views

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    Cleveland-Cliffs Signals a Possible New Bid for U.S. Steel

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    The company’s renewed interest comes after the Biden administration blocked Nippon Steel from acquiring the onetime American powerhouse.A possible new takeover bid for U.S. Steel emerged on Monday, teeing up more turmoil over the once-dominant company’s future after President Biden’s decision to block its acquisition by a Japanese company.Lourenco Goncalves, the chief executive of an American competitor, Cleveland-Cliffs, said his company had “an All-American solution to save the United States Steel Corporation,” stressing that acquiring U.S. Steel was a matter of “when,” not “if.” But he offered no details of the bidding plans.The renewed expression of interest from Cleveland-Cliffs comes less than two weeks after Mr. Biden blocked a $14 billion takeover of U.S. Steel by Nippon Steel, arguing that the sale posed a threat to national security. Cleveland-Cliffs tried to buy U.S. Steel in 2023, an offer that was rejected in favor of Nippon’s higher bid.CNBC reported on Monday morning that Cleveland-Cliffs would seek to take over U.S. Steel and sell off its subsidiary, Big River Steel, to Nucor, another American producer. But Mr. Goncalves, at a news conference later in the day, would not confirm any partnership with Nucor on a bid.U.S. Steel and Nucor did not immediately respond to requests for comment.Investors seemed pleased by the potential bid, sending shares of U.S. Steel up as much as 10 percent on Monday when CNBC reported the potential offer. Shares of U.S. Steel finished about 6 percent higher on Monday but are down 23 percent over the past year, including Monday’s spike.But the fate of Nippon’s proposed takeover remains in limbo. U.S. Steel and Nippon sued the United States government last week in the hopes of reviving their merger, accusing Mr. Biden and other senior administration officials of corrupting the review process for political gain and blocking the deal under false pretenses.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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    Economists Are in the Wilderness. Can They Find a Way Back to Influence?

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    Economists have long helped to shape policy on issues like taxes and health care. But flawed forecasts and arcane language have cost them credibility.Partway through a panel discussion at a recent economics conference in San Francisco, Jason Furman, a former adviser to President Barack Obama, turned to Kimberly Clausing, a former member of the Biden administration and the author of a book extolling the virtues of free trade.“Everyone in this room agrees with your book,” Mr. Furman said. “No one outside of this room agrees with your book.”The academics and policy wonks gathered in the hotel conference room laughed, but the comment captured something real: After decades of helping to shape policy on weighty matters like taxes and health insurance, economists find that their influence is at a low ebb.Free trade is perhaps the closest thing to a universally held value among economists, yet Americans just voted to return to office a president, Donald J. Trump, who has described tariffs as “the most beautiful word in the dictionary” and who often seems to view trade through a mercantilist lens that the field has considered outdated since the days of Adam Smith.The president he will replace, Joseph R. Biden, was hardly a free-trade zealot himself: He kept in place many of the tariffs that Mr. Trump imposed in his first term, and moved in his final days in office to block the takeover of U.S. Steel by a Japanese company — a decision his own economic advisers opposed.It isn’t just trade.Economists overwhelmingly favor immigration as a source of innovation and growth, yet Mr. Trump wants to seal the border and deport potentially millions of unauthorized residents.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 Chose 8 Economic Experts Who Will Defend Tariffs and Lower Taxes

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    President-elect Donald J. Trump has moved beyond the team-of-rivals approach from his first term and chosen economic aides who will defend tariffs and tax cuts.Alan RappeportAna Swanson and President-elect Donald J. Trump put economic policy at the center of his campaign and, in assembling his economic team, has turned to a group of Wall Street executives, economists, lawyers and academics to help carry out his plans to cut taxes, impose tariffs and slash regulations.In contrast to his first term, when Mr. Trump installed advisers who had disparate views about areas like free trade and tariffs, the men the president-elect has selected this time around have, at least for now, professed to be in sync with his agenda.Still, it remains to be seen how well his advisers work together and whether those with more traditionally conservative views will be willing to go along with Mr. Trump’s unconventional approach to economic policy.Scott BessentTreasury SecretaryStefani Reynolds/BloombergWe 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