Governor, Stalin condole death of former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh
Trump’s tariffs in his first term did little to alter the economy, but this time could be different
United States President-elect Donald Trump announced Tuesday that former United States ambassador to El Salvador Ronald Johnson is his pick for ambassador to Mexico during his second term. “I am pleased to nominate Ronald (Ron) Johnson to serve as the United States Ambassador to Mexico. Ron will work closely with our great Secretary of State Nominee, Marco Rubio, to promote our Nation’s security and prosperity through strong America First Foreign Policies,” Trump said on social media . Johnson — an army veteran and former official with the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) — served as ambassador to El Salvador during the final 16 months of Trump’s first term as president. The president-elect wrote on the social media platform that he owns, Truth Social, that as ambassador to El Salvador, Johnson “worked tirelessly with Salvadoran authorities and our team to reduce violent crime and illegal migration to the lowest levels in History.” “... Congratulations Ron. Together, we will put an end to migrant crime, stop the illegal flow of Fentanyl and other dangerous drugs into our Country and, MAKE AMERICA SAFE AGAIN!” Trump wrote. If his appointment is approved by the U.S. Senate, Johnson — who shares his name with a Republican Party senator from Wisconsin – will replace Ken Salazar as U.S. Ambassador to Mexico. Salazar , a former U.S. senator and secretary of the interior during Barrack Obama’s first term as president, has been ambassador to Mexico since 2021. He succeeded Christopher Landau , who was ambassador to Mexico during Trump’s first term as president and was tapped by the president-elect this week to serve as deputy secretary of state under Rubio . Johnson will be tasked with a key role in the second Trump administration — helping to manage the United States’ relationship with its largest trading partner, a country with which it shares a 3,145-kilometer-long border that is currently far too porous for the president-elect’s liking. In late November, Trump pledged to impose a 25% tariff on all Mexican and Canadian exports to the United States on the first day of his second term as U.S. president due to what he called the “long-simmering problem” of migrants and drugs entering the U.S. via Mexico and Canada. He said that the tariffs would remain in effect “until such time as Drugs, in particular Fentanyl, and all Illegal Aliens stop this Invasion of our Country!” Johnson could play a key role in the Trump administration’s negotiations with Mexico as it seeks to achieve those stated objectives. A 2019 U.S. Department of State report published after Johnson’s nomination as ambassador to El Salvador noted that Johnson had “served the United States government for over four decades, first as an officer in the U.S. Army, and then as a member of the intelligence community.” Prior to taking up the ambassador’s position in El Salvador, he served as the CIA’s Science and Technology Liaison to the U.S. Special Operations Command, in Tampa, Florida, according to the report. “Previously (2013-2107), he was Special Advisor to the U.S. Southern Command in Miami managing collaboration between the Command and the Intelligence Community, the State Department, the CDC, the FBI, the Department of Homeland Security, USAID and others,” the State Department said. The State Department report also noted that Johnson had had “substantive engagement on a wide range of regional issues including refugees, counternarcotics, counterterrorism, human rights and tropical virus disease control.” It said that he had lived in Latin America for more than five years and noted that he speaks Spanish. In his social media post on Tuesday, Trump highlighted that Johnson “served our Country for over twenty years with the Central Intelligence Agency after a distinguished career in the U.S. Army as a Green Beret.” “He graduated from the National Intelligence University with a Master of Strategic Intelligence,” he added. A statement published by the U.S. Embassy in El Salvador in January 2021 to announce the end of Johnson’s term as ambassador noted that he arrived in the Central American country in 2019 with his wife, Alina Johnson. Johnson has four children and five grandchildren, according to a short profile that appeared on the website of the U.S. Embassy in San Salvador. At her morning press conference on Wednesday, President Claudia Sheinbaum acknowledged that Trump had announced his pick for ambassador to Mexico. Speaking more broadly about the bilateral relationship between Mexico and the United States, she stressed that she won’t allow Mexico to be subordinated in any “collaboration” or “coordination” that her government enters into with its U.S. counterpart. The bilateral relationship will “always” be a relationship of “equals,” she said. “We have to defend that,” she said before asserting that there was “a lot of subordination” during the 2006–2012 presidency of Felipe Calderón. “With us, there won’t be. We’re going to collaborate [with the United States] ... but without subordination,” Sheinbaum said. She said that Mexico will continue to collaborate with the United States on efforts to combat drug trafficking to the U.S. but emphasized that Mexico wants the U.S. to do its part to reduce the number of weapons flowing south. “It’s not just a matter of drug trafficking ... but also the violence generated in Mexico with the entry of weapons [from the U.S.] ,” Sheinbaum said. “... We want a reduction in violence and construction of peace,” she said. “We want homicides and other high-impact crimes to go down, many of which are linked to organized crime,” Sheinbaum said, adding that achieving the objective requires a reduction in the number of weapons coming into Mexico from the United States. “That’s why I say that with this ambassador or others, we’re going to defend our sovereignty, our condition of equality [with the United States], and we’re going to collaborate and cooperate on everything that is required, but always in the interest of the people of Mexico and the nation,” she said. Mexico News DailyWASHINGTON (AP) — Donald Trump loved to use tariffs on foreign goods during his first presidency. But their impact was barely noticeable in the overall economy, even if their aftershocks were clear in specific industries. The data show they never fully delivered on his promised factory jobs. Nor did they provoke the avalanche of inflation that critics feared. This time, though, his . The president-elect is talking about going much bigger — on a potential scale that creates more uncertainty about whether he’ll do what he says and what the consequences could be. “There’s going to be a lot more tariffs, I mean, he’s pretty clear,” said Michael Stumo, the CEO of Coalition for a Prosperous America, a group that has supported import taxes to help domestic manufacturing. The president-elect posted on social media Monday that on his first day in office he would impose 25% tariffs on all goods imported from Mexico and Canada until those countries satisfactorily stop illegal immigration and the flow of illegal drugs such as fentanyl into the United States. Those tariffs could essentially blow up the North American trade pact that Trump’s team negotiated during his initial term. Chinese imports would face additional tariffs of 10% until Beijing cracks down on the production of materials used in making fentanyl, Trump posted. Business groups were quick to warn about , while said she would counter the move with tariffs on U.S. products. House Democrats put together legislation to strip a president’s ability to unilaterally apply tariffs this drastic, warning that they would likely lead to higher prices for autos, shoes, housing and groceries. Sheinbaum said Wednesday that her administration is already working up a list of possible retaliatory tariffs “if the situation comes to that.” “The economy department is preparing it,” Sheinbaum said. “If there are tariffs, Mexico would increase tariffs, it is a technical task about what would also benefit Mexico,” she said, suggesting her country would impose targeted import duties on U.S. goods in sensitive areas. Related Articles House Democrats on Tuesday introduced a bill that would require congressional approval for a president to impose tariffs due to claims of a national emergency, a largely symbolic action given Republicans’ coming control of both the House and Senate. “This legislation would enable Congress to limit this sweeping emergency authority and put in place the necessary Congressional oversight before any president – Democrat or Republican – could indiscriminately raise costs on the American people through tariffs,” said Rep. Suzan DelBene, D-Wash. But for Trump, tariffs are now a tested tool that seems less politically controversial even if the mandate he received in November’s election largely involved restraining inflation. The tariffs he imposed on China in his first term were continued by President Joe Biden, a Democrat who even expanded tariffs and restrictions on the world’s second largest economy. Biden administration officials looked at removing Trump’s tariffs in order to bring down inflationary pressures, only to find they were unlikely to help significantly. Tariffs were “so new and unique that it freaked everybody out in 2017,” said Stumo, but they were ultimately somewhat modest. Trump imposed tariffs on at the start of 2018, moves that might have pushed up prices in those sectors even though they also overlapped with plans to open washing machine plants in Tennessee and South Carolina. His administration also levied tariffs on steel and aluminum, including against allies. He then increased tariffs on China, leading to a trade conflict and a limited 2020 agreement that failed to Still, the dispute changed relations with China as more U.S. companies looked for alternative suppliers in other countries. also found the United States may have sacrificed some of its “soft power” as the Chinese population began to watch fewer American movies. The Federal Reserve kept inflation roughly on target, but factory construction spending never jumped in a way that suggested a lasting gain in manufacturing jobs. found the tariff war with China did nothing economically for the communities hurt by offshoring, but it did help Trump and Republicans in those communities politically. When Trump first became president in 2017, the federal government collected $34.6 billion in customs, duties and fees. That sum more than doubled under Trump to $70.8 billion in 2019, according to Office of Management and Budget records. While that sum might seem meaningful, it was relatively small compared to the overall economy. America’s gross domestic product is now $29.3 trillion, according to the Bureau of Economic Analysis. The total tariffs collected in the United States would equal less than 0.3% of GDP. The new tariffs being floated by Trump now are dramatically larger and there could be far more significant impacts. If Mexico, Canada, and China faced the additional tariffs proposed by Trump on all goods imported to the United States, that could be roughly equal to $266 billion in tax collections, a number that does not assume any disruptions in trade or retaliatory moves by other countries. The cost of those taxes would likely be borne by U.S. families, importers and domestic and foreign companies in the form of higher prices or lower profits. Former Biden administration officials said they worried that companies could piggyback on Trump’s tariffs — if they’re imposed — as a rationale to raise their prices, just as many companies after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022 boosted food and energy costs and gave several major companies the space to raise prices, according to their own earnings calls with investors. But what Trump didn’t really spell out is what might cause him to back down on tariffs and declare a victory. What he is creating instead with his tariff threats is a sense of uncertainty as companies and countries await the details to figure out what all of this could mean. “We know the key economic policy priorities of the incoming Trump administration, but we don’t know how or when they will be addressed,” said Greg Daco, chief U.S. economist at EY-Parthenon.No. 15 Houston rides balanced offense into league opener at Oklahoma St.
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First Horizon Names New Head of Investor RelationsFormer Bank of Canada governor Mark Carney says Canada didn't live up to its values on immigration over the last few years as it allowed more people into the country than it could absorb. Carney, who is currently a special adviser to the Liberal party, made those comments during an event in Ottawa held by Cardus, a Christian think tank. Carney says Canada let newcomers down by admitting more workers and students than it could provide for, including with housing, health care and social services. Earlier this fall, the Liberal government announced a plan to significantly reduced its immigration target for permanent residents and to dramatically scale back the number of temporary residents in Canada. Those changes came about after a period of strong population growth that led to mounting criticism of the Liberal government's immigration policies. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has acknowledged that the federal government did not get the balance right on immigration after the COVID-19 pandemic. This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 27, 2024.
The Orioles will leave the winter meetings with seven fewer prospects than they came with, and that’s not because they made a blockbuster trade.
Drop in Boxing Day footfall ‘signals return to declining pre-pandemic levels’
The snowy owl that was rescued from a car grille near Duluth earlier this week has died. The Wildwoods rehabilitation center announced the owl’s death on social media Thursday. The critter was found by a Lake Superior Zoo employee Monday and transported to Wildwoods, along with a great grey owl she had found earlier that day. Wildwoods officials then transported the birds to the University of Minnesota’s Raptor Center in St. Paul. Center officials on Thursday said the snowy owl suffered extensive injuries that included trauma to its internal organs, a broken wing and broken leg that couldn’t be repaired. “Because the injuries could not be fixed and the bird would be unable to fly again, the kindest option available for this majestic wild bird was a peaceful passing via euthanasia,” Raptor Center officials wrote in a statement. The grey owl is faring better, Raptor Center officials say. That bird suffered a broken wing bone and injuries to the soft tissue in the same wing. “These injuries are severe, and the veterinarians at TRC are doing everything they can to give this bird a chance at recovery,” officials wrote. A second grey owl the Raptor Center received on Christmas Day has been hospitalized with several broken bones in its shoulder. Wildwoods typically receives 30 owls per year. So far this week, the rehabilitation center has taken in four. This is a developing story and will be updated.Wade Taylor IV scored 15 points and dished out 10 assists and C.J. Wilcher added 14 points as No. 13 Texas A&M throttled Abilene Christian 92-54 on Saturday afternoon in College Station, Texas. The Aggies (11-2) were in charge from the jump, forging a 19-point lead at halftime and never looking back. Texas A&M scored the first points of the second half, was up by 28 with 13:23 to play and cruised to the finish line while winning its seventh straight game. Taylor's output moved him into second place on the Aggies' all-time scoring list. His 1,779 points are now behind only Bernard King, who had 1,990 from 1999-2003. Andersson Garcia and Zhuric Phelps added 12 points each for Texas A&M, which appears to be hitting on all cylinders heading into its Southeastern Conference opener at home against rival Texas on Jan. 4. Phelps added 10 rebounds and seven steals for the Aggies. Quion Williams led the Wildcats (8-6) with 14 points. Abilene Christian missed its final six shots and went the last 5:24 of the game without a point. The Aggies made a statement in the early going by scoring the game's first nine points over the initial 3 1/2 minutes, with seven of those coming from Coleman. Abilene Christian fought back to within 16-12 after Dontrez Williams' layup with 12:12 left in the half. But A&M swung back, producing a 14-0 run capped by Garcia's layup with 8:51 to play in the half to pull away to a 30-12 advantage. The Wildcats again cut into their deficit, pulling to 30-19 when Cade Hornecker hit a layup with 6:26 to play until halftime. A&M boosted the lead back to 17 points after a pair of free throws by Taylor and got two more from the charity stripe to take a 48-29 edge to the break. Wilcher led all scorers in the half with 12 points on 4-of-6 shooting from beyond the arc while Garcia hit for 10 points for A&M while making all four of his shots from the floor. The Aggies outshot Abilene Christian 61.5 percent to 40.7 percent before halftime. Quion Williams and Leonardo Bettiol paced the Wildcats with seven points each in the first half. --Field Level Media