Trump team looks to roll back student debt relief in latest move targeting American pocketbooks: Live

Oil, toys, vegetables and electronics are just some of the items imported to the U.S. from Mexico, Canada and China that could soon cost Americans more under Donald Trump’s proposed tariffs.

Trump has announced that Canada and Mexico could soon see a 25 percent tariff added to all imported goods while China could face an additional 10 percent tariff – something Trump says is part of an effort to curtail “crime and drugs” coming into the U.S. and slow the number of illegal border crossings.

Though tariffs are designed to promote domestic production and purchasing by taxing imported goods, the increase in cost typically falls on consumers, not foreign governments.

Ariana Baio reports.

Bloomberg reports that Donald Trump is poised to name Kevin Hassett as his National Economic Council director.

In the first Trump administration, Hassett was senior advisor and Chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers from 2017 to 2019.

During a government shutdown in January 2019, Hassett suggested federal employees should take out loans to survive being unpaid amid the deadlock between then-President Trump and congressional Democrats over funding the US-Mexico border wall.

President-elect Donald Trump has threatened to impose massive tariffs on goods imported from Canada and Mexico in an effort to get them to crack down on illegal immigration and drug smuggling. But how many actually cross the U.S.—Canada border illegally?

Gustaf Kilander investigates.

Rudy Giuliani lashed out in a federal courtroom after a judge admonished the cash-strapped former New York City mayor for failing to keep up with court orders after he defamed two women with his 2020 election lies.

Inside a Manhattan courthouse Tuesday, Judge Lewis Liman refused to delay an upcoming trial in the case after Giuliani’s repeated delays, missed deadlines, and failure to show “anything close to due diligence” around evidence requirements, including turning over the title to a Mercedes Benz he was ordered to send the women.

Giuliani then interrupted the judge, speaking out from the defense table after shaking his head and clicking his pen in frustration.

Alex Woodward reports for The Independent from the Daniel Patrick Moynihan United States Courthouse in Lower Manhattan.

A California Republican has penned a letter to Secretary of State Antony Blinken after the State Department reportedly held “therapy and listening sessions” for employees following President-elect Donald Trump’s November victory.

Representative Darrell Issa penned the letter on November 19 after The Free Beacon, a conservative media outlet, reported the State Department offered stress management webinars on November 8 and November 13 to employees.

Katie Hawkinson reports.

President-elect Donald Trump has identified what he sees as an all-purpose fix for what ails America: Slap huge new tariffs on foreign goods entering the United States.

Here’s what you need to know.

Tariffs are a tax on imports

They are typically charged as a percentage of the price a buyer pays a foreign seller. In the United States, tariffs are collected by Customs and Border Protection agents at 328 ports of entry across the country.

The tariff rates range from passenger cars (2.5%) to golf shoes (6%). Tariffs can be lower for countries with which the United States has trade agreements. For example, most goods can move among the United States, Mexico and Canada tariff-free because of Trump’s US-Mexico-Canada trade agreement.

There’s much misinformation about who actually pays tariffs

Trump insists that tariffs are paid for by foreign countries. In fact, its is importers — American companies — that pay tariffs, and the money goes to U.S. Treasury. Those companies, in turn, typically pass their higher costs on to their customers in the form of higher prices. That’s why economists say consumers usually end up footing the bill for tariffs.

Still, tariffs can hurt foreign countries by making their products pricier and harder to sell abroad. Yang Zhou, an economist at Shanghai’s Fudan University, concluded in a study that Trump’s tariffs on Chinese goods inflicted more than three times as much damage to the Chinese economy as they did to the U.S. economy

Tariffs are intended mainly to protect domestic industries

By raising the price of imports, tariffs can protect home-grown manufacturers. They may also serve to punish foreign countries for committing unfair trade practices, like subsidizing their exporters or dumping products at unfairly low prices.

Before the federal income tax was established in 1913, tariffs were a major revenue driver for the government. From 1790 to 1860, tariffs accounted for 90% of federal revenue, according to Douglas Irwin, a Dartmouth College economist who has studied the history of trade policy.

Tariffs fell out of favor as global trade grew after World War II. The government needed vastly bigger revenue streams to finance its operations.

In the fiscal year that ended Sept. 30, the government is expected to collect $81.4 billion in tariffs and fees. That’s a trifle next to the $2.5 trillion that’s expected to come from individual income taxes and the $1.7 trillion from Social Security and Medicare taxes.

Still, Trump wants to enact a budget policy that resembles what was in place in the 19th century.

He has argued that tariffs on farm imports could lower food prices by aiding America’s farmers. In fact, tariffs on imported food products would almost certainly send grocery prices up by reducing choices for consumers and competition for American producers.

Tariffs can also be used to pressure other countries on issues that may or may not be related to trade. In 2019, for example, Trump used the threat of tariffs as leverage to persuade Mexico to crack down on waves of Central American migrants crossing Mexican territory on their way to the United States.

Trump even sees tariffs as a way to prevent wars.

“I can do it with a phone call,’’ he said at an August rally in North Carolina.

If another country tries to start a war, he said he’d issue a threat:

“We’re going to charge you 100% tariffs. And all of a sudden, the president or prime minister or dictator or whoever the hell is running the country says to me, ‘Sir, we won’t go to war.’ ”

Reporting by the Associated Press

President Claudia Sheinbaum suggested Tuesday that Mexico could retaliate with tariffs of its own, after U.S. president-elect Donald Trump threatened to impose 25% import duties on Mexican goods if the country doesn’t stop the flow of drugs and migrants across the border.

Sheinbaum said she was willing to engage in talks on the issues, but said drugs were a U.S. problem.

“One tariff would be followed by another in response, and so on until we put at risk common businesses,” Sheinbaum said, referring to U.S. automakers that have plants on both sides of the border.

She said Tuesday that Mexico had done a lot to stem the flow of migrants, noting “caravans of migrants no longer reach the border.”

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Sir Keir Starmer could hike taxes on American staples including Harley Davidsons, Jack Daniel’s whiskey and Levi’s jeans if Donald Trump targets the UK with tariffs.

The prime minister has been urged to “Trump-proof” Britain after the president-elect overnight threatened to unilaterally impose massive levies on imports to the US on his first day in office.

Archie Mitchell reports from London.