Trump news: White House human rights plan leaves 'no reason to be hopeful', as impeachment threat grows

Hello and welcome to The Independent's rolling coverage of the Donald Trump administration.

Donald Trump has announced he will be imposing a five percent tariff on all goods incoming from Mexico that will gradually increase to as high as 25 percent unless America’s southern neighbour moves to bring an end to US-bound illegal immigration.

The decision showed the administration going to new lengths and looking for new levers to pressure Mexico to take action against what it sees as the surge of Central American migrants trying to cross the US border - even if those risk upending other policy priorities, like the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA), a trade deal that is the cornerstone of Trump's legislative agenda and seen as beneficial to his re-election effort.

The move also risks further damaging the already strained relationship between the US and Mexico, two countries whose economies are deeply intertwined. 

Mexican president Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador responded in a public letter late on Thursday, telling Trump that "social problems are not solved with duties or coercive measures" and alluded to the United States' history as a nation of immigrants.

"The Statue of Liberty is not an empty symbol," he wrote. He also said he was dispatching his foreign relations secretary to Washington on Friday to try to negotiate a solution. 

If your Spanish is up to it, you can read his letter here (check out the killer headed note paper):

In his growing fury over an increase in border crossings that he has likened to an "invasion," Trump has blamed Mexico for failing to stop the flow of asylum seekers from countries like El Salvador and Honduras who pass through its territory.

And he has been itching to take increasingly radical, headline-grabbing action on the issue, which he sees as critical to his 2020 campaign because it energises his base. 

But the sudden tariff threat comes at a peculiar time, given how hard the administration has been pushing for passage of the USMCA, which would update the North American Free Trade Agreement.

It comes less than two weeks after Trump lifted import taxes on Mexican and Canadian steel and aluminum, a move that seemed to clear an obstacle to its passage, and the same day that both Trump and Lopez Obrador began the process of seeking ratification. The deal needs approval from lawmakers in all three countries before it takes effect. 

Here's Abby Young-Powell's report.

"The tariffs certainly put the USMCA on ice," said Gary Hufbauer, an expert in trade law at the Peterson Institute for International Economics, who panned the move but said Trump does have the legal authority to impose the tariffs under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act by citing a national emergency. 

"The drama is legal, but it's preposterous," he said. 

Daniel Ujczo, a US-based international trade lawyer, said the threat would likely slow the deal's progress in Mexico and put US lawmakers who want to vote "yes" in a difficult position because companies in their districts will end up paying the tariffs. 

Still, Ujczo and others wondered whether Trump - who has a habit of creating problems and then claiming credit when he rushes in to solve them - would go through with the threat. 

"This seems more theatre and tactics than a strategy to solve the migration crisis and re-balance North American trade," Ujczo said. 

It wouldn't be the first time Trump has punted on an immigration threat. In late March, Trump threatened to shut the entire US-Mexico border if Mexico didn't immediately halt illegal immigration. Just a few days later, he backed off the threat, saying he was pleased with steps Mexico had taken in recent days. It was unclear, however, what Mexico had changed. 

Indeed, on a briefing call with reporters on Thursday evening, administration officials said Mexico could prevent the tariffs from kicking in by securing their southern border with Guatemala and entering into a "safe third country agreement" that would make it difficult for those who enter Mexico from other countries to claim asylum in the US. 

"We're going to judge success here by the number of people crossing the border and that number needs to start coming down immediately, in a significant and substantial number," said acting White House chief of staff Mick Mulvaney. 

He also insisted that tariffs were "completely" separate from the USMCA because one pertained to immigration and the other trade.

Still the threat drew a withering response from Republican senator Chuck Grassley, a usual Trump ally, who slammed it as "a misuse of presidential tariff authority" that would burden American consumers and "seriously jeopardise passage of USMCA." 

Mulvaney said the White House had briefed a number of Republicans on the plan and acknowledged that some - particularly in the Senate - had raised concerns about the president invoking such powers. 

The threat comes at a time when Mexico has already been stepping up its efforts to crack down on migrants, carrying out raids and detaining thousands of people traveling through the country en route to the US. 

The crumbling city of Tapachula, near the Guatemalan border, has become the epicentre of the crackdowns, with thousands of migrants stranded because the Mexican government isn't providing them visas to travel. In addition, the Mexican government has allowed the US to send back hundreds of asylum seekers from Central America and other countries, forcing them to wait out their cases in Mexico. 

But that hasn't satisfied Trump, whose White House laid out an escalating schedule of tariff increases if his demands are not met: 10 percent on 1 July, 15 percent on 1 August, 20 percent on 1 September and 25 percent on 1 October. 

After that, the White House said, "tariffs will permanently remain at the 25 percent level unless and until Mexico substantially stops the illegal inflow of aliens coming through its territory."

Ahead of his visit to the UK next week, Trump has praised Conservative leadership contender Boris Johnson and Brexit Party leader Nigel Farage as “good guys” and said he “may” meet with them in London.

Trump described the duo as as "big powers" adding: "I think they have done a good job."

Asked if he would overtly support either in their respective quests to untangle Brexit, Trump relied: "Well, I like them. They are friends of mine but I haven't thought about supporting them.

"Maybe it's not my business to support people, but I have a lot of respect for both of those men."

In Britain, Trump will visit Buckingham Palace for a state banquet with assorted royals and have breakfast with outgoing prime minister Theresa May. 

Here's Andrew Griffin on those comments.

Trump was on extraordinary form yesterday, criticising Robert Mueller a day after the FBI special counsel's surprise statement on his report into Russian election hacking in which he said only Justice Department policy prevented his team from charging a sitting president with a crime and that if Trump "clearly did not commit a crime, we would have said so".

While leading Democrats read his remark as a clear invitation to Congress to pick up the baton and impeach the president, Trump and his allies fought hard to control the narrative, saying all the eight-minute address amounted to was case closed.

Trump's tweets in response to Mueller gradually escalated in tone, opening with a reasonably measured...

...Before the screeching really started and he inadvertently admitted the reality of "Russia helping me to get elected".

He ended his latest Twitter rant by accusing Mueller of holding a personal grudge after being denied the chance to return as FBI director, a line he has also used to explain the frequent attacks on him by Washington lawyer George Conway, husband of his White House counsel Kellyanne Conway.

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Here's Tom Embury-Dennis on the president's extraordinary admission.

Trump also had plenty to say about Mueller to reporters gathered on the South Lawn of the White House ahead of his flying visit to address graduating cadets at an Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs.

After rowing back on his Russia gaffe and suggesting the Kremlin would have preferred Hillary Clinton in power (Vladimir Putin said otherwise at their summit in Helsinki last summer)...

...He accused Mueller of being a "never-Trumper" and took him to task for failing to investigate systemic Democratic bias within the Justice Department, a Republican pet theme.

On impeachment, he said the following, revealing his apparent ignorance about how the process might work.

On Mueller's decision not to offer a verdict on whether or not the president obstructed justice - despite listing 11 possible instances of indictable behaviour in the second volume of his report - attorney general William Barr has told CBS This Morning: "I personally felt he could've reached a decision".

Rather than do so, which he concluded was outside of the remit of his office, Mueller left that up to Barr and his former deputy AG Rod Rosenstein, who moved quickly to rule out any charges against President Trump when they took delivery of the 448-page dossier in late March, several weeks before a redacted version of the report was put before the public.

During the clip released on Thursday, Barr pushed back on the idea that Mueller was handing over to Congress the decision on whether to take action against Trump.

"I am not sure what he was suggesting, but you know the Department of Justice (DOJ) doesn’t use our powers of investigating crimes as an adjunct to Congress," Barr said, sitting beside a log fire in clothing Alan Partridge might have described as "sports casual".

He also told the show he did not believe Obama-era DoJ officals committed treason "as a legal matter".

Trump continued his eccentric patter in Colorado Springs, shaking hands with 1,000 graduates, squeezing the muscles of one like a weird uncle and expressing his apparent belief that stealth fighter planes are in fact invisible. You know, like Wonder Woman's jet.

A scandal that apparently will not leave Trump alone - not least because he keeps reviving it - is his feud with the late war hero, Arizona senator and Republican presidential candidate John McCain.

The latest installment of the president's heated running battle with a man who died in August 2018 is over his team's request that an American destroyer, the USS John S McCain, stationed in Yokosuka be "kept out of sight" on his recent trip to Japan.

The story, arising from an email exchange between US Indo-Pacific Command and the White House, was first reported by The Wall Street Journal and his since been confirmed by several aides.

Trump told reporters on the South Lawn yesterday that he "was not a big fan" of the deceased "in any way, shape or form" but: "I would never do a thing like that."

"Now, somebody did it because they thought I didn't like him, OK? And they were well-meaning, I will say," he added, insisting he was kept in the dark.

His subsequent tweet regarding the matter, in which he dismissed it as "Fake News", saw him contradict his own press office.

His acting defence secretary Patrick Shanahan has likewise said he did not authorise attempts to move the ship and has asked his staff to investigate.

Joe Biden, by contrast, made light work of the question of McCain's legacy when asked about it, as surely any reasonable person would have.

Pete Buttigieg, the popular Democratic 2020 contender, Indiana mayor and war veteran, has taken President Trump to task over the USS John S McCain affair.

"This is not a show. Our military is not a prop", he tweeted. "Ships and sailors are not to be toyed with for the benefit of a fragile president’s ego."