Trump’s threat to impose tariffs on Mexico, Canada and China sends global markets into turmoil: Live updates
President-elect flexes muscles on world stage after securing brace of legal wins
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Your support makes all the difference.President-elect Donald Trump has vowed to impose massive tariffs on China, Canada and Mexico with the aim of stopping drug smuggling, an announcement that left the markets reeling in fear of a new trade war with Beijing.
The threatened double-digit tariffs would likely have major impacts on key sectors of the US economy, including auto manufacturing, crude oil and agriculture, all of which involve trade with the targeted countries.
The measures could also further drive inflation, hitting the American consumer.
Meanwhile, Trump is reportedly planning to grant his cabinet nominees “sweeping security clearances” and delay their being subjected to FBI background checks until his own officials have taken over the bureau.
The Republican spent Monday evening celebrating a major legal victory after Justice Department Special Counsel Jack Smith moved to drop the the federal election interference and classified documents cases against him.
Citing a precedent that prevents a sitting president from being charged, Smith said his team is treating Trump as a current president and asked for the cases to be abandoned.
Smith stressed that the reason for the motions had nothing to do with the strength of the evidence collected, which he believes is strong.
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Truth Social: Trump demands apology from New York Times for ‘junk’ coverage of him and lashes out at Maggie Haberman
The president-elect unexpectedly lashed out at the newspaper overnight, demanding an apology for its critical coverage of him and reserving particular ire for correspondent Maggie Haberman – or “Magot Hagerman”, as Trump prefers.
He may well have been annoyed by Haberman’s latest story about his aide, Natalie Harp, which contains the interesting detail that she sent him a series of passionate letters, declaring in one: “You are all that matters to me.”
Equally, he might have been upset by Haberman’s appearance on Kaitlan Collins’s CNN show last night, in which she speculated about the prospect of Trump ordering a revenge investigation into Jack Smith once he takes office.
Here’s Mike Bedigan with more on Harp.
One of Trump’s aides wrote him letters that said ‘you are all that matters to me’
Natalie Harp, a former right-wing cable television host, has been on Trump’s radar since 2019
Markets in turmoil as China warns ‘no one will win’ if Trump starts trade war
While the likes of Laura Ingraham and Eric Trump were salivating over the prospect of the president-elect’s geopolitical posturing on Fox News last night – relishing the prospect of punishing international drug trafficking with, in effect, billion dollar fines – the markets did not care for it at all.
The Canadian dollar hit a four-year low against the US dollar, the Mexican peso slumped to its weakest point since 2022 and the European and Asian stock markets declined in anticipation of a feud with China.
The FTSE 100 fell 0.4 percent, Paris’s Cac 40 and the Dax in Frankfurt both dropped 0.7 percent and Japan’s Nikkei tumbled 0.9 percent.
“It was just last month that Trump said that ‘the most beautiful word in the dictionary is tariff’, so there really should not have been a surprise in Trump’s intention, just in the timing of the comments,” said Sean Callow, a senior FX analyst at ITC Markets, according to The Daily Telegraph.
“The fall in trade-sensitive currencies makes sense, and should persist near term.”
Natixis economist Gary Ng added: “It’s definitely a shock to the market and weighing on Chinese assets, especially the export sectors.
“But compared to what he imposed on Canada and Mexico, the magnitude (of the Chinese tariff) is not that big, so investors might still want to see what are the follow ups and when/if the 60 percent promised will actually come through.”
Here’s Alisha Rahaman Sarkar on Beijing’s retaliatory rhetoric.
China warns ‘no one will win’ if Donald Trump starts trade war
Incoming US president vows to impose ‘additional 10 per cent tariff above any additional tariffs’ on imports from China
Jack Smith moves to dismiss charges against Trump in election interference and classified documents cases
As markets and world leaders reacted to the president-elect’s bombshell trade announcement on Monday evening, Trump himself was celebrating a major legal victory after a judge in DC agreed to dismiss the federal election interference indictment against him.
Citing a precedent that prevents a sitting president from being charged, Justice Department special counsel Jack Smith said his team is treating Trump as a current president and asked that the case be abandoned – to which Judge Tanya Chutkan duly agreed.
Smith stressed that the reason for the motion had nothing to do with the strength of the evidence.
His case accused Trump of pushing false claims of voter fraud and engaging in a fake elector scheme to overturn his 2020 election defeat to Joe Biden.
Smith’s team also moved to abandon its attempt to revive its classified documents case against Trump.
This was how he reacted on Truth Social:
Mike Bedigan and Ariana Baio have more.
Trump won’t face charges in classified docs or election interference case
The move from federal prosecutor was announced in two separate motions filed on Monday and comes weeks after Trump won presidential election
Donald Trump vows to impose tariffs on China, Canada and Mexico to stop drug smuggling
Good morning!
President-elect Donald Trump has vowed to impose massive tariffs on China, Canada and Mexico with the aim of stopping drug smuggling.
The threatened double-digit tariffs would likely have major impacts on key sectors of the US economy, including auto manufacturing, crude oil and agriculture, all of which involve major trade with the named countries.
The measures could also further drive inflation.
Here’s what Trump had to say about it on Truth Social...
...and here’s a full report from Andrew Feinberg and Josh Marcus.
Trump threatens Mexico, China, and Canada with tariffs over immigration and drugs
Tariffs would likely have major impact on U.S. economy and North American trade agreement Trump helped negotiate
Elon Musk praises Trump tariff threat
Elon Musk is among the Donald Trump allies cheering the president-elect’s threat to tariff Canada, Mexico, and China to stop drug smuggling.
“Price of Fentanyl will rise sharply,” Musk wrote on X.
While the tariffs are unlikely to impact illicit drug flows across the U.S. border, where most fentanyl is brought in by U.S. citizens at official ports of entry, they might impact Musk himself.
Tesla is reportedly building a factory in Mexico, one of numerous U.S. automakers with cross-border ties to suppliers and factories.
Watch: Jack Smith moves to dismiss charges against Trump in election interference and classified documents cases
Donald Trump endorses Florida CFO Jimmy Patronis to replace Matt Gaetz in Congress
President-elect Donald Trump has endorsed Florida’s Chief Financial Officer Jimmy Patronis to replace Matt Gaetz in the US House of Representatives.
Patronis, a long-time ally to the president-elect, has served as Florida’s CFO since 2017. He is married with two children and owns a seafood restaurant in Panama City.
In January, the CFO promoted a state bill that would have helped Trump, whose Mar-a-Lago residence is in Florida, pay his mounting legal fees.
Walmart becomes latest business to pull back from DEI policies after conservative pressure campaign
Walmart is cutting back its diversity programs after a conservative activist threatened to call a boycott days before Black Friday.
Robby Starbuck, a former music video director who campaigns against corporate diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives, said on Monday that he had persuaded the US retail giant to end a raft of “woke policies” such as providing racial equity training to its workers and funding anti-racist non-profits.
The company will review all funding for LGBT+ Pride events, remove all “transgender products” marketed to children from its stores, and stop participating in the Human Rights Council’s LGBT+ equality index.
It will also stop using the terms “DEI” and “LatinX” in official communications and stop requiring its suppliers to provide “certain demographic data” as part of its supplier diversity program.
Io Dodds has the story.
Walmart becomes latest business to pull back from DEI after conservative pressure
Activist claims credit for move, although chain insists it was considering the changes anyway
Donald Trump Jr. says White House might kick out legacy media
The Trump administration might kick traditional journalists out of the White House press room and replace them with online media personalities, according to Donald Trump, Jr.
“We had the conversation about opening up the press room to a lot of these independent journalists,” Trump said on his Rumble show “Triggered.”
”Why not open it up to people who have larger viewerships, stronger followings?” he added.
Trump, who said he recently talked about the idea with his father, president-elect Donald Trump, claimed such a step was necessary because outlets like The New York Times “lied” and had been “adverse to everything.”
Project 2025, the right-wing blueprint for a future GOP administration that has influenced Trump administration proposals and appointees, also suggested booting out standard White House beat reporters.
Trump rails against those who brought ‘empty’ criminal cases against him
After federal prosecutors signaled their plans to abandon the criminal cases against Trump, the president-elect celebrated his legal victory by insulting prosecutors, judges and district attorneys.
On Truth Social, Trump called the cases “empty and lawless” declaring they should have never been brought against him because they wasted “$100 Million Dollars of Taxpayer Dollars.”
As he has done in the past, Trump claimed the cases were politically motivated and brought by Democrats.
He insulted Fulton County DA Fani Willis and special prosecutor Nathan Wade, two people who oversaw the Georgia federal election interference case and faced accusations of misconduct. Claiming Wade has “zero experience”, Trump accused the two of taking vacations together using the money Wade was paid with.
He lashed out at Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg, claiming Bragg did not want to bring the New York hush-money case against Trump but did so at the behest of the Justice Department. The New York case was separate from federal criminal inquiries.
Trump also accused New York AG Letitia James of unethically and “probably illegally” campaigning on a platform of holding Trump accountable.
“It was a political hijacking, and a low point in the History of our Country that such a thing could have happened, and yet, I persevered, against all odds, and WON,” Trump said.
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