President Trump was poised to enact hefty tariffs against Mexico and Canada as early as the end of next week as he continued a blitz of right-wing policy priorities on Day Two of his historic second term.
After signing a first day blizzard of executive orders cracking down on immigration and transgender rights and granting pardons to hundreds of Jan. 6 rioters, Trump signaled that he had no intention of taking his foot off the gas.
Trump, who capped a stunning political comeback to be sworn into office as the 47th president, planned to start his first full day back in the White House with a National Prayer Service at the National Cathedral.
He also was set to preside over a Tuesday afternoon event at the White House billed as a massive infrastructure announcement. Scant details were released, and any significant infrastructure measure would require funding from Congress.
The newly reelected president said late Monday he would impose 25% tariffs against Mexico and Canada, citing the close allies’ failure to meet his vague pre-inauguration demands for crackdowns on border crossings and drugs.
Trump falsely claimed foreign entities would pay the new taxes, but in fact American importers will foot the bill, which will result in higher prices on hundreds of billion dollars of goods U.S. consumers buy every day.
The new president has also suggested a blanket tariff on all imported goods and even bigger taxes on products made in China, although he hasn’t given details.
All the trading partners, including Mexico and Canada, say they would be forced to retaliate with tariffs on American exports that would likely harm U.S. manufacturing and agriculture and spark a tit-for-tat trade war.
Meanwhile, the first of hundreds of violent extremists convicted of storming the Capitol on Jan. 6 began celebrating their release from federal prisons after Trump pardoned them or commuted their sentences.
He even freed white nationalists imprisoned for orchestrating the violent attack aimed at keeping Trump in power after he lost the 2020 election to former President Biden.
Enrique Tarrio, the leader of the Proud Boys, was expected to get a hero’s welcome when he returns home to Miami after being freed from a Louisiana prison Tuesday.
For undocumented immigrants, Trump’s first days in office were marked by growing fear and uncertainty as administration officials vowed to start implementing hardline Day One executive orders that could lead to the deportation of more than 10 million people.
Trump has vowed to use the military to help stop asylum seekers and undocumented immigrants from crossing the southern border and enlist the support of local law enforcement to round up millions of foreign nationals who do not have the paperwork required to live and work in the U.S.
Trump also ordered federal officials to stop issuing American citizenship documents to the newborn children of undocumented immigrants starting in late February.
That edict would effectively end birthright citizenship, which Trump says incentivizes illegal immigration. But birthright citizen is enshrined in the 14th Amendment to the Constitution, leading many legal analysts to predict it would not withstand certain legal challenges.
So far, Trump has done less on the foreign policy front, although he repeated his improbable campaign pledges to retake the Panama Canal and force Greenland to become part of the U.S.
He has apparently given up on his claim that he could end the Russian invasion of Ukraine in just 24 hours and conceded that the Israeli-Palestinian conflict won’t be easy to solve despite the hostage release and Gaza ceasefire brokered by Biden in the final days of his administration.
