Trump Announces New Tariffs On Mexico To Force Cooperation On Illegal Immigration
President Trump has announced plans to impose escalating tariffs on goods imported from Mexico in an attempt to stop migrants from entering the U.S. over the southern border. U.S. Customs and Border Protection released this photo, taken on Wednesday at El Paso, Texas.
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Updated at 10 p.m. ET
President Trump announced that he will begin imposing tariffs on all goods imported from Mexico beginning June 10 unless that country does more to help reduce illegal immigration from Central America.
In a statement issued late Thursday, the president cited his authority under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, and said the crisis at the southern border requires action.
“Accordingly, starting on June 10, 2019, the United States will impose a 5 percent Tariff on all goods imported from Mexico. If the illegal migration crisis is alleviated through effective actions taken by Mexico, to be determined in our sole discretion and judgment, the Tariffs will be removed. If the crisis persists, however, the Tariffs will be raised to 10 percent on July 1, 2019.”
Trump added that unless the Mexican government takes steps to “dramatically reduce or eliminate” the flow of Central American migrants moving through its country, tariffs will go to 15% on August 1, to 20% on Sept. 1, and to 25% on Oct. 1. “Tariffs will permanently remain at the 25 percent level unless and until Mexico substantially stops the illegal inflow of aliens coming through its territory,” he wrote.
Mexico’s deputy foreign minister for North America, Jesus Seade, said that it would be disastrous if Trump imposed the new tariffs.
Trump’s surprise announcement comes as the administration is urging Congress to approve the pending U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement which is designed to replace the North American Trade Agreement reached in 1994. It is not immediately clear what impact the tariff threat will have on the draft agreement.
Acting White House Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney, in a conference call with reporters, said the trade agreement and tariff threat “are not linked.”
“These are not tariffs as part of a trade dispute,” Mulvaney said. “These are tariffs as part of an immigration problem. USMCA is a trade mattter and completely separate.”
When asked which Mexican imports the administration means to target, Mulvaney replied “all of them.”
Acting Secretary for Homeland Security Kevin McAleenan, in the same conference call, said the border crisis has become “a national emergency.”
“U.S. immigration authorities now have over 80,000 people in custody, a record level that is beyond sustainable capacity with current resources,” he said.
The president’s statement called for action by Mexico:
“Mexico’s passive cooperation in allowing this mass incursion constitutes an emergency and extraordinary threat to the national security and economy of the United States. Mexico has very strong immigration laws and could easily halt the illegal flow of migrants, including by returning them to their home countries. Additionally, Mexico could quickly and easily stop illegal aliens from coming through its southern border with Guatemala.”
Louisiana Governor Says He Plans To Sign Bill Restricting Most Abortions Into Law
Louisiana is the latest state where lawmakers have voted to ban most abortions with no exceptions for cases of rape or incest. The state’s Democratic governor says he will sign the bill into law.
ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:
Today Louisiana’s governor became the latest to sign a strict abortion ban into law with no exceptions for cases of rape or incest. This is part of a long-term strategy by abortion opponents to get the U.S. Supreme Court to reconsider its landmark Roe versus Wade decision legalizing abortion.
NPR’s Debbie Elliott is following this debate and joins us now. Hi. Debbie.
DEBBIE ELLIOTT, BYLINE: Hi, Ari.
SHAPIRO: OK, so the Louisiana Legislature passed this bill yesterday. The governor signed it into law today. What does it do?
ELLIOTT: Well, it outlaws abortion once a heartbeat can be detected by ultrasound. Typically that can be as early as six weeks, in some cases before a woman would even know that she was pregnant. There are exceptions if a woman’s life is threatened or if there’s a serious and irreversible health risk, also if the pregnancy is diagnosed as medically futile. There are no exceptions for cases of rape or incest. Here’s the bill’s House sponsor, Republican State Representative Valarie Hodges.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
VALARIE HODGES: While we have tremendous empathy – tremendous empathy – for women of whatever age, especially for children that have been the victims of rape or incest – and it is a heinous crime – but if anyone should be put to death, it should be the perpetrator of the crime, not the child, not the baby.
ELLIOTT: Republicans lead the Louisiana Legislature, but this bill picked up Democratic support as well. In fact, the Senate sponsor of the bill is a Democrat.
SHAPIRO: And so is the governor who signed the bill this afternoon. What has he said about his decision to sign the bill into law?
ELLIOTT: Well, his position is certainly a break with national Democrats. Edwards was not available for an interview, but in a statement, he described himself as pro-life. He also acknowledged that there are many people who feel just as strongly as he does on the abortion issue and disagree with me, he said. But I respect their opinions. One of the people that disagree with him is the chair of the Louisiana Democratic Party, State Senator Karen Carter Peterson. I spoke with her from Baton Rouge today, and she was very disappointed with the governor.
KAREN CARTER PETERSON: I respect his religious beliefs. I, in fact, share a lot of his religious beliefs. But while I’m in this capitol as I sit right now, a woman’s health is sacred. A woman should have the right to decide with her husband, with her family what she does with her body.
ELLIOTT: The political reality in Louisiana is that Edwards, the lone Democratic governor in the Deep South, is up for re-election this year in a conservative, Republican-leaning state where the abortion issue resonates with voters.
SHAPIRO: OK, well this ban comes as a lot of states are passing new restrictions on abortion. And most of these laws are tied up in court challenges. Take a step back, and tell us about the broader strategy here.
ELLIOTT: Well, the broader strategy is to be in federal court on a path that anti-abortion activists hope will lead to the U.S. Supreme Court. They are emboldened by a conservative majority court now with two appointees from President Trump. And these laws are aimed at challenging Roe v. Wade. Louisiana’s law uses the language unborn human being and defines that as from fertilization. The goal is to get the Supreme Court to overturn Roe and establish human rights for a developing embryo or fetus.
Now, similar abortion bans by other states both in the South and in the Midwest have been challenged as unconstitutional. In fact, Louisiana’s law is directly tied to a similar one in Mississippi that has already been blocked by a federal judge. The Louisiana law is written so that it would not take effect unless the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals upholds Mississippi’s law.
SHAPIRO: There have been calls for boycotts of some of these states. Are we already seeing fallout even before the courts weigh in on these laws?
ELLIOTT: Yes. After Alabama passed what was the most restrictive abortion ban in the country, the University of Alabama’s biggest donor, Hugh Culverhouse Jr., called for a boycott of both the state of Alabama and the school. Now, the university attracts a majority of out-of-state students. It says it had nothing to do with the law and was already in a dispute with Culverhouse and may give him back a $21 million donation. That is a big investment to lose.
In Georgia, several media giants including Disney, Netflix and WarnerMedia have indicated that they’re reconsidering doing business in Georgia because of that state’s law that bans abortions once a heartbeat can be detected. So Louisiana – also a place where there is a significant amount of television and film production as well as the music industry there. So that state could face similar pressure.
SHAPIRO: That’s NPR’s Debbie Elliott. Thanks, Debbie.
ELLIOTT: You’re welcome.
Copyright © 2019 NPR. All rights reserved. Visit our website terms of use and permissions pages at www.npr.org for further information.
NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by Verb8tm, Inc., an NPR contractor, and produced using a proprietary transcription process developed with NPR. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of NPR’s programming is the audio record.
NBA Finals Head To Canada As Raptors Take On Golden State Warriors
For the first time, the NBA Finals will be played in Canada. The Toronto Raptors host the Golden State Warriors on Thursday. NPR’s Audie Cornish talks with Toronto Star sports columnist Bruce Arthur.
AUDIE CORNISH, HOST:
Tonight, for the first time ever, the NBA finals are in Canada. The Toronto Raptors host the Golden State Warriors for Game 1. The Warriors are the two-time defending champions, but we’re going to focus on the Raptors because while, yeah, lots of Raptors fans are just happy to have made it this far, Toronto has arguably the best player in the world in Kawhi Leonard. So can Leonard carry them all the way to the title? Even if he doesn’t, has basketball in Canada already won? For that, we turn to Bruce Arthur, sports columnist for the Toronto Star. Welcome to the program.
BRUCE ARTHUR: Thank you, Audie.
CORNISH: So we’ll get to Kawhi Leonard in a moment, but first, we know that Toronto has had, like, several years of good but not great teams. Can you talk about how people are talking about this? I don’t know what the energy is like in the city.
ARTHUR: The level of interest and excitement has never been higher than this – never. And this is a franchise with two and a half decades, almost, of failure. And even when the team was good, the seasons tended to end in humiliation. LeBron James was a big part of that. This is something that I don’t think we’ve ever seen in the city before. You walk around the city now, and you hear people talking about the Raptors. You can hear the sound of the celebration if you’re in one of the condo towers downtown, if you stand out on your balcony. They’ve finally captured the city, and I don’t think this team has ever truly done that before.
CORNISH: Now, Kawhi Leonard was traded to Toronto before the season, right? And it was seen as a big gamble because Leonard, you know, is a free agent next year. He might be eyeing a team in Southern California, where he’s from. Is there a sense that this is kind of now or never, in terms of winning a title?
ARTHUR: There probably should be because the funny thing is, for most players, for most people, you might be able to look at this and say, all this success, the way that the city has embraced him and the team, all of these good things would naturally lead to Kawhi Leonard being more inclined to re-sign in Toronto. And we just don’t know that that’s the case because he’s a famously kind of opaque individual. Nobody knows what Kawhi Leonard is thinking, except Kawhi Leonard, about what he really wants in life and in basketball. The team’s really good; that might not be enough.
CORNISH: People are talking about him as being one of the greats, right? You’re hearing, like, a Michael Jordan comparison being thrown around. Can he really carry the team to a title against the Warriors, though?
ARTHUR: Not alone, I don’t think so. The one thing about this Raptors team that people do underrate is that, defensively, this Raptors team is as good as anybody in basketball right now. It’s a team with versatility, intelligence, a ferocity, defensively. But to beat the Golden State Warriors, they’re going to need more guys to make shots offensively. Kawhi Leonard is great. You need more than one great player to win in any playoff series, much less against a championship outfit like the Warriors.
CORNISH: The NBA has pushed for expansion north for decades. But is the rest of Canada at all interested in this? I mean, is this Canada’s team?
ARTHUR: Well, you say this as someone who is from Vancouver, who was a Vancouver Grizzlies partial season ticket holder and then watched them leave. As a Toronto…
CORNISH: So biased (laughter).
ARTHUR: Yeah. Toronto and Canada are two separate things. We’ve got, I think, about 7 million within the general area of Toronto out of about 35 or 36 million people in the country. It’s the mega city, and it’s different ethnically, culturally, financially, than the rest of Canada, and basketball is a part of that. The fault line does run along those lines in that it is very much a Toronto team. But this is the first time I feel like – and it’s still anecdotal. You can tell a little bit from television ratings. But the team seems to be crossing into the bloodstream of the rest of the country, and this is, I think, what happens when you win, when you make it into a cultural curiosity in addition to being a sporting curiosity.
CORNISH: And does it help to have someone like Drake courtside (laughter)?
ARTHUR: I think for some people it does. I think the power of celebrity is something that is immensely powerful. And he’s someone that just adds to the level of attention that’s happening here. This is going to be the first championship series for a major sport in Canada in the Internet era, and every bit of notoriety helps, and Drake is a part of that.
CORNISH: Bruce Arthur, sports columnist for the Toronto Star. Thank you for talking about the Raptors with us, and best of luck.
ARTHUR: Absolutely. My pleasure. Thank you.
Copyright © 2019 NPR. All rights reserved. Visit our website terms of use and permissions pages at www.npr.org for further information.
NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by Verb8tm, Inc., an NPR contractor, and produced using a proprietary transcription process developed with NPR. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of NPR’s programming is the audio record.
The Thistle & Shamrock: Scent Of Spring
Kim Robertson
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Spring is in the airs… and in the jigs, reels, and songs as we put out a musical welcome mat for the first signs of the season. Artists featured in this episode include Nightnoise, Kim Robertson and The Whistlebinkies.
