Nominee for No. 2 spot at Pentagon warns China ‘incredibly determined’ to surpass US

PENTAGON — President Donald Trump’s nominee for deputy secretary of defense is warning that China’s military is resolute on surpassing the United States and is calling for a fix to “significant” military shortages at a time when administration leaders are trying to make big budget cuts.

“China is incredibly determined, they feel a great sense of urgency, and they’ll be fully dedicated to becoming the strongest nation in the world and having dominance over the United States,” Steve Feinberg told members of the Senate Armed Service Committee on Tuesday.  

Feinberg, a businessman and investor, said the U.S. military shortages include “shipbuilding, nuclear modernization, aircraft development, cyber defense, hypersonics, counter space, defending our satellites [and] counter drones.”

“We really need to plug these shortages, focus on our priorities, get rid of legacy programs, be very disciplined, while at the same time focusing on the economics. If we do that, given America’s great innovative capability, entrepreneurship, we will defeat China. If we don’t, our very national security is at risk,” Feinberg said.

The hearing comes as Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth has called on the department to cut 8% — roughly $50 billion — to reinvest in priorities aligned with a “more lethal fighting force.”

Senator Jack Reed, the top Democrat on the Senate Armed Services Committee, on Tuesday pushed back against the move saying, “Slashing the defense budget will not create efficiency in our military. It will cripple it.”

The concern about cuts to the military has echoed on both sides of the aisle.

Republican committee Chairman Roger Wicker told the Breaking Defense news organization last month that he hoped to increase defense spending by as much as $200 billion in coming years.

And Republican Senator Dan Sullivan on Tuesday called for prioritizing solutions to shipbuilding to counter threats from China and others.

“We’re in the worst crisis in shipbuilding in over 40 years. The Chinese are building a giant navy. It’s already bigger than ours,” he said.

China’s military has about 370 warships, according to the Pentagon’s latest China Military Power Report, while the U.S. military has about 300.

Feinberg acknowledged that the shipbuilding shortage is “a tough problem” for the military.

“Our supply chain is definitely weak. Our workforce needs to be improved. But a big piece of improving our supply chain is working more closely with our private sector. We have companies that can get at where our needs are, where our shortages are, and we need to work more closely with them. We need people inside of government that understand their issues,” Feinberg said.

Several Democrats on the committee were critical of interference at the Pentagon by the Department of Government Efficiency, saying it could create a major vulnerability should its members not handle data more carefully.

“They [DOGE] just sent an unclassified email with CIA recent hire names in an unclassified space. As a former CIA officer, you just blew the cover of someone who was going to risk their life abroad to protect our country,” said Democratic Senator Elissa Slotkin.

“Do you know how appetizing it is for our adversaries to have this data? … It is quite literally an issue of safety and security,” she added.

Democrats also raised concern about plans to let go more than 5,000 Pentagon civilian employees this week, while Republican Senator Markwayne Mullin countered that cutting 5,000 jobs amounted to less than 0.5% of the workforce.

“Our national debt is now costing us more to just pay interest than we spend on our military. That’s a huge national security risk,” he said. “And so, at what point do we start making cuts?”

Ukraine, US agree on a framework economic deal, Ukrainian officials say

KYIV, UKRAINE — Ukraine and the United States have reached an agreement on a framework for a broad economic deal that would include access to Ukraine’s rare earth minerals, three senior Ukrainian officials said Tuesday.

The officials, who were familiar with the matter, spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly. One of them said Kyiv hopes that signing the agreement will ensure the continued flow of U.S. military support that Ukraine urgently needs.

President Donald Trump, speaking to reporters in the Oval Office, said he’d heard that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy was coming and added that “it’s OK with me, if he’d like to, and he would like to sign it together with me.”

The agreement could be signed as early as Friday and plans are being drawn up for Zelenskyy to travel to Washington to meet Trump, according to one of the Ukrainian officials.

Another official said the agreement would provide an opportunity for Zelenskyy and Trump to discuss continued military aid to Ukraine, which is why Kyiv is eager to finalize the deal.

Trump called it “a very big deal,” adding that it could be worth 1 trillion dollars. “It could be whatever, but it’s rare earths and other things.”

According to one Ukrainian official, some technical details are still to be worked out. However, the draft does not include a contentious Trump administration proposal to give the U.S. $500 billion worth of profits from Ukraine’s rare earth minerals as compensation for its wartime assistance to Kyiv.

Instead, the U.S. and Ukraine would have joint ownership of a fund, and Ukraine would in the future contribute 50% of future proceeds from state-owned resources, including minerals, oil, and gas. One official said the deal had better terms of investments and another one said that Kyiv secured favorable amendments and viewed the outcome as “positive.”

The deal does not, however, include security guarantees. One official said that this would be something the two presidents would discuss when they meet.

The progress in negotiating the deal comes after Trump and Zelenskyy traded sharp rhetoric last week about their differences over the matter.

Zelenskyy said he balked at signing off on a deal that U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent pushed during a visit to Kyiv earlier this month, and the Ukrainian leader objected again days later during a meeting in Munich with Vice President JD Vance because the American proposal did not include security guarantees.

Trump then called Volodymyr Zelenskyy “a dictator without elections” and claimed his support among voters was near rock-bottom.

But the two sides made significant progress during a three-day visit to Ukraine last week by retired Lieutenant General Keith Kellogg, Trump’s special envoy to Ukraine and Russia.

The idea was initially proposed last fall by Zelenskyy as part of his plan to strengthen Kyiv’s hand in future negotiations with Moscow.

Генштаб ЗСУ: російські війська інтенсивно атакують на Покровському напрямку – 26 штурмів за день

Російські загарбники сім разів намагалися вклинитися в українську оборону на Торецькому напрямку в районах Торецька та Кримського

Pentagon chief tours Guantanamo Bay as more detainees arrive

Washington — More migrants slated for deportation from the United States arrived Tuesday at the detention center at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, under the watchful eye of U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth. 

Hegseth, visiting the U.S. naval base to get briefings on the military’s efforts to support Washington’s mass deportation efforts, posted on social media that he witnessed the U.S. cargo jet land, adding he is proud to partner with the U.S. agencies working to “remove those who have infringed on our territorial sovereignty.” 

Two U.S. defense officials told VOA that the C-130 carrying nine migrants from Fort Bliss in Texas landed at Guantanamo Bay midday Tuesday, and that all nine are considered “high threat illegal aliens.”

One of the officials said they were taken from the plane to the detention center, where they were being held under guard. 

A third official told VOA that an additional flight carrying more migrants was tentatively scheduled for Wednesday. 

All of the officials spoke to VOA on the condition of anonymity since they were not authorized to discuss the deportation operations.  

The new detainees join another 17 detainees sent from Fort Bliss to Guantanamo Bay on Sunday.

Neither the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), which is spearheading the U.S. deportation efforts, nor Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has so far responded to questions about the identities of the detainees, their countries of origin or the crimes with which they are charged.

Tuesday’s flight carrying detainees from the U.S. mainland to the naval base in Cuba is the second since ICE last Thursday deported 177 detainees who had been brought to Guantanamo Bay earlier this month.

Of the 177, officials had said that more than 120 were dangerous criminals, including members of Tren de Aragua, a Venezuelan street gang designated by the U.S. as a foreign terrorist organization.

The other 50 or so individuals had been held at the base’s migrant operations center, designed to hold nonviolent individuals.   

Hegseth on Tuesday shared photos of his visit to the base on his X social media account, where he toured both the detention center and the migrant operations center.  

“These warriors are directly supporting the apprehension and deportation of dangerous illegal aliens,” he wrote in one post. “We cannot thank them or their families enough.”

The Pentagon’s deputy press secretary, Kingsley Wilson, also posted about the visit on her X account, sharing video of the facilities designed to house “low-priority & medium-priority illegal aliens” before they are ultimately deported. 

The commander of U.S. Southern Command, which oversees operations at the naval base at Guantanamo Bay, told lawmakers earlier this month that the base’s migrant facility had the capacity to hold about 2,500 nonviolent detainees. Efforts were underway to allow it to house as many as 30,000 nonviolent migrants slated for deportation.

U.S. deportation efforts have sparked criticism from immigration rights groups.

Earlier this month, the American Civil Liberties Union and several other organizations filed a lawsuit against DHS, alleging the detainees held at the Guantanamo Bay prison facility before being deported Thursday had been improperly denied access to lawyers.

DHS dismissed the lawsuit’s allegations.

House leader works to secure enough votes to pass US budget

WASHINGTON — A partial U.S. government shutdown appeared increasingly likely Tuesday afternoon as U.S. Speaker of the House Mike Johnson worked to secure every single vote in the Republican conference to pass a spending bill. With the slimmest of majorities, Johnson cannot afford to lose a single vote.

“We promised to deliver President Trump’s full agenda, not just a part of it. Not just a little bit of it now and return for the rest,” Johnson told reporters Tuesday.

But several members of the House Republican conference are still concerned about the size of the spending measure, how and when to enact a proposed extension of the 2017 tax cuts, and how to pay down the U.S. deficit without cutting key safety net programs that help American voters. Senate leadership has proposed passing the tax cuts in a separate bill later this year.

“Not only are we working to find savings for the American taxpayer, a better, more efficient use of their dollar, which we are morally obligated to do, we also have a moral obligation to bend the curve on the debt,” Johnson said.

President Donald Trump has called for lawmakers to pass “one big, beautiful bill” that will be a key part of enacting his domestic policy agenda.

Despite Trump expressing his preference for the House of Representatives version of the budget, the Senate passed a funding resolution Friday that provides $150 billion in military funding and $175 billion for border security. That measure also avoids the controversial Medicaid cuts of the House version.

Republican Representative Tony Gonzales led a group of seven other House Republicans warning against potential cuts to health care program Medicaid, food assistance funding and other social safety net programs.

“Slashing Medicaid would have serious consequences, particularly in rural and predominantly Hispanic communities where hospitals and nursing homes are already struggling to keep their doors open,” the lawmakers said in a letter to Johnson last week.

Republican Representative Thomas Massie, a member of the conservative Freedom Caucus, also said he would vote no on the version of the budget up for a vote. Several House Republicans have not yet announced their votes on the measure.

Congressional Democrats also object to the Republican tax cut proposal, arguing it would harm lower-income and middle-class Americans who are already concerned about the cost of living and inflation.

In a “Dear Colleagues” letter sent Monday morning, Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries wrote, “Far-right extremists are determined to push through $4.5 trillion of tax breaks for wealthy Republican donors and well-connected corporations, explode the debt and saddle everyday Americans with the bill by ending Medicaid as we know it. We must be at full strength to enhance our opportunity to stop the GOP Tax Scam in its tracks.”

Trump posted on Truth Social last week that “The House and Senate are doing a SPECTACULAR job of working together as one unified, and unbeatable, TEAM, however, unlike the Lindsey Graham version of the very important Legislation currently being discussed, the House Resolution implements my FULL America First Agenda, EVERYTHING, not just parts of it!”

If lawmakers cannot reach a compromise by March 14, there will be a partial government shutdown, leaving millions of federal employees temporarily without pay and suspending some nonessential government services.

Senate Majority Leader John Thune did not rule out the possibility of another short-term spending bill to give lawmakers more time to work.

“We’re keeping all the options on the table, but we are running out of time,” Thune told reporters Tuesday.

The Senate moved forward with a vote on its version of the budget due to uncertainty over the potential success of the vote on the House version. The two versions will have to be compromised to be signed into law.

But Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer characterized the vote as a first step toward hurting voters.

“Make no mistake, it will rob seniors, kids and the disabled to pay for the rich to get richer. It’s wrong. We’re going to use every lever we have at our disposal to lift up the concerns that we are hearing from our constituents, band together and organize with them and fight to stop this tax break for billionaires,” Schumer told reporters Tuesday.

US consumer confidence drops sharply, survey shows

U.S. consumer confidence plunged in February in its biggest monthly decline in more than four years, a business research group said Tuesday.

The Conference Board said its consumer confidence index dropped from 105.3 in January to 98.3 this month, the largest month-to-month decline since August 2021.

With U.S. consumer spending accounting for about 70% of the world’s largest economy, the three major stock indexes on Wall Street all fell on news of the report. The tech-heavy NASDAQ dropped by more than a percentage point.

The Conference Board said in a statement, “Views of current labor market conditions weakened. Consumers became pessimistic about future business conditions and less optimistic about future income. Pessimism about future employment prospects worsened and reached a 10-month high.”

Separately, U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent contended Tuesday that the U.S. economy is more fragile under the surface than economic indicators suggest, and he vowed to “reprivatize” growth by cutting government spending and regulation.

In his first major economic policy address, Bessent told a group at the Australian Embassy in Washington that interest rate volatility, enduring inflation and reliance on the public sector for job growth have hobbled the American economy, despite general national economic growth and low unemployment.

Bessent blamed “prolific overspending” under former President Joe Biden and regulations that have hindered supply-side growth as the main drivers of “sticky inflation.”

“The previous administration’s over-reliance on excessive government spending and overbearing regulation left us with an economy that may have exhibited some reasonable metrics but ultimately was brittle underneath,” he said.

Bessent said that 95% of all job growth in the past 12 months has been concentrated in public and government-adjacent sectors, such as health care and education, jobs offering slower wage growth and less productivity than private-sector jobs.

Meanwhile, he said jobs in manufacturing, metals, mining and information technology all contracted or flatlined over the same period.

“The private sector has been in recession,” Bessent said. “Our goal is to reprivatize the economy.”

Consumers had appeared increasingly confident heading toward the end of 2024 and spent generously during the holiday season. But U.S. retail sales dropped sharply in January, with unusually cold weather throughout much of the U.S. taking some of the blame.

Retail sales fell 0.9% last month from December, the Commerce Department reported last week. The decline, the biggest in a year, came after two months of robust gains.

With inflation remaining a concern for consumers and uncertainty about President Donald Trump’s plan to impose new or stiffer tariffs on imports from other countries, policymakers at the country’s central bank, the Federal Reserve, have taken a cautious approach on whether to further cut its benchmark interest rate.

The Fed left its key borrowing rate alone at its last meeting after cutting it at the previous three.

“Consumers’ confidence has deteriorated sharply in the face of threats to impose large tariffs and to slash federal spending and employment,” Pantheon Macroeconomics chief Samuel Tombs wrote in a note to clients.

Some information in this report came from The Associated Press, Reuters and Agence France-Presse.

US Supreme Court throws out Oklahoma man’s murder conviction, death sentence

Washington — The U.S. Supreme Court on Tuesday threw out the murder conviction and death penalty for Richard Glossip, an Oklahoma man who has steadfastly maintained his innocence and averted multiple attempts by the state to execute him.

The justices found that Glossip’s trial violated his constitutional rights.

The justices heard arguments in October in a case that produced a rare alliance in which lawyers for Glossip and the state argued that the high court should overturn Glossip’s conviction and death sentence because he did not get a fair trial.

The victim’s relatives had told the high court that they want to see Glossip executed.

Oklahoma’s top criminal appeals court had repeatedly upheld the conviction and sentence, even after the state sided with Glossip.

Glossip was convicted and sentenced to death in the 1997 killing in Oklahoma City of his former boss, motel owner Barry Van Treese, in what prosecutors have alleged was a murder-for-hire scheme.

Glossip has always maintained his innocence. Another man, Justin Sneed, admitted robbing Van Treese and beating him to death with a baseball bat but testified he only did so after Glossip promised to pay him $10,000. Sneed received a life sentence in exchange for his testimony and was the key witness against Glossip.

In US capital, college-owned station broadcasts news, music and opportunity

For more than 50 years, WHUR has been broadcasting to listeners in the U.S. capital from Howard University, a historically black institution. A commercial station owned by the university, it offers music, news and education opportunities. During Black History Month, VOA’s Cristina Caicedo Smit met the team behind the unique station.

Trump administration proposes steep fees on Chinese cargo ships

The Trump administration has proposed punitive new fees on international shipping that would target vessels owned by Chinese companies or manufactured in Chinese shipyards, promising to dramatically alter the economics of global trade.

The new policy would charge Chinese-owned cargo ships, as well as third-country flagged vessels built in China, $1 million or more per port-of-call in the U.S.

Large container ships often make multiple stops when delivering goods to the U.S., and would face new fees at each port.

The Office of the U.S. Trade Representative (USTR) published the proposal Friday, tying it to an investigation into allegations by several U.S. labor unions that China has unfairly distorted the international shipbuilding industry.

The investigation, conducted under Section 301 of the Trade Act of 1974, determined that the Chinese government has pursued a policy of subsidizing its domestic shipbuilding industry with the aim of “targeting for dominance” the global market.

Growing market share

The investigation pointed out that over the past 25 years, China’s share of the global shipbuilding industry has exploded. China accounted for about 5% of the total tonnage of ships manufactured in 1999. By 2023, the Chinese share of the market surpassed 50%.

The USTR found that Chinese policy “burdens or restricts U.S. commerce by undercutting business opportunities for and investments in the U.S. maritime, logistics, and shipbuilding sectors; restricting competition and choice; creating economic security risks from dependence and vulnerabilities in sectors critical to the functioning of the U.S. economy; and undermining supply chain resilience.”

The results of the investigation, which began during President Joe Biden’s administration, were announced last month.

The proposal is open for public comment until March 24, at which point the administration will determine whether or not to implement it.

Chinese reaction

On Monday, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Lin Jian sharply criticized the U.S. move.

“[T]o serve its political agenda at home, the U.S. has abused Section 301 investigation[s], which seriously violated WTO [World Trade Organization] rules and further undermined the multilateral trading system,” he said. “We call on the U.S. side to respect facts and multilateral rules and immediately stop its wrongdoings.”

The China Association of the National Shipbuilding Industry (CANSI) and China Shipowner Association had previously blasted the USTR investigation as being “conclusions full of lies and distortion of facts.”

In a statement issued when the results of the investigation were released, CANSI said, “Development of China’s shipbuilding industry strictly follows the international trading rules and is the result of collaboration with global partners, as well as the tech innovation, and the hard-wording and excellent performances of Chinese industry players.”

Complex new rules

The USTR proposal contains a number of complicated elements that made it unclear precisely how any new regime of port fees would be administered.

Each ship owned by a Chinese entity would be charged a $1 million fee on entering a U.S. port, though the proposal also appears to consider a different fee calculation of $1,000 per ton of capacity, which could add up to considerably more for large ships that carry thousands of tons of cargo.

Chinese-built ships operated by non-Chinese shipowners would be subject to a $1.5 million fee, which could be adjusted, depending on the percentage of Chinese-built ships in that shipowner’s fleet. This would apply even if the ship’s cargo was not manufactured in China.

Ships owned by companies that have existing orders for new ships pending with Chinese shipbuilders could be hit with an additional $1 million fee per entry at U.S. ports.

The rule also provides for “refunds” of a similar amount each time a shipping company sends a U.S.-built cargo ship into a U.S. port.

Economic justifications hazy

Mary Lovely, a senior fellow with the Peterson Institute for International Economics, said it was difficult to find an economic justification for the proposal.

“The thing that’s really disturbing is that it’s not linked to any particular policy that would benefit American businesses or consumers,” she said.

International trade will continue to flow to the United States, but through more convoluted routes that add time and expense. For example, Lovely predicted that many shipping firms would explore the possibility of diverting their ships to ports in Mexico and Canada, and trucking the cargo into the U.S.

“It seems to me that this is just a tremendous way to reduce volume and employment at U.S. ports and basically force trade to take transportation routes and transportation modes that are clearly going to raise prices for U.S. businesses and consumers,” Lovely said. “There’s no way around it.”

In an email exchange with VOA, Joe Kramek, World Shipping Council president and CEO, echoed those concerns.

“USTR’s proposed draconian $1 million-plus per U.S. port visit fees on ships that carry the large majority of the U.S. trade, if they are Chinese-built or –operated – or on any ship operator from any country that has even a single Chinese ship in its fleet or on order – if carried forward, would cause broad economic harm across all sectors of the U.S. supply chain,” wrote Kramek, whose organization represents shipping companies.

“The fees would result in fewer U.S. port calls, higher prices for U.S. consumers, and severe impacts for exporters, particularly American farmers,” he wrote.

Unlikely to benefit US shipbuilders

Though ostensibly aimed at helping U.S. shipbuilders, the law is unlikely to have a significant impact on that industry, said Marc Levinson, a Washington-based economist and historian who has written two books about container shipping.

“This is not likely to do much for U.S. shipbuilding,” Levinson told VOA. “U.S. commercial shipbuilders are very far away from global scale. They don’t produce anything that is competitive on the international market for commercial oceangoing vessels.”

“The winners of this policy would be Japan, Korea, the Philippines, other countries where commercial shipbuilding is on a larger scale today than the United States,” Levinson said. The losers, he added, will include U.S. consumers, as the port fees are passed on in the form of higher prices for imported goods.

In an email exchange with VOA, the National Retail Federation registered its opposition to the policy, writing, “NRF strongly opposes a port fee remedy, which will do nothing to force China to change its behavior and practices. It will only increase shipping costs for retailers and further disrupt the maritime market.”

US again sends ‘high threat’ migrants to Guantanamo Bay

Washington — The United States has started sending more migrants deemed by officials to be “high threat” criminal aliens to the U.S. naval base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, just days after emptying out the base’s migrant facilities.

A U.S. defense official confirmed to VOA that a C-130 military cargo plane carrying migrants left Fort Bliss in Texas and arrived at Guantanamo Bay on Sunday.

A second defense official said all 17 migrants were assessed to be “high threat” and are being held at the base’s detention facility.

Both officials spoke to VOA on the condition of anonymity to discuss the deportation operations.

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS), which is spearheading the U.S. deportation efforts, along with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), has not yet responded to questions about the identities of the latest round of detainees sent to Guantanamo Bay, their countries of origin, or the crimes with which they are charged.

The latest flight carrying migrants to Guantanamo Bay comes as U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth is set to visit the base Tuesday to review the military’s efforts to support the mass deportations ordered by U.S. President Donald Trump.

Hegseth, according to a Pentagon statement, “will receive briefings on all mission operations at the base, including at the Migrant Operations Center and the Guantanamo Bay Detention Facility.”

“The Secretary’s trip underscores the Department’s commitment to ensuring the security and operational effectiveness of Guantanamo Bay Naval Station,” the statement added.

ICE announced last Thursday that it had transported 177 migrants being held at Guantanamo Bay to Honduras, where they were to be picked up by the Venezuelan government.

U.S. officials had previously said that more than 120 of those detainees were dangerous criminals, including members of Tren de Aragua, a Venezuelan street gang designated by the U.S. as a foreign terrorist organization.

The approximately 50 other individuals who were deported Thursday had been held at the base’s migrant facility, designed to hold nonviolent individuals.

Earlier this month, the commander of U.S. Southern Command, which oversees operations at the naval base at Guantanamo Bay, told lawmakers that the base’s migrant facility had the capacity to hold about 2,500 nonviolent detainees. Efforts are under way to allow it to house as many as 30,000 nonviolent migrants slated for deportation.

The American Civil Liberties Union, along with several immigration rights groups, earlier this month filed a lawsuit against DHS, alleging the detainees held at the Guantanamo Bay prison facility before being deported had been improperly denied access to lawyers.

DHS dismissed the lawsuit’s allegations.

Trump says Canada, Mexico tariffs on schedule despite border, fentanyl efforts

WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump said on Monday that tariffs on Canadian and Mexican imports are “on time and on schedule” despite efforts by the countries to beef up border security and halt the flow of fentanyl into the U.S. ahead of a March 4 deadline.

“The tariffs are going forward on time, on schedule,” Trump told a joint news conference with French President Emmanuel Macron. He had been asked whether Canada and Mexico had done enough to avoid the punishing 25% U.S. duties.

Many had hoped the top two U.S. trading partners could persuade Trump’s administration to further delay tariffs that would apply to over $918 billion worth of U.S. imports from the two countries, from autos to energy. This could wreak havoc on the integrated North American economy, with the automotive sector hit particularly hard.

Trump did not specifically mention the March 4 deadline. He later referred to his desire for “reciprocal” tariffs to match the duty rates and offset the trade barriers of all countries, including France.

Trump and Macron did not publicly discuss another sticking point — digital services taxes imposed by France, Canada and other countries aimed at dominant U.S. tech giants including Google, Facebook and Amazon.

On Friday, Trump ordered his administration to revive tariff investigations into countries that levy digital service taxes on U.S. firms.

Border hopes dimmed

Canada and Mexico have taken steps to beef up border security, which bought them about a month’s reprieve from Trump’s earlier Feb. 1 deadline to impose the tariffs, based on a national emergency declaration.

Any further delay negotiated ahead of the deadline will keep the tariff threat in place at least until clear evidence emerges that Canadian and Mexican measures are working, said Dan Ujczo, a lawyer specializing in U.S.-Canada trade matters.

“There’s progress being made on the security front,” said Ujczo, senior counsel with Thompson Hine in Columbus, Ohio. “But it’s overly optimistic to think that those tariffs would be fully rescinded.”

The White House, U.S. Trade Representative’s office and Commerce Department did not respond to requests for comment on negotiations expected this week ahead of the March 4 deadline.

More tariff threats

Since Trump’s initial 25% tariff threat and imposition of a 10% duty on all Chinese imports, he has heaped on more tariff actions that could muddy the waters on border negotiations.

These include substantially raising tariffs on steel and aluminum to a flat 25%, rescinding longstanding exemptions for Canada and Mexico, the largest sources of U.S. imports of the metals. These steep increases, which also extend to hundreds of downstream steel products, are due to take effect a week after the border tariffs, on March 12.

Trump has also said he wants to impose 25% tariffs on imports of autos, pharmaceuticals and semiconductors, and to match duty rates and trade barriers of other countries.

The threatened tariffs could kick off an early launch of a renegotiation of the U.S.-Mexico-Canada agreement on trade that is due by 2026, Ujczo added.

Trump signed the USMCA into law in 2020 after renegotiating the 1994 North American Free Trade Agreement but has increasingly expressed dissatisfaction with imports of autos from Mexico and Canada.

Progress cited

On Thursday, Mexican Economy Minister Marcelo Ebrard said on Thursday he had a “constructive dialog” during a meeting with Trump’s top trade officials.

Ebrard said in a post on X that the “joint work” on U.S. trade matters starts on Monday.

Mexico has begun deploying as many as 10,000 national guard troops to its northern border, as part of the agreement that Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum said also called on the U.S. to work to stop the flow of firearms into Mexico.

Canada this month created a new fentanyl czar to coordinate the fight against smuggling of the deadly opioid, appointing senior intelligence official Kevin Brosseau to the post.

Ottawa also has reclassified drug cartels as terrorist entities and has deployed drones, helicopters and other surveillance technologies on the vast northern U.S. border.

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has kept in close contact with Trump on the border issues in recent days, including in a Saturday call that included discussions of joint efforts to curb fentanyl trade. He has threatened retaliatory tariffs on $107 billion of U.S. imports, including American beer, wine and bourbon and Florida orange juice, but said last week that Canada is “going to do the work” to ensure that tariffs are not imposed.