Політика

U.S. President Donald Trump says he wants to make the United States the cryptocurrency capital of the world. He is putting his plan into place in the early weeks of his second presidential term. VOA’s Michelle Quinn has the story.
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Президент зазначив, що провів зустріч із командирами підрозділів безпілотних систем: «досвід усіх наших найкращих буде масштабуватися»
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Відомство звинувачує чоловіка в тому, що він переказував кошти на підтримку ЗСУ, перебуваючи за кордоном
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WHITE HOUSE — U.S. President Donald Trump hosts Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba at the White House on Friday, in a visit that Tokyo hopes will reaffirm the U.S.-Japan alliance amid Trump’s early foreign policy moves that have rattled allies and adversaries.

Trump and Ishiba are expected to discuss increasing joint military exercises and cooperation on defense equipment and technology, ramping up Japanese investments to the United States, and American energy exports to Japan, a senior Trump administration official said in a briefing to reporters Friday.

The official said they also will talk about improving cybersecurity capabilities, bolstering space cooperation and promoting joint business opportunities to develop critical technologies, including AI and semiconductors.

Ishiba’s visit comes amid anxiety in Tokyo as Trump has put pressure on some U.S. allies and partners, saying he wants to absorb Canada as a U.S. state, acquire Greenland from Denmark and take control of the Panama Canal.

“We would like to first establish a higher relationship of trust and cooperation between two countries, especially the two leaders,” a senior Japanese government official told reporters during a briefing Thursday.

The U.S. president has imposed fresh 10% tariffs on China and 25% tariffs on Canada and Mexico — although the latter two have been at least temporarily delayed. He has warned of possible tariffs against other countries, especially those with whom the U.S. holds a trade deficit, such as Japan.

“We all know that President Trump pays a lot of attention to the deficit as an indication of the economic strength of the relationship. So, I’m sure discussions will happen about that,” the Trump administration official said.

Other strains on the U.S.-Japan relationship include former President Joe Biden’s blocking of a $15 billion acquisition bid by Japan’s largest steel producer, Nippon Steel, for Pittsburgh-based U.S. Steel.

Biden blocked the deal during the final weeks of his term, citing national security concerns. Trump has said he also opposes the deal.

The White House has not responded to VOA’s query on Trump’s current position on Nippon Steel. The Japanese prime minister’s office did not respond to VOA’s query on whether the issue will be raised today.

Continuity on security front

Under then-Prime Minister Fumio Kishida, Japan became a key player in what the Biden administration called a “lattice-like strategic architecture” to bolster deterrence against the two main U.S. adversaries in the Pacific: China and North Korea.

Biden’s approach connected Tokyo with other allies in trilateral formats and other groupings, including with South Korea, Australia and the Philippines, to deter regional threats in the Taiwan Strait, the South China Sea and Korean Peninsula.

Japan is anxious to maintain ties forged in recent years, during which time Tokyo has increased defense spending and intensified joint military exercises with the U.S. and other regional allies.

Japan needs a “multilayered network of security” to defend itself, the senior Japanese official said.

The Trump administration will continue to support trilateral efforts and some of the working groups that have come out from under those over the last few years, the Trump official said. “There may be some adjustments to where the focus is on trilateral cooperation, but I think largely you will see continuity.”

Under his first term, Trump and then-Prime Minister Shinzo Abe agreed on the “free and open Indo-Pacific” framework to promote peace and prosperity in the region. The two countries also agreed to elevate what’s known as the Quad grouping with India and Australia.

The fact that the Trump administration sees those formats as a critical part of its strategy in the Pacific is important, said Jeffrey Hornung, the Japan Lead for the RAND National Security Research Division.

A key indicator to watch is whether the leaders will come out with a joint statement on a free and open Indo-Pacific. While it may sound like a diplomatic cliché, it would deliver a strong message to Beijing to not be provocative toward Taiwan, Hornung told VOA.

In dealing with the threats from Pyongyang, the Trump official underscored the U.S. is “committed to the complete denuclearization of North Korea.”

Making deals with Japan

While maintaining the security alliance, analysts say Trump may use the visit as an opportunity to broker deals that would further his “America First” agenda, using what he sees as Tokyo’s interests as leverage.

“Part of President Trump’s negotiating stance for almost all issues is that we don’t really know where he wants to land in the end,” said Kenji Kushida, a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

“If the promise to allow Nippon Steel to acquire U.S. Steel can be used as bargaining leverage, he may use this to get Japan to pay much more than they’re already committed, to help contribute to U.S. military bases and other defense costs,” he told VOA.

Ahead of Ishiba’s visit, Nippon Steel said its proposed acquisition is aligned with Trump’s goals of a stronger United States.

“From Japan’s perspective, they want to position themselves as the staunch ally of U.S. interests in Asia, and so fitting into that set of interests is Nippon Steel’s strategy here,” Kushida said.

Tokyo is aware of what Trump wants — investments in key industries such as AI and semiconductors, increasing Tokyo’s defense spending and American energy purchase.

“Those are all areas that Japan does have shared interests. They have technology. They have the money to invest in some of these areas, and so they’re able to use their leverage in a very strategic manner,” Hornung said. “At the same time, trying to promote with Trump the things that they’re interested in: making sure that U.S. forces remain in Japan, making sure that the U.S. remains committed to the Indo-Pacific.”

The best-case scenario for Ishiba is that Trump doesn’t ask beyond what Tokyo already expected, said Kushida.

“Perhaps an increase in the defense sharing burden, mainly buying U.S. military equipment, expansion of U.S. bases, perhaps, and then perhaps some other financial commitments, but nothing that would upset the sort of geopolitical status in East Asia to Japan’s disadvantage,” Kushida said. “Nothing very extreme, or to get mixed in with some of the issues In the Middle East in ways that Japan has been trying to keep out.”

The leaders are expected to hold a press conference later Friday.

Calla Yu and Kim Lewis contributed to this report.
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Також, за даними ОВА, у селі Пристін внаслідок російського обстрілу з РСЗВ пошкоджено сім житлових будинків
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«Мілітарні організації є невід’ємним інструментом пропаганди служби в армії РФ», заявляє відомство
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WASHINGTON — The Trump administration presented a plan Thursday to dramatically cut staffing worldwide for U.S. aid projects as part of its dismantling of the U.S. Agency for International Development, leaving fewer than 300 workers out of thousands.

Late Thursday, federal workers associations filed suit asking a federal court to stop the shutdown, arguing that President Donald Trump lacks the authority to shut down an agency enshrined in congressional legislation.

Two current USAID employees and one former senior USAID official told The Associated Press of the administration’s plan, presented to remaining senior officials of the agency Thursday. They spoke on condition of anonymity due to a Trump administration order barring USAID staffers from talking to anyone outside their agency.

The plan would leave fewer than 300 staffers on the job out of what are currently 8,000 direct hires and contractors. They, along with an unknown number of 5,000 locally hired international staffers abroad, would run the few life-saving programs that the administration says it intends to keep going for the time being.

It was not immediately clear whether the reduction to 300 would be permanent or temporary, potentially allowing more workers to return after what the Trump administration says is a review of which aid and development programs it wants to resume.

The administration earlier this week gave almost all USAID staffers posted overseas 30 days, starting Friday, to return to the U.S., with the government paying for their travel and moving costs. Workers who choose to stay longer, unless they received a specific hardship waiver, might have to cover their own expenses, a notice on the USAID website said late Thursday.

Speaking to reporters Monday in El Salvador, Secretary of State Marco Rubio described the agency as historically “unresponsive” to Congress and the White House, even though the agency, he claimed, is supposed to take its direction from the State Department.

“USAID has a history of sort of ignoring that and deciding that there’s somehow a global charity separate from the national interest,” Rubio said. “These are taxpayer dollars, and we owe the American people assurances that every dollar we are spending abroad is being spent on something that furthers our national interest.”

Speaking in the Dominican Republic on Thursday, Rubio said the U.S. government will continue providing foreign aid.

“But it is going to be foreign aid that makes sense and is aligned with our national interest,” he told reporters.

The Trump administration and billionaire ally Elon Musk, who is running a budget-cutting Department of Government Efficiency, have targeted USAID hardest so far in an unprecedented challenge of the federal government and many of its programs.

Since Trump’s Jan. 20 inauguration, a sweeping funding freeze has shut down most of the agency’s programs worldwide, and almost all of its workers have been placed on administrative leave or furloughed. Musk and Trump have spoken of eliminating USAID as an independent agency and moving surviving programs under the State Department.

Democratic lawmakers and others call the move illegal without congressional approval.

The same argument was made by the American Foreign Service Association and the American Federation of Government Employees in their lawsuit, which asks the federal court in Washington to compel the reopening of USAID’s buildings, return its staffers to work and restore funding.

Government officials “failed to acknowledge the catastrophic consequences of their actions, both as they pertain to American workers, the lives of millions around the world, and to U.S. national interests,” the suit says. 
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The Trump administration’s expansion of migrant detention facilities, notably its use of the U.S. naval station at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, has reignited debate among human rights advocates and legal experts.

President Donald Trump campaigned on a promise to curb legal migration and deport those in the U.S. without legal status.

Late last month, he instructed his administration to prepare the facility for the detention of up to 30,000 “high-priority” unauthorized immigrants with criminal records. The first group arrived on Tuesday.

Described as the “the worst of the worst” by administration officials, the detainees were identified by the Department of Homeland Security as part of the transnational criminal organization “Tren de Aragua,” which the U.S. designated a foreign terrorist organization on January 20.

VOA sent numerous requests to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement regarding what crimes the migrants committed. ICE directed VOA to contact the Department of Homeland Security, which has not responded to emails.

Miriam Pensack, a historian who studies Latin America and the Caribbean and is a postgraduate scholar at Princeton University, said the U.S. government has been using Guantanamo Bay to hold migrants on and off for 30 years.

“There is an ICE office in Guantanamo. … But obviously what we’re seeing now is a huge expansion of that capacity,” she said.

Trump’s decision to use the naval base as a migrant detention center follows his signing of the Laken Riley Act, which mandates detention for those accused of theft or violent crimes while in the country unlawfully.

Supporters say that using Guantanamo will alleviate pressure on overcrowded detention facilities and serve as a stronger deterrent against illegal crossings to the United States.

Earlier this week, U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth described Guantanamo as the “perfect place” to detain migrants as he visited the border with Mexico.

The Pentagon will provide any necessary assets “to support the expulsion and detention of those in our country illegally,” he told Agence France-Presse.

Guantanamo and migrant detention

The U.S. first used Guantanamo Bay to detain migrants, mostly Haitian and Cuban asylum-seekers under President George H.W. Bush in the early 1990s.

Following a military coup in Haiti in 1991, thousands fled by boat to the U.S. but were intercepted at sea and taken to Guantanamo. In 1994, Guantanamo became the site of the world’s first and only prison camp for people with HIV, where more than 300 Haitian refugees, including children, were confined behind razor wire.

“These were refugees fleeing slaughter in their country, whose credible fear of persecution the U.S. officials who screened them acknowledged, who were held for no reason other than their HIV status. When these people protest detention, the response was brutal,” said Pardiss Kebriaei, senior staff attorney at the U.S.-based Center for Constitutional Rights, to reporters during a press call last Thursday.

Legal challenges eventually forced the U.S. government to release the detainees, setting a precedent that indefinite offshore detention without due process is legally dubious.

In 2002, the George W. Bush administration built a detention camp in Guantanamo Bay to hold terror suspects following the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan shortly after the 9/11 attacks of 2001.

But Guantanamo’s use for migrant detention continued with at least two presidents, Bill Clinton and Joe Biden, using the base.

The Biden administration sought to close Guantanamo, but Congress never passed the legislation, leaving the base operational for future use.

“The idea of closing Guantanamo as a prison is one thing; closing Guantanamo as a 45-square-mile base held in Cuba is another,” Pensack said.

Legal and human rights concerns

Advocates warn that offshore detention facilities allow the U.S. to sidestep domestic constitutional protections and limit oversight.

Eunice Cho, attorney at the ACLU National Prison Project, told reporters during the press call last Thursday that “detaining immigrants on military bases in the United States and Guantanamo would subject people to dangerous conditions … and attempt to avoid scrutiny by lawyers, the press, and congressional oversight.”

Historically, legal challenges have helped curb indefinite detentions at Guantanamo. The Supreme Court ruling in Rasul v. Bush (2004) established that Guantanamo detainees have the right to challenge their detention in U.S. courts. However, the Trump administration could attempt to argue that civil immigration detainees fall outside this precedent.

While prior administrations may have seen Guantanamo as a law-free zone, “That is not the case today,” said Kebriaei of the Center for Constitutional Rights, adding that migrants at Guantanamo now “have due process rights under the Constitution.”

“[Meanwhile], people would be detained. … and [litigation] would go on and people would suffer during that time,” she said.

In the meantime, the Trump’ administration border czar Tom Homan told reporters outside the White House on Thursday that “President Trump made a commitment that the worst of the worst will go to Gitmo.”

Broader immigration, policy implications

The Guantanamo facility has historically been used in moments of crisis, from Cuban and Haitian exoduses to post-9/11 military detention. The Trump administration’s decision to include Guantanamo in its mass detention strategy signals a shift toward increasingly punitive measures, according to some analysts.

Stacy Suh, program director at Detention Watch Network, emphasized the link between detention expansion and deportations.

“Detention plays a crucial role in deportation. … More detention means more people would be deported,” she said.

The Department of Homeland Security has yet to clarify whether the latest White House policy includes detention of migrants without criminal records or whether they would have access to asylum proceedings or be expelled outright.

Homan said the U.S. has had a migrant processing at “Gitmo for decades. So, we’re increasing our footprint there.”

Legal response

The administration’s decision has sparked backlash from advocacy groups, legal experts, and members of Congress, many of whom are calling for oversight hearings and possibly legal action.

Cho of the ACLU urged vigilance, saying there is a need for “a robust response from both the press, from government oversight agencies, Congress, advocacy organizations, and the community.”

With Guantanamo’s history of controversial and legally ambiguous detentions, experts predict judicial and political battles over its use for immigration enforcement.
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WASHINGTON — U.S. President Donald Trump on Thursday authorized economic and travel sanctions targeting people who work on International Criminal Court investigations of U.S. citizens or U.S. allies such as Israel, repeating action he took during his first term.  

The move coincides with a visit to Washington by Israel’s Prime Minister Benajmin Netanyahu, who — along with his former defense minister and a leader of Palestinian militant group Hamas — is wanted by the ICC over the war in the Gaza Strip.  

It was unclear how quickly the U.S. would announce names of people sanctioned. During the first Trump administration in 2020, Washington imposed sanctions on then-prosecutor Fatou Bensouda and one of her top aides over the ICC’s investigation into alleged war crimes by American troops in Afghanistan. 

The ICC did not immediately respond to a request for comment. The sanctions include freezing any U.S. assets of those designated and barring them and their families from visiting the United States. 

The 125-member ICC is a permanent court that can prosecute individuals for war crimes, crimes against humanity, genocide and the crime of aggression against the territory of member states or by their nationals. The United States, China, Russia and Israel are not members.  

Trump signed the executive order after U.S. Senate Democrats last week blocked a Republican-led effort to pass legislation setting up a sanctions regime targeting the war crimes court.  

The court has taken measures to shield staff from possible U.S. sanctions, paying salaries three months in advance, as it braced for financial restrictions that could cripple the war crimes tribunal, sources told Reuters last month. 

In December, the court’s president, judge Tomoko Akane, warned that sanctions would “rapidly undermine the Court’s operations in all situations and cases, and jeopardize its very existence.”

Russia has also taken aim at the court. In 2023, the ICC issued an arrest warrant for President Vladimir Putin, accusing him of the war crime of illegally deporting hundreds of children from Ukraine. Russia has banned entry to ICC chief prosecutor Karim Khan and placed him and two ICC judges on its wanted list. 
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На місці працюють правоохоронці, встановлюючи всі обставини
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«Я хотів би, щоб такі слова як «бусифікація», «людолови», «ухилянти» назавжди зникли з нашого лексикону, сприймалися виключно негативно»
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U.S. President Donald Trump said on Thursday he would create a White House faith office and direct Attorney General Pam Bondi to lead a task force on eradicating what he called anti-Christian bias within the federal government.

Trump delivered remarks at the National Prayer Breakfast at the U.S. Capitol and used his speech to call for unity, telling lawmakers his relationship with religion has changed since a pair of failed assassination attempts last year.

At a second prayer breakfast in Washington, Trump struck a more partisan tone, took a victory lap for getting “rid of woke over the last two weeks” and announced steps to protect Christians from what he said was religious discrimination.

“The mission of this task force will be to immediately halt all forms of anti-Christian targeting and discrimination within the federal government, including at the DOJ, which was absolutely terrible, the IRS, the FBI and other agencies,” Trump said.

He vowed his attorney general would work to “fully prosecute anti-Christian violence and vandalism in our society and to move heaven and earth to defend the rights of Christians and religious believers nationwide.”

The president did not cite specific examples of anti-Christian bias during his remarks but has previously claimed that the Biden administration used the federal government to target Christians specifically.

Trump signed an executive order on Thursday to establish the task force and its responsibilities, which include recommending steps to terminate “violative policies, practices, or conduct.”

Biden’s administration announced a strategy in December for countering anti-Muslim and anti-Arab bigotry, and a similar plan to fight antisemitism in September 2023.

The actions announced on Thursday could pose constitutional questions about the separation of church and state, with the U.S. Constitution’s First Amendment limiting government endorsement of religion.

In the last three election cycles, white evangelical Christian voters, who make up a critical piece of the Republican base, have supported Trump. He has embraced the conservative Christian world view and policies that speak to the bloc’s anxiety about changing gender norms and family patterns.

The president on Thursday also announced he will create a White House Faith Office, led by the Rev. Paula White, who has served as a religious adviser to him for many years.

Trump established a similar office at the White House during his first term and regularly consulted with a tight group of evangelical advisers.

Trump also said he would create a new commission on religious liberty, and he criticized the Biden administration for the “persecution” of believers for prosecuting anti-abortion advocates.

In 2023, the National Prayer Breakfast split into two events, the one on Capitol Hill attended by lawmakers and a separate private event for thousands at a hotel ballroom after some lawmakers sought to distance themselves from the private religious group following questions over how it was run and funded. 
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STATE DEPARTMENT — The United States has a treaty obligation to protect the Panama Canal if it comes under attack, U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said Thursday, amid confusion and what Panama has described as “lies” regarding whether U.S. Navy ships can transit the Panama Canal for free.

“I find it absurd that we would have to pay fees to transit a zone that we are obligated to protect in a time of conflict. Those are our expectations. … They were clearly understood in those conversations,” Rubio said during a press conference in Santo Domingo, the capital of the Dominican Republic. He held talks with Panamanian President Jose Rauu Mulino in Panama City on Sunday.

Rubio was referring to a treaty signed by the U.S. and Panama in 1977.

The top U.S. diplomat told reporters that while he respects Panama’s democratically elected government and acknowledges that it has “a process of laws and procedures that it needs to follow,” the treaty obligation “would have to be enforced by the armed forces the United States, particularly the U.S. Navy.”

The U.S. intends to pursue an amicable resolution, Rubio said.

Mulino posted on X that he planned to speak with U.S. President Donald Trump on Friday afternoon.

On Wednesday, the U.S. State Department said, via a social media post on X, that U.S. government vessels can now transit the Panama Canal without incurring fees, saving the U.S. government millions of dollars annually.

But the Panama Canal Authority, an autonomous agency overseen by the Panamanian government, disputed the U.S. claim, saying that it has made no adjustments to these fees. It also expressed its willingness to engage in dialogue with relevant U.S. officials.

During his weekly press conference on Thursday, the Panamanian president denied his country had reached a deal allowing U.S. warships to transit the Panama Canal for free, saying he completely rejected the State Department’s statement.

Belt and Road Initiative

Meanwhile, Mulino told reporters that the Panamanian Embassy in Beijing had provided China with the required 90-day notice of its decision to exit the Belt and Road Initiative, also known as BRI.

He denied that the decision was made at Washington’s request, saying that he was taking time to assess Panama’s relationship with China and decide what would best serve his country’s interests.

“I don’t know what the incentive was for the person who signed that agreement with China,” Mulino said in Spanish, adding that he did not think the BRI had brought major benefits to his country.

Panama joined China’s BRI under former President Juan Carlos Varela. The agreement was signed in 2018, following Panama’s decision in 2017 to establish its diplomatic relations with China and sever ties with Taiwan.

Rubio has welcomed Panama’s decision not to renew its participation in China’s BRI.

China describes the BRI, which was launched in 2013 under President Xi Jinping, as a vast infrastructure initiative designed to connect multiple continents through land and maritime routes.

The United States has warned that the project is driven by China’s mission to manipulate and undermine the global rules-based trading system for its own benefit.

In Beijing, Chinese officials dismissed what they called the U.S.’s “irresponsible remarks on the Panama Canal issue” and accused Washington of intentionally distorting, attacking and mischaracterizing relevant cooperation.

“China firmly opposes it and made stern demarches to the U.S. side,” said Lin Jian, a spokesperson for China’s Foreign Ministry.

While in Santo Domingo, Rubio met with Dominican President Luis Abinader and Foreign Minister Roberto Alvarez.

The Dominican Republic is the final stop on Rubio’s five-nation tour across Central America and the Caribbean, which focuses on curbing illegal immigration, combating drug trafficking and countering China’s growing influence in the Western Hemisphere.

Some information for this report came from The Associated Press, Agence France Presse and Reuters.
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white house — The White House on Thursday said it was monitoring a complaint by China to the World Trade Organization that accuses the United States of making “unfounded and false allegations” about China’s role in the fentanyl trade to justify tariffs on Chinese products.

The complaint was made Wednesday, a day after President Donald Trump raised tariffs on Chinese goods by 10%. The White House said the new duties on Chinese goods were aimed at halting the flow of fentanyl opioids and their precursor chemicals.

China said it was imposing retaliatory tariffs on some American goods beginning February 10, including 15% duties on coal and natural gas imports and 10% on petroleum, agricultural equipment, high-emission vehicles and pickup trucks. The country also immediately implemented restrictions on the export of certain critical minerals and launched an antitrust investigation into American tech giant Google.

In the WTO filing, China said the U.S. tariff measures were “discriminatory and protectionist” and violated international trade rules. Beijing has requested a consultation with Washington.

China’s request will kick-start a process within the WTO’s Appellate Body, which has the final say on dispute settlements. A White House official told VOA the administration was monitoring Beijing’s file but did not provide further details.

Analysts say Beijing’s move is largely performative and unlikely to yield much relief. The Appellate Body has been largely paralyzed following the first Trump administration’s 2019 move to block appointments of appellate judges over what it viewed as judicial overreach. The Biden administration continued the policy.

China recognizes the WTO is not going to put a lot of pressure on the United States because Washington is fully capable of blocking any legal process there, said Jeffrey Schott, senior fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics.

“So instead, I think the Chinese reaction has been moderate in indicating that they will act tit for tat against U.S. trade,” he told VOA.

Schott added that there’s “a desire to keep things cool” and moderate the damage, just as what happened during the first Trump administration when a trade deal was agreed upon after initial retaliatory trade actions.

On the U.S. side, the 10% tariffs against China are much lower than the up to 60% that Trump promised during his presidential campaign, he said. 

Trump-Xi call

Trump imposed import duties on Beijing after delaying his actions to impose 25% tariffs on Mexico and Canada following conversations Monday with their leaders. Tariff critics are hoping that a conversation between Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping could lead to similar results.

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said Tuesday that the call “is being scheduled and will happen very soon.”

However, Trump has dismissed the negative impact of China’s tariffs and said he was “in no rush” to speak with Xi.

“We’ll speak to him at the appropriate time,” Trump told reporters at the White House on Tuesday.

Unlike Trump’s deal with Mexico and Canada, an agreement with Beijing is unlikely to come quickly, considering strong bipartisan support for placing tariffs on China because of concern about the influx of illegal drugs and other national security concerns, said Rachel Ziemba, an adjunct senior fellow at the Center for a New American Security.

“Even if they come up with some kind of agreement to settle this particular tariff or to remove the countertariffs, there will probably be more tariffs on China later in this administration,” she told VOA.

The U.S. Postal Service on Tuesday announced that it was suspending acceptance of inbound packages from China and Hong Kong, closing a loophole that Chinese garment and other consumer goods companies have used in the past. These companies, including Shein and Temu as well as Amazon vendors, bypassed existing U.S. tariffs by shipping to American customers directly from China.

On Wednesday, USPS reversed its decision, saying it would work with Customs and Border Protection on a way to collect the new tariffs. 

The Postal Service “will continue accepting all international inbound mail and packages from China and Hong Kong Posts,” it said. “The USPS and Customs and Border Protection are working closely together to implement an efficient collection mechanism for the new China tariffs to ensure the least disruption to package delivery.”

It is unclear how the fee will be collected in such direct transactions between Chinese sellers and American buyers.

Trump’s trade actions on China, Canada and Mexico, as well as his threat to impose duties on all foreign shipments into the country, including from European allies, have caused confusion and uncertainty across global trade. 

Businesses usually respond to trade uncertainty by holding off on investments or passing on increased costs to customers. But the damage goes beyond small and large businesses domestically and abroad, Ziemba said.

“If one of the U.S. goals is relying less on China and Chinese supply chains for critical minerals, for energy, for other things like that, then the uncertainty about whether there’s going to be tariffs and investment restrictions on its allies fly in the face of that goal,” she said. 
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In a joint effort to reinforce security on the border, authorities from Mexico and the United States have intensified joint operations in the area of Ciudad Juárez and El Paso.

Click here for the full story in Spanish.
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The new tariffs on Chinese imports, imposed by President Donald Trump this month, include a provision that will close a loophole that Chinese online retailers used for their U.S.-bound exports. The “de minimis” exemption that applies to packages worth less than $800 is commonly used by Chinese online retailers such as Shein and Temu to ship goods at a lower price directly to U.S. consumers.

Click here for the full story in Mandarin.
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WASHINGTON — A bipartisan duo in the U.S. House is proposing legislation to ban the Chinese artificial intelligence app DeepSeek from federal devices, similar to the policy already in place for the popular social media platform TikTok.

Lawmakers Josh Gottheimer, a Democrat from New Jersey, and Darin LaHood, a Republican from Illinois, on Thursday introduced the “No DeepSeek on Government Devices Act,” which would ban federal employees from using the Chinese AI app on government-owned electronics. They cited the Chinese government’s ability to use the app for surveillance and misinformation as reasons to keep it away from federal networks.

“The Chinese Communist Party has made it abundantly clear that it will exploit any tool at its disposal to undermine our national security, spew harmful disinformation, and collect data on Americans,” Gottheimer said in a statement. “We simply can’t risk the CCP infiltrating the devices of our government officials and jeopardizing our national security.”

The proposal comes after the Chinese software company in January published an AI model that performed at a competitive level with models developed by American firms like OpenAI, Meta, Alphabet and others. DeepSeek purported to develop the model at a fraction of the cost of its American counterparts. The announcement raised alarm bells and prompted debates among policymakers and leading Silicon Valley financiers and technologists.

The churn over AI is coming at a moment of heightened competition between the U.S. and China in a range of areas, including technological innovation. The U.S. has levied tariffs on Chinese goods, restricted Chinese tech firms like Huawei from being used in government systems, and banned the export of state of the art microchips thought to be needed to develop the highest end AI models.

Last year, Congress and then-President Joe Biden approved a divestment of the popular social media platform TikTok from its Chinese parent company or face a ban across the U.S.; that policy is now on hold. President Donald Trump, who originally proposed a ban of the app in his first term, signed an executive order last month extending a window for a long-term solution before the legally required ban takes effect.

In 2023, Biden banned TikTok from federal-issued devices.

“The technology race with the Chinese Communist Party is not one the United States can afford to lose,” LaHood said in a statement. “This commonsense, bipartisan piece of legislation will ban the app from federal workers’ phones while closing backdoor operations the company seeks to exploit for access. It is critical that Congress safeguard Americans’ data and continue to ensure American leadership in AI.”

The bill would single out DeepSeek and any AI application developed by its parent company, the hedge fund High-Flyer, as subject to the ban. The legislation includes exceptions for national security and research purposes that would allow federal employers to study DeepSeek.

Some lawmakers wish to go further. A bill proposed last week by Senator Josh Hawley, a Republican from Missouri, would bar the import or export of any AI technology from China writ large, citing national security concerns.
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