Trump to pause Canada and Mexico tariffs for at least 30 days as China levies set to take effect Tuesday – live | Trump administration


Trump pauses tariffs on Canada and Mexico as China levies to go into effect Tuesday

If you’re just joining us, here is where things stand on Trump’s tariff threats:

Donald Trump has pulled back from the brink of a trade war with Canada and Mexico, postponing sweeping new US tariffs on goods from its two closest economic partners by one month.

It is the third time in two weeks the US president has delayed his threatened 25% tariffs on the two countries. China is still set to face additional 10% levy on its exports to the US from Tuesday.

Following talks with the Canadian prime minister, Justin Trudeau, and the Mexican president, Claudia Sheinbaum, on Monday, Trump agreed at the last minute to hold off from imposing new duties on the two countries.

The agreements came on a day of extreme volatility in global financial markets as rattled investors reacted to the prospect of a dramatically escalating dispute involving the world’s largest economies.

The Guardian’s Tom Phillips, Richard Partington and Callum Jones report:

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Key events

What is USAid and why does Trump dislike it so much?

Donald Trump’s administration has confirmed plans to merge the US international aid agency USAid into the state department in a major revamp that would shrink its workforce and align its spending with Trump’s priorities.

The secretary of state, Marco Rubio, declared himself the acting administrator of the agency and employees have been locked out of its Washington DC headquarters, while others have been suspended.

Trump has entrusted Elon Musk, the billionaire heading his drive to shrink the federal government, to oversee the project. On Sunday, Trump said USAid had “been run by a bunch of radical lunatics, and we’re getting them out”, while Musk called it “a criminal organization” without providing any evidence and said it was “time for it to die”.

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Rubio says El Salvador has offered to accept deportees as well as US criminals

US secretary of state Marco Rubio says El Salvador’s president has offered to accept deportees from the U.S. of any nationality as well as violent American criminals now imprisoned in the United States.

President Nayib Bukele, “has agreed to the most unprecedented, extraordinary, extraordinary migratory agreement anywhere in the world,” Rubio said.

“He’s also offered to do the same for dangerous criminals currently in custody and serving their sentence in the United States even though they’re US citizens or legal residents.”

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Trump has invited India’s Modi to White House next week

US President Donald Trump has invited Indian prime minister Narendra Modi to visit the White House next week, a White House official said, hours after a US military plane departed to return deported migrants to the country.

Trump spoke with Modi on 27 January, when he discussed immigration and stressed the importance of India buying more American-made security equipment and fair bilateral trading ties.

India, a strategic partner of the United States in its efforts to counter China, is keen to enhance trade relations with the US and make it easier for its citizens to get skilled worker visas.

It is also keen to avoid tariffs that Trump has threatened in the past, citing India’s high tariffs on US products.

The United States is India’s largest trading partner and two-way trade between the two countries surpassed $118bn in 2023/24, with India posting a trade surplus of $32bn.

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US President Donald Trump on Monday said there is a lot of interest in TikTok, as his administration seeks to broker a sale of the popular app.

“GREAT INTEREST IN TIKTOK! Would be wonderful for China, and all concerned,” Trump wrote in a post on Truth Social.

The app’s fate has been up in the air since a law requiring its Chinese owner ByteDance to either sell it on national security grounds or face a ban took effect on 19 January.

Trump, after taking office on 20 January, signed an executive order seeking to delay by 75 days the enforcement of the law.

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The Trump administration is opening new investigations into allegations of antisemitism at five US universities including Columbia and the University of California, Berkeley, the Education Department announced Monday.

In an order signed last week, Trump called for aggressive action to fight ‘anti-Jewish bias’ on campuses, including the deportation of foreign students who have participated in pro-Palestinian protests.

Along with Columbia and Berkeley, the department is now investigating the University of Minnesota, Northwestern University and Portland State University. The cases were opened using the department’s power to launch its own civil rights reviews, unlike the majority of its investigations, which stem from complaints.

In a statement, Craig Trainor, the the Education Department’s acting assistant secretary for civil rights, said, “Today, the Department is putting universities, colleges, and K-12 schools on notice: this administration will not tolerate continued institutional indifference to the wellbeing of Jewish students on American campuses,” said Craig Trainor, the agency’s acting assistant secretary for civil rights.

The department didn’t provide details about the inquiries or how it decided which schools are being targeted. Presidents of Columbia and Northwestern were among those called to testify on Capitol Hill last year as Republicans sought accountability for allegations of antisemitism amid protests against Israel’s airstrikes in Gaza. The searing hearings contributed to the resignation of multiple university presidents, including Columbia’s Minouche Shafik.

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US Senate confirms fracking CEO Chris Wright to be Trump’s energy secretary

The US Senate on Monday confirmed Chris Wright, a fracking executive, to be Donald Trump’s energy secretary. The vote was 59-38.

Wright, 60, the CEO of Liberty Energy since 2011 has said he will step down from the company once confirmed. He wrote in a Liberty report last year that he believes human-caused climate change is real, but that its hazards are “distant and uncertain”. He has also said that top-down governmental policies to curb it are destined to fail.

However, Wright has called climate change activists alarmist and has likened efforts by Democrats to combat global warming to Soviet-style communism.

“There is no climate crisis, and we’re not in the midst of an energy transition, either,” Wright said in a video posted to his LinkedIn profile in 2023.

Wright recently faced criticism from California senators when, shortly after the Palisades and Eaton fires devastated Los Angeles, he disputed the ties between climate change and more recent or severe wildfires, the Washington Post reported.

During Wright’s US Senate confirmation hearing, California senator Alex Padilla accused Wright of downplaying the real and deadly effects of wildfires. When the senator asked whether Wright stood by those comments in light of the catastrophic blazes in his home state, Wright responded that he believed that climate change was a global phenomenon and that he stood by his past comments.

Scientific studies contradict Wright’s claims. Climate change has, in fact, contributed to the increased frequency and severity of wildfires, including those in Los Angeles.

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Mailed packages from China must undergo formal customs entry under new tariffs scheduled to be implemented on Tuesday, according to a notice from the US Customs and Border Protection posted online on Monday and seen by Reuters.

Chinese imports that are eligible for temporary duty exemptions will also be subject to US tariffs of 10%, the notice posted in the Federal Register said.

Donald Trump on Monday delayed implementation of tariffs on Canada and Mexico until 1 March, leaving only the Chinese packages affected for now.

CBP issued additional guidance for shippers on how to handle those shipments in light of the executive order on Chinese tariffs, and how to address with a manifest filed before the order takes effect.

“As we transition to execution of the Executive Order, it is extremely important that the trade maintain awareness of the shipments they are responsible for and are aware of the messaging that they are receiving from CBP,” it said.

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Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum on Monday appeared to pass her biggest test yet on the world stage by winning breathing room from US President Donald Trump’s threatened tariffs, which risked ramming a wrecking ball through Mexico’s economy.

Some politicians and analysts commended the Mexican leader’s measured public tone and apparent ability to blunt Trump’s charge, Reuters reports, after she reached an agreement with the US president to pause tariffs for a month as Mexico sends 10,000 troops to the border to stop migrants crossing into the US and address drug smuggling.

Mexico’s President Sheinbaum holds a press conference in Mexico City, 3 February 2025. Photograph: Raquel Cunha/Reuters

“President Sheinbaum played it well. Masterfully,” Jorge Guajardo, a former Mexican ambassador to China and member of an opposition party, said on social media, adding that other world leaders “will see in Sheinbaum how to do it well.”

“Sheinbaum has taken a very cautious and strategic approach to the Trump administration,” said Lila Abed, director of the Mexico Institute at the Wilson Center in Washington.

Abed pointed to Mexico’s ramped up fentanyl seizures in recent months, including its largest bust ever in December, as aiding Sheinbaum’s negotiation efforts.

“She’s been taking actions within her government to send a clear signal to the United States that it understands that fentanyl and organised crime are a top priority for the Trump administration,” said Abed.

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Trump pauses tariffs on Canada and Mexico as China levies to go into effect Tuesday

If you’re just joining us, here is where things stand on Trump’s tariff threats:

Donald Trump has pulled back from the brink of a trade war with Canada and Mexico, postponing sweeping new US tariffs on goods from its two closest economic partners by one month.

It is the third time in two weeks the US president has delayed his threatened 25% tariffs on the two countries. China is still set to face additional 10% levy on its exports to the US from Tuesday.

Following talks with the Canadian prime minister, Justin Trudeau, and the Mexican president, Claudia Sheinbaum, on Monday, Trump agreed at the last minute to hold off from imposing new duties on the two countries.

The agreements came on a day of extreme volatility in global financial markets as rattled investors reacted to the prospect of a dramatically escalating dispute involving the world’s largest economies.

The Guardian’s Tom Phillips, Richard Partington and Callum Jones report:

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Interior department unveils orders aimed at carrying out Trump agenda

The US interior department has unveiled a suite of orders aimed at carrying out Donald Trump’s agenda to maximize domestic energy and minerals production and slash red tape, Reuters reports.

In a statement, the agency said interior secretary Doug Burgum, the former governor of North Dakota, signed six orders on his first day in office.

They directed agency staff to identify emergency and legal authorities to speed project development and permitting in line with Trump’s energy emergency declaration and to eliminate burdensome regulations in part by reviewing appropriations under the Biden-era Inflation Reduction Act and Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act laws.

The statement said the agency would eliminate at least 10 regulations for every new one introduced.

One of the orders revoked Biden’s withdrawal of large areas of federal waters from new offshore oil and gas development, while another seeks to boost resource development on federal and state lands in Alaska.

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More now on the ACLU-led lawsuit, via the Associated Press:

In the lawsuit, the groups argued that immigration “even at elevated levels” does not constitute an invasion and noted that the number of people entering the country between the ports of entry had fallen to lows not seen since August 2020.

“The proclamation makes the sham claim of an invasion to justify wiping away all means of seeking asylum, with no regard for the fact that Congress has taken pains over four plus decades to create a safe haven for those fleeing danger,” said Lee Gelernt, lead attorney for the ACLU who’s argued many of the key asylum-related cases during the past two administrations.

“No President, including President Trump during his first Term, has ever claimed the power to unilaterally eliminate asylum.”

The groups argued that Trump’s declaration was an “extreme example of presidential overreach.” They said the government is “summarily expelling noncitizens” – often in just a few hours – without giving them the opportunity to apply for asylum or other forms of protection they’re legally entitled to and without giving them the opportunity to make a phone call.

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ACLU sues government over asylum seeker access at southern border

Immigration advocacy groups on Monday sued the Trump administration over its ban on asylum access at the southern border, saying the sweeping restrictions illegally put people who are fleeing war and persecution in harm’s way, the Associated Press reports.

The decision outlined in one of Trump’s immigration-related executive orders is “as unlawful as it is unprecedented,” the groups – led by the American Civil Liberties Union – said in the complaint, filed in a Washington federal court.

“The government is doing just what Congress by statute decreed that the United States must not do. It is returning asylum seekers – not just single adults, but families too – to countries where they face persecution or torture, without allowing them to invoke the protections Congress has provided,” lawyers wrote.

The ACLU and other groups filed the complaint on behalf of Arizona-based Florence Project, El Paso-based Las Americas Immigrant Advocacy Center and Texas-based Raices.

The Department of Homeland Security said in a statement that they do not comment on impending legislation.

In an executive order, Trump declared that the situation at the southern border constitutes an invasion of America and that he was “suspending the physical entry” of migrants until he decides it’s over.

The executive order also suspended the ability of migrants to ask for asylum.

In the executive order, Trump argued that the Immigration and Nationality Act gives presidents the authority to suspend entry of any group that they finds “detrimental to the interests of the United States.”

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The day so far

Canada and Mexico both reached deals with Donald Trump to temporarily halt tariffs. The president spoke with the leaders of both countries, which pledged to deploy troops along their borders, among other promises. Levies on China are still set to go into effect tomorrow. Meanwhile, confusion over the fate of USAid continued. Marco Rubio, US secretary of state, said he was taking over the agency and then named controversial figure Peter Marocco to be the deputy administrator.

Here’s what else has happened today:

  • Trump announced he’s planning to appoint Michael Ellis and the deputy director of the CIA. Ellis is a close Trump ally and worked in the president’s previous administration and helped fight allegations of collusion with Russia in the 2016 election.

  • Senator Susan Collins, a republican from Maine, said she’ll vote to confirm Tulsi Gabbard as the director of national intelligence. Collins is a key swing vote and her support brings Gabbard’s nomination close to being sealed.

  • Trump is reportedly mulling an executive order to dismantle the Department of Education, in alignment with mandates from Elon Musk’s “department of government efficiency” to slash federal agencies.

  • Musk’s Doge reportedly accessed administration systems for the federal Small Business Administration. It has also reportedly accessed secure information at USAid and the Treasury department. According to Wired, Musk has reportedly deployed six young men to lead Doge’s efforts to access federal government data.

  • The Trump administration made plain its intent to merge USAid with the state department under Musk’s supervision. Employees were barred from the agency headquarters today, after the website was shuttered over the weekend. Several democrats cried foul, calling the act illegal and denouncing Musk.

  • The Trump administration may today begin using an obscure 18th-century law to deport undocumented migrants without first going through the courts.

  • Darren Beattie, a former White House official who wrote, “Competent white men must be in charge if you want things to work,” is reportedly set for a top role at the state department.

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El Salvador and US close to finalizing migration agreement, says Bukele

El Salvador and the United States are close to finalizing an agreement on migration following US secretary of state Marco Rubio’s visit to the Central American nation, Salvadoran president Nayib Bukele said on Monday.

When asked by reporters if El Salvador would become a so-called safe third country to take US deportees from other countries, Bukele said that an agreement in the works would be even broader than that, adding Rubio would need to be the one to give further detail.

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Trump to appoint Michael Ellis serve as deputy CIA director

Trump has announced on Truth Social that he will appoint Michael Ellis as deputy CIA director.

He is legal counsel to Rumble, the social media platform said to be “immune to cancel culture”.

Ellis, according to Politico, is on the CIA landing team and held senior intelligence and policy roles on Trump’s first term national security council.

Trump said of Ellis, that he “helped expose abuses of the ‘unmasking’ process by the Obama administration at the beginning of the Russia, Russia, Russia, Hoax”.

According to Politico:

Before that, he served as the top lawyer to partisan firebrand Rep. Devin Nunes (R-Calif.), a close Trump ally who as House Intelligence Committee chair helped fight allegations the then-president’s campaign colluded with Russia in the 2016 election.

Ellis’ work pushing back against the Trump-Russia investigation for Nunes was viewed as a major plus for incoming CIA Director John Ratcliffe and Trump, according to one of the two people.

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