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Senate Republicans pushed back on President Donald Trump -- including the threat of a veto override -- after he scoffed at the possibility that members of his own party would try to block his plan to impose a tariff on Mexico over concerns about the potential economic fallout. Senator Kevin Cramer, a North Dakota Republican, predicted that the Senate would have enough votes to override a presidential veto of any measure that would keep Trump’s tariffs on Mexico from going into effect June 10. “You’ve heard of people who are war weary,” Cramer said. “Senate Republicans are tariff weary.” Trump,...

Congressional Republicans have begun discussing whether they may have to vote to block President Trump’s planned new tariffs on Mexico, potentially igniting a second standoff this year over Trump’s use of executive powers to circumvent Congress, people familiar with the talks said. The vote, which would be the GOP’s most dramatic act of defiance since Trump took office, could also have the effect of blocking billions of dollars in border wall funding that the president had announced in February when he declared a national emergency at the southern border, said the people, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because...

President Donald Trump is "deadly serious" about his threat to impose a 5 percent tariff on all goods from Mexico over his concerns of illegal immigration, Mick Mulvaney, the acting White House chief of staff, said Sunday. "He is absolutely, deadly serious," Mulvaney said on Fox News Sunday. "I fully expect these tariffs to go on to at least the 5 percent level on June 10." Trump last week tweeted the United States would impose a 5 percent tariff on all goods from Mexico "until such time as illegal migrants coming through Mexico, and into our Country, STOP." Mulvaney doubled-down...

President Trump Sunday derided Mexico's effort to negotiate away his threat to impose 5% tariffs, calling the nation an "abuser" of the United States and declaring, "America has had enough." “People have been saying for years that we should talk to Mexico. The problem is that Mexico is an 'abuser' of the United States, taking but never giving. It has been this way for decades," Trump said on Twitter. "Either they stop the invasion of our Country, "[W]hich they can do very easily, or our many companies and jobs that have been foolishly allowed to move South of the Border,...

Mexico’s President told President Donald Trump that America is for migrants. His disrespectful comments came after President Trump announced tariffs that would be imposed on Mexico until they stopped the flow of migrants. The New York Times reported that President Trump said Thursday that he would impose a 5 percent tariff on all imported goods from Mexico beginning June 10, a tax that would “gradually increase” until the flow of undocumented immigrants across the border stopped. The announcement, which Mr. Trump made on his Twitter feed, said the tariffs would be in place “until such time as illegal migrants coming...

Mexico's top diplomats are knocking on doors in Washington this week, looking for a compromise to avoid the 5 percent tariffs that President Trump has vowed to impose on their exports beginning next week. Trump said he would impose the tariffs and that they would escalate over time unless Mexico took unspecified steps to curb the immigration crisis at the border. Mexico Foreign Secretary Marcelo Ebrard told reporters in Washington on Monday that the tariffs would be counterproductive in combatting mass migration from Central America, and that the economic fallout could further weaken Mexico's ability to control migration in the...

The Trump administration on Friday announced that it would allow for the year-round sale of gasoline with higher concentrations of ethanol. The action addresses a rule the Environmental Protection Agency had in place preventing the sale of so-called E15 fuel, which contains 15 percent ethanol and 85 percent gasoline, between June 1 and Sept. 15. The purpose was to prevent air pollution and curb dependence on foreign petroleum, but the ban has stopped some retailers from selling E15 at all because of the need to change out pumps.

Today’s Campaign Update (Because The Campaign Never Ends) Meanwhile, in news that actually matters to Americans… – While everyone else is focused on President Donald Trump’s first state visit to the future Islamic Republic of England, paying tribute to a monarchy that is doomed to fall within a generation, I thought I’d focus on something of actual substance. If you perused the Drudge Report this morning – which I still do despite his lurch off into leftist paranoia over the past year – you would find the following links at the right side of the landing page: PLANET TECH ROCKED:...

President Trump believes, not without good reason, that the Mexican government is not doing its utmost to stop the illegal flow of Central Americans crossing the U.S. border. And so he has responded with . . . a $17 billion–a–year–and–rising sales tax on Americans. The president loves tariffs. He believes that they are an effective means of protecting American firms from unfair overseas competition and a good negotiating tool as he works to reform trade agreements that he believes are disadvantageous to Americans. But the question of who ends up actually paying any given tax is complicated. The price of...

China’s oil import dependence is at 70 percent currently, so it can’t achieve this self-sufficiency in a decade or two, even if it were to start steadily reversing its declining oil production and tap more shale oil and gas resources. A PetroChina test oil well at a shale field in western China could finally mean a strong commercial potential for shale oil for the first time in the world’s top crude importer, Morgan Stanley said earlier this year. The shale boom in China, however, would be just a fraction of the U.S. shale revolution—Morgan Stanley expects Chinese shale oil production...

Sen. Mitt Romney warned Friday that President Donald Trump’s proposed tariffs against Mexico were the wrong approach and could harm Americans more than they help curtail illegal immigration. “A tariff targeting Mexico that negatively impacts our own interests will only end in a waiting game of increasingly harmful consequence to the American people,” Romney said.

Donald Trump is “deadly serious” about slapping tariffs on imports from Mexico, his chief of staff said on Sunday, even though the president “intentionally left the declaration sort of ad hoc” amidst fears of damage to the US economy if he follows through on his threat. Mexico could tighten migration controls to defuse Trump tariffs threat Speaking to Fox News Sunday, acting chief of staff Mick Mulvaney acknowledged there are no concrete benchmarks being set to assess whether Mexico is acting to reduce numbers of migrants from Central America entering the US via Mexican territory enough to satisfy the White...

Now, a story in the Sunday Telegraph is just the latest to pose serious questions. The newspaper reports that China has been "rigging" 5G equipment testing to discredit Huawei's rivals, including Nokia and Ericsson. According to government and industry sources, "Beijing is feeding secret details of security vulnerabilities" to the testers to tip the balance in Huawei's favor. The testing encompasses "hacking techniques used to check for weak spots... vulnerabilities discovered by China’s secret state hackers have been passed to the 5G testers to ensure Nokia and Ericsson’s equipment is found to be insecure." Huawei's security issues have always been...

Beijing’s latest missive on trade issues struck a newly measured tone, despite accusing Washington of scuttling negotiations. After weeks of escalating trade tensions with the U.S., China modulated its rhetoric, suggesting negotiations remain a priority and laying out conditions for doing so. A government policy paper on trade issues with the U.S. released Sunday accused Washington of scuttling the negotiations, which broke down in all but name last month. It said the Trump administration’s “America First” program and use of tariffs are harming the global economy and that China wouldn’t shy away from a trade war if need be.

...Mexican Foreign Minister Marcelo Ebrard arrived at the Mexican embassy on Saturday and is scheduled to meet with Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on Wednesday, Ebrard announced on Twitter. Ebrard, a former Mexico City mayor who has served as foreign secretary since December 2018, has been open in his disdain for Trump in the past. ... Now, Ebrard is in the position of leading negotiations with the Trump administration over the tariffs Trump slapped on his country.

The Chinese government said in a white paper issued on Sunday that the US government “should bear the sole and entire responsibility” for the stalled trade talks between the two countries, hitting back at allegations that Beijing had backtracked from its earlier promises to cause a collapse in negotiations. Wang Shouwen, Vice Commerce Minister and China’s international trade negotiator, said at a press conference in Beijing that the US is “irresponsible” in alleging that China had backtracked its earlier promises.

Mexican president hints at migration concessions

Republican Sen. Martha McSally broke with President Donald Trump on Friday over his threat to hit all Mexican imports with steep tariffs. In doing so, McSally finds herself aligned with her potential Democratic challenger, Mark Kelly.

Our patience has been rewarded because the solution to the border crisis that we’ve been waiting for has finally arrived.Despite all of the obstruction and dismissal by the Democrats of the worst humanitarian crisis to ever hit our border, Donald Trump has found perhaps the most effective way to solve this crisis.The madness at the border will end. The flood of human traffickers, drug smugglers, and gang members will be stopped. The mockery that these criminal invaders have made of our immigration laws and our generous asylum system will be rectified.And Mexico is going to step up and help...

Senate Finance Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) condemned President Trump's new tariffs on Mexico late Thursday, calling the move a "misuse" of presidential tariff authority and cautioning the levies could derail passage of the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA). "Trade policy and border security are separate issues. This is a misuse of presidential tariff authority and counter to congressional intent," Grassley said in a statement. The lawmaker cautioned that following through on Trump's tariff threat "would seriously jeopardize passage of USMCA," a revision of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). "I support nearly every one of President Trump’s immigration policies,...