Trump pressures foreign governments on trade : NPR

Scott Simon, host:

President Trump has his pricing pen and ready for action. After interrupting the new pricing regime he announced on April 2, Trump published a certain number of letters this week to announce the import taxes to be collected from August. Ron Elving of NPR joins us. Ron, thank you for being with us.

Ron Elving, byline: delighted to be with you, Scott.

Simon: After two dozen countries – about two dozen countries affected by these letters, which are described as pricing threats, do you think that these levies will actually occur on August 1?

Elving: no one will be surprised to see the figures change or the deadline. The figures are catchy – 35% for Canada, 50% for Brazil – but attracting attention may well be what they are. More pose than politics. If there is one thing that we have learned about Trump’s attitude towards the prices, it is because he uses these frightening percentages and these imminent deadlines as a negotiation tools. In the end, the goal is to force all other countries in the world to pay for more access to the American market. Trump considers it as a financial windfall and the gateway to a new era of American domination around the world.

Simon: When the president announced new prices for the first time, he said they were necessary due to several national emergencies. Trade deficits, for one. Fentanyl’s offer, illegal border crossings for another. But this week, he targeted Brazil, with which America has a good surplus, and he blamed the prosecution of former President Bolsonaro. What is the story here?

Elving: The story with Bolsonaro goes back to when he and Trump were both in power and noting that they had a lot in common on many subjects. Then Trump was elected out of power in 2020, Bolsonaro in 2022. But the Brazilian resisted the starting office and tried to cancel the election results. Trump may have sympathized with it and supported it in these efforts at the time. And this week, he gave him a specific reference by announcing the new price (PH) and denouncing the current government for its Bolsonaro treatment.

Simon: The president also increases the pressure on the federal reserve. But it occurs at the same time, Ron, that Trump and the partners say that the American economy is the desire of the world, which seems to imply that the Fed fully fulfills its economic responsibilities to restrict inflation and promote employment.

Elving: Well, it is surely as the president of the Federal Reserve Board, Jerome Powell, seems to see him. Inflation is not much greater than the target of 2%. Unemployment is also relatively low compared to historical standards. But Trump clearly said he wanted more, more than that. He wants to weigh as president of interest rates and exercise more control generally on the pace of economic growth.

Simon: And Ron, I would like to shoot you a little about Gallup’s very interesting new data this week on the issue of immigration. How do you read these figures?

Elving: They are really breathtaking. Immigration has greatly backed away as a problem for most Americans. The meaning of last year of an influx of new arrivals which become uncontrollable has largely dissipated. Only 30% told the polls that they wanted to see immigration decrease – decrease. Last year, Gallup found 55% – almost twice as many – saying this. In fact, the latter Gallup says that 79% of Americans – 4 out of 5 – considered immigration as a good thing for the country.

Now Scott is a record in Gallup, and it includes 2 on 3 Republicans. So, in a sense, it should be a remarkable feather in the Trump administration ceiling. Their efforts to control the border and relieve the anxieties that voters felt a year ago, these efforts would seem quite successful. But at the same time, a relaxation of public attitudes with regard to immigration could make it more difficult for administration to pursue its aggressive objectives of mass detention and expulsion in the coming months.

Now, the desire to take people in police custody that could be undocumented has generated a lot of perspective, both in the courts and in the streets. Yesterday evening, a federal judge of Los Angeles ordered the Trump administration to stop what she called the blind detention of people on the basis of a little more than color or accent of the skin or work fluently done by immigrants. The Gallup survey has also found an increasing concern of the public as to where this policy goes from here and what impact it can have on the economy in general.

Simon: The main contributor of NPR, Ron Elving. Thank you so much.

Elving: Thank you, Scott.

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