 | By Gavin Bade | Presented by |  |
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President-elect Donald Trump gestures while speaking during a meeting with House Republicans at the Hyatt Regency hotel in Washington, DC on Nov. 13. | Pool photo by Allison Robbert TRUMP BULLYING & THREATS IS COUNTER-PRODUCTIVE & CHILDISH - DESIGNED TO APPEAL TO HIS UNINFORMED BASE! TRUMP IS UNINFORMED REGARDING BOTH THE SOURCE OF FENTANYL & THE BORDER LIES HE REPEATS. THE BIPARTISAN BORDER BILL TRUMP INSTRUCTED THE MAGA MORONS TO DEFEAT INCLUDED DRUG SENSING TECHNOLOGY THAT WOULD HAVE SOLVED THE PROBLEM....TRUMP DOESN'T WANT TO SOLVE PROBLEMS.....STILL JUST A WHINER! DRUG SMUGGLERS ARE SOPHISTICATED & CONCEAL DRUGS IN VEHICLES THAT BORDER AGENTS CAN'T ACCESS! LOOK IT UP! IF YOU'RE A TRUMPER, I KNOW YOU WON'T. | CARROT AND STICK — At first blush, Trump appears to be upping the ante on tariffs during the presidential transition. In the past two weeks, he’s threatened 25 percent tariffs on Canada and Mexico, promised to add 10 percent to China tariffs already in place, and even promised whopping 100 percent duties on BRICs nations — developing countries including Brazil, South Africa, Russia, India, China — if they try to create a rival currency to the U.S. dollar. Those could be signs of a more aggressive tariff policy, as promised on the campaign trail. But read between the lines and some trade observers think the threats show that Trump could be turning away from his most disruptive tariff plans, like the 20 percent across-the-board tariff that he pledged repeatedly in the run-up to the election. In those Truth Social posts, Trump is using tariffs as a cudgel for some other issue — to get Canada to crack down on fentanyl, Mexico to stop the flow of migrants, or developing nations to continue using the dollar. And in each of those cases, nations quickly acquiesced to Trump’s demands, with Canadian President Justin Trudeau flying to Mar-a-Lago, Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum holding a conciliatory call with Trump, and a South African government spokesperson decrying the “misreporting” that has led to the “incorrect narrative that BRICs is planning to create a new currency.” Notably, using tariffs as a negotiating tool is how establishment Republicans and Wall Street types have been hoping Trump would approach the issue for months — a “sin tax,” as Sen. Kevin Cramer (R-N.D.) called them, which can be quickly threatened, applied, and then removed if the trading partner changes their behavior. That’s the new form of soft protectionism in Washington. It’s how establishment Republicans who never liked tariffs are begrudgingly acquiescing to Trump’s love for them. And notably it’s how more Wall Street-aligned members of Trump’s team have spoken about tariffs in the past — Treasury pick Scott Bessent and Commerce nominee Howard Lutnick both said tariffs should be used as a bargaining chip shortly before the election. That’s also the most prevalent opinion among GOP lawmakers in the Senate – one of the last bastions of pro-trade Republicans – even Trump allies like Cramer. “I think [a negotiating tool] is the appropriate way to use tariffs — the easy way, the safest way to use tariffs,” said Cramer. “If you start using them as a sort of a general policy related to revenue that’s more concerning.” But it’s not how the hardcore populists view the issue. People like Trump’s former trade chief Robert Lighthizer think of tariffs not just as a cudgel, but also as an end in themselves — policies to be applied over the long term to reverse the U.S. trade deficit and provide a signal to investors to build factories in the United States. Protectionist elements close to Trump are already talking to House Ways and Means Chair Jason Smith about legislating tariff increases in the tax bill reauthorization next year , a move that would likely mean long-term duties. Lighthizer appears to be shut out of the administration , but that approach still has its adherents on Trump’s team, like U.S. Trade Representative pick Jamieson Greer, Lighthizer’s former chief of staff, and Peter Navarro, who Trump said this week would become White House trade czar. Those figures, however, could struggle for influence against administration members like Bessent and National Economic Council pick Kevin Hassett, also a more mainline economic thinker. Greer, while an able trade practitioner, lacks the personal relationship with Trump that Lighthizer had, and will be reporting directly to Lutnick at the Commerce Department, who the president-elect put in charge of the trade portfolio. And Navarro, though an avowed protectionist, had his ups and downs in the first Trump administration, routinely clashing with Wall Street-adjacent figures. In any case, they appear outnumbered by the more establishment figures in the most important economic posts of Treasury, Commerce and NEC. All of that has some Wall Street figures quietly optimistic that Trump’s bark will be worse than his bite on tariffs. Hedge fund billionaire Ken Griffin this week called Trump’s tariff threats “small ball” compared to other geopolitical issues, and macro researcher Marko Papic went further, saying in an email that despite the bellicose language, Trump is more likely to strike new deals than fully apply his campaign trail trade agenda. “Trump’s brash language might have led some down the fantasy that inflated tariffs are on the way,” said Papic, who provides investment research to asset managers worldwide. “In actuality, it’s all part of his ‘America First’ approach that will see him strike a trade deal with China, and perhaps conditional on the basis that their companies relocate their production facilities to the U.S.” That sort of negotiation is exactly what many foreign trading partners — particularly developing nations — are hoping for out of a Trump presidency. Trump is the “deal man” one Filipino official told POLITICO over the summer , and an economic official from a U.S. ally, granted anonymity to discuss the tariff issue frankly, said their government is hopeful Trump may be turning away from universal duties as well. “Trump might be utilizing tariffs to resolve non-traded issues this time,” said the official, “and therefore we may not end up seeing universal tariffs, but I think it is still too early to tell.” Of course, the two policy options — tariffs as a negotiating tool, versus tariffs for their own sake — aren’t mutually exclusive. Trump could put a blanket tariff in place and still up the ante in bilateral negotiations. And the opinions of his cabinet officials aren’t set in stone. Lutnick, for instance, has also opined that tariffs should replace income taxes, like in the Gilded Age, putting him on both sides of the new tariff divide. For now, the direction Trump will ultimately choose is up in the air – and that means the return of a fierce debate within his economic team that is likely to rage for years to come. Welcome to POLITICO Nightly. Reach out with news, tips and ideas at nightly@politico.com . Or contact tonight’s author at gbade@politico.com or on X (formerly known as Twitter) at @GavinBade .
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| | A message from Instagram: Instagram Teen Accounts: a protected experience for teens, guided by parents
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The impact: Built-in limits give parents more peace of mind when it comes to protecting their teens.
Learn more. | | | | | — Federal judge preserves Naval Academy’s race-conscious admissions: A federal judge today upheld the U.S. Naval Academy’s consideration of race in admissions arguing that pursuing diversity in the military is a national security interest. The ruling is an early blow to Students for Fair Admissions’ latest attempt to extend the scope of its Supreme Court win against Harvard University and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill that gutted the use of race in college admissions. The ruling also comes while the Naval Academy’s admissions process is underway for its next class. — TikTok taking its case to Supreme Court: TikTok said today it will turn to the Supreme Court after a federal appeals court sided with the Justice Department and upheld a law that would ban TikTok in the U.S. if the video-sharing app is not sold by Jan. 19. A three-judge panel on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit denied petitions to block the law from TikTok, its parent company ByteDance and creator groups. The ban takes effect one day before Donald Trump’s inauguration. Trump had pledged in his campaign to “save TikTok” — putting the president-elect in a position of possibly defending a law he opposed, or finding a way to defang it. Trump’s transition team did not immediately respond to questions about his plans. — Macron to meet with Trump, Zelenskyy ahead of Notre Dame reopening : French President Emmanuel Macron will hold separate bilateral meetings with his Ukrainian counterpart Volodymyr Zelenskyy and U.S. President-elect Donald Trump ahead of the reopening ceremony of the Notre Dame cathedral on Saturday, the French presidency announced. This will be Trump’s first visit abroad since his victory in the Nov. 5 election. Macron is among those leaders currently in power to have known the soon-to-be 47th president during his first term in office — a position he will look to leverage in order to assert himself as a key European partner to the U.S. Trump’s return to power has led to concern across Europe about the future of American support for Ukraine in its war against Russia.
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| | Billions in spending. Critical foreign aid. Immigration reform. The final weeks of 2024 could bring major policy changes. Inside Congress provides daily insights into how Congressional leaders are navigating these high-stakes issues. Subscribe today . | | | | | | | ‘DISCOMFORT AND ANXIETY’ — The high-stakes battle on Capitol Hill over Pete Hegseth’s quest to lead the Defense Department is causing no shortage of angst in the Pentagon , where officials are watching nervously to find out who their next boss will be. “The biggest thing I’m picking up is a level of discomfort and uncertainty. People want to know who their leadership is going to be and what they’re going to be asked to do, these are professionals who can put personal feelings aside,” said one Pentagon official, who like others was granted anonymity to speak candidly on a sensitive subject. The official also noted that the Trump team’s delay in signing an agreement with the White House means the Pentagon and other agencies are in a holding pattern until transition officials are in place. BEIJING HARDLINER — President-elect Donald Trump looks to be making good on his promise to play hardball with Beijing in his pick for ambassador to China . While David Perdue, a former Republican senator from Georgia, was once a business-friendly advocate of reducing China’s trade deficit, he has made a sharp pivot in recent months to embracing a particularly hawkish stance on Beijing. Trump has vowed to intensify the U.S.-China trade war with new tariffs of up to 60 percent on Chinese imports, but many in Washington had been waiting for his ambassador pick to get a sense of how seriously to take that threat. Trump reportedly considered at least two other candidates who appeared less hostile to Beijing. STIFF RESISTANCE — Tulsi Gabbard looks likely to be the next of President-elect Donald Trump’s Cabinet picks to face a bumpy ride in the U.S. Senate . Two current and three former GOP Senate aides familiar with discussions over the national security nominations told POLITICO that the former Democratic congressperson and recent MAGA convert will face intense questioning and stiff resistance when her nomination as the next director of national intelligence comes before the Senate. Several of the staffers said a key reason Gabbard’s issues have not come to the surface yet that is that the media firestorm around Trump’s other controversial nominees — namely his first pick for attorney general, Matt Gaetz, and his current nominee for Defense secretary, Pete Hegseth — have taken attention from Gabbard.
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People walk by a newspaper stand after the first round of Romania's presidential election was annulled, days after allegations that Russia ran a coordinated online campaign to promote Calin Georgescu. | Vadim Ghirda/AP | STARTING OVER — Romania’s top constitutional court today dramatically cancelled high-stakes presidential elections after security services warned Russia was mounting “aggressive” hybrid attacks against the Eastern European country. The court decision plunged the strategically important EU and NATO member state into political chaos, inflaming divisions that opened up after a far-right outsider came from nowhere to win the first round in the presidential contest two weeks ago. Ultranationalist Călin Georgescu benefited from a TikTok campaign that was similar to influence operations run by the Kremlin in Ukraine and Moldova, according to declassified Romanian intelligence documents. The files said Moscow was targeting Romania as an enemy state, using “aggressive hybrid action,” a view backed by the United States. The second round runoff was due to be held on Sunday and voting had already begun in Romanian diaspora communities in other countries. The court cancelled the process completely, leaving voters bemused as they turned up to cast their ballots. The Romanian government will now need to draw up a timeline for fresh presidential elections. OLIVE BRANCH — The first signs of how the next French government could be formed started to emerge today when the Socialist leader said he was prepared to discuss a compromise with President Emmanuel Macron. The move, by Olivier Faure, could potentially see the Socialists support a government with Macron’s centrists and the conservatives. Faure is “ready to discuss all the topics and see what is possible on a short-term basis,” he said on French radio. “We need to find a solution because we can’t let the country grind to a halt for months.” France was plunged into political crisis this week when the government was toppled barely three months after being formed, raising fears that the instability could trigger financial instability across the eurozone.
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227,000 The number of jobs that the U.S. added in November , a bounceback from an October slowdown, according to today’s report from the Labor Department. Unemployment ticked up from 4.1% to 4.2%.
MUST READ! THIS IS PRESIDENT BIDEN'S ECONOMY! WASHINGTON (AP) — America’s job market rebounded in November, adding 227,000 workers in a solid recovery from the previous month, when the effects of strikes and hurricanes had sharply diminished employers’ payrolls. Last month’s hiring growth was up considerably from a meager gain of 36,000 jobs in October. The government also revised up its estimate of job growth in September and October by a combined 56,000. Friday’s report from the Labor Department report showed that the unemployment rate ticked up from 4.1% in October to a still-low 4.2%. Hourly wages rose 0.4% from October to November and 4% from a year earlier — both solid figures and slightly higher than forecasters had expected. The November employment report provided the latest evidence that the U.S. job market remains durable even though it has lost significant momentum from the 2021-2023 hiring boom, when the economy was rebounding from the pandemic recession. The job market’s gradual slowdown is, in part, a result of the high interest rates the Federal Reserve engineered in its drive to tame inflation. The Fed jacked up interest rates 11 times in 2022 and 2023. Defying predictions, the economy kept growing despite much higher borrowing rates for consumers and businesses. But since early this year, the job market has been slowing. Thomas Simons, U.S. economist at Jefferies, wrote in a commentary that the recovery from October’s strikes and hurricanes likely boosted last month’s payrolls by 60,000, suggesting that the job market is strong enough to absorb most jobseekers but not enough to raise worries about inflation. The healthy gain of 227,000 payroll jobs in November was derived from from a Labor Department survey of employers. A separate survey of households, which determines the unemployment rate, looked weaker: The ranks of the unemployed rose by 161,000. And the number of Americans who said they either had a job or were looking for one fell for a second straight month. Economists also noted that the November job gains were narrow: Just three categories of employers — healthcare and social assistance; leisure and hospitality; and government — accounted for 70% of the added jobs. And the 22,000 jobs that factories gained in November were boosted by the end of strikes at Boeing and elsewhere that restored many workers to their employers’ payrolls. Retailers, by contrast, shed 28,000 jobs. “I don’t think we should be misled by the solid number of 227,000,’’ said Julia Pollak, chief economist at the employment firm ZipRecruiter. Pollak noted that averaging the October and November job gains amounts to a modest 132,000 per month. “This report offers very little evidence of a labor market rebound,’’ she said. Still, Americans as a whole have been enjoying unusual job security. This week, the government reported that layoffs fell to just 1.6 million in October, below the lowest levels in the two decades that preceded the pandemic. At the same time, the number of job openings rebounded from a 3 1/2 year low, a sign that businesses are still seeking workers even though hiring has cooled. The overall economy has remained resilient. The much higher borrowing costs for consumers and businesses that resulted from the Fed’s rate hikes had been expected to tip the economy into a recession. Instead, the economy kept growing as households continued to spend and employers continued to hire. The economy grew at a 2.8% annual pace from July through September on healthy spending by consumers. Annual economic growth has topped a decent 2% in eight of the past nine quarters. And inflation has dropped from a 9.1% peak in June 2022 to 2.6% last month. Even so, Americans were deeply frustrated by still-high prices under the Biden-Harris administration, and partly for that reason chose last month to return Donald Trump to the White House. While comparatively few Americans are losing jobs, those who do are finding it harder to land a new one: The average unemployed American last month had been out of work for 23.7 weeks, the longest such stretch in 2 1/2 years. The progress against inflation and the slowdown in hiring, which eases pressure on companies to raise wages and prices, led the Fed to cut its key rate in September and again last month. Another rate cut is expected to be announced when the Fed meets Dec. 17-18. Pollak of ZipRecruiter said she sees some reason for optimism about the job market. Wage gains have been exceeding inflation for two years, for example, thereby strengthening Americans’ buying power. And lower borrowing rates are likely to encourage spending and hiring in the future. “There are all kinds of mounting tailwinds that should propel this labor market forward,” she said. For now, though, some businesses are cautious. Chris Butler, CEO of the National Tree Company, which makes artificial holiday trees, wreaths and garlands, said he’s taking a watchful approach to hiring. The company is grappling with subdued spending, and, like its competitors, National Tree has discounted heavily as many shoppers have pulled back on discretionary purchases. Butler is also monitoring the prospect of heavy new tariffs that President-elect Donald Trump has said he will impose on imports from China and other countries. Although National Tree Company sources a significant chunk of its business from China, it has been moving more production to Vietnam and Cambodia. It plans to be fully out of China in 2026 as it braces for Trump to take office. For 2025, Butler said, “we’ll probably add a few roles. But it’s certainly not going to be a hiring bonanza.” |
| | | LIVE LONG AND PROSPER — For decades, people have been obsessed with the concept of ‘blue zones’ — places on earth where the population appears to live much longer on average than elsewhere. Researchers into these ideas have determined that there are certain environmental factors that make certain places — an area of California, some of Greece, an island off the coast of Italy, places in Costa Rica and Japan and more — better suited to living a longer life. But in more recent years, as longevity has grown as a cottage industry, much of the research into ‘blue zones’ is being questioned. What does it mean if ‘blue zones’ don’t exist at all — and what are the implications for American cities trying to fashion themselves into these sorts of places? Shayla Love reports in The New Republic.
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On this date in 1973: Gerald Ford is sworn in as the nation's 40th vice president following the resignation of Spiro Agnew in the House Chamber in the Capitol. Chief Justice Warren Burger administers the oath of office as Ford's wife, Betty, holds the Bible. | AP | Did someone forward this email to you? Sign up here .
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Parents want safer online experiences for their teens. That's why Instagram is introducing Teen Accounts, with automatic protections for who can contact teens and the content they can see.
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