Braxton Taylor
President Donald Trump’s 25% tariffs on Canada and Mexico have been delayed 30 days, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau in Ottawa announced Monday afternoon, several hours after Mexico’s President Claudia Sheinbaum forged a similar agreement with the White House.
What’s new…sort of: Trudeau agreed to appoint a border security chief and to proceed with a $1.3 billion border plan, which officials in Ottawa had already announced on December 17. The plans call for “new choppers, technology and personnel, enhanced coordination with our American partners, and increased resources to stop the flow of fentanyl,” Trudeau said. “Nearly 10,000 frontline personnel are and will be working on protecting the border” with the U.S., he added.
Canada also agreed to “list cartels as terrorists” and “launch a Canada- U.S. Joint Strike Force to combat organized crime, fentanyl and money laundering,” said Trudeau. “I have also signed a new intelligence directive on organized crime and fentanyl and we will be backing it with $200 million,” he said.
ICYMI: Mexico agreed to send 10,000 troops to its border with the U.S. in order to delay Trump’s 25% tariffs for 30 days. Trump wasted little time congratulating himself for extracting the concession from America’s southern neighbor, but he neglected to mention Monday that Mexico already had 15,000 troops along its border with the U.S., as Catherine Rampell of the Washington Post pointed out.
Mexico also agreed to send 10,000 troops to the U.S. border back in 2021, under former President Andrés Manuel López Obrador and just three months into President Biden’s tenure. That decision resulted from multi-national talks on regional migration, a notable contrast from Trump’s choice to economically coerce America’s closest neighbors—and send stocks around the world tumbling in the process.
Big-picture consideration: “Ultimately, it seems Mexico conceded very little in order to stave off potential economic doom,” the New York Times reports. What’s more, “The U.S. government even agreed to do something Ms. Sheinbaum has repeatedly called for, even if the agreement was light on details: working together to stop the flow of arms into Mexico.” Trump did not emphasize that development in public remarks following his conversation with Sheinbaum.
Developing: Trump’s tariffs on China are still in place. His 10% tariffs affect all Chinese products coming into the U.S. and officially began at midnight.
China responded with “a 15% tariff on coal and liquefied natural gas products as well as a 10% tariff on crude oil, agricultural machinery and large-engine cars imported from the U.S.,” the Associated Press reports. Those tariffs are set to begin next Monday.
Beijing also announced new export controls on tungsten, tellurium, bismuth, molybdenum and indium. Those “could put some significant harm on our economy,” one expert told AP. U.S. and Chinese officials are expected to speak sometime later today, the New York Times reports.
Relatedly:
New: Secretary of State Marco Rubio has been made acting administrator of USAID, ABC News reported Monday amid the fallout of how the richest man in the world shut down the U.S. Agency for International Development, or USAID, over the weekend.
Opposition says: “We don’t have a fourth branch of government called Elon Musk,” said Maryland Democratic Rep. Jamie Raskin, standing before the USAID building on Monday. “And that’s going to become real clear,” he said.
Another perspective on Musk’s USAID takeover: “There is no question that the billionaire class trying to take over our government right now is doing it based on self-interest: their belief that if they can make us weaker in the world, if they can elevate their business partners all around the world, they will gain the benefit,” said Connecticut Democratic Sen. Chris Murphy, standing beside Raskin on Monday.
“But there’s another reason this is happening,” said Murphy. “They’re shuttering agencies and sending employees home in order to create the illusion that they’re saving money, in order to…pass a giant tax cut for billionaires and corporations.”
A note on procedure: “If [Republicans] wanted to get rid of the United States Agency for International Development, for example, they could introduce a bill, debate it, pass it, and send it on to President Trump for his signature. And there would be very little the Democrats could do to stop that change,” said historian Heather Cox Richardson of Boston College. “But they are not doing that,” she wrote Monday.
“The U.S. president has no authority to cut programs created and funded by Congress, and [Elon Musk] a private citizen tapped by a president has even less standing to try anything so radical.” However, she said, “Republicans are allowing Musk to run amok.”
Why this is problematic: “Permitting a private citizen to override the will of our representatives in Congress destroys the U.S. Constitution” and “makes Congress itself superfluous,” Richardson said.
“This is a constitutional crisis that we are in today,” Sen. Murphy declared. “Let’s call it what it is,” he said, and stressed, “The people get to decide how we defend the United States of America. The people get to decide how their taxpayer money is spent. Elon Musk does not get to decide.”
Sen. Schumer: Elon Musk is leading “an unelected shadow government [that] is conducting a hostile takeover of the federal government,” the minority leader said on the floor of the Senate Monday. “Trump does not have the authority to erase an independent agency created by Congress. Nor can the Department of State absorb USAID,” he said. “Republicans in Congress must join us to take action to restore the rule of law and stop any potential lawbreaking” by Musk and his allies, Schumer added—though it’s unclear at best if any Republicans are willing to reach across the aisle to preserve the rule of law.
For what it’s worth, Musk is now officially a “special government employee,” the White House announced Monday. What that means exactly, however, is not quite clear in terms of his weekend efforts to shut down a congressionally authorized U.S. agency. The Justice Department classifies such an employee as “anyone who works, or is expected to work, for the government for 130 days or less in a 365-day period.”
“I can confirm he’s a special government employee,” said Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt, speaking to reporters on Monday. “I can also confirm that he has abided by all applicable federal laws,” she alleged, and added, “As for his security clearance, I’m not sure, but I can check.”
Another wrinkle for Musk’s classification: Conflict-of-interest laws are murky, because as a SGE, Musk isn’t required to publicly file financial disclosures. As one government-ethics professor explained to Reuters, “If they do not make public his financial disclosure, it may make it impossible for the public and nongovernmental organizations and journalists to hold him and the government accountable and make sure he does not participate in matters where he has conflicts.”
Why it matters: “Critics have argued that [Musk’s] ownership of Tesla and SpaceX represents a conflict of interest in his review of government spending and regulation,” the Washington Post reported Tuesday, “particularly in his dealings with government agencies that have in the past decided whether to award contracts to his companies or laid out rules that influence his companies’ actions and profits.”
Developing: Senate Approps Dem vows a “blanket hold” on Trump’s State Department nominees. Sen. Brian Schatz of Hawaii, the ranking member on the Senate Appropriations’ Subcommittee on State, Foreign Operations, and Related Programs, announced in a statement Monday, “Until and unless this brazenly authoritarian action is reversed and USAID is functional again, I will be placing a blanket hold on all of the Trump administration’s State Department nominees. This is self-inflicted chaos of epic proportions that will have dangerous consequences all around the world.”
If that sounds familiar, “During the Biden administration, Sen. Tommy Tuberville (R., Ala.) blocked Defense Department nominees because he opposed the Pentagon paying troops so they could travel for abortion-related services,” the Wall Street Journal reminds readers. That’s not all. “Sen. Ted Cruz (R., Texas) also slowed down the State confirmation process because former President Joe Biden allowed Germany to complete a pipeline to receive Russian energy.”
Busting a stubborn U.S. foreign-aid myth: Going back at least 15 years, Americans have often thought that the country’s foreign aid takes up an astounding 25% of the U.S. federal budget. That’s not true, however. “The real figure is closer to 1%,” or $68 billion, the Economist reported late last week after Trump and his surrogates froze U.S. foreign aid ahead of Musk’s USAID takeover. That $68 billion is in fact “a very modest 0.25% of [U.S.] GDP,” the British publication points out.
Welcome to this Tuesday edition of The D Brief, a newsletter dedicated to developments affecting the future of U.S. national security, brought to you by Ben Watson and Bradley Peniston. Share your tips and feedback here. And if you’re not already subscribed, you can do that here. On this day in 1958, the keel of USS Enterprise (CVN 65), the first nuclear-powered aircraft carrier, was laid at Newport News, Virginia.
Around the Defense Department
Navy P-8s surveillance planes are monitoring the U.S.-Mexico border, the service’s 3rd Fleet announced in a social media post Monday.
Update: More than 150 soldiers and Marines arrived at the Guantanamo Bay detention facilities, U.S. Southern Command officials said in a statement Monday. “The deployed service members include U.S. Marines with 1st Battalion, 6th Marine Regiment, 2d Marine Division and elements from U.S. Southern Command, and U.S. Army South,” SOUTHCOM said.
Related reading: “Trump plans to invoke obscure 18th century wartime law in bid for mass deportations,” Reuters reported Monday.
A recent report from the Pentagon’s test office found the F-35 program is still struggling to develop and test software, Defense One’s Audrey Decker reported Monday.
Background: Development issues have plagued Technology Refresh-3, a software and hardware upgrade vital for Block 4 improvements. Originally slated to be ready in April 2023, the upgrade has been delayed multiple times, and officials have been hesitant to nail down a date for full combat capability. Software challenges led the Pentagon to pause Lockheed jet deliveries for a year. And while deliveries have since resumed, the new planes have a “truncated” version of TR-3.
According to the latest annual report, the program “has shown no improvement in meeting schedule and performance timelines for developing and testing software designed to address deficiencies and add new capabilities.” Additionally, the report found the F-35 Joint Program Office has not “adequately planned” for combat testing of TR-3, and that full “operational testing” of TR-3 won’t happen until next year, Decker writes. Continue reading, here.
Obscure Yemeni official discussed Houthi operations, propaganda with CENTCOM. The exiled Yemeni government’s Information Minister Moammar bin Mutahar Al-Eryani visited the U.S. military’s Central Command recently, but it’s not clear when because CENTCOM did not specify in its Monday statement regarding the visit. “The visit and discussion are part of an effort to combat the Houthi’s systematic use of disinformation and propaganda to destabilize Yemen and the broader region,” CENTCOM said in its brief remarks.
Trump 2.0
Fired Trump speechwriter tapped to run the State Department’s worldwide public diplomacy efforts. AP: “Darren Beattie confirmed in a message to readers of the conservative website Revolver for which he worked that he would be taking up the post of acting undersecretary of state for public diplomacy. It was not clear if he would be formally nominated to take the job on a more permanent basis, which would require Senate confirmation.
In 2020, Trump’s appointment of Beattie to a federal commission on heritage abroad was harshly criticized by the Anti-Defamation League, whose CEO said, “It is downright shocking that the White House has appointed Darren Beattie, who once attended an event with white supremacists and participated in a panel discussion with white nationalist Peter Brimelow, to serve as a member of a commission specifically created to help preserve the memory of Jewish victims of Nazi atrocities during the Holocaust.” (The page no longer appears on the ADL website; find an archived copy here.)
His open association with white supremacists isn’t the only concern, according to Sen. Schumer: “Beattie has long pushed the Chinese Communist Party line on the Uyghur genocide. He has repeated Russia’s propaganda on the Ukraine war. He even advocated that the U.S. make a deal to allow China to take over Taiwan. And now he has one of the most senior positions within the Department of State and oversees a large swath of American diplomatic work.”
Trump picks ex-CIA officer to lead the National Counter Terrorism Center. Joe Kent is a two-time political candidate in Washington state, former Green Beret and CIA officer, Oregon’s KGW8 reported Tuesday. “During his 2022 congressional campaign, he called for defunding the FBI and described the COVID-19 vaccine as ‘experimental gene therapy.’ He also supported lawsuits claiming vote-flipping in his district, though these were dismissed by federal courts as ‘frivolous.’” Read on, here.
Sean Parnell tapped as chief Pentagon spokesman. Parnell is an Army veteran decorated for service in Afghanistan and a former employee of Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth at an advocacy organization.
Then there’s this: Parnell dropped out of a Pennsylvania Senate “race in late 2021 after it became known that his estranged wife, Laurie Snell, had accused him of spousal and child abuse. Earlier, a judge had ruled that Snell should get primary custody of their three children,” the Daily Beast reports.
Lastly today: Russian state media loves Tulsi Gabbard, Kareem Rifai of the conservative D.C. think tank American Enterprise Institute pointed out on social media Sunday. Gabbard is Trump’s nominee to lead the U.S. intelligence community.
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