Background Briefing: November 26, 2024
Trump Declares a Day One Trade War on China, Mexico and Canada
We begin with Trump’s announcement that on day one he will impose 25% tariffs on goods coming from Mexico and Canada and an extra 10% on tariffs already imposed on China with more to come. Joining us to discuss the implications from Trump triggering a global trade war with the world’s two largest economies in a tit-for-tat battle is Scott Kennedy, a senior adviser and Trustee Chair in Chinese Business and Economics at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. A leading authority on Chinese economic policy and U.S.-China commercial relations, he has traveled to China for 36 years and his books include China’s Uneven High-Tech Drive: Implications for the United States, Global Governance and China: The Dragon’s Learning Curve, The Fat Tech Dragon: Benchmarking China’s Innovation Drive and The Business of Lobbying in China. We discuss his article at Foreign Affairs, “How America’s War on Chinese Tech Backfired And Why Trump’s Plans Would Make Things Even Worse.”
Tariffs on Mexico Will Not Solve Immigration or Drug Consumption in the US
Then with Mexico’s President Claudia Sheinbaum insisting that neither threats or tariffs will solve the “migration phenomenon” or drug consumption in the US, we will speak with Guadalupe Correa-Cabrera, a Professor at the Schar School of Policy and Government at George Mason University and a Fulbright U.S. Scholar in Mexico conducting research on the industry of human smuggling and its transnational crime networks. She was recently the Principal Investigator of a research grant to study organized crime and trafficking in persons in Central America and along Mexico’s eastern migration routes, supported by the Department of State’s Office to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons. The President of the Association for Borderlands Studies, she is the author of Los Zetas Inc.: Criminal Corporations, Energy, and Civil War in Mexico and Frontera: A Journey Across the US/Mexico Border and is writing a forthcoming book entitled Coyotes LLC.
An Update on the Ceasefire Deal Between Israel and Hezbollah
Then finally we get an update on the ceasefire deal between Israel and Hezbollah following intensified bombing of Beirut today and speak with Habib Battah a US and Beirut-based investigative journalist, filmmaker and founder of beirutreport.com. A contributor to The Guardian, BBC World, Al Jazeera, Lebanon’s The Daily Star newspaper, and others, he has covered Lebanon and the Middle East for over 20 years and previously taught journalism and media studies at the American University of Beirut and now teaches at St. Lawrence University in New York.