Latest on presidential transition: Trump vows tariff hikes on Day 1

Mexico's President Claudia Sheinbaum listens to a question during her daily press conference at the National Palace in Mexico City on November 6.

Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum responded Tuesday to US President-elect Donald Trump’s threat to impose a general tariff of 25% on imports from Mexico, warning the former president that “neither threats nor tariffs will solve the issue of migration or drug consumption.”

At her daily news conference, Sheinbaum started by reading out a letter to Trump, who had threatened tariffs if Mexico didn’t stop “criminals and drugs” from entering the US.

“Imposing one tariff would mean another comes in response, continuing like this until we put shared companies at risk,” she added.

“For example, some of the largest exporters from Mexico to the United States are General Motors, Stellantis and Ford Motor Company, which arrived in Mexico 80 years ago,” Sheinbaum said. “Why impose a tax that puts them at risk? It’s unacceptable and would cause inflation and job losses in Mexico and the United States.”

Sheinbaum added that the economic strength of North America lies in maintaining the business relationship between the two countries, which will allow them to be more competitive compared to other economic blocs.

In this January 6, 2021 photo, then-President Donald Trump speaks to supporters from The Ellipse near the White House in Washington, DC.

Special counsel Jack Smith set out to prove in the United States of America v. Donald J. Trump that even presidents are not above the law.

Instead, his failed prosecutions ended up making Trump even more powerful as the ebullient president-elect prepares to return to office on January 20.

Smith’s decision to bow to the inevitable and shelve his cases over Trump’s alleged election interference and hoarding of classified documents represented a momentous victory for the 45th and 47th president.

The federal elections case led to a Supreme Court ruling granting a president limited immunity for official acts. This is likely to reinforce Trump’s belief that he will have almost unchecked authority and will therefore reverberate through the next four years and generations to come.

And a president — who refused to accept the will of voters, the bedrock principle of democracy, after he lost an election and then told supporters to “fight like hell” before they invaded the US Capitol — will pay no lasting legal price.

There will be short- and long-term consequences from Trump escaping accountability.

His second term, which he already pledged to devote to “retribution,” has the potential to unfold in an even greater atmosphere of impunity than his first one.

Smith’s inability to bring the president-elect to account — for the most flagrant attack on the integrity of elections of modern times — will also echo down the ages.

Many Republicans are convinced by now that Trump was unfairly targeted. But some future president, decades from now, might decide to meddle in the result of an election that they lost in the knowledge that a predecessor got away with it.

Read the full analysis.

Pat Levin, 95 years young, is wrestling daily with something new and depressing.

“It’s left me very afraid,” she said of the 2024 election result. “Afraid of the future. Afraid of everything.”

Her first memories of politics are of Franklin Roosevelt, and the Pennsylvanian has lived through Vietnam, Watergate, the September 11 attacks and more. And yet this feels more significant, more threatening.

Hear what older voters who backed Vice President Kamala Harris are saying in the wake of the election:

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How seniors who voted for Harris are feeling about Trump's win

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Levin is among the voters who participated in CNN’s All Over the Map project, an effort to track the 2024 campaign through the eyes and experiences of Americans who live in key battlegrounds or are part of critical voting groups, or both.

Read more from John King’s conversations with voters.

Shipping containers are stacked at the Port of Manzanillo in Manzanillo, Mexico, on Tuesday, November 19.

Mexico could reciprocate if US President-elect Donald Trump follows through on his campaign proposal to impose a generalized 25% tariff on imports of Mexican products when he takes up his second term, Economy Secretary Marcelo Ebrard said earlier this month before Trump reiterated that promise on Monday.

Ebrard’s comments came two weeks before Trump’s latest social media post promising to implement steep tariffs on Mexico, Canada and China. But his promise was consistent with policies Trump vowed to implement while he was a candidate. During his campaign, Trump said that if elected president, he would impose 25% tariffs on products imported from Mexico if his government failed to stem the flow of “criminals and drugs” entering the country.

Ebrard added at the time that this decision would have “a huge cost for the (United States) economy,” first of all in inflation.

Earlier this month, Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum said that work was already being done to demonstrate the importance for the United States of the trade agreement it has with Mexico and Canada, and she was confident that high-level dialogues would continue on issues such as migration, drug and arms trafficking, as well as the trade relationship.

Sheinbaum is expected to address reporters later Tuesday.

Key context: Mexico is the second-largest supplier to the United States. Imports from Mexico totaled almost $455 billion in 2022, according to the Office of the US Trade Representative. Among the products purchased are vehicles, fruits, vegetables and electrical equipment.

Wind turbines spin in Weatherford, Oklahoma.

Can the green shoots of clean energy break through the “brown blockade”?

The brown blockade is the phrase I’ve used to describe the hardening tendency of the states most deeply integrated into the existing oil and gas economy, as either major producers or consumers of fossil fuels, to support Republican presidential and congressional candidates who are resolutely opposed to federal action to combat climate change.

Those states moved sharply toward Donald Trump and the GOP in this month’s election. The president-elect won a stunning 26 of the 27 states whose economies are the most reliant on the fossil fuels that produce the carbon emissions driving global climate change. Each of the GOP’s four Senate pickups also came in those higher-carbon states.

In the campaign, Trump promised to take a wrecking ball to virtually all of President Joe Biden’s efforts aimed at reducing carbon emissions and accelerating the shift from fossil fuels to lower-carbon alternatives. The critical role that the states most tightly bound into the existing fossil fuel economy played in both Trump’s victory and the GOP’s success in recapturing the Senate, will only encourage him in that direction.

The only dynamic that might complicate that offensive, even at the margins, may be the green shoots sprouting across large swathes of red America. This torrent of new investments in wind and solar power, the semiconductors used in clean energy, and especially electric vehicles and their batteries – triggered by the Inflation Reduction Act and other economic development bills signed by Biden – has flowed disproportionately into Republican-held states and congressional districts.

Those huge current and planned investments in new manufacturing plants may represent the sole opportunity to preserve any elements of Biden’s blueprint for growing the domestic clean energy industry.

Read the full analysis.

President-elect Donald Trump on Monday promised massive hikes in tariffs on goods coming from Mexico, Canada and China starting on the first day of his administration, a policy that could sharply increase costs for American businesses and consumers.

The move, Trump said, will be in retaliation for illegal immigration and “crime and drugs” coming across the border.

“On January 20th, as one of my many first Executive Orders, I will sign all necessary documents to charge Mexico and Canada a 25% Tariff on ALL products coming into the United States, and its ridiculous Open Borders,” Trump posted on his Truth Social platform. “This Tariff will remain in effect until such time as Drugs, in particular Fentanyl, and all Illegal Aliens stop this Invasion of our Country!”

Trump said America’s neighbors can “easily solve this long simmering problem.”

Similarly, Trump said that China will face higher tariffs on its goods – by 10% above any existing tariffs – until it prevents the flow of illegal drugs into the United States.

Responding to Trump’s announcement, Chinese Embassy spokesperson Liu Pengyu said his country has been in communication with the US about counternarcotics operations and that “the idea of China knowingly allowing fentanyl precursors to flow into the United States runs completely counter to facts and reality.”

“About the issue of US tariffs on China, China believes that China-Us economic and trade cooperation is mutually beneficial in nature. No one will win a trade war or a tariff war,” Liu said in a statement to CNN.

Read more details here about Trump’s plan

American voters have decided to rehire Donald Trump as president of the United States.

But he won’t take office until January 20, 2025, and there are multiple things that will happen between now and then. Throughout November, December and January, there will be a transition between the outgoing administration of President Joe Biden and the incoming Trump administration.

Here’s what to expect between now and Inauguration Day:

Special Counsel Jack Smith delivers remarks on a recently unsealed indictment including four felony counts against Donald Trump on August 1, 2023 in Washington, DC.

Even before special counsel Jack Smith formally asked that his criminal cases — the 2020 election subversion prosecution and the charges of mishandling classified documents — against Donald Trump be dismissed, it was already guaranteed the president-elect would never see a jury.

Here’s what you need to know about Smith’s move to seek the cases’ dismissal and how his prosecutions got to this point:

Trump’s election and retribution promises made this day inevitable: Trump’s reelection this month ensured that his federal criminal cases would face an early end. The former president vowed during his campaign to fire Smith if voters sent him back to the White House – a move at odds with how other presidents have handled special counsels. In the end, though, Trump didn’t need to sack Smith. He was already benefiting from a legal strategy of delay that made sure no trials got underway before election, which ultimately forced Smith’s hand.

The Supreme Court played a major role: If part of what happened was that Smith simply ran out of time to pursue the case against Trump, then the six-justice conservative majority on the Supreme Court had a key role to play in slowing things down. The high court granted Trump sweeping immunity from criminal prosecution for official actions in a highly anticipated 6-3 decision that was handed down in July, limiting the special counsel’s ability to move forward.

Judge Cannon killed the classified documents case: Trump hit the jackpot when the case was assigned to Judge Aileen Cannon, an appointee of his with little trial experience. She threw a number of wrenches into the prosecutors’ case before dismissing it entirely this summer on the grounds that Smith was unlawfully appointed. Her handling of the charges was widely panned by legal experts.

Smith keeps door open for charges to be brought again: Smith said he was dropping the charges against the president-elect “without prejudice,” which in theory would keep open the door for charges to be brought again in the future.

Read more here about the special counsel’s case.