The World Economy Awaits Trump’s First Round of Tariffs

The typically routine process of sending and receiving government funds has become a focus for Mr. Musk and his team of aides at the so-called Department of Government Efficiency. They have spoken to others about their desire to find dramatic ways to cut costs, including ways that don’t require congressional authority.

Influential people working on Mr. Musk’s behalf on these economic matters have included Baris Akis, a venture capitalist who during the transition has focused on the Treasury Department and Internal Revenue Service but is not in a full-time government role, and Tom Krause, a software chief executive. Mr. Krause has also led interviews of current U.S. Digital Service employees, many of whom are expecting to be laid off after the technology unit was renamed the U.S. DOGE Service.

A spokesman for the Treasury Department declined to comment. The Washington Post earlier reported the developments surrounding Mr. Lebryk’s decision to leave the Treasury Department.

It remains to be seen whether Mr. Trump will act on that threat and, if he does, what imports will be subject to his levies.

Mr. Trump’s advisers have been weighing different scenarios, like tariffs that would apply to specific sectors, such as steel and aluminum, or levies that would be announced but not go into effect for several months, according to people familiar with the planning.

But it is not clear what the president has decided. Canadian and Mexican officials have been scrambling to persuade Mr. Trump to hold off on the tariffs, engaging in last-minute talks with Secretary of State Marco Rubio and trying to show the efforts they are making to police the border. Auto and energy companies are pushing the White House and the administration hard not to apply tariffs, one of the people said.

President Claudia Sheinbaum of Mexico told reporters on Friday that the Mexican government had been working for months on a plan to react to possible tariffs. “We are prepared for any scenario,” she said, adding that Mexico was “doing everything in our power” to prevent tariffs. “What do we want? That dialogue with respect prevail.”

Speaking from the Oval Office on Thursday, Mr. Trump suggested he was ready to cut off imports from Canada and Mexico, two of America’s largest trading partners and closest allies.

“We’ll be announcing the tariffs on Canada and Mexico for a number of reasons,” he said. “I’ll be putting the tariff of 25 percent on Canada, and separately, 25 percent on Mexico, and we’ll really have to do that.”

“We don’t need what they have,” Mr. Trump said, referring to Canada and Mexico. The three countries have been governed by a trade agreement for more than 30 years, and many industries, from automobiles and apparel to agriculture, have grown highly integrated across North America.

He added that tariff rates could increase over time and suggested that the tariffs might not apply to oil imports, a decision that could avoid a spike in gas prices.

While the United States is the world’s largest oil producer, refineries need to mix the lighter crude produced in domestic fields with heavier oil from places like Canada to make fuels like gasoline and diesel. Roughly 60 percent of the oil that the United States imports comes from Canada, and about 7 percent comes from Mexico.

According to Tom Kloza, the global head of energy analysis at Oil Price Information Service, if fuel producers respond to the tariffs by cutting production, gasoline prices in the Midwest could climb 15 to 20 cents a gallon, with more muted effects in other parts of the country.

Mr. Trump’s desire to hit allies and competitors alike with tariffs over issues that have little to do with trade demonstrates the president’s willingness to use a powerful economic tool to fulfill his broader domestic policy agenda.

The prospect of new tariffs has created considerable uncertainty about how those levies might affect America’s economic outlook and certain industries. Lobbying groups representing sectors such as retail and agriculture, which would be exposed to U.S. tariffs, said this week that they were in the dark and concerned about how Mr. Trump might proceed.

In a note on Friday, economists at Goldman Sachs said that Mr. Trump’s comments on Thursday raised the odds that the president would hit Canada and Mexico as soon as Saturday, but that they expected tariffs to be phased in.

“We still do not see a sustained 25 percent tariff on both countries as the base case,” they wrote. “Instead, we think it is more likely that Trump will announce a tariff with delayed implementation, targeted at certain imports, starting at a lower rate that rises over time, or some combination of these.”

That said, Goldman’s economists said that if Mr. Trump did proceed with across-the-board tariffs, it would both raise prices in the United States and slow economic growth.

The potential economic implications from tariffs are also complicating matters for the Federal Reserve, which is still trying to wrestle inflation down to its 2 percent target. The Fed this week held interest rates steady, after a series of cuts, amid persistent inflation and questions about how the tariffs would play out.

The economic fallout from the tariffs would depend on how they were structured, but the ripple effects could be broad.

According to economists at S&P Global, the auto and electric equipment sectors in Mexico would be most exposed to disruption if tariffs were enacted, as would mineral processing in Canada. In the United States, the largest risks would be to the farming, fishing, metals and auto sectors.

Mr. Trump has highlighted the ability of tariffs to protect domestic manufacturers. But on balance, most economists expect fresh trade barriers to raise prices for U.S. businesses and households, which could lead to a temporary burst of higher inflation. Whether that escalates into a more pernicious problem will depend on whether Americans’ expectations about future inflation start to shift higher in a meaningful way.

Over time, economists also worry about the effects on growth, warning that trade tensions are likely to lead to less investment, more subdued business activity and slower growth.

Ernie Tedeschi, the director of economics at the Yale Budget Lab, estimates that a 25 percent tariff on all Canadian and Mexican imported goods — paired with a 10 percent tariff on all Chinese imports — would lead to a permanent 0.8 percent bump in the price level, as measured by the Personal Consumption Expenditures price index. That translates to roughly $1,300 for households on average. Those estimates assume that the targeted countries enact retaliatory measures and that the Federal Reserve does not take action by adjusting interest rates.

Mr. Tedeschi expects this to eventually shave 0.2 percent off gross domestic product once inflation is taken into account.

Mr. Trump’s top economic advisers have refuted the idea that the tariffs would fuel inflation.

At his confirmation hearing this month, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent dismissed concerns from Democrats about Mr. Trump’s trade policy, suggesting that exporters from countries such as China would lower their prices in the face of higher U.S. tariffs. Mr. Bessent said last year that it would be prudent if any tariffs were phased in so that any associated “price adjustment” could be absorbed gradually by the economy.

Mr. Trump’s pick to be commerce secretary, Howard Lutnick, also embraced tariffs at his confirmation hearing and pushed back against the notion that they would fuel inflation. He suggested that Canada and Mexico might be able to avoid the tariffs that Mr. Trump was dangling if they closed their borders to fentanyl.

Mr. Lutnick indicated that he believed “across the board” tariffs on countries would be most effective, arguing that China should face the highest rates and that Europe, Japan and South Korea were also treating American industries unfairly.

“We need that disrespect to end, and I think tariffs are a way to create reciprocity, to be treated fairly, to be treated appropriately,” Mr. Lutnick said.

The Mexican government has been working for months on a response to possible tariffs, President Claudia Sheinbaum told reporters. “We are prepared for any scenario,” she said, adding that Mexico is “doing everything in our power” to prevent the tariffs. She said she hoped that “dialogue with respect” would prevail.

Patel and McMahon each have about 6,500 company shares that can be traded. Those shares are worth about $200,000, based on Trump Media’s current stock price.

And then there was President Trump. In the wake of this week’s midair collision near Washington, Mr. Trump was more than happy to jump to conclusions and pull the country apart rather than together. After declaring it to be an “hour of anguish for our nation,” Mr. Trump just five minutes later let anguish give way to aggression as he blamed diversity policies promoted by Mr. Obama and former President Joseph R. Biden Jr. for the crash, which killed 67 people.

Mr. Trump has never been like other presidents. He does not follow many of the rituals and traditions of his office. He practices the politics of division rather than unity. Where past presidents have sought to project a comforting, paternal presence for a stricken nation in moments of crisis, Mr. Trump’s instinct is to move quickly from grief to grievance. He has long demonstrated that he is more comfortable as the blamer in chief than consoler in chief.

His decision to use the bully pulpit of the White House on Thursday to assign responsibility for the crash to his political rivals by name without offering a shred of evidence was, even for Mr. Trump, a striking performance. And it was no off-the-cuff comment. He followed up by signing an order directing a review of “problematic and likely illegal decisions” by Mr. Obama and Mr. Biden.

“I put safety first,” Mr. Trump told reporters in his first visit to the briefing room of his second term. “Obama, Biden and the Democrats put policy first. And they put politics at a level that nobody’s ever seen because this was the lowest level. Their policy was horrible and their politics was even worse.”

The Democratic presidents, he said, made “a big push to put diversity into the F.A.A.’s program,” leading to Wednesday night’s disaster over the Potomac River. Never mind that the “problematic” hiring policy language he read had also been in place during his own administration and that he could not say whether it had any connection to the crash.

It was not the first time Mr. Trump has exhibited what even his own former aides have called an “empathy gap.” Throughout the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020, with thousands of Americans dying every day at its peak, Mr. Trump rarely paused long enough to dwell on the human toll and never sponsored any memorial to the fallen. Instead, he focused his public messages on finding others to fault, whether it be China, Mr. Obama, Democratic governors, the World Health Organization, federal regulators or his own scientific advisers.

He has responded similarly to natural disasters by going on the attack. Just this month, Mr. Trump reacted to the devastating wildfires in greater Los Angeles by blasting Gov. Gavin Newsom of California, calling him “Newscum.”

After Hurricane Maria hit Puerto Rico in 2017, he engaged in a war of words with San Juan’s mayor and, when he finally visited the island, memorably tossed paper towels to people who had been left without food, water or power. Angry at criticism of his handling of the calamity, he later suggested to aides that the United States sell or trade away Puerto Rico.

“Trump doesn’t lead with empathy,” said Olivia Troye, who served on the White House Covid task force staff before later publicly criticizing the president’s management of the pandemic. “He exploits tragedy for whatever political grievance he’s peddling at the moment, never offering the comfort or stability a president should.”

The exception has been if the victims of a tragedy buttress a political argument he has been making. At a ceremony this week to sign a bill cracking down on unauthorized immigrants charged with certain crimes, he expressed compassion for relatives of Laken Riley, a 22-year-old Georgia nursing student killed last year by a migrant from Venezuela who had crossed into the United States illegally.

Mr. Trump often moves to place any crisis into his own political or ideological narrative, regardless of the facts. He tied the California fires to wrongheaded environmental and water policies, assertions that experts disputed. After the New Year’s Day terrorist attack on Bourbon Street in New Orleans, Mr. Trump blamed immigration, even though the attacker was a U.S. citizen born in Texas.

This week, after American Airlines Flight 5342 collided with an Army Black Hawk helicopter over Reagan National Airport, Mr. Trump went straight to diversity policies, with no evident basis. The problem, he said, was that candidates for air traffic controller jobs were rejected because the work force was “too white” while people with serious mental or physical disabilities were hired.

In addition to Mr. Obama and Mr. Biden, two of Mr. Trump’s longtime favorite targets, the president singled out Pete Buttigieg, who served as Mr. Biden’s transportation secretary, saying that “he’s a disaster.” Mr. Buttigieg, as it happens, is considered a possible Democratic candidate for president in 2028.

Mr. Trump’s instant focus on diversity programs generated outrage among Democrats. “Listen, it’s one thing for internet pundits to spew off conspiracies,” Senator Chuck Schumer of New York, the Democratic leader, said on the Senate floor not long afterward. “It’s another for the president of the United States to throw out idle speculation as bodies are still being recovered and families are still being notified. It just turns your stomach.”

Mr. Buttigieg pushed back on social media. “Despicable,” he wrote. “As families grieve, Trump should be leading, not lying. We put safety first, drove down close calls, grew Air Traffic Control, and had zero commercial airline crash fatalities out of millions of flights on our watch.”

Mr. Buttigieg and other Democrats pointed out that Mr. Trump had just fired the members of an aviation security advisory group, although there was no indication that the move had contributed to this week’s crash. “Time for the president to show actual leadership and explain what he will do to prevent this from happening again,” Mr. Buttigieg wrote.

In this opening chapter of his return to power, Mr. Trump seems fixated on diversity programs more than ever. Other than immigration, he has made it perhaps the central villain of his second term. Among his first acts was to order the elimination of diversity, equity and inclusion programs throughout the federal government and a review of federal grants and loans to weed out any that promote diversity.

Recognizing the writing on the wall, many states, localities, universities and private companies are now scrapping their diversity programs, either to curry favor with the new administration or to preserve their federal financing. Mr. Trump and his allies have successfully made the acronym D.E.I. politically radioactive.

As with so much else in this Trump 2.0 era, the road to Mr. Trump’s broadsides against the Federal Aviation Administration’s leadership and policies may lead back to Elon Musk, the president’s billionaire patron who has been given wide latitude to restructure government in the new administration.

Mr. Musk has long quarreled with the F.A.A., which has hit his SpaceX rocket company with fines for safety lapses and sought to delay a launch. Last fall, he called for “radical reform at the F.A.A.” and a week later he reposted a picture of Michael Whitaker, the agency administrator, with the caption, “He needs to resign.” Mr. Whitaker did just that the day Mr. Trump took office last week, and the new president appointed an acting successor on Thursday.

While Mr. Trump said there would be a “systemic and comprehensive investigation” of this week’s crash, he did not wait to offer the conclusions of his own rather less methodical inquiry. He went on at some length about F.A.A. diversity policies that encourage the hiring of people with severe disabilities, the same ones in place when he was in office last time.

What he could not say was whether any people with severe disabilities were actually hired as air traffic controllers as opposed to for other jobs compatible with their abilities. Nor could he say whether anyone on duty on Wednesday night fit that category.

Indeed, he acknowledged that there were many unanswered questions. “We don’t know that that would have been the difference,” he said of helicopter pilots not following instructions. He said he did not know whether another plane might have blocked the pilots’ view.

He said he did not know why adjustments were not made when the two aircraft hurtled toward each other. He said he did not know if the helicopter pilots were wearing night-vision goggles. “We don’t know that necessarily it’s even the controller’s fault,” he said at another point.

But just because he did not know all those things did not mean he was not certain who was to blame. No need to wait for the investigation to reach that conclusion.

He is expected to be a key player to implement President Trump’s “drill, baby, drill” agenda that calls for making it easier and cheaper for oil companies to operate, and loosening protections for wildlife as well as easing limits on air and water pollution.

In addition to leading the Interior Department, Mr. Burgum is also to run a White House council charged with encouraging more oil and gas development. The role of the council is still undefined but it is expected to help meet Mr. Trump’s goal of selling more American oil and gas to Europe and Asia.

During the presidential campaign, Mr. Burgum acted as a conduit between Mr. Trump and the oil and gas industry. He helped gather fossil fuel executives at Mar-a-Lago for a now-famous dinner, during which Mr. Trump suggested that industry leaders raise $1 billion for his campaign. He told the executives they would save far more than that in tax breaks and legal fees after he eliminated climate policies, according to several attendees who requested anonymity to discuss the private event.

Mr. Burgum’s role and his close ties to oil billionaires, including Harold Hamm, the founder of oil giant Continental Resources, drew criticism from many Democrats.

In written responses to lawmakers, Mr. Burgum sidestepped a question from Senator Ron Wyden, Democrat of Oregon, about whether he played a role in meetings between oil executives and Mr. Trump during the campaign where both public policy and campaign contributions were discussed. Mr. Burgum wrote that Mr. Trump’s “energy dominance message is consistent regardless of venue.”

Republicans expressed relief that Mr. Burgum would reverse policies of the Biden administration that were designed to reduce drilling and mining while increasing conservation.

Senator Mike Lee, Republican of Utah and chairman of the Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources, accused the Biden administration and former Secretary Deb Haaland of “throttling” fossil fuels.

“Governor Doug Burgum understands what Secretary Haaland apparently forgot, that abundant affordable energy is a fundamental pillar of our national security,” he said.

Several Democrats said Mr. Burgum’s vision for unleashed fossil fuels threatens the nation.

“The Trump administration’s climate and energy policies are not a mystery; it is to exacerbate the climate crisis,” said Senator Brian Schatz, Democrat of Hawaii, who spoke against Mr. Burgum yet voted for him.

Kierán Suckling, executive director at the Center for Biological Diversity, was unsparing in his words for Democrats. “It’s alarming that so many Senate Democrats were duped into voting for an oligarch who is now charged with stewarding the nation’s public lands and wildlife,” he said. “If Democrats want to know why so many people are disillusioned, they need to look no further than this vote.”

A multimillionaire former Microsoft executive who served two terms as governor of North Dakota, Mr. Burgum ran briefly for the White House before dropping out of the race to endorse Mr. Trump and become his adviser on energy issues.

During his confirmation hearing Mr. Burgum said he viewed America’s public lands and waters as part of the country’s financial “balance sheet,” with potentially trillions of dollars worth of oil, gas and minerals waiting to be extracted beneath the surface.

“We have all this debt,” Mr. Burgum said. But “we never talk about the assets,” he said. “It’s our responsibility to get a return for the American people.”

“Not every acre of federal land is a national park or a wilderness area,” Mr. Burgum said, adding, “Some of those areas we have to absolutely protect for their precious stuff, but the rest of it, this is America’s balance sheet.”

Mr. Burgum declared that any curbs on energy production posed a national security threat and endorsed Mr. Trump’s vision of “energy dominance,” a phrase that is shorthand for more fossil fuel production.

He also insisted that the United States was in the midst of an energy crisis, even as it is producing more oil than any nation at any time in history and is the world’s leading exporter of liquefied natural gas.

Mr. Burgum said he would pursue an “all of the above” strategy but also said he would cut incentives for what he called “intermittent” power projects, referring to renewable energy like wind and solar power.

He said there has been too much so-called “intermittent” power built in recent years and not enough baseload, referring to gas or coal that can be stored and burned to produce electricity.

Emissions from the burning of fossil fuels produced on federal lands and waters account for nearly 22 percent of U.S. greenhouse gases.

The employees given the apparent ultimatum had been promoted under Christopher A. Wray, who stepped down as F.B.I. director this month.

In an email to colleagues, one of the senior agents said he had learned he would be dismissed “from the rolls of the F.B.I.” as soon as Monday morning.

“I was given no rationale for this decision, which, as you might imagine, has come as a shock,” he wrote.

Senior F.B.I. agents had been bracing for potentially swift changes under President Trump given Mr. Patel’s past promise to reshape the institution. He has vowed to empty out the F.B.I. headquarters building and turn it into a museum.

The move is remarkable in part because it is happening before a director has been confirmed to take charge of the bureau, and the quick and unexpected nature of the requests has left employees badly shaken.

F.B.I. directors have more latitude than most agency chiefs in whom they place into senior positions, but they typically do so gradually. Until senators vote on Mr. Patel’s nomination, Brian Driscoll is the bureau’s acting director.

The decision by the Trump administration echoes the moves rapidly underway at the Justice Department, where career prosecutors, including top officials who hold significant sway over how the agency makes charging decisions, have been reassigned or fired.

At the F.B.I., some of the senior officials who have been asked to leave are at headquarters while others work in the field. Some have already taken steps to retire and exit the agency, including an agent who worked on the F.B.I.’s investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election, and another who oversaw an investigation into Mr. Trump’s handling of classified documents.

A person familiar with the personnel changes said the top agent at the Washington field office, the second-largest in the bureau, was also given an ultimatum on Thursday. He had planned to retire, though intended to stay longer at the bureau to help with the transition. But his plans were cut short.

Still more are worried they will be pushed out of the agency or demoted.

During Mr. Patel’s confirmation hearing, Senator Cory Booker raised the abrupt dismissals of nearly a dozen career prosecutors at the Justice Department who worked on the criminal investigations into Mr. Trump under the special counsel Jack Smith and whether similar moves would extend to the F.B.I.

“Are you aware of any plans or discussions to punish in any way, including termination, F.B.I. agents or personnel associated with Trump investigations?” asked Mr. Booker, Democrat of New Jersey, after reminding Mr. Patel that he was under oath.

Stating that he had not been involved in the decisions at the Justice Department, Mr. Patel replied, “I am not aware of that, Senator.”

CNN earlier reported that FB.I. officials had been demoted or resigned.

That order has drawn attention for its rollback of diversity, equity and inclusion programs in the federal government, which has left federal museums and cultural organizations uncertain how to respond. The dissolution of the arts committee, made without comment from the White House, has been little noticed. At some point, its website was taken down.

Since it was established by President Ronald Reagan in 1982, the committee has brought together prominent artists, powerful allies of the president, academics and museum professionals to advise on cultural policy. Members have included the singer Frank Sinatra; the cellist Yo-Yo Ma; Terry Semel, a former chairman of Warner Bros.; and Robert Menschel, a former Goldman Sachs partner.

In the 1990s, it petitioned President Bill Clinton to restore funding for public arts education, to require high school students to have competency in a foreign language, and to expand tax incentives for cultural philanthropy. Under President Barack Obama, the committee developed Turnaround Arts, an experimental initiative to boost arts education in the nation’s lowest-performing schools.

The committee was nonpartisan. But during the first Trump administration, it inadvertently became a showcase for the mutual antagonism between Mr. Trump and what he has often derided as out-of-touch cultural elites.

In August 2017, 17 members resigned in protest over Mr. Trump’s response to the deadly white nationalist rally in Charlottesville, Va. In a group open letter, members including the artist Chuck Close, the novelist Jhumpa Lahiri and the architect Thom Mayne criticized what they said was Mr. Trump’s “support of the hate groups and terrorists who killed and injured fellow Americans.”

The White House then issued a statement saying Mr. Trump had already been planning to disband the group, calling it “not a responsible way to spend American tax dollars.”

Nearly two years into his administration, in September 2022, Mr. Biden revived the group, calling the arts “the soul of America, reflecting our multicultural and democratic experience.” His executive order cited the importance of the arts and humanities in tackling “the greatest challenges of our time, such as the climate crisis and the scourge of hate-fueled violence.”

In April 2023, Mr. Biden named 31 members, including prominent figures like George Clooney, Jon Batiste and Shonda Rhimes as well as museum curators, academics and the leaders of the National Endowment for the Arts, the National Endowment for the Humanities and the Smithsonian.

The co-chairs were the singer Lady Gaga and the producer Bruce Cohen, a Biden supporter who also received a National Medal of Arts that same year.

The committee, which had an annual budget of roughly $335,000, met six times after resuming operations. Its activities, according to public records, included reviewing a proposal for a campaign to combat the loneliness epidemic identified by Dr. Vivek Murthy, the former surgeon general.

Records do not indicate how many members of the group actively participated, or the range of subjects on which it offered advice. Its final meeting was held on Jan. 9.

Steve Israel, a former Democratic U.S. representative from New York who served on the committee, said he was disturbed by Mr. Trump’s move.

“Not only did he fire us all, but he disbanded the actual committee,” Mr. Israel said. “It suggests that there’s a proactive hostility toward arts and humanities.”

The dissolution of the committee was just one of the Trump administration’s recent actions touching on cultural matters, most of which reversed Mr. Biden’s initiatives or restored Trump efforts that Mr. Biden had undone.

On Wednesday, in an order dedicated to K-12 education, Mr. Trump revived his 1776 Commission, which he created in 2020 to promote “patriotic education.” In a separate order, he reinstated his call for the creation of a National Garden of American Heroes and his executive order protecting monuments on federal land from vandalism.

That second order, titled “Celebrating America’s 250th Birthday,” reiterated Mr. Trump’s calls for a robust celebration of the Semiquincentennial of the Declaration of Independence, in July 2026. As part of that, he announced a task force, led by him, that would “plan, organize and execute an extraordinary celebration.”

The order provided no details on funding or programming but specified that the task force would be housed within the Department of Defense.

The sometimes conflicting ideas voiced by voters in the polls may also serve as a reminder that roughly one-third of Americans consistently say that they do not pay much attention to the news at all.

About half of voters approve of Mr. Trump’s job in office so far, according to an average across recent polling, and less than 45 percent disapprove. That is a far lower approval rating than other presidents enjoyed as they took office, but it’s better than Mr. Trump’s approval rating at the beginning of his first term in 2017, according to data compiled by FiveThirtyEight.

Just over a week past the inauguration, it is difficult to gauge precisely how the public feels about specific actions Mr. Trump has taken. Public opinion polling often takes several weeks to accurately assess current events, and the flurry of news out of the new administration could be hard for many Americans to keep up with. Still, the early polls provide some sense of public opinion.

A poll by Quinnipiac University taken from Jan. 23 to Jan. 27 found that more Americans approved than disapproved of Mr. Trump’s approach to immigration so far, with 60 percent of voters supporting sending troops to the U.S.-Mexico border. However, just 30 percent of voters supported an end to birthright citizenship, according to the poll, with more than 60 percent of voters supporting it.

The same poll found that 57 percent of voters, including 19 percent of Republicans, disapproved of Mr. Trump’s decision to pardon those involved in the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol.

In a Reuters/Ipsos poll taken from Jan. 24 to Jan. 26, a slim plurality of Americans supported Mr. Trump’s decision to require government employees to return to the office full time, and 61 percent of Americans supported downsizing the federal government.

About 56 percent of Americans in the Reuters/Ipsos poll opposed withdrawing the United States from the Paris climate accord, and 55 percent opposed new tariffs or taxes on imported goods from Mexico. The Quinnipiac poll found that slightly more Americans believed tariffs would hurt the U.S. economy than believed they would help it.

A poll from the Republican pollster Echelon Insights, conducted from Jan. 22 to Jan. 24, found that more voters approved than disapproved of how Mr. Trump was handling the economy, immigration and foreign policy, even as less than 40 percent of voters believed the country was headed in the right direction.