Hello and welcome to Background Briefing, available 24-7 at Background Briefing.org.

I'm Ian Masters, and today will examine a number of stories and issues in the news.

We'll 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 advisor 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 government's in China, the Dragon's Learning Curve,

the Fat Tech Dragon, benchmarking China's innovation drive, and the business of lobbying

in China. We will discuss his article at Foreign Affairs how America's war on Chinese tech

backfired and why Trump's plans would make things even worse. Then with Mexico's president

Claudia Shinbaum insisting that neither

threats nor tariffs will solve the migration phenomenon or drug consumption in the United States,

we'll speak with Guadalupe Correa Cabrera, a professor at the Shah School of Policy

and Government at George Mason University and a full bright

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 of Borderland Studies,

...