by the El Reportero’s wire services

A battery of South Florida lawmakers from both sides of the political aisle have teamed up to re-introduce a bill in Congress that would give hundreds of thousands of Venezuelans in the U.S. a path to legal residency.

U.S. Reps. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, D-Weston, María Elvira Salazar, R-Miami and Frederica Wilson, D-Miami Gardens, announced this week they are sponsoring the re-introduction of H.R. 1348, the Venezuelan Adjustment Act, for Venezuelans who entered U.S. before or on December 31, 2021.

The legislation faces a steep hill to climb on Capitol Hill, where the House and Senate are moving swiftly to back President Donald Trump’s crackdown on illegal immigration.

“The Venezuelan Adjustment Act will give security and peace of mind to tens of thousands of Venezuelans who have fled a murderous, totalitarian regime,” Wasserman Schultz, whose congressional district includes one of the nation’s largest Venezuelan-American communities, said in a statement.

“As Trump closes off legal pathways for migrants, we need this legislation to re-open the door for those who should have the opportunity to become permanent legal residents as Cubans have been able to for years,” she said referring to the Cuban Adjustment Act, which allowed Cubans to flee the communist island nation.

Salazar said the regime of Venezuela’s President Nicolás Maduro has forced millions of Venezuelans to leave the country because of decades of economic and political upheaval.

“As long as Maduro forcibly remains in power, this crisis will only get worse,” said Salazar in a statement. “I am proud to reintroduce the Venezuelan Adjustment Act to provide refuge for those who have endured incredible suffering, so they do not have to return home to face the wrath of the dictatorship.”

Said Wilson in a statement: “Sending [Venezuelans] back isn’t just wrong — it’s inhumane. I’m proud to support a legal pathway for certain Venezuelan nationals in the U.S. because abandoning them in their time of need is not an option.”

The proposed legislation specifically benefitting Venezuelans comes only weeks after the Trump’s administration said it was ending protections that shielded roughly 350,000 Venezuelans from deportation, leaving them with less than two months before they lose their right to work in the U.S.

Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem’s order affects 348,202 Venezuelans living in the U.S. with Temporary Protected Status, or TPS, which is slated to expire in April. That’s about half of the approximately 600,000 who have TPS. The remaining protections are set to expire at the end of September.

The decision by the administration is among the latest actions targeting the immigration system, as officials work to make good on Trump’s campaign promises of cracking down on people illegally living in the country and to carry out the largest mass deportation effort in U.S. history.

In making its decision, the Department of Homeland Security said conditions had improved enough in Venezuela to warrant ending protective status.

“The sheer numbers have resulted in associated difficulties in local communities,” the secretary’s decision says. She cited members of the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua as among those coming to the U.S.

The gang originated in a lawless prison in the central state of Aragua more than a decade ago but has expanded in recent years as millions of desperate Venezuelans fled Maduro’s rule and migrated to other parts of Latin America or the U.S.

During his campaign, Trump repeatedly hammered at dangers posed by the gang, sparking criticism that he was painting all immigrants as criminals.

More than 7.7 million Venezuelans have left their home country since 2013, when its economy unraveled and Maduro took office. Most settled in Latin America and the Caribbean, but after the pandemic, migrants increasingly set their sights on the U.S.

The country’s protracted crisis obliterated the middle class and pushed millions into poverty.

Politically, the country is at an impasse after Maduro was sworn in for a third six-year term last month despite credible evidence that former diplomat Edmundo González, who represented the U.S.-backed opposition coalition in the July election, defeated him by a more than 2-to-1 margin.

Immigration advocates and Venezuelan activists in South Florida dispute Noemi’s assessment of Venezuela, saying conditions have not improved and that it’s not safe to send people back.

In the waning days of the Biden administration, Noem’s predecessor, Alejandro Mayorkas, extended the protections for Venezuelans until October 2026. Noem revoked that decision.

– The Associated Press contributed to this story.

The head of the White House imposed tariffs on steel and aluminum

by El Reportero‘s wire services

It was another Sunday of sporting jubilation in the US, where they are enjoying the Super Bowl, until President Donald Trump announced a new commercial attack, in this case global, while he was heading to the famous American football game.

The next day the president signed the executive orders on the imposition of 25 percent tariffs on all steel and aluminum imports in the North American country.

Added to the existing rates on metals, these tariffs threaten to shake the world economy. But which Latin American countries could be the most affected?

Various official sources, referred to by international media, indicate that Canada will be the hardest hit because it is the main exporter of these products. However, right behind are Brazil and Mexico, in addition to Asian and European nations.

Brazil is the second largest supplier to the US, accounting for 15 percent of the total volume of its steel imports. Therefore, steelmakers in the Amazonian giant are already beginning to worry.

“In the first government there were measures against steel and aluminum, based on national defense,” Welber Barral, former Brazilian Foreign Trade Secretary, recalled to O Globo. “With this additional 25 percent tariff, it will be even more complicated to export to the US,” he added.

Indeed, in his first term (2017-2021) Trump was slow to take this type of tariff action, but he still opted for a 25 percent tariff on steel and, on the contrary, a 10 percent tariff on aluminum.

“It is surprising because steel is a fundamental raw material for the American industry. The Americans will be the ones to pay the price, since it will increase the internal production cost and raise inflation,” said the president of the Brazilian Foreign Trade Association, José Augusto de Castro.

In response, rumors spread that Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva’s administration was planning to impose tariffs on American technology companies, labeled as a “digital tax,” according to a report by the Folha de S.Paulo newspaper, citing an anonymous Brazilian authority. However, that claim was denied by the Minister of Economy, Fernando Haddad.

The answer, for now, is prudence. “The Brazilian government made the sensible decision to express itself only in a timely manner based on concrete decisions and not on announcements that could be misinterpreted or revised. Let’s wait for the president’s guidance,” Haddad wrote in X.

The Mexican case

Although it was recently surpassed by Brazil, despite the geographical proximity, Mexico is also a key market for these imports. It represents 12 percent of the total.

82 percent of its exports of steel, aluminum and other manufactures are destined for the United States, said the director of Economic Analysis of the BASE Financial Group, Gabriela Siller Pagaza.

In addition, shipments of Mexican steel, aluminum and manufactured goods to the U.S. accounted for about 2.1 percent of Mexico’s total exports last year, Siller said.

The free trade agreement signed by the three North American nations (USMCA) has strengthened trade integration among them, particularly in the steel industry, to the point that they have substantially increased steel production.

However, Trump constantly alleges “disloyalty” on the part of his main trading partners and, with this new action, he also seeks to boost one of the sectors that most supported him to return to the White House.

“A cool head on this,” Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum asked on Monday. “We will wait to see if [Trump] announces something today and from there we will make our decisions,” she added at her morning press conference.

A journalist asked Sheinbaum if there will be a negotiation, but she avoided specifying on the matter. During the administration of her predecessor, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, Mexico managed to obtain tax-free quotas, just like Canada and Brazil.

Other repercussions

Although Argentina is not, by any means, a trading partner for the US at the level of its neighbors, the Trump Administration’s measure could strongly hit the giants Tenaris and Aluar, which export part of their production to the North American country.

In the case of Aluar, the only primary aluminum producing company in Argentina, almost half of its production (40 percent) goes to the US.

“Argentina should assert the fact that we have a chronic trade deficit with the US,” urged the former president of the Central Bank of the Republic, Martín Redrado. “According to that logic, Argentina should be exempt from the measure,” he added.

Now Argentine businessmen hope that the Foreign Ministry will reach a new pact with Trump and that the Javier Milei administration will use the good relationship it maintains with him to reach another exception, as occurred during the government of Mauricio Macri (2015-2019).

And when the magnate imposed tariffs of 25 percent on steel and 10 percent on aluminum, it also affected nations with which it has signed a free trade agreement, such as Colombia. Data from the National Administrative Department of Statistics (DANE), cited by the local press, show the effects.

Colombian steel exports to the US accounted for just 0.52 percent in 2018 and have dropped to a meager 0.3 percent by 2024. As for aluminum, sales have declined by 7 percent.

– With reports from RT.