New US ambassador to Mexico formally arrives at time of busy binational agenda
MEXICO CITY — A former U.S. Army and CIA officer formally presented his credentials to Mexico's president Monday as the new United States ambassador to that country at a moment of increased U.S. pressure to fight the drug cartels and delicate trade negotiations.
Amb. Ron Johnson, who served as ambassador to El Salvador during the first administration of U.S. President Donald Trump, met with President Claudia Sheinbaum at the National Palace along with his wife Alina Johnson. He left without making comments to the press.
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Forbes
27 minutes ago
- Forbes
Trump Drops A Cybersecurity Bombshell With Biden-Era Policy Reversal
Less than 24 hours after President Trump's public feud with Elon Musk, a new cybersecurity executive order was issued on June 6, 2025, introducing major revisions to the Biden administration's final cybersecurity directives. The order not only modifies key elements of Biden's January 2025 framework but also signals a broader realignment of federal cybersecurity priorities. It shifts focus away from federal digital identity initiatives and revises compliance-heavy software security mandates. Officially titled 'Sustaining Select Efforts To Strengthen The Nation's Cybersecurity And Amending Executive Order 13694 And Executive Order 14144,' the order represents a strategic departure from prior approaches, emphasizing operational pragmatism over regulatory expansion. Notably, it comes at a time when President Trump's nominee to lead the Cybersecurity And Infrastructure Security Agency, Sean Plankey, has yet to be confirmed due to opposition and delay tactics from both sides of the aisle. President Biden's Executive Order 14144 was issued on January 16, 2025, just four days before President Trump's inauguration. It was interpreted by many observers as an effort to define long-term cybersecurity direction before the change in administration. The order included measures to bolster software supply chain security, expand digital identity infrastructure and accelerate post-quantum cryptography adoption. However, this latest Trump order criticized several of these elements as overreaching or insufficiently vetted, characterizing them as 'problematic and distracting' and specifically noting that they were 'sneaked' into policy in the final hours of Biden's presidency. The language used in the accompanying fact sheet is unusually blunt for a federal document, suggesting a clear intent to publicly distance the new administration from its predecessor's policy posture. 1. Attribution Of Threats: Direct Language On Foreign Cyber Aggressors The executive order opens with unusually direct language, identifying the People's Republic of China as the most 'active and persistent' cyber threat to U.S. government systems, private sector networks and critical infrastructure. It also names Russia, Iran and North Korea as continuing sources of malicious cyber activity. This blunt attribution departs from the more generalized threat descriptions of previous administrations. By naming adversaries explicitly in the policy preamble, the administration signals a shift toward greater transparency in threat acknowledgment and a hardening of posture. The message is clear: U.S. cyber strategy is now being framed not only by evolving technologies but by intensifying geopolitical realities. 2. Software Security Compliance: Shifting From Mandated Attestations To Voluntary Implementation: Biden's order imposed a layered framework requiring federal contractors to submit attestations, artifacts and documentation tied to NIST's Secure Software Development Framework. Some would say that these requirements risked turning development teams into compliance teams. Trump's order eliminates attestations entirely. NIST will still provide guidance through the National Cybersecurity Center Of Excellence, but reporting is no longer mandatory. This reflects a shift toward flexibility over formality. 3. Digital Identity Verification: A Full Repeal Rooted In Fiscal And Legal Concerns: The Biden administration had envisioned digital credentials as a gateway to streamlined government services. Trump's order reverses course, citing concerns about entitlement fraud and improper access. The fact sheet explicitly warns that Biden's policy could have enabled unauthorized immigrants to obtain digital IDs. As a result, pilots on interoperability and identity federation are halted. 4. Artificial Intelligence In Cybersecurity: Tighter Focus On Defense And Vulnerability Management: Biden's order encouraged AI-driven collaboration across academia and industry. Trump's order takes a narrower view. It requires agencies to track vulnerabilities in AI systems, integrate them into incident response pipelines and limit data sharing to only what is feasible under security and confidentiality constraints. AI is repositioned as a potential liability to be secured, not a universal defense engine. 5. Post-Quantum Cryptography: A Deadline Remains But The Path Is Streamlined While both administrations agree on the risk posed by quantum computing, Trump's order simplifies the roadmap. By December 2025, CISA and NSA must publish a list of product categories ready for quantum-safe encryption. TLS 1.3 or its successor must be adopted by 2030. Oversight is split between NSA for national security systems and OMB for civilian agencies. 6. Cyber Sanctions Policy: A Narrowed Scope One of the more politically sensitive changes lies in how sanctions are applied. Biden's order allowed for cyber sanctions against any person involved in disinformation or cyber-enabled threats. Trump's revision limits this to foreign persons only. Domestic political activity is explicitly excluded, a move the administration describes as a safeguard against misuse of cyber enforcement tools. Initial industry feedback has been swift. The executive order's reorientation of cybersecurity priorities is already reverberating across the federal ecosystem, private sector and innovation community. From compliance-light procurement to a tighter national focus on AI risk, the changes are reshaping expectations. Defense integrators and established IT vendors are among the most immediate beneficiaries. By removing detailed compliance documentation, particularly attestations tied to secure software development, the order reduces friction in procurement and lowers operational risk. Contract cycles may accelerate as audit-readiness gives way to implementation focus. This shift rewards incumbents with mature delivery models and embedded federal relationships. With CISA's role redefined and federal oversight of digital identity rolled back, state and local governments may gain more autonomy to design cybersecurity programs that fit local contexts. For well-resourced jurisdictions, this could spur innovation. But for others, especially those lacking talent or funding, decentralization could create new coordination gaps. Additional federal guidance may be needed to prevent fragmentation in national critical infrastructure protection. For enterprises, the EO's elimination of standardized compliance frameworks is a mixed bag. Under the previous EO, the bar for secure software delivery was clear, particularly for organizations that invested in transparency and attestation. Without a common benchmark, proving trustworthiness becomes more subjective. Kevin Bocek, CyberArk's Senior Vice President of Innovation, emphasized that the industry is entering a new era of cybersecurity not only dominated by AI and automation, but also by emerging risks that are not yet widely addressed. 'It is affirming that the EO is serious about safe and secure AI, hopefully laying the foundation to critically address one of the most urgent and overlooked threats: machine identity sprawl,' Bocek noted. According to CyberArk, machine identities now outnumber human identities 82 to 1 within enterprises, yet 68% of organizations lack security controls to protect them. Without federal guidance and clear identity accountability, Bocek warns that this vulnerability could become a significant blind spot in national cybersecurity. His comments underscore the risk of prioritizing operational efficiency over foundational security controls, a concern shared by many CISOs facing exponential identity growth from cloud and AI platforms. Digital identity initiatives long supported by privacy advocates, civic technologists and digital modernization leaders were seen as critical to enabling secure, user-friendly access to government services. They aimed to streamline verification, reduce fraud and close equity gaps in federal access. The Biden administration had embraced digital IDs as the backbone of modern digital government. The Trump administration, however, rescinded these efforts. The accompanying fact sheet expressed concerns that digital identity mandates could be exploited to extend entitlements improperly, particularly to unauthorized immigrants. This decision reflects a broader skepticism toward centralized identity infrastructure and a desire to limit the federal government's role in managing citizen-level credentials. The Biden-era policy positioned artificial intelligence as a strategic asset for defense, encouraging public-private collaboration, dataset sharing and predictive threat detection at scale. The Trump administration's new directive narrows that scope significantly. Instead of promoting AI as a systemwide defense multiplier, the EO limits AI's use to managing system vulnerabilities and tracking indicators of compromise. This reflects concerns about over-reliance on technologies that are still evolving, opaque and in some cases unregulated. As Bocek noted, 'Proper AI development is a tool for predictive defense,' but without protections for the AI itself, it could become a new risk vector. The administration's position is clear: AI should be secured before it is scaled. This AI reframing also signals a philosophical divergence between leveraging AI as a force for innovation versus containing it as a potential liability. Whether that caution slows adoption or increases security maturity remains to be seen, but the message is unambiguous: the era of unchecked AI optimism in federal cybersecurity is over. This executive order is not a one-off. It is part of a broader realignment consistent with the principles laid out in Project 2025, a policy blueprint advocating for streamlined federal governance, stronger executive control, and targeted decentralization of agency authority. More orders are expected, particularly in areas such as offensive cyber capabilities, state-level infrastructure resilience, and the restructuring of agencies like CISA. Trump's June 2025 cybersecurity order is more than a policy shift. it is a recalibration of federal cyber strategy that prioritizes execution over oversight, industry collaboration over mandates, and sovereignty over standardization. For industry leaders, innovators, and government stakeholders alike, the takeaway is clear: cybersecurity is no longer just about compliance. It is about preparedness, adaptability, and national competitiveness in an AI-driven world. The next wave of policy will not be about fine-tuning compliance frameworks but will be about defending digital sovereignty. Those who can pivot fastest, and secure what matters most, will shape the next chapter of America's cyber future.
The Verge
35 minutes ago
- The Verge
There are only two commissioners left at the FCC
After the departure of one Republican and one Democratic commissioner on Friday, the Federal Communications Commission is down to two members, falling below the quorum threshold for what's typically a five-person panel. Commissioners Nathan Simington and Geoffrey Starks stepped down at the end of the week. That leaves Republican Chair Brendan Carr and Democratic Commissioner Anna Gomez as the two remaining voting members. President Donald Trump has nominated Republican Senate staffer Olivia Trusty to the commission, but the chamber has yet to vote on her confirmation, which left the agency deadlocked even before these departures. The FCC is in charge of everything from broadband regulations and subsidies funds, to telecommunications mergers enforcement, to spectrum auctions. Without a three-member quorum, some of that work, and the agenda of Trump-aligned Carr, is left in limbo. Starks and Simington both announced the date of their departures earlier this week, though Starks indicated in March that he planned to step down; neither offered specific reasons for their departure. Carr indicated he intends to keep up the pace, writing in a blog post that 'the show must go on.' The FCC isn't the only agency short its typical number of commissioners — earlier this year Trump ordered the firing (in violation of Supreme Court precedent) of the two Democratic commissioners on the Federal Trade Commission. There's a lot that Carr can at least try to do while awaiting a quorum, even without another Republican commissioner to vote on more partisan proposals. Carr has already used so-called delegated authority to let the FCC's various bureaus carry out the agency's work without a vote from the full commission. Verizon's $20 billion deal to buy Frontier was recently approved by the FCC's Wireline Competition Bureau, for example, which Gomez criticized as a 'backroom' deal that should have been brought to a full commission vote. Gomez and Carr can also operate as a two-member board of the commissioners under Rule 0.212, allowing them to do most things they normally would besides issue final rules or actions, according to Public Knowledge senior vice president Harold Feld. That could hold up any final action to roll back a host of regulations through Carr's 'Delete, Delete, Delete' initiative, spurred by a Trump executive order, but allow for new notices of proposed rulemakings or other first steps — so long as they can both agree on them. Even if the commission can likely accomplish most of its day-to-day work, Feld warns that operating without a quorum under confusing legal precedents could be risky. 'It puts a cloud over everything,' he says. It could also cause problems if the Supreme Court issues an awaited ruling on the future of the Universal Service Fund, which helps subsidize communications services for rural and low-income households, and requires changes that would need to be approved by a commission vote. Though a Senate vote on Trusty's confirmation could be scheduled in the coming month or two and officially end the limbo, Feld worries about what could happen if it stretches into hurricane season. After past natural disasters, he says, the FCC has broken red tape to get money for telecommunications networks repairs out faster. 'That potentially might be a problem if the FCC doesn't have a quorum,' he says. 'How much are we handicapped in the event of a weather-related crisis? Will we just decide that the bureaus can act on delegated authority? … [Or] is the commission going to be paralyzed to act in the face of a crisis?'
Associated Press
38 minutes ago
- Associated Press
Trump's tariffs could pay for his tax cuts -- but it likely wouldn't be much of a bargain
WASHINGTON (AP) — The tax cuts in President Donald Trump's One Big Beautiful Bill Act would likely gouge a hole in the federal budget. The president has a patch handy, though: his sweeping import taxes — tariffs. The Congressional Budget Office, the government's nonpartisan arbiter of tax and spending matters, says the One Big Beautiful Bill, passed by the House last month and now under consideration in the Senate, would increase federal budget deficits by $2.4 trillion over the next decade. That is because its tax cuts would drain the government's coffers faster than its spending cuts would save money. By bringing in revenue for the Treasury, on the other hand, the tariffs that Trump announced through May 13 — including his so-called reciprocal levies of up to 50% on countries with which the United States has a trade deficit — would offset the budget impact of the tax-cut bill and reduce deficits over the next decade by $2.5 trillion. So it's basically a wash. That's the budget math anyway. The real answer is more complicated. Actually using tariffs to finance a big chunk of the federal government would be a painful and perilous undertaking, budget wonks say. 'It's a very dangerous way to try to raise revenue,' said Kent Smetters of the University of Pennsylvania's Penn Wharton Budget Model, who served in President George W. Bush's Treasury Department. Trump has long advocated tariffs as an economic elixir. He says they can protect American industries, bring factories back to the United States, give him leverage to win concessions over foreign governments — and raise a lot of money. He's even suggested that they could replace the federal income tax, which now brings in about half of federal revenue. 'It's possible we'll do a complete tax cut,'' he told reporters in April. 'I think the tariffs will be enough to cut all of the income tax.'' Economists and budget analysts do not share the president's enthusiasm for using tariffs to finance the government or to replace other taxes. 'It's a really bad trade,'' said Erica York, the Tax Foundation's vice president of federal tax policy. 'It's perhaps the dumbest tax reform you could design.'' For one thing, Trump's tariffs are an unstable source of revenue. He bypassed Congress and imposed his biggest import tax hikes through executive orders. That means a future president could simply reverse them. 'Or political whims in Congress could change, and they could decide, 'Hey, we're going revoke this authority because we don't think it's a good thing that the president can just unilaterally impose a $2 trillion tax hike,' '' York said. Or the courts could kill his tariffs before Congress or future presidents do. A federal court in New York has already struck down the centerpiece of his tariff program — the reciprocal and other levies he announced on what he called 'Liberation Day'' April 2 — saying he'd overstepped his authority. An appeals court has allowed the government to keep collecting the levies while the legal challenge winds its way through the court system. Economists also say that tariffs damage the economy. They are a tax on foreign products, paid by importers in the United States and usually passed along to their customers via higher prices. They raise costs for U.S. manufacturers that rely on imported raw materials, components and equipment, making them less competitive than foreign rivals that don't have to pay Trump's tariffs. Tariffs also invite retaliatory taxes on U.S. exports by foreign countries. Indeed, the European Union this week threatened 'countermeasures'' against Trump's unexpected move to raise his tariff on foreign steel and aluminum to 50%. 'You're not just getting the effect of a tax on the U.S. economy,' York said. 'You're also getting the effect of foreign taxes on U.S. exports.'' She said the tariffs will basically wipe out all economic benefits from the One Big Beautiful Bill's tax cuts. Smetters at the Penn Wharton Budget Model said that tariffs also isolate the United States and discourage foreigners from investing in its economy. Foreigners see U.S. Treasurys as a super-safe investment and now own about 30% of the federal government's debt. If they cut back, the federal government would have to pay higher interest rates on Treasury debt to attract a smaller number of potential investors domestically. Higher borrowing costs and reduced investment would wallop the economy, making tariffs the most economically destructive tax available, Smetters said — more than twice as costly in reduced economic growth and wages as what he sees as the next-most damaging: the tax on corporate earnings. Tariffs also hit the poor hardest. They end up being a tax on consumers, and the poor spend more of their income than wealthier people do. Even without the tariffs, the One Big Beautiful Bill slams the poorest because it makes deep cuts to federal food programs and to Medicaid, which provides health care to low-income Americans. After the bill's tax and spending cuts, an analysis by the Penn Wharton Budget Model found, the poorest fifth of American households earning less than $17,000 a year would see their incomes drop by $820 next year. The richest 0.1% earning more than $4.3 million a year would come out ahead by $390,070 in 2026. 'If you layer a regressive tax increase like tariffs on top of that, you make a lot of low- and middle-income households substantially worse off,'' said the Tax Foundation's York. Overall, she said, tariffs are 'a very unreliable source of revenue for the legal reasons, the political reasons as well as the economic reasons. They're a very, very inefficient way to raise revenue. If you raise a dollar of a revenue with tariffs, that's going to cause a lot more economic harm than raising revenue any other way.''
