By JILL COLVIN and LINLEY SANDERS

WASHINGTON (AP) — Americans are less likely to see Canada and the U.S. as close allies than they were two years ago, the latest indication that President Donald Trump’s tariff threats and talk of taking over a neighboring ally are souring a critical economic and military relationship.

The U.S. shift in viewpoint comes primarily from Democrats, though Republicans are less likely to see Canada as America’s ally now too, according to a new poll from The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research. While about 7 in 10 Democrats saw Canada and the U.S. as close allies before Trump returned to office, now that number is down to about half. For Republicans, the number dropped from 55% to 44%.

Although most still see the countries’ relationship as at least “friendly,” just under half of U.S. adults now consider the U.S. to be “close allies” with its neighbor to the north. That’s down from about 6 in 10 in a Pearson Institute/AP-NORC poll conducted in September 2023.

“He’s turning everybody against us,” bemoaned Lynn Huster, 73, a lifelong Democrat who lives in York, Pennsylvania. Huster says she has been dismayed by Trump’s actions and how they have affected relationships with other allies, including the United Kingdom.

“Canada,” she said, had been “our friends, you know, they backed us. And some of the other countries, the U.K., they don’t want any part of us anymore. And it’s sad that our country’s going to stand alone if anything happens.”

The poll comes as Trump has dramatically realigned U.S. foreign policy and America’s relations since his return to office.

He has slapped sweeping tariffs on goods made in Canada, Mexico and China, and this week added a 25% tax on imported autos. Next week, he says he will put in place “reciprocal” taxes mirroring the tariffs charged by other nations — a move he is calling “Liberation Day.”

Beyond the economic threats, Trump has repeatedly antagonized and belittled historic partners, notably the one with which the U.S. shares a 5,500-mile (8,900-kilometer) border. He has threatened Canada’s sovereignty, saying it should become the country’s 51st state, and repeatedly labeled its prime minister “governor.”

His moves have sparked deep feelings of betrayal across Canada, where the U.S.-Canada relationship had long been seen akin to family. The U.S. national anthem has been booed at Canadian arenas and American liquor has been stripped from Canadian shelves.

Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney, whose party’s fortunes have been revived by taking a hard line against Trump, said Thursday that the U.S. is “no longer a reliable partner” and that Canadians must now “look out for ourselves.”

Shaya Scher, 35, a Republican who lives in New Jersey, argues that Trump’s rhetoric toward Canada is largely bluster.

“I think he’s just doing it to make them freak out so they can get a deal,” Scher said.

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He believes a deal will eventually happen and tensions will ease.

“I think at the end of the day, they’re still allies,” he said. “Under the hood we’re still allies, and if anything comes up, we’ll still be allies.”

Others, however, were more despondent.

“He’s sabotaging decades of goodwill by having tariffs on foreign steel and foreign cars and foreign flowers,” said Scott Cunningham, 69, a Democrat who lives in South Bend, Indiana. “Tariffs are really going to hurt relationships — trading relationships, personal relationships — after being allies for decades. You do something like that, I’m going to remember that.”

About 3 in 10 Americans see Canada as “friendly but not a close ally,” while about 2 in 10 say the two countries are “not friendly but not enemies.” Very few see them as outright “enemies.”

Cunningham characterized the current U.S. relationship with Canada as “not friendly but not enemies.”

“We’re not friends because of tariffs and him wanting to take over the country. That’s not going well,” he said. ”It’s very strained right now.”

When it comes to the rest of the world, the AP-NORC poll found about half of U.S. adults see the United Kingdom as a close U.S. ally, but only about 3 in 10 say the same about France and Germany. About 4 in 10 say the European Union is a close ally.

Almost no Americans see either Russia or China as a close ally. About one-third say China is an enemy of the United States, and a similar share think this about Russia. Republicans are less likely to see Russia as a threat. Only about one-third of Republicans see Russia as an enemy of the U.S., compared to about 4 in 10 Democrats.

Trent Ramsaran, 37, a freelancer who lives in Brooklyn, New York, said many European leaders of traditional U.S. allies clearly have conflicting views with Trump, particularly on immigration.

“I’m starting to see the pattern there where it seems like all these quote-unquote allies are in favor of having immigrants take over the country,” he said. “His vision is really not the same as these allies. So he’s saying these allies are not on the same page.”

But Ramsaran said he’s not at all worried about the U.S. someday needing allies it has alienated, given how much the country spends on defense and high-tech weapons.

“If America ended up being attacked, I’m totally confident that we do not need the help of our allies to defend this country,” he said. “We’ve got Tom Cruise. He can teach people how to dogfight in ‘Top Gun.’”

Colvin reported from New York.

The AP-NORC poll of 1,229 adults was conducted Mar. 20-24, using a sample drawn from NORC’s probability-based AmeriSpeak Panel, which is designed to be representative of the U.S. population. The margin of sampling error for adults overall is plus or minus 3.9 percentage points.

Supporters of Palestinian causes with ties to American universities have been detained in the Trump administration’s crackdown on immigrants.

President Donald Trump and other officials have accused protesters and others of being “pro-Hamas,” referring to the Palestinian militant group that attacked Israel on Oct. 7, 2023. Many protesters have said they were speaking out against Israel’s actions in the war against Hamas in Gaza.

More than half a dozen people are known to have been taken into custody or deported by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials in recent weeks.

Rumeysa Ozturk

Federal officers detained 30-year-old Turkish student Rumeysa Ozturk on Tuesday as she walked along a street in suburban Boston. A senior Department of Homeland Security spokesperson said without providing evidence that an investigation found Ozturk, a doctoral student at Tufts University, “engaged in activities in support of Hamas,” a U.S.-designated terrorist group.

Friends and colleagues of Ozturk said her only known activism was co-authoring an op-ed in a student newspaper that called on Tufts University to engage with student demands to cut ties with Israel. Ozturk has been taken to an ICE detention center in Louisiana. A U.S. District judge has given the government until Friday to explain why Ozturk is being detained.

FILE – Student negotiator Mahmoud Khalil is seen at a pro-Palestinian protest encampment on the Columbia University campus in New York, April 29, 2024. (AP Photo/Ted Shaffrey, File)

Mahmoud Khalil

This month, immigration enforcement agents arrested and detained Mahmoud Khalil, a legal U.S. resident and Palestinian activist who was prominent in protests at Columbia last year. The administration has said it revoked Khalil’s green card because his role in the campus protests amounted to antisemitic support for Hamas. He is fighting deportation.

Khalil served as a negotiator for Columbia students as they bargained with university officials over ending their campus encampment last spring. He was born in Syria but is a legal U.S. resident married to an American citizen.

Yunseo Chung

Yunseo Chung is a Columbia student and lawful U.S. resident who moved to America from Korea as a child. Chung attended and was arrested at a sit-in this month at nearby Barnard College protesting the expulsion of students who participated in pro-Palestinian activism.

The Department of Homeland Security wants to deport Chung and has said she “engaged in concerning conduct,” including being arrested on a misdemeanor charge. A judge ordered immigration agents not to detain Chung while her legal challenge is pending.

Badar Khan Suri

Badar Khan Suri, a Georgetown scholar from India, was arrested outside his Virginia home and detained by masked Homeland Security agents on allegations that he spread Hamas propaganda. Suri’s attorney wrote in a court filing that he was targeted because of his social media posts and his wife’s “identity as a Palestinian and her constitutionally protected speech.” Suri holds a visa authorizing him to be in the U.S. as a visiting scholar, and his wife is a U.S. citizen, according to court documents.

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Suri was taken to a detention facility in Louisiana, according to a government website. His lawyers are seeking his immediate release and to halt deportation proceedings.

Leqaa Kordia

Leqaa Kordia, a resident of Newark, New Jersey, was detained and accused of failing to leave the U.S. after her student visa expired. Federal authorities said Kordia is a Palestinian from the West Bank and that she was arrested at or near Columbia during pro-Palestinian protests. Columbia has said it has no record of her being a student there.

Kordia is being held in an immigration detention center in Alvarado, Texas, according to a government database.

Ranjani Srinivasan

Ranjani Srinivasan, an Indian citizen and doctoral student at Columbia, fled the U.S. after immigration agents searched for her at her university residence. The Trump administration has said it revoked Srinivasan’s visa for “advocating for violence and terrorism.” Srinivasan opted to “self-deport.”

Officials didn’t say what evidence they have that Srinivasan advocated violence. Her lawyers deny the accusations, and she told The New York Times that she didn’t help to organize protests at Columbia.

Alireza Doroudi

University of Alabama student Alireza Doroudi was detained by ICE on Tuesday, the university confirmed. The Crimson White, the student newspaper, said Doroudi was detained, but neither the university nor the newspaper explained why he is in ICE custody.

David Rozas, a lawyer representing Doroudi, said in an email that Doroudi is being detained in Alabama but he believes Doroudi will be moved to an immigration facility in Jena, Louisiana. Doroudi is a doctoral student from Iran studying mechanical engineering, Rozas said. Doroudi said he isn’t aware of any suspected criminal activity or violations of his lawful status.

Dr. Rasha Alawieh

Dr. Rasha Alawieh, a kidney transplant specialist from Lebanon who previously worked and lived in Rhode Island, was deported this month, even though a federal judge ordered that she not be removed until a hearing could be held. Homeland Security officials said Alawieh was deported as soon as she returned to the U.S. from Lebanon, despite having a U.S. visa, because she “openly admitted” supporting former Hezbollah leaderHassan Nasrallah. Alawieh told officers she followed him for his religious and spiritual teachings and not his politics, court documents said.

She was to start work at Brown University as an assistant professor of medicine. Stephanie Marzouk, Alawieh’s lawyer, has said she will fight to get the 34-year-old doctor back to the U.S.

Momodou Taal

Momodou Taal is a doctoral student at Cornell University whose visa was revoked after he participated in campus demonstrations.

Taal, a citizen of the United Kingdom and Gambia, has asked a federal judge to halt his detention during his court challenge. The government says it revoked Taal’s student visa because of his alleged involvement in “disruptive protests.”

His attorneys say the 31-year-old doctoral student in Africana studies was exercising free speech rights. Taal said he will surrender to immigration authorities if the court determines the government is acting legally. Taal said in a court declaration that “I feel like a prisoner already, although all I have done is exercise my rights.”

By JOSH BOAK, Associated Press

WASHINGTON (AP) — Noted economist Arthur Laffer warns in a new analysis that President Donald Trump’s 25% tariffs on auto imports could add $4,711 to the cost of a vehicle and says the proposed taxes could weaken the ability of U.S. automakers to compete with their foreign counterparts.

In the 21-page analysis obtained by The Associated Press, Laffer, whom Trump awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2019 for his contributions to economics, says the auto industry would be in a better position if the Republican president preserved the supply chain rules with Canada and Mexico from his own 2019 USMCA trade pact.

The White House has temporarily exempted auto and parts imports under the USMCA from the tariffs starting on April 3 so that the Trump administration can put together a process for taxing non-U.S. content in vehicles and parts that fall under the agreement.

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“Without this exemption, the proposed tariff risks causing irreparable damage to the industry, contradicting the administration’s goals of strengthening U.S. manufacturing and economic stability,” Laffer writes in the analysis. “A 25% tariff would not only shrink, or possibly eliminate, profit margins for U.S. manufacturers but also weaken their ability to compete with international rivals.”

In a Friday interview with The Associated Press, Laffer said the report had caused a “kerfuffle” and cautioned that it only applied to the economics, rather than Trump’s negotiating skills and strategic approach to trade.

“The report shows the economics of what would happen were the tariffs to be put in place,” he said. “This is about facts, not how we feel.”

The economist was quick to also praise Trump as a negotiator who has deep knowledge of trade issues, indicating that the tariff threats could be used as they had during Trump’s first term to ultimately lower barriers to trade and improve outcomes for the U.S. economy.

“Donald Trump is more familiar with the gains from trade than any politician I’ve ever talked to in my life,” Laffer said. ”Do not take this paper in any way, shape or form as criticizing Donald Trump and what his strategies are.”

He added that he trusts the president and sees him as exceptionally competent.

While Trump’s tariff plans have frightened the stock market and U.S. consumers, Laffer’s analysis and other reports show the possible economic risks if the threat of import taxes is unable to produce a durable set of deals with other countries. The paper reminds Trump that it’s not too late to change course, specifically complimenting the USMCA negotiated in his first term as a “significant achievement.”

“The United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA) has served as a cornerstone of President Trump’s first term and has quickly become a dominant feature of North American trade policy, fostering economic growth, stabilizing supply chains, and strengthening the U.S. auto industry,” Laffer writes.

The analysis says that the per vehicle cost without the USMCA exemption would be $4,711, but that figure would be a lower $2,765 if the exemptions were sustained.

Trump honored Laffer with the highest civilian honor 45 years after the economist famously sketched out on a napkin the Laffer curve, showing that there’s an optimal tax rate for collecting revenue.

The bell-shaped curve indicated that there’s a tax rate so high that it could be self-defeating for generating tax revenues. Many Republicans embraced the curve as evidence that lower tax rates could generate stronger growth that would lead to higher tax revenues.

“Dr. Laffer helped inspire, guide, and implement extraordinary economic reforms that recognize the power of human freedom and ingenuity to grow our economy and lift families out of poverty and into a really bright future,” Trump said in awarding him the medal.

Laffer served on the economic policy advisory board of President Ronald Reagan, in addition to being a university professor. He has his own economic consultancy, Laffer Associates. In 1970, he was the first chief economist of the White House Office of Management and Budget.

Laffer also advised Trump during his 2016 presidential campaign and co-wrote a flattering book, “Trumponomics: Inside the America First Plan to Revive Our Economy.”

Trump maintains that 25% tariffs will cause more foreign and domestic automakers to expand production and open new factories in the United States. On Monday, he celebrated a planned $5.8 billion investment by South Korean automaker Hyundai to build a steel plant in Louisiana as evidence that his strategy would succeed.

Trump said the 25% auto tariffs would help to reduce the federal budget deficit while moving more production into the United States.

“For the most part, I think it’s going to lead cars to be made in one location,” Trump told reporters on Wednesday. “For right now, the car would be made here, sent to Canada, sent to Mexico, sent to all over the place. It’s ridiculous.”

ST. LOUIS — Some point to Aug. 17 as the day the Twins’ season started to fall apart last year.

The Twins, after beating the Texas Rangers in the first three games of the series, were up 4-0 in the seventh inning when Jorge Alcala entered the game and was rocked for five runs in just a matter of minutes. From then on, the Twins went 12-27 to finish their season, missing the playoffs.

But, in truth, things had started to unravel even before then. Ten days earlier, Joe Ryan threw what would be the last pitch of his season, leaving his Aug. 7 start at Wrigley Field early with what turned out to be a teres major strain.

That shoulder meant the Twins spent the rest of the season trotting out three rookies in the rotation. Now healthy, Ryan, who will make his first start of the season on Saturday versus the St. Louis Cardinals, very well could be one of the keys to the Twins’ season.

“It’s always difficult,” Ryan said of watching from afar last year. “Obviously, you want to play, and you have expectations, and to have something just come out of nowhere, especially just that week, I was feeling really good. I think (it was) just kind of a slap in the face.”

But Ryan was feeling better as the offseason began and got clean imaging in November. Watching Dodgers starter Yoshinobu Yamamoto pitch in the postseason after suffering a similar injury, and talking to other pitchers who had gone through the same, helped build his confidence that he, too, could return just as effective as ever.

And Ryan, at his top form, could be a Cy Young Award contender if he puts together a season in which he can maintain his health throughout. At the time of his injury last year, Ryan was in the midst of perhaps the best year of his career. He had a 3.60 earned-run average, a 0.985 WHIP (Walks and Hits Per Innings Pitched) and was striking out nearly 10 batters per nine innings.

After offseasons of tinkering with new pitches, Ryan was able to come to come to spring training this year confident in his pitch mix.

“I’m happy with all my pitches,” he said. “I think coming into camp this year not having to see how things work, knowing the splitter works, knowing the sweeper works, knowing the sinker works, four-seam, cutter, they all play. And it was just being able to pitch with those and then work on some other things.”

That confidence extended to his health, as well.

This spring, Ryan felt strong. He wasn’t rehabbing, though he spent the end of last season on the injured list — he was just building up for the season like the rest of the rotation.

“His stuff keeps getting better. He’s throwing strikes. The delivery looks the way it should,” manager Rocco Baldelli said. “It all checked out. He had that little blip a few days early in camp when he was down, but overall, before that and even after that, everything has gone really smoothly.”

And for Ryan and the Twins, it’s been a long time coming.

“Something about getting games back changes the mindset a little bit and just turns everything up a little bit more,” Ryan said. “You remember why you’re here and what you’re doing.

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