By JOSH FUNK

China has fulfilled its initial commitment to buy 12 million metric tons of soybeans from the U.S., but it’s not clear if the trade agreement announced in October can withstand President Donald Trump’s ever-shifting trade policy as American farmers are still dealing with high production costs.

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Earlier this month, Trump said he would impose 25% tariffs on any country that buys from Iran, which would include China. Then last weekend he threatened to impose 10% tariffs on eight of America’s closest allies in Europe if they continue to oppose his efforts to acquire Greenland.

So the administration’s trade policy continues to change quickly, and Iowa State University agricultural economist Chad Hart said that could undermine the trade agreement with China and jeopardize the commitment by the world’s largest soybean buyer to purchase 25 million metric tons of American soybeans in each of the next three years.

“Those new tariffs — what does that mean for this agreement? Does it throw it out? Is it still binding? That’s sort of the game here now,” Hart said.

Beijing paused any purchase of U.S. soybeans last summer during its trade war with Washington but agreed to resume buying from American soybean farmers after Trump and Chinese leader Xi Jinping met in South Korea and agreed to a truce.

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent announced the purchasing milestone China has met in an interview with Maria Bartiromo on Fox Business on Tuesday from the sidelines of a major economic forum in Davos, Switzerland, where Bessent met with his Chinese counterpart, Vice President He Lifeng. Bessent said China remains committed.

“He told me that just this week they completed their soybean purchases, and we’re looking forward to next year’s 25 million tons,” Bessent said. “They did everything they said they were going to do.”

Last fall, preliminary data from the Department of Agriculture cast doubts on whether China would live up to the agreement because it was slow to begin purchasing American soybeans and there is a lag before the purchases show up in the official numbers.

On Tuesday, the USDA data showed that China had bought more than 8 million tons of U.S. soybeans by Jan. 8, and its daily reports indicated that China placed several more orders since then, ranging from 132,000 tons to more than 300,000 tons.

China has shifted much of its soybean purchases over to Brazil and Argentina in recent years to diversify its sources and find the cheapest deals. Last year, Brazilian beans accounted for more than 70% of China’s imports, while the U.S. share was down to 21%, World Bank data shows.

FILE – Soybeans are harvested on the Warpup Farm in Warren, Ind., Sept. 17, 2025. (AP Photo/Michael Conroy, File)

Trump is planning to send roughly $12 billion in aid to U.S. farmers to help them withstand the trade war, but farmers say the aid won’t solve all their problems as they continue to deal with the soaring costs of fertilizer, seeds and labor that make it hard to turn a profit right now. Soybean farmers will get $30.88 per acre while corn farmers will receive $44.36 per acre. Another crop hit hard when China stopped buying was sorghum, and those farmers will get $48.11 per acre. The amounts are based on a USDA formula on the cost of production.

That and uncertainty about trade markets and how much farmers will receive for their crops has even some of the most optimistic farmers worried, said Cory Walters, who is an associate professor in the University of Nebraska-Lincoln’s Department of Agricultural Economics. Soybean prices jumped up above $11.50 per bushel after the agreement was announced, but the price has since fallen to about $10.56 per bushel on Tuesday. So prices are close to where they were a year ago and aren’t high enough to cover most farmers’ costs.

“Everything is changing — the land rental market, the fertilizer market, the seed market and it’s all pinching the farmer when they go to do their cash flows. The ability to make a decision is tougher now because of all the uncertainty in the market,” Walters said.

This story has been updated to correct that Bessent spoke on Fox Business, not Fox News.

Funk reported from Omaha, Nebraska. Associated Press writers Didi Tang and Fatima Hussein contributed from Washington.

U.S. Border Patrol head Greg Bovino downplayed concerns about reports of citizens or others uninvolved in enforcement operations or protests being arrested by federal agents during a Tuesday news conference updating immigration activities.

“We’re on the streets with our troops almost every day, and what we see when folks get swept up — as you say — oftentimes it’s those agitators, those rioters, and now I’ll call them anarchists,” he said.

Federal immigration authorities arrested about 10,000 people in Minnesota over the last year, Bovino and Department of Homeland Security officials said. That number has not been independently verified.

Enforcement operations are focused on people who pose a danger to the community, Bovino said, pushing back on many reports of random arrests and detainments

“They are not random and they are not political. They are about removing criminals who are actively harming Minneapolis neighborhoods,” he said.

Bovino repeated the claim that ICE has close to 1,400 immigration detainers on individuals in Minnesota jails and prisons and called on state officials to turn those individuals over to federal authorities. The Minnesota Department of Corrections has disputed that number, calling it “categorically false.” In a statement last week, the state said 207 of the roughly 8,000 people incarcerated in state prisons are non-U.S. citizens. Though it’s unclear how many non-citizens are in jails across the state.

Off-duty police officers pulled over

There have been numerous reports of ICE agents randomly pulling people over, demanding proof of legal residency during the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown in Minnesota. Two off-duty St. Paul police officers were among them, city police chief Axel Henry said Tuesday. An off-duty Brooklyn Park officer also was stopped at gunpoint, according to that police department’s chief.

A 23-year-old St. Paul resident, and U.S. citizen, Nasra Ahmed was detained for two days last week by ICE and ChongLy “Saly” Scott Thao, a naturalized U.S. citizen was taken at gunpoint from his home on the East Side of St. Paul Sunday and driven around before he was released.

Protests continued on Tuesday, despite significantly cooler temperatures than in previous weeks. A small crowd gathered outside the parking entrance at the Bishop Henry Whipple Federal Building at Fort Snelling, blowing whistles and jeering at vehicles presumed to be involved with immigration enforcement.

Stepped-up immigration enforcement throughout the Twin Cities began late last year and escalated in early January with upward of 2,000 ICE and U.S. Customs and Border Protection agents.

‘Heated rhetoric and accusations’

Asked if there were any differences between his experiences in Minnesota and other states where ICE and Border Patrol have operated, Bovino said local opposition was better organized. He accused Gov. Tim Walz and Minneapolis Mayor Frey of fueling tensions with “heated rhetoric and accusations.”

“They’ve got some excellent communications,” he said of protesters. “That, coupled with a very poor response from the mayor and the governor — those two things coupled together make that a difficult operating environment at times.”

Immigration officials would not directly answer if ICE Agent Jonathan Ross had been placed on administrative leave after shooting 37-year-old Renee Good during a confrontation in Minneapolis on Jan. 7.

“He’s at home recovering,” said Marcos Charles, executive associate director of Enforcement and Removal Operations, when asked about Ross, who federal officials said sustained injuries when he was struck by Good’s vehicle.

Walz: End to immigration enforcement surge

Meanwhile, Walz on Tuesday again urged President Donald Trump to end the federal immigration actions taking place in the Twin Cities and elsewhere in the state.

In a statement Tuesday, Walz called on the president to come to the state “to see our values in action.”

The governor also addressed the U. S. Department of Justice investigation in him, Frey and St. Paul Mayor Kaohly Her and other metro officials. The three previously have denounced the probe — which involves whether they impeded the immigration action — saying its politically-motivated.

“This Justice Department investigation, sparked by calls for accountability in the face of violence, chaos, and the killing of Renee Good, does not seek justice,” he said. “It is a partisan distraction. Minnesotans are more concerned with safety and peace than baseless legal tactics aimed at intimidating public servants standing shoulder to shoulder with their community.”

The immigration actions in the state are having a significant impact on many Minnesotans, Walz said.

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“My focus has always been protecting the people of this state,” he said. “Families are scared. Kids are afraid to go to school. Small businesses are hurting. A mother is dead, and the people responsible have yet to be held accountable. That’s where the energy of the federal government should be directed: toward restoring trust, accountability, and real law and order, not political retaliation.”

Walz ended by saying: “Minnesota will not be intimidated into silence and neither will I.”

“A voluntary public option for jobs, offering living wages, benefits, health care and union protections, would raise the wage floor and stabilize the economy during downturns.”

A jobs fair for city agencies in 2023. (NYC Mayor’s Office/Caroline Willis)

Mayor Zohran Mamdani was sworn in this month after a historic campaign that galvanized New York City voters with a bold, inclusive vision: housing for all, childcare for all, public transit for all. It was a vision rooted in universality—one that treated dignity and access not as privileges, but as rights.

Yet one essential “For All” remains absent from the mayor’s agenda list: good jobs for all. 

During his stirring inaugural address, Mayor Mamdani spoke at length about working people, aptly referencing “wages that do not rise” and about government’s responsibility to work for those who work hardest. But raising wages only helps people who have work in the first place, and without access to dignified work at a living wage, the promise of affordability and inclusion rests on unstable ground.

Housing, childcare, and transit make participation possible—but work is essential to economic security. If Mayor Mamdani truly seeks to build a New York “For All,” access to publicly funded, socially useful jobs must be a pillar of that vision, not an afterthought.

The question is not new. In 1944, President Franklin D. Roosevelt—who rose to national leadership from New York’s governorship—declared that political freedom cannot exist without economic security. In his historic proposal of an Economic Bill of Rights, the right to a “useful and remunerative job” was the central, fundamental guarantee, and, he would later assert, the guarantee made other economic rights achievable. Employment, Roosevelt insisted, was not merely a market outcome but a public responsibility, essential to dignity and democracy.

Today, policy has drifted far from that principle. The prevailing narrative places the burden of joblessness on individuals rather than institutions. Workers—especially those stigmatized by race, gender, disability, or incarceration—are told that better credentials or stronger networks will deliver opportunity. But credentials only matter if jobs actually exist, and networks themselves reflect entrenched discrimination. The result is a labor market that systematically excludes, even when people do everything “right.”

The outgoing Adams administration leaned into this logic, emphasizing job training while outsourcing job creation to the private sector. Mayor Mamdani’s platform rightly breaks from that approach by prioritizing union protections, collective bargaining, and a $30 minimum wage. These are essential reforms—but they do not reach people who are unemployed, underemployed, or locked out of work altogether. A higher wage floor does little for those who cannot access a job in the first place.

The urgency is visible in the data. More than 210,000 New Yorkers are officially unemployed, with significantly higher rates for Black, Latinx, and Asian workers. Nearly one in four Black youth is out of work. And these figures understate the crisis, excluding discouraged and involuntarily part-time workers who want jobs but cannot find them.

Unemployment is not inevitable. As economist Pavlina Tcherneva argues, it is a policy choice. Governments already intervene aggressively to stabilize markets and subsidize private enterprise. Why not intervene to assure decent work? Refusing to guarantee employment is not neutrality—it is abdication. A voluntary public option for jobs, offering living wages, benefits, health care and union protections, would raise the wage floor and stabilize the economy during downturns.

New York already has a foundation in the Summer Youth Employment Program (SYEP), which has long demonstrated the benefits of public employment. But SYEP is limited by design: seasonal, lottery-based, and often tied to low-wage private work. It is not the ceiling of public employment—but the floor.

A year-round, citywide Jobs-for-All program could build on that foundation, directing labor to urgent public needs: climate justice and resilience, child and elder care, youth programming, public health, and the arts. It would complement the mayor’s affordability agenda by supplying the missing economic anchor those policies require.

Indeed, a recent Urban Institute study found that if implemented in 2018, a national work-based policy package modeled on a New Deal Works Progress Administration (WPA) type program, and a much higher federal minimum wage would have reduced the poverty level dramatically, increased employment and offered more economic security. 

An inclusive city cannot be built on an exclusionary labor market. Jobs are the connective tissue binding housing, child care, transit, and education into a coherent vision of shared prosperity. If New York is serious about being a city “For All,” it must be willing to guarantee the most basic economic right of all: the right to dignified work at a living wage.

Cortney Sanders is the director of the National Jobs for All Network at The Institute on Race, Power and Political Economy at The New School. Alan A. Aja is a professor and chair of the Department of Puerto Rican & Latino Studies and co-director of the Mellon Transfer Student Research Program at CUNY’s Brooklyn College. Gertrude Schaffner Goldberg is professor emerita at Adelphi University and former chair of its doctoral program in social work.

The post Opinion: The Missing ‘For All’ Program? A New York City Jobs For All appeared first on City Limits.

By ERIC TUCKER

WASHINGTON (AP) — Two judges in Virginia are rejecting Trump administration arguments that a White House loyalist can continue serving as a top federal prosecutor in the state, with one on Tuesday soliciting applications for a replacement and the other prohibiting Lindsey Halligan from continuing to represent herself in his court as a United States attorney.

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The dual orders from separate judges marked a dramatic new front in an ongoing clash between the Trump administration and the federal court over the legitimacy of Halligan’s appointment. A White House aide with no prior prosecutorial experience, Halligan was picked for the role by President Donald Trump in September only to have a judge two months later rule that the appointment was illegal.

The Trump administration has kept Halligan in place despite that ruling, but on Tuesday, two judges made clear that they believed it was time for her tenure to end. Similar disputes have occurred in other districts across the country, where judges have rejected other Trump administration efforts to install acting prosecutors outside conventional protocol.

In one order, M. Hannah Lauck, the chief judge of the Eastern District of Virginia and a nominee of President Barack Obama, directed a clerk to publish a vacancy announcement on the court’s website and with the news media and said she was “soliciting expressions of interest in serving in that position.” The judge noted that the 120-day appointment given to Halligan, who has since been nominated by Trump but not confirmed by the Senate, expires on Tuesday.

In a separate order, U.S. District Judge David Novak said he was striking the words “United States Attorney” from the signature block of an indictment in a case that was before him, and barred her from continuing to represent herself with that title. He said he would initiate disciplinary proceedings against Halligan if she violated his order and persisted in identifying herself in court filings as a U.S. attorney, and said other signatories could be subject to discipline as well.

“No matter all of her machinations, Ms. Halligan has no legal basis to represent to this Court that she holds the position. And any such representation going forward can only be described as a false statement made in direct defiance of valid court orders,” Novak wrote. “In short, this charade of Ms. Halligan masquerading as the United States Attorney for this District in direct defiance of binding court orders must come to an end.”

The order from Novak, who was appointed to the bench by Trump during the Republican president’s first term in office, followed a defiant filing from Attorney General Pam Bondi and Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche in which they stood behind Halligan’s authority and accused the judge of abusing his power by demanding that Halligan publicly explain why she continues to identify herself as a U.S. attorney.

“Ms. Halligan’s response, in which she was joined by both the Attorney General and the Deputy Attorney General, contains a level of vitriol more appropriate for a cable news talk show and falls far beneath the level of advocacy expected from litigants in this Court, particularly the Department of Justice,” Novak wrote.

“The Court will not engage in a similar tit-for-tat and will instead analyze the few points that Ms. Halligan offers to justify her continued identification of her position as United States Attorney before the Court,” he added.

Halligan was named to the job on an acting basis in September after the Trump administration effectively forced out veteran prosecutor Erik Siebert amid pressure to bring charges against two of Trump’s political foes, former FBI Director James Comey and New York Attorney General.

Halligan secured the indictment but the win was short-lived. In November, U.S. District Judge Cameron McGowan Currie ruled that Halligan was illegally appointed as an acting U.S. attorney.