Donald Trump is infuriating his allies by constantly changing his positions, according to a report from the New York Times.
Trump ran his campaign emphasizing his hardline immigration policies, but since being elected a second time, he has had to walk a tight rope to avoid hurting the economy on one hand and to keep from alienating his base on the other.
As Zolan Kanno-Youngs and Hamed Aleaziz write for the New York Times, "President Trump entered the White House in January promising both the 'largest deportation program in American history' and a 'golden age' for American businesses. But in recent weeks, the tension between those two promises has spilled out into the open, leading Mr. Trump to reverse or contradict some of his most significant anti-immigration policies when they threatened to disrupt the economy."
The report continues:
"Mr. Trump has celebrated his success in driving down illegal border crossings and in cracking down on immigration more broadly. But he walks a careful line when his hard-line policies collide with his economic agenda — particularly when it comes to foreign workers, student visas and industries that rely on immigrant labor. The changing positions have not only infuriated his far-right allies, but have also confused those aiming to carry out his deportation policies."
The piece also quotes David J. Bier, the director of immigration studies at the Cato Institute, as saying, "His heart isn’t in the nativist purge the way that the rest of his administration’s heart is into it. He’s always been someone who likes to dabble in that type of rhetoric. But at the same time, he’s always had a soft spot for the economic needs from a business perspective."
As an example of Trump's shifting policies, the NYT cites a recent situation involving 500 workers.
"Mr. Trump last week faced an uproar after immigration agents arrested nearly 500 workers, most of them South Korean citizens, at the construction site of an electric vehicle battery plant in Georgia. The raid caused deep anger in South Korea — a key U.S. ally and trading partner — and had the potential to discourage exactly the kind of foreign investment in U.S. manufacturing that Mr. Trump is trying to achieve," according to the report from Sunday. "Even though the Trump administration had argued the workers were in the United States illegally, Mr. Trump temporarily paused the deportations to consider allowing the South Korean workers to stay in the United States and help finish the factory, according to officials in Seoul."
Trump has also angered his far-right allies with a similar move involving China, which cause Marjorie Taylor Greene to speak out.
"Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene, Republican of Georgia, responded by questioning why the administration would allow '600,000 students from China to replace our American student’s opportunities?' 'We should never allow that,' she wrote on X," according to the report. "Laura Ingraham, the Fox News anchor, pressed Howard Lutnick, the commerce secretary, on Mr. Trump’s turnabout."
