Mexico is warning of possible retaliation if President Trump moves forward with planned tariffs on Mexico due to border crossings. Mexican officials flew to Washington over the weekend ahead of a planned summit Wednesday. President Trump over the weekend continued his pressure on Mexico, taking to Twitter to say, “We want action, not talk,” regarding the border crisis.

Trump says he will impose the tariffs to pressure Mexico to block Central American migrants from crossing the border into the United States. Those tariffs would increase by five percent every month through October, capping at 25 percent. Advocacy group Farmers for Free Trade says in a statement the move by Trump “will likely invite retaliation on the products we export to Mexico,” including agricultural products, electronics, and car parts, among others.

The group says tariffs on imports from Mexico could lead to $25 billion in higher costs for American consumers. The tariffs promised by Trump were announced as the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement made progress towards implementation in all three member countries last week.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency issued a final rule that will allow consumers uninterrupted access to E15 all year long. Vital Dot Com says the announcement comes just in time for the official start of the summer driving season. The new EPA rule changes a nearly ten-year-old limitation on year-round E15, which restricted E15 sales in most markets from June 1 to September 15. U.S. renewable fuels supporters are hopeful that this will get things going in the right direction for boosting ethanol sales across the country and give a much-needed shot-in-the-arm to the struggling ag economy. While more than 1,800 fuel stations across the country in 31 states currently offer E15, that number will likely get much bigger because of the new ruling. Industry experts say many more retail chains will likely install E15 pumps in the months ahead. Biofuel industry advocates say the new rule is quite a milestone for the industry and ends a decade of work by many people, including congressional members, farmers, and biofuels advocates from across rural America.

President Trump announced his intention to impose a five percent tariff on Mexican imports because of illegal immigration. He vows to keep those tariffs in place until Mexico stops illegal immigrants from entering the U.S. through the southern border. The proposed move will take effect on June 10 and doesn’t give Mexico a lot of time to react to it. Trump says the levy “would gradually increase until the illegal immigration problem is remedied, at which time the tariff will be removed.” The tariffs could potentially go as high as 25 percent by October 1. The move comes just days after Trump removed the tariffs on steel and aluminum imports that caused direct retaliation against U.S. farm goods. Economists are warning that the move could be extremely negative for both countries. Bloomberg describes the initial reaction from Mexican officials as “measured.” Mexican President Obrador said in a letter to Trump on Twitter that he “doesn’t want confrontation.” Mexico’s foreign minister and other officials were scheduled to visit Washington D.C. last week in order to come to an agreement. Mexico’s undersecretary for foreign relations for North America told reporters that Mexico wouldn’t retaliate before discussing the matter with the U.S. However, if Trump follows through on the threat, the undersecretary says that “would be a very serious matter.”

The Department of Agriculture’s National Agricultural Statistics Service Thursday released the 2017 Census of Agriculture State and County Profiles. The profiles provide a summary or snapshot of key pieces of information on land, farms, market value of ag products sold, rankings, and producer characteristics. The profiles are a quick way to see what’s going on with ag in your state and county, to show the value of ag at the local level. The profiles provide producers with a way to evaluate historical trends, assess the need to advocate for policies and programs that support their commodities and communities, and develop new and improved methods to increase agricultural production and profitability. Further, on June 26, NASS will release the Congressional District Profiles and Rankings. Additional Census of Agriculture products, such as the watershed report, zip code tabulations, and race, ethnicity and gender profiles. Access the full 2017 Census of Agriculture report and all associated products such as highlight videos and publications at www.nass.usda.gov/AgCensus.

Nine U.S. Senators led by Michigan Democrat Debbie Stabenow are sharing concern over U.S. trade aid going to foreign companies. With the administration using up to $1.4 billion to purchase commodities, the group says the Department of Agriculture is allowing foreign companies to profit from the plan aimed to assist U.S. farmers. Stabenow, the top Democrat of the Senate Ag Committee, points out the first round of trade aid included purchase contracts of nearly $62.5 million in pork products from JBS USA, which is owned by Brazilian parent company JBS SA. A letter to USDA from the Senators calls the move “counterproductive,” adding its “unacceptable that American taxpayers have been subsidizing competitors through trade assistance.” The letter was signed by all Democrats, including Senator Stabenow, along with Charles Schumer and Kirsten Gillibrand of New York, Ohio’s Sherrod Brown, Vermont’s Patrick Leahy, Connecticut’s Richard Blumenthal, Washington’s Patty Murray, Minnesota’s Amy Klobuchar, and Wisconsin’s Tammy Baldwin. Baldwin questioned the funding last week in a standalone statement following the announcement of the trade aid program.

A federal court earlier this week invalidated the Environmental Protection Agency and Army Corps of Engineers’ 2015 expansion of federal jurisdiction over small and isolated waters. After years of litigation in suits filed by dozens of state governments and trade groups, this is the first court to reach a final decision on the lawfulness of the 2015 Waters of the United States rule. The U.S. Court for the Southern District of Texas ruled that the agencies violated basic requirements of fair process when they concluded the 2015 rulemaking, without first releasing for comment a key report that was the basis for many of their most controversial decisions. The order came in response to suits by a group of 17 private-sector plaintiffs that included the American Farm Bureau Federation. The groups challenged the 2015 WOTUS rule as unlawfully expanding federal jurisdiction at the expense of state and municipal authority and offending basic rules of fair process. Several other legal challenges to the 2015 rule remain pending in federal courts across the country. The Trump administration has proposed to repeal the rule and issue a new regulation that better defines federal waters.