Morning Brief: Trump Moves Needle With Xi, Illegals Endanger U.S. Roads, & South America Shifts Right

Trump brings home some major W’s from his Asia trip, the administration looks to crack down on commercial driver’s licenses for illegal immigrants, and South America trends toward the Right. 

It’s Friday, October 31, 2025, and this is the news you need to know to start your day. Today’s edition of the Morning Wire podcast can be heard below, and the video version can be seen on The Daily Wire:

Trump And Xi Reach Agreements

Topline: Following his showdown with Chinese President Xi Jinping, President Trump has returned from his Asia tour with new deals in hand and perhaps most importantly, reduced tensions with China. 

After the meeting, Xi described the feeling as “warm” and Trump touted what he called an “amazing meeting.” Here he is grading the talk aboard Air Force One. 

“Overall, I guess on the scale of 0-10, with ten being the best, I would say the meeting was a 12,” said Trump.

Trump said official terms of a deal are “very close to resolved,” but it appears the big ticket items on his wishlist were met. In a Truth Social post early Thursday, the President said Xi had agreed to “work diligently with us to stop the flow of Fentanyl into our Country.” As a result of those assurances, Trump announced plans to lower the existing tariff that was imposed on China in response to fentanyl trafficking. 

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In addition, Trump said Xi agreed to “purchase American energy,” potentially oil and gas from Alaska. Trump is looking to keep Beijing from buying Russian oil, so that would be a win-win.

On the agricultural front, Trump says China has also agreed to begin purchasing massive amounts of soybeans, sorghum, and other farm products. With that news, he encouraged farmers to “immediately go out and buy more land and larger tractors.” And finally, he said the Chinese would resume the sale of rare earth minerals used for tech products and large magnets.

Trump says the overall tariff rate on Chinese exports will fall from 57% to 47%, leaving significant trade barriers in place, but far lower than the 100% plus rate that was looming without a deal. The two countries also agreed to remove port fees that had been impacting cargo ships from each side. Looking ahead, Trump said the two leaders will continue to meet on a more regular basis — he’ll travel to Beijing in April, and Xi will come to the US shortly after, potentially to Mar-a-Lago.

How Illegals Keep Scoring CDLs

Topline: The Trump administration has pledged to crack down on illegal immigrant drivers, but Americans have been left wondering: why do these crashes keep happening?

An accident in Florida brought this issue into the national spotlight. An accident was allegedly caused by an illegal immigrant identified as Harjinder Singh, an Indian national. Singh allegedly made an illegal u-turn, blocking a highway, and causing a van to careen into Singh’s trailer. Three people were killed in the crash.

Several similar cases have happened since then, often involving illegal immigrants carrying California-issued commercial driver’s licenses (CDLs).

Some of the major contributors to this issue of illegal immigrants obtaining CDLs have been the flood of illegal immigration into the United States under former President Joe Biden, and then the failure of the federal government to ensure that CDL applicants received proper testing before they were handed driver’s licenses.

In Singh’s case, the Indian national failed an English language proficiency test in the aftermath of the fatal collision, “providing correct responses to just 2 of 12 verbal questions and only accurately identifying 1 of 4 highway traffic signs,” according to the Department of Transportation.

A Republican-backed bill in Congress aims to crack down on these holes in the system. Under the legislation, Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy would have the authority to revoke a state’s ability to grant “non-domiciled CDLs,” or commercial licenses for applicants who live out of state, if the state were found in violation of federal rules around CDLs.

The bill would also standardize some rules about the CDL process by requiring all testing to be conducted in English and that all CDL applicants hold a driver’s license for at least one year.

The Trump administration is taking steps to ensure that all testing is done in English. Duffy is also conducting a nationwide audit of state CDL permitting programs. The worst offender is California, where more than 25% of non-domiciled CDLs reviewed by the feds were improperly issued, according to the Department of Transportation.

The Trump administration is also restricting who can get a CDL. Foreigners must have specialized work visas. They can’t be border crossers who are awaiting the fate of their asylum cases.

South America Moves Right

Topline: Massive political shifts are taking place in South America – including rightward shifts in multiple countries, such as Bolivia and Argentina – and the Trump administration is playing a key role on several fronts. Morning Wire spoke to Andres Martinez-Fernandez, senior policy analyst for Latin America at The Heritage Foundation, for more on South American governments. (The following interview has been lightly edited.)

Morning Wire: We’ve seen rapidly changing dynamics between the administration and various political leaders in South America. Let’s start with Argentina. We just saw Javier Milei’s party win a landslide victory. How significant is this victory in the country?

Martinez-Fernandez: It’s really significant because President Milei is representing a major departure from what has been for the past couple decades. Argentine leadership is typically Left, far-Left leaning and socialist in its nature for economic policies. That has brought about generally an anti-American bent. But President Milei has brought an agenda which is really the opposite of all those – very pro-market, individual responsibility, cutting government. As far as relations with the United States, we’ve likely never had a more aligned leader in Argentina. This victory really solidified what was, with his victory a couple years back for the presidency, a massive shift. But it really solidifies that with this legislative win, which is going to help him with his agenda.

Morning Wire: The U.S. recently helped Argentina with a $40 billion support package – how much of a role did that play in this election?

Martinez-Fernandez: I think a very significant role, and President Trump deserves a lot of credit for the victory that we saw for Milei’s party. What we saw was, just in the days prior to the election, the White House meeting with President Milei and President Trump and the announcement of this package, which is directly aimed at stabilizing the financial crisis, which was generated by the socialist policies which dominated in Argentina for so long. This is a vital economic stability move, but in addition to that, it’s a major sign of confidence from the United States and from the world, which I think translated into more confidence from Argentines in the president of Argentina’s ability to stabilize the economy and try a new path forward.

Morning Wire: Turning to Bolivia. We recently saw a monumental election there  – the first conservative president in 20 years. What is the significance of the election there and does it fit into a larger trend in South America?

Martinez-Fernandez: Yeah, absolutely. It does seem to be certainly part of a broader trend that we’ve seen. In a lot of ways, President Milei was the start of this as far as the current wave of right-of-center leaders coming to power, Bolivia being the most recent. But before that, we saw elections in Ecuador, which solidified a more conservative leader, and also elsewhere in the region. We have upcoming elections in countries like Chile, Brazil, and Peru, where a conservative candidate is well-poised also for victory there. I do think part of that is centering from the impetus that we see from the successes of Argentina, but more broadly, the Trump administration’s very positive engagement with these partners. The shift in Bolivia specifically is historic. This is a country which has just been completely controlled politically by the socialist movement there, which has dominated institutions and weaponized those to maintain power. The people just overwhelmingly, despite all of that, rejected that movement and now have a more conservative leader who has promised to do a series of shifts – not only as far as domestically aligning with more pro-market economic and stable policies, but also as far as shifting toward the United States and Western alliances.