Politico:

The climbdown marks the second such reversal this week.

President Donald Trump on Thursday backed off his threat to shut down the U.S.-Mexico border, marking his second major climbdown this week.

Talking to reporters in the White House, Trump said he would instead give Mexico a “one-year warning” to stop the flow of drugs into the United States and that he would first impose auto tariffs before closing the border.

The reversal comes after fellow Republicans, business groups and even some of his own aides warned him of dire economic consequences if Trump moved forward with his threat.

“The only thing frankly better, but less drastic than closing the border, is to tariff the cars coming in,” Trump said. "We're going to give them a one-year warning and if the drugs don't stop or largely stop, we'll put tariffs on Mexico and products, in particular cars.”

Trump’s shift comes days after he said he would close the border as soon as this week if Mexican leaders were unable to stem the flow of migrants crossing into the U.S. He’s set to head to the southern border on Friday as his administration has sounded the alarm about a recent surge in migrants from Mexico and Central America arriving at the border.

The about-face is the second major one for Trump in a week — the president appeared to bow from public pressure earlier this week when he said he had decided to punt pushing any major health care legislation until after the 2020 election, despite his Justice Department supporting a lawsuit to dismantle the Affordable Care Act.

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