Shortly after introducing range-extended and fully electric versions of the Bronco Basecamp in China, Ford opened the order books for its newest off-road offering. While most eyes may still be on the familiar Bronco lineup in the West, this China-market version makes a strong case of its own.

Read: Ford’s Electrified Bronco Arrives In China With A Pop Up Roof Surprise

As we’ve come to expect from pretty much all new cars sold in China, the electrified Bronco is affordable by Western standards and is bound to make some US buyers feel stewing.

Although it bears more than a passing resemblance to a scaled-up and refreshed Bronco Sport, the Basecamp wasn’t drawn from the same blueprint. Instead, it was developed through Ford’s joint venture with Jiangling Motors Corporation (JMC), which has increasingly become the brand’s partner of choice for locally tailored models.

Ford’s foothold in China has eroded significantly over the past decade, with annual sales dropping from over 1.2 million units in 2014 to fewer than 200,000 last year. A model like this, combining familiar design cues with drivetrain options built to local tastes, might just help reverse that disastrous slide.

What Do You Get For The Money?

Ford has confirmed the new Bronco Basecamp will start at 229,800 yuan ($32,300), topping out at 282,800 yuan ($39,800). That pricing roughly mirrors the smaller Bronco Sport sold in the US, which starts at $31,695 and tops out at $40,115 before delivery charges and taxes. But in China, buyers get significantly more than just a roomier body.

Where the American Bronco Sport comes with either a 1.5-liter turbo three-cylinder or a 2.0-liter turbo four, the Basecamp goes fully electric with a 105.4 kWh battery and twin motors generating 445 hp. On a full charge, it’s rated for up to 404 miles (650 km).

Then there’s the range-extender version. This alternative setup pairs a 1.5-liter turbocharged engine with dual electric motors and a 43.7 kWh battery pack. The result is 416 hp and a claimed 137 miles (220 km) of electric-only range. Thanks to the engine topping up the battery as needed, total driving range stretches to 758 miles (1,220 km) on China’s optimistic CLTC cycle.

Longer, Wider, Better?

The new SUV shares its 116.1-inch (2,950 mm) wheelbase with the full-size four-door Bronco sold in the US, offering a noticeably longer body than America’s more compact Bronco Sport, which measures just 105.1 inches (2,670 mm) between the axles.

At 197.8 inches (5,025 mm) in overall length, it also outstretches both of its siblings, eclipsing the standard Bronco by over eight inches and the Bronco Sport by more than two feet.

This Chinese model is also laden with other important features. This includes a roof-mounted LiDAR as part of a suite of more than 30 sensors and cameras, enabling advanced driver assistance functions.

The cabin is also a far cry from the American Bronco and Bronco Sport and includes a 15.6-inch infotainment display, a digital gauge cluster, and a 70-inch head-up display.

It might not wear the Bronco badge in quite the same spirit as the American original, but for China’s EV-hungry buyers, that may not matter much. For now, Ford has no plans to export the Bronco Basecamp, and even if that changes, North America almost certainly won’t be on the list.

Dozens of countries had called for a clear "roadmap" to transition away from the use of coal, oil and natural gas. The U.S. did not participate in the negotiations.

(Image credit: Andre Penner)

President Donald Trump meets with New York City Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani n the Oval Office on Nov. 21, 2025. (Photo by Andrew Harnik/Getty Images)

WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump and New York City Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani turned around their heated criticism in remarks to the press after an Oval Office meeting Friday.

After months of attacking each other, Trump and Mamdani pledged to address the high cost of living for New Yorkers. The White House has tried to steer messaging toward affordability in recent weeks as Trump’s approval ratings on the economy have sunk. 

“Some of his ideas really are the same ideas I have,” Trump said. “You know the new word is affordability. Another word is just groceries. It’s sort of an old-fashioned word, but it’s very accurate. They’re coming down.”

Food prices have risen considerably in recent years. Groceries overall cost 3.1% more than they did a year ago, according to the government’s latest Consumer Price Index.

Mamdani campaigned on lowering the cost of living, including property tax reform, making buses free and floating the idea of city-run grocery stories.

The mayor-elect described the meeting as “a productive meeting focused on a place of shared admiration and love, which is New York City, and the need to deliver affordability to New Yorkers.”

“We spoke about rent, we spoke about groceries, we spoke about utilities, we spoke about the different ways in which people are being pushed out, and I appreciated the time with the president,” Mamdani said.

The pair fielded questions on housing costs, crime, whether either of them would retract their recent barbs and whether Trump would backtrack his threats to cut federal money to New York City.

“Well, I think if we didn’t get along, whether it’s cut off or just make it a little bit difficult, or not give as much, we want to see,” Trump said.

“We had a meeting today that actually surprised me. He wants to see no crime. He wants to see housing being built. He wants to see rents coming down. All things that I agree with. Now, we may disagree how we get there,” Trump added.

In response to a question about GOP Rep. Elise Stefanik, a Trump ally, calling Mamdani a “jihadist” as she eyes the New York gubernatorial seat, Trump said “she’s out there campaigning, and you say things sometimes in a campaign.”

“I met with a man who is a very rational person. I met with a man who wants to see, really wants to see, New York be great again,” Trump continued, adding “I’ll be cheering for him.”

Mamdani will be the city’s first Muslim mayor, as well as the youngest ever elected.

Mamdani sought meeting

Mamdani said he sought the meeting with Trump.

“My team reached out to the White House to set up this meeting because I will work with anyone to make life more affordable for the 8 and a half million people who call this city home,” Mamdani said in a press conference Thursday.

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters Thursday the meeting “speaks to the fact that President Trump is willing to meet with anyone.”

“It speaks volumes that tomorrow we have a communist coming to the White House.”

Trump and congressional Republicans have repeatedly referred to the 34-year-old Mamdani as a “communist.” Mamdani, who ran on the Democratic ticket, identifies as a Democratic Socialist, an organization that claims roughly 85,000 members nationally. The ideology as a movement received a boost after the 2016 presidential run of U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders, an independent who represents Vermont and caucuses with Democrats.

Mamdani beat out former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo this month by a 50.4% to 41% margin, according to the New York Times election coverage. Republican candidate Curtis Sliwa took just over 7% of the vote. Cuomo, who ran as an independent, resigned from office in 2021 after multiple women accused him of sexual harassment.

Trump endorsed Cuomo, seemingly reluctantly, on the eve of the election, in a post on his social media platform Truth Social.

“Whether you personally like Andrew Cuomo or not, you really have no choice,” he wrote. “You must vote for him, and hope he does a fantastic job. He is capable of it, Mamdani is not!”

Threat to pull funding

As Mamdani’s campaign gained momentum, Trump threatened to cut off billions in federal funding to New York City, Trump’s own home city.

Trump repeated the threat on election eve, writing on Truth Social that if Mamdani won, New York City would be a “total economic and social disaster” and that NYC should not expect any federal dollars “other than the very minimum as required.”

In Mamdani’s victory speech, he referred to Trump as a “despot.”

In July, Trump threatened to arrest Mamdani if the incoming mayor does not comply with the administration’s mass deportation campaign, including sending an influx of Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers to New York City.

Farmworkers gather produce near Hemet, Calif. The Trump administration is making it easier for farmers to employ guest workers from other countries. (Photo by Mario Tama/Getty Images)

In a tacit admission that U.S. food production requires foreign labor, the Trump administration is making it easier for farmers to employ guest workers from other countries.

At the same time, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) in recent months appears to be refraining from conducting agricultural workplace raids, even as it scours Democratic-led cities for immigrants who are in the country illegally.

“We really haven’t seen agriculture targeted with worksite enforcement efforts, and early this year we did,” said Julia Gelatt, associate director of U.S. immigration policy at the Migration Policy Institute, a nonpartisan think tank.

The shifts come as many Americans are concerned about the rising cost of food, creating political problems for a president who campaigned on lowering them. Last week, the administration also announced it would lift tariffs on some foreign food products, including bananas, beef, coffee and tomatoes.

To ease labor shortages on farms and ranches, the administration last month made changes to the federal H-2A visa program, which allows employers to hire foreign workers for temporary agricultural jobs when there aren’t enough U.S.-born workers available. Under the new rule, the Department of Homeland Security will approve H-2A visas more quickly.

“Our immigration system has been broken for decades, and we finally have a President who is enforcing the law and prioritizing fixing programs farmers and ranchers rely on to produce the safest and most productive food supply in the world,” the U.S. Department of Agriculture said in an email to Stateline.

But the move to increase the supply of foreign agricultural workers conflicts with a July statement by Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins that “the promise to America, to ensure that we have a 100% American workforce, stands.”

Rollins also said the administration was committed to the mass deportation of immigrants who are here illegally, but that it would be “strategic so as not to compromise our food supply.” Ultimately, she said, the solution would be increased automation of agricultural jobs.

The government has issued about 420,000 H-2A visas for agricultural workers every year since 2023, which amounts to about half of the 812,000 agricultural worker jobs. They are concentrated in states that grow fruits and vegetables as opposed to grains, which are increasingly planted and harvested using machines. The government expects an additional 119,000 visas to be issued under the new rule.

Almost half the H-2A visas in the 2025 fiscal year were in Florida (60,000), Georgia (44,000), California (37,000), Washington state (36,000) and North Carolina (28,000).

Lower wages

The new H-2A rule also includes new hourly wage guidelines that vary by state but are lower than previous wages, and allows employers to charge workers for housing that used to be free. In North Carolina, for instance, the new rate is $11.09 for unskilled workers compared with $16.16 last year. In California, the rate is $13.45 for unskilled workers compared with $19.97 last year, though minimum wage laws in California and some other states would apply to those jobs, according to a Cornell University analysis.

In North Carolina, farmers are looking forward to lower labor costs, said Lee Wicker, deputy director of the North Carolina Growers Association, a trade association that brought 11,000 guest workers to the state through the H-2A guest worker program last year.

“If you think farmers are making more money in these conditions, you’re wrong. They’re going broke,” Wicker said. Workers will take a pay cut under new guidelines and will have to pay for housing, but that may help farmers stave off bankruptcy, he said.

“I’m not saying the workers are going to be happy about this, but I think they’ll come back. Wages have gone down before and they kept coming,” he added.

Jeffrey Dorfman, an agricultural and resource economics professor at North Carolina State University, said the changes will be a boon to the state’s farmers.

“The move to lower the H-2A wages by the Trump administration will be very well received by growers in North Carolina and will save farmers tens of millions of dollars statewide,” Dorfman said. “For many farmers, it will turn money-losing crops into money-making crops, if prices stay about where they are now.”

Unionized California farmworkers are opposed to the pay cuts and loss of free housing in the new guest worker visa plan, said Antonio De Loera-Brust, a spokesperson for the United Farm Workers, which represents about 10,000 workers in California.

The union sued the administration over ICE raids in the fields earlier this year, but recently “it’s been pretty quiet,” he said.

“For us it’s been really a one-two punch,” De Loera-Brust said. “First came the raids, which hurt workers, and now in order to appease business interests, they make all these concessions on wages and the guest workers program.”

Fewer raids

The administration quickly walked back a June directive to avoid raids on the agriculture and hospitality industries. Nevertheless, ICE raids on those employers have been more infrequent in the months since.

In June, ICE raided a dairy farm in New Mexico and a meatpacking plant in Nebraska. Since then, the agency has raided only a handful of food and agriculture employers, such as a July raid on a California marijuana grower and an Arizona restaurant chain, and a September raid to arrest Wisconsin dairy workers.

Earlier this month, ICE agents descended on an onion farm in Northern California, arresting four immigrants on charges of illegally selling farmworker visas.

Even as ICE ramps up its activity in North Carolina cities such as Charlotte and Raleigh, Wicker, of the growers trade group, said farms in the state have not been targeted.

Gelatt, of the Migration Policy Institute, said that’s been true of farms and ranches in many states since June.

“In past administrations we’ve seen a very quiet de-emphasis of immigration enforcement at farms. You don’t need to make an announcement. You don’t need to fight in the courts,” Gelatt said. “It is possible just to direct enforcement activities away from farms. It’ll be hard to know if that’s happened now, but I would not be surprised.”

While farmworkers in California are seeing some relief from raids, life is still uneasy for them, De Loera-Brust said.

“Overall, they have clearly slowed down [raids] in ag areas, but that’s not policy. They could resume at any time. People are living with uncertainty,” he said.

Stateline reporter Tim Henderson can be reached at thenderson@stateline.org.

A U.S. Department of Education regulation slated to take effect in July 2026 would give the secretary broad discretion to decide which organizations qualify for a program to forgive student loans for borrowers that enter public service. (Getty Images)

WASHINGTON — A new U.S. Department of Education regulation to narrow eligibility for a key student debt relief program for public service workers has drawn strong opposition from advocates who argue the regulation is an attempt to target organizations whose missions do not align with President Donald Trump’s agenda. 

Under a final rule slated to take effect in July, employers that participate in “unlawful activities such that they have a substantial illegal purpose” would be excluded from the Public Service Loan Forgiveness program, which is meant to encourage college graduates to pursue careers in public service.

The language of the final rule, which focuses on issues such as gender-affirming care and illegal immigration, has also raised concerns it meant to enforce the Trump administration’s priorities.

At least three lawsuits from Democratic attorneys general, cities, labor unions and nonprofit advocacy groups argue that the regulation is overly vague and exceeds the department’s authority. 

The rule would hurt not only the institutions that benefit from the program, but the public service workers themselves, Winston Berkman-Breen, legal director at the advocacy group Protect Borrowers, told States Newsroom.

“It’s not just about the macro effect of whether these organizations, including governments, will be able to do the work they do,” he said. “It’s also the individual financial health and security of borrowers and their households that will be really, really detrimentally affected by this rule, and we’re already sort of seeing that happen.” 

The organization is representing a coalition of cities, nonprofit advocacy groups and labor unions in one of the lawsuits over the regulation. 

Here’s a closer look at the policy and what it would mean for borrowers and employers: 

What is Public Service Loan Forgiveness?

Congress created the Public Service Loan Forgiveness program, or PSLF, in 2007 via the College Cost Reduction and Access Act to incentivize people to take on public service careers. 

PSLF forgives the remaining student debt for borrowers after they make 120 qualifying monthly payments while working for an eligible employer. 

How will the regulation work? 

The department’s final rule — which stems from a March executive order — is only forward-looking, meaning workers would not lose any credit earned prior to the July 1, 2026, effective date. 

Under the policy, the Education secretary can determine “by a preponderance of the evidence” that an employer has taken part in “illegal activities such that the organization has a substantial illegal purpose.” 

Affected employers can either reapply to serve as a qualifying employer after 10 years or try to regain eligibility in a quicker timeframe if they enter into a “corrective action plan” that needs the secretary’s approval. 

The activities that could disqualify employers, according to the department, include: 

• “Aiding and abetting” illegal immigration or “illegal discrimination”
• Providing gender-affirming care
• Supporting terrorism or “engaging in violence for the purpose of obstructing or influencing” federal government policy
• Trafficking children across states “for purposes of emancipation from their lawful parents”
• Violating state laws

What’s the debate about?

Though the administration has framed the rule as an effort to punish “criminal activity,” advocates and Democratic officials see it as a way to target organizations that are not aligned with the administration’s goals.

“The bases for the disqualification that are in the final rule for the secretary of Education are pretty clearly just proxies for being engaged in activities that this administration doesn’t agree with or that don’t align with its agenda,” Berkman-Breen said.

He pointed to supporting immigrant communities, gender-affirming care, transgender rights, diverse hiring, teaching an accurate portrayal of racial history in this country and the right to peaceful protest as examples. 

Berkman-Breen said these activities are “very clearly things that this administration in other parts of the government has already attacked in civil society and in the states and local communities, but they’re now bringing that sort of attack into the Public Service Loan Forgiveness program.”

In response to a request for comment, the department shared a statement from Under Secretary of Education Nicholas Kent, who said “it is unconscionable that the plaintiffs are standing up for” what he describes as “criminal activity.” 

“This is a commonsense reform that will stop taxpayer dollars from subsidizing organizations involved in terrorism, child trafficking, and transgender procedures that are doing irreversible harm to children,” he said. “The final rule is crystal clear: the Department will enforce it neutrally, without consideration of the employer’s mission, ideology, or the population they serve.”

How will employers be affected? 

Michele Zampini, associate vice president for federal policy and advocacy at the Institute for College Access & Success, said the final rule will divert nonprofits’ ability to focus on their mission and impede their ability to keep staff on and attract new workers.

The final rule “will have the effect of putting a lot of nonprofits doing a lot of really important work in their communities in a defensive position, whether they’re being preemptively defensive to try and avoid running afoul of the administration, or whether they’re already kind of in a position where the administration has identified them as a target,” she said. 

Zampini, whose group aims to advance affordability, accountability and equity in higher education, added that the program was crucial in attracting talent to service-oriented work. 

“PSLF is a big part of what … enables people to take on what may be lower-paying jobs in exchange for being able to manage their debt over time,” she said. “If people don’t have that option, or even if they feel like they don’t have that option or are afraid they won’t have that option, it becomes a lot harder to kind of attract people to those roles.” 

What legal challenges have come out against the policy? 

The administration is already facing a handful of lawsuits over the final rule, with critics urging federal courts to vacate the policy and deem it “unlawful.”

The challengers include a slew of cities, labor unions and nonprofit advocacy groups who filed suit in a Massachusetts federal court Nov. 3. 

Another lawsuit was brought the same day in the same federal court from Democratic attorneys general in Arizona, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, the District of Columbia, Hawaii, Illinois, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Nevada, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont, Washington state and Wisconsin. 

Four nonprofit advocacy groups also filed a suit in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia on Nov. 4 against the administration over the rule.