Trump says tech leaders and mayor changed his mind about using federal force in San Francisco

SAN FRANCISCO: President Donald Trump was geared up for a show of federal force in San Francisco, a city he’s blasted as everything wrong with liberal governance. Then conversations with some of the Bay Area’s most prominent tech leaders and the mayor changed his mind.
“I got a great call from some incredible people, some friends of mine, very successful people,” Trump told reporters Thursday at the White House, specifically referencing Jensen Huang, the CEO of Nvidia, one of the world’s most valuable tech companies, and Marc Benioff, CEO of software company Salesforce.
He said they told him San Francisco was working hard to reduce crime. “So we are holding off that surge, everybody. And we’re going to let them see if they can do it,” Trump said. He said he could change his mind if it “doesn’t work out.”
Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said
Trump said the increased federal force had been planned for Saturday. He didn’t specify whether he was just referring to National Guard troops, which he had threatened to send in, or if he would also halt a potential ramp up of immigration enforcement. US Customs and Border Protection agents arrived at a US Coast Guard base near the city on Thursday morning, drawing protesters.
US Immigration and Customs Enforcement informed Alameda County Sheriff Yesenia Sanchez that the operation had been called off for the entire Bay Area, a nine-county region of about 8 million people, Sgt. Roberto Morales, a spokesman for the sheriff, said Friday.
A careful approach to Trump
Outreach from billionaire CEOs clearly had a hand in the rare reprieve Trump handed a Democrat-led city. But Trump also credited Mayor Daniel Lurie, who has worked to avoid direct confrontation with the Republican president since both took office in January. Lurie has governed as an earnest and relentless cheerleader of San Francisco, and repeatedly refused to weigh in on national politics or to mention Trump’s name.
Instead, he’s focused on local issues — public safety, luring back business and reversing the city’s pandemic-fueled decline. When Trump said repeatedly earlier this week that he’d send the National Guard into San Francisco to quell crime, Lurie noted overall crime is down 26 percent compared to last year and car break-ins are at a 22-year low.
“I told the mayor, I love what you’re doing, I respect it, and I respect the people that are doing it,” Trump said, referencing a phone call the two had Wednesday.
An heir to the Levi Strauss fortune and anti-poverty philanthropist, Lurie is a centrist Democrat who had never held office until he ousted then-Mayor London Breed in last November’s election. He has stated no other political aspirations than to improve the city and has said that he will work with anyone who wants to do the same.
Lurie said he told Trump that he welcomes the city’s “continued partnership” with the Drug Enforcement Agency and other federal authorities to get illegal narcotics off the streets and contribute to San Francisco’s falling crime rates. Fentanyl has been a major scourge on the city’s streets.
“But having the military and militarized immigration enforcement in our city will hinder our recovery,” Lurie said.
Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem said Friday that her department won’t tolerate violence like the truck that rammed into a Coast Guard station in the San Francisco Bay Area on Thursday night. She said during a news conference in Minneapolis that she had discussed the incident with Trump and suggested the president could change his mind about holding off a federal enforcement surge if more violence occurs.
If they “don’t figure out how to protect our law enforcement officers and protect our Coast Guard members, that we would be forced to come in and protect those individuals,” she said.
City reacts with praise and skepticism
Former US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, a San Francisco Democrat, praised Lurie on social media, saying that he “has demonstrated exceptional leadership.” Steve Kerr, Golden State Warriors head coach, called him an “absolute superstar” responsible for the good things happening in San Francisco.
The office of California Gov. Gavin Newsom, a former San Francisco mayor, said on X that, “Trump, has finally, for once, listened to reason.” Newsom, for his part, has repeatedly sparred with Trump, particularly after Trump deployed the California National Guard to Los Angeles against Newsom’s wishes.
But others are skeptical that Trump will keep his word. Indeed, Trump said he was giving Lurie “a chance” to turn things around and said the federal government could “take criminals out” much faster.
“We cannot trust Trump,” said San Francisco Supervisor Connie Chan, a progressive who runs politically left of Lurie but has a good working relationship with the mayor.
San Francisco Supervisor Jackie Fielder, who is also more politically liberal than Lurie, said in a statement that she disagrees with Lurie’s desire to coordinate more with federal law enforcement, saying that “is a dangerous invitation to a fascist administration.”
CEOs make an appeal
Trump said he received “four or five calls” from business leaders urging him not to send federal force and to let city leaders continue to work on reducing crime.
“They’re the biggest people in the world, a lot of the high tech,” he said at the White House. “They want to do it. And I said, ‘I am so honored to let you do it. And if it doesn’t work out, we’ll do it for you very quickly.’”
Benioff of Salesforce, who also owns Time magazine, told the New York Times earlier this month that he’d welcome Guard troops to help quell crime ahead of his major annual business conference. He quickly face backlash and then apologized, saying the troops weren’t needed. He confirmed to The Associated Press that he spoke to Trump but did not provide more details. Nvidia declined to comment.
In announcing his decision to back off a surge, Trump did not mention other cities in the Bay Area, including Oakland, where he has also threatened to send in federal troops.
Some other Democrats who have also taken a less combative approach to Trump have avoided his focus as he deploys Guard troops around the country. He has not, for example, focused on Detroit despite criticism of the city. Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer has tried to engage with Trump including with White House visits.

TENGRELA: Tanker driver Baba steeled himself for yet another perilous journey from Ivory Coast to Mali loaded up with desperately needed fuel — and fear.
“You never know if you’ll come back alive,” he said.
Even before they hit the road, the mere mention of a four-letter acronym is enough to scare Baba and his fellow drivers.
JNIM, the Al-Qaeda-linked Group to Support Islam and Muslims, known by its Arabic acronym, declared two months ago that no tanker would cross into Mali from any neighboring country.
Hundreds of trucks carrying goods from the Ivorian economic hub Abidjan or the Senegalese capital Dakar have since been set on fire.
The JNIM’s strategy of economic militant aims to choke off Mali’s capital Bamako and the ruling military junta, which seized power in back-to-back coups in 2020 and 2021.
The fuel blockade has made everyday life in the west African country all but impossible.
“By economically strangling the country, the JNIM is looking to win popular support by accusing the military government of incompetence,” Bakary Sambe from the Dakar-based Timbuktu Institute think tank said.
On top of that, Mali has a “structural problem of insecurity,” he added.
Despite it all, dozens of tanker truckers still brave the roads, driven on by “necessity” and “patriotism,” they say.
AFP spoke to several along the more than 300-kilometer (185-mile) road between the northern Ivorian towns of Niakaramandougou and Tengrela, the last one before the Malian border.

- Dying ‘for a good cause’ -

“We do it because we love our country,” Baba, whose name AFP has changed out of security concerns, said.
“We don’t want Malians to be without fuel,” added the 30-year-old in a Manchester United shirt.
Taking a break parked up at Niakaramandougou, five hours from the border, Mamadou Diallo, 55, is similarly minded.
“If we die, it’s for a good cause,” he confided.
Further north at Kolia, Sidiki Dembele took a quick lunch with a colleague, their trucks lined up on the roadside, engines humming.
“If the trucks stop, a whole country will be switched off,” he said, between mouthfuls of rice.
Two years ago, more than half of the oil products exported by Ivory Coast went to Mali.
Malian trucks load up at Yamoussoukro or Abidjan and then cross the border via Tengrela or Pogo, traveling under military escort once inside Mali until their arrival in Bamako.
Up to several hundred trucks can be escorted at a time, but even with the military by their side, convoys are still frequently targeted, especially on two key southern axes.
“Two months ago, I saw militants burn two trucks. The drivers died. I was just behind them. Miraculously they let me through,” Moussa, 38, in an oil-stained red polo T-shirt, said.
Bablen Sacko also narrowly escaped an ambush.
“Apprentices died right behind us,” he recalled, adding firmly: “Everyone has a role in building the country. Ours is to supply Mali with fuel. We do it out of patriotism.”

- ‘Risk premium’ -

But their pride is mixed with bitterness over their working conditions.
“No contract, no insurance, no pension. If you die, that’s that. After your burial, you’re forgotten,” Sacko said.
With monthly pay of barely 100,000 CFA francs ($175, 152 euros) and a small bonus of 50,000 CFA francs per trip, Yoro, one of the drivers, has called for a risk premium.
Growing insecurity has prompted some Ivorian transport companies to halt road travel into Mali.
In Boundiali, Broulaye Konate has grounded his 45-strong fleet.
“I asked a driver to deliver fertilizer to Mali. He refused. The truck is still parked in Abidjan,” he said.
Ivorian trucker Souleymane Traore has been driving to Mali for seven years but said lately “you take to the road with fear in your heart.”
He recently counted 52 burnt-out tankers on his way back to Ivory Coast and another six on a further stretch of road.
Malian Prime Minister Abdoulaye Maiga has referred to the fuel that manages to get through as “human blood,” in recognition of the soldiers and drivers killed on the roads.
Analyst Charlie Werb from Aldebaran Threat Consultants said he did not anticipate the fuel situation easing in the coming days but said the political climate was more uncertain.
“I do not believe JNIM possesses the capability or intent to take Bamako at this time, though the threat it now poses to the city is unprecedented,” he added.

Trump says tech leaders and mayor changed his mind about using federal force in San Francisco