by admin | May 25, 2021 | Muslim World
Washington : US President Donald Trump’s administration will reimpose the first batch of Iran sanctions on Monday since Washington withdrew from the 2015 nuclear deal.
The more significant tranche of sanctions, including on oil sales, won’t however, come into force until November, reports The Hill news.
Trump announced in May that he was withdrawing the US from the 2015 accord with Iran, Germany, France, the UK, Russia and China.
The deal, which was negotiated by his predecessor Barack Obama, lifted sanctions on Tehran in exchange for curbs on its nuclear programme.
Rather than immediately reimpose sanctions in May, the Trump administration gave companies doing business with Iran two “wind-down” periods.
Monday ends another 90-day period after which Washington can sanction transactions with US dollar banknotes; trade in gold and precious metals; direct or indirect sales of graphite, raw or semi-finished metals and Iran’s automotive sector.
Additionally, licenses for exporting commercial aircraft to Iran, as well as related parts and services, are set to be revoked.
The revocation of export licenses for civil aviation, meanwhile, will hit Boeing and Airbus, which had $40 billion deals to sell aircraft to Iran Air.
The sanctions will go back into place after Trump first threatened and then expressed an openness to meet Iranian President Hassan Rouhani and as the Pentagon is monitoring Iranian military exercises in the Persian Gulf.
—IANS
by admin | May 25, 2021 | Muslim World
Washington : US President Donald Trump announced that he was willing to meet his Iranian counterpart Hassan Rouhani without preconditions and “whenever they want”, a sharp departure from his threats against Tehran last week.
“I would certainly meet with Iran if they wanted to meet,” Trump said on Monday during a joint news conference at the White House alongside Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte.
“I do believe that they will probably end up wanting to meet. I’m ready to meet whenever they want to.
“No preconditions… They want to meet, I’ll meet, whenever they want,” the President added.
Trump also appeared to hedge the possibility of a meeting on an ability to “work something out that’s meaningful”.
Hamid Aboutalebi, an adviser to President Rouhani, tweeted in response to Trump that “returning to the nuclear deal” and “respecting the Iranian nation’s rights” would pave way for talks, reports the BBC.
Such a meeting would be the first between US and Iranian leaders since the 1979 Iranian revolution.
Monday’s olive branch from Trump marks an abrupt shift in tone. The President has been a strident critic of Iran, threatening Tehran with “consequences” on July 22, CNN reported.
The President and his senior officials have ramped up the rhetoric against Tehran, promising to “crush” its economy with international sanctions and accusing it of fomenting terrorism and regional instability, while telling the country’s citizens that their leaders are corrupt.
Washington is preparing to re-impose sanctions on Tehran within days – despite objections from the UK, France, China, Russia and Germany, which also signed the 2015 Iran nuclear deal known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action.
Iran insists its nuclear programme is entirely peaceful, and its compliance with the deal has been verified by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), which has said Iran is honouring its commitments.
—IANS
by admin | May 25, 2021 | World
Beijing : Farmers in the US are paying the price President Dona;d Trump’s trade tactics, China said on Thursday.
Trump posted a tweet on Wednesday alleging that China was attacking the US agricultural sector.
“US farmers are paying for the bullying of their government,” Efe quoted China’s Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Geng Shuang as saying at a press conference on Thursday.
Geng’s statement came after Trump had accused Beijing on Wednesday of hurting US farmers for imposing tariffs on US agricultural products – particularly soybeans – worth $34 billion.
These measures were in response to the first set of tariffs imposed by Trump on Chinese imports – especially technological goods – for the same amount.
Geng reminded that in June 2017 the two sides reached an agreement regarding beef exports from the US to China, and in May this year, the two countries held significant talks in Washington on trade issues with China committing to increasing agricultural imports.
“These agreements could have gone well; regrettably it didn’t turn out that well because of US unilateralism and trade protectionism. (The US) is bent on igniting a trade war with China,” Geng said.
He added that China has been a major buyer of US agricultural products for many years and bilateral cooperation in agriculture had expanded, bringing tangible benefits to both sides.
Trump’s allegations came a day after the US Department of Agriculture announced a plan worth $12 billion to compensate farmers affected by Chinese tariffs, confirming the adverse effect of the trade war for producers.
“China is targeting our farmers, who they know I love & respect, as a way of getting me to continue allowing them to take advantage of the US. They are being vicious in what will be their failed attempt. We were being nice – until now! China made $517 Billion on us last year,” Trump tweeted.
—IANS
by admin | May 25, 2021 | World
By Ovunc Kutlu,
New York: President Donald Trump said Friday he is ready to increase tariffs on goods that the U.S. imports from China to $500 billion.
“I’m ready to go to 500,” he told the CNBC network in an exclusive interview. “I’m not doing this for politics, I’m doing this to do the right thing for our country. We have been ripped off by China for a long time,” he said.
The U.S. imported $505 billion in Chinese goods in 2017, while China imported $130 billion in American products, according to the Commerce Department.
That made China the country that the U.S. has the biggest trade deficit with $375 billion last year.
So far, Washington imposed $34 billion worth of tariffs on China, with $16 billion to come at a later point, and also said it would assess 10 percent tariffs on an additional $200 billion worth Chinese goods.
Yet, Trump said he did not introduce tariffs “out of any ill will towards China,” according to CNBC.
“I don’t want them to be scared. I want them to do well,” Trump said. “I really like President Xi [Jinping] a lot, but it was very unfair,” he said.
Trump said Chinese officials, whom he did not identify, told him that nobody from past U.S. administrations would ever complain about trade relations between the two countries until he came into office.
“Now you’re more than complaining. We don’t like what you’re doing,” Trump said officials told him.
Trump also said the U.S. is “being taken advantage of” on trade and monetary policy.
Earlier, he took a swipe at the Federal Reserve by writing on Twitter that the central bank’s tightening monetary policy “hurts all that we have done” in economy.
In addition, he criticized the Fed for “taking away our big competitive edge” by raising interest rates as the American dollar is getting stronger — hindering the volume of goods the U.S. could export.
Trump told CNBC he is not happy about the Fed’s rate hikes, and argued that every time the economy and the stock market improves “they [the Fed] want to raise rates again.”
—AA
by admin | May 25, 2021 | World
Washington : US President Donald Trump said on Tuesday that his controversial meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin was even better than the annual NATO summit in Brussels, at which he demanded a greater contribution to defense funding by America’s allies.
“While I had a great meeting with NATO, raising vast amounts of money, I had an even better meeting with Vladimir Putin of Russia,” Trump said on his Twitter account.
“Sadly, it is not being reported that way – the Fake News is going Crazy!” he added with his usual disparaging reference to media that crtiicize his government.
The president’s tweets came after receiving massive criticism in the United States, even from his own Republican Party, for his questionable meeting with Putin this Monday in Helsinki.
In a joint press release with Putin, Trump put in doubt the conclusions of US intelligence services that the Kremlin had interfered in the 2016 presidential election to benefit him and undermine the chances of his Democratic rival, Hillary Clinton.
For several months the CIA and FBI intelligence agencies have said they have proof that Russia tried to interfere in the election, though they dismiss the possibility that it could have influenced the final result, which showed Trump defeating Clinton and taking over the White House.
Despite those reports, Trump told a press conference Tuesday that he didn’t see “any reason” why Russia would have wanted to meddle in the American electoral process, and said that “President Putin was extremely strong and powerful in his denial” and had convinced him of his innocence during their summit in Helsinki.
Trump’s support of Putin has set off an endless wave of condemnation in the US, including that of former CIA directors Michael Hayden and John Brennan, and House of Representatives Speaker Paul Ryan.
—IANS
