by admin | May 25, 2021 | World
By Barry Ellsworth,
Trenton, Canada: The U.S. floated the idea Tuesday of separate trade talks with Mexico and Canada rather than a new North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) with the three countries as signatories.
But Canada’s reaction was to immediately dismiss the suggestion.
“As Canada has maintained right from the beginning, we believe in a trilateral NAFTA, we believe that together it’s been a win-win-win for our three economies and all three nations have prospered,” said Andrew Leslie, the parliamentary secretary to the foreign affairs minister in charge of Canada-U.S. relations.
Trade between the three nations totaled about US$1.1 trillion in 2016, about three-and-a-half times that of the first year of the deal in 1994.
Renegotiations on a new NAFTA have been underway since August 2017 and have stalled primarily due to U.S. insistence on a high percentage of American parts used in vehicles made in all three countries. Even if that impasse is overcome, the U.S. also wants a sunset clause that would see the deal renegotiated every five years, something both Canada and Mexico have balked at because they believe it would create an uncertain investment climate.
Larry Kudlow, U.S. President Donald Trump’s economic advisor, said the president is “very seriously contemplating a shift in NAFTA negotiations”.
“His preference now — and he asked me to convey this — is to actually negotiate with Mexico and Canada separately,” Kudlow told Fox News on Tuesday.
He said he conveyed that message on Monday to an official close to Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.
To date, there has been no official public statement from Trudeau.
Kudlow said Trump is not going to walk away from NAFTA negotiations but was interested in a new approach that could include bilateral talks.
—AA
by admin | May 25, 2021 | World
Washington : A phone call between US President Donald Trump and his French counterpart Emmanuel Macron has been described as being “terrible” after the latter candidly criticised the former’s policies, a media report said.
“Just bad. It was terrible,” an informed source told CNN on Monday.
“Macron thought he would be able to speak his mind, based on the relationship. But Trump can’t handle being criticised like that.”
A White House statement said the call on May 31 with Macron was focused on trade and immigration.
“Both leaders discussed the migration problem in Libya, and timelines to solve it. President Trump underscored the need to rebalance trade with Europe,” the statement said.
The call with Macron came the same day the US announced a unilateral decision to slap steel and aluminium tariffs on American allies, including Mexico, Canada, and the European Union, CNN reported.
In a statement issued by the Elysee Palace ahead of the call, Macron said he “regrets the US decision to confirm tariffs in steel and aluminium.”
“This decision is not only illegal, it is a mistake on many points. It is a mistake because it responds to a worldwide unbalance that exists in the worst ways through fragmentations and economic nationalism,” it added.
Trump held a similar call with British Prime Minister Theresa May on Monday.
According to a Downing Street spokesperson, the two leaders discussed the tariffs as well as other matters.
—IANS
by admin | May 25, 2021 | Business Summit, Events, Social Round-up, World
By Arul Louis,
New York : US President Donald Trump is proposing phased negotiations with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, starting with the planned June 12 summit in Singapore during which he does not expect a complete deal on denuclearisation.
At the same time, Trump has also set an ambitious goal for his interactions with Kim aiming for an end to the official 70-year state of war between the US and North Korea.
After a meeting Kim Yong-chol, the North Korean leader’s emissary, in Washington on Friday, Trump confirmed that the Singapore summit he had canceled last week was back on track.
“I think we’re going to have a relationship, and it will start on June 12th,” the President said.
Kim Yong-chol traveled to Washington after two days of negotiations with Secretary of State Mike Pompeo in New York to hand over a letter from Kim Jong-un to Trump.
Trump said that “it ended up being a two-hour conversation with the second most powerful man in North Korea” during which they discussed a whole range of subjects.
Tamping down hopes of an imminent breakthrough, Trump said: “We’re not going to go in and sign something on June 12th and we never were. We’re going to start a process. And I told them today, ‘Take your time. We can go fast. We can go slowly’. But I think they’d like to see something happen.
“You’re talking about years of hostility; years of problems; years of, really, hatred between so many different nations. But I think you’re going to have a very positive result in the end.”
As a goodwill gesture, Trump said that he will not be putting any more sanctions on North Korea, but the existing ones will continue.
Pompeo, however, has asserted that the US won’t budge from the ultimate goal of denuclearising North Korea.
“I have been very clear that President Trump and the United States objective is very consistent and well known: the complete, verifiable, and irreversible denuclearisation of the Korean Peninsula,” he sad on Thursday.
North Korea poses a major threat with the nuclear devices as well as missiles capable of reaching the US mainland that it has developed.
After it tested them last year, the two leaders traded threats and abuses, while the US succeeded in tightening the UN sanctions on North Korea.
Later this year they cooled down and agreed to talk.
While preparations were going on for the talks, there was a burst of “tremendous anger and open hostility” coming out of Pyongyang last month, which Trump cited to call off the talks.
They were provoked by comments from Trump’s new National Security Adviser John Bolton and Vice President Mike Pence invoking a “Libyan model” for dealing with North Korea.
It upset Pyongyang because after Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi shutdown his nuclear programme in 2003 after which he was overthrown and killed in 2011 following attacks by US and its European allies.
Bolton and Pence have been sidelined and Pompeo, whom Trump has praised for negotiating with North Korea, has taken centre stage.
While Trump would score points internationally and domestically by pulling off the summit and soften his hardline image by having the summit, Kim Jong-un appears to be equally invested in the denuclearisation talks that could translate to economic development for his impoverished country that is under severe economic sanctions.
Trump said that if the nuclear issue is resolved, he expected South Korea, Japan and China to provide aid to North Korea, without any cost to the US for rebuilding it.
Trump said that during the meeting with Kim Yong-chol they talked about ending the Korean War which continues formally.
“And there is a possibility of something like that,” he added.
(Arul Louis can be reached at arul.l@ians.in)
—IANS
by admin | May 25, 2021 | World
Washington : US President Donald Trump on Wednesday signed a new bill titled “Right to Try” which allows terminally ill patients to seek drugs that are still experimental and not fully approved by the US Food and Drug Administration.
“As I proudly sign this bill, thousands of terminally ill Americans will have the help, the hope and the fighting chance — and I think it’s going to be better than chance — that they will be cured, that they will be helped, that they will be able to be with their families for a long time, or maybe just for a longer time,” Trump said, Xinhua reported.
Under the legislation, patients who are near death, or who have a disease that is likely to lead to severely premature death, have the right to seek drug treatments that remain in clinical trials after passing phase 1 of the FDA approval process.
The House on Tuesday voted 250-169 in favour of the bill, which the Senate passed in August.
Advocates for the bill say it opens a door for terminally ill people in states that haven’t passed such a law. Critics argue that the legislation disempowers the FDA and won’t make it easier for the patients to access these drugs, local media reported.
“This issue is about real people who are terminally ill, facing the end of the line, and want to have one more shot at life,” said Starlee Coleman with the Goldwater Institute, a conservative public policy think tank based in Phoenix that supports right-to-try legislation.
Right-to-try laws exist in 40 of US 50 states. With the new federal legislation, Coleman argues, patients in states without these laws could save time accessing experimental treatments by eliminating FDA application requirements.
Opponents of the bill, including over 100 patient and provider advocacy groups, say it won’t have a major impact on accessing treatments; on the contrary, it could have a detrimental effect on how the FDA safeguards people’s health.
It is unclear how many Americans have taken advantage of right-to-try laws because the vast majority of states do not have central reporting requirements, said local media reports, noting that there’s no guarantee that insurance companies would pay for these treatments.
—IANS
by admin | May 25, 2021 | World
Washington : US President Donald Trump marked Memorial Day by touting his administration’s achievements and remembered fallen service members, calling their love of country “more deep and more pure than most will ever know”, the media reported.
Trump commemorated the day which is held annually to honour service members who died for the US, with a tweet saying: “Happy Memorial Day! Those who died for our great country would be very happy and proud at how well our country is doing today. Best economy in decades, lowest unemployment numbers for Blacks and Hispanics ever (and women in 18 years), rebuilding our military and so much more. Nice!”
He had also tweeted a video in honour of the holiday.
Later he visited the Arlington National Cemetery where he placed a wreath at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier and stood in silence as a bugle played “Taps”.
“They marched into hell so that America could know the blessings of peace. They died so that freedom could live,” he said.
“To every parent who weeps for a child, to every child who mourns for a parent and to every husband or wife whose heart has been torn in two today we ask God to comfort your pain, to ease your sorrow and to wipe away your tears.
“This is a very special day and today our whole country thanks you, embraces you and pledges to you we will never forget our heroes,” Trump added.
Trump honoured several living veterans in attendance, including former Republican Sen. Bob Dole and Ray Chavez, both World War II veterans. Chavez, at 106, is the oldest-living survivor of the attacks on Pearl Harbor, reports CNN.
However, Trump’s earlier tweet was ridiculed on social media,.
According to statistics from the Department of Labour, the black and Hispanic unemployment rates both reached record lows last month.
The initial quarterly growth figure for 2018 was far from Trump’s promise to hike annual economic growth to 3 per cent, a level he says will be attained as a result of his enormous tax reduction plan including significant tax cuts for companies and, to a lesser degree, for workers, reports Efe news.
The US unemployment rate also fell to 3.9 per cent in April, the first time it has been below 4 per cent since 2000.
—IANS
