by admin | May 25, 2021 | World
By Corey Blackman,
Washington : President Donald Trump signed a $400 billion budget deal Friday that ended an hours-long government shutdown.
“Just signed Bill. Our Military will now be stronger than ever before. We love and need our Military and gave them everything — and more. First time this has happened in a long time. Also means JOBS, JOBS, JOBS!,” Trump tweeted shortly after signing the legislation.
He sent a successive tweet to try to deflect attention from the massive spending increases he signed into law that he and Republicans railed against during former President Barack Obama’s time in office.
“Without more Republicans in Congress, we were forced to increase spending on things we do not like or want in order to finally, after many years of depletion, take care of our Military,” he said.
The bill includes $300 billion additional spending on the military and domestic agencies. It also raises the country’s debt ceiling that prevents a first-ever default by the federal government.
The House of Representatives passed the bill in a 240-186 vote to end the shutdown in the wee hours of the morning while most Americans were asleep.
The Senate had already approved the bipartisan spending legislation that will extend funding to the government through March 23 and boost disaster aid funding by around $90 billion for Texas, Florida and Puerto Rico that were battered by hurricanes last year.
The spending spikes were passed on the heels of a massive $1.5 trillion tax break passed last month. Combined with the lower tax revenues from those cuts, raising the debt ceiling and the increased spending, economists are concerned the federal deficit will break the $1 trillion barrier sometime during the next fiscal year.
Republican Senator Rand Paul, who made a career of denouncing Obama’s spending, stuck to his fiscal conservative guns and attacked the bill from the chamber’s floor.
“I ran for office because I was very critical of President Obama’s trillion-dollar deficits,” he said. “Now we have Republicans hand in hand with Democrats offering us trillion-dollar deficits. I can’t in all honesty look the other way,”
The brief shutdown follows a three-day shutdown last month that came about because of many of the same spending and social issues.
Missing from the deal was a plan to protect an estimated 800,000 so-called “Dreamers” who were brought to the U.S. as children without proper documentation.
Their fate was thrown into limbo last September after Trump rescinded Obama’s immigration policy known as the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA). He gave Congress until early March to produce a replacement.
But Trump signaled Friday that talks on DACA would begin.
“Fortunately, DACA not included in this bill, negotiations to start now!” he tweeted.
—AA
by admin | May 25, 2021 | World
By Arul Louis,
New York : Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and US President Donald Trump pledged to strengthen security and economic cooperation and build on the Indo-Pacific partnership, according to the White House.
While discussing on telephone on Thursday bilateral cooperation, they looked forward to the “2+2 Meeting” of Defence Minister Nirmala Sitharaman and External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj with US Defence Secretary Jim Mattis and Secretary of State Rex Tillerson in April, a White House statement said.
“The leaders pledged to continue working together to enhance security and prosperity in the Indo-Pacific region,” the statement said. “Affirming President Trump’s South Asia strategy, they reiterated their commitment to supporting Afghanistan’s security and stability.”
In their review of the South Asia and Indo-Pacific regions, the statement said: “Both leaders expressed concern about the political crisis in Maldives and the importance of respect for democratic institutions and rule of law.”
On Afghanistan, which was the keystone of the South Asia Strategy announced in August 2017, they reiterated their commitment to back efforts to support the violence-hit nation’s security and stability.
Closer to India, they discussed ways to address the plight of the Rohingya refugees from Myanmar and the situation in that country, the statement said.
On North Korea, an issue at the top of US foreign policy priorities, the two leaders discussed further steps to denuclearise Pyongyang.
While China is backing Maldivian President Abdulla Yameen amid a political crisis, New Delhi and Washington share a common perspective and want a return to democracy and an end to the state of Emergency declared by Yameen on Monday.
After the Supreme Court overturned the terrorism conviction of former President Mohamed Nasheed as well as the convictions of eight other politicians on several charges, Yameen clamped the Emergency.
Two of the five Supreme Court judges were arrested by government forces and the other three overturned their unanimous ruling ordering the release of the nine politicians.
As part of his South Asia strategy, Trump wanted India to provide more aid to Afghanistan.
He also put Islamabad on notice for harbouring terrorists, and followed it up last month by withholding security assistance to Pakistan estimated at over $1 billion.
In the Indo-Pacific region, Trump is promoting cooperation between the four democracies – India, the US, Japan and Australia – to be a countervailing force to China.
(Arul Louis can be reached at arul.l@ians.in)
—IANS
by admin | May 25, 2021 | World
By Arul Louis,
New York : In a speech bubbling with patriotism and economic policy of America First, President Donald Trump has reiterated the US’ commitment to strengthen its military, protect its borders and reset its trading relationships and appealed to a divided Congress for support.
“The era of economic surrender is over,” Trump declared in his first State of the Union address to Congress on Tuesday night in Washington and said, “We will work to fix bad trade deals and negotiate new ones.”
“We will protect American workers and American intellectual property, through strong enforcement of our trade rules,” he said.
Trump spoke for an hour and 20 minutes in the House chamber of Congress against the backdrop of a large American flag, with Vice President Mike Pence and Speaker Paul Ryan seated behind him.
The Republicans and their supporters repeatedly cheered Trump, while the Democrats, who did not boycott the speech, sat stoically.
The speech, mostly devoted to domestic issues, was punctuated with spectacles for television with Trump calling out to crime victims, business people, beneficiaries of his economic programmes, soldiers, a crippled North Korean refugee and others seated in the audience with anecdotes about them as the cameras zoomed on them amid audience applause.
In a manouevre that mirrors the Congress Party in India, the Democratic Party brought out Representative Joe Kennedy, who is the grandson of the late Robert Kennedy and grandnephew of John F. Kennedy, to deliver the party’s response to Trump.
In outlining his strategic perspective, Trump lumped China and Russia with rogue regimes and terrorist groups that “challenge our interests, our economy, and our values”.
“In confronting these dangers, we know that weakness is the surest path to conflict, and unmatched power is the surest means of our defence,” Trump said, calling on the Congress to fully fund the military.
He included the nuclear arsenal in discussing his defence agenda.
“We must modernise and rebuild our nuclear arsenal, hopefully never having to use it, but making it so strong and powerful that it will deter any acts of aggression,” he said.
In fighting terrorism, Trump recalled his pledge “to extinguish IS from the face of the Earth” and said that the US and its allies have “liberated almost 100 per cent of the territory once held by these killers in Iraq and Syria”.
To combat the Islamic State and the Al Qaeda, Trump asked Congress to ensure “we continue to have all necessary power to detain terrorists — wherever we chase them down”.
“Our warriors in Afghanistan also have new rules of engagement,” Trump said, repeating a dig at former President Barack Obama’s administration, saying, “Along with their heroic Afghan partners, our military is no longer undermined by artificial timelines, and we no longer tell our enemies our plans.”
Trump recalled the UN General Assembly resolution criticising Washington’s decision to recognise Jerusalem as the capital of Israel and move its embassy there.
He used it to push another aspect of his America First policy, Trump asked the Congress to enact laws to ensure that “American foreign-assistance dollars always serve American interests, and only go to America’s friends”.
Iran and North Korea came in for special attention. He criticised the nuclear deal made by the US, the other permanent members of the UN Security Council and Germany with Iran to end its nuclear proliferation and also accused it of destabilising the region.
“North Korea’s reckless pursuit of nuclear missiles could very soon threaten our homeland,” Trump acknowledged. “We are waging a campaign of maximum pressure to prevent that from happening.”
In another criticism of his predecessors, Trump said, “Past experience has taught us that complacency and concessions only invite aggression and provocation.
“I will not repeat the mistakes of past administrations that got us into this dangerous position.”
(Arul Louis can be reached at arul.l@ians.in)
—IANS
by admin | May 25, 2021 | World
By Arul Louis,
New York : US President Donald Trump has called on the Congress to come together to enact sweeping immigration reforms that introduce a merit-based system while ending the inflow of extended family members and building a wall to safeguard the borders.
In his first State of the Union address to the Congress on Tuesday night in Washington, Trump offered to legalise those who were brought into the country illegally as children and ultimately give them citizenship, while cracking down on criminal gangs as part of his reform package to “bring our immigration system into the 21st century”.
Trump did not directly touch on the temporary H1-B visas that are given to professionals, which has become a contentious issue with India. His administration is tightening the scrutiny of the issuance of the visas and he has in the past criticised the system saying it affected American workers.
There was only a passing mention of protecting American workers and of immigration policies that focus on the best interests of American workers and American families in the speech.
“It is time to begin moving towards a merit-based immigration system — one that admits people who are skilled, who want to work, who will contribute to our society and who will love and respect our country,” he said to cheers and applause from Republicans and their supporters, while Democrats sat quietly.
Currently, Indian professionals have a 11-year wait to get their permanent resident status with green cards because of national quota restrictions. A purely merit-based system like those in Canada and Australia, which the administration has proposed, has the potential to help Indians get them sooner.
Trump said that the focus would be on the nuclear family and “chain migration” of brothers, sisters and parents of immigrants would be ended. Limiting immigration to only spouses and children of immigrants would affect other aspiring immigrants from India.
The Democrats have made legalising those brought illegally into the US as children — referred to as “Dreamers” — as a condition for cooperating with the Trump administration.
The President offered in his speech a pathway to citizenship for 1.8 million “Dreamers”, which he said is three times more than the numbers offered by previous administrations. “Those who meet education and work requirements and show good moral character will be able to become full citizens of the US,” he said.
It is estimated that over 5,500 Indian “Dreamers” in danger of deportation when the current programme ends in March could benefit if they are given a permanent reprieve with the possibility of gaining citizenship.
Preventing illegal immigration would require building a wall on the southern border with Mexico and hiring more immigration and border security personnel, Trump said.
In the audience with his family were the parents of two girls who were murdered by members of a notorious Central American gang known as MS-13. He called out to the tearful parents, who received a standing ovation, as he spoke of cracking down on the gang made up of many who came in as unaccompanied minors when Barack Obama was President under a liberal programme he put in place.
“Crucially, our plan closes the terrible loopholes exploited by criminals and terrorists to enter our country — and it finally ends the dangerous practice of ‘catch and release’ under which those who are apprehended by law enforcement are freed,” he said.
(Arul Louis can be reached at arul.l@ians.in)
—IANS
by admin | May 25, 2021 | World
By Arun Kumar,
Washington : His supporters may be a “basket of deplorables”, as presidential rival Hillary Clinton suggested on the campaign trail, but Donald Trump is no basket case as his detractors have insinuated.
Twitter-thumb Trump may well be the most obnoxious egomaniac to ever occupy the White House as left liberal media paints him to be, but he is no “moron” as his exasperated Secretary of State Rex Tillerson is alleged to have once called him.
There is a method to Trump’s madness. His temper tantrums, intemperate tweets, and juvenile taunts all have a purpose: Distract, shoot and scoot. And time and again, the media has fallen for it hook, line and sinker.
Take the President’s latest rant against “shithole countries” in Africa. The alleged remark sent a nebulous bipartisan deal on “dreamers” — illegal immigrants brought to the US as children — down the toilet.
As conservative Washington Examiner aptly summed it up: “Trump was breaking ground on immigration, then it all went to shit.”
But probably that’s what he wanted to up the ante for a larger immigration reforms package that he outlined days after a short-lived shutdown of government with opposition Senate Democratic leader “Crying Chuck” Schumer throwing in the towel too soon.
Even as the media upbraided Trump for his intemperate language, he dangled new hope for the Dreamers — a path to citizenship for 1.8 million of them in return for $25 billion for his “big beautiful wall” on the Mexican border and a merit-based immigration system.
That’s part of the pattern for the author of “The Art of the Deal”. These very tactics have helped “The Donald”, as his first wife lovingly called him, notch up in just one year an impressive list of successes — good, bad or ugly! — despite the Russian “cloud” hanging over his administration.
He has instituted the biggest corporate tax overhaul in 30 years and drastically cut red tape by revoking hundreds of regulations to make it easier to do business. Trump is also rapidly reshaping the judiciary by naming a conservative judge to the Supreme Court and appointing a record 12 federal appellate judges who serve lifelong with hundreds more to come.
At home he has been rewarded by a roaring economy and a soaring stock market. Companies big and small have outlined plans to bring back profits stashed abroad and open new plants, raising minimum wages and giving $1,000 bonuses to workers.
Among them, information technology giant Apple has announced plans to invest a whopping $350 billion and create 20,000 new jobs in the US over the next five years. And corporate titans gathered at Davos too have started warming up to the “America First” President with his declaration that “America is open for business”.
Trump has also upended decades of US foreign policy, rattling allies and foes alike. Islamic State has been virtually crushed, thanks to a free hand given to the military and some help from Russia. Trump has also called Pakistan’s bluff and frozen its funding until it stops harbouring terrorists.
He has pulled out of the non-binding Paris Climate accord, approved two controversial oil pipelines — Keysone XL and Dakota access — and opened up about 90 percent coastal areas for drilling, throwing environmental concerns to the winds.
On the campaign trail, Trump had threatened to tear up the “disastrous” Iran nuclear deal on day one. But he is unlikely to follow through even as he has threatened to walk away from it after signing yet another waiver on sanctions.
Trump has recognised Jerusalem as the Israeli capital and announced plans to move the US embassy there two decades after the Senate passed a law and successive presidents signing waivers with little more than murmurs of disapproval from powerful Muslim nations.
Whether Trump’s actions would have a disastrous effect on climate change or would end hopes of a two-state solution in Palestine is moot. The point is Trump is having his way on all but a few issues.
Trump’s tantalising tweets and taunts have provided a circulation spinning bonanza to the “Failing New York Times” or Very Fake News CNN or other “Dishonest media”, as he has nicknamed them. But by falling for them they have also given The Donald a free pass.
(Arun Kumar can be contacted at arun.kumar@ians.in)
—IANS
