by admin | May 25, 2021 | Commodities, Commodities News, Muslim World
Tehran : The US efforts to ban Iran’s oil exports will be futile as it is not an easy task to block the country’s crude from the global market, an Iranian oil official said on Wednesday.
Although some European companies, such as Shell and Total, have stopped buying Iranian oil over the past few weeks, Iran is still exporting oil to Europe, Asia and elsewhere in the world, officials at the Iranian Petroleum Ministry said.
A day earlier, a senior US State Department official said told the US has been pushing its allies to stop oil imports from Iran by November 4, Xinhua reported.
“This big claim (of cutting Iran oil supply) is not feasible. Last month, Iran exported 2.8 million barrels of crude oil and condensate per day,” the Iranian official said.
“Removing this from the global market in a few months is not possible,” the Iranian official said.
However, “Iran is prepared for the worst-case scenarios” in case the US pressures take effect, he noted.
Meanwhile, “there is no surplus capacity for countries such as Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates to supply oil for a long term,” the official pointed out.
Following US President Donald Trump’s decision to quit the historic Iran nuclear pact on May 8, Washington vowed to re-impose sanctions against Iran and inflict punishments including secondary sanctions on countries that have business links with the Islamic republic.
Firms doing business in Iran were given up to 180 days to terminate investments, before they risk huge fines.
The US withdrawal from the landmark nuclear deal has been widely criticized, as some of its major European allies have been working to prevent the 2015 deal from falling apart.
—IANS
by admin | May 25, 2021 | Investing, World
Washington : US President Donald Trump on Wednesday announced a plan to restrict Chinese investment in US technology companies as part of an effort to fight the theft of intellectual property.
“Certain countries direct and facilitate systematic investment in US companies and assets in order to obtain cutting-edge technologies and intellectual property in industries those countries deem important,” Trump said in a statement released by the White House.
According to the statement, Trump instructed the Treasury Department to investigate acquisitions of assets by foreigners via the Committee on Foreign Investment in the US, a government agency, and report to him “regarding appropriate measures to address these concerns”.
Trump asked Congress to update the 2017 Foreign Investment Risk Review Modernization Act (FIRRMA) to improve protections “from new and evolving threats posed by foreign investment”, Efe news reported.
A better FIRRMA, according to the statement, would provide additional tools for the Trump administration to fight investment practices that threaten US technological leadership, national security and future economic prosperity.
In recent months, Washington and Beijing have raised investors’ concerns about a possible trade war due to the imposition by both sides of tariffs on a variety of products.
Tensions increased in March, when the Trump administration announced tariffs totalling $50 billion on steel and aluminium products imported from China, and Beijing responded with tariffs on 128 US products.
—IANS
by admin | May 25, 2021 | Investing, World
Washington : US President Donald Trump’s administration is set to announce measures this week cracking down on Chinese investment in key technologies in America, a media report said on Monday.
The move is expected to increase tensions in the intensifying trade clash between Washington and Beijing, the CNN report said.
The planned US restrictions on Chinese investments in “industrially significant technology” are in large part fuelled by American concerns about “Made in China 2025” — Beijing’s plan to boost industries like robotics, electric cars and aerospace with the aim of becoming a global leader in those areas.
The measures are set to include rules that would bar firms with at least 25 per cent Chinese ownership from buying companies involved in technology deemed significant by the White House, according to a report late Sunday by The Wall Street Journal.
The limit on Chinese ownership could end up being even lower, it added.
It remains unclear exactly how the Trump administration will define what technology is “industrially significant”.
Neither the Treasury Department, which is drawing up the rules, and the White House comment on the development, CNN reported.
The measures are part of the same broad US move to confront Beijing over its trade practices as the tariffs on $50 billion of Chinese goods that the Trump administration detailed earlier this month.
Beijing has vowed to strike back in equal measure against the tariffs, the first wave of which will take effect on July 6.
The US government says the flurry of measures against China were a response to the theft of American intellectual property and pressure US companies face to hand over technology to Chinese firms in order to do business in the country.
Chinese officials have repeatedly rejected the US allegations, accusing Washington of making unilateral and protectionist moves.
—IANS
by admin | May 25, 2021 | World
Washington : US President Donald Trump cited an “unusual and extraordinary threat” to American national security as he maintained long-standing economic restrictions on North Korea, including the freezing of any assets in Washington, a media report said.
An official declaration, contained in a notice to Congress, came on Friday despite Trump’s assertion this month that his June 12 historic summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un ended Pyongyang’s nuclear weapons threat, reports The Washington Post.
Harsh economic restrictions will continue for one year under the declaration Trump signed Friday.
The paperwork keeps in place restrictions first imposed a decade ago by President George W. Bush.
The ban on the transfer of any American assets by North Korea’s leaders or its ruling party has been extended or expanded several times by former President Barack Obama and Trump himself in response to North Korean missile tests and other actions.
“The existence and risk of proliferation of weapons-usable fissile material on the Korean Peninsula (and_ the actions and policies of the government of North Korea… Continue to constitute an unusual and extraordinary threat to the national security, foreign policy, and economy of the US,” Trump wrote in the declaration.
Friday’s development comes in contrast to a tweet on June 13 where Trump said: “Just landed – a long trip, but everybody can now feel much safer than the day I took office… There is no longer a nuclear threat from North Korea.”
The move follows as the US and South Korea cancelled two more training exercises on Friday, reports the BBC.
The Pentagon said the goal was to support diplomatic negotiations.
—IANS
by admin | May 25, 2021 | Muslim World
Washington : A top US official has reminded Pakistan that it is still “on notice” to eliminate terror havens from its territory and said that Washington wants unequivocal cooperation in ending sanctuaries enjoyed by the Taliban on its soil.
“Pakistan is on notice that we expect its unequivocal cooperation ending sanctuaries that the Taliban have enjoyed since the remnants of their toppled regime fled into Pakistan in 2001,” said Ambassador Alice Wells, Senior Bureau Official for South and Central Asian Affairs, in a testimony before the House Foreign Affairs Committee on Thursday.
Wells told the committee that the current US administration was working with Pakistan to uproot Taliban from its soil.
In this year’s New Year Day message, US President Donald Trump had put Islamabad on notice, accusing it of “taking billions and billions of dollars” from Washington while “housing the same terrorists” that it was supposed to fight. Later, he suspended more than two billion dollars of security aid to Pakistan.
Islamabad had rejected the allegations as “unfounded”.
In her testimony on “US policy towards Afghanistan”, Wells said: “Despite some positive indicators, we have not yet seen Pakistan take the sustained or decisive steps that we would have expected to see 10 months after the announcement of the (Trump administration’s) South Asia strategy.”
In her message to Pakistan, she asked it to work with the US to bring the Taliban to the negotiating table and arrest or expel those elements in the militant group that do not join the peace process.
Talking about Afghanistan, Wells said that the US was encouraging reconcilable elements within the Afghan Taliban to stop fighting in an effort to reduce violence and make the environment conducive for reconciliation.
She identified four key areas where the US was working to help bolster prospects for an eventual settlement.
They were: Supporting Afghan efforts to reduce violence and protect a peace process from spoilers, encouraging all political actors — including the Taliban — to participate in the peace process, supporting Kabul’s efforts to eliminate the conditions that cause militancy and encouraging Afghanistan’s neighbours to back the peace process.
Wells also called upon the Afghan Taliban to snap ties with Al Qaeda, submit to the Constitution and ensure protection of women’s rights.
—IANS
