During a recent visit to Wisconsin, President Donald Trump announced he was signing an Executive Order reviewing the visa program that brings many technical workers to the United States, known as the H1B visa. About 85,000 workers come to the United States annually using an H1B visa. More from VOA’s Kane Farabaugh
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President Donald Trump will spend his 100th day in office talking tough on trade in one of the states that delivered his unlikely win.

The president is expected to sign an executive order Saturday that will direct his Commerce Department and the U.S. Trade Representative to perform a comprehensive study of the nation’s trade agreements to determine whether America is being treated fairly by its trading partners and the 164-nation World Trade Organization.

It’s one of two executive orders the president will sign at a shovel factory in Pennsylvania’s Cumberland County, the kind of place that propelled his surprise victory.

Rally in Pennsylvania 

The last week has been a frenzy of activity at the White House as Trump and his team have tried to rack up accomplishments and make good on campaign promises before reaching the symbolic 100-day mark. In addition to the visit to the Ames tool factory, which has been manufacturing shovels since 1774, the president will hold one of his signature campaign rallies in Harrisburg to cap the occasion.

It’s a return to fundamentals for a president who has, in recent days, sounded wistful reflecting on his term so far.

Earlier this week, Trump announced his intention to work to renegotiate the North American Free Trade Agreement. He also said he would begin renegotiating a free trade deal with South Korea, with which the U.S. has a significant trade deficit.

Trade discussed every day

“There isn’t a day that goes by that the president doesn’t discuss some aspect of trade,” Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross said at the White House Friday.

The executive orders signed Saturday will mark Trump’s 31st and 32nd since taking office, the most of any president in his first 100 days since World War II. It’s a jarring disconnect from Trump’s rhetoric during the campaign, when he railed against his predecessor’s use of the tool, which has the benefit of not needing congressional sign-off.

The more significant of the two orders will give the Commerce Department and the U.S. Trade Representative 180 days to identify violations and abuses under the country’s trade agreements and recommend solutions.

World Trade Organization outdated 

Ross said the WTO, the Geneva-based arbiter of world trade rules, is bureaucratic and outdated and needs an overhaul. Ross downplayed the possibility that the United States would consider leaving the organization but didn’t rule it out. 

“As any multilateral organization, there’s always the potential for modifying the rules,” he said.

The administration argues that unfair competition with China and other trade partners has wiped out millions of U.S. factory jobs. Ross said dissatisfaction with trade policy is one reason voters turned to Trump.

“They’re fed up with having their jobs go offshore. They’re fed up with some of the destructive practices,” he said. “So in effect, the country said in this last election: It’s about time to fix these things. And the president heard that message.”

Trump, who campaigned on a vow to crack down on China and other trading partners, has announced several other moves on trade in recent weeks. He ordered the Commerce Department to study the causes of the United States’ massive trade deficit in goods, $734 billion last year, $347 billion with China alone. The administration is also imposing duties on Canadian softwood timber and is investigating whether steel and aluminum imports pose a threat to national security.

Ross said Friday that the WTO is too narrowly focused on limiting traditional tariffs — taxes on imports — and does little to counter less conventional barriers to trade or to police violations of intellectual property rights.

Trump has pushed a model of “reciprocal trade” agreements in which the U.S. would raise or lower tariffs on a country’s imports depending on how that country treats the U.S.
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President Donald Trump is re-opening for oil exploration areas that President Barack Obama had closed, a move that environmental groups have promised to fight.

In an executive order Friday, the president reversed the Obama administration’s decision to prohibit oil and gas drilling in the Arctic waters off Alaska.

The order also instructs the Interior Department to review current restrictions on energy development in the Atlantic Ocean and Gulf of Mexico. In addition, it bars the creation or expansion of marine sanctuaries and orders a review of all areas protected within the last 10 years.

Trump cites advantages

The White House says 90 billion barrels of oil and 327 trillion cubic feet of natural gas are buried off the U.S. coastline, but 94 percent of the area is off limits.

“Renewed offshore energy production will reduce the cost of energy, create countless new jobs and make America more secure and far more energy independent,” Trump said at a signing ceremony at the White House.

The action is the latest from the Trump administration aimed at boosting domestic energy production and loosening environmental regulations.

In his first 100 days, Trump has relaxed coal mine pollution rules and ordered a review of vehicle efficiency standards and power plant greenhouse gas rules. His administration has stopped defending Obama-era pollution regulations challenged in court.

The energy industry has cheered the moves. Environmental groups have promised strong opposition.

Fragile ecosystems

Conservationists have long opposed oil drilling in the Arctic. A spill would devastate the region’s fragile ecosystems, they say, while extreme conditions raise the risks of a spill and make cleanup harder.

Fishing and tourism on the Atlantic coast and Gulf of Mexico would suffer from an accident, too, environmentalists note.

“By his actions today, President Trump has sent a clear message that he prioritizes the oil and gas industry over the needs of working Americans in our coastal communities who depend on healthy fishing and tourism economies for their livelihoods,” Environmental Defense Fund Vice President Elizabeth Thompson said in a statement.

Reviewing and rewriting the current offshore drilling plans are expected to take several years. Environmental groups plan legal challenges to the changes.

 
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The latest economic data indicate the U.S. economy is growing at the slowest rate in three years. The GDP or gross domestic product, the broadest measure of all goods and services produced in the country, increased at a disappointing 0.7 percent annual rate, according to new government estimates released Friday.  That’s the weakest performance since 2014, as consumer spending stayed flat and business inventories remained small.  

Analysts say that’s bound to be a disappointment to U.S. President Donald Trump who predicted strong economic growth on day one, once he took over the White House. 

“Remember candidate Trump talked about GDP of about 5 percent and paraphrasing, perhaps something much, much stronger,” said Bankrate.com senior analyst Mark Hamrick. 

“Most economists believe the track for the U.S. economy for the intermediate future is going to be very familiar to what has been seen over the last number of years, and that’s somewhere between one and probably 2.5 percent on an annual basis.”

The U.S. economy grew at a 2.1 percent pace in the fourth quarter of 2016.  But economists say first quarter estimates tend to be notoriously low for a number of reasons.  

“In some years it’s been because of bad weather that kept people in their homes, keeping them from purchasing things but it’s also believed to be somewhat flawed statistically — meaning that what’s actually happening in the economy isn’t being perfectly captured by government statistics,” Hamrick tells VOA.  “It ends up being an estimate and most of them are not perfect”.

Most economists say the first quarter estimate should not be seen as a true measure of U.S. economic health. 

Other indicators suggest a more positive outlook. The U.S. unemployment rate is near a 10-year low at 4.5 percent, consumer and business sentiment are rising and major U.S. stock indexes are near record highs.
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Qualcomm slashed its profit expectations Friday by as much as a third after saying that Apple is refusing to pay royalties on technology used in the iPhone.

Its shares hit a low for 2017.

Apple Inc. sued Qualcomm earlier this year, saying that the San Diego chipmaker has abused its control over essential technology and charged excessive licensing fees. Qualcomm said Friday that Apple now says it won’t pay any fees until the dispute is resolved. Apple confirmed Friday that it has suspended payments until the court can determine what is owed.

“We’ve been trying to reach a licensing agreement with Qualcomm for more than five years but they have refused to negotiate fair terms,” Apple said. “As we’ve said before, Qualcomm’s demands are unreasonable and they have been charging higher rates based on our innovation, not their own.”

Qualcomm said it will continue to vigorously defend itself in order to “receive fair value for our technological contributions to the industry.”

But the effect on Qualcomm, whose shares have already slid 15 percent since the lawsuit was filed by Apple in January, was immediate.

Qualcomm now expects earnings per share between 75 and 85 cents for the April to June quarter. Its previous forecast was for earnings per share between 90 cents and $1.15.

Revenue is now expected to be between $4.8 billion and $5.6 billion, down from its previous forecast between $5.3 billion and $6.1 billion.

Shares of Qualcomm Inc. tumbled almost 4 percent at the opening bell to $51.22.
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Employers can legally pay women less than men for the same work based on differences in the workers’ previous salaries, a federal appeals court ruled Thursday.

The decision by the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals overturned a lower-court ruling that said pay differences based exclusively on prior salaries were discriminatory under the federal Equal Pay Act.

That’s because women’s earlier salaries are likely to be lower than men’s because of gender bias, U.S. Magistrate Judge Michael Seng said in a 2015 decision.

1982 law cited

A three-judge panel of the 9th Circuit cited a 1982 ruling by the court that said employers could use previous salary information as long as they applied it reasonably and had a business policy that justified it.

“This decision is a step in the wrong direction if we’re trying to really ensure that women have work opportunities of equal pay,” said Deborah Rhode, who teaches gender equity law at Stanford Law School. “You can’t allow prior discriminatory salary setting to justify future ones or you perpetuate the discrimination.”

Activists held rallies around the country earlier this month on Equal Pay Day to highlight the wage gap between men and women. Women made about 80 cents for every dollar men earned in 2015, according to U.S. government data.

The 9th Circuit ruling came in a lawsuit by a California school employee, Aileen Rizo, who learned in 2012 while having lunch with her colleagues that her male counterparts were making more than she was.

Attorney: Logic hard to accept

Her lawyer, Dan Siegel, said he had not yet decided the next step, but he could see the case going to the U.S. Supreme Court because other appeals courts have decided differently.

“The logic of the decision is hard to accept,” he said. “You’re OK’ing a system that perpetuates the inequity in compensation for women.”

Fresno County public schools hired Rizo as a math consultant in 2009 for $63,000 a year. The county had a standard policy that added 5 percent to her previous pay as a middle school math teacher in Arizona. But that was not enough to meet the minimum salary for her position, so the county bumped her up.

Equal Pay Act of 1963

The Equal Pay Act, signed into law by President John F. Kennedy in 1963, forbids employers from paying women less than men based on sex for equal work performed under similar working conditions. But it creates exemptions when pay is based on seniority, merit, quantity or quality of work or “any other factor other than sex.”

The county argued that basing starting salaries primarily on previous pay prevents subjective determinations of a new employee’s value. The 5 percent bump encourages candidates to leave their positions to work for the county, it said.

The 9th Circuit sent the case back to Seng to consider that and other justifications the county provided for using previous salaries.
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Working to dismantle his predecessor’s environmental legacy, President Donald Trump plans to sign an executive order Friday that could lead to the expansion of drilling in the Arctic and Atlantic oceans.

With one day before he reaches his 100th day in office, Trump will order his interior secretary to review an Obama-era plan that dictates which locations are open to offshore drilling, with the goal of the new administration to expand operations.

It’s part of Trump’s promise to unleash the nation’s energy reserves in an effort to reduce reliance on foreign oil and to spur jobs, regardless of fierce opposition from environmental activists, who say offshore drilling harms whales, walruses and other wildlife and exacerbates global warming.

Zinke: Safeguards remain

“This order will cement our nation’s position as a global energy leader and foster energy security for the benefit of American people, without removing any of the stringent environmental safeguards that are currently in place,” Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke told reporters at a White House briefing Thursday evening.

Zinke said the order, combined with other steps Trump has taken during his first months in office, “puts us on track for American energy independence.”

The executive order will reverse part of a December effort by President Barack Obama to deem the bulk of U.S.-owned waters in the Arctic Ocean and certain areas in the Atlantic as indefinitely off limits to oil and gas leasing.

It will also direct Zinke to conduct a review of the locations available for offshore drilling under a five-year plan signed by Obama in November. The plan blocked new oil and gas drilling in the Atlantic and Arctic oceans. It also blocked the planned sale of new oil and gas drilling rights in the Chukchi and Beaufort seas north of Alaska, but allowed drilling to go forward in Alaska’s Cook Inlet southwest of Anchorage.

The order could open to oil and gas exploration areas off Virginia and North and South Carolina, where drilling has been blocked for decades.

Zinke said that leases scheduled under the existing plan will remain in effect during the review, which he estimated will take several years.

Monuments, sanctuaries under review

The order will also direct Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross to conduct a review of marine monuments and sanctuaries designated over the last 10 years.

Citing his department’s data, Zinke said the Interior Department oversees some 1.7 billion acres on the outer continental shelf, which contains an estimated 90 billion barrels of undiscovered oil and 327 trillion cubic feet of undiscovered natural gas. Under current restrictions, about 94 percent of that outer continental shelf is off-limits to drilling.

Zinke, who will also be tasked with reviewing other drilling restrictions, acknowledged environmental concerns as valid, but he argued that the benefits of drilling outweigh concerns.

Environmentalists protest

Environmental activists, meanwhile, railed against the expected signing, which comes seven years after the devastating 2010 BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.

Diana Best of Greenpeace said that opening new areas to offshore oil and gas drilling would lock the U.S. “into decades of harmful pollution, devastating spills like the Deepwater Horizon tragedy, and a fossil fuel economy with no future.

“Scientific consensus is that the vast majority of known fossil fuel reserves — including the oil and gas off U.S. coasts — must remain undeveloped if we are to avoid the worst effects of climate change,” she said.

Jacqueline Savitz of the ocean advocacy group Oceana warned the order would lead to “corner-cutting and set us up for another havoc-wreaking environmental disaster” in places like the Outer Banks or in remote Barrow, Alaska, “where there’s no proven way to remove oil from sea ice.”

“We need smart, tough standards to ensure that energy companies are not operating out of control,” she said, adding: “In their absence, America’s future promises more oil spills and industrialized coastlines.”
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United Airlines reached an out-of-court settlement Thursday with a doctor who was dragged off one of its flights after he refused to give up his seat.

The airline and Dr. David Dao’s lawyers agreed not to disclose the amount of money he will receive.

United put out a brief statement saying it reached an “amicable resolution of the unfortunate incident.”

United changes policy

The airline said earlier Thursday that from now on, no passenger would be forced to give up his seat except in cases of safety and security.

Those who volunteer to surrender their seats when a flight is overbooked would get up to $10,000 in compensation.

“Every customer deserves to be treated with the highest levels of service and the deepest sense of dignity and respect,” United chief Oscar Munoz said. “Two weeks ago, we failed to meet that standard and we profoundly apologize.”

Chicago aviation police dragged Dao up the aisle of the packed plane when United needed to make room for airline employees.

Three other passengers volunteered to give up their seats, but Dao was picked out at random and refused to leave, saying he had to get home to treat patients.

Congress gets involved

His nose was broken, some teeth were knocked out, and he suffered a concussion. Cellphone video captured the scene. Dao, with blood streaming down his face, could be heard screaming with other shocked passengers.

The incident prompted calls in Congress  to bring back government airline regulation.

Some lawmakers demanded outlawing the practice of overbooking flights, in which airlines sell more seats than are available to ensure a full plane.
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Lawmakers are nearing agreement on sweeping spending legislation to keep the lights on in government, after the White House backed off a threat to withhold payments that help lower-income Americans pay their medical bills.

It was the latest concession by the White House, which had earlier dropped a demand for money for President Donald Trump’s border wall. Even with Republicans in control of both chambers of Congress and the White House, the Trump administration is learning that Democrats retain significant leverage when their votes are needed on must-pass legislation.

A temporary funding bill expires Friday at midnight, and GOP leaders late Wednesday unveiled another short-term spending bill to prevent a government shutdown this weekend, something Republicans are determined to avoid.

There appears little chance of that as lawmakers worked to resolve final stumbling blocks on issues like the environment, though a short-term extension of existing funding levels is likely.

“The fundamental issue is keeping the government open, that’s our focus,” said Rep. Patrick McHenry, R-N.C., a top member of the vote-counting team in the House.

At the same time, House Republicans had a breakthrough on their moribund health care legislation as a key group of conservatives, the House Freedom Caucus, announced it would support a revised version of the bill. Freedom Caucus opposition was a key ingredient in the legislation’s collapse a month ago, a humiliating episode for Republicans that called into question their ability to govern given that they’ve been promising for seven years to repeal and replace former President Barack Obama’s Affordable Care Act.

Yet whether the Freedom Caucus support would be enough remained uncertain. One key moderate, GOP Rep. Charlie Dent of Pennsylvania, dismissed the Freedom Caucus about-face as “a matter of blame-shifting and face-saving” for a bill going nowhere. Even if the legislation passes the House it will face major hurdles in the Senate and is certain to be extensively revised if it survives at all.

The changes in the bill would let states escape requirements under Obama’s health care law that insurers charge healthy and seriously ill customers the same rates, and cover a list of specified services like maternity care. Conservatives embraced the revisions as a way to lower people’s health care expenses, but moderates saw them as diminishing coverage.

Despite some optimism among House leaders for a quick vote on the health bill, the outcome was difficult to predict. The White House has been exerting intense pressure on House GOP leaders to deliver any tangible legislative accomplishments ahead of Trump’s 100-day mark, something that has yet to occur aside from Senate confirmation of Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch.

The massive spending measure, which would wrap together 11 unfinished spending bills into a single “omnibus” bill, represents the first real bipartisan legislation of Trump’s presidency.

Democratic votes are needed to pass the measure over tea party opposition in the House and to provide enough support to clear a filibuster hurdle in the Senate, which has led negotiators to strip away controversial policy riders and ignore an $18 billion roster of unpopular spending cuts submitted by White House budget director Mick Mulvaney.

The outlines of a potential agreement remained fuzzy, but aides familiar with the talks said Trump would emerge with border security funding that’s unrelated to the wall and a $15 billion down payment for military readiness accounts on top of $578 billion in already-negotiated Pentagon funding. Democrats won funding for medical research, Pell Grants and foreign aid.

But negotiators rejected Trump’s demands for $1 billion to begin construction of his promised wall along the length of the 2,000-mile (3218.54-kilometer) U.S.-Mexico border. And after a dispute between Mulvaney and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, the administration agreed to keep funding cost-sharing payments under Obamacare that go to reimburse health insurers for reducing deductibles and co-payments for lower-income people.

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Associated Press writers Andrew Taylor and Alan Fram contributed to this report.

AP-WF-04-27-17 0724GMT

 
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“At the beginning of my fishing career, all the world told me that the trade was for men,” says Chrifa Nimri, “but now all my colleagues respect and call me captain.”

The 69-year-old Tunisian fisherwoman is one of a very small female minority in a very male-dominated profession – commercial fishing.

Around the world, the dangerous work of hauling in the catch at sea is overwhelmingly performed by men. But if you expand the definition of fishing to include processers and marketers of seafood, workers in small-scale and artisanal fisheries, and collectors of clams and other shellfish, women account for a substantial part of the global industry.

No women on board

Sara Skamser has worked in or around commercial fishing for nearly her entire adult life. In her early 20s, she arrived on the Oregon coast and collected her first paychecks salmon fishing and crabbing in local waters. Then Skamser asked for jobs on bigger boats home-ported in Newport — better pay and bigger adventure and all. But, she recalls, none of those skippers would hire her.

“No. They said no.” She mimics them. “’Uh, I know you could do the job. Gosh, you’re probably stronger than me. Uhhh, but I don’t think my wife would like it.’ Or, ‘Uhhh. I would feel terrible if you got hurt on my boat.'”

This was in the early 1980s. To this day in the Pacific Northwest, women hold fewer than 4 percent of the commercial fishery licenses issued by the U.S. states. Elsewhere in the world, social norms helped to keep the gender disparity in place. For example, in Mexico, Peru, Senegal and Vietnam, which all have major marine fisheries, 4 percent or fewer of the workers on fishing boats are women.

Changes on shore

But pull back the lens a little bit and there’s evidence of change. Skamser provided one of many oral histories that formed the basis of a research project on the role of women in the northwestern U.S. commercial fishing industry. Grad student Sarah Calhoun and Professor Flaxen Conway of Oregon State University along with the NOAA Northwest Fisheries Science Center researcher Suzanne Russell in Seattle analyzed the results, which were published in the journal Marine Policy.

Conway, a sociologist, says they found women are playing a larger role on the regulatory and business side.

“I think if you look at the scientists, you look at the processing, you look at the marketing. … Once you broaden that out to fisheries in general, then I would absolutely say there are more women in science positions and management positions than there have been in my career, in my 27-year-long career.”

“We’re seeing an increase on the business side more so than ever before,” added social scientist Russell. “Women always worked the business side of things, but now with the complexity and all the reporting, trading and bycatch requirements, it’s pretty intense.”

One of Conway’s takeaways was that the traditional, behind-the-scenes role of a fisherman’s wife has become an increasingly complex and critical job. “Whether it’s regulation, safety, marketing, research, it’s all caring for that fishing family business and making those products get to the table that we enjoy.”

An international look

A separate research team cast a wider net – examining women’s contributions to the fishing industry in Mexico, Peru, Senegal, South Africa and Vietnam. Sarah Harper of the University of British Columbia led that study, whose results appeared in the latest edition of the journal Coastal Management.

“In terms of going out on fishing boats, I think it is still predominantly male-dominated. But certainly when we look at some of the small scale fisheries, the collection of shellfish and fish from shore, women are much more involved and definitely underestimated and undercounted in this area.”

Harper says subsistence fishing by women to feed their families is easily overlooked. So, she says, is who goes crabbing in Vietnam or fishing from boats in lagoons.

When harvest by women is overlooked, Harper says that makes it harder for governments to accurately gauge the pressure on a seafood resource and sustainably manage a fishery.

“When you’re looking at managing fisheries and potentially trying to rebuild fisheries and implement conservation measures, you really need to know who is fishing and where.  If there are fisheries that only men are focused on in certain regions and we’re only focused on those, we’re not getting the whole picture.”

Harper says she is encouraged to see United Nations bodies take an interest in gender equality in fisheries and be more gender-inclusive when making policy and management recommendations.

Hooking new opportunities

Sara Skamser is still involved in the industry, but not on a fishing vessel. She makes her voice heard on several local advisory boards, and founded a successful fishing net and gear company called Foulweather Trawl with her husband in Oregon. She also deals with some of the fishermen who wouldn’t hire her decades ago.

“Bottom line of all of that is that I invoice those people now and occasionally there’s a large invoice. I just look at ’em. I give them the look. Like, ‘Uh, huh. Probably should’ve hired me. You would’ve gotten that for free,'” she says with a chuckle.

There are online forums dedicated to women in fishing and elevating their profile.  One in particular on Facebook called “Chix Who Fish” celebrates victories such as getting a boot maker and a foul weather gear maker to add product lines tailored to the shapes of women’s bodies.

American “chicks” who fish have no use for gender-neutral titles by the way, according to Flaxen Conway. “They don’t want to be called a woman fisherman. They just want to be called a fisherman.”
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After reports that President Donald Trump was considering an executive order to withdraw the United States from the North American Free Trade Agreement, the White House said Wednesday that Trump agreed not to take such action after phone calls with the leaders of Canada and Mexico.

Since launching his bid for president, Trump has repeatedly criticized the nation’s trade deals, especially NAFTA, saying the agreement signed in 1994 has been a “disaster” and allowed many U.S. jobs to shift to Mexico.

“President Trump agreed to not terminate NAFTA at this time, and the leaders agreed to proceed swiftly, according to their required internal procedures, to enable renegotiation of the NAFTA deal to the benefit of all three countries,” the White House said.

The statement further said Trump is honored to work with Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto, and that he believes the renegotiation process will make the three countries stronger.

A Mexican government statement confirmed the phone call between Trump and Peña Nieto, saying the leaders agreed on the convenience of maintaining NAFTA and working with Canada to bring about successful negotiations for the benefit of the three nations.

Earlier Wednesday, a Canadian foreign ministry spokesman said Canada is “ready to come to the table at any time.”

Trump targeted Canada this week for what he said was unfair trade practices, and ordered a new 20 percent tariff on Canadian lumber exports.

Many Mexican officials have called NAFTA a disappointment, saying it has brought slow economic growth despite increased investment in factories and industry.

 
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India’s plans to invest in a strategic port in Sri Lanka as a counterbalance to China’s massive infrastructure investments in the Indian Ocean island country got a push Wednesday as Sri Lankan Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe visited New Delhi.

China’s development of the key Hambantota port in Sri Lanka, which is a gateway to crucial shipping lanes, has raised concerns in New Delhi about Beijing’s widening naval influence in its neighborhood.

In New Delhi, India and Sri Lanka signed a memorandum of understanding on economic cooperation and expressed commitment to its implementation. Foreign Ministry spokesperson, Gopal Baglay, tweeted that it signaled “deepening economic collaboration.”

The specific deal to develop the World War II oil storage facility in the eastern port of Trincomalee, South Asia’s deepest natural harbor, is expected to be signed next month when Modi visits Colombo.

Although India’s planned investment in energy infrastructure in Trincomalee will be far more modest compared to Beijing’s ambitious Hambantota project, analysts say it will enable New Delhi to secure a foothold and ensure that no other country uses the harbor for military purposes.

While Colombo has assured India that Hambantota will be used only for commercial activity, its potential use as a naval base worries New Delhi. Those worries have intensified since a Chinese submarine docked briefly in Colombo port in 2014.

India has long fretted about China’s expanding foothold in the Indian Ocean region through infrastructure projects in countries such as Sri Lanka, Pakistan and Bangladesh.

“We find that India is now getting more and more strategically encircled by economic infrastructure projects,” according to Vijay Sakhuja, Director of the National Maritime Foundation in New Delhi.

Besides Hambantota port in Sri Lanka, he points to China’s building of Gwadar port in Pakistan. Warning that these projects, built to facilitate trade, also have a strategic element, he says, “We should not be surprised by frequent PLA [People’s Liberation Army] navy presence in the Indian Ocean, particularly in Gwadar, which will cause some discomfort to the naval planners in New Delhi.”

For Sri Lanka, India’s planned investment in the energy project in Trincomalee will help counterbalance the massive infrastructure deals signed with China by the former government of Mahinda Rajapaksa, who had leaned heavily toward Beijing.

“The spin off of that [project] is balancing what is perceived as predominant Chinese influence as far as the economy is concerned,” said Paikiasothy Saravanumuttu at the Center for Policy Alternatives in Colombo.

The new government is trying to move away from the heavy dependance on Beijing for foreign investment. During a recent visit to Tokyo, Prime Minister Wickremesinghe sought Japanese investment for the Colombo and Trincomalee ports.

 
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Some 200 taxis and buses have parked outside the government offices in Romania’s capital, Bucharest, demanding that Uber and other online taxi services be outlawed in the country. 

Transport in the already crowded city was disrupted Wednesday morning as the protest, scheduled to last until the evening, got underway.

Drivers arrived early and parked their yellow taxis and blew vuvuzela horns in protest. Some met Premier Sorin Grindeanu to present their demands.

Bogdan Dinca, a transport union leader, told The Associated Press that they want the government to approve an emergency ordinance “to eradicate the piracy” they accuse Uber of. The ordinance awaits final approval by the prime minister. 

The Confederation of Licensed Transport Operators says it wants “online technology platforms that provide unauthorized taxi services to be outlawed,” to protect licensed carriers. 

Uber says it is a ride-sharing service with transparent costs and its drivers pay taxes. It says some 250,000 clients have used its services in the Romanian capital and other major cities in the past two years.
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President Donald Trump and Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross on Tuesday said they did not fear a trade war with Canada after American punitive action on lumber and milk.

“They have a tremendous surplus with the United States,” Trump said, adding “people don’t realize Canada’s been very rough on the United States. … They’ve outsmarted our politicians for many years.”

Trump added that he wanted “a very big tax” on Canadian lumber and timber.

He made the comments at a meeting with American farmers where he signed an executive order aimed at helping agriculture and rural areas.   

Trump also talked to Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau Tuesday. Trudeau “refuted the baseless allegations by the U.S. Department of Commerce and the decision to impose unfair duties,” according to a summary of the call released by Trudeau’s office.

“The prime minister stressed that the government of Canada will vigorously defend the interests of the Canadian softwood industry, as we have successfully done in all past lumber disputes with the U.S.,” the statement said.

The Canadian dollar fell to a 14-month low against the greenback after the United States imposed preliminary tariffs averaging 20 percent — more than $1 billion of countervailing duties — on imported Canadian softwood.

Earlier in the day, Trump vowed moves to protect the American dairy industry.

On Tuesday morning, he tweeted: “Canada has made business for our dairy farmers in Wisconsin and other border states very difficult. We will not stand for this. Watch!”

Against NAFTA

Trump, since his time campaigning for the presidency, has voiced his strong displeasure with the 1994 North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), but until now he has vented most of his ire southward, toward Mexico.

Ross, speaking to reporters on the White House podium, would not explicitly characterize the actions on lumber and dairy as the opening shots on renegotiating NAFTA, but he did say: “Everything relates to everything else when you’re trying to negotiate.”

He described Canada as “generally a good neighbor,” asserting that its allegedly unfair trade practices regarding lumber and dairy were not very neighborly.

Asked on Tuesday in Kitchener, Ontario, about the U.S. trade actions and the fate of NAFTA, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau replied, “Standing up for Canada is my job, whether it’s softwood or software.”

Trudeau added, “Any two countries are going to have issues that will be irritants to the relationship and, quite frankly, having a good, constructive, working relationship allows us to work through those irritants.”

Some other Canadians were less diplomatic in their reactions.

“In Canada, the perception is that we’re always very nice,” said Unifor President Jerry Dias, representing forestry workers across the country. “But we can’t get trampled by this guy [Trump].”

‘Ignore, do not engage’

The majority of Canadians, including the prime minister and his colleagues, “understand that President Trump is prone to making ill-informed, off-the-cuff and arbitrary comments about a host of domestic and foreign policy issues,” Donald Abelson, the chairman of the political science department at the University of Western Ontario in London, told VOA.

“Canada will likely respond to Trump’s Tuesday tweet in a manner similar to how a competent parent responds to a child’s temper tantrum — ignore, do not engage,” added Abelson, who is also director of the school’s Canada-U.S. Institute.  

Other Canadians displayed wry humor — a traditional reaction to irritations from south of the border (at least since the last U.S. invasion during the War of 1812), considering the asymmetry of power.   

The president’s messages prompted immediate puns on Canadian social media, with tweets referencing “sacred cows” and calling the American trade action on dairy “udderly stupid” and “cheesy,” Sparkle Hayter, veteran Canadian journalist and author, told VOA.

The dairy dispute goes back decades. Currently, there is an overproduction of milk, according to dairy farmers on both sides of the border.

The U.S.-Canada lumber squabble is rooted in a couple of centuries of history.

In response to the proposed tariff on softwood lumber, “Canada to strike back by charging duties on exported Cdn actors,” tweeted the account of 22 Minutes, a satirical news program on national public broadcaster CBC.

Cows are No. 1

The Twitter account also noted the U.S. president “tweeted about Canadian dairy industry first thing this morning, so on his list of priorities: 1. Canadian Cows. 2. North Korea.”  

Trump’s attention on Canada comes amid indications he is pivoting away — at least temporarily — from the southern border and his quest to quickly fund his border wall with Mexico.

“We have plenty of time” to complete the wall during his first term, Trump assured reporters Tuesday afternoon.  

The presidential desire for border protection might find a better reception to the north, considering the comments from some Canadians.

“Some [in Canada] would like to separate from the U.S., like literally,” by digging a two-mile moat at the border “and filling it with beavers and mosquitoes,” quipped Hayter from her home province of Alberta.   

But many Canadians see themselves confronting a cross-border creature bigger than a beaver.

“Sleeping with an elephant” is how the late Pierre Trudeau, the current Canadian prime minister’s father, once characterized relations with the United States, “affected by every twitch and grunt.”
…

U.S. President Donald Trump is set to call for a sharp reduction in the nation’s corporate tax rate, the highest among the world’s industrialized countries.

Trump is planning to unveil his tax plans Wednesday, with aides saying he will ask Congress to slash the current 35 percent rate down to 15 percent, a pledge he first made during last year’s presidential election campaign.

White House spokesman Sean Spicer said the U.S. has been “uncompetitive” against other countries in attracting new businesses, “largely because of our rates.”

U.S. lawmakers have for years vowed to adopt broad tax reforms, but the efforts have foundered. Congress has been unable to reconcile competing demands to eliminate tax breaks for some corporate and individual interests and raise taxes on others.

Trump’s tax plans are likely to face months of hearings and debate in Congress, where his Republican colleagues have their own ideas on how the tax code ought to be reshaped. Some lawmakers have expressed concerns that Trump’s call for a big corporate tax cut would balloon the nearly $20 trillion in long-term debt the U.S. has accumulated if there are not corresponding measures to raise more revenue.

U.S. Treasury chief Steven Mnuchin said Monday, “The tax reform will pay for itself with economic growth” that would boost tax revenues. Mnuchin called for tax simplification as well, saying U.S. reforms ideally would let taxpayers file their annual tax returns on a “large postcard.”

The U.S. economy, the world’s largest, grew at a tepid 1.6 percent pace last year, a figure Trump is hoping to boost to 3 percent a year, which the United States has not reached since 2005.

Tax experts say the 35 percent U.S. corporate tax rate is the highest among the world’s 35 industrialized nations, although U.S. corporations rarely pay that much because they are permitted to deduct their business expenses from their revenues before paying the amount they owe.

When the 35 percent rate is added to the average state corporate tax rate, the figure reaches 38.9 percent, which ranks third in the world among 188 countries surveyed by the Washington-based Tax Foundation. The U.S. figure trails only that of the United Arab Emirates at 55 percent and the U.S. territory of Puerto Rico at 39 percent.
…

Canadian officials say a new tariff imposed by the Trump administration will raise the cost of new homes in the United States by $1,000 each, and shut 150,000 Americans out of home ownership. Washington’s decision also puts “thousands” of U.S. homebuilding jobs at risk, according to Canada’s ministers of natural resources and foreign affairs.

The comments follow preliminary action by the U.S. Commerce Department to impose a 20 percent tariff on $5.77 billion worth of soft wood imports from Canada to the United States. The wood is a key ingredient of family homes.

U.S. officials allege that Canada unfairly subsidizes exported wood. Subsidies could make the product cheaper, making it difficult for U.S. companies to compete on price.

Canada “strongly disagrees” with the decision to impose this “unfair and punitive” tax, says Canada’s resources minister, Jim Carr. Canada’s foreign minister, Chrystia Freeland, says Canada will take the issue to court, where the United States has lost similar cases in the past. 

U.S. Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross says this has been “a bad week” in U.S.-Canadian trade relations, noting an additional dispute over Canadian milk exports.

While the dispute over wood tariffs might raise the cost of new homes in the United States, a report published Tuesday by the Census Bureau shows sales of newly-constructed homes jumped upward by 5.8 percent last month. If sales continue at that pace for a year, 621,000 homes would change hands. Prices also rose.

A separate report from a business group called the Conference Board showed consumer confidence declined in April. Economists at Wells Fargo say that despite the drop, consumer confidence remains near a 12-year high. Experts watch consumer confidence for clues about consumer spending, which drives 70 percent of U.S. economic activity.
…

U.S. Senator Dan Sullivan on Monday called on both the American and Chinese governments to exercise “true reciprocity” in relations, including trade and diplomacy. 

The Republican senator from Alaska, in a speech concerning Chinese outbound investment, and in an interview with VOA afterward, said China has been aggressively buying companies in key sectors such as robotics, biotech, advanced machineries, software, entertainment and media “throughout America and Western Europe. But if you’re an American firm, or a firm from Germany, and you want to go to China and buy Chinese companies in those same sectors, you would be told ‘no;’ you would be prohibited.”

Making “true reciprocity” US policy

Sullivan’s proposed “true reciprocity” is rather simple and straightforward: “If Chinese companies want to invest in America’s biotech sector, then American companies should be able to invest in China’s biotech sector. It’s simple, it’s fair, it’s what China has said it wants to do but it doesn’t do, and we need to be much more serious about implementing it.”

Should China continue to ignore Washington’s calls for equal treatment and a level playing field, Sullivan says he is prepared to introduce legislation aiming at closing what he identifies as China’s “credibility gap,” and making sure that “true reciprocity” becomes official U.S. policy.

The Alaska Republican, who serves on both the Senate’s Commerce and Armed Services Committees, called on the U.S. government to reject “Middle Kingdom diplomatic practices” that fail to grant U.S. diplomats the same level of access Chinese diplomats receive in Washington. 

“Middle kingdom” diplomatic practices

Quoting from a study done by the New York-based Asia Society, Sullivan said “for a number of years, the U.S. ambassador in Beijing was only getting deputy minister level access while we, of course, give higher access to Chinese ambassadors here in Washington.”He called the solution to such unequal diplomatic treatments “a no brainer.” 

“If our ambassador in Beijing only gets deputy minister level access, then that’s what we should provide China’s ambassador in Washington, period. Middle Kingdom diplomatic practices should be firmly and aggressively rejected by the U.S. government everywhere,” Sullivan said.

He agreed that his proposed “true reciprocity” ought to also include issues such as granting journalists visas and access in both countries.

Growing domestic consensus

Sullivan said “there’s growing domestic consensus” in the United States that America’s strategic interests, including strategic economic interests, outweigh the market price of individual transactions, while acknowledging that each individual American businessman or woman naturally want the highest return for their individual product.

“The broader strategic interest of having a strong U.S. economy, and signaling to the next biggest economy in the world, China, that you need to play by the rules we play by, is also very important; and in my view, that importance strategically overrides the interest of the ability of American firms to sell to Chinese investment funds.”

Senator Dan Sullivan: China needs to play by rules we play by

Geo-economics

Daniel Twining, counselor and director of the Asia Program at the German Marshall Fund of the United States and an associate of the U.S. National Intelligence Council, thinks the U.S. economic power so far has not been sufficiently utilized to advance the nation’s overall strategic, political and economic interests. 

“The U.S. is used to this traditional foreign policy tool kit that involves the armed forces, the diplomatic corps and development (foreign aid), but there’s really a fourth link here, which is our economic statecraft,” he told VOA.

Twining said other major powers, including China, appear to be much more adept at what he called “geo-economics,” using trade and investment “quite actively” and “quite smartly” to advance overall national interests.“It may be smart for us to think more about our economic strategies in the world,” including acknowledging and adopting strategies accordingly based on the fact that “market forces are not working everywhere, including in an economy like China that is still somewhat closed or controlled in some respects.”

Daniel Twining: Market forces are not working everywhere

​

Forgoing short-term profit

A newly released report by Baker McKenzie put Chinese worldwide outbound investment at $200 billion in 2016, nearly half of which targeted assets in North America and Europe. 

According to Robert Shapiro, chairman of Sonecon and former U.S. Undersecretary of Commerce for Economic Affairs, the primary goal of China’s overseas investments does not lie in short-term profit but rather in gaining strategic advantage, and that means not necessarily in gaining immediate economic return.

Robert Shapiro: China playing the long game

​
…

General Motors’ Venezuelan subsidiary has sent a message to almost 2,700 staff informing them that they are no longer employed by the company and had received severance pay in their bank accounts, according to two employees.

A Venezuelan court last week ordered the seizure of the company’s Valencia plant, ruling in favor of two dealers that had filed a case in 2000 against the subsidiary on grounds they had not complied with an agreed sale of 10,000 vehicles.

Workers say that before the seizure was announced, GM had been dismantling the plant, which has not produced a car since the beginning of 2016 because of shortages of parts and strict currency controls in the OPEC nation.

The seizure, which GM called “illegal,” comes amid a deepening economic and social crisis in leftist-led Venezuela that has already roiled many U.S. companies.

“We all received a payment and a text message,” said a worker who had worked for the company for more than a decade, adding that his corporate email account had been deactivated over the weekend.

“Our former bosses told us the executives left and we were all fired. There is no longer anyone in the country,” added another employee who received the same message on his personal cell phone and a payment to his account. He had been at GM for five years.

The company did not immediately respond to a request for comment about the layoffs or the worker allegations it had already been dismantling the plant.

GM said last week that it was halting operations and laying off workers due to the “illegal judicial seizure of its assets.”

‘Show Your Face’

The leftist government of Nicolas Maduro says it is not seeking to expropriate the plant, which has been operating for 35 years, and has called on GM to come back.

“To the current General Motors president of Venezuela, Jose Cavaileri: You come here, show your face and share with us the options to restore normality,” said Labor Minister Francisco Torrealba said Monday.

GM is not the first company to fire Venezuela employees by text message. Clorox did the same two years ago when announcing its exit from the crisis-struck country, after which workers took over the plant.

GM’s plant closure comes after Venezuela’s automobile production fell in 2016 to a record low of eight cars per day, according to a local automotive group.

Two union spokespeople said they had no official company information on the layoffs, but said that most workers received the messages along with a bank deposit.

Neither employee would reveal the amount they received but union leaders said it was too low.
…

Tesla Chief Executive Elon Musk took many risks with the technology in his company’s cars on the way to surpassing Ford Motor Co.’s market value.

Now Musk is pushing boundaries in the factory that makes them.

Most automakers test a new model’s production line by building vehicles with relatively cheap, prototype tools designed to be scrapped once they deliver doors that fit, body panels with the right shape and dashboards that don’t have gaps or seams.

Tesla, however, is skipping that preliminary step and ordering permanent, more expensive equipment as it races to launch its Model 3 sedan by a self-imposed volume production deadline of September, Musk told investors last month.

Musk’s decision underscores his high-risk tolerance and willingness to forego long-held industry norms that has helped Tesla upend the traditional auto industry.

While Tesla is not the first automaker to try to accelerate production on the factory floor, no other rival is putting this much faith in the production strategy succeeding.

Musk expects the Model 3 rollout to help Telsa deliver five times its current annual sales volume, a key target in the automaker’s efforts to stop burning cash.

“He’s pushing the envelope to see how much time and cost he can take out of the process,” said Ron Harbour, a manufacturing consultant at Oliver Wyman.

Investors are already counting on Tesla’s factory floor success, with shares soaring 39 percent since January as it makes the leap from niche producer to mass producer in far less time than rivals.

There are caution signs, however. The production equipment designed to produce millions of cars is expensive to fix or replace if it doesn’t work, industry experts say. Tesla has encountered quality problems on its existing low-volume cars, and the Model 3 is designed to sell in numbers as high as 500,000 vehicles a year, raising the potential cost of recalls or warranty repairs.

“It’s an experiment, certainly,” said Consumer Reports’ Jake Fisher, who has done extensive testing of Tesla’s previous Models S and X. Tesla could possibly fix errors quicker, speeding up the process, “or it could be they have unsuspected problems they’ll have a hard time dealing with.”

Musk discussed the decision to skip what he referred to as “beta” production testing during a call last month with an invited group of investors. Details were published on Reddit by an investor on the call.

He also said that “advanced analytical techniques” — code word for computer simulations – would help Tesla in advancing straight to production tooling.

Tesla declined to confirm details of the call or comment on its production strategy.

The auto industry’s incumbents have not been standing still.

Volkswagen AG’s Audi division launched production of a new plant in Mexico using computer simulations of production tools — and indeed the entire assembly line and factory – that Audi said it

believed to be an industry first. That process allowed the plant to launch production 30 percent faster than usual, Audi said.

An Audi executive involved in the Mexican plant launch, Peter Hochholdinger, is now Tesla’s vice president of production.

Making Tools Faster

Typically, automakers test their design with limited production using lower grade equipment that can be modified slightly to address problems. When most of the kinks are worked out, they order the final equipment.

Tesla’s decision to move directly to the final tools is in part because lower grade, disposable equipment known as “soft tooling” ended up complicating the debut of the problem-plagued Model X SUV in 2015, according to a person familiar with the decision and Tesla’s assembly line planning.

Working on a tight deadline, Tesla had no time to incorporate lessons learned from soft tooling before having to order the permanent production tooling, making the former’s value negligible, the source said.

“Soft tooling did very little for the program and arguably hurt things,” said the person.

In addition, Tesla has learned to better modify final production tools, and its 2015 purchase of a Michigan tooling company means it can make major equipment 30 percent faster than before, and more cheaply as well, the source said.

Financial pressure is partly driving Tesla’s haste. The quicker Tesla can deliver the Model 3 with its estimated $35,000 base price to the 373,000 customers who have put down a $1,000 deposit, the closer it can log $13 billion.

Tesla has labored under financial pressure since it was founded in 2003. The company has yet to turn an annual profit, and earlier this year Musk said the company was “close to the edge” as it look toward capital spending of $2-2.5 billion in the first half of 2017.

Tesla has since gotten more breathing room by raising $1.2 billion in fresh capital in March and selling a five percent stake to Chinese internet company Tencent Holdings

Ltd.

Musk has spoken to investors about his vision of an “alien dreadnought” factory that uses artificial intelligence and robots to build cars at speeds faster than human assembly workers could manage.

But there are limits to what technology can do in the heavily regulated car business. For example, Tesla will still have to use real cars in crash tests required by the U.S. government, because federal rules do not allow simulated crash results to substitute for data from a real car.
…

A fungus that causes “vomitoxin” has been found in some U.S. corn harvested last year, forcing poultry and pork farmers to test their grain, and giving headaches to grain growers wrestling with massive supplies and low prices.

The plant toxin sickens livestock and can also make humans and pets ill.

The appearance of vomitoxin and other toxins produced by fungi is affecting ethanol markets and prompting grain processors to seek alternative sources of feed supplies.

Researchers at the U.S. Department of Agriculture first isolated the toxin in 1973 after an unusually wet winter in the Midwest. The compound was given what researchers described as the trivial name vomitoxin because pigs refused to eat the infected corn or vomited after consuming it. The U.S. Corn Belt had earlier outbreaks of infection from the toxin in 1966 and 1928.

The spread of vomitoxin is concentrated in Indiana, Wisconsin, Ohio, and parts of Iowa and Michigan, and its full impact is not yet known, according to state officials and data gathered by food testing firm Neogen Corp. 

In Michigan, Wisconsin and Indiana, a considerable share of corn crops tested since last fall’s harvest have had vomitoxin levels high enough to be considered too toxic for humans, pets, hogs, chickens and dairy cattle, according to public and private data compiled by Neogen. The company did not state what percent of each state’s corn crop was tested.

Toxin levels

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration allows vomitoxin levels of up to 1 part per million (ppm) in human and pet foods and recommends levels under 5 ppm in grain for hogs, 10 ppm for chickens and dairy cattle. Beef cattle can withstand toxin levels up to 30 ppm.

Alltech Inc, a Kentucky-based feed supplement company, said 73 percent of feed samples it has tested this year have vomitoxin. The company analyzed samples sent by farmers whose animals have fallen ill.

“We know there is lots of bad corn out there, because corn byproducts keep getting worse,” said Max Hawkins, a nutritionist with Alltech.

Neogen, which sells grain testing supplies, reported a 29 percent jump in global sales for toxin tests, with strong demand for vomitoxin tests, in their fiscal third quarter, ending Feb. 28.

“We’re polling our customers and continually talking to them about the levels they’re seeing. Those levels are not going down,” said Pat Frasco, director of sales for Neogen’s milling, grain and pet food business.

The problem, stemming from heavy rain before and during the 2016 harvest, prompted farmers to store wet grain, said farmers, ethanol makers and grain inspectors.

The issue was compounded by farmers and grain elevators storing corn on the ground and other improvised spaces, sometimes covering the grain piles with plastic tarps. Grain buyers say they will have a clearer picture of the problem later this spring, as more farm-stored grain is moved to market.

Iowa State University grain quality expert Charles Hurburgh said the sheer size of the harvest in 2016 — the largest in U.S. history — complicates the job of managing toxins in grain, especially in the core Midwest.

“Mycotoxins are very hard to handle in high volume,” he said. “You can’t test every truckload, or if you do, you are only going to unload 20 trucks in a day.” By comparison, corn processors in Iowa unload 400 or more trucks a day.

Biofuel impact

Ethanol makers are feeling the impact. Turning corn into ethanol creates a byproduct called distillers dried grains (DDGs), which is sold as animal feed. With fuel prices low, the DDGs can boost profitability.

But the refining process triples the concentration of mycotoxins, making the feed byproduct less attractive. DDG prices in Indiana fell to $92.50 per ton in February, the lowest since 2009, and now are selling for $97.50 per ton, according to USDA.

Many ethanol plants are testing nearly every load of corn they receive for the presence of vomitoxin, said Indiana grain inspector Doug Titus, whose company has labs at The Andersons Inc., a grain handler, and energy company Valero Energy sites.

The Andersons in a February call with analysts said vomitoxin has hurt results at three of its refineries in the eastern U.S. 

“That will be with us for some time,” Andersons’ chief executive Pat Bowe said.

Mixing with clean grain

Missouri grain farmer Doug Roth, who put grain into storage after last year’s wet harvest, has seen a few loads of corn rejected by clients who make pet food after the grain tested positive for low levels of fumonisin, a type of mycotoxin.

Roth said he paid to reroute the grain to livestock producers in Arkansas, who planned to blend it with unaffected grain in order to mitigate the effect of the toxins.

U.S. farmers with clean corn are reaping a price bump. A Cardinal Ethanol plant in Union City, Indiana, is offering grain sellers a 10-cent per bushel premium for corn with less than one-part-per-million or less of vomitoxin in it, according to the company’s website.
…

Lawmakers from coal-mining states are pushing to extend health benefits for more than 22,000 retired miners and widows whose medical coverage is set to expire at the end of April.

West Virginia Sen. Joe Manchin and other coal-state Democrats threatened to shut down the government over the issue in December, but they retreated after winning a four-month extension that preserves benefits through April 30.

As lawmakers return to the Capitol following a two-week recess, Manchin says the time for extensions is over.

“We will use every vehicle we can, every pathway we can, to make sure we do not leave here … until we have our miners protected,” he said in a speech on the Senate floor before the break.

“We’ve been very patient,” Manchin said. “I am not going to have another notice sent out to our retired miners, to their widows, saying we’ve given you 90 days or 120 days extension. That’s not going to happen this time.”

Deadline is Friday

But as a Friday deadline looms to keep the government open, lawmakers have not reached agreement on extending the benefits. A plan pushed by GOP leaders in the House would extend health benefits for 20 months, through the end of 2018.

Manchin said Senate Democrats are against that idea because it’s only a partial fix. At least a dozen Senate Republicans are willing to join Democrats in support of a more complete plan that addresses health benefits and a related issue over failing pension plans for nearly 100,000 unionized miners, Manchin said.

“This shouldn’t be a Republican or Democrat issue,” he said in an interview. “This is an issue of fairness.”

A spokesman for Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., said McConnell supports legislation to protect and permanently extend the health benefits, but had no word on the progress of talks related to the spending bill.

A spokesman for House Speaker Paul Ryan also offered no update.

Pieces and parts

President Donald Trump, who has vowed to revive the struggling coal industry, has given “verbal support” for the miners’ benefits, Manchin said, but needs to do more.

“I need him now to either tweet or call Senator McConnell and tell him it’s time to act,” Manchin said. “Mr. President, if you are listening, please tweet out: ‘Mitch, help us. We need you.’”

Trump and Republicans have decried what they describe as a “war on coal” waged by the Obama administration, and have taken a series of actions since Trump took office to boost coal production and reduce regulations, including a rule to protect streams from coal-mining debris.

Trump’s budget director, Mick Mulvaney, told reporters that the White House is “happy to talk … about pieces and parts of the miners’ programs” as part of negotiations on a bill to keep the government open.

“I don’t think we’re very interested in the pension component of that but more interested in talking about the health care component of that,” Mulvaney said.

Pension problem is bigger

Phil Smith, a spokesman for the United Mine Workers of America, said he is hopeful a compromise can be reached on health benefits, but he complained that Republicans appear unwilling to address the far more costly pension issue. Congress scrapped a $3 billion, 10-year measure to stabilize failing pension funds last year.

“The pension part is not going to go away. It only gets worse by the day,” he said.

Account balances have dwindled amid the coal’s industry steep decline, including continued layoffs and a rash of bankruptcy filings that have spread to the industry’s largest companies. Without congressional intervention, some pension funds could run out of cash by next year, the union says.

For the moment, Congress appears focused on health benefits.

In West Virginia, about 8,500 retired miners and their families face loss of benefits if Congress does not act. Some mining families have been unable to make doctor’s appointments after May 1 because of uncertainty over whether medical bills will be paid, Smith said.

Other states affected include Pennsylvania, Kentucky, Ohio, Illinois, Indiana, Virginia and Alabama.
…

Motorists in Pyongyang are scrambling to fill their tanks as gas stations begin limiting services or closing amid concerns of a spreading shortage.

A sign outside one station in the North Korean capital said Friday that sales were being restricted to diplomats or vehicles used by international organizations, while others were closed or turning away local residents. Lines at other stations were much longer than usual and prices appeared to be rising significantly. 

The cause of the restrictions or how long they might last were not immediately known. 

Fuel from China

North Korea relies heavily on China for its fuel supply, and Beijing has reportedly been tightening its enforcement of international sanctions aimed at getting Pyongyang to abandon its development of nuclear weapons and long-range missiles.

The issue was raised at a regular Chinese Foreign Ministry news conference in Beijing Friday after a Chinese media outlet, Global Times, reported gas stations were restricting service and charging higher prices. 

But spokesman Lu Kang gave an ambiguous response when asked if China was restricting fuel deliveries.

“As for what kind of policy China is taking, I think you should listen to the authoritative remarks or statements of the Chinese government,” he said, without elaborating on what those remarks or statements are. “For the remarks made by certain people or circulated online, it is up to you if you want to take them as references.” 

New sanctions an option

One of China’s top North Korea scholars, Kim Dong-jil, director of the Center for Korean Peninsula Studies of Peking University, said he had not heard of new restrictions on fuel to pressure Pyongyang, but said they are considered to be an option.

China’s Ministry of Commerce had no immediate comment 

Gasoline was selling at $1.25 per kilogram at one station, up from the previous 70-80 cents. According to a sign outside a station where ordinary North Korean vehicles were being turned away, the restrictions took effect Wednesday.

Gasoline is sold in North Korea by the kilogram, roughly equivalent to a liter (0.26 gallon).

When buying gas in North Korea, customers usually first purchase coupons at a cashier’s booth for the amount of fuel they want. After filling up the tank, leftover coupons can be used on later visits until their expiration date. A common amount for the coupons is 15 kilograms (19.65 liters or 5.2 U.S. gallons).

Supply is controlled by the state, but prices can vary from one station to another. 

More cars to fuel

The military, state ministries and priority projects have the best access. Several chains of gas stations are operated under different state-run enterprises, for example, Air Koryo, the national flagship airline, operates gas stations as well. 

Traffic in Pyongyang has gotten heavier than in past years, when visitors had often been struck by the lack of cars on the capital’s broad avenues.

The greater number of cars, including swelling fleets of taxis, has been an indication of greater economic activity, as many are used for business purposes, such as transporting people or goods.
…

Even after disembarking from North Korea’s Air Koryo plane at Pyongyang airport, it’s difficult to miss the airline’s brand. The Air Koryo conglomerate makes cigarettes and fizzy drinks, besides owning a taxi fleet and petrol stations – and all have the same flying crane logo as the carrier.

The military-controlled airline expanded into consumer products in earnest in recent months, visitors to the isolated country say. It was not clear if the diversification into the domestic market was related to the loss of many international routes when the United Nations slapped economic sanctions on North Korea for its nuclear and ballistic missile programs.

Washington is now considering tougher measures, including a global ban on Air Koryo itself, to punish North Korea for continuing weapons tests, U.S. officials have said.

But any U.S. action on Air Koryo would not be binding on other nations and would have little effect unless joined by China and Russia – both of which have sought to introduce exceptions to United Nations sanctions on North Korea in the past.

“China may indeed agree to this kind of ban on Air Koryo since it seems like China and the U.S. have reached an agreement that North Korea needs to be dealt with in some way. But the question is whether Russia will agree to sanctions against Air Koryo,” said Sun Xingjie, an associate professor at China’s Jilin University.

North Korean officials are rarely accessible to reporters, and it was not possible to get comment from Air Koryo or from the Pyongyang government.

Air Koryo now flies only to Beijing and three other cities in China, and to Vladivostok in Russia. Flights to Bangkok, Kuala Lumpur and Kuwait were dropped last year but just last month, Air Koryo added a route from Pyongyang to the Chinese city of Dandong, the main transit point for trade between the two countries.

Air Koryo has 15 active planes on its fleet, either Russian or Ukrainian-made, and uses refuelling, maintenance and repair facilities in China and Russia, according to aviation databases and U.N. documents.

The airline has a number of domestic flights connecting the capital Pyongyang to Orang, Sondok and Samjiyon towns, according to a schedule available last year.

Businesses in secretive North Korea do not publicly share information about revenues or costs, so it was not possible to determine what effect any existing sanctions have had or may have in future.

But visitors to North Korea say the Air Koryo conglomerate, owned by the country’s air force, is clearly expanding.

Cabs, Gas Stations

In 2015, the conglomerate launched its own brand of sky-blue taxis which now parade the streets of Pyongyang alongside cabs from at least eight other state-owned companies.

Air Koryo colas and cigarettes are available in shops across Pyongyang.

Air Koryo started branching into soft drinks late last year, said Simon Cockerell of Beijing-based Koryo Tours, which organizes travel to North Korea.

It got into retail sales of petrol in January. “They have at least one petrol station in Pyongyang, perhaps two,” Cockerell said. “I wouldn’t be surprised to see more Air Koryo products make it to market before too long.”

A United Nations panel which investigates North Korean sanctions infringements said in a report in February there was an “absence of boundaries” between Air Koryo and the air force.

“The airline’s assets are actively utilised for military purposes,” the report said.

“Outwardly, this seems like a commercial airline, but in effect, this is run by the government,” said Kim Yong-hyun, a professor of North Korean Studies at Dongguk University in South Korea.

The United Nations has not sanctioned Air Koryo, although it has accused it of being involved in the smuggling of banned goods. Civilian aircraft are exempt from the U.N. ban on jet fuel exports to North Korea when refuelling overseas. Member states are required to inspect any cargo originating from North Korea, including on Air Koryo flights.

In December, the United States designated Air Koryo, 16 of its aircraft and 10 of its offices as “sanctioned entities,” meaning that U.S. citizens are generally prevented from engaging in transactions with them. It was not clear if the ban extended to Americans flying on the airline for tourism.

Officials at Pyongyang’s airport said they were unconcerned about any attempts by the global community to strengthen sanctions that could target Air Koryo directly.

“We are not afraid, we have our own counter actions prepared,” said a customs official, without elaborating, standing at the Air Koryo check-in counter.

Kim, the South Korean professor, said any sanctions on Air Koryo would have mostly a symbolic effect.

“It will not cause huge damage to the North Korean economy,” he said in the Korean language. “Air Koryo is not a ‘dollar box'[which makes a lot of foreign money].”
…

U.S. President Donald Trump has ordered a full review of the powers given to government regulators to oversee the banking and finance industries following the financial meltdown of 2008.

Trump went to the Treasury Department on Friday to sign three executive orders that start the process of fulfilling his campaign pledges to undo regulations that he says unduly strain the U.S. economy.

“My entire administration [is] working around the clock to help struggling Americans achieve their financial dreams … and have real confidence in the future,” Trump said as he signed the orders. “Together we will restore prosperity to this nation.”

U.S. Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin explained that two of the orders could eventually lead to a significant revision of controversial provisions of the 2010 Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform law.

“Our goal is to make this a smarter, more effective process that reduces the kind of systemic risk that harmed so many Americans during the financial crisis of 2008,” Mnuchin said.

Dodd-Frank reform

One order temporarily freezes a portion of Dodd-Frank known as the Orderly Liquidation Authority, which gives the federal government broad discretion in making loans to failing financial institutions. The Trump administration argues that the OLA encourages excessive risk-taking by banks because taxpayers are potentially liable for bad loans.

Trump on Friday called the Dodd-Frank regulations “unfair” and “damaging,” saying they had “failed to hold Wall Street firms accountable.”

Critics say the review is aimed at revoking Obama-era reforms that have brought stability and transparency to the sometimes murky world of high finance, and helped to prevent another crisis.

Edwin Truman, who served as a senior Treasury official in the Clinton and Obama administrations, says Dodd-Frank encourages banks to raise more capital and be more open about their activities.

“That doesn’t mean that a complicated piece of legislation like Dodd-Frank couldn’t be improved and tweaked,” Truman told VOA. “It’s like Obamacare. It could be improved while maintaining its basic principles. So there’s scope for reform but not really repeal or replacement.”

Boston University law professor Tamar Frankel, an expert in financial system regulation, said Dodd-Frank has not achieved the purpose for which it was designed, which is to create consumer confidence in the banking industry. But she worries that a rollback of Obama-era regulations could bring about a return to dangerous lending practices.

“Loans of the kind banks made before 2008 are the poison of any financial system,” Frankel said.

Tax laws

Trump’s latest orders also authorize a review of tax laws, which the president argues impose an undue burden on taxpayers.

“This is such a privilege for me to sign,” he said during the ceremony. “This is really the beginning of a whole new way of life that this country hasn’t seen in really many, many years.”

Secretary Mnuchin told reporters Friday he was looking forward to taking a hard look at the tax code.

“We are going to go through and look at every significant financial regulation that’s been done in the past year and a half,” Mnuchin explained. “We’re going to determine if they’re needed in the tax code, or if they’re unnecessary.”

In making his case, Mnuchin pointed to statistics showing individuals and businesses cumulatively spend a total of 6.1 billion hours complying with the tax code each year, at a cost to the U.S. economy of $234.4 billion. He said the basic Form 1040 used to file taxes had grown from 34 lines and two pages of instructions to 79 lines and 211 pages of instructions.

Mnuchin has 180 days to report back to the president with recommended reforms.

Trump also hinted Friday that he’s almost ready to make another big announcement on taxes, saying he was ready to unveil a “massive tax cut” next week, shortly before he reaches the symbolic 100-day mark of his presidency.

“The process has begun long ago, ” he said, “but it really formally begins on Wednesday.”

In a separate interview with The Associated Press, Trump said the plan would provide tax cuts for both individuals and businesses. He would not provide details of the plan, saying only that the tax cuts will be “bigger I believe than any tax cut ever.”
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As economic and political leaders gather in Washington for the annual spring meetings of the World bank and International Monetary Fund — new warnings Thursday about the impact of rapid change on the global economy. At issue, the pace of technological advance and its Impact on jobs, particularly in developing economies. Mil Arcega has more.
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U.S. officials are reviewing Venezuela’s seizure of General Motors’ assets in the country, U.S. State Department spokesman Mark Toner said Thursday.

“We are reviewing the details of the case,” Toner said in a statement, saying the United States hoped to resolve the matter “rapidly and transparently.”

GM said Wednesday that Venezuelan authorities had taken over its plant in the industrial hub of Valencia, adding that it was halting operations and laying off 2,700 workers due to the “illegal judicial seizure of its assets.”

The largest U.S. automaker vowed to “take all legal actions” to defend its rights. The seizure comes amid a deepening economic crisis in leftist-led Venezuela that has already roiled many U.S. companies.

The seizure is the result of a civil dispute with a Venezuelan concessionaire dating back to 2000 and does not represent a nationalization as such, according to local media reports.

GM, the market leader in Venezuela for 35 years, said in a statement that in addition to the plant seizure “other assets of the company, such as vehicles, have been illegally taken from its facilities.”

Total auto production in Venezuela fell to a historic low of 2,849 cars in 2016, nearly 75 percent less than the year before, according to Venezuela’s automotive industry group.

In the first two months of 2017, GM has not produced any vehicles, while total Venezuelan auto production was just 240 vehicles, down 50 percent over the same period last year. The New York Times reported the GM plant had been closed for the last six weeks as a result of a takeover by members of one of its unions.

Nearly all vehicles built in Venezuela in the first two months this year were assembled by Toyota Motor Corp, which said Thursday that its plant was operating normally.

But a spokesman added the automaker was “only producing based on orders that come in.”

Venezuela’s car industry has been hit by a lack of raw materials stemming from complex currency controls.

In early 2015, Ford Motor Co wrote off its investment in Venezuela when it took an $800 million pre-tax writedown. The company said Thursday it was not producing vehicles in Venezuela.

The South American nation’s economic crisis has hurt many other U.S. companies, including food makers and pharmaceutical firms. A growing number are removing their Venezuelan operations from their consolidated accounts.
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President Donald Trump has ordered an investigation into whether foreign steel imports are damaging U.S. national security, saying his administration would “fight for American workers and American-made steel.”

The probe is authorized under a rarely used section of a 1962 trade law that allows a president to restrict imports in cases where security interests are at stake.

“This has nothing to do with China,” Trump insisted, adding, “This has to do with worldwide, what’s happening. The dumping problem is a worldwide problem.”

Steel industry

Surrounded by steel industry executives at an Oval Office signing ceremony Thursday, Trump clearly stated the probe was not directed at China, which has long been accused of dumping its excess steel production on U.S. markets.

The president said the investigation could be completed within 50 days, far ahead of the nine months prescribed by law.

Shares of steel companies surged on news of the probe. The price of United States Steel Corporation stock was up more than 8 percent soon after the announcement.

“The important question is protecting our defense needs,” said Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross, who added the investigation is designed to find a balance between free trade and national security while building up the U.S. military. “And we will do whatever is necessary to do that.”

Ross noted that steel imports rose nearly 20 percent in the first two months of this year, much of it from China, and now make up more than 26 percent of the entire American marketplace.

“Steel imports, despite measures already taken, have continued to rise despite repeated Chinese claims that they were going to reduce their steel capacity,” he said. “Instead, they have actually been increasing it consistently.”

Investigation sought

Steel industry executives attending Thursday’s Oval Office ceremony applauded Trump’s call for an investigation.

Mario Longhi, the CEO of U.S. Steel Corporation, said, “The signing of this executive order clearly demonstrates your understanding of the fundamental importance that our industry has, not just to the national economy, but to the national defense.”

Trade experts and free market advocates, however, were skeptical of Trump’s rationale for the investigation.

“It’s just a bogus attempt to limit imports,” said Dan Griswold, a research fellow at the Mercatus Center at Virginia’s George Mason University.

Griswold said any move to restrict imports would be bad for U.S. industry and consumers because it would drive up prices for products that contain steel, from appliances to automobiles to new houses.

“But it will make certain steel producers and their politically active unions increase their profits and the gains they make by restricting competition,” he said.

Issue of national security

Gary Hufbauer, senior fellow at the Peterson Institute of International Economics in Washington, questions the idea that dependence on foreign steel is a national security issue.

Hufbauer, who served as a senior Treasury Department official under former President Jimmy Carter, said the probe reflects the thinking of Commerce Secretary Ross, a billionaire investor with close ties to the steel industry.

“It’s not coming from the defense industry,” Hufbauer said. “It’s coming from the steelmakers, and key administration figures starting with Ross and others who feel the steel industry has been beset by steel from abroad and that’s weakening the U.S. steel industry. But that’s from a commercial standpoint, not a defense standpoint.”

Ross stepped down from the board of the Luxembourg-based steel giant ArcelorMittal after accepting the job as Trump’s commerce secretary.

A financial disclosure form he filed with the Office of Government Ethics shows Ross served on ArcelorMittal’s board for nearly a decade, and was paid more than $100,000 in director’s fees last year. He was also reported to have divested himself of between $750,000 and $1.5 million in equity holdings in the company, which is described on its home page as “the world’s leading integrated steel and mining company.”

Bloomberg News reported this week that while U.S. steelmakers may be counting on Trump to help business, any regulatory change could take years.

In a note to clients, Bloomberg Intelligence analyst Caitlin Webber wrote that changes would also likely be challenged at the World Trade Organization.
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The head of the International Monetary Fund says she “has every reason to believe” that the global lender can cooperate with the Trump Administration to support and improve global trade.

IMF Managing Director Christine Lagarde spoke in Washington as economic and political officials gathered from around the world at this week’s meetings of the IMF and the World Bank.

Candidate Donald Trump blamed what he called unfair trade for the loss of many jobs in the United States, and proposed tax increases for imported goods. President Trump recently signed an order to give U.S. firms a better shot at selling goods to the U.S. government, and has been sharply critical of immigration policies.

Lagarde says trade is one of the “pillars” of prosperity. She vowed to continue to support the growth of trade, seeking ways to make it more efficient and fair, and fight against protectionist measures.

Lagarde said the global economy is “picking up momentum,” because of “sensible” policies in many nations. Speaking a little earlier, World Bank President Jim Yong Kim said he is “encouraged” to see stronger economic prospects after years of “disappointing” global growth. He said growth is hampered by conflict, climate shocks, the worst refugee crisis since World War II, and famine in certain areas.
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Anti-corruption activists in Nigeria say the president’s suspension of two top officials is only a first step and must be followed up with more action.

On Wednesday, Buhari suspended national intelligence agency chief Ayo Oke, who was linked to more than $40 million found in an empty Lagos apartment, and the secretary of his government, David Babachir Lawal, who allegedly collected money on a phony contract.

Abdulkarim Dayyabu is chairman of the Movement for Justice in Nigeria, a non-governmental organization.  He says the suspensions are overdue.

“This should have been done a long time ago,” Dayyabu told VOA’s Hausa Service on Thursday.  “Someone like Buhari ought to take immediate measures against any official accused of corruption; he should not wait for too long.”

Abdulmajid Dan Bilki Kwamanda is a member of the ruling APC coalition who recommends the president move against other aides.

“Buhari is finally fighting corruption from within.  He must continue to look inwards and confront his senior officials who are accused of corruption head-on,” he said.”

Another activist, Naja’atu Mohammed, is skeptical that the suspended officials will be held accountable, saying the administration shielded Lawal previously when senators accused him of corruption.

“We are looking for results,” she told VOA.

There have been calls, including one from Nigeria’s Senate, for the removal of Lawal over his alleged complicity in the mismanagement of funds meant for a presidential initiative on northeastern Nigeria

Rholavision Engineering, a company owned by Lawal, received payments of about $500,000 from a contract he awarded for the clearing of “invasive plant species” in Yobe state.

Oke, director-general of the National Intelligence Agency (NIA), is embroiled in the discovery of $43 million in cash by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC.

So far, no one has claimed ownership of the money, which was in both local and foreign currencies.

Ownership of the apartment complex in which the funds were found, Osborne Towers Lagos, is still unclear, but the building is occupied by many powerful Nigerians including the former chairman of the opposition party, Ahmadu Muazu, whose PDP ruled Nigeria for years under former president Goodluck Jonathan.

Government spokesman Femi Adesina said the government has launched an investigation into the funds.

Another presidential spokesman, Garba Shehu, told VOA’s Umar Farouk Musa in Abuja that Buhari has given two probe panels, headed by Vice President Yemi Osinbajo, two weeks to investigate and submit their findings.

The suspensions follow recent discoveries of large amounts of money by the EFCC in strange places, including homes of senior government officials.

Last month, the EFCC found about $1.25 million abandoned in large bags at the Kaduna airport.

Earlier, nearly $10 million was seized from the home of a former head of Nigeria’s National Petroleum Company, NNPC, in the northern state of Kaduna.

The EFCC also uncovered yet another unclaimed $1 million in two shops at a shopping mall in Victoria Island, Lagos.  

A new government initiative to reward whistleblowers is encouraging many Nigerians to reveal the secret locations of money stashed away by corrupt officials. The EFCC, Nigeria’s anti-corruption agency, has offered to give up to 5 percent of amounts recovered to the informants, whose identities it protects.
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Peru’s economy will recover in coming years with investment in construction after recent flooding, likely growing 4.5 percent in 2018 and 5 percent in 2019, Finance Minister Alfredo Thorne said on Wednesday.

Previously, the government had expected growth of 4.3 and 4.1 percent for the next two years.

The estimate for 2017 growth was lowered this month to 3 percent from 3.8 percent previously due to flooding.

“The shock will be temporary,” Thorne said in a presentation at Lima’s Chamber of Commerce.

The floods have damaged 6,000 kilometers (3,728 miles) of roads, destroyed thousands of houses and killed 106 people since December.

Peru’s economy, which has also been hurt by paralyzed infrastructure projects due to a corruption investigation involving Brazil’s Odebrecht, grew at its lowest rate in more than two years in February.
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