WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The U.S.-Canada border will close to nonessential traffic, U.S. President Donald Trump tweeted on Wednesday, saying details on the move would be announced later but that it would not affect trade between the two countries.
“We will be, by mutual consent, temporarily closing our Northern Border with Canada to non-essential traffic. Trade will not be affected. Details to follow!” Trump wrote.
(Reporting by Doina Chiacu and Susan Heavey; Editing by Chizu Nomiyama)
Trump: U.S. may give farmers more aid until trade deals ‘kick in’
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The United States may give American farmers additional money until trade deals with China, Mexico, Canada and other countries fully go into effect, President Donald Trump said on Friday.
“If our formally targeted farmers need additional aid until such time as the trade deals with China, Mexico, Canada and others fully kick in, that aid will be provided by the federal government,” Trump wrote in a Twitter post entirely in capital letters.
It was not immediately clear how large the aid package would be or how long it would last.
The Trump administration set aside a $16 billion aid package to farmers in 2019, and $12 billion a year earlier. In January, Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue said farmers should not expect another bailout package in 2020.
Trump is seeking re-election in the Nov. 3 presidential election. Farmers form a key part of his electoral base, but they have been badly bruised by low commodity prices and Trump’s tit-for-tat tariff dispute with China.
The White House declined to comment. The Department of Agriculture and the U.S. Trade Representative’s office did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Last month, Trump signed a trade deal with Canada and Mexico into law, along with a separate Phase 1 accord with China that went into effect in mid-February.
Canada has not yet ratified the deal and experts had been skeptical that China, which had pledged to increase its purchases of U.S. goods by $200 billion over two years, would be able to meet the goal even before a coronavirus outbreak hit the country’s imports and exports.
(Reporting by Makini Brice; editing by Susan Heavey and Bernadette Baum)
(Reuters) – Canada on Sunday announced new measures to lower speed limits in trains hauling dangerous goods like diesel, gasoline and chemicals to reduce the risk of derailment, effective immediately.
Trains carrying 20 or more cars with dangerous goods will be limited to 35 miles per hour (56 kph) in metropolitan areas and to 40 mph outside metropolitan areas with no track signals, Federal Transport Minister Marc Garneau said https://www.canada.ca/en/transport-canada/news/2020/02/minister-of-transport-updates-ministerial-order-to-reduce-the-risks-of-derailment-of-trains-transporting-dangerous-goods.html in a statement.
Last week, Garneau announced a temporary speed limit after a Canadian Pacific Railway train hauling oil derailed and caught on fire near Guernsey, Saskatchewan, the second such derailment in the area in two months.
For higher risk trains, including those with any combination of 80 or more cars containing dangerous goods, the speed limit will be 30 mph for urban areas and 25 mph for areas with no track signals, the statement added.
Canada’s biggest railway, Canadian National Railway Co, said in a separate statement it supported the decision taken by Canada’s Transport Minister.
(Reporting by Mekhla Raina in Bengaluru; editing by Richard Pullin)
By Stanley Widianto and Khanh VU
JAKARTA/HANOI (Reuters) – The coronavirus outbreak has stoked a wave of anti-China sentiment around the globe, from shops barring entry to Chinese tourists, online vitriol mocking the country’s exotic meat trade and surprise health checks on foreign workers.
The virus, which originated in China, has spread to more than a dozen countries, many of them in Southeast Asia which has sensitive relations with China amid concerns about Beijing’s vast infrastructure spending and political clout in the region and sovereignty disputes in the South China Sea.
Authorities and schools in Toronto, Canada, were moved to warn against discrimination towards Chinese Canadians, while in Europe there was anecdotal evidence of Chinese residents facing prejudice in the street, and hostile newspaper headlines.
“Orientalist assumptions plus political distrust plus health concerns are a pretty powerful combination,” said Charlotte Setijadi, and anthropologist who teaches at Singapore Management University.
Chinese authorities have said the virus emerged from a market selling illegally traded wildlife, giving rise to widespread social media mocking of China’s demand for exotic delicacies and ingredients for traditional medicine.
“Stop eating bats,” said one Twitter user in Thailand, the top destination for Chinese tourists. “Not surprising that the Chinese are making new diseases,” another Thai user posted alongside a video clip that showed a man eating raw meat.
“Because your country is beginning (to) spread disease…we do not accept to serve the guest from China,” read a sign in English outside the Danang Riverside hotel in the central Vietnamese city of the same name. Authorities later told the hotel to remove the sign, its manager said in a Facebook post.
Vietnam, which was under Chinese occupation centuries ago and contests Beijing’s sweeping maritime claims in the South China Sea, has particularly fraught relations with China.
But it is not alone in the region.
Over 60% of respondents to a poll of Southeast Asian officials, academics and other professionals said in a survey this month that they distrusted China. Nearly 40% said they thought China was “a revisionist power and intends to turn Southeast Asia into its sphere of influence”. The survey did not mention the virus.
The Chinese government said it was determined to contain an epidemic it called a “common challenge facing mankind”.
“Prejudice and narrow-minded words are no good at all,” the Foreign Ministry said in a statement.
TRAVEL BANS
Many countries have imposed visa restrictions on travelers from Hubei province – the epicenter of the virus – while some airlines have suspended all direct flights to mainland China.
But this is not enough for hundreds of thousands of people in South Korea and Malaysia who have signed online petitions urging authorities to ban Chinese from visiting their countries.
In an unusual move, Samal Island in the southern Philippines on Thursday banned not just tourists from China but from all countries affected by the coronavirus to the popular beach spot.
China’s boom in outbound tourism has created a pattern of international travel unprecedented in human history and driven the growth of businesses to serve Chinese travelers around the world. From a trickle in the 1980s, Chinese tourist numbers grew to estimates of more than 160 million in 2019.
In France, whose capital Paris is a major draw for Chinese visitors and which has a significant Chinese population, local Asians created a Twitter hashtag #Jenesuispasunvirus (“I am not a virus”) to report abuse, especially in public transport.
Sun Lay Tan, a 41-year-old manager in the creative industries sector, said the man seated next to him in his Paris subway ride changed seat then put a scarf over his mouth.
“That was really shocking,” said Tan, who was born in France of Chinese and Cambodian origin. “I felt really stigmatized”.
(Reporting by Stanley Widianto in Jakarta, Khanh Vu and Phuong Nguyen in Hanoi, Chayut Setboonsarng in Bangkok, Karen Lema in Manila, Thu Thu Aung in Yangon, Joseph Sipalan in Kuala Lumpur and Josh Smith in Seoul; Caroline Pailliez in Paris and Ben Blanchard; Writing by John Geddie in Singapore; Editing by Nick Macfie)
By Jeff Mason and Andrea Shalal
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – President Donald Trump on Wednesday signed a new North American trade agreement during an outdoor ceremony at the White House attended by about 400 guests – but not the key Democrats who helped secure congressional passage of the deal.
Trump, on trial in the U.S. Senate on charges of abusing power and obstructing Congress, welcomed Republican senators at the South Lawn event by name. Other guests included lawmakers from around the country, workers, farmers and chief executives, as well as officials from Mexico and Canada, the White House said.
The U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA) will replace the 26-year-old North American Free Trade Agreement, including tougher rules on labor and automotive content but leaving $1.2 trillion in annual U.S.-Mexico-Canada trade flows largely unchanged.
“Today, we are finally ending the NAFTA nightmare and signing into law the brand-new U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement,” Trump told the crowd. Flanked by a group of American workers wearing hard hats, Trump said the agreement would bolster U.S. economic growth, benefiting farmers, workers and manufacturers.
He said his concerns about NAFTA-triggered outsourcing had triggered his run for the presidency in 2016.
A wide array of business groups welcomed the agreement, which must still be ratified by Canada’s parliament before it can take effect. Mexico has already approved the deal.
Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, speaking in Ottawa, said his minority government would continue to answer questions posed by various industries and other groups.
“We have questions and we have a process for ratification. I just look forward to getting, getting through it responsibly and rapidly because it’s so important for Canadians,” he said.
NO DEMOCRATS
Excluded from the event were House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi, House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Richard Neal and other Democrats who negotiated with the Trump administration for months to expand the pact’s labor, environmental and enforcement provisions and pave the way for its approval by the Democratic-controlled House.
Trump did not mention the work done by Pelosi or other Democrats on the trade pact, but U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer, in his remarks at the ceremony, acknowledged the role that House leaders played in getting the deal done.
The event came as U.S. senators will start to pose questions in Trump’s impeachment trial and ahead of a key vote later this week on whether to allow the calling of witnesses like former national security adviser John Bolton.
Trump lashed out against Bolton on Twitter on Wednesday after Bolton wrote in an unpublished book manuscript that the president told him he wanted to freeze $391 million in security aid to Ukraine until Kiev pursued investigations of Democrats, including former Vice President Joe Biden, a top contender for the Democratic nomination to face Trump in this year’s election.
Pelosi told reporters that Democrats had ensured “vast improvements” to the USMCA before it was approved, despite their absence from Trump’s White House event, adding, “I hope he understands what he’s signing today.”
Neal told reporters some Republican senators thought the deal was “too Democratic.” He said the final accord won stronger protections for workers, better enforcement of environmental provisions and steps to prevent higher drug prices.
Representative Rosa DeLauro told reporters in a separate teleconference that Democrats would remain vigilant on oversight of the improved trade deal and would fight for even better climate protections in future trade deals.
The U.S. Senate this month overwhelmingly approved legislation to implement the USMCA, sending the measure to Trump for signing into law.
U.S. lawmakers said it was unclear when the accord would take effect, since Canada’s main opposition Conservative Party had expressed concerns about aspects of the deal and there was no exact timeline for ratification there.
Even after Canada ratifies the accord, implementation could take several more months since the three countries must show they are meeting their obligations before the clock starts ticking on an effective date.
(Reporting by Andrea Shalal and Jeff Mason; Additional reporting by Susan Heavey, David Shepardson and Alexandra Alper in Washington, and David Ljunggren in Ottawa; Editing by Clarence Fernandez, Dan Grebler and Jonathan Oatis)
Canadians light candles to mourn victims of Iran plane crash
By Moira Warburton and Rod Nickel
TORONTO/EDMONTON, Alberta (Reuters) – Canadians held candlelight vigils in several cities on Thursday to remember 63 citizens killed in a plane crash in Iran, in what Canada’s prime minister called a “tragedy that shocked the world.”
Canada has been in mourning since Wednesday’s crash of the Ukraine International Airlines flight bound for Kiev from Tehran that killed all 176 people aboard. It was the largest loss of life among Canadians since an Air India flight blew up in 1985 over the Atlantic Ocean, killing 268 people from Canada.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, citing intelligence sources, said on Thursday the Ukraine airlines plane was likely brought down by an Iranian missile. He added the airliner’s destruction “may well have been unintentional.” Iran denied reports the plane was hit by a missile.
The crash occurred hours after Iran fired ballistic missiles at two military bases in Iraq hosting U.S. troops, and when Iranians were on high alert for a U.S. military response.
“What happened yesterday was a tragedy, a tragedy that shocked not only Canada, but the world,” Trudeau told a news conference. He has said 138 people on the plane were connecting to a flight to Canada.
The flight was a popular transit route for Canadians traveling to Iran, in the absence of direct flights, and carried many students and academics heading home from the holidays.
In Toronto, where a crowd of more than 100 attended a vigil, some two dozen people with connections to Canada’s largest city died in the crash. They included a young couple and their toddler daughter, along with teachers and students.
“It was unbelievable to me at first,” said Vahid Golshaeian, 41, a construction contractor attending the vigil. “Almost all of us had a friend or knew somebody. Innocent people.”
People ranging in age from children to the elderly lit candles and shared figs stuffed with walnuts.
On Parliament Hill in Ottawa, mourners arranged candles on the ground in the shape of a heart. Braving chilly weather, they set photos of loved ones in front of the site’s Centennial Flame monument.
Mourners also gathered in Montreal, the home of two newlyweds who were among those from Quebec killed in the crash.
In the western Canadian city of Edmonton, a memorial was planned for Sunday in a sports facility. Thirty people from the Alberta capital died, accounting for nearly half of Canada’s death toll.
The University of Alberta alone lost 10 people with connections to the institution. Grief counselors visited the campus on Thursday and mourners left flowers at the office door of a professor who died.
Two married professors, two students and a recent graduate – all from the university’s engineering department – died in the crash.
“We are very tight-knit and everyone has been very affected by this,” said Steven Heipel, an assistant dean of engineering.
(Reporting by Moira Warburton in Toronto and Rod Nickel in Edmonton, Alberta; Editing by Peter Cooney)
By David Lawder
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The U.S. Senate Finance Committee overwhelmingly approved the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement on Tuesday, moving the revamped North American trade deal a step closer to a final Senate vote in the coming days or weeks.
The committee advanced the USMCA implementing legislation by a 25-3 vote, drawing opposition from Republican senators Pat Toomey of Pennsylvania and Bill Cassidy of Louisiana and Democratic Senator Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island.
The timing of a long-delayed final U.S. congressional vote to approve the trade pact remains uncertain, as Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has said its consideration would likely have to wait until after a Senate trial over the impeachment of President Donald Trump.
The trade deal, first agreed in October 2018 and revised last month, aims to modernize and broaden the 26-year-old North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA).
Trump’s Senate trial is also in limbo, because House Democrats have not yet sent articles of impeachment approved in December to the Senate as the two parties argue over terms of the proceedings.
Senate Finance Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley earlier told CNBC http://bit.ly/36vNLSN television USMCA would “pass the Senate sometime within the next few days or at the most the end of this month.”
Following the Senate panel’s vote, Grassley said the timing was up to McConnell, but articles of impeachment would take precedence over USMCA. A vote could occur quickly as there was little other legislation to stand in its way, he added.
The Senate’s parliamentarian has directed other some other committees to consider the legislation, which could delay a floor vote slightly, but Grassley said those panels were expected to quickly approve the trade deal.
“The intent is for the leader to get them to move quickly,” Grassley added.
The finance committee’s vote indicates broad bipartisan support for USMCA, which includes new chapters covering digital trade, stronger intellectual property protections and new requirements for automakers to use more parts and materials sourced in the region and from high-wage areas, notably the United States and Canada.
Toomey, an ardent free trade Republican, objected to the new automotive content rules, saying they were “designed to raise the cost to American consumers of buying Mexican-made cars.”
“It’s the first time we are ever going to go backwards on a trade agreement,” Toomey said during the committee’s debate.
Cassidy complained that the agreement weakens NAFTA’s investor-state dispute settlement mechanism, which will deter big projects such as a gas pipeline from the United States to Mexico.
Whitehouse, an ardent environmentalist, said he objected to USMCA because the trade deal does not mandate any action to fight global warming and rising sea levels.
(Reporting by Kanishka Singh in Bengaluru; Editing by Andrew Heavens and Tom Brown)
By David Lawder
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The U.S. House of Representatives overwhelmingly approved a new North American trade deal on Thursday that includes tougher labor and automotive content rules but leaves $1.2 trillion in annual U.S.-Mexico-Canada trade flows largely unchanged.
The House passed legislation to implement the U.S.-Mexico Canada Agreement 385-41, with 38 Democrats, two Republicans and one independent member voting no.
The bipartisan vote contrasted sharply with Wednesday night’s Democrat-only vote to impeach U.S. President Donald Trump. [nL1N28S09W]
The House vote sends the measure to the Senate, but it is unclear when the Republican-controlled chamber will take it up. Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell has said that consideration of the measure would likely follow an impeachment trial in the Senate, expected in January.
The USMCA trade pact, first agreed upon in September 2018, will replace the 1994 North American Free Trade Agreement. Trump vowed for years to quit or renegotiate NAFTA, which he blames for the loss of millions of U.S. factory jobs to low-wage Mexico.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi gave USMCA a green light last week after striking a deal with the Trump administration, Canada and Mexico to strengthen labor enforcement provisions and eliminate some drug patent protections.
Pelosi said she was not concerned about Democrats handing Trump a political victory on USMCA as they are trying to remove him from office.
“It would be a collateral benefit if we can come together to support America’s working families, and if the president wants to take credit, so be it,” Pelosi said during House floor debate before the vote.
CONCESSIONS FOR DEMOCRATS
The changes negotiated by Democrats, which include tighter environmental rules, will also set up a mechanism to quickly investigate labor rights abuses at Mexican factories. They have earned the support of several U.S. labor unions that have opposed NAFTA for decades.
U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer made a concession by dropping a requirement for 10 years of data exclusivity for biologic drugs, a provision that Democrats feared would keep drug prices high and that they called a “giveaway” to big drugmakers.
Some of the most ardent trade skeptics in Congress have voiced support of the deal, including Representative Debbie Dingell, who represents an autoworker-heavy district in southeastern Michigan. Dingell said in television interviews that she backed the bill, even though she was skeptical it would bring auto jobs back to Michigan.
Representative Ron Kind, a pro-trade Democrat from Wisconsin, one of the top dairy-producing states, praised new access to Canada’s closed dairy market under USMCA.
“A no vote is a return to the failed policy of the old NAFTA, the status quo, rather than this more modernized version,” Kind said in floor debate.
AUTOS, DIGITAL, CURRENCY
The agreement modernizes NAFTA, adding language that preserves the U.S. model for internet, digital services and e-commerce development, industries that did not exist when NAFTA was negotiated in the early 1990s. It eliminates some food safety barriers to U.S. farm products and contains language prohibiting currency manipulation for the first time in a trade agreement.
But the biggest changes require increased North American content in cars and trucks built in the region, to 75% from 62.5% in NAFTA, with new mandates to use North American steel and aluminum.
In addition, 40% to 45% of vehicle content must come from high-wage areas paying more than $16 an hour – namely the United States and Canada. Some vehicles assembled in Mexico mainly with components from Mexico and outside the region may not qualify for U.S. tariff-free access.
The U.S. Congressional Budget Office estimated earlier this week that automakers will pay nearly $3 billion more in tariffs over the next decade for cars and parts that will not meet the higher regional content rules.
(Reporting by David Lawder in Washington; Additional reporting by Andrea Shalal in Washington and David Ljunggren in Ottawa; Editing by Matthew Lewis and Leslie Adler)
By Michael Erman and Carl O’Donnell
NEW YORK (Reuters) – The Trump administration on Wednesday said it is proposing a rule to allow states to import prescription drugs from Canada, moving forward a plan announced this summer that the president has said will bring cheaper prescription drugs to Americans.
Importation of drugs from Canada as a way to lower costs for U.S. consumers has been considered for years. Alex Azar, secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), called the move “a historic step forward in efforts to bring down drug prices and out-of-pocket costs.”
He said HHS would also offer guidance to drugmakers that wish to voluntarily bring drugs that they sell more cheaply in foreign countries into the United States for sale here.
Both pathways for importation were announced in July when Azar unveiled a “Safe Import Action Plan.”
Azar could not provide an estimate as to how soon Americans could start receiving drugs from Canada. He said the proposed rule would need to pass through a 75-day comment period before being finalized.
“We’re moving as quickly as we possibly can,” he said.
Governors of states including Florida, Maine, Colorado, Vermont and New Hampshire have already expressed an interest in importing drugs from Canada once the pathway to do so is fully in place, he said. States would be required to explain how any proposed drug imports would reduce drug prices for consumers.
The proposal faces opposition from large U.S. pharmaceutical and biotech companies.
Jim Greenwood, current head of biotech industry group BIO and a former Republican congressman, said that importation would not result in lower prices for consumers, citing nonpartisan budget experts and past FDA commissioners.
“Today’s announcement is the latest empty gesture from our elected lawmakers who want us to believe they’re serious about lowering patients’ prescription drug costs,” Greenwood said.
The Canadian government has also criticized the plan. The country’s ambassador said last month that importing medicines from Canada would not significantly lower U.S. prices. Reuters previously reported that Canada had warned U.S. officials it would oppose any import plan that might threaten the Canadian drug supply or raise costs for Canadians.
Drugs approved to be imported from Canada would exclude many prescribed drugs, such as biologic drugs, including insulin, controlled substances and intravenous drugs.
Trump, a Republican, has struggled to deliver on a pledge to lower drug prices before the November 2020 election. Healthcare costs are expected to be a major focus of the campaign by Trump and Democratic rivals vying to run against him.
The Trump administration in July scrapped an ambitious policy that would have required health insurers to pass billions of dollars in rebates they receive from drugmakers to Medicare patients.
Also in July, a federal judge struck down a Trump administration rule that would have forced pharmaceutical companies to include the wholesale prices of their drugs in television advertising.
Both the House of Representatives and the Senate are putting forth drug pricing bills that contain some of the proposals Trump has advocated, such as indexing public drug reimbursements to foreign drug costs.
But Trump has said he will veto the Democrat-led House bill if it comes to his desk on the grounds that it would slow down innovation.
(Reporting by Michael Erman and Carl O’Donnell; Editing by Leslie Adler and Nick Macfie)
TORONTO (Reuters) – The investigation into the deaths of a Canadian pharmaceutical billionaire couple by a private detective hired by the victims’ family has been completed, the chief homicide investigator of the Toronto police and the family said in a joint statement on Monday without revealing any of its findings.
Police reiterated on Monday that they are treating the case of Barry and Honey Sherman as a targeted double murder, Detective Sergeant Hank Idsinga told reporters. He called on the public to come forward with tips as the investigation headed by police continues.
Sherman was 75 and his wife, 70 at the time of their deaths, which stunned the worlds of Canadian business, politics and philanthropy, and drew public condolences from prominent figures including Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.
The case is “very active” Idsinga said, but he declined to provide any details of how the investigation is going or what information they have, aside from saying “we’re still combing through a lot of information.”
The private investigator’s report is being transferred to police. The Sherman family was not present at the briefing.
The Shermans were found hanging by belts from a railing next to a swimming pool at their Toronto mansion in late 2017, police have said.
Barry Sherman founded Apotex in 1974 and turned it into one of the largest generic drugmakers, earning a reputation for using lawsuits to gain access to sell cheaper generic versions of lucrative branded medicines.
He and his wife were known for their donations to hospitals, universities and Jewish organizations.
The Sherman family has criticized police handling of the deaths and hired a private investigator of their own to look into the case.
Unconfirmed media reports in the immediate wake of the deaths said that police were treating the case as a murder-suicide.
(Reporting by Anna Mehler Paperny; Editing by Bill Berkrot)
