Tag Archives: Donald Trump

Trump signs order to ease ban on political activity by churches

U.S. President Donald Trump signs an Executive Order on Promoting Free Speech and Religious Liberty during the National Day of Prayer event at the Rose Garden of the White House in Washington D.C., U.S., May 4, 2017. REUTERS/Carlos Barria

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. President Donald Trump on Thursday signed an executive order on religious liberties designed to ease a ban on political activity by churches and other tax-exempt institutions.

The order also mandates regulatory relief to religious employers that object to contraception, such as Little Sisters of the Poor.

It does not include provisions to allow government agencies and businesses to deny services to gay people in the name of religious freedom, as was feared by some civil liberties and gay rights groups.

The American Civil Liberties Union said in a statement it would file a lawsuit challenging Trump’s order.

Trump, addressing religious leaders in a signing ceremony at the White House, said: “We will not allow people of faith to be targeted, bullied or silenced any more”.

“No one should be censoring sermons or targeting pastors,” he said.

Trump’s order directs the Internal Revenue Service to “alleviate the burden of the Johnson Amendment,” the White House said in reference to a 1954 law sponsored by Lyndon Johnson, then a Texas senator who later became president.

Under the tax code, organizations that enjoy tax-free status, such as churches, are prohibited from participating in a political campaign or supporting any one candidate for elective office.

This includes a ban on making financial contributions to campaigns and candidates, but the law does allow certain non-partisan political activity such as voter registration or get-out-the-vote drives.

Trump would need Congress to rescind the Johnson Amendment, but he can instruct his administration not to enforce it through executive order.

(Reporting by Ayesha Rascoe and Daniel Trotta; Editing by Susan Heavey and James Dalgleish)

New Yorkers to greet Trump’s first visit home with protests

U.S. President Donald Trump gestures to the media after Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas left the White House in Washington, U.S., May 3, 2017. REUTERS/Yuri Gripas

By Dave Graham and David Ljunggren

MEXICO CITY/OTTAWA (Reuters) – From launching a data-mining drive aiming to find supply-chain pressure points to sending officials to mobilize allies in key U.S. states, Mexico and Canada are bolstering their defenses of a regional trade pact President Donald Trump vows to rewrite.

Trump has blamed the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) for the loss of millions of manufacturing jobs and has threatened to tear it up if he fails to get a better deal.

Fearing the massive disruptions a U.S. pullout could cause, the United States’ neighbors and two biggest export markets have focused on sectors most exposed to a breakdown in free trade and with the political clout to influence Washington.

That encompasses many of the states that swept Trump to power in November and senior politicians such as Vice President Mike Pence, a former Indiana governor or Wisconsin representative and House Speaker Paul Ryan.

Prominent CEOs on Trump’s business councils are also key targets, according to people familiar with the lobbying push.

Mexico, for example, has picked out the governors of Texas, Arizona and Indiana as potential allies.

Decision makers in Michigan, North Carolina, Minnesota, Illinois, Tennessee, Wisconsin, Ohio, Florida, Pennsylvania, Nebraska, California and New Mexico are also on Mexico’s priority list, according to people involved in talks.

Mexican and U.S. officials and executives have had “hundreds” of meetings since Trump took office, said Moises Kalach, foreign trade chief of the Mexican private sector team leading the defense of NAFTA. (Graphic:http://tmsnrt.rs/2oYClp2)

Canada has drawn up a list of 11 U.S. states, largely overlapping with Mexico’s targets, that stand to lose the most if the trade pact enacted in 1994 unravels.

To identify potential allies among U.S. companies and industries, Mexican business lobby Consejo Coordinador Empresarial (CCE) recruited IQOM, a consultancy led by former NAFTA negotiators Herminio Blanco and Jaime Zabludovsky.

In one case, the analysis found that in Indiana, one type of engine made up about a fifth of the state’s $5 billion exports to Mexico. Kalach’s team identified one local supplier of the product and put it touch with its main Mexican client.

“We said: talk to the governor, talk to the members of congress, talk to your ex-governor, Vice President Pence, and explain that if this goes wrong, the company is done,” Kalach said. He declined to reveal the name of the company and Reuters could not immediately verify its identity.

Trump rattled the two nations last week when his administration said he was considering an executive order to withdraw from the trade pact, which has been in force since 1994. He later said he would try to renegotiate the deal first and Kalach said the lobbying effort deserved much credit for Trump’s u-turn.

“There was huge mobilization,” he said. “I can tell you the phone did not stop ringing in (Commerce Secretary Wilbur) Ross’s office. It did not stop ringing in (National Economic Council Director) Gary Cohn’s office, in the office of (White House Chief of Staff Reince) Priebus. The visits to the White House from pro-NAFTA allies did not stop all afternoon.”

Among those calling the White House and other senior administration officials were U.S. Chamber of Commerce chief Tom Donohue, officials from the Business Roundtable and CEOs from both lobbies, according to people familiar with the discussions.

PRIME TARGET

Mexico has been the prime target of NAFTA critics, who blame it for lost manufacturing jobs and widening U.S. trade deficits. Canada had managed to keep a lower profile, concentrating on seeking U.S. allies in case of an open conflict.

That changed in late April when the Trump administration attacked Ottawa over support for dairy farmers and slapped preliminary duties on softwood lumber imports.

Despite an apparently weaker position – Canada and Mexico jointly absorb about a third of U.S. exports, but rely on U.S. demand for three quarters of their own – the two have managed to even up the odds in the past by exploiting certain weak spots.

When Washington clashed with Ottawa in 2013 over meat-labeling rules, Canada retaliated by targeting exports from the states of key U.S. legislators. A similar policy is again under consideration.

Mexico is taking a leaf out of a 2011 trucking dispute to identify U.S. interests that are most exposed, such as $2.3 billion of yellow corn exports.

Mexico is also targeting members of Trump advisory bodies, the Strategic and Policy Forum and the Manufacturing Council, led by Blackstone Group LP’s Stephen Schwarzman and Dow Chemical Co boss Andrew Liveris respectively.

Senior Trump administration officials and Republican lawmakers in charge of trade, agriculture and finance committees also feature among top lobbying targets.

Canada has spread the task of lobbying the United States among ministries, official say, and is particularly keen to avoid disruption to the highly-integrated auto industry.

A core component of Mexico’s strategy is to argue the three nations have a common interest in fending off Asian competition and exploring scope to source more content regionally.

The defenders of NAFTA also say that it supports millions of jobs in the United States, and point out that U.S. trade shortfalls with Canada and Mexico have declined over the past decade even as the deficit with China continued to climb.

Part of IQOM’s mission is to identify sectors where NAFTA rules of origin could be modified to increase regional content.

For example, U.S., Canadian and Mexican officials are debating how the NAFTA region can reduce auto parts imports from China, Japan, South Korea or Germany, Mexican officials say.

“The key thing is to see how we can get a win-win on the products most used in our countries, and to develop common manufacturing platforms that allow us just to buy between ourselves the biggest amount of inputs we need,” said Luis Aguirre, vice-president of Mexican industry group Concamin.

Graphic: Trade battles – http://tmsnrt.rs/2pAdPcp

(Additional reporting by Michael O’Boyle Alexandra Alper, Ana Isabel Martinez, Ginger Gibson and Adriana Barrera; Editing by Tomasz Janowski)

U.S. needs to balance foreign alliances: Tillerson

U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson delivers remarks to the employees at the State Department in Washington, U.S., May 3, 2017. REUTERS/Yuri Gripas

By Yeganeh Torbati

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson on Wednesday outlined for his staff how an “America First” agenda translates into foreign policy, but did not address the Trump administration’s proposed budget cuts, which worry many diplomats.

It was the first time Tillerson had addressed all employees since his first day on the job on Feb. 2, when he spoke to hundreds of State Department officials in the building’s lobby, and the most thorough explanation yet of the Trump administration’s approach to foreign policy.

Some allies and even some U.S. officials have interpreted Republican President Donald Trump’s “America First” agenda, which puts Americans’ interests at home ahead of those of its partners overseas, as a threat to retreat from the world.

Tillerson said U.S. foreign policy priorities had gotten “a little bit out of balance” in the previous decades, with the United States too focused on promoting economic activity and trade with emerging economies.

“These are really important relationships to us, and they’re really important alliances, but we’ve got to bring them back into balance,” he said, speaking without notes and walking around the stage in a packed State Department auditorium.

He also signaled that the United States would de-emphasize human rights concerns in some of its interactions with other countries, saying that while U.S. values remain constant, its policies can adapt.

“If we condition too heavily that others must adopt this value that we’ve come to over a long history of our own, it really creates obstacles to our ability to advance our national security interests, our economic interests,” Tillerson said.

TILLERSON’S WORLD TOUR

Tillerson gave a tour of U.S. priorities around the world, including in East Asia, Russia, Africa, and the Western Hemisphere, omitting Europe.

With regard to North Korea’s nuclear program, Tillerson said the administration is willing to use so-called secondary sanctions to target foreign companies that continue to do business with Pyongyang in contravention of United Nations sanctions.

The pressure campaign on North Korea is “at about dial setting 5 or 6 right now,” Tillerson said.

On China, Tillerson said the United States has a “tremendous opportunity” to define its relationship with the superpower for the next several decades, and that he sensed great interest by the Chinese leadership to do that as well.

He and Defense Secretary Jim Mattis will chair a dialogue with their Chinese counterparts in June, in addition to a dialogue focused on economics and trade and led by Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin and Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross.

Tillerson said he had told Russian President Vladimir Putin during his visit to Moscow last month that U.S.-Russia relations were at their lowest point since the Cold War.

“He did not disagree,” Tillerson said. “He shrugged his shoulders and nodded in agreement.”

But in remarks lasting nearly 40 minutes, Tillerson did not address the administration’s proposed 28 percent budget cut for U.S. diplomacy and foreign aid, which would reduce funding for the United Nations, climate change and cultural exchange programs. That proposal has made many American diplomats and aid workers anxious.

The Trump administration also has not named candidates for the vast majority of State Department positions requiring Senate confirmation, and many are being filled by career diplomats in “acting” positions. Tillerson began his remarks by thanking those officials, to applause from the crowd.

One veteran official who watched the speech criticized Tillerson’s use of the “America First” slogan. The phrase was used in the 1930s by isolationists who sought to keep the United States out of World War Two.

“The fact that they still use ‘America First’ shows they know nothing about history, and what’s worse is they don’t care.

“It’s offensive,” said the official, who requested anonymity.

Tillerson’s remarks followed an invitation to State Department and U.S. Agency for International Development employees this week to participate in an online survey to help identify “efficiency improvements,” in line with a March directive from Trump to “reorganize governmental functions and eliminate unnecessary agencies.” In his speech, the secretary urged employees to fill out the survey and give input on how to reform the agency.

Tillerson said the State Department, like many institutions, was built for the Cold War era.

He said he recognized that deep change to the State Department “is really stressful for a lot of people” and said the administration has “no preconceived notions on the outcome” of a review.

One State Department official faulted Tillerson for not talking in detail about the budget cuts, as well as for not taking questions from employees.

Previous secretaries of state, including Colin Powell, Condoleezza Rice and Hillary Clinton, held question-and-answer sessions with State Department employees within weeks of taking office.

“They wanted to make this look like he was talking to us, but it was more about the appearance than any substance,” said the official, speaking on the condition of anonymity.

Two other State Department officials, however, spoke highly of Tillerson’s remarks, saying it was early to expect him to take questions from the rank and file and saying he provided guidance both on foreign policy and on the challenge of reorganizing the department.

“I can understand folks wanting more details. I just don’t think we are in a place where he can provide more details,” said one of these officials about the expected State Department budget cuts. “My big takeaway was put on your big-girl britches, and when you look back you will feel like you were part of making this reform happen.”

(Additonal reporting by Arshad Mohammad, Jonathan Landay and John Walcott; Editing by Jonathan Oatis)

U.S. coaxes Mexico into Trump plan to overhaul Central America

A member of the military police keeps watch during a routine foot patrol at El Pedregal neighbourhood Tegucigalpa, Honduras, May 3, 2017. REUTERS/Jorge Cabrera

By Gabriel Stargardter

MEXICO CITY (Reuters) – The United States is plotting an ambitious attempt to shore up Central America, with the administration of President Donald Trump pressing Mexico to do more to stem the flow of migrants fleeing violence and poverty in the region, U.S. and Mexican officials say.

The U.S. vision is being shaped by Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary John Kelly, who is due to give a speech about his goals for Central America in Washington on Thursday.

Kelly, who knows Honduras, Guatemala and El Salvador well from his time as chief of the U.S. Southern Command, helped the administration of former President Barack Obama design his Alliance for Prosperity. That $750-million initiative sought to curtail Central American migration through development projects as well as law-and-order funding to crack down on the region’s dominant gangs.

Kelly aims to re-tool the Obama-era alliance without a large increase in American funding by pressing Mexico to shoulder more responsibility for governance and security in Central America, and by drumming up fresh private investment for the region, U.S. and Mexican diplomats say.

“What we’re going to see is … greater engagement directly between the Central Americans and Mexican government … (and) a more intense effort to integrate the economic side of this effort with the security side,” William Brownfield, the U.S. assistant secretary for International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs, told Reuters.

“We’re going to see a strategy that has already been developed, but it is going to be pushed harder and more aggressively in the coming year, and the year after.”

The reshaped alliance stands in contrast to some of the isolationist views jostling for power in the White House. Still it’s consistent with Trump’s foreign policy efforts to pressure China to do more to tackle the North Korea nuclear threat and to get European allies to pick up more of the tab for NATO.

The plan also puts Mexico in a delicate spot. President Enrique Pena Nieto has repeatedly expressed his desire to preserve the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), which has become a pillar of Mexico’s economy.

But he must avoid the appearance of capitulating to Trump, who has enraged the Mexican public with his threats to withdraw from NAFTA and force Mexico to pay for his proposed border wall.

“We want to be on good terms with them, because we’re dealing with a much more important issue,” said a senior Mexican diplomat who was not authorized to speak publicly. “In return, we want a beneficial NAFTA renegotiation.”

Neither Kelly nor the DHS responded to requests for comment.

“The prosperity and security of Central America … represent a priority of Mexico’s foreign policy,” the country’s foreign ministry said in a statement.

“The Alliance for Prosperity … is a valuable tool that can be strengthened with the participation of other governments.”

A MAN WITH A PLAN

The new-look Alliance will be firmed up in Miami next month, when U.S., Mexican and Central American officials will meet to negotiate various issues, including Mexico’s role, according to a draft U.S. schedule obtained by Reuters.

Mexico’s Foreign Minister Luis Videgaray has said publicly Mexico is willing to work with the United States in stabilizing Central America, without giving much detail.

In private, though, local officials say cash-strapped Mexico lacks the money to invest significantly in the region – a fact that hasn’t eluded the United States.

“We do not have significant expectations of major … financial contributions by the government of Mexico at this time,” Brownfield said.

However, he said it was reasonable to expect Mexico to help train Central American officials, and deepen coordination along its southern border. Mexican government agencies could also work more closely with their southern counterparts, he added, citing the example of Colombia, which is training Central America’s police forces at the United States’ behest.

Brownfield said the re-designed plan would be executed by the State Department and development agency U.S. AID, working closely with the DHS. The Inter-American Development Bank (IADB) is working with U.S. AID to design mechanisms for luring fresh investment, he added.

IADB President Luis Alberto Moreno told Reuters the Miami meeting, coordinated with DHS officials, aimed to deliver “an investment shock” to create jobs and prevent migration.

However, the Mexican diplomat who requested anonymity expressed concern the new plan could presage a deeper militarization of Central America. The region’s armies have launched violent attacks on the powerful “Mara Salvatrucha” and “Calle 18” gangs, sparking accusations of rights abuses.

Mexico, which is also grappling with widespread violence, is open to training Central American security forces, the diplomat said, but won’t send troops to fight the gangs given its long-standing policy not to intervene in foreign conflicts.

The “Alliance for Prosperity” was cooked up by the Obama administration after a 2014 surge in child migrants from Central America. It aimed to stabilize Central America with funding for security and development. But critics say the focus skewed heavily toward funding for tackling drug smuggling and gangs.

Brownfield pointed to falling homicides in Honduras, where the murder rate has dropped to 59 killings per 100,000 people last year from 90.4 in 2012, as evidence it is starting to yield results. Still, Central America remains one of the most violent regions on earth.

Mexican diplomats say U.S. and Central American officials for years quietly pressed Mexico to join the alliance – pressure they ignored until Trump was elected, threatening to scrap NAFTA.

“Now we’re facing a different scenario because we have an American government pressuring us on lots of issues,” said the Mexican diplomat. “We want to be on good terms with the United States.”

(Additional reporting by Patricia Zengerle in Washington; Editing by Frank Jack Daniel and Marla Dickerson)

Trump faces major test as vote looms on U.S. healthcare bill

A cyclist passes the the U.S. Capitol, on the day the House is expected to vote here to repeal Obamacare in Washington, D.C., U.S., May 4, 2017. REUTERS/Kevin Lamarque

By Richard Cowan and Yasmeen Abutaleb

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The U.S. House of Representatives was set on Thursday for a cliffhanger vote to repeal Obamacare, as Republican leaders worked to deliver President Donald Trump a win for one of his top legislative priorities.

House Republican leaders have expressed confidence the bill would pass and several party moderates who previously objected to the measure got behind it on Wednesday, giving it new momentum.

“We’re optimistic that we’ll pass it out of the House today,” Representative Mark Meadows of North Carolina, chairman of the conservative Freedom Caucus, told MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” program on Thursday.

The vote, which a House Republican aide said was due this afternoon, was expected to be close. Even if the measure passes the House, it faces daunting odds in the Senate where Republicans hold a narrower majority.

“Today is the next step in what is likely to be a very long process,” Republican Representative Michael Burgess of Texas also said on MSNBC.

Keen to score his first major legislative victory since taking office in January, Trump threw his own political capital behind the bill, meeting Burgess and other lawmakers and calling them in an effort to win their support.

Trump, whose Republican party controls both the House and Senate, is seeking to make good on his campaign promise to repeal and replace Obamacare.

Aides said he worked the phones furiously.

Wavering moderate Republicans had worried that the legislation to overhaul President Barack Obama’s 2010 signature healthcare law would leave too many people with pre-existing medical conditions unable to afford health coverage.

But the skeptical Republican lawmakers got behind the bill after meeting with Trump to float a compromise proposal expected to face unanimous Democratic opposition.

The legislation’s prospects brightened after members of the Freedom Caucus, a faction of conservative House lawmakers who played a key role in derailing the original version last month, said they could go along with the compromise.

Millions more Americans got healthcare coverage under Obamacare, but Republicans have long attacked it, seeing it as government overreach and complaining that it drives up costs.

Called the American Health Care Act, the Republican bill would repeal most Obamacare taxes, including a penalty for not buying health insurance. It would slash funding for Medicaid, the program that provides insurance for the poor, and roll back much of Medicaid’s expansion.

The latest effort comes after earlier pushes by Trump collapsed twice, underscoring the difficulty in uniting the various factions of the Republican party.

Earlier this week, prospects for the legislation appeared grim as several influential moderate Republicans said they could not support the bill, citing concerns about people with pre-existing conditions.

House Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Representative Greg Walden of Oregon on Thursday defended the leaders’ plan to vote on the bill without a new Congressional Budget Office analysis of the costs or impact on coverage, factoring in the recent changes.

“Obviously, it’s a work in progress,” Walden, who also met with Trump on Wednesday, said in a separate MSNBC interview.

House Democrats have rejected the latest change to the Republican legislation, saying it did not go far enough toward protecting people with pre-existing conditions.

“Republicans have made Trumpcare even more dangerous and destructive than the last time they brought it to the floor,” Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi said to her caucus in a letter late Wednesday night.

Democrats have long thought their best chance of stopping the repeal would be in the Senate, where only a few Republicans would need to defect to stop the law from moving forward.

Republican Meadows told MSNBC he expected the Senate to make changes to the bill that would improve it. The bill would then face a final vote in the House.

With the difficulties in the House, Democrats are optimistic Republicans will face a backlash from voters and could lose seats in the 2018 mid-term elections.

(Additional reporting by David Morgan, Steve Holland, Roberta Rampton, Eric Beech and Susan Heavey; Writing by Ginger Gibson; Editing by Caren Bohan and Jeffrey Benkoe)

Trump vows to broker Israeli-Palestinian peace

U.S. President Donald Trump (L) stands in the Oval Office with Chief of Staff Reince Priebus following an interview with Reuters at the White House in Washington, U.S., April 27, 2017. REUTERS/Carlos Barria

By Jeff Mason and Matt Spetalnick

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – President Donald Trump vowed on Wednesday to work to broker peace between Israel and the Palestinians as he hosted Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas at the White House but offered no clues about how he could break the deadlock and revive long-stalled negotiations.

In their first face-to-face meeting, Trump pressed Palestinian leaders to “speak in a unified voice against incitement” to violence against Israelis but he stopped short of explicitly recommitting his administration to a two-state solution to the decades-old conflict, a longstanding bedrock of U.S. policy.

“We will get this done,” Trump told Abbas during a joint appearance at the White House, saying he was prepared to act a mediator, facilitator or arbitrator between the two sides.

Abbas quickly reasserted the goal of a Palestinian state as vital to any rejuvenated peace process, reiterating that it must have its capital in Jerusalem with borders based on pre-1967 lines. Israel rejects a full return to 1967 borders as a threat to its security.

Trump faced deep skepticism at home and abroad over his chances for a breakthrough with Abbas, not least because the new U.S. administration has yet to articulate a cohesive strategy for restarting the moribund peace process.

Abbas’ White House talks follow a mid-February visit by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who moved quickly to reset ties after a frequently combative relationship with the Republican president’s predecessor, Democratic President Barack Obama.

Trump sparked international criticism at the time when he appeared to back away from support for a two-state solution, saying he would leave it up to the parties themselves to decide. The goal of an Palestinian state living peacefully beside Israel has been the position of successive U.S. administrations and the international community

The meeting with Abbas, the Western-backed head of the Palestinian Authority, was another test of whether Trump, in office a little more than 100 days, is serious about pursuing what he has called the “ultimate deal” of Israeli-Palestinian peace that eluded his predecessors.

“I’ve always heard that perhaps the toughest deal to make is between the Israelis and the Palestinian,” Trump said on Wednesday. “Let’s see if we can prove them wrong.”

But he offered no new policy prescriptions.

LOW EXPECTATIONS

Abbas, speaking through a translator, told Trump that under “your courageous stewardship and your wisdom, as well as your great negotiations ability,” the Palestinians would be partners seeking a “historic peace treaty.”

The last round of U.S.-brokered peace talks collapsed in 2014.

Abbas said “it’s about time for Israel to end its occupation of our people and our land” – a reference to Jewish settlement building in the West Bank. Reaffirming his commitment to a two-state solution, he called on Israel to recognize Palestinian statehood just as Palestinians recognize the state of Israel.

Though expectations are low for significant progress, plans are being firmed up for Trump to visit the right-wing Israeli leader in Jerusalem and possibly Abbas in the West Bank, targeted for May 22-23, according to people familiar with the matter. U.S. and Israeli officials have declined to confirm the visit.

Questions have been raised about Trump’s choice of his son-in-law, Jared Kushner, who entered the White House with no government experience, to oversee Middle East peace efforts, along with Trump’s longtime business lawyer, Jason Greenblatt, as on-the-ground envoy.

The administration seeks to enlist Israel’s Sunni Arab neighbors, who share Israeli concerns about Shi’ite Iran, to help rejuvenate Middle East peacemaking.

Abbas, who governs in the West Bank while Hamas militants rule Gaza, was under pressure at home to avoid making major concessions to Trump, especially with an ongoing hunger strike by hundreds of Palestinian prisoners held by Israel.

Palestinian officials say it will be hard for Abbas to return to the negotiating table without a long-standing pre-condition of a freeze on Jewish settlement expansion on land Israel occupied in 1967 which Palestinians want for a state.

Trump’s pro-Israel rhetoric during the 2016 election campaign raised concern among Palestinians about whether their leaders will get a fair hearing.

Trump’s promise to move the U.S. Embassy to Jerusalem from Tel Aviv, strongly opposed by Palestinians, has been shifted to the back burner, and he has asked Netanyahu to put unspecified limits on settlement activity.

(Additional reporting by David Alexander, Nidal al-Mughrabi in Gaza and Ali Sawafta in Ramallah; Editing by Howard Goller and Jonathan Oatis)

China urges all sides in North Korea standoff to ‘stop irritating’ one another

People watch a TV broadcasting of a news report on North Korea's missile launch, at a railway station in Seoul, South Korea. REUTERS/Kim Hong-Ji

By Ben Blanchard

BEIJING (Reuters) – China on Wednesday called on all parties in the Korean standoff to stay calm and “stop irritating each other” a day after North Korea said the United States was pushing the region to the brink of nuclear war.

The United States has urged China, reclusive North Korea’s lone major ally, to do more to rein in its neighbor’s nuclear and missile programs which have prompted an assertive response from the Trump administration, warning that the “era of strategic patience” is over.

The United States has sent a nuclear-powered aircraft carrier to Korean waters and a pair of strategic U.S. bombers flew training drills with the South Korean and Japanese air forces in another show of strength this week.

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Geng Shuang, asked about the bomber flights, the drills and North Korea’s response, stressed that the situation was “highly complex” and sensitive.

“The urgent task is to lower temperatures and resume talks,” he told reporters.

“We again urge all relevant parties to remain calm and exercise restraint, stop irritating each other, work hard to create an atmosphere for contact and dialogue between all sides, and seek a return to the correct path of dialogue and negotiation as soon as possible.”

The flight of the two bombers came as U.S. President Donald Trump raised eyebrows when he said he would be “honored” to meet North Korean leader Kim Jong Un in the right circumstances, and as his CIA director landed in South Korea for talks.

North Korea said the bombers conducted “a nuclear bomb dropping drill against major objects” in its territory at a time when Trump and “other U.S. warmongers are crying out for making a preemptive nuclear strike” on the North.

“The reckless military provocation is pushing the situation on the Korean peninsula closer to the brink of nuclear war,” the North’s official KCNA news agency said on Tuesday.

Tension on the Korean peninsula has been high for weeks, driven by concern that the North might conduct its sixth nuclear test in defiance of U.N. Security Council resolutions.

In a telephone call with his Philippine counterpart Rodrigo Duterte, Chinese President Xi Jinping urged all sides to exercise restraint and return to the correct path of talks as soon as possible, state radio reported.

CHINA OPPOSES THAAD

The U.S. military’s THAAD anti-missile defense system has reached initial operational capacity in South Korea, U.S. officials told Reuters, although they cautioned that it would not be fully operational for some months.

China has repeatedly expressed its opposition to the system, whose powerful radar it fears could reach inside Chinese territory, just as Trump has praised Chinese President Xi Jinping for his efforts to rein in North Korea.

It was widely feared North Korea could conduct a nuclear test on or around April 15 to celebrate the anniversary of the birth of the North’s founding leader, Kim Il Sung, or on April 25, the 85th anniversary of the foundation of its Korean People’s Army.

The North has conducted such tests or missile launches to mark significant events in the past.

Instead, North Korea held a big military parade featuring a display of missiles on April 15 and then a large, live-fire artillery drill 10 days later.

Trump drew criticism in Washington on Monday when he said he would be “honored” to meet North Korea’s young leader.

“If it would be appropriate for me to meet with him, I would absolutely, I would be honored to do it,” Trump told Bloomberg News.

Trump did not say what conditions would be needed for such a meeting to occur or when it could happen.

“Clearly conditions are not there right now,” White House spokesman Sean Spicer said.

Trump warned in an interview with Reuters on Thursday that a “major, major conflict” with North Korea was possible, while China said last week the situation on the Korean peninsula could escalate or slip out of control.

Trump has stepped up outreach to allies in Asia to secure their cooperation to pressure North Korea, and over the weekend he spoke with the leaders of Thailand, Singapore and the Philippines in separate phone calls.

The U.S. ambassador to Indonesia, Joseph R. Donovan, told reporters Indonesia was among several countries that the United States was urging take a “fresh look” at their North Korea ties.

He declined to go into details of what action the United States wanted, but said: “We are hoping that countries will look at what they can be doing to bring North Korea around to meaningful steps to end its nuclear and missile programs.”

Trump’s calls to the Asian leaders came after North Korea test-launched a missile that appeared to have failed within minutes, its fourth successive failed launch since March. It has conducted two nuclear tests and a series of missile-related activities at an unprecedented pace since the beginning of last year.

The North is technically still at war with the South after their 1950-53 conflict ended in a truce, not a treaty, and it regularly threatens to destroy the United States, Japan and South Korea.

Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin on Tuesday meanwhile spoke by telephone about Syria and “about how best to resolve the very dangerous situation in North Korea”, the White House said.

(Additional reporting by Steve Holland in WASHINGTON and Tom Allard in JAKARTA; Writing by Nick Macfie; Editing by Robert Birsel)

Federal spending plan reimburses New York City for Trump security

New York City Police Department (NYPD) officers stand guard outside the entrance of Trump Tower in New York City, U.S., April 26, 2017. REUTERS/Mike Segar

By Hilary Russ

NEW YORK (Reuters) – A federal spending agreement reached late on Sunday will reimburse New York City for money spent securing U.S. President Donald Trump and his family at Trump Tower in Manhattan.

Altogether, New York City and other state and local governments that have hosted the president would receive $61 million in the latest federal budget deal.

Officials in Florida’s Palm Beach County, home to Trump’s private club Mar-a-Lago, have also asked for help in paying security costs.

“We are getting what we are owed,” Mayor Bill de Blasio said in a statement on Monday. “That’s good news for our city and the hardworking police officers faced with this unprecedented security challenge.”

He and Police Commissioner James O’Neill worked for several months with New York’s congressional delegation to have the funds included in the deal, he said.

Congress is expected to approve the legislation by the end of the week.

The deal includes $20 million for costs incurred between Election Day in November and Inauguration Day in January, as well as $41 million after Trump was sworn in.

The funding, which must be shared with other local governments, is on top of the $7 million allocated last fall.

The city spends on average $127,000 to $146,000 a day for the New York Police Department to protect First Lady Melania Trump and the couple’s young son when President Trump is not in town.

Those costs are expected to swell to a daily average of $308,000 when Trump is in the city, the mayor’s office said.

Their home atop the 58-story skyscraper on Fifth Avenue near Central Park is the site of regular protests and is in an area popular with tourists.

When outlining his $84.9 billion executive city budget for fiscal 2018 on Wednesday, de Blasio said the city normally handles occasional visits from Presidents, but not ongoing costs to keep the First Family secure in Trump Tower.

“We’re not budgeting for something that’s a federal responsibility,” he said, according to a transcript of his remarks.

“It is ridiculous to expect local law enforcement… to bear the extraordinary and ongoing costs of protecting the President of the United States,” Congresswoman Carolyn Maloney, who helped lead the state’s congressional delegation in making the reimbursement request, said in a statement on Monday.

(Reporting by Hilary Russ; Editing by Meredith Mazzilli)

Trump to order a study on abuses of U.S. trade agreements

FILE PHOTO: The headquarters of the World Trade Organization (WTO) are pictured in Geneva, Switzerland, April 12, 2017. REUTERS/Denis Balibouse/File Photo

By Ayesha Rascoe

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – President Donald Trump will sign an executive order on Saturday seeking to identify any problems caused by the nation’s existing trade agreements, including an examination of U.S. involvement in the World Trade Organization, a top trade official said.

Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross said his department would work to issue a report in 180 days outlining challenges with these trade deals and possible solutions.

Ross singled out the World Trade Organization as an entity that may need to make some changes, although he cautioned that the administration had not made any decisions yet.

“There’s always the potential for amending organization’s charters like the WTO, particularly when you’re in the position we are,” he said. “We’re the number one importer in the whole world.”

Ross raised concerns that the WTO is too bureaucratic and does not hold meetings often enough. He also argued that the WTO has an “institutional bias” in favor of exporters and against countries that are being “beleaguered by inappropriate imports.”

Remaking U.S. trade relations has been a top priority for Trump, who has argued that the United States has been treated unfairly in international trade.

Trump said on Thursday that he had been prepared to terminate the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) with Canada and Mexico, but backed off after calls from the leaders of those two countries.

The effects of NAFTA on the U.S. economy will also be examined in the new study.

Last month, Trump also issued an order calling for a major review of the causes of all U.S. trade deficits.

(Reporting by Ayesha Rascoe; Editing by Jonathan Oatis)

Trump pledges fealty to NRA gun lobby

NRA Executive Director Chris Cox (L) and Executive Vice President and CEO Wayne LaPierre (R) welcome U.S. President Donald Trump (C) onstage to deliver remarks at the National Rifle Association (NRA) Leadership Forum at the Georgia World Congress Center in Atlanta, Georgia, U.S., April 28, 2017. REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst

By Steve Holland

ATLANTA (Reuters) – President Donald Trump pledged to uphold Americans’ right to possess guns on Friday in a speech that he used to revisit some 2016 election campaign themes from his vow to build a border wall to dismissing a Democratic senator as “Pocahontas.”

Trump pledged his allegiance to the powerful National Rifle Association, the country’s leading gun-rights advocacy group, at a convention attended by thousands. Elected in part on a law-and-order platform, Trump was the first sitting president to address the NRA since fellow Republican Ronald Reagan in 1983.

“As your president, I will never, ever infringe on the right of the people to keep and bear arms,” Trump told thousands of people attending the NRA’s annual convention in Atlanta, Georgia.

Trump, whose candidacy last year was endorsed by the NRA, marks his first 100 days in office on Saturday with no major legislative achievements but with a long litany of actions to loosen federal regulations and review free trade agreements.

Stymied by his initial bid to build a wall along the U.S.-Mexican border when Congress balked at funding the initiative, Trump vowed he will sooner or later build the wall, which had been a signature campaign promise.

“We need a wall. We’ll build the wall. Don’t even think about it,” he said.

Politics and his unexpected election victory on Nov. 8 over Democrat Hillary Clinton also featured prominently in his remarks.

Speculating on who might run for the Democratic presidential nomination in 2020, Trump brought up the name of U.S. Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts and used a derogatory nickname he had adopted for her last year.

“It may be Pochahontas, and she is not big on the NRA,” Trump said of Warren, who had once said she had some Native American ancestry.

Pocahontas is a legendary Native American figure from the 1600s.

Trump later attended a fund-raiser for Republican candidate Karen Handel, who will face Democrat Jon Ossoff on June 20 to determine who will win a House of Representatives seat to replace Tom Price, who became Trump’s health and human services secretary.

Trump, at the NRA event, returned time and again to the theme of responsible gun ownership.

“You have a true friend and champion in the White House,” he said. “We want to assure you of the sacred right of self defense for all of our citizens.”

(Reporting by Steve Holland; Editing by Tom Brown)