President of the American Chamber of Commerce in China (AmCham China) Alan Beebe speaks at a news conference on China business climate survey report in Beijing, China, February 26, 2019. REUTERS/Jason Lee
February 26, 2019
By Michael Martina
BEIJING (Reuters) – A top U.S. business lobby in China said on Tuesday that a majority of its member companies favored the United States retaining tariffs on Chinese goods while Washington and Beijing try to hammer out a deal to end a months-long trade war.
The American Chamber of Commerce in China also said over the past year substantially more of its members are wanting the U.S. government to push Beijing harder to create a level playing field for U.S. business.
U.S. President Donald Trump said on Monday that he may soon sign an agreement with Chinese President Xi Jinping to end the trade dispute if their countries can bridge remaining differences, saying negotiators were “very, very close” to a deal.
That followed Trump’s announcement a day earlier that he would delay a tariff hike on $200 billion of Chinese goods and extend his March 1 deadline for a deal. Washington is demanding an end to the theft of trade secrets and practices that coerce U.S. companies to turn over technology to Chinese firms.
About 10 percent of the chamber’s members favored raising tariffs rates on those $200 billion of Chinese goods from 10 percent to 25 percent after the original March 1 deadline agreed to by Trump and Xi in December.
Another 43 percent advocated maintaining tariffs at 10 percent and delaying the increase for 60 days while negotiations continued, the chamber said at a briefing on its annual China business climate survey.
“There are mixed feelings about the tariffs, but a majority are in support of the tariffs continuing at the present time,” chamber chairman Tim Stratford said at the briefing.
“People don’t like tariffs, and that’s truly understandable. But they also think that maybe the tariffs have done some good in provoking very serious negotiations between the two sides,” Stratford told Reuters earlier.
Chamber president Alan Beebe said 47 percent of members wanted the U.S. government to “advocate more strongly” for a level playing field for U.S. business in the world’s second largest economy.
“That figure is almost twice of what it was a year ago,” Beebe said.
The chamber said 19 percent of its companies were adjusting supply chains or seeking to source components and assembly outside of China as a result of tariffs. Twenty-eight percent were delaying or cancelling investment decisions in China.
Trump’s decision to delay the tariff increase has been greeted with a mixture of relief and dread among U.S. industry groups and lawmakers, many of which are increasingly fed up with what they say is China’s failure to live up to its World Trade Organization commitments.
Some have expressed concerns that after nearly eight months of tit-for-tat tariffs roiling global financial markets, disrupting manufacturing supply chains, and shrinking U.S. farm exports, Trump could end up settling for a deal that increases commodity sales to Beijing while doing little to change China’s underlying trade practices and industrial policies.
In his Feb. 5 State of the Union address, Trump said a China trade deal “must include real, structural change to end unfair trade practices, reduce our chronic trade deficit, and protect American jobs.”
But as the March 1 deadline drew closer, Trump has appeared increasingly eager to make a deal, causing concerns among trade watchers that he was eroding U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer’s leverage in the talks.
(Reporting by Michael Martina; Editing by Shri Navaratnam)
FILE PHOTO: Euro, Hong Kong dollar, U.S. dollar, Japanese yen, pound and Chinese 100 yuan banknotes are seen in this picture illustration, January 21, 2016. REUTERS/Jason Lee/Illustration/File Photo
February 20, 2019
By Marius Zaharia
HONG KONG (Reuters) – A slowing global economy and increasing strain on businesses from a year-long Sino-U.S. trade war are tilting central banks from Japan to Australia toward monetary easing in a remarkable 180 degree turn.
Late last year, the debate in Japan was focused on the demerits of printing money and the Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) was adamant the next likely move in rates will be up. An emerging market currency sell-off was seen forcing externally vulnerable economies such as India, Indonesia and the Philippines to keep tightening their policy rates.
But even they are now subject to rate cut bets.
A softer dollar and lower oil prices played an important role in the turnaround. But crucially for Asia, regional growth engine China is having a worse than expected start to the year and is exporting disinflation to the rest of the region.
The Federal Reserve last month adopted a more cautious approach in a shift that signaled its tightening cycle might be at an end.
“What’s obviously happening is that central banks are rethinking monetary policy,” said Piyush Gupta, CEO of DBS Group Holdings in Singapore.
With the exception of Philippines, which is also witnessing rapid disinflation, all major Asian economies are now facing inflation rates at the lower end or even below their central banks’ target. Price growth is sub-1 percent in Malaysia, Singapore, South Korea, Taiwan and Thailand.
“Underlying price pressures are remarkably soft … and broadly falling,” Frederic Neumann, co-head of Asian economics research at HSBC, said.
“The case for further monetary easing may thus become more pressing, even if in itself this may not be enough to push up growth materially.”
On Tuesday, Bank of Japan Governor Haruhiko Kuroda said the central bank was ready to boost stimulus if sharp yen rises hurt the economy and its price goal.
Also in Tokyo on the same day, Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP)deputy governor Diwa Guinigundo said the central bank, which hiked five times last year, will act swiftly if liquidity conditions aren’t sufficient to maintain economic momentum.
Earlier this month, the RBA shifted to a neutral stance from its previous tightening bias, but an increasing number of economists polled by Reuters are predicting a cut.
India’s central bank unexpectedly lowered interest rates in February and analysts are tipping another cut. Of the three major economies running current account deficits, Indonesia is the only one where expectations for a policy reversal, after six hikes last year, are extremely low, as the central bank is more focused on exchange rate stability.
“BSP is more likely to take a surprise, earlier turn in its monetary policy bias than BI, given the central bank’s growth bias and rapidly slowing growth momentum,” said Juliana Lee, Asia chief economist at Deutsche Bank.
CHINA LIQUIDITY
At this stage, economists don’t see chances of more than one cut in any Asian economy, but much will depend on how China performs, whether its trade dispute with the United States is resolved and how successful Beijing’s stimulus efforts are.
In January, the People’s Bank of China (PBOC) slashed the reserve requirement ratio (RRR) by 100 basis points and analysts expect another 150 bps of cuts by year-end, on top of other fiscal stimulus measures expected in March.
Some economists do expect a cut in benchmark interest rates, but the consensus is that such a move would only come as a last resort given that it could hurt the yuan and reignite debt risks.
“Only if internal and external environments change drastically … will cutting benchmark saving and lending rates become much more likely,” ICBC analysts said in a note.
(Reporting by Marius Zaharia; Editing by Shri Navaratnam)
Doug Schoen, pollster and Democratic strategist, blasted President Donald Trump's approach to foreign policy and said it projects an image of the U.S. abdicating its role as "democracy's standard-bearer."
Schoen made his comments in a column posted by Fox News website Tuesday.
Schoen referred to former Vice President Dick Cheney recently pressing Vice President Mike Pence about Trump's foreign policy during a closed-door event.
"Despite often opposing Vice President Cheney, I largely agree with him that the Trump administration's foreign policy lacks direction and discipline," he said.
"I remain concerned that President Trump's nationalistic, isolationist 'America First' approach to foreign policy projects an image of the United States as abdicating our role on the world stage as democracy's standard-bearer."
Schoen claimed many of the "more reasoned voices" on Trump's national security team have left, notably former Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis.
"While I may not have wholeheartedly agreed with Secretary Mattis on everything, we share an understanding of the role that the United States should play on the world stage: the role of a global leader who champions democracy and stands up for our allies," he said.
And Schoen said Trump's lack of foreign policy direction has been particularly troubling.
"For America to truly succeed, we must renew our commitment to global leadership in a way that is informed by an idealistic, moral, yet also practical outlook toward the international community," he said.
Golf - Masters - Augusta National Golf Club - Augusta, Georgia, U.S. - April 12, 2019 - During second round play. Dustin Johnson of the U.S. hits off the 18th tee. REUTERS/Brian Snyder
April 12, 2019
AUGUSTA, Ga. (Reuters) – Second-round play at the Masters was suspended on Friday due to dangerous weather in the area of Augusta National.
The horn sounded to clear spectators from the course with major winners Francesco Molinari, Jason Day and Brooks Koepka all sharing the clubhouse lead at seven-under.
Players were greeted by steady rain as play began on Friday but the skies cleared allowing over half of the 87-player field to complete their rounds before action was halted.
Several prominent players were still on the course when the horn blasted, including Rory McIlroy and Tiger Woods, who had just hit his tee shot on the par-three 12th.
(Reporting by Steve Keating. Editing by Toby Davis)
Footage of Sen. Bernie Sanders (D-Vt.) calling food lines a “good thing” has resurfaced after he announced his run for president in 2020.
The footage allegedly takes place in the 1980s and shows Sanders answering a question about bread lines in Nicaragua due to the food shortages triggered by a local socialist party called Sandinistas.
“You know, it’s funny. Sometimes American journalists talk about how bad a country is when people are lining up for food,” he said. “That’s a good thing.”
“In other countries, people don’t line up for food. The rich get the food and the poor starve to death.”
The resurfaced footage of Sanders praising an iconic symptom of a failed state comes on the heels of President Trump pinning Venezuela’s collapse to its socialist policies.
“…But the American people will reject an agenda of sky-high rates, government-run health care and coddling dictators like those in Venezuela,” reads a Trump statement. “Only President Trump will keep America free, prosperous and safe.”
Interestingly, Sanders likend his 2020 campaign to a revolution in an email he sent to his supporters that also also called Trump the most dangerous president in modern American history.
“Together, you and I and our 2016 campaign began the political revolution,” said Sanders. “Now, it is time to complete that revolution and implement the vision that we fought for.”
Alex Jones presents video footage of the moment during President Trump’s state of the union address where he called out Bernie Sanders, and other left-wing democrats, for pushing failed socialist ideologies on the American people and passing it off as helpful to the economy or humanitarian.
Attorney Sol Wisenberg, the former deputy independent counsel under Ken Starr, said Tuesday that the debate in the House Oversight Committee involving security clearances is all political and not about legal issues.
“Well it's a political issue. It's a policy issue. Keep in mind that the whole system of security clearances ultimately derived decades ago from an executive order,” Wisenberg told “America’s Newsroom.”
Tricia Newbold, an 18-year government employee who oversees the issuance of clearances for some senior White House aides, said she compiled a list of at least 25 officials who were initially denied security clearances last year because of their backgrounds. But, she said, senior Trump aides overturned those decisions, despite it not being "in the best interest of national security."
Wisenberg does believe, however, that Congress has a right to see if the whistleblower is making a valid point or if this is an example of the intelligence community striking out against President Trump.
“Now who knows whether or not this woman has a point to be made, whether her concerns are legitimate or whether this is an example of the intelligence community, the background community, the FBI community that has a hand in these security decisions is striking out against President Trump, who knows,” Wisenberg said.
“That's something that Congress has the right to get to the bottom of.”
Indeed, the media spotlight and the momentum appear to have shifted in recent weeks to South Bend, Ind., Mayor Pete Buttigieg, whose candidacy has surged over the past month.
But O'Rourke, a former three-term congressman from El Paso, Texas, says he's not fretting.
“I feel great,” he told Fox News on Thursday. “I feel like we’re in a good place.”
He added: “I think more than any other candidate, we’ve been showing up answering questions. I think we’ve answered nearly 600 questions so far in a little bit more than a month. Have visited more communities. That’s what I want to do. That’s democracy.”
O’Rourke spoke with Fox News during stops in Derry and Concord, N.H., making his second trip since launching his campaign to the state with the first primary in the race for the White House.
O’Rourke was soaring in the polls and was posting eye-popping fundraising figures as he basked in generous media attention and large crowds on the campaign trail in the weeks after he declared his candidacy in last month.
But even if the sheen has diminished to some degree, O’Rourke remains a draw on the campaign trail. Derry’s Grind Rail Trail Cafe was packed with voters eager to get a look at the former congressman, who nearly upset Republican Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas last year. And a crowd of a couple of hundred watched him at Gibson’s Bookstore in Concord, a key stop for Democratic White House hopefuls.
“We show up for everyone. We take no one for granted,” he told the audience.
In an interview after the event, O’Rourke pointed to the calendar, emphasizing that “we’re still roughly 10 months out from the first votes being cast. And that’s a lot of time, a lot of miles, a lot of hours, a lot of town halls, a lot of questions, and I’m up for it and I’m looking forward to it.”
He discounted early polling, saying, “I just am not concerned about, nor am I following, the polls. You may know that throughout the Senate campaign we never hired a pollster or participated in a focus group.”
O’Rourke raised more than $9 million in the 18 days from the launch of his campaign through March 31, which was the end of the first quarter of fundraising. Asked if he can keep up that pace in the second quarter, he noted that “there are more people who have given to us (in last year’s Senate campaign) that can give for the first time in this race, or who can give additional amounts. I think that speaks to our ability for capacity and pace.”
He said he'll tap his nascent campaign war chest to increase staff in New Hampshire and other early-voting states, and “use that money doing what we’re doing here, ensuring that we have an ability to show up everywhere, in every part of every state that we go to.”
O’Rourke’s trip to the Granite State came days before a likely presidential announcement by onetime Vice President Joe Biden.
O’Rourke said Biden “would be a great addition to an already outstanding field of Democratic contenders. He certainly brings something to the conversation, to the debates.”
Ahead of O'Rourke's arrival in New Hampshire, the Republican National Committee painted him as one more too-liberal Democrat supporting fringe proposals.
"Beto’s socialist schemes would kill jobs, hike taxes and reverse our country’s roaring economic success," RNC spokesperson Mandi Merritt told Fox News.
“Outdated laws” need fixing to deal with the surge in illegal immigrant families crossing the U.S. border with Mexico, a top Border Patrol official said Friday.
Historically 70 to 90 percent of apprehensions at the border were quickly returned to Mexico, Hastings said.
Now, 83 percent of those apprehended have come from the Central American northern triangle which includes Guatemala, El Salvador, and Honduras, and of those 63 percent are “family units” and children who cannot be returned, he said.
“There are no consequences that we can apply to this group currently,” Hastings said. “We’re overwhelmed. If you look at agents there doing a tremendous job trying to deal with the flow.”
The law dictates children have to be released after 20 days of detention.
“Up to 40 percent of our agents are processing at any given time,” he said. “That should say that in and of itself is pulling from those border security resources.”
President Trump on Friday blasted liberal billionaire activist Tom Steyer for his continued push to impeach Trump — with Trump claiming Steyer is “trying to remain relevant” and doesn’t have the “guts” to run for the White House himself.
“Weirdo Tom Steyer, who didn’t have the ‘guts’ or money to run for President, is still trying to remain relevant by putting himself on ads begging for impeachment,” the president tweeted. “He doesn’t mention the fact that mine is perhaps the most successful first 2 year presidency in history & NO C OR O! [Collusion or Obstruction]”
Trump and his allies have pointed to Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s Russia report’s conclusions that there was no evidence of collusion between Russia and the Trump campaign and its decision not to make a conclusion on obstruction of justice as a vindication for the president.
Steyer has been one of the leaders backing a push to impeach Trump and founded “Need to Impeach” and has kept up that push since the report’s release. He announced on Thursday that he was calling on Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., to support impeachment proceedings.
On Friday he responded to Trump’s tweet, calling him “angry and scared.”
“I know you want it all to go away. But for the sake of the country you must face your transgressions. Rage away, but that anger doesn’t matter,” he said in a tweet. The truth and the people will prevail.”
Impeachment hearings have been backed by a number of House Democrats, as well as 2020 presidential hopefuls Sens. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., and Kamala Harris, D-Calif. However, Pelosi has long been skeptical of impeachment proceedings against Trump.
“I’m not for impeachment,” Pelosi told The Washington Post in an interview last month. “Impeachment is so divisive to the country that unless there’s something so compelling and overwhelming and bipartisan, I don’t think we should go down that path, because it divides the country. And he’s just not worth it.”
A Florida measure that would ban sanctuary cities is set for a vote Friday in the state’s Senate after clearing its first hurdle earlier this week.
The bill would effectively make it against the law for Florida’s police departments to refuse to cooperate with federal immigration officials.
“The Governor may initiate judicial proceedings in the name of the state against such officers to enforce compliance,” a draft version of the Senate bill reads.
A House version of the bill, which passed by a 69-47 vote Wednesday, adds that non-complying officials could be suspended or removed from office and face fines of up to $5,000 per day. Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis is expected to sign off on the measure, although it’s not clear which version.
Florida Rep. Carlos Guillermo Smith (D-Orlando), during a press conference at the Florida Capitol in Tallahassee, speaks out against bills in the House and Senate that would ban sanctuary cities in the state. (AP)
Florida is home to 775,000 illegal immigrants out of 10.7 million present in the United States, ranking the state third among all states.
Nine states — Alabama, Arizona, Georgia, Iowa, North Carolina, Mississippi, Missouri, Tennessee and Texas — already have enacted state laws requiring law enforcement to comply with Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
Florida doesn’t have sanctuary cities like the ones in California and other states. But Republican lawmakers say a handful of their municipalities — including Orlando and West Palm Beach – are acting as “pseudo-sanctuary” cities, because they prevent law enforcement officials from asking about immigration status when they make arrests.
“There are still people here in the state of Florida, police chiefs that are just refusing to contact ICE, refusing to detain somebody that they know is here illegally,” Florida Republican Rep. Blaise Ingoglia said earlier this month. “So while the actual county municipality doesn’t have an actual adopted policy, they still have people in power within their sheriff’s department or police department that refuse to do it anyway.”
Florida’s Democratic Party has blasted the anti-Sanctuary measures, while the Miami-Dade Police Department says it should be up to federal authorities to handle immigration-related matters.
“House Republicans today sold out their communities to Donald Trump and Ron DeSantis by passing this xenophobic and discriminatory bill,” the state’s Democratic Party said Wednesday after the House passed their version of the bill. “It’s abhorrent that Republican members who represent immigrant communities are now turning their backs on their constituents and jeopardizing their safety.
“Florida has long stood as a beacon for immigrant communities — and today Republicans did the best they could to destroy that reputation,” they added.
Fox News’ Elina Shirazi contributed to this report.
FILE PHOTO: Supporters of the Spain’s far-right party VOX wave Spanish flags as they attend an electoral rally ahead of general elections in the Andalusian capital of Seville, Spain April 24, 2019. REUTERS/Marcelo del Pozo/File Photo
April 26, 2019
By John Stonestreet and Belén Carreño
MADRID (Reuters) – Spain’s Vox party, aligned to a broader far-right movement emerging across Europe, has become the focus of speculation about last minute shifts in voting intentions since official polling for Sunday’s national election ended four days ago.
No single party is anywhere near securing a majority, and chances of a deadlocked parliament and a second election are high.
Leaders of the five parties vying for a role in government get final chances to pitch for power at rallies on Friday evening, before a campaign characterized by appeals to voters’ hearts rather than wallets ends at midnight.
By tradition, the final day before a Spanish election is politics-free.
Two main prizes are still up for grabs in the home straight. One concerns which of the two rival left and right multi-party blocs gets more votes.
The other is whether Vox could challenge the mainstream conservative PP for leadership of the latter bloc, which media outlets with access to unofficial soundings taken since Monday suggest could be starting to happen.
The right’s loose three-party alliance is led by the PP, the traditional conservative party that has alternated in office with outgoing Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez’s Socialists since Spain’s return to democracy in the 1970s.
The PP stands at around 20 percent, with center-right Ciudadanos near 14 percent and Vox around 11 percent, according to a final poll of polls in daily El Pais published on Monday.
Since then, however, interest in Vox – which will become the first far-right party to sit in parliament since 1982 – has snowballed.
It was founded in 2013, part of a broader anti-establishment, far-right movement that has also spread across – among others – Italy, France and Germany.
While it is careful to distance itself from the ideology of late dictator Francisco Franco, Vox’s signature policies include repealing laws banning Franco-era symbols and on gender-based violence, and shifting power away from Spain’s regional governments.
TRENDING
According to a Google trends graphic, Vox has generated more than three times more search inquiries than any other Spanish political party in the past week.
Reasons could include a groundswell of vocal activist support at Vox rallies in Madrid and Valencia, and its exclusion from two televised debates between the main party leaders, on the grounds of it having no deputies yet in parliament.
Conservative daily La Vanguardia called its enforced absence from Monday’s and Tuesday’s debates “a gift from heaven”, while left-wing Eldiario.es suggested the PP was haemorrhaging votes to Vox in rural areas.
Ignacio Jurado, politics lecturer at the University of York, agreed the main source of additional Vox votes would be disaffected PP supporters, and called the debate ban – whose impact he said was unclear – wrong.
“This is a party polling over 10 percent and there are people interested in what it says. So we lose more than we win in not having them (in the debates),” he said
For Jose Fernandez-Albertos, political scientist at Spanish National Research Council CSIC, Vox is enjoying the novelty effect that propelled then new, left-wing arrival Podemos to 20 percent of the vote in 2015.
“While it’s unclear how to interpret the (Google) data, what we do know is that it’s better to be popular and to be a newcomer, and that Vox will benefit in some form,” he said.
For now, the chances of Vox taking a major role in government remain slim, however.
The El Pais survey put the Socialists on around 30 percent, making them the frontrunners and likely to form a leftist bloc with Podemos, back down at around 14 percent.
The unofficial soundings suggest little change in the two parties’ combined vote, or the total vote of the rightist bloc.
That makes it unlikely that either bloc will win a majority on Sunday, triggering horse-trading with smaller parties favoring Catalan independence – the single most polarizing issues during campaigning – that could easily collapse into fresh elections.
(Election graphic: https://tmsnrt.rs/2ENugtw)
(Reporting by John Stonestreet and Belen Carreno, Editing by William Maclean)
LANCASTER, Pa. – The Amish population in Pennsylvania’s Lancaster County is continuing to grow each year, despite the encroachment of urban sprawl on their communities.
The U.S. Census Bureau says the county added about 2,500 people in 2018. LNP reports that about 1,000 of them were Amish.
Elizabethtown College researchers say Lancaster County’s Amish population reached 33,143 in 2018, up 3.2% from the previous year.
The Amish accounted for about 41% of the county’s overall population growth last year.
Some experts are concerned that a planned 75-acre (30-hectare) housing and commercial project will make it more difficult for the county to accommodate the Amish.
Donald Kraybill, an authority on Amish culture, told Manheim Township commissioners this week that some in the community are worried about the development and the increased traffic it would bring.
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