It’s Not Just China’s Retaliatory Tariffs That Should Worry U.S. Businesses
Posted: 02 Apr 2018 01:44 AM PDT
On Monday, China hit back at the Trump administration’s decision to raise duties on steel and aluminum imports, imposing tariffs of up to 25% on 128 American goods — including pork, wine and fruit — worth an estimated $3 billion.
Beijing said the hike was intended to “safeguard China’s interests and balance” losses caused by the new 25% tariff on steel imports and 10% on aluminum that Washington imposed from March 23, citing “national security.” President Trump has stated that trade wars are “good” and “easy to win,” while common consensus among economists is that all parties lose.
Beijing’s strident state media has praised the retaliation. A Global Times editorial described the tit-for-tat as “now an unofficial trade war.”
“It is time for Washington to bid farewell to the fantasy it has long been living in, a delusional world of make-believe whereby it imagines China as an unresponsive nation and tolerant toward U.S. tariffs,” it added.
For now, the dispute doesn’t appear to be spiraling, though that could change if the White House follows through with recent threats of an additional $60 billion of tariffs related to alleged Intellectual Property (IP) theft.
“If this is a Jujitsu match, I haven’t seen any major moves yet,” says Jeffrey Towson, a private-equity investor and a professor of investment at Peking University in Beijing. “This looks like grappling to me, but nobody’s choking each other out.”
Still, if this turns into a street brawl, China knows how to fight dirty — and frequently does. The Beijing government has a record of slapping tariffs on nations for political or retaliatory purposes. Moreover, China doesn’t even have to take explicit action to hurt other nations in the pocket — its people can do that themselves.
One of the biggest weapons Beijing wields is popular nationalism, which often works in cahoots with government coercion. Last year, China targeted South Korea’s economy in response to Seoul’s decision to host the U.S. THAAD missile defense system, which Beijing deems an affront. According to South Korea’s National Assembly’s Budget Office, a tourism boycott alone saw Chinese arrivals drop 67% and cost the South Korean economy $6.8 billion.
In addition, department stores run by South Korean conglomerate Lotte — which owns the land where THAAD was deployed — were forced to close in China on dubious “fire safety” grounds. Sales of Hyuandi and Samsung products also suffered. In fact, there were 43 cases of retaliation in the six months to last February, according to Korean news agency Yonhap.
Economic warfare will often spring organically. In 2008, Chinese nationalists urged a boycott against French supermarket chain Carrefour after Tibetan independence advocates protested the Olympic torch’s route through Paris. In 2010, by contrast, China declared an official boycott against Norwegian salmon exports after the Nobel Peace Prize was awarded to Chinese dissident Liu Xiaobo. Philippine banana imports were also banned over territorial disputes between Beijing and Manila in the South China Sea.
Read more: How China Could Use ‘America First’ to Its Advantage
Japan is frequently targeted owning to territorial disputes in the East China Sea and historical grievances over abuses during Japanese occupation of China, with periodic boycotts of celebrated auto and electronics brands, such as Honda, Toyota and Sony. And the U.S. was even targeted in 2016 over a July 12 ruling by an international tribunal that rejected China’s historic claims to the South China Sea. Protesters targeted certain iconic American symbols — KFC and McDonalds — but were dispersed by police.
While such actions can be organic, they rarely gather steam without official backing, and it seems that the Beijing government never felt fully comfortable with officially sanctioning anti-American action. But judging by the increasingly jingoistic language of China’s state press, and how maoyi zhan, or “trade war,” is increasingly part of the everyday lexicon, that may soon change.
Worryingly for American firms, China not only represents a large chunk of current foreign earnings but also represents a key sector for future growth. Apple, the world’s most valuable firm, earned $17.9 billion in Greater China in the last quarter of 2017 — about 20% of global revenue. Trump has accused China of unfair trade practices that led 60,000 American factories to close at a loss of 6 million jobs. But the U.S. has never felt the devastation wrought by 1.3 billion angry Chinese consumers.
“We’ve never seen a Pan-American boycott like we’ve seen for other countries,” says Towson. “I’m curious if we will now.”
Monday, April 2, 2018
501 Days in Swampland A constant drip of self-dealing. - New York Magazine
501 Days in Swampland
A constant drip of self-dealing. And this is just what we know so far …
By Joy Crane and Nick Tabor
Introduction by David Cay Johnston
April 1, 2018
On the day he took the oath of office, Donald Trump delivered two messages about what to expect from his administration. First came the lofty promise of his inaugural address. “The forgotten men and women of our country will be forgotten no longer,” he vowed. “For too long, a small group in our nation’s capital has reaped the rewards of government while the people have borne the cost. Washington flourished — but the people did not share in its wealth.”
The second message, which Trump delivered without speaking a word, was aimed at a much smaller, but very rich, audience. As the new president’s motorcade left the Capitol, rolling past knots of supporters and protesters, it suddenly stopped three blocks short of the White House. Trump, the First Lady, and the rest of his family got out of their limos and took a three-minute turn in the middle of Pennsylvania Avenue.
This was no random spot. The very first place Trump headed after being sworn in — his true destination all along, in a sense — was the Old Post Office and Clock Tower, which only 12 days before the election had been repurposed as the Trump International Hotel Washington. The elegant granite structure, whose architectural character Trump had promised to preserve, was now besmirched by a gaudy, faux-gold sign bearing his name. The carefully choreographed stop sent a clear signal to the foreign governments, lobbyists, and corporate interests keen on currying favor in Washington: The rewards of government would now be reaped by a single man — and the people would bear the cost.
More than at any time in history, the president of the United States is actively using the power and prestige of his office to line his own pockets: landing loans for his businesses, steering wealthy buyers to his condos, securing cheap foreign labor for his resorts, preserving federal subsidies for his housing projects, easing regulations on his golf courses, licensing his name to overseas projects, even peddling coffee mugs and shot glasses bearing the presidential seal. For Trump, whose business revolves around the marketability of his name, there has proved to be no public policy too big, and no private opportunity too crass, to exploit for personal profit.
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Nowhere has the self-enrichment been more evident than at his Washington hotel, which quickly filled up with the very lobbyists and swamp creatures Trump had railed against during his campaign. Oil companies, mining interests, insurance executives, foreign diplomats, and defense contractors all rushed to book their annual conferences at Trump’s hotels and resorts, where Cabinet members graciously addressed them. After hiking the nightly rate to $653 — 32 percent higher than other local luxury hotels — Trump collected $2 million in profits from the property during his first three months in office. By last August, the hotel’s bar and restaurant had hauled in another $8 million in revenue. And although Trump has pledged to give away any money his hotels earn from foreign governments, the plan contains a lucrative loophole: Employees at his hotels admit that they make no effort to identify guests who represent other countries, meaning that much of the foreign money spent at Trump’s properties flows directly into his own pockets. On March 28, a federal judge allowed a lawsuit to go forward that charges Trump with violating the Constitution by accepting money from foreign governments at his D.C. hotel.
In fact, although Trump refuses to disclose the details of his myriad business operations, he continues to enjoy access to every dime he makes as president. Instead of setting up a blind trust to avoid conflicts of interest, as other presidents have done, Trump put his two grown sons in charge of his more than 500 business entities. His sons regularly brief Trump about how the enterprises are doing, enabling him to personally monitor how his decisions in office affect his bottom line. What’s more, only 15 days after this “eyes wide open” trust was set up, Trump amended the fine print to allow him to take money out of the operation any time he pleases. The loophole, buried on page 161 of the 166-page form, stipulates that any “net income or principal” can be distributed to Trump “at his request.” Far from putting his wealth in a blind trust, Trump asked the public for its blind trust, effectively sticking his money in a piggy bank in Don Jr.’s room that he is free to raid at any hour of the day or night.
Trump’s children are working hard to cash in on his time in office — especially with foreign investors. At taxpayer expense, they have flown to Uruguay, the Dominican Republic, Dubai, and India in search of licensing and real-estate deals, trading on the president’s influence in exchange for investments. But the biggest complication of Trump’s presidency — and the one he works hardest to keep secret — is the way his entire business operation is mired in massive debt. Rather than being independently wealthy, public records show, Trump and the business partnerships in which he is a leading investor owe big banks and foreign governments at least $2.3 billion — far more than his disclosure reports indicate. His largest single loan — for nearly $1 billion — is from a syndicate assembled by Goldman Sachs that includes the state-owned Bank of China. If either Trump or Jared Kushner, who tried to shake down Qatar’s finance minister for a loan, winds up needing to negotiate new terms on his ballooning debt, America could find itself being dictated to by a foreign government — all because the White House, thanks to Trump’s business model, has become a true House of Cards.
What follows is 501 days of official corruption, from small-time graft and brazen influence peddling to full-blown raids on the federal Treasury. Given how little Trump has disclosed about his finances, this timeline of self-dealing is undoubtedly only a fraction of the corruption that will eventually come to light. But as even this initial glimpse makes clear, Trump isn’t draining the swamp — he’s monetizing it. —David Cay Johnston
Trump’s Hotel in D.C.
Photo: Tony Millionaire
“The stars have all aligned. I think our brand is the hottest it has ever been.” —Eric Trump, speaking at the hotel
2016
12/7 Diplomats from Bahrain move the country’s National Day celebration from the Ritz-Carlton to the ballroom at the Trump International Hotel in Washington, D.C.
2017
1/20 A watchdog group calls on the General Services Administration, a federal agency, to stop leasing the Old Post Office to Trump for use as the hotel. The agency’s ethics division, which reports to Trump, rules that the $180 million deal is fine.
1/23 Saudi Arabia holds a bash at the hotel after renting rooms for lobbyists for five months. Trump’s haul: $270,000.
2/25 The Kuwaiti Embassy, reportedly pressured by the Trump Organization, moves its National Day celebration from the Four Seasons to Trump’s hotel.
3/1 The National Railroad Construction and Maintenance Association hosts a dinner at the hotel, drenched in Trump-branded coffee and wine.
3/22 The American Petroleum Institute holds its board meeting at Trump’s hotel, where it meets with EPA chief Scott Pruitt. A month later, Pruitt suspends drilling regulations.
5/1 Rates at the hotel jump to $653 per night, a price hike of 60 percent since Trump’s election.
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5/21 A Turkish government council holds its annual conference at the hotel. The group’s chair founded the company that paid $530,000 to former national-security adviser Michael Flynn for lobbying work.
7/17 E-cigarette-makers hold their annual conference at the hotel. Ten days later, the FDA announces it will delay federal oversight of e-cigarettes until 2022.
8/11 A federal agency accidentally posts the hotel’s Q1 profits: $2 million.
9/13 Staffers for Linda McMahon, head of the Small Business Administration, try to cover up the fact that she addressed a business lobbying event at the hotel, avoiding images of hotel signs bearing Trump’s name when posting photos of the event on Twitter.
9/28 The Fund for American Studies, a conservative organization, hosts a lunch at the hotel. The keynote speaker, Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch, thanks Trump’s staff for helping him get confirmed.
Rick Perry.
10/4 At its annual board meeting, the National Mining Association is addressed by three Cabinet members: Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross, Labor Secretary Alexander Acosta, and Energy Secretary Rick Perry. “Coal is fighting back,” Perry exults over breakfast with the country’s top mining executives. “Clearly the president wants to revive, not revile, this vital resource.” Five days later, the Trump administration announces the repeal of Obama’s Clean Power Plan, which would have encouraged states to replace coal with wind and solar energy. The plan would have cut climate-warming pollution from coal plants by a third and saved taxpayers and consumers as much as $93 billion a year. The venue for the mining board’s meeting: the Trump International Hotel in Washington, D.C.
10/5 A commercial real-estate trade association hosts an awards gala at Trump’s hotel, sponsored by a roster of prominent lobbying agents.
10/11 The American Legislative Exchange Council, a powerful conservative lobbying group with ties to the Koch brothers, announces that the venue for its 45th-anniversary gala will be Trump’s hotel. The group requests corporate sponsorships of up to $100,000.
2018
3/5 The Independent Petroleum Association of America holds a three-day lobbying event at the hotel.
3/28 A federal judge declines to stop a lawsuit that accuses Trump of violating the Constitution by accepting money from foreign governments at his hotel.
Mar-a-Lago
“The ornate Jazz Age house was designed with Old-World Spanish, Venetian, and Portuguese influences.” —From a state department promo online
2016
12/31 Mar-a-Lago hosts a New Year’s Eve party with Trump, priced at $525 a ticket. His take for the night: $400,000.
2017
1/1 The resort quietly doubles its initiation fee to $200,000 — a potential haul of $2 million. In return, club members get access to the president on a par with White House officials.
4/4 The State Department runs an online promotion for Mar-a-Lago, which is also picked up by embassy websites in England and Albania.
President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping. Photo: Alex Brandon/AP
4/6 Trump and Ivanka meet with Chinese president Xi Jinping at Mar-a-Lago. That same day, China approves trademarks for three of Ivanka’s brands.
6/16 Financial-disclosure filings show that Trump’s revenues from the resort soared by 25 percent during his presidential run.
7/17 The administration increases the allotment of H2-B visas for foreign workers. Within days, Mar-a-Lago applies for 76 of the new visas — even though a local jobs agency has 5,100 applicants qualified to fill the openings.
11/10 The Republican Attorneys General Association, which has spent more than $75,000 at Trump’s properties in five months, holds a reception at Mar-a-Lago. It later forms a “working group” to partner with the Trump administration to roll back environmental protections.
12/9 Oxbow Carbon, a major energy company that would benefit from the Keystone XL pipeline, holds its annual holiday gala at Mar-a-Lago.
12/31 Trump boosts ticket prices for his New Year’s Eve bash to $750. Taxpayers foot the $26,000 bill for lights, generators, and tent rental.
2018
1/9 The Trump administration opens offshore drilling in all but one state: Florida, where oil and gas exploration could hurt business at Mar-a-Lago.
2/18 Reports reveal that Trump regularly solicits input from Mar-a-Lago members on everything from gun control to Jared Kushner’s favorability. Unlike other politicians, who are limited to asking the wealthy for campaign contributions, Trump has found a way to personally profit from selling access to the president.
2/26 An Israel-focused charity, the Truth About Israel, relocates its gala to Mar-a-Lago in appreciation of the president’s support for Israel.
Trump’s Other Properties & Investments
Trump’s resort in Miami. Photo: The Washington Post/The Washington Post/Getty Images
“The Clintons have turned the politics of personal enrichment into an art form for themselves. They’ve made hundreds of millions of dollars selling access, selling favors, selling government contracts.” —Donald Trump
2016
11/14 In a call with Argentina’s president, Mauricio Macri, Trump reportedly pushes for approval to build a Trump Tower in downtown Buenos Aires. Ivanka Trump, who oversees the family business with her brothers, sits in on the call.
2017
1/24 Trump signs an executive order to fast-track the Dakota Access Pipeline. He claims to have sold the stock he owns in the pipeline’s builders — as much as $300,000 — but offers no proof.
Photo: EnginKorkmaz/Getty Images
1/27 Trump issues the travel ban but leaves off Saudi Arabia, Turkey, and Egypt — countries where he has significant business interests. His company was paid as much as $10 million for use of his name on a tower in Istanbul, and he registered eight new businesses in Saudi Arabia during his campaign.
2/3 Trump, who owned as much as $5 million in bank stocks in 2016, orders the Treasury secretary to consider ways to roll back regulations on banks. The value of bank stocks soars nearly 30 percent during his first year in office.
2/14 Trump, who owned stock in large oil companies, allows oil companies to hide the payments they make to foreign governments in exchange for extraction rights. The move comes only two months after ExxonMobil, which lobbied for the concession, donated $500,000 to Trump’s inauguration.
2/21 Angela Chen, a consultant with ties to China’s ruling elite, buys a $16 million penthouse in a Trump-owned property.
2/28 Trump, who owns 12 golf courses in the U.S., rolls back a rule that limits water pollution by golf courses.
From left, Vietnam Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc, Donald Trump, and Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte. Photo: JIM WATSON/AFP/Getty Images
4/29 Overriding diplomatic concerns, Trump invites Philippines president Rodrigo Duterte to the White House. To gain favor with Trump, Duterte had appointed the president’s partner on the Trump Tower in Manila as his economic envoy to the U.S.
5/7 The Metals Service Center Institute, which is pushing the Commerce Department for steel tariffs, holds its annual conference at Trump’s resort in Miami.
5/16 The Republican Governors Association holds a conference at Trump’s golf club in Miami, where members strategize with corporate executives over how to persuade the new administration to dismantle environmental regulations and enact other business-friendly moves. Trump’s take for the conference: $400,000.
5/19 Trump proposes slashing HUD’s budget — but retains a subsidy that has poured more than $490 million into a housing complex in Brooklyn where Trump has a financial stake.
Lynne Patton. Photo: Win McNamee/Getty Images
6/16 Lynne Patton, an event planner and friend of the Trump family with no experience in housing, is put in charge of the HUD region covering New York and New Jersey — giving her the power to disburse federal subsidies directly to the Brooklyn housing complex from which Trump made $5 million in 2016.
8/2 Activists protest against JPMorgan Chase, which lobbied to slash the corporate tax rate while paying Trump $1.5 million a year in rent at one of his office buildings.
9/19 Report reveals that the Pentagon spends $130,000 a month in rent at Trump Tower — more than twice as much as other tenants.
10/9 Trump International Hotel in Chicago hosts a two-day conference for the manufacturing industry.
10/10 An insurance-industry trade association holds its four-day annual conference at Trump’s resort in Miami.
10/16 GEO Group, the nation’s largest for-profit prison company, holds its annual conference at the Trump National Doral. The company poured $450,000 into Trump’s campaign and inauguration after Obama announced plans to end all federal contracts with private prisons. GEO also hired two of Jeff Sessions’s former aides, plus a former Trump Organization employee, as lobbyists. The investment paid off: A month after Trump took office, he ended the ban on private prisons. GEO received a $110 million contract to build a new immigration jail in Texas, plus $44 million a year to operate it. Earlier this year, the federal Bureau of Prisons announced it would slash some 6,000 jobs and transfer more inmates to private facilities.
10/18 Defense contractor L3 Technologies holds its annual meeting at Trump National Doral. L3 depends on government largesse for 84 percent of its revenue.
10/19 In a break with tradition, Trump personally interviews candidates for U.S. attorney in the districts that cover most of his business dealings. For the New York position, he ultimately chooses one of his campaign donors.
11/7 Trump hawks his golf course during a major speech to South Korea’s legislature.
11/8 A payday-lender lobbying group announces it will hold its 2018 annual conference at the Trump National Doral. Two months later, the administration announces it is considering scrapping a rule that requires payday lenders to stop taking advantage of clients who cannot pay off their loans.
2018
1/2 A judge rules that Starrett City, a housing complex in Brooklyn that Trump owns a stake in, can be sold to private developers. The sale, which the administration approved after it was halted by George W. Bush, is expected to net Trump $14 million.
2/21 Mississippi awards $6 million in tax breaks to a new Trump-branded hotel.
Family & Friends
“The company and policy and government are completely separated. We have built an unbelievable wall in between the two.” —Eric Trump
2016
Stephanie Winston Wolkoff and Melania Trump. Photo: Clint Spaulding/WWD/REX/Shutterstock
11/13 While appearing on 60 Minutes to discuss her father’s election, Ivanka Trump wears a $10,800 bracelet from her jewelry company. After the interview, the company sends out a “style alert” promoting the bracelet to reporters.
12/6 Firm founded by Melania Trump’s friend and adviser Stephanie Winston Wolkoff receives $26 million for helping plan the inauguration.
2017
1/5 Eric Trump jets to Uruguay to check on an unfinished Trump condo tower. The trip costs taxpayers $97,830.
2/5 Eric Trump spends $200,000 in taxpayer money to jet to the Dominican Republic to push for a Trump-branded project. The deal — which would put Trump’s name on 17 high-rises — violates a Dominican height limit for new resorts. It also breaks Trump’s vow not to seek overseas deals during his presidency. The Dominican president personally approves the high-rises. “Here in the palace, the president’s thoughts are that this U.S. president is angry and we better not get in his way,” a former Dominican ambassador explains. “We don’t want to cross him.”
2/6 Melania’s lawyers, suing a British paper for libel, argue its reporting ruined her “once-in-a-lifetime opportunity” to monetize her position as First Lady by cashing in on “multi-million-dollar business relationships.”
2/9 Kellyanne Conway offers “free commercial” for Ivanka’s clothing line on Fox News: “Go buy it today, everybody.” Trump refuses to discipline her, defying recommendation of his own ethics agency.
2/18 Taxpayers pay $16,000 to provide security for Eric Trump and Donald Jr. during their trip to open a Trump-branded golf course in Dubai. The event is invitation-only.
3/3 Jared Kushner meets with the CEO of Citigroup, which is lobbying to loosen financial regulations. Citigroup subsequently lends Kushner’s company $325 million to develop a group of office buildings in Brooklyn.
3/9 Kushner fails to disclose his ownership of Cadre, a real-estate start-up. The firm’s value shot up by millions of dollars after he entered the White House.
3/20 Eric’s wife posts a photo on Instagram of the family’s weeklong ski vacation in Aspen. Taxpayers were charged $330,000 for security details and another $200,000 for luxury lodgings.
3/20 Ivanka, refusing to place her assets in a blind trust, sets up shop in the West Wing.
4/24 Kushner’s family tries to broker funding for his real-estate ventures with Qatar’s finance minister. The minister declines. A month later, Kushner supports diplomatic actions against Qatar.
5/4 State Department and Voice of America promote Ivanka’s book Women Who Work.
5/5 Trump extends fast-track visas for foreigners who invest $500,000 in U.S. properties. The next day, Kushner’s sister promises visas to Chinese investors if they put $500,000 into the family’s properties in New Jersey.
5/17 Kushner’s company is subpoenaed by federal prosecutors and the SEC for its promotion of the investment-for-visa program.
7/21 CNN finds that even after his family business apologizes for name-dropping Kushner at a marketing event in Beijing, it highlights his White House role in an online sales pitch to Chinese investors.
10/3 Kushner fined $200 for missing a disclosure deadline. To date, he has been forced to change his disclosure form 39 times for failing to mention potential conflicts of interest.
10/4 ProPublica investigation reveals that after Manhattan DA Cyrus Vance dropped a criminal investigation against Donald Jr. and Ivanka, their attorney arranged a fund-raiser on Vance’s behalf, donating $32,000 himself and raising at least $9,000 more.
11/1 Apollo Global Management lends Kushner’s real-estate company $184 million — triple the size of its average loan — after meeting with him in the White House. Six weeks later, the SEC drops investigation into Apollo’s finances.
12/3 Kushner is exposed for failing to disclose that his family’s foundation — which he led for nine years — funded an illegal Israeli settlement on the West Bank. Just before Trump took office, Kushner tried to sway a U.N. vote against an anti-settlement resolution.
2018
2/20 Donald Jr. tours India to sell Trump-branded homes; several newspapers run an ad promising a “conversation and dinner” with him — for an additional fee of $30,000.
Officials & Their Pals
“We are going to send the special interests packing.” —Donald Trump
2017
Steven Mnuchin. Photo: J. Scott Applewhite/AP
1/19 During his confirmation as Treasury secretary, Steven Mnuchin fails to disclose a hedge fund he registered in the Cayman Islands to avoid paying federal taxes — the very thing he is supposed to collect as Treasury secretary.
1/24 During his confirmation as secretary of Health and Human Services, Tom Price fails to disclose an insider deal he got on $520,000 in stock in a biotech company. As secretary, he will be in a position to approve a drug the company has developed.
2/9 Reports reveal that a top White House aide, Chris Liddell, participated in meetings between Trump and the CEOs of 18 companies in which he held large amounts of stock — a possible criminal offense. The companies included Lockheed Martin, Walmart, JPMorgan Chase, and Dow Chemical.
Flynn seated beside Putin.
3/16 Congressional investigators reveal that Trump’s former national-security adviser Michael Flynn — who wanted to “rip up” American sanctions on Russia — failed to report $45,000 in fees he received from the Russian state media outlet RT.
4/14 The White House stops releasing logs of visitors, concealing trips made by lobbyists and corporate executives. In Trump’s first two months alone, by one estimate, more than 500 executives and foreign leaders made unrecorded visits to the White House.
6/29 HUD Secretary Ben Carson tours Baltimore — accompanied by prospective business associates being courted by his son. One administrator on the tour later offers Carson’s daughter-in-law a contract worth $500,000.
11/5 New reports reveal that during his confirmation hearings, Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross failed to disclose that a Russian shipping firm he owns a stake in has close ties to Vladimir Putin’s son-in-law. His new job puts him in charge of American trade policy with Russia.
12/18 Under pressure from watchdogs, EPA chief Scott Pruitt terminates a $120,000 contract for a firm he has worked with in the past to dig up information on EPA staffers who had criticized him or his policies.
12/22 “You all just got a lot richer,” Trump tells wealthy patrons at Mar-a-Lago hours after signing a massive tax giveway to the superrich. The bill saved Trump $15 million in taxes and Jared Kushner $12 milion. It also enriched much of Trump’s inner circle — including Linda McMahon, Betsy DeVos, Steven Mnuchin, and Rex Tillerson.
2018
Betsy DeVos. Photo: Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call,Inc.
1/12 Performant Financial is one of only two companies awarded $400 million in contracts from the Education Department to collect on defaulted student loans. One notable former investor in Performant: Education Secretary Betsy DeVos.
1/31 CDC chief Brenda Fitzgerald is forced to resign over her purchase of stock in one of the world’s largest tobacco companies. She bought the shares a month after taking over the agency tasked with reducing tobacco use.
2/1 William Emanuel, a Trump appointee to the National Labor Relations Board, is investigated for a possible ethics violation after he votes on a case involving his former law firm. His tie-breaking vote would have made it harder for employees at franchises like McDonald’s to hold their parent companies accountable for labor-law violations, but the decision is thrown out because of his conflict of interest.
3/29 ABC News reports that EPA chief Pruitt spent much of his first year in Washington living in a townhouse co-owned by the wife of J. Steven Hart, a top energy lobbyist. Hart lobbied the EPA on several policies last year, including coal regulations and limits on air pollution.
Lobbyist & Other Sleaze
“We’re going to end the government corruption, and we’re going to drain the swamp in Washington, D.C.” —Donald Trump
2017
1/17 Scott Mason, a key member of Trump’s transition team, returns to lobbying — one of nine transition-team members to violate Trump’s pledge that he would bar such revolving-door moves for at least six months. One of Mason’s clients, Peabody Energy, later helps dream up a coal-industry bailout promoted by Energy Secretary Rick Perry.
1/23 Trump appoints Jeffrey Wood, a lobbyist for a coal polluter, to prosecute environmental crimes like coal pollution.
2/6 Lauren Maddox, who guided Betsy DeVos through her confirmation process for Education secretary, is hired by a for-profit law school to help restore its access to federal student loans. After paying $130,000 in lobbying fees, the school gets its wish: The Education Department agrees to reconsider its eligiblity for millions in loans.
Carl Icahn. Photo: CNBC/NBCU Photo Bank via Getty Images
2/27 Billionaire Carl Icahn, an unpaid adviser to Trump, submits a regulatory proposal that would raise the value of his investment in an oil refinery. During Trump’s first six weeks in office, Icahn makes an extra $60 million on the deal.
4/12 Marcus Peacock, a policy expert in Trump’s budget office, takes a job lobbying the budget office for the Business Roundtable, which represents 200 of America’s largest corporations. Trump makes no move to enforce the five-year moratorium he vowed to place on such revolving-door moves.
5/19 Trump nominates K. T. McFarland, adviser who once siphoned off $14,000 in campaign funds for “personal use,” as ambassador to Singapore.
8/1 A top aide to EPA chief Scott Pruitt, who oversees federal grants worth hundreds of millions of dollars, receives permission to work as a consultant for private clients. Despite his influence over public policy, the identities of his clients will be kept secret.
8/15 Two Trump campaign operatives register a new lobbying firm, Turnberry Solutions, named after the Scottish town where Trump owns a golf club. Its first client, Elio Motors, hires it to help obtain government handouts.
10/17 Whitefish Energy, a Montana firm that employed the son of Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke, is awarded $300 million in a no-bid federal contract to restore storm-battered Puerto Rico.
10/26 Trump nominates J. Steven Gardner, a coal-industry consultant, to oversee enforcement of strip-mining regulations. The Senate winds up rejecting the nomination.
Kirstjen Nielsen. Photo: SAUL LOEB/AFP/Getty Images
11/8 Kirstjen Nielsen, Trump’s pick to head the Department of Homeland Security, was guided through her confirmation by a lobbyist whose clients compete for DHS contracts. Privatizing the “sherpa” role in confirmations — work long performed by government staffers — opens up a brazen new frontier in corruption. The lobbyist, Thad Bingel, oversaw the drafting of official policy memos and was included on emails between the DHS and the White House, enabling him to exploit internal information for private gain. Among Bingel’s clients is an Israeli defense contractor being paid $145 million by DHS to build part of Trump’s “virtual wall” along the Mexican border.
12/6 A photographer at the Department of Energy is fired after leaking a photo that shows Rick Perry receiving a confidential “action plan” from a coal magnate in March. The plan is a blueprint for the coal-industry bailout that Perry announced in September.
2018
1/12 Trump gives Kenneth Allen, a former mining executive who still profits from coal sales to the Tennessee Valley Authority, a seat on the TVA board.
Trump and Alex Azar. Photo: Bloomberg/Bloomberg via Getty Images
1/29 Alex Azar, a former lobbyist who worked his way up to the presidency of a drug company, is sworn in as secretary of Health and Human Services. Azar, whose company hiked the price of insulin and other drugs under his watch, is now in charge of making drugs more affordable.
2/12 Carl Icahn, who served as an unpaid adviser to Trump, sells $30 million in steel stocks just before Trump announces tariffs on steel imports.
2/18 Dina Powell, who advised Trump on foreign policy, returns to Goldman Sachs only two months after leaving the White House. At Goldman, she will focus on “enhancing the firm’s relationships” with some of the same foreign governments she advised Trump on.
3/2 Trump nominates Peter Wright, an attorney for Dow Chemical, to lead the EPA’s regulation of chemical spills. Dow has 100 polluted sites that Wright would be in charge of cleaning up.
Petty Graft
Photo: Tony Millionaire
“We are going to ask every department head to provide a list of wasteful spending projects we can eliminate.” —Donald Trump
2017
Eric Trump and Don Trump Jr. Photo: Phillip Chin/Getty Images for Trump Internati
2/28 The State Department spends $15,000 in taxpayer money for the grand opening of a Trump hotel in Vancouver, an event attended by Eric, Tiffany, and Donald Jr.
4/14 Trump jets to Mar-a-Lago via Air Force One at a cost to taxpayers of $142,380 per hour. For years, Trump heckled President Obama for taking vacations and golfing trips at government expense. If elected, he vowed, he would “rarely leave the White House, because there’s so much work to be done.” In fact, during his first three months in office, Trump’s taxpayer-funded flights to his private properties exceeded $20 million — on track to quickly surpass the amount Obama spent on travel during his eight years in office. Trump made more than 90 visits to his golf courses and played almost twice as much golf as Obama. His family joined in, requiring Secret Service agents to rack up an extra 4,054 days of taxpayer-funded travel to keep up.
5/16 Rick Perry and his staffers take a private jet to a small-business forum in Kansas City, at a cost to taxpayers of $35,000, rather than taking a nonstop flight to the airport 45 minutes away from the event.
6/2 David Shulkin’s chief of staff falsifies an email to suggest that the VA secretary needed to travel to Europe to receive an award. Shulkin’s 11-day trip with his wife, most of which was devoted to sightseeing, cost taxpayers $122,344.
6/7 Scott Pruitt, the EPA chief, spends $36,000 in taxpayer money to take a military plane to New York.
6/24 Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin marries Louise Linton and requests a military plane for their honeymoon to Europe — at a cost to taxpayers of $25,000 per hour.
6/26 Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke spends $12,375 in taxpayer money to fly home aboard a private flight from Las Vegas, where he hung out with a hockey team owned by his biggest campaign donor.
7/7 Zinke uses $6,250 in taxpayer money for a helicopter flight from Virginia to Washington, D.C. — a three-hour car ride — for a horse-riding date with Mike Pence.
8/4 HHS Secretary Tom Price takes a private jet at taxpayer expense to St. Simons Island, an exclusive resort where he owns land. The trip, like many of the 26 flights Price took on corporate jets, could have been accomplished with a routine commercial flight.
8/21 Mnuchin and his wife travel to Kentucky aboard a government plane, at a cost to taxpayers of $33,000, to watch the solar eclipse.
8/30 EPA chief Pruitt spends $43,000 to build a soundproof phone booth in his office, enabling him to hold secret conversations with lobbyists and corporate executives. The Government Accountability Office is investigating whether the move violated agency spending rules.
9/29 HHS Secretary Price is forced to resign over the nearly $1 million in taxpayer money he spent taking military planes and private jets, often to visit family and friends.
2018
Photo: © HICKORY CHAIR
2/27 HUD Secretary Ben Carson spends $196,000 on a dinette set and lounge furniture, exceeding the $5,000 legal limit for office improvements.
3/7 Zinke spends $139,000 to renovate his office doors at Interior.
*This article appears in the April 2, 2018, issue of New York Magazine.
A constant drip of self-dealing. And this is just what we know so far …
By Joy Crane and Nick Tabor
Introduction by David Cay Johnston
April 1, 2018
On the day he took the oath of office, Donald Trump delivered two messages about what to expect from his administration. First came the lofty promise of his inaugural address. “The forgotten men and women of our country will be forgotten no longer,” he vowed. “For too long, a small group in our nation’s capital has reaped the rewards of government while the people have borne the cost. Washington flourished — but the people did not share in its wealth.”
The second message, which Trump delivered without speaking a word, was aimed at a much smaller, but very rich, audience. As the new president’s motorcade left the Capitol, rolling past knots of supporters and protesters, it suddenly stopped three blocks short of the White House. Trump, the First Lady, and the rest of his family got out of their limos and took a three-minute turn in the middle of Pennsylvania Avenue.
This was no random spot. The very first place Trump headed after being sworn in — his true destination all along, in a sense — was the Old Post Office and Clock Tower, which only 12 days before the election had been repurposed as the Trump International Hotel Washington. The elegant granite structure, whose architectural character Trump had promised to preserve, was now besmirched by a gaudy, faux-gold sign bearing his name. The carefully choreographed stop sent a clear signal to the foreign governments, lobbyists, and corporate interests keen on currying favor in Washington: The rewards of government would now be reaped by a single man — and the people would bear the cost.
More than at any time in history, the president of the United States is actively using the power and prestige of his office to line his own pockets: landing loans for his businesses, steering wealthy buyers to his condos, securing cheap foreign labor for his resorts, preserving federal subsidies for his housing projects, easing regulations on his golf courses, licensing his name to overseas projects, even peddling coffee mugs and shot glasses bearing the presidential seal. For Trump, whose business revolves around the marketability of his name, there has proved to be no public policy too big, and no private opportunity too crass, to exploit for personal profit.
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Nowhere has the self-enrichment been more evident than at his Washington hotel, which quickly filled up with the very lobbyists and swamp creatures Trump had railed against during his campaign. Oil companies, mining interests, insurance executives, foreign diplomats, and defense contractors all rushed to book their annual conferences at Trump’s hotels and resorts, where Cabinet members graciously addressed them. After hiking the nightly rate to $653 — 32 percent higher than other local luxury hotels — Trump collected $2 million in profits from the property during his first three months in office. By last August, the hotel’s bar and restaurant had hauled in another $8 million in revenue. And although Trump has pledged to give away any money his hotels earn from foreign governments, the plan contains a lucrative loophole: Employees at his hotels admit that they make no effort to identify guests who represent other countries, meaning that much of the foreign money spent at Trump’s properties flows directly into his own pockets. On March 28, a federal judge allowed a lawsuit to go forward that charges Trump with violating the Constitution by accepting money from foreign governments at his D.C. hotel.
In fact, although Trump refuses to disclose the details of his myriad business operations, he continues to enjoy access to every dime he makes as president. Instead of setting up a blind trust to avoid conflicts of interest, as other presidents have done, Trump put his two grown sons in charge of his more than 500 business entities. His sons regularly brief Trump about how the enterprises are doing, enabling him to personally monitor how his decisions in office affect his bottom line. What’s more, only 15 days after this “eyes wide open” trust was set up, Trump amended the fine print to allow him to take money out of the operation any time he pleases. The loophole, buried on page 161 of the 166-page form, stipulates that any “net income or principal” can be distributed to Trump “at his request.” Far from putting his wealth in a blind trust, Trump asked the public for its blind trust, effectively sticking his money in a piggy bank in Don Jr.’s room that he is free to raid at any hour of the day or night.
Trump’s children are working hard to cash in on his time in office — especially with foreign investors. At taxpayer expense, they have flown to Uruguay, the Dominican Republic, Dubai, and India in search of licensing and real-estate deals, trading on the president’s influence in exchange for investments. But the biggest complication of Trump’s presidency — and the one he works hardest to keep secret — is the way his entire business operation is mired in massive debt. Rather than being independently wealthy, public records show, Trump and the business partnerships in which he is a leading investor owe big banks and foreign governments at least $2.3 billion — far more than his disclosure reports indicate. His largest single loan — for nearly $1 billion — is from a syndicate assembled by Goldman Sachs that includes the state-owned Bank of China. If either Trump or Jared Kushner, who tried to shake down Qatar’s finance minister for a loan, winds up needing to negotiate new terms on his ballooning debt, America could find itself being dictated to by a foreign government — all because the White House, thanks to Trump’s business model, has become a true House of Cards.
What follows is 501 days of official corruption, from small-time graft and brazen influence peddling to full-blown raids on the federal Treasury. Given how little Trump has disclosed about his finances, this timeline of self-dealing is undoubtedly only a fraction of the corruption that will eventually come to light. But as even this initial glimpse makes clear, Trump isn’t draining the swamp — he’s monetizing it. —David Cay Johnston
Trump’s Hotel in D.C.
Photo: Tony Millionaire
“The stars have all aligned. I think our brand is the hottest it has ever been.” —Eric Trump, speaking at the hotel
2016
12/7 Diplomats from Bahrain move the country’s National Day celebration from the Ritz-Carlton to the ballroom at the Trump International Hotel in Washington, D.C.
2017
1/20 A watchdog group calls on the General Services Administration, a federal agency, to stop leasing the Old Post Office to Trump for use as the hotel. The agency’s ethics division, which reports to Trump, rules that the $180 million deal is fine.
1/23 Saudi Arabia holds a bash at the hotel after renting rooms for lobbyists for five months. Trump’s haul: $270,000.
2/25 The Kuwaiti Embassy, reportedly pressured by the Trump Organization, moves its National Day celebration from the Four Seasons to Trump’s hotel.
3/1 The National Railroad Construction and Maintenance Association hosts a dinner at the hotel, drenched in Trump-branded coffee and wine.
3/22 The American Petroleum Institute holds its board meeting at Trump’s hotel, where it meets with EPA chief Scott Pruitt. A month later, Pruitt suspends drilling regulations.
5/1 Rates at the hotel jump to $653 per night, a price hike of 60 percent since Trump’s election.
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5/21 A Turkish government council holds its annual conference at the hotel. The group’s chair founded the company that paid $530,000 to former national-security adviser Michael Flynn for lobbying work.
7/17 E-cigarette-makers hold their annual conference at the hotel. Ten days later, the FDA announces it will delay federal oversight of e-cigarettes until 2022.
8/11 A federal agency accidentally posts the hotel’s Q1 profits: $2 million.
9/13 Staffers for Linda McMahon, head of the Small Business Administration, try to cover up the fact that she addressed a business lobbying event at the hotel, avoiding images of hotel signs bearing Trump’s name when posting photos of the event on Twitter.
9/28 The Fund for American Studies, a conservative organization, hosts a lunch at the hotel. The keynote speaker, Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch, thanks Trump’s staff for helping him get confirmed.
Rick Perry.
10/4 At its annual board meeting, the National Mining Association is addressed by three Cabinet members: Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross, Labor Secretary Alexander Acosta, and Energy Secretary Rick Perry. “Coal is fighting back,” Perry exults over breakfast with the country’s top mining executives. “Clearly the president wants to revive, not revile, this vital resource.” Five days later, the Trump administration announces the repeal of Obama’s Clean Power Plan, which would have encouraged states to replace coal with wind and solar energy. The plan would have cut climate-warming pollution from coal plants by a third and saved taxpayers and consumers as much as $93 billion a year. The venue for the mining board’s meeting: the Trump International Hotel in Washington, D.C.
10/5 A commercial real-estate trade association hosts an awards gala at Trump’s hotel, sponsored by a roster of prominent lobbying agents.
10/11 The American Legislative Exchange Council, a powerful conservative lobbying group with ties to the Koch brothers, announces that the venue for its 45th-anniversary gala will be Trump’s hotel. The group requests corporate sponsorships of up to $100,000.
2018
3/5 The Independent Petroleum Association of America holds a three-day lobbying event at the hotel.
3/28 A federal judge declines to stop a lawsuit that accuses Trump of violating the Constitution by accepting money from foreign governments at his hotel.
Mar-a-Lago
“The ornate Jazz Age house was designed with Old-World Spanish, Venetian, and Portuguese influences.” —From a state department promo online
2016
12/31 Mar-a-Lago hosts a New Year’s Eve party with Trump, priced at $525 a ticket. His take for the night: $400,000.
2017
1/1 The resort quietly doubles its initiation fee to $200,000 — a potential haul of $2 million. In return, club members get access to the president on a par with White House officials.
4/4 The State Department runs an online promotion for Mar-a-Lago, which is also picked up by embassy websites in England and Albania.
President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping. Photo: Alex Brandon/AP
4/6 Trump and Ivanka meet with Chinese president Xi Jinping at Mar-a-Lago. That same day, China approves trademarks for three of Ivanka’s brands.
6/16 Financial-disclosure filings show that Trump’s revenues from the resort soared by 25 percent during his presidential run.
7/17 The administration increases the allotment of H2-B visas for foreign workers. Within days, Mar-a-Lago applies for 76 of the new visas — even though a local jobs agency has 5,100 applicants qualified to fill the openings.
11/10 The Republican Attorneys General Association, which has spent more than $75,000 at Trump’s properties in five months, holds a reception at Mar-a-Lago. It later forms a “working group” to partner with the Trump administration to roll back environmental protections.
12/9 Oxbow Carbon, a major energy company that would benefit from the Keystone XL pipeline, holds its annual holiday gala at Mar-a-Lago.
12/31 Trump boosts ticket prices for his New Year’s Eve bash to $750. Taxpayers foot the $26,000 bill for lights, generators, and tent rental.
2018
1/9 The Trump administration opens offshore drilling in all but one state: Florida, where oil and gas exploration could hurt business at Mar-a-Lago.
2/18 Reports reveal that Trump regularly solicits input from Mar-a-Lago members on everything from gun control to Jared Kushner’s favorability. Unlike other politicians, who are limited to asking the wealthy for campaign contributions, Trump has found a way to personally profit from selling access to the president.
2/26 An Israel-focused charity, the Truth About Israel, relocates its gala to Mar-a-Lago in appreciation of the president’s support for Israel.
Trump’s Other Properties & Investments
Trump’s resort in Miami. Photo: The Washington Post/The Washington Post/Getty Images
“The Clintons have turned the politics of personal enrichment into an art form for themselves. They’ve made hundreds of millions of dollars selling access, selling favors, selling government contracts.” —Donald Trump
2016
11/14 In a call with Argentina’s president, Mauricio Macri, Trump reportedly pushes for approval to build a Trump Tower in downtown Buenos Aires. Ivanka Trump, who oversees the family business with her brothers, sits in on the call.
2017
1/24 Trump signs an executive order to fast-track the Dakota Access Pipeline. He claims to have sold the stock he owns in the pipeline’s builders — as much as $300,000 — but offers no proof.
Photo: EnginKorkmaz/Getty Images
1/27 Trump issues the travel ban but leaves off Saudi Arabia, Turkey, and Egypt — countries where he has significant business interests. His company was paid as much as $10 million for use of his name on a tower in Istanbul, and he registered eight new businesses in Saudi Arabia during his campaign.
2/3 Trump, who owned as much as $5 million in bank stocks in 2016, orders the Treasury secretary to consider ways to roll back regulations on banks. The value of bank stocks soars nearly 30 percent during his first year in office.
2/14 Trump, who owned stock in large oil companies, allows oil companies to hide the payments they make to foreign governments in exchange for extraction rights. The move comes only two months after ExxonMobil, which lobbied for the concession, donated $500,000 to Trump’s inauguration.
2/21 Angela Chen, a consultant with ties to China’s ruling elite, buys a $16 million penthouse in a Trump-owned property.
2/28 Trump, who owns 12 golf courses in the U.S., rolls back a rule that limits water pollution by golf courses.
From left, Vietnam Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc, Donald Trump, and Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte. Photo: JIM WATSON/AFP/Getty Images
4/29 Overriding diplomatic concerns, Trump invites Philippines president Rodrigo Duterte to the White House. To gain favor with Trump, Duterte had appointed the president’s partner on the Trump Tower in Manila as his economic envoy to the U.S.
5/7 The Metals Service Center Institute, which is pushing the Commerce Department for steel tariffs, holds its annual conference at Trump’s resort in Miami.
5/16 The Republican Governors Association holds a conference at Trump’s golf club in Miami, where members strategize with corporate executives over how to persuade the new administration to dismantle environmental regulations and enact other business-friendly moves. Trump’s take for the conference: $400,000.
5/19 Trump proposes slashing HUD’s budget — but retains a subsidy that has poured more than $490 million into a housing complex in Brooklyn where Trump has a financial stake.
Lynne Patton. Photo: Win McNamee/Getty Images
6/16 Lynne Patton, an event planner and friend of the Trump family with no experience in housing, is put in charge of the HUD region covering New York and New Jersey — giving her the power to disburse federal subsidies directly to the Brooklyn housing complex from which Trump made $5 million in 2016.
8/2 Activists protest against JPMorgan Chase, which lobbied to slash the corporate tax rate while paying Trump $1.5 million a year in rent at one of his office buildings.
9/19 Report reveals that the Pentagon spends $130,000 a month in rent at Trump Tower — more than twice as much as other tenants.
10/9 Trump International Hotel in Chicago hosts a two-day conference for the manufacturing industry.
10/10 An insurance-industry trade association holds its four-day annual conference at Trump’s resort in Miami.
10/16 GEO Group, the nation’s largest for-profit prison company, holds its annual conference at the Trump National Doral. The company poured $450,000 into Trump’s campaign and inauguration after Obama announced plans to end all federal contracts with private prisons. GEO also hired two of Jeff Sessions’s former aides, plus a former Trump Organization employee, as lobbyists. The investment paid off: A month after Trump took office, he ended the ban on private prisons. GEO received a $110 million contract to build a new immigration jail in Texas, plus $44 million a year to operate it. Earlier this year, the federal Bureau of Prisons announced it would slash some 6,000 jobs and transfer more inmates to private facilities.
10/18 Defense contractor L3 Technologies holds its annual meeting at Trump National Doral. L3 depends on government largesse for 84 percent of its revenue.
10/19 In a break with tradition, Trump personally interviews candidates for U.S. attorney in the districts that cover most of his business dealings. For the New York position, he ultimately chooses one of his campaign donors.
11/7 Trump hawks his golf course during a major speech to South Korea’s legislature.
11/8 A payday-lender lobbying group announces it will hold its 2018 annual conference at the Trump National Doral. Two months later, the administration announces it is considering scrapping a rule that requires payday lenders to stop taking advantage of clients who cannot pay off their loans.
2018
1/2 A judge rules that Starrett City, a housing complex in Brooklyn that Trump owns a stake in, can be sold to private developers. The sale, which the administration approved after it was halted by George W. Bush, is expected to net Trump $14 million.
2/21 Mississippi awards $6 million in tax breaks to a new Trump-branded hotel.
Family & Friends
“The company and policy and government are completely separated. We have built an unbelievable wall in between the two.” —Eric Trump
2016
Stephanie Winston Wolkoff and Melania Trump. Photo: Clint Spaulding/WWD/REX/Shutterstock
11/13 While appearing on 60 Minutes to discuss her father’s election, Ivanka Trump wears a $10,800 bracelet from her jewelry company. After the interview, the company sends out a “style alert” promoting the bracelet to reporters.
12/6 Firm founded by Melania Trump’s friend and adviser Stephanie Winston Wolkoff receives $26 million for helping plan the inauguration.
2017
1/5 Eric Trump jets to Uruguay to check on an unfinished Trump condo tower. The trip costs taxpayers $97,830.
2/5 Eric Trump spends $200,000 in taxpayer money to jet to the Dominican Republic to push for a Trump-branded project. The deal — which would put Trump’s name on 17 high-rises — violates a Dominican height limit for new resorts. It also breaks Trump’s vow not to seek overseas deals during his presidency. The Dominican president personally approves the high-rises. “Here in the palace, the president’s thoughts are that this U.S. president is angry and we better not get in his way,” a former Dominican ambassador explains. “We don’t want to cross him.”
2/6 Melania’s lawyers, suing a British paper for libel, argue its reporting ruined her “once-in-a-lifetime opportunity” to monetize her position as First Lady by cashing in on “multi-million-dollar business relationships.”
2/9 Kellyanne Conway offers “free commercial” for Ivanka’s clothing line on Fox News: “Go buy it today, everybody.” Trump refuses to discipline her, defying recommendation of his own ethics agency.
2/18 Taxpayers pay $16,000 to provide security for Eric Trump and Donald Jr. during their trip to open a Trump-branded golf course in Dubai. The event is invitation-only.
3/3 Jared Kushner meets with the CEO of Citigroup, which is lobbying to loosen financial regulations. Citigroup subsequently lends Kushner’s company $325 million to develop a group of office buildings in Brooklyn.
3/9 Kushner fails to disclose his ownership of Cadre, a real-estate start-up. The firm’s value shot up by millions of dollars after he entered the White House.
3/20 Eric’s wife posts a photo on Instagram of the family’s weeklong ski vacation in Aspen. Taxpayers were charged $330,000 for security details and another $200,000 for luxury lodgings.
3/20 Ivanka, refusing to place her assets in a blind trust, sets up shop in the West Wing.
4/24 Kushner’s family tries to broker funding for his real-estate ventures with Qatar’s finance minister. The minister declines. A month later, Kushner supports diplomatic actions against Qatar.
5/4 State Department and Voice of America promote Ivanka’s book Women Who Work.
5/5 Trump extends fast-track visas for foreigners who invest $500,000 in U.S. properties. The next day, Kushner’s sister promises visas to Chinese investors if they put $500,000 into the family’s properties in New Jersey.
5/17 Kushner’s company is subpoenaed by federal prosecutors and the SEC for its promotion of the investment-for-visa program.
7/21 CNN finds that even after his family business apologizes for name-dropping Kushner at a marketing event in Beijing, it highlights his White House role in an online sales pitch to Chinese investors.
10/3 Kushner fined $200 for missing a disclosure deadline. To date, he has been forced to change his disclosure form 39 times for failing to mention potential conflicts of interest.
10/4 ProPublica investigation reveals that after Manhattan DA Cyrus Vance dropped a criminal investigation against Donald Jr. and Ivanka, their attorney arranged a fund-raiser on Vance’s behalf, donating $32,000 himself and raising at least $9,000 more.
11/1 Apollo Global Management lends Kushner’s real-estate company $184 million — triple the size of its average loan — after meeting with him in the White House. Six weeks later, the SEC drops investigation into Apollo’s finances.
12/3 Kushner is exposed for failing to disclose that his family’s foundation — which he led for nine years — funded an illegal Israeli settlement on the West Bank. Just before Trump took office, Kushner tried to sway a U.N. vote against an anti-settlement resolution.
2018
2/20 Donald Jr. tours India to sell Trump-branded homes; several newspapers run an ad promising a “conversation and dinner” with him — for an additional fee of $30,000.
Officials & Their Pals
“We are going to send the special interests packing.” —Donald Trump
2017
Steven Mnuchin. Photo: J. Scott Applewhite/AP
1/19 During his confirmation as Treasury secretary, Steven Mnuchin fails to disclose a hedge fund he registered in the Cayman Islands to avoid paying federal taxes — the very thing he is supposed to collect as Treasury secretary.
1/24 During his confirmation as secretary of Health and Human Services, Tom Price fails to disclose an insider deal he got on $520,000 in stock in a biotech company. As secretary, he will be in a position to approve a drug the company has developed.
2/9 Reports reveal that a top White House aide, Chris Liddell, participated in meetings between Trump and the CEOs of 18 companies in which he held large amounts of stock — a possible criminal offense. The companies included Lockheed Martin, Walmart, JPMorgan Chase, and Dow Chemical.
Flynn seated beside Putin.
3/16 Congressional investigators reveal that Trump’s former national-security adviser Michael Flynn — who wanted to “rip up” American sanctions on Russia — failed to report $45,000 in fees he received from the Russian state media outlet RT.
4/14 The White House stops releasing logs of visitors, concealing trips made by lobbyists and corporate executives. In Trump’s first two months alone, by one estimate, more than 500 executives and foreign leaders made unrecorded visits to the White House.
6/29 HUD Secretary Ben Carson tours Baltimore — accompanied by prospective business associates being courted by his son. One administrator on the tour later offers Carson’s daughter-in-law a contract worth $500,000.
11/5 New reports reveal that during his confirmation hearings, Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross failed to disclose that a Russian shipping firm he owns a stake in has close ties to Vladimir Putin’s son-in-law. His new job puts him in charge of American trade policy with Russia.
12/18 Under pressure from watchdogs, EPA chief Scott Pruitt terminates a $120,000 contract for a firm he has worked with in the past to dig up information on EPA staffers who had criticized him or his policies.
12/22 “You all just got a lot richer,” Trump tells wealthy patrons at Mar-a-Lago hours after signing a massive tax giveway to the superrich. The bill saved Trump $15 million in taxes and Jared Kushner $12 milion. It also enriched much of Trump’s inner circle — including Linda McMahon, Betsy DeVos, Steven Mnuchin, and Rex Tillerson.
2018
Betsy DeVos. Photo: Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call,Inc.
1/12 Performant Financial is one of only two companies awarded $400 million in contracts from the Education Department to collect on defaulted student loans. One notable former investor in Performant: Education Secretary Betsy DeVos.
1/31 CDC chief Brenda Fitzgerald is forced to resign over her purchase of stock in one of the world’s largest tobacco companies. She bought the shares a month after taking over the agency tasked with reducing tobacco use.
2/1 William Emanuel, a Trump appointee to the National Labor Relations Board, is investigated for a possible ethics violation after he votes on a case involving his former law firm. His tie-breaking vote would have made it harder for employees at franchises like McDonald’s to hold their parent companies accountable for labor-law violations, but the decision is thrown out because of his conflict of interest.
3/29 ABC News reports that EPA chief Pruitt spent much of his first year in Washington living in a townhouse co-owned by the wife of J. Steven Hart, a top energy lobbyist. Hart lobbied the EPA on several policies last year, including coal regulations and limits on air pollution.
Lobbyist & Other Sleaze
“We’re going to end the government corruption, and we’re going to drain the swamp in Washington, D.C.” —Donald Trump
2017
1/17 Scott Mason, a key member of Trump’s transition team, returns to lobbying — one of nine transition-team members to violate Trump’s pledge that he would bar such revolving-door moves for at least six months. One of Mason’s clients, Peabody Energy, later helps dream up a coal-industry bailout promoted by Energy Secretary Rick Perry.
1/23 Trump appoints Jeffrey Wood, a lobbyist for a coal polluter, to prosecute environmental crimes like coal pollution.
2/6 Lauren Maddox, who guided Betsy DeVos through her confirmation process for Education secretary, is hired by a for-profit law school to help restore its access to federal student loans. After paying $130,000 in lobbying fees, the school gets its wish: The Education Department agrees to reconsider its eligiblity for millions in loans.
Carl Icahn. Photo: CNBC/NBCU Photo Bank via Getty Images
2/27 Billionaire Carl Icahn, an unpaid adviser to Trump, submits a regulatory proposal that would raise the value of his investment in an oil refinery. During Trump’s first six weeks in office, Icahn makes an extra $60 million on the deal.
4/12 Marcus Peacock, a policy expert in Trump’s budget office, takes a job lobbying the budget office for the Business Roundtable, which represents 200 of America’s largest corporations. Trump makes no move to enforce the five-year moratorium he vowed to place on such revolving-door moves.
5/19 Trump nominates K. T. McFarland, adviser who once siphoned off $14,000 in campaign funds for “personal use,” as ambassador to Singapore.
8/1 A top aide to EPA chief Scott Pruitt, who oversees federal grants worth hundreds of millions of dollars, receives permission to work as a consultant for private clients. Despite his influence over public policy, the identities of his clients will be kept secret.
8/15 Two Trump campaign operatives register a new lobbying firm, Turnberry Solutions, named after the Scottish town where Trump owns a golf club. Its first client, Elio Motors, hires it to help obtain government handouts.
10/17 Whitefish Energy, a Montana firm that employed the son of Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke, is awarded $300 million in a no-bid federal contract to restore storm-battered Puerto Rico.
10/26 Trump nominates J. Steven Gardner, a coal-industry consultant, to oversee enforcement of strip-mining regulations. The Senate winds up rejecting the nomination.
Kirstjen Nielsen. Photo: SAUL LOEB/AFP/Getty Images
11/8 Kirstjen Nielsen, Trump’s pick to head the Department of Homeland Security, was guided through her confirmation by a lobbyist whose clients compete for DHS contracts. Privatizing the “sherpa” role in confirmations — work long performed by government staffers — opens up a brazen new frontier in corruption. The lobbyist, Thad Bingel, oversaw the drafting of official policy memos and was included on emails between the DHS and the White House, enabling him to exploit internal information for private gain. Among Bingel’s clients is an Israeli defense contractor being paid $145 million by DHS to build part of Trump’s “virtual wall” along the Mexican border.
12/6 A photographer at the Department of Energy is fired after leaking a photo that shows Rick Perry receiving a confidential “action plan” from a coal magnate in March. The plan is a blueprint for the coal-industry bailout that Perry announced in September.
2018
1/12 Trump gives Kenneth Allen, a former mining executive who still profits from coal sales to the Tennessee Valley Authority, a seat on the TVA board.
Trump and Alex Azar. Photo: Bloomberg/Bloomberg via Getty Images
1/29 Alex Azar, a former lobbyist who worked his way up to the presidency of a drug company, is sworn in as secretary of Health and Human Services. Azar, whose company hiked the price of insulin and other drugs under his watch, is now in charge of making drugs more affordable.
2/12 Carl Icahn, who served as an unpaid adviser to Trump, sells $30 million in steel stocks just before Trump announces tariffs on steel imports.
2/18 Dina Powell, who advised Trump on foreign policy, returns to Goldman Sachs only two months after leaving the White House. At Goldman, she will focus on “enhancing the firm’s relationships” with some of the same foreign governments she advised Trump on.
3/2 Trump nominates Peter Wright, an attorney for Dow Chemical, to lead the EPA’s regulation of chemical spills. Dow has 100 polluted sites that Wright would be in charge of cleaning up.
Petty Graft
Photo: Tony Millionaire
“We are going to ask every department head to provide a list of wasteful spending projects we can eliminate.” —Donald Trump
2017
Eric Trump and Don Trump Jr. Photo: Phillip Chin/Getty Images for Trump Internati
2/28 The State Department spends $15,000 in taxpayer money for the grand opening of a Trump hotel in Vancouver, an event attended by Eric, Tiffany, and Donald Jr.
4/14 Trump jets to Mar-a-Lago via Air Force One at a cost to taxpayers of $142,380 per hour. For years, Trump heckled President Obama for taking vacations and golfing trips at government expense. If elected, he vowed, he would “rarely leave the White House, because there’s so much work to be done.” In fact, during his first three months in office, Trump’s taxpayer-funded flights to his private properties exceeded $20 million — on track to quickly surpass the amount Obama spent on travel during his eight years in office. Trump made more than 90 visits to his golf courses and played almost twice as much golf as Obama. His family joined in, requiring Secret Service agents to rack up an extra 4,054 days of taxpayer-funded travel to keep up.
5/16 Rick Perry and his staffers take a private jet to a small-business forum in Kansas City, at a cost to taxpayers of $35,000, rather than taking a nonstop flight to the airport 45 minutes away from the event.
6/2 David Shulkin’s chief of staff falsifies an email to suggest that the VA secretary needed to travel to Europe to receive an award. Shulkin’s 11-day trip with his wife, most of which was devoted to sightseeing, cost taxpayers $122,344.
6/7 Scott Pruitt, the EPA chief, spends $36,000 in taxpayer money to take a military plane to New York.
6/24 Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin marries Louise Linton and requests a military plane for their honeymoon to Europe — at a cost to taxpayers of $25,000 per hour.
6/26 Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke spends $12,375 in taxpayer money to fly home aboard a private flight from Las Vegas, where he hung out with a hockey team owned by his biggest campaign donor.
7/7 Zinke uses $6,250 in taxpayer money for a helicopter flight from Virginia to Washington, D.C. — a three-hour car ride — for a horse-riding date with Mike Pence.
8/4 HHS Secretary Tom Price takes a private jet at taxpayer expense to St. Simons Island, an exclusive resort where he owns land. The trip, like many of the 26 flights Price took on corporate jets, could have been accomplished with a routine commercial flight.
8/21 Mnuchin and his wife travel to Kentucky aboard a government plane, at a cost to taxpayers of $33,000, to watch the solar eclipse.
8/30 EPA chief Pruitt spends $43,000 to build a soundproof phone booth in his office, enabling him to hold secret conversations with lobbyists and corporate executives. The Government Accountability Office is investigating whether the move violated agency spending rules.
9/29 HHS Secretary Price is forced to resign over the nearly $1 million in taxpayer money he spent taking military planes and private jets, often to visit family and friends.
2018
Photo: © HICKORY CHAIR
2/27 HUD Secretary Ben Carson spends $196,000 on a dinette set and lounge furniture, exceeding the $5,000 legal limit for office improvements.
3/7 Zinke spends $139,000 to renovate his office doors at Interior.
*This article appears in the April 2, 2018, issue of New York Magazine.
Are you a citizen? Here's what happens if you lie on the census. - NBC News
Are you a citizen? Here's what happens if you lie on the census.
It's a federal crime not to answer census questions or to give false information. But here's why you shouldn't worry about being prosecuted.
by Danny Cevallos / Apr.02.2018 / 6:58 PM ET
An American flag billows in the wind as immigrants stand and take the oath of allegiance to the United States during a naturalization ceremony at Liberty State Park, Sept. 15, 2017 in Jersey City, New Jersey.Drew Angerer / Getty Images file
Legal analysis
Article I, Section 2, of the Constitution requires the enumeration of people in the U.S. every 10 years for the purpose of apportioning congressional representatives.
The "Census Clause" also requires that representatives be apportioned among the states "according to their respective Numbers." Section 2 of the 14th Amendment further provides that House representatives "shall be apportioned among the several States according to their respective numbers, counting the whole number of persons in each State." The Census Act of 1790 provides for the enumeration of the "inhabitants of the United States."
Federal law requires that the secretary of commerce take a census of "population" — not citizens — and the same law authorizes the secretary to "obtain such other census information as necessary."
The Constitution says "persons" — not "citizens" or "green card holders." That's why the Trump administration's move to include a citizenship question on the census is meeting such intense opposition; there are concerns that it will deter participation and lead to an inaccurate population count.
Trump exposes census to undercount with citizenship question
Federal law provides that anyone who refuses to answer or willfully neglects to answer any of the questions in connection with any census or survey shall be fined a maximum of $100, or a maximum of $500 if the person gives false information.
In theory, noncitizens should not fear answering census questions. Surveys are mailed to addresses, rather than to specific individuals. Not including individual names on the address label is meant to protect the confidentiality of the participating households.
Additionally, federal law provides immunity for persons who give answers to census questions. Information furnished cannot be "used to the detriment of the persons to whom such information relates." Census reports may not be admitted as evidence or used in any action or proceeding, without consent.
These laws are designed to deter someone from refusing to answer questions on the census claiming a Fifth Amendment privilege against self-incrimination.
Practically speaking, though, anyone who is concerned about their legal status may not want to volunteer this to the same federal government that could deport them. It's hardly a sentiment limited only to noncitizens. In past enumerations, some Republican leaders have all but encouraged open defiance of the law.
Then-Sen. Trent Lott, a Mississippi Republican, once advised constituents to fill out "the basic census information" but added that if they felt "their privacy is being invaded by those (additional) questions, they (could) choose not to answer those questions."
And George W. Bush, then a candidate for president, said he "(understood) why people don't want to give over that information to the government."
Prosecutions for failure to participate in the census are rare; most significant court cases dealing with these crimes date back to the 1970s.
The perceived risk of answering remains greater than the virtually nonexistent risk of not answering because the Justice Department is not likely to start prosecuting offenders for refusing to answer.
Attorney General Jeff Sessions has indicated that illegal immigration will be a priority for the DOJ under his command, but going after noncitizens who refuse to answer census questions, motivated by fear of being removed from the country, would contradict the overall message the census is trying to send: It is here to count you, not to hurt you. Plus, courts have indicated in the past that purposeful discrimination by census authorities can give rise to a defense of selective prosecution.
Ultimately, the refusal to answer census questions is a federal crime, but not really.
Some categories of federal criminal statutes are heavily enforced. Drug crimes and immigration crimes make up over 50 percent of the federal prosecution caseload.
Then there are those federal crimes that are technically crimes, but not really. For example, it's a federal crime for a peanut dealer to refuse to tell the government how many peanuts he has. It's also a federal crime to mail a package of dead bees without writing "DEAD BEES" on every side of the box, using black letters at least an inch tall.
There are a lot of federal crimes. Not all of them are enforced. Refusing to answer the census or lying on it will likely remain in that second category — a crime, but not really.
Danny Cevallos is an MSNBC legal analyst. Follow @CevallosLaw on Twitter.
It's a federal crime not to answer census questions or to give false information. But here's why you shouldn't worry about being prosecuted.
by Danny Cevallos / Apr.02.2018 / 6:58 PM ET
An American flag billows in the wind as immigrants stand and take the oath of allegiance to the United States during a naturalization ceremony at Liberty State Park, Sept. 15, 2017 in Jersey City, New Jersey.Drew Angerer / Getty Images file
Legal analysis
Article I, Section 2, of the Constitution requires the enumeration of people in the U.S. every 10 years for the purpose of apportioning congressional representatives.
The "Census Clause" also requires that representatives be apportioned among the states "according to their respective Numbers." Section 2 of the 14th Amendment further provides that House representatives "shall be apportioned among the several States according to their respective numbers, counting the whole number of persons in each State." The Census Act of 1790 provides for the enumeration of the "inhabitants of the United States."
Federal law requires that the secretary of commerce take a census of "population" — not citizens — and the same law authorizes the secretary to "obtain such other census information as necessary."
The Constitution says "persons" — not "citizens" or "green card holders." That's why the Trump administration's move to include a citizenship question on the census is meeting such intense opposition; there are concerns that it will deter participation and lead to an inaccurate population count.
Trump exposes census to undercount with citizenship question
Federal law provides that anyone who refuses to answer or willfully neglects to answer any of the questions in connection with any census or survey shall be fined a maximum of $100, or a maximum of $500 if the person gives false information.
In theory, noncitizens should not fear answering census questions. Surveys are mailed to addresses, rather than to specific individuals. Not including individual names on the address label is meant to protect the confidentiality of the participating households.
Additionally, federal law provides immunity for persons who give answers to census questions. Information furnished cannot be "used to the detriment of the persons to whom such information relates." Census reports may not be admitted as evidence or used in any action or proceeding, without consent.
These laws are designed to deter someone from refusing to answer questions on the census claiming a Fifth Amendment privilege against self-incrimination.
Practically speaking, though, anyone who is concerned about their legal status may not want to volunteer this to the same federal government that could deport them. It's hardly a sentiment limited only to noncitizens. In past enumerations, some Republican leaders have all but encouraged open defiance of the law.
Then-Sen. Trent Lott, a Mississippi Republican, once advised constituents to fill out "the basic census information" but added that if they felt "their privacy is being invaded by those (additional) questions, they (could) choose not to answer those questions."
And George W. Bush, then a candidate for president, said he "(understood) why people don't want to give over that information to the government."
Prosecutions for failure to participate in the census are rare; most significant court cases dealing with these crimes date back to the 1970s.
The perceived risk of answering remains greater than the virtually nonexistent risk of not answering because the Justice Department is not likely to start prosecuting offenders for refusing to answer.
Attorney General Jeff Sessions has indicated that illegal immigration will be a priority for the DOJ under his command, but going after noncitizens who refuse to answer census questions, motivated by fear of being removed from the country, would contradict the overall message the census is trying to send: It is here to count you, not to hurt you. Plus, courts have indicated in the past that purposeful discrimination by census authorities can give rise to a defense of selective prosecution.
Ultimately, the refusal to answer census questions is a federal crime, but not really.
Some categories of federal criminal statutes are heavily enforced. Drug crimes and immigration crimes make up over 50 percent of the federal prosecution caseload.
Then there are those federal crimes that are technically crimes, but not really. For example, it's a federal crime for a peanut dealer to refuse to tell the government how many peanuts he has. It's also a federal crime to mail a package of dead bees without writing "DEAD BEES" on every side of the box, using black letters at least an inch tall.
There are a lot of federal crimes. Not all of them are enforced. Refusing to answer the census or lying on it will likely remain in that second category — a crime, but not really.
Danny Cevallos is an MSNBC legal analyst. Follow @CevallosLaw on Twitter.
Alibaba is pouring billions into the food delivery business - CNN Tech
Alibaba is pouring billions into the food delivery business
by Sherisse Pham @Sherisse
April 2, 2018: 5:45 AM ET
Alibaba is spending billions of dollars to take control of one of China's biggest online food delivery services.
China's biggest e-commerce company said Monday that it will buy all the outstanding shares it doesn't already hold in Ele.me, a startup whose Chinese name roughly translates to "Hungry?"
Alibaba (BABA) and one of its affiliates already own 43% of Ele.me, according to a company statement. The deal, which values Ele.me at $9.5 billion including debt, enables Alibaba to bring the startup deeper into its huge web of internet businesses that touch many areas of Chinese' consumers' lives.
Tech companies are eager to cash in on China's growing online food delivery market, which is expected to grow 18% to 241 billion yuan ($38 billion) this year, according to research firm iiMedia.
Tencent (TCEHY), China's biggest tech company by market value, has pumped billions of dollars into Meituan-Dianping, another leading delivery startup.
Meituan-Dianping enables users to make lunch reservations, order food and buy movie tickets through a single mobile app. A funding round in October valued it at roughly $30 billion, making it one of the most valuable startups in the world.
China's largest ride-hailing company, Didi Chuxing, is also on the verge of launching food delivery services in China, according to local media reports.
eleme china app
Alibaba is acquiring online food delivery company Ele.me, valuing the startup at $9.5 billion.
A similar trend is playing out in the United States. Amazon (AMZN), the company with which Alibaba is most often compared, teamed up with online food delivery company Olo in September in an effort to expand its Amazon Restaurants service. It's a market where the likes of GrubHub and Uber Eats are already important players.
For Alibaba, buying Ele.me is part of the e-commerce company's efforts to connect smartphone users with real-world services. Alibaba is already mixing online and offline shopping with its brick-and-mortar grocery store chain, Hema.
Alibaba said it will combine Ele.me with its own restaurant review and local services platform Koubei, which means "Word of Mouth."
Ele.me and Koubei have overlapping services. But after the takeover, Ele.me will focus on delivering food to people's homes, while Koubei will focus on getting people to buy goods and services online, and pick them up or consume them at physical stores or restaurants.
CNNMoney (Hong Kong)
First published April 2, 2018: 5:45 AM ET
by Sherisse Pham @Sherisse
April 2, 2018: 5:45 AM ET
Alibaba is spending billions of dollars to take control of one of China's biggest online food delivery services.
China's biggest e-commerce company said Monday that it will buy all the outstanding shares it doesn't already hold in Ele.me, a startup whose Chinese name roughly translates to "Hungry?"
Alibaba (BABA) and one of its affiliates already own 43% of Ele.me, according to a company statement. The deal, which values Ele.me at $9.5 billion including debt, enables Alibaba to bring the startup deeper into its huge web of internet businesses that touch many areas of Chinese' consumers' lives.
Tech companies are eager to cash in on China's growing online food delivery market, which is expected to grow 18% to 241 billion yuan ($38 billion) this year, according to research firm iiMedia.
Tencent (TCEHY), China's biggest tech company by market value, has pumped billions of dollars into Meituan-Dianping, another leading delivery startup.
Meituan-Dianping enables users to make lunch reservations, order food and buy movie tickets through a single mobile app. A funding round in October valued it at roughly $30 billion, making it one of the most valuable startups in the world.
China's largest ride-hailing company, Didi Chuxing, is also on the verge of launching food delivery services in China, according to local media reports.
eleme china app
Alibaba is acquiring online food delivery company Ele.me, valuing the startup at $9.5 billion.
A similar trend is playing out in the United States. Amazon (AMZN), the company with which Alibaba is most often compared, teamed up with online food delivery company Olo in September in an effort to expand its Amazon Restaurants service. It's a market where the likes of GrubHub and Uber Eats are already important players.
For Alibaba, buying Ele.me is part of the e-commerce company's efforts to connect smartphone users with real-world services. Alibaba is already mixing online and offline shopping with its brick-and-mortar grocery store chain, Hema.
Alibaba said it will combine Ele.me with its own restaurant review and local services platform Koubei, which means "Word of Mouth."
Ele.me and Koubei have overlapping services. But after the takeover, Ele.me will focus on delivering food to people's homes, while Koubei will focus on getting people to buy goods and services online, and pick them up or consume them at physical stores or restaurants.
CNNMoney (Hong Kong)
First published April 2, 2018: 5:45 AM ET
The Best Way to Quit Smoking, According to Science - TIME Health
The Best Way to Quit Smoking, According to Science
By MANDY OAKLANDER March 14, 2016
TIME Health
For more, visit TIME Health.
Researchers have long sought for answers on the best way to help people quit smoking. Often, it comes down to two options: quitting cold turkey or gradually tapering a smoking habit. But which one works better?
“A lot of people think that the common sense way to give up smoking is to reduce the amount they smoke before quitting,” says Nicola Lindson-Hawley of the University of Oxford, who led a new study published in the journal Annals of Internal Medicine.
But the results suggested just the opposite: quitting cold turkey is best.
Lindson-Hawley and her colleagues looked at almost 700 people in England who smoked at least 15 cigarettes a day but who were planning to quit. They all set a quit date for two weeks. Half of them were randomly assigned to smoke normally until their quit date, then to stop abruptly. The other half gradually reduced their smoking over the two weeks leading up to the appointed day. Both groups had behavioral counseling, nicotine patches and nicotine replacement therapy from products like gum, lozenges and mouth spray.
The way the researchers measured success was by looking at smoking abstinence for four weeks after the quit date, and then six months later.
Those who quit abruptly stuck to it the best—about 25% better than the gradual-cessation group. And 49% of the abrupt group were successful, while 39% of the gradual group were.
At the half-year mark, 22% of the cold-turkey group were still smoke-free, while 15% of the gradual group were.
Interestingly, more people said they preferred to quit gradually rather than abruptly. But a person’s preferences didn’t make much of a difference in their success. “Even if people wanted to quit gradually, they were more likely to quit if they used the abrupt method,” Lindson-Hawley says.
The research didn’t look at other potential forms of smoking cessation, including e-cigarettes, which have yet to be definitively proven as an effective smoking cessation tool. And even though quitting cold was better, Lindson-Hawley says, “the quit rates we found in the gradual group were still quite good.” In future research, she plans to explore the methods of gradual quitting to see if they can be made more effective. “If there are people who really feel they can’t quit abruptly, and they want to quit gradually—otherwise they won’t try to quit at all—we still need to support them to do that.”
By MANDY OAKLANDER March 14, 2016
TIME Health
For more, visit TIME Health.
Researchers have long sought for answers on the best way to help people quit smoking. Often, it comes down to two options: quitting cold turkey or gradually tapering a smoking habit. But which one works better?
“A lot of people think that the common sense way to give up smoking is to reduce the amount they smoke before quitting,” says Nicola Lindson-Hawley of the University of Oxford, who led a new study published in the journal Annals of Internal Medicine.
But the results suggested just the opposite: quitting cold turkey is best.
Lindson-Hawley and her colleagues looked at almost 700 people in England who smoked at least 15 cigarettes a day but who were planning to quit. They all set a quit date for two weeks. Half of them were randomly assigned to smoke normally until their quit date, then to stop abruptly. The other half gradually reduced their smoking over the two weeks leading up to the appointed day. Both groups had behavioral counseling, nicotine patches and nicotine replacement therapy from products like gum, lozenges and mouth spray.
The way the researchers measured success was by looking at smoking abstinence for four weeks after the quit date, and then six months later.
Those who quit abruptly stuck to it the best—about 25% better than the gradual-cessation group. And 49% of the abrupt group were successful, while 39% of the gradual group were.
At the half-year mark, 22% of the cold-turkey group were still smoke-free, while 15% of the gradual group were.
Interestingly, more people said they preferred to quit gradually rather than abruptly. But a person’s preferences didn’t make much of a difference in their success. “Even if people wanted to quit gradually, they were more likely to quit if they used the abrupt method,” Lindson-Hawley says.
The research didn’t look at other potential forms of smoking cessation, including e-cigarettes, which have yet to be definitively proven as an effective smoking cessation tool. And even though quitting cold was better, Lindson-Hawley says, “the quit rates we found in the gradual group were still quite good.” In future research, she plans to explore the methods of gradual quitting to see if they can be made more effective. “If there are people who really feel they can’t quit abruptly, and they want to quit gradually—otherwise they won’t try to quit at all—we still need to support them to do that.”
Donald Trump Attacks Amazon’s ‘Post Office Scam’ on Twitter — Again - TIME Business
Donald Trump Attacks Amazon’s ‘Post Office Scam’ on Twitter — Again
Posted: 31 Mar 2018 09:57 AM PDT
President Donald Trump is going after Amazon — again.
Just days after he posted a tweet attacking the retail giant for allegedly “pay[ing] little or no taxes to state and local governments,” Trump doubled down on his argument.
In a tweet posted Saturday, the president said the U.S. Postal Service loses $1.50 for each Amazon package it delivers, a figure that has been backed by some analysts. That amounts to “Billions of Dollars” in losses — a “scam” that could be rectified, Trump writes, if Amazon were to “pay real costs (and taxes) now!”
Amazon does collect taxes on any purchases made in states with sales tax, with the exception of items sold by third-party vendors — a category that makes up a large chunk of the site’s sales.
While we are on the subject, it is reported that the U.S. Post Office will lose $1.50 on average for each package it delivers for Amazon. That amounts to Billions of Dollars. The Failing N.Y. Times reports that “the size of the company’s lobbying staff has ballooned,” and that…
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) March 31, 2018
…does not include the Fake Washington Post, which is used as a “lobbyist” and should so REGISTER. If the P.O. “increased its parcel rates, Amazon’s shipping costs would rise by $2.6 Billion.” This Post Office scam must stop. Amazon must pay real costs (and taxes) now!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) March 31, 2018
Trump has a long-standing dislike for Amazon, as demonstrated by years of tweets targeted at the internet retailer. Attacking the Washington Post, which is owned by Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos, is recurring theme in the tweets — and one that was demonstrated again on Saturday.
A New Push Is On for Afghan Schools, but the Numbers Are Grim - New York Times
A New Push Is On for Afghan Schools, but the Numbers Are Grim
By MUJIB MASHAL and NAJIM RAHIM APRIL 1, 2018
Students taking a test in Kunduz Province. Almost half of Afghan schools are still in the open air or borrow space in homes. Credit Jim Huylebroek for The New York Times
KABUL, Afghanistan — Before the start of another Afghan school year, about 200 tribal elders in the southeastern district of Laja Mangal gathered in a schoolyard for an important declaration: Any family that did not send its children to school would be fined $70, about half a civil servant’s monthly salary.
The district of about 50,000 people had built seven schools over the past 15 years, yet it had struggled to attract students from the mountainous area where the Taliban also have influence. The elders, feeling old tribal customs were holding back their children, thought the drastic measure was necessary.
“They see those people who go to school and become important people in the government and international organizations, so they have tasted the value of education,” said Khayesta Khan Ahadi, who was the headmaster of the first school built in the district.
Mr. Ahadi said local Taliban, after outreach by the tribal elders, announced their support for the decision from the loudspeakers of local mosques.
The tribal elders’ decision has gained attention across Afghanistan not just because it could help more children get an education, but also because it comes at a time when many remain deprived. Violence and corruption have overshadowed what was once a remarkable success story.
U.S. Braces for Return of Terrorist Safe Havens to Afghanistan MARCH 12, 2018
3.5 million children are unschooled.
That 3.5 million figure is according to Unicef. Seventy-five percent of them are girls.
The reasons vary. Violence remains high and widespread. There are too few female teachers, and many families will only let girls be taught by women. For many, going to school means a walk of many miles each day.
In certain parts of the country enjoying relative peace, however, female enrollment seems higher than that of boys.
In the central Bamian Province, 58 percent of the 162,000 students are female, according to Ayyub Arvin, the provincial director of education.
1,075 schools remain closed.
The country’s Education Ministry says it has 17,500 schools across the country, but 1,075 remained shut last year, largely because of raging violence. The south of the country, where violence has been relentless over the past decade, has been disproportionately affected by the school closures.
Activists say the number of closed schools is even higher. Mattiullah Wesa, who leads the organization the Pen Path, said they have counted 1,600 shuttered schools.
Of Afghanistan’s approximately 400 school districts, there are 48 districts where not a single male student has graduated from high school in the past 17 years, Mr. Wesa said. There are around 130 districts from where not a single girl has graduated from high school in the same period, he added.
Nearly half of schools lack buildings.
A survey of 32 of the country’s 34 provinces by The New York Times shows close to half the schools lack buildings. Provincial officials in these areas reported that more than 7,000 schools either teach in open air or have worked out temporary arrangements for classes in rental homes.
The provinces of Ghor and Herat in the west, Badakhshan in the northeast, and Nangarhar in the east had the highest number of schools without buildings, each with at least 400.
“Even inside the city, and the centers of the districts, we have schools that lack buildings,” said Rohullah Mohaqeq, the provincial director of education in Badakhshan.
Corruption hits every level.
Despite huge donor investment in Afghan education, corruption remains one of the major causes for its abysmal infrastructure.
The country’s education system is marred by corruption — from the smallest procedures of modifying school certificates, to the appointment of teachers and the handling of school construction contracts — a damning report by the country’s independent corruption monitor said last year. People seeking a teaching job could pay as much as a $1,000 in bribes, nearly five months’ salary, to secure a position.
Recently, the government has tried to tackle corruption in the hiring of teachers by introducing a more rigorous process through its civil service commission. The Education Ministry is the country’s largest civil service employer.
Corruption has also been seen as a major reason for discrepancies in enrollment numbers. The country’s previous government had claimed more than 11 million children were in school, with allotted resources often going into the pockets of local and central officials. But the new government has placed that number anywhere between 6.2 million to a little over 9 million.
Pressure on Taliban works, sometimes.
Across the country, as violence has become the daily reality, elders have tried to figure out local arrangements that would reopen schools.
“The good news is that the Taliban now want schools in their area of control because of local pressure,” said Dawood Shah Safari, the head of the education department in Helmand, whereas many as 30 school buildings are used as cover by fighters on both sides. “Villagers keep coming to me with letters of approval from the Taliban, asking us to open schools.”
In northeastern Warduj district, which is largely controlled by the Taliban, officials said 16 schools that had been closed for two years were reopening this spring after talks with the group.
The 13 schools in the Nawa district of Ghazni Province have been closed since 2001, with no child able to attend, according to Mujib-ur-Rahman Ansar, the provincial director of education. But recently, local elders convinced the Taliban to allow the schools to reopen. As many as 25,000 children could attend if the Taliban allow both boys and girls, Mr. Ansar said.
“I must tell you that there isn’t any professional teacher for these students,” Mr. Ansar said. “I will hire one to two teachers, and the guy may only be able to read and write, with a ninth or 10th grade education, not much more.”
Other times, Taliban still threaten.
Last week, as schools prepared to open in the northern province of Kunduz, the official ceremony in the capital city had to be shifted because of Taliban threats.
Only a quarter of Kunduz city’s 130 schools have opened their doors to students. The rest, even those under nominal government control, are waiting for the Taliban to give the green light.
The dispute seems to be over the mechanism of paying the teachers. The Taliban say they are not opposed to education but will keep the schools shut until the government changes the method of paying teachers from bank deposits to cash.
On Saturday, hundreds of teachers marched in Kunduz city, saying they hadn’t been paid for five months.
Mawlawi Bismillah, the Taliban’s head of education for Kunduz, said the group’s position was intended to reduce the headache for teachers, who need to make long trips to the provincial capital to withdraw their money. It’s easier if the money is delivered by middlemen, he said.
Government officials say the Taliban are pushing the change because they want a cut.
“They should come and monitor the payment process,” Mr. Bismillah said. “In our areas of control, we have very active attention and monitoring.”
Fahim Abed, Jawad Sukhanyar and Fatima Faizi contributed reporting from Kabul; Taimoor Shah from Kandahar; and Zabihullah Ghazi from Jalalabad.
By MUJIB MASHAL and NAJIM RAHIM APRIL 1, 2018
Students taking a test in Kunduz Province. Almost half of Afghan schools are still in the open air or borrow space in homes. Credit Jim Huylebroek for The New York Times
KABUL, Afghanistan — Before the start of another Afghan school year, about 200 tribal elders in the southeastern district of Laja Mangal gathered in a schoolyard for an important declaration: Any family that did not send its children to school would be fined $70, about half a civil servant’s monthly salary.
The district of about 50,000 people had built seven schools over the past 15 years, yet it had struggled to attract students from the mountainous area where the Taliban also have influence. The elders, feeling old tribal customs were holding back their children, thought the drastic measure was necessary.
“They see those people who go to school and become important people in the government and international organizations, so they have tasted the value of education,” said Khayesta Khan Ahadi, who was the headmaster of the first school built in the district.
Mr. Ahadi said local Taliban, after outreach by the tribal elders, announced their support for the decision from the loudspeakers of local mosques.
The tribal elders’ decision has gained attention across Afghanistan not just because it could help more children get an education, but also because it comes at a time when many remain deprived. Violence and corruption have overshadowed what was once a remarkable success story.
U.S. Braces for Return of Terrorist Safe Havens to Afghanistan MARCH 12, 2018
3.5 million children are unschooled.
That 3.5 million figure is according to Unicef. Seventy-five percent of them are girls.
The reasons vary. Violence remains high and widespread. There are too few female teachers, and many families will only let girls be taught by women. For many, going to school means a walk of many miles each day.
In certain parts of the country enjoying relative peace, however, female enrollment seems higher than that of boys.
In the central Bamian Province, 58 percent of the 162,000 students are female, according to Ayyub Arvin, the provincial director of education.
1,075 schools remain closed.
The country’s Education Ministry says it has 17,500 schools across the country, but 1,075 remained shut last year, largely because of raging violence. The south of the country, where violence has been relentless over the past decade, has been disproportionately affected by the school closures.
Activists say the number of closed schools is even higher. Mattiullah Wesa, who leads the organization the Pen Path, said they have counted 1,600 shuttered schools.
Of Afghanistan’s approximately 400 school districts, there are 48 districts where not a single male student has graduated from high school in the past 17 years, Mr. Wesa said. There are around 130 districts from where not a single girl has graduated from high school in the same period, he added.
Nearly half of schools lack buildings.
A survey of 32 of the country’s 34 provinces by The New York Times shows close to half the schools lack buildings. Provincial officials in these areas reported that more than 7,000 schools either teach in open air or have worked out temporary arrangements for classes in rental homes.
The provinces of Ghor and Herat in the west, Badakhshan in the northeast, and Nangarhar in the east had the highest number of schools without buildings, each with at least 400.
“Even inside the city, and the centers of the districts, we have schools that lack buildings,” said Rohullah Mohaqeq, the provincial director of education in Badakhshan.
Corruption hits every level.
Despite huge donor investment in Afghan education, corruption remains one of the major causes for its abysmal infrastructure.
The country’s education system is marred by corruption — from the smallest procedures of modifying school certificates, to the appointment of teachers and the handling of school construction contracts — a damning report by the country’s independent corruption monitor said last year. People seeking a teaching job could pay as much as a $1,000 in bribes, nearly five months’ salary, to secure a position.
Recently, the government has tried to tackle corruption in the hiring of teachers by introducing a more rigorous process through its civil service commission. The Education Ministry is the country’s largest civil service employer.
Corruption has also been seen as a major reason for discrepancies in enrollment numbers. The country’s previous government had claimed more than 11 million children were in school, with allotted resources often going into the pockets of local and central officials. But the new government has placed that number anywhere between 6.2 million to a little over 9 million.
Pressure on Taliban works, sometimes.
Across the country, as violence has become the daily reality, elders have tried to figure out local arrangements that would reopen schools.
“The good news is that the Taliban now want schools in their area of control because of local pressure,” said Dawood Shah Safari, the head of the education department in Helmand, whereas many as 30 school buildings are used as cover by fighters on both sides. “Villagers keep coming to me with letters of approval from the Taliban, asking us to open schools.”
In northeastern Warduj district, which is largely controlled by the Taliban, officials said 16 schools that had been closed for two years were reopening this spring after talks with the group.
The 13 schools in the Nawa district of Ghazni Province have been closed since 2001, with no child able to attend, according to Mujib-ur-Rahman Ansar, the provincial director of education. But recently, local elders convinced the Taliban to allow the schools to reopen. As many as 25,000 children could attend if the Taliban allow both boys and girls, Mr. Ansar said.
“I must tell you that there isn’t any professional teacher for these students,” Mr. Ansar said. “I will hire one to two teachers, and the guy may only be able to read and write, with a ninth or 10th grade education, not much more.”
Other times, Taliban still threaten.
Last week, as schools prepared to open in the northern province of Kunduz, the official ceremony in the capital city had to be shifted because of Taliban threats.
Only a quarter of Kunduz city’s 130 schools have opened their doors to students. The rest, even those under nominal government control, are waiting for the Taliban to give the green light.
The dispute seems to be over the mechanism of paying the teachers. The Taliban say they are not opposed to education but will keep the schools shut until the government changes the method of paying teachers from bank deposits to cash.
On Saturday, hundreds of teachers marched in Kunduz city, saying they hadn’t been paid for five months.
Mawlawi Bismillah, the Taliban’s head of education for Kunduz, said the group’s position was intended to reduce the headache for teachers, who need to make long trips to the provincial capital to withdraw their money. It’s easier if the money is delivered by middlemen, he said.
Government officials say the Taliban are pushing the change because they want a cut.
“They should come and monitor the payment process,” Mr. Bismillah said. “In our areas of control, we have very active attention and monitoring.”
Fahim Abed, Jawad Sukhanyar and Fatima Faizi contributed reporting from Kabul; Taimoor Shah from Kandahar; and Zabihullah Ghazi from Jalalabad.
Workers Say McDonald’s Isn’t Keeping Up With Rising Local Wages - Bloomberg
Workers Say McDonald’s Isn’t Keeping Up With Rising Local Wages
By
April 2, 2018, 6:00 PM GMT+10
Pay stagnates after high-profile 2015 move on starting salary
Company says minimum wage pledge was never an ongoing policy
A McDonald's employee serves a burger and a carton of french fries at one of the company's restaurants. Photographer: Jason Alden/Bloomberg
Three years after McDonald’s Corp. made a splash by saying it would pay all workers at corporate-owned stores in the U.S. at least $1 an hour above the local minimum wage, some workers say the fast-food giant hasn’t kept pace with the times.
In April 2015, amid a tightening labor market and after a string of high-profile labor protests, the burger giant unveiled a new first-of-its-kind wage floor for employees at the roughly 1,500 stores run directly by the corporation.
“A motivated workforce leads to better customer service so we believe this initial step not only benefits our employees, it will improve the McDonald’s restaurant experience,” Chief Executive Officer Steve Easterbrook said then in the statement announcing the move. As of July 1 of that year, all employees at corporate-owned restaurants would be paid at least $1 an hour above the local minimum, the company said.
Fast forward to 2018, and now some of Easterbrook’s employees say McDonald’s has violated the spirit of the announcement -- the buck-above-local-wage floor that McDonald’s today says was a one-time bump in 2015 and not designed to continue in perpetuity.
A series of recent pay stubs for 16 McDonald’s employees in eight cities, shared by the union-backed “Fight For $15” campaign, show workers receiving hourly rates that are substantially less than a dollar above the current local minimum.
Pay Stubs
Chicago employee Kayla Kuper, who’s worked at a corporate-owned store since 2015, said she was hired at $11 an hour, one dollar above the $10 hourly rate that the city began requiring that year under a 2014 ordinance. Since then, Chicago’s minimum wage has advanced to $11 an hour while Kuper’s rate has ticked up only to $11.40.
“The wage increase in 2015 –- to be a $1 above the local minimum wage -– was applicable to the local wages on July 1, 2015, but was not a policy thereafter,” McDonald’s spokeswoman Terri Hickey said in an emailed statement.
The 2015 increase in starting wages was “part of an expanded benefits package that also included paid time off,” Hickey said. Tuition assistance was part of the package as well, and the Oak Brook, Illinois, company last month expanded its tuition assistance for employees, she added.
2015 Announcement
The 2015 McDonald’s statement announcing the news didn’t directly address whether employees’ pay would remain $1 above local requirements as those wage floors continued to rise. It did project that by the end of 2016, the average hourly wage for McDonald’s employees at company-owned restaurants would be above $10.
In Milpitas, California, north of San Jose, where the local minimum wage rose to $12 an hour on Jan. 1, several workers’ February paychecks show they received $12.35 or $12.45. In Los Angeles, where the minimum wage for large employers has been $12 since July, some checks show hourly pay of $12.69 or less.
“They need to give us the dollar that they promised us,” said one of those employees, Fanny Velazquez, who’s worked for the corporation for a decade. “I can’t pay my rent or my bills.”
Union’s Push
The Fight For $15, a 6-year-old effort by the Service Employees International Union to organize fast food workers and secure more stringent wage laws, seized on the paychecks as evidence that the McDonald’s 2015 announcement was a “publicity stunt.”
“If McDonald’s wants to play semantics with its workers and continue to drive a race to the bottom instead of giving us real raises, it is going to continue losing workers to the growing number of employers who are leading the way to a better economy for all,” said Betty Douglas, a McDonald’s worker in St. Louis, in a statement on behalf of the Fight for $15.
Fight For $15 criticized McDonald’s pay announcement from the start, because it didn’t apply to the majority of the chain’s stores, which are owned by franchisees, and didn’t meet the group’s signature demand of $15 hourly pay.
The group plans to launch a hotline Monday that workers can call to report their wages, and will hold rallies in three cities on Tuesday to press its case that workers need a union in order to hold the company accountable.
Compliance Headaches
Business leaders have complained in recent years that the proliferation of local mandates on compensation and benefits has created compliance headaches for companies that operate nationwide.
The local minimum wage laws that union organizers say McDonald’s has failed to keep pace with are partially an outgrowth of pressure from the Fight For $15 and similar groups. That’s helped spur states and cities to push their wage floors far above the federal rate of $7.25 an hour, where it has been since 2009.
Burger chains like McDonald’s are facing record-high turnover as workers depart for better jobs options in a tightening labor market. Last year, McDonald’s lagged behind peers like Wendy’s and Burger King in average drive-through times. Some employees complain that the chain’s “Experience of the Future,” a suite of changes to menus, technology and food delivery, has meant performing more tasks without commensurate staffing expansions or pay increases.
“It’s going to get increasingly challenging to attract the talent you want into your business,” Easterbrook said earlier this year, “and then you’ve got to work really hard through training and development to retain them.”
By
April 2, 2018, 6:00 PM GMT+10
Pay stagnates after high-profile 2015 move on starting salary
Company says minimum wage pledge was never an ongoing policy
A McDonald's employee serves a burger and a carton of french fries at one of the company's restaurants. Photographer: Jason Alden/Bloomberg
Three years after McDonald’s Corp. made a splash by saying it would pay all workers at corporate-owned stores in the U.S. at least $1 an hour above the local minimum wage, some workers say the fast-food giant hasn’t kept pace with the times.
In April 2015, amid a tightening labor market and after a string of high-profile labor protests, the burger giant unveiled a new first-of-its-kind wage floor for employees at the roughly 1,500 stores run directly by the corporation.
“A motivated workforce leads to better customer service so we believe this initial step not only benefits our employees, it will improve the McDonald’s restaurant experience,” Chief Executive Officer Steve Easterbrook said then in the statement announcing the move. As of July 1 of that year, all employees at corporate-owned restaurants would be paid at least $1 an hour above the local minimum, the company said.
Fast forward to 2018, and now some of Easterbrook’s employees say McDonald’s has violated the spirit of the announcement -- the buck-above-local-wage floor that McDonald’s today says was a one-time bump in 2015 and not designed to continue in perpetuity.
A series of recent pay stubs for 16 McDonald’s employees in eight cities, shared by the union-backed “Fight For $15” campaign, show workers receiving hourly rates that are substantially less than a dollar above the current local minimum.
Pay Stubs
Chicago employee Kayla Kuper, who’s worked at a corporate-owned store since 2015, said she was hired at $11 an hour, one dollar above the $10 hourly rate that the city began requiring that year under a 2014 ordinance. Since then, Chicago’s minimum wage has advanced to $11 an hour while Kuper’s rate has ticked up only to $11.40.
“The wage increase in 2015 –- to be a $1 above the local minimum wage -– was applicable to the local wages on July 1, 2015, but was not a policy thereafter,” McDonald’s spokeswoman Terri Hickey said in an emailed statement.
The 2015 increase in starting wages was “part of an expanded benefits package that also included paid time off,” Hickey said. Tuition assistance was part of the package as well, and the Oak Brook, Illinois, company last month expanded its tuition assistance for employees, she added.
2015 Announcement
The 2015 McDonald’s statement announcing the news didn’t directly address whether employees’ pay would remain $1 above local requirements as those wage floors continued to rise. It did project that by the end of 2016, the average hourly wage for McDonald’s employees at company-owned restaurants would be above $10.
In Milpitas, California, north of San Jose, where the local minimum wage rose to $12 an hour on Jan. 1, several workers’ February paychecks show they received $12.35 or $12.45. In Los Angeles, where the minimum wage for large employers has been $12 since July, some checks show hourly pay of $12.69 or less.
“They need to give us the dollar that they promised us,” said one of those employees, Fanny Velazquez, who’s worked for the corporation for a decade. “I can’t pay my rent or my bills.”
Union’s Push
The Fight For $15, a 6-year-old effort by the Service Employees International Union to organize fast food workers and secure more stringent wage laws, seized on the paychecks as evidence that the McDonald’s 2015 announcement was a “publicity stunt.”
“If McDonald’s wants to play semantics with its workers and continue to drive a race to the bottom instead of giving us real raises, it is going to continue losing workers to the growing number of employers who are leading the way to a better economy for all,” said Betty Douglas, a McDonald’s worker in St. Louis, in a statement on behalf of the Fight for $15.
Fight For $15 criticized McDonald’s pay announcement from the start, because it didn’t apply to the majority of the chain’s stores, which are owned by franchisees, and didn’t meet the group’s signature demand of $15 hourly pay.
The group plans to launch a hotline Monday that workers can call to report their wages, and will hold rallies in three cities on Tuesday to press its case that workers need a union in order to hold the company accountable.
Compliance Headaches
Business leaders have complained in recent years that the proliferation of local mandates on compensation and benefits has created compliance headaches for companies that operate nationwide.
The local minimum wage laws that union organizers say McDonald’s has failed to keep pace with are partially an outgrowth of pressure from the Fight For $15 and similar groups. That’s helped spur states and cities to push their wage floors far above the federal rate of $7.25 an hour, where it has been since 2009.
Burger chains like McDonald’s are facing record-high turnover as workers depart for better jobs options in a tightening labor market. Last year, McDonald’s lagged behind peers like Wendy’s and Burger King in average drive-through times. Some employees complain that the chain’s “Experience of the Future,” a suite of changes to menus, technology and food delivery, has meant performing more tasks without commensurate staffing expansions or pay increases.
“It’s going to get increasingly challenging to attract the talent you want into your business,” Easterbrook said earlier this year, “and then you’ve got to work really hard through training and development to retain them.”
Is Russia arming the Afghan Taliban?- BBC News
Is Russia arming the Afghan Taliban?
By Dawood Azami
BBC World Service
2 April 2018
Gen John Nicholson: "We know that the Russians are involved"
The US accuses Russia of trying to destabilise Afghanistan by supporting the Taliban. Senior US officials have been saying for months that Moscow is even supplying the militants with weapons.
Russia and the Taliban, who are historic foes, deny the charges. They come amid what some observers see as a "new Cold War" - so how much truth is there to the US claims?
What is the US alleging?
In a BBC interview in late March, the commander of US forces in Afghanistan Gen John Nicholson alleged that Russian weapons were being smuggled across the Tajik border to the Taliban.
He accused Russia of exaggerating the number of Islamic State (IS) fighters in Afghanistan "to legitimise the actions of the Taliban and provide some degree of support to the Taliban".
"We've had weapons brought to this headquarters and given to us by Afghan leaders and [they] said, this was given by the Russians to the Taliban," he said.
Some Afghan police and military officials told the BBC that the Russian military equipment includes night-vision goggles, medium and heavy machine guns, and small arms.
Who agrees?
US officials have accused Moscow of supporting the Taliban for more than a year. In December 2016 Gen Nicholson criticised Russia and Iran for establishing links with the Taliban and "legitimising" the group.
Since then a number of high-ranking US officials, mainly military, have made similar claims, some suggesting Russia is also arming the Taliban.
General John Nicholson has accused Russia and Iran of "legitimising" the Taliban
But a number of US and Nato officials have been more cautious.
Testifying at a Senate hearing in May 2017, US Defense Intelligence Agency Director Lt-Gen Vincent R Stewart said: "I have not seen real physical evidence of weapons or money being transferred."
Who are the Taliban?
Sacked Tillerson issues Russia warning
Taliban 'threaten 70% of Afghanistan'
US Defense Secretary James Mattis told the House Armed Services Committee in October 2017 that he wanted to see more evidence about the level of Russian support for the Taliban, adding that what he had seen "doesn't make sense".
Nato Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg is on record saying, in July 2017, "we haven't seen any proofs, any confirmed information about that kind of support".
For its part Tajikistan has denied funnelling Russian weapons to the Taliban, calling Gen Nicholson's claim "groundless".
What's the view of Afghan officials?
The Afghan authorities have also given contradictory statements.
A few provincial officials have been explicit in alleging Moscow's military support for the Taliban. But the spokesman for Afghanistan's chief executive officer (CEO) said in May 2017 that there was no evidence.
Last October President Ashraf Ghani publicly taunted the Taliban for accepting Russian guns.
However, his defence minister said the following month that such reports were just "rumours" and "we don't have evidence".
What do Russia and the Taliban say?
Moscow and the Taliban deny the US claims that they are working together. They separately rejected Gen Nicholson's comments to the BBC, saying he had no evidence.
Afghan President Ashraf Ghani has claimed that Russia is arming the Taliban
The Russian embassy in Kabul and the foreign ministry in Moscow dismissed such claims as "baseless" and "idle gossip".
A Taliban spokesman said they had not "received military assistance from any country".
Moscow has repeatedly accused the US and Nato of trying to blame Russia for their "failures" and worsening security in Afghanistan.
Russian officials and politicians have even implied that the US and Nato support IS in Afghanistan; a charge the US vehemently denies and most observers find incredible.
Do Russia and the Taliban acknowledge links?
Russia denies materially supporting the insurgents but acknowledges "contacts" with the Taliban.
According to some Taliban sources, a communication channel between Moscow and the Taliban was established almost a decade ago, following the Taliban's removal from power by the US in 2001.
But ties between Moscow and the Taliban have improved significantly over the past three years, especially since the establishment of the so-called "IS Khorasan" group in Afghanistan in January 2015.
Red Army soldiers in February 1989 during the Soviet Army's withdrawal from Aghan War
Taliban sources confirm their representatives have met Russian officials inside Russia and "other" countries several times.
US sends 3,000 more troops to Afghanistan
Can Afghan military turn the tide in Taliban fight?
Tillerson piles pressure on Pakistan
As part of these new "links", some Taliban expected sophisticated weapons from Russia that could dramatically turn the Afghan war in their favour - anti-aircraft guns and missiles that could challenge US air supremacy; similar to the surface-to-air Stinger missile the US provided to the Afghan resistance fighters during the Soviet-Afghan war in the 1980s.
So far this remains wishful thinking on the part of the Taliban mainly for two reasons - such weapons could be easily traced back to the source and US-Russia relations are not that bad to justify such a drastic measure.
What do the Taliban gain from Russia?
For the Taliban, moral and political support by a major regional power is more important than the light weapons they say are widely available in Afghanistan and can be bought on the black market in the wider region.
Taliban diplomatic outreach also extends to building relations with China and Iran.
Suspected Taliban militants held by Afghan security forces in Jalalabad
This is a morale-booster and has strengthened Taliban conviction in the "legitimacy" of their struggle to oust US-led forces from Afghanistan.
The fact that Russia and Iran are accused of supporting the Taliban challenges the narrative that the militants are solely dependent on Pakistan.
From enemies to frenemies?
Softening its approach towards the Afghan Taliban is a dramatic and somehow unexpected shift for Russia.
Almost all founding members of the Taliban movement were part of the mujahideen, which fought against the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan in the 1980s. During the factional war that followed the Soviet pullout, Russia provided financial and military support to groups opposed to the Taliban.
But after the US invasion of Afghanistan following the 9/11 attacks in the US, the Taliban apparently saw an opportunity to work with Russia.
Russia now no longer sees the Taliban as a pressing security threat. Instead, policymakers in Moscow view the group as a reality in Afghanistan which cannot be ignored.
In March 2017, President Putin's special envoy for Afghanistan, Zamir Kabulov, even said the Taliban's demand for the withdrawal of foreign troops from Afghanistan was "justified" and criticised the long-term presence of US and Nato forces in the country.
What does Russia gain?
There are three major reasons for Russia-Taliban links.
Firstly, Russian officials say these contacts are aimed at ensuring the security of Russian citizens and political offices in Afghanistan, especially in areas where the resurgent Taliban have expanded their territorial control in recent years.
At least two Russians were captured by the Afghan Taliban on two separate occasions, in 2013 and 2016, when their helicopters crashed in Taliban-controlled areas. Both were released after lengthy negotiations.
Secondly, the emergence of IS in Afghanistan prompted fears in Moscow that the group may expand into Central Asia and Russia.
The Taliban continues to use suicide bombing attacks including this, targeting global security firm G4S in Kabul
The Afghan Taliban have been fighting against IS in Afghanistan and repeatedly assured neighbouring countries, that unlike IS, their armed struggle is limited to Afghanistan. In December 2015, the Russian president's special representative to Afghanistan, Zamir Kabulov, declared that "the Taliban interest objectively coincides with ours" in the fight against IS.
Russia has also suggested the possibility of staging a Syrian-style intervention in Afghanistan if IS gained strength and became a "serious threat" to the stability of Central Asian countries on the pretext of protecting its "backyard".
However, US officials say Moscow uses the IS presence as an excuse to justify its meddling in Afghanistan and to further grow its military influence in Central Asia.
Thirdly, Russian officials insist the Afghan conflict needs a political, not a military, solution. They have grown increasingly frustrated by and suspicious of the US strategy that has not so far stabilised Afghanistan after 16 years of fighting.
Moscow says the contacts are intended to encourage the Taliban to enter peace talks.
What's the effect on the Afghan conflict?
A resurgent Russia under President Putin has been pushing for influence in Afghanistan, in moves seen as part of an effort to ensure a seat for Moscow at the top table in any future arrangement in the country.
This comes at a time when US-Russian relations are at a low point and the geopolitical situation is changing fast.
Moscow's increasingly assertive stance is linked to US-Russian tensions in other parts of the world, especially Ukraine and Syria.
By establishing links with the Taliban, Moscow seems to be aiming to pressurise and even undermine the US and Nato.
Meanwhile, as the rift between Washington and Islamabad grows, Russia and Pakistan are building diplomatic and military relations after decades of hostility.
Moscow's reappearance in Afghan affairs is largely designed to irritate the Americans.
The persistent accusations traded by the former Cold War powers has to be seen in the context of a wider blame game. Their rivalry is complicating the conflict in Afghanistan, where the number of actors is increasing.
This has renewed fears of a "new Great Game", with Afghanistan once more a battlefield for regional and international players. A way out of the decades-long quagmire appears as far off as ever.
By Dawood Azami
BBC World Service
2 April 2018
Gen John Nicholson: "We know that the Russians are involved"
The US accuses Russia of trying to destabilise Afghanistan by supporting the Taliban. Senior US officials have been saying for months that Moscow is even supplying the militants with weapons.
Russia and the Taliban, who are historic foes, deny the charges. They come amid what some observers see as a "new Cold War" - so how much truth is there to the US claims?
What is the US alleging?
In a BBC interview in late March, the commander of US forces in Afghanistan Gen John Nicholson alleged that Russian weapons were being smuggled across the Tajik border to the Taliban.
He accused Russia of exaggerating the number of Islamic State (IS) fighters in Afghanistan "to legitimise the actions of the Taliban and provide some degree of support to the Taliban".
"We've had weapons brought to this headquarters and given to us by Afghan leaders and [they] said, this was given by the Russians to the Taliban," he said.
Some Afghan police and military officials told the BBC that the Russian military equipment includes night-vision goggles, medium and heavy machine guns, and small arms.
Who agrees?
US officials have accused Moscow of supporting the Taliban for more than a year. In December 2016 Gen Nicholson criticised Russia and Iran for establishing links with the Taliban and "legitimising" the group.
Since then a number of high-ranking US officials, mainly military, have made similar claims, some suggesting Russia is also arming the Taliban.
General John Nicholson has accused Russia and Iran of "legitimising" the Taliban
But a number of US and Nato officials have been more cautious.
Testifying at a Senate hearing in May 2017, US Defense Intelligence Agency Director Lt-Gen Vincent R Stewart said: "I have not seen real physical evidence of weapons or money being transferred."
Who are the Taliban?
Sacked Tillerson issues Russia warning
Taliban 'threaten 70% of Afghanistan'
US Defense Secretary James Mattis told the House Armed Services Committee in October 2017 that he wanted to see more evidence about the level of Russian support for the Taliban, adding that what he had seen "doesn't make sense".
Nato Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg is on record saying, in July 2017, "we haven't seen any proofs, any confirmed information about that kind of support".
For its part Tajikistan has denied funnelling Russian weapons to the Taliban, calling Gen Nicholson's claim "groundless".
What's the view of Afghan officials?
The Afghan authorities have also given contradictory statements.
A few provincial officials have been explicit in alleging Moscow's military support for the Taliban. But the spokesman for Afghanistan's chief executive officer (CEO) said in May 2017 that there was no evidence.
Last October President Ashraf Ghani publicly taunted the Taliban for accepting Russian guns.
However, his defence minister said the following month that such reports were just "rumours" and "we don't have evidence".
What do Russia and the Taliban say?
Moscow and the Taliban deny the US claims that they are working together. They separately rejected Gen Nicholson's comments to the BBC, saying he had no evidence.
Afghan President Ashraf Ghani has claimed that Russia is arming the Taliban
The Russian embassy in Kabul and the foreign ministry in Moscow dismissed such claims as "baseless" and "idle gossip".
A Taliban spokesman said they had not "received military assistance from any country".
Moscow has repeatedly accused the US and Nato of trying to blame Russia for their "failures" and worsening security in Afghanistan.
Russian officials and politicians have even implied that the US and Nato support IS in Afghanistan; a charge the US vehemently denies and most observers find incredible.
Do Russia and the Taliban acknowledge links?
Russia denies materially supporting the insurgents but acknowledges "contacts" with the Taliban.
According to some Taliban sources, a communication channel between Moscow and the Taliban was established almost a decade ago, following the Taliban's removal from power by the US in 2001.
But ties between Moscow and the Taliban have improved significantly over the past three years, especially since the establishment of the so-called "IS Khorasan" group in Afghanistan in January 2015.
Red Army soldiers in February 1989 during the Soviet Army's withdrawal from Aghan War
Taliban sources confirm their representatives have met Russian officials inside Russia and "other" countries several times.
US sends 3,000 more troops to Afghanistan
Can Afghan military turn the tide in Taliban fight?
Tillerson piles pressure on Pakistan
As part of these new "links", some Taliban expected sophisticated weapons from Russia that could dramatically turn the Afghan war in their favour - anti-aircraft guns and missiles that could challenge US air supremacy; similar to the surface-to-air Stinger missile the US provided to the Afghan resistance fighters during the Soviet-Afghan war in the 1980s.
So far this remains wishful thinking on the part of the Taliban mainly for two reasons - such weapons could be easily traced back to the source and US-Russia relations are not that bad to justify such a drastic measure.
What do the Taliban gain from Russia?
For the Taliban, moral and political support by a major regional power is more important than the light weapons they say are widely available in Afghanistan and can be bought on the black market in the wider region.
Taliban diplomatic outreach also extends to building relations with China and Iran.
Suspected Taliban militants held by Afghan security forces in Jalalabad
This is a morale-booster and has strengthened Taliban conviction in the "legitimacy" of their struggle to oust US-led forces from Afghanistan.
The fact that Russia and Iran are accused of supporting the Taliban challenges the narrative that the militants are solely dependent on Pakistan.
From enemies to frenemies?
Softening its approach towards the Afghan Taliban is a dramatic and somehow unexpected shift for Russia.
Almost all founding members of the Taliban movement were part of the mujahideen, which fought against the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan in the 1980s. During the factional war that followed the Soviet pullout, Russia provided financial and military support to groups opposed to the Taliban.
But after the US invasion of Afghanistan following the 9/11 attacks in the US, the Taliban apparently saw an opportunity to work with Russia.
Russia now no longer sees the Taliban as a pressing security threat. Instead, policymakers in Moscow view the group as a reality in Afghanistan which cannot be ignored.
In March 2017, President Putin's special envoy for Afghanistan, Zamir Kabulov, even said the Taliban's demand for the withdrawal of foreign troops from Afghanistan was "justified" and criticised the long-term presence of US and Nato forces in the country.
What does Russia gain?
There are three major reasons for Russia-Taliban links.
Firstly, Russian officials say these contacts are aimed at ensuring the security of Russian citizens and political offices in Afghanistan, especially in areas where the resurgent Taliban have expanded their territorial control in recent years.
At least two Russians were captured by the Afghan Taliban on two separate occasions, in 2013 and 2016, when their helicopters crashed in Taliban-controlled areas. Both were released after lengthy negotiations.
Secondly, the emergence of IS in Afghanistan prompted fears in Moscow that the group may expand into Central Asia and Russia.
The Taliban continues to use suicide bombing attacks including this, targeting global security firm G4S in Kabul
The Afghan Taliban have been fighting against IS in Afghanistan and repeatedly assured neighbouring countries, that unlike IS, their armed struggle is limited to Afghanistan. In December 2015, the Russian president's special representative to Afghanistan, Zamir Kabulov, declared that "the Taliban interest objectively coincides with ours" in the fight against IS.
Russia has also suggested the possibility of staging a Syrian-style intervention in Afghanistan if IS gained strength and became a "serious threat" to the stability of Central Asian countries on the pretext of protecting its "backyard".
However, US officials say Moscow uses the IS presence as an excuse to justify its meddling in Afghanistan and to further grow its military influence in Central Asia.
Thirdly, Russian officials insist the Afghan conflict needs a political, not a military, solution. They have grown increasingly frustrated by and suspicious of the US strategy that has not so far stabilised Afghanistan after 16 years of fighting.
Moscow says the contacts are intended to encourage the Taliban to enter peace talks.
What's the effect on the Afghan conflict?
A resurgent Russia under President Putin has been pushing for influence in Afghanistan, in moves seen as part of an effort to ensure a seat for Moscow at the top table in any future arrangement in the country.
This comes at a time when US-Russian relations are at a low point and the geopolitical situation is changing fast.
Moscow's increasingly assertive stance is linked to US-Russian tensions in other parts of the world, especially Ukraine and Syria.
By establishing links with the Taliban, Moscow seems to be aiming to pressurise and even undermine the US and Nato.
Meanwhile, as the rift between Washington and Islamabad grows, Russia and Pakistan are building diplomatic and military relations after decades of hostility.
Moscow's reappearance in Afghan affairs is largely designed to irritate the Americans.
The persistent accusations traded by the former Cold War powers has to be seen in the context of a wider blame game. Their rivalry is complicating the conflict in Afghanistan, where the number of actors is increasing.
This has renewed fears of a "new Great Game", with Afghanistan once more a battlefield for regional and international players. A way out of the decades-long quagmire appears as far off as ever.
Kim Jong-un 'moved' by K-pop peace concert in Pyongyang - BBC News
2/4/2018
Kim Jong-un 'moved' by K-pop peace concert in Pyongyang
North Korean leader Kim Jong-un clapped along, like many others at the concert
North Korean leader Kim Jong-un was deeply moved by a concert in Pyongyang featuring South Korea artists, the North's state news agency KCNA reports.
It said the leader's heart had swelled when he saw the North Korean audience respond enthusiastically to the performances of famous K-pop groups.
He said the musical exchange was a significant occasion giving the appearance of a united country.
The concert came amid improving relations between the Koreas.
The North sent performers to the Pyeongchang Winter Olympics in South Korea earlier this year, and the leaders of the two countries are due to hold a summit on the border later this month.
Are North and South Korea friends again?
The performers are in Pyongyang for two shows, the first South Korean musical delegation to visit in more than a decade.
The first concert, titled Spring is Coming, took place on Sunday evening local time at the 1,500-seat East Pyongyang Grand Theatre.
The delegation, which combines K-pop, rock and other genres, is set to perform again on Tuesday.
Mr Kim and his wife, Ri Sol-ju, posed for photos with some of the musicians after the event
Mr Kim is the first North Korean leader to attend a performance by an artistic group from the South, said South Korea's official news agency, Yonhap.
His sister Kim Yo-jong and the country's nominal head of state Kim Yong-nam are also said to have attended.
Kim Jong-un "showed much interest during the show and asked questions about the songs and lyrics", the South's Culture Minister Do Jong-hwan told journalists.
Rare apology
Meanwhile, one of North Korea's top officials, Kim Yong-chol, has apologised to South Korean reporters who had hoped to cover the performance after all but one were barred from entering the Grand Theatre, South Korean Yonhap news agency reports.
Mr Kim, who is in charge of affairs with South Korea and head of the North's national intelligence organisation, said that he thought that "there might have not been sufficient co-operation between the chairman's security guards and concert organisers" at the event.
"It was wrong to hinder the free media coverage and filming," he said, in what Yonhap reported as "a rare apology".
Mr Kim offered an apology on behalf of North Korean authorities, saying that the restriction was "not intentional", Yonhap reported.
Military exercise
Mr Kim has agreed to hold summits with South Korean President Moon Jae-in and US President Donald Trump.
He met Chinese President Xi Jinping in Beijing last week during his first foreign trip as leader.
The third inter-Korean summit - there were also meetings in 2000 and 2007 - is due to be held on 27 April. No date has been set for the US-North Korean summit.
Meanwhile, the US and South Korea have begun their annual military drills, which have been scaled down compared with previous years as both countries prepare for talks with North Korea.
Although nearly 300,000 South Korean troops and 24,000 American troops will take part, the drill will be a month shorter than usual and will not involve nuclear submarines.
In the past, the drills have infuriated North Korea but correspondents say that this time Pyongyang is keeping relatively quiet. Mr Kim reportedly told visiting South Korean officials that he understood that the exercises had to go ahead.
Kim Jong-un 'moved' by K-pop peace concert in Pyongyang
North Korean leader Kim Jong-un clapped along, like many others at the concert
North Korean leader Kim Jong-un was deeply moved by a concert in Pyongyang featuring South Korea artists, the North's state news agency KCNA reports.
It said the leader's heart had swelled when he saw the North Korean audience respond enthusiastically to the performances of famous K-pop groups.
He said the musical exchange was a significant occasion giving the appearance of a united country.
The concert came amid improving relations between the Koreas.
The North sent performers to the Pyeongchang Winter Olympics in South Korea earlier this year, and the leaders of the two countries are due to hold a summit on the border later this month.
Are North and South Korea friends again?
The performers are in Pyongyang for two shows, the first South Korean musical delegation to visit in more than a decade.
The first concert, titled Spring is Coming, took place on Sunday evening local time at the 1,500-seat East Pyongyang Grand Theatre.
The delegation, which combines K-pop, rock and other genres, is set to perform again on Tuesday.
Mr Kim and his wife, Ri Sol-ju, posed for photos with some of the musicians after the event
Mr Kim is the first North Korean leader to attend a performance by an artistic group from the South, said South Korea's official news agency, Yonhap.
His sister Kim Yo-jong and the country's nominal head of state Kim Yong-nam are also said to have attended.
Kim Jong-un "showed much interest during the show and asked questions about the songs and lyrics", the South's Culture Minister Do Jong-hwan told journalists.
Rare apology
Meanwhile, one of North Korea's top officials, Kim Yong-chol, has apologised to South Korean reporters who had hoped to cover the performance after all but one were barred from entering the Grand Theatre, South Korean Yonhap news agency reports.
Mr Kim, who is in charge of affairs with South Korea and head of the North's national intelligence organisation, said that he thought that "there might have not been sufficient co-operation between the chairman's security guards and concert organisers" at the event.
"It was wrong to hinder the free media coverage and filming," he said, in what Yonhap reported as "a rare apology".
Mr Kim offered an apology on behalf of North Korean authorities, saying that the restriction was "not intentional", Yonhap reported.
Military exercise
Mr Kim has agreed to hold summits with South Korean President Moon Jae-in and US President Donald Trump.
He met Chinese President Xi Jinping in Beijing last week during his first foreign trip as leader.
The third inter-Korean summit - there were also meetings in 2000 and 2007 - is due to be held on 27 April. No date has been set for the US-North Korean summit.
Meanwhile, the US and South Korea have begun their annual military drills, which have been scaled down compared with previous years as both countries prepare for talks with North Korea.
Although nearly 300,000 South Korean troops and 24,000 American troops will take part, the drill will be a month shorter than usual and will not involve nuclear submarines.
In the past, the drills have infuriated North Korea but correspondents say that this time Pyongyang is keeping relatively quiet. Mr Kim reportedly told visiting South Korean officials that he understood that the exercises had to go ahead.
China raises tariffs on U.S. pork, fruit in response to duties on steel, aluminum - NBC News ( source : Associated Press )
China raises tariffs on U.S. pork, fruit in response to duties on steel, aluminum
The U.S. should know "China would never submit if the U.S. launched a trade war," a newspaper published by the ruling Communist Party said.
Apr.02.2018 / 1:17 PM ET / Updated 3:49 PM ET / Source: Associated Press
In this March 26, 2018 photo, pigs belonging to Jeff Rehder stand in their shed, in Hawarden, Iowa. China responded to Trump's announced plans to impose tariffs on products with a threat to tag U.S. products, including pork.Nati Harnik / AP
BEIJING — China raised import duties on a $3 billion list of U.S. pork, fruit and other products Monday in an escalating tariff dispute with President Donald Trump that companies worry might depress global commerce.
The Finance Ministry said it was responding to a U.S. tariff hike on steel and aluminum that took effect March 23. But a bigger clash looms over Trump's approval of possible higher duties on nearly $50 billion of Chinese goods in a separate argument over technology policy.
The tariff spat is one aspect of wide-ranging tensions between Washington and Beijing over China's multibillion-dollar trade surplus with the United States and its policies on technology, industry development and access to its state-dominated economy.
Forecasters say the immediate impact should be limited, but investors worry the global recovery might be set back if it prompts other governments to raise import barriers. Those fears temporarily depressed financial markets, though stocks have recovered some of their losses.
March 22: Trump seeks new China tariffs as trade war worries mount
On Monday, stock market indexes in Tokyo and Shanghai were up 0.5 percent at midmorning.
Beijing faces complaints by Washington, the European Union and other trading partners that it hampers market access despite its free-trading pledges and is flooding global markets with improperly low-priced steel and aluminum. But the EU, Japan and other governments criticized Trump's unilateral move as disruptive.
The United States buys little Chinese steel and aluminum following earlier tariff hikes to offset what Washington says is improper subsidies. Still, economists expected Beijing to respond to avoid looking weak in a high-profile dispute.
Effective Monday, Beijing raised tariffs on pork, aluminum scrap and some other products by 25 percent, the Finance Ministry said. A 15 percent tariff was imposed on apples, almonds and some other goods.
American farmers in Trump-voting states may get hit hardest by a trade war
The tariff hike has "has seriously damaged our interests," said a Finance Ministry statemen
"Our country advocates and supports the multilateral trading system," said the statement. China's tariff increase "is a proper measure adopted by our country using World Trade Organization rules to protect our interests."
The White House didn't respond to a message from The Associated Press on Sunday seeking comment.
China's government said earlier its imports of those goods last year totaled $3 billion.
The latest Chinese move targets farm areas, many of which voted for Trump in the 2016 presidential election.
U.S. farmers sent nearly $20 billion of goods to China in 2017. The American pork industry sent $1.1 billion in products, making China the No. 3 market for U.S. pork.
"American politicians better realize sooner rather than later that China would never submit if the U.S. launched a trade war," said the Global Times, a newspaper published by the ruling Communist Party.
Washington granted EU, South Korea and some other exporters, but not ally Japan, exemptions to the steel and aluminum tariffs on March 22. European governments had threatened to retaliate by raising duties on American bourbon, peanut butter and other goods.
Beijing has yet to say how it might respond to Trump's March 22 order approving possible tariff hikes in response to complaints China steals or pressures foreign companies to hand over technology.
Trump ordered U.S. trade officials to bring a WTO case challenging Chinese technology licensing. It proposed 25 percent tariffs on Chinese products including aerospace, communications technology and machinery and said Washington will step up restrictions on Chinese investment in key U.S. technology sectors.
Trump administration officials have identified as potential targets 1,300 product lines worth about $48 billion. That list will then be open to a 30-day comment period for businesses.
Beijing reported a trade surplus of $275.8 billion with the United States last year, or two-thirds of its global total. Washington reports diff
The U.S. should know "China would never submit if the U.S. launched a trade war," a newspaper published by the ruling Communist Party said.
Apr.02.2018 / 1:17 PM ET / Updated 3:49 PM ET / Source: Associated Press
In this March 26, 2018 photo, pigs belonging to Jeff Rehder stand in their shed, in Hawarden, Iowa. China responded to Trump's announced plans to impose tariffs on products with a threat to tag U.S. products, including pork.Nati Harnik / AP
BEIJING — China raised import duties on a $3 billion list of U.S. pork, fruit and other products Monday in an escalating tariff dispute with President Donald Trump that companies worry might depress global commerce.
The Finance Ministry said it was responding to a U.S. tariff hike on steel and aluminum that took effect March 23. But a bigger clash looms over Trump's approval of possible higher duties on nearly $50 billion of Chinese goods in a separate argument over technology policy.
The tariff spat is one aspect of wide-ranging tensions between Washington and Beijing over China's multibillion-dollar trade surplus with the United States and its policies on technology, industry development and access to its state-dominated economy.
Forecasters say the immediate impact should be limited, but investors worry the global recovery might be set back if it prompts other governments to raise import barriers. Those fears temporarily depressed financial markets, though stocks have recovered some of their losses.
March 22: Trump seeks new China tariffs as trade war worries mount
On Monday, stock market indexes in Tokyo and Shanghai were up 0.5 percent at midmorning.
Beijing faces complaints by Washington, the European Union and other trading partners that it hampers market access despite its free-trading pledges and is flooding global markets with improperly low-priced steel and aluminum. But the EU, Japan and other governments criticized Trump's unilateral move as disruptive.
The United States buys little Chinese steel and aluminum following earlier tariff hikes to offset what Washington says is improper subsidies. Still, economists expected Beijing to respond to avoid looking weak in a high-profile dispute.
Effective Monday, Beijing raised tariffs on pork, aluminum scrap and some other products by 25 percent, the Finance Ministry said. A 15 percent tariff was imposed on apples, almonds and some other goods.
American farmers in Trump-voting states may get hit hardest by a trade war
The tariff hike has "has seriously damaged our interests," said a Finance Ministry statemen
"Our country advocates and supports the multilateral trading system," said the statement. China's tariff increase "is a proper measure adopted by our country using World Trade Organization rules to protect our interests."
The White House didn't respond to a message from The Associated Press on Sunday seeking comment.
China's government said earlier its imports of those goods last year totaled $3 billion.
The latest Chinese move targets farm areas, many of which voted for Trump in the 2016 presidential election.
U.S. farmers sent nearly $20 billion of goods to China in 2017. The American pork industry sent $1.1 billion in products, making China the No. 3 market for U.S. pork.
"American politicians better realize sooner rather than later that China would never submit if the U.S. launched a trade war," said the Global Times, a newspaper published by the ruling Communist Party.
Washington granted EU, South Korea and some other exporters, but not ally Japan, exemptions to the steel and aluminum tariffs on March 22. European governments had threatened to retaliate by raising duties on American bourbon, peanut butter and other goods.
Beijing has yet to say how it might respond to Trump's March 22 order approving possible tariff hikes in response to complaints China steals or pressures foreign companies to hand over technology.
Trump ordered U.S. trade officials to bring a WTO case challenging Chinese technology licensing. It proposed 25 percent tariffs on Chinese products including aerospace, communications technology and machinery and said Washington will step up restrictions on Chinese investment in key U.S. technology sectors.
Trump administration officials have identified as potential targets 1,300 product lines worth about $48 billion. That list will then be open to a 30-day comment period for businesses.
Beijing reported a trade surplus of $275.8 billion with the United States last year, or two-thirds of its global total. Washington reports diff
Daca Dreamers: Trump vents anger on immigrant programme - BBC News
1/4/2018
Daca Dreamers: Trump vents anger on immigrant programme
'America is the only country I've known'
US President Donald Trump has reasserted his opposition to legalising the status of hundreds of thousands of undocumented immigrants brought to the United States as children.
He declared on Twitter that Republicans should "go to Nuclear Option to pass tough laws [on illegal migrants] NOW".
He accused Mexico of doing "very little, if not NOTHING", to stop migrants crossing its northern border.
The top candidates for Mexico's presidency have hit out at Mr Trump.
Mr Trump also threatened to walk away from the North American Free Trade Agreement.
Mr Trump wanted to scrap the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (Daca) programme from March but judges halted the move, saying that the Obama-era scheme providing temporary permits for work and study must remain in place while legal challenges are heard.
The scheme is now closed to new entrants but existing members may renew their benefits while the programme exists.
Mr Trump's tweets referred to "caravans" coming, a possible reference to a caravan of more than 1,000 migrants which had featured earlier on Sunday on Fox & Friends, known to be one of Mr Trump's favourite TV shows.
The mostly Honduran migrants, including whole families, are travelling together through Mexico to try to protect themselves against criminal gangs and harassment. Some say they will claim asylum once they reach the US border.
Supreme Court snubs Trump appeal over immigrants
What is this immigration debate all about?
'They want to take advantage'
The approximately 800,000 people protected under Daca are known as "Dreamers".
Although the Daca programme is no longer accepting new joiners, Mr Trump blamed it for luring illegal migrants into the US as he talked to reporters on Sunday
But on Twitter, Mr Trump said the programme was being misused by a growing number of illegal migrants and accused Mexico of being lax about border security.
He urged Republicans in Congress to pass "tough" new anti-immigration legislation.
Donald J. Trump
✔
@realDonaldTrump
Mexico is doing very little, if not NOTHING, at stopping people from flowing into Mexico through their Southern Border, and then into the U.S. They laugh at our dumb immigration laws. They must stop the big drug and people flows, or I will stop their cash cow, NAFTA. NEED WALL!
12:25 AM - Apr 2, 2018
Donald J. Trump
✔
@realDonaldTrump
Border Patrol Agents are not allowed to properly do their job at the Border because of ridiculous liberal (Democrat) laws like Catch & Release. Getting more dangerous. “Caravans” coming. Republicans must go to Nuclear Option to pass tough laws NOW. NO MORE DACA DEAL!
11:56 PM - Apr 1, 2018
Mr Trump appeared once again to blame current illegal immigration on the Daca programme as he arrived for an Easter church service near his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida.
"A lot of people are coming in because they want to take advantage of Daca and we're going to have to really see," he said. "They had a great chance, the Democrats blew it."
What did the Mexican candidates say?
Mr Trump's tweets come amid tense negotiations over the North American Free Trade Agreement (Nafta) between his administration and that of Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto.
Mexico goes to the polls on 1 July to elect a new president.
Leftist front-runner Andrés Manuel López Obrador said his country and its people would not be the punch ball (or pinata) of any foreign government.
The conservative candidate, Ricardo Anaya Cortés, challenged Mr Trump to deal with security issues on his own side of the border.
"We understand that the United States government is worried about undocumented migration to the United States but we are also very concerned about the arms trade from the United States to Mexico," he said.
Mr Trump's tweets gained a mixed reception on Twitter - including criticism from his former rival for the Republican presidential nomination, Ohio Governor John Kasich.
John Kasich
✔
@JohnKasich
A true leader preserves & offers hope, doesn't take hope from innocent children who call America home. Remember, today is Easter Sunday. #DACA #Hope https://twitter.com/realdonaldtrump/status/980443810529533952 …
2:01 AM - Apr 2, 2018
What are the 'caravans'?
In one of his tweets, Mr Trump wrote: "Getting more dangerous. 'Caravans' coming."
The line could be in reference to migrants moving en masse from Mexico's southern border with Guatemala toward the US, organised by volunteers called Pueblos Sin Fronteras (People Without Borders).
The group counted 1,200 people in the caravan when they set off in late March for the month-long trek - which is over 2,000 miles (3,220km).
Around 80% of the migrants are Honduran, fleeing poverty and also unrest in the country after the contentious re-election of President Juan Orlando Hernández last year.
Adolfo Flores
✔
@aflores
Replying to @aflores
This morning the caravan, anticipating a long day walk, got up at 4am to beat the sun.
11:12 PM - Mar 30, 2018
Caravans have walked to the US border before. The organised groups are designed to offer protection to migrants from cartels and authorities who could harm or deport them.
But Pueblas Sin Fronteras were surprised by the turnout for this march. Last year's caravan had only about 450 migrants in it.
Despite the migrants being in the country illegally, Mexican authorities have done nothing to stop them.
Daca Dreamers: Trump vents anger on immigrant programme
'America is the only country I've known'
US President Donald Trump has reasserted his opposition to legalising the status of hundreds of thousands of undocumented immigrants brought to the United States as children.
He declared on Twitter that Republicans should "go to Nuclear Option to pass tough laws [on illegal migrants] NOW".
He accused Mexico of doing "very little, if not NOTHING", to stop migrants crossing its northern border.
The top candidates for Mexico's presidency have hit out at Mr Trump.
Mr Trump also threatened to walk away from the North American Free Trade Agreement.
Mr Trump wanted to scrap the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (Daca) programme from March but judges halted the move, saying that the Obama-era scheme providing temporary permits for work and study must remain in place while legal challenges are heard.
The scheme is now closed to new entrants but existing members may renew their benefits while the programme exists.
Mr Trump's tweets referred to "caravans" coming, a possible reference to a caravan of more than 1,000 migrants which had featured earlier on Sunday on Fox & Friends, known to be one of Mr Trump's favourite TV shows.
The mostly Honduran migrants, including whole families, are travelling together through Mexico to try to protect themselves against criminal gangs and harassment. Some say they will claim asylum once they reach the US border.
Supreme Court snubs Trump appeal over immigrants
What is this immigration debate all about?
'They want to take advantage'
The approximately 800,000 people protected under Daca are known as "Dreamers".
Although the Daca programme is no longer accepting new joiners, Mr Trump blamed it for luring illegal migrants into the US as he talked to reporters on Sunday
But on Twitter, Mr Trump said the programme was being misused by a growing number of illegal migrants and accused Mexico of being lax about border security.
He urged Republicans in Congress to pass "tough" new anti-immigration legislation.
Donald J. Trump
✔
@realDonaldTrump
Mexico is doing very little, if not NOTHING, at stopping people from flowing into Mexico through their Southern Border, and then into the U.S. They laugh at our dumb immigration laws. They must stop the big drug and people flows, or I will stop their cash cow, NAFTA. NEED WALL!
12:25 AM - Apr 2, 2018
Donald J. Trump
✔
@realDonaldTrump
Border Patrol Agents are not allowed to properly do their job at the Border because of ridiculous liberal (Democrat) laws like Catch & Release. Getting more dangerous. “Caravans” coming. Republicans must go to Nuclear Option to pass tough laws NOW. NO MORE DACA DEAL!
11:56 PM - Apr 1, 2018
Mr Trump appeared once again to blame current illegal immigration on the Daca programme as he arrived for an Easter church service near his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida.
"A lot of people are coming in because they want to take advantage of Daca and we're going to have to really see," he said. "They had a great chance, the Democrats blew it."
What did the Mexican candidates say?
Mr Trump's tweets come amid tense negotiations over the North American Free Trade Agreement (Nafta) between his administration and that of Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto.
Mexico goes to the polls on 1 July to elect a new president.
Leftist front-runner Andrés Manuel López Obrador said his country and its people would not be the punch ball (or pinata) of any foreign government.
The conservative candidate, Ricardo Anaya Cortés, challenged Mr Trump to deal with security issues on his own side of the border.
"We understand that the United States government is worried about undocumented migration to the United States but we are also very concerned about the arms trade from the United States to Mexico," he said.
Mr Trump's tweets gained a mixed reception on Twitter - including criticism from his former rival for the Republican presidential nomination, Ohio Governor John Kasich.
John Kasich
✔
@JohnKasich
A true leader preserves & offers hope, doesn't take hope from innocent children who call America home. Remember, today is Easter Sunday. #DACA #Hope https://twitter.com/realdonaldtrump/status/980443810529533952 …
2:01 AM - Apr 2, 2018
What are the 'caravans'?
In one of his tweets, Mr Trump wrote: "Getting more dangerous. 'Caravans' coming."
The line could be in reference to migrants moving en masse from Mexico's southern border with Guatemala toward the US, organised by volunteers called Pueblos Sin Fronteras (People Without Borders).
The group counted 1,200 people in the caravan when they set off in late March for the month-long trek - which is over 2,000 miles (3,220km).
Around 80% of the migrants are Honduran, fleeing poverty and also unrest in the country after the contentious re-election of President Juan Orlando Hernández last year.
Adolfo Flores
✔
@aflores
Replying to @aflores
This morning the caravan, anticipating a long day walk, got up at 4am to beat the sun.
11:12 PM - Mar 30, 2018
Caravans have walked to the US border before. The organised groups are designed to offer protection to migrants from cartels and authorities who could harm or deport them.
But Pueblas Sin Fronteras were surprised by the turnout for this march. Last year's caravan had only about 450 migrants in it.
Despite the migrants being in the country illegally, Mexican authorities have done nothing to stop them.
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