Why is Trump bad for Brexit ?
by: Gideon Rachman
For the most ardent supporters of Brexit, the election of Donald Trump was a mixture of vindication and salvation. The president of the US, no less, thinks it is a great idea for Britain to leave the EU. Even better, he seems to offer an exciting escape route. The UK can leap off the rotting raft of the EU and on to the gleaming battleship HMS Anglosphere.
It is an alluring vision. Unfortunately, it is precisely wrong. The election of Mr Trump has transformed Brexit from a risky decision into a straightforward disaster. For the past 40 years, Britain has had two central pillars to its foreign policy: membership of the EU and a “special relationship” with the US.
The decision to exit the EU leaves Britain much more dependent on the US, just at a time when America has elected an unstable president opposed to most of the central propositions on which UK foreign policy is based.
During the brief trip to Washingtonby Theresa May, the UK prime minister, this unpleasant truth was partly obscured by trivia and trade. Mr Trump’s decision to return the bust of Winston Churchill to the Oval Office was greeted with slavish delight by Brexiters. More substantively, the Trump administration made it clear that it is minded to do a trade deal with the UK just as soon as Britain’s EU divorce comes through.
But no sooner had Mrs May left Washington than Mr Trump caused uproar with his “Muslim ban”, affecting immigrants and refugees from seven countries. After equivocating briefly, the prime minister was forced to distance herself from her new best friend in the White House.
Donald Trump is a disaster for Brexit
Britain cannot look to the US for support after its divorce from the EU
Gideon Rachman
©by: Gideon Rachman
For the most ardent supporters of Brexit, the election of Donald Trump was a mixture of vindication and salvation. The president of the US, no less, thinks it is a great idea for Britain to leave the EU. Even better, he seems to offer an exciting escape route. The UK can leap off the rotting raft of the EU and on to the gleaming battleship HMS Anglosphere.
It is an alluring vision. Unfortunately, it is precisely wrong. The election of Mr Trump has transformed Brexit from a risky decision into a straightforward disaster. For the past 40 years, Britain has had two central pillars to its foreign policy: membership of the EU and a “special relationship” with the US.
The decision to exit the EU leaves Britain much more dependent on the US, just at a time when America has elected an unstable president opposed to most of the central propositions on which UK foreign policy is based.
During the brief trip to Washington by Theresa May, the UK prime minister, this unpleasant truth was partly obscured by trivia and trade. Mr Trump’s decision to return the bust of Winston Churchill to the Oval Office was greeted with slavish delight by Brexiters. More substantively, the Trump administration made it clear that it is minded to do a trade deal with the UK just as soon as Britain’s EU divorce comes through.
But no sooner had Mrs May left Washington than Mr Trump caused uproar with his “Muslim ban”, affecting immigrants and refugees from seven countries. After equivocating briefly, the prime minister was forced to distance herself from her new best friend in the White House.
Related article
May finds goodwill from Trump visit draining away
White House wrongfooted Britain’s PM within hours of first meeting’s success
The refugee row underlined the extent to which Mrs May and Mr Trump have clashing visions of the world. Even when it comes to trade, the supposed basis for their new special relationship, the two leaders have very different views.
Mrs May says that she wants the UK to be the champion of global free trade. But Mr Trump is the most protectionist US president since the 1930s. This is a stark clash of visions that will be much harder to gloss over — if and when Mr Trump begins slapping tariffs on foreign goods and ignoring the World Trade Organisation.
In addition, any trade deal with the Trump administration is likely to be hard to swallow for Britain and would involve controversial concessions on the National Health Service and agriculture.
The British and American leaders also have profoundly different attitudes to international organisations. Mrs May is a firm believer in the importance of Nato and the United Nations. (Britain’s permanent membership of the UN Security Council is one of its few remaining totems of great power status). But Mr Trump has twice called Nato obsolete and is threatening to slash US funding of the UN.
The May and Trump administrations are also at odds on the crucial questions of the future of the EU and of Russia. Mr Trump is openly contemptuous of the EU and his aides have speculated that it might break up. This reflects the views of Nigel Farage and the UK Independence party — but not of the current British government.
Mrs May knows that her difficult negotiations with the EU will become all-but-impossible if member states believe that the UK is actively working to destroy their organisation in alliance with Mr Trump.
Her official position is that Britain wants to work with a strong EU. She probably even means it, given the economic and political dangers that would flow from its break-up.
Not the least of these dangers would be an increased threat from a resurgent Russia. The British government worked closely with the Obama administration to impose economic sanctions on the country after its annexation of Crimea. But Mr Trump is already flirting with lifting sanctions.
The reality is that the UK is now faced with a US president who is fundamentally at odds with the British view of the world. For all the forced smiles in the Oval Office last week, the May government certainly knows this. For political reasons, Boris Johnson, the British foreign minister, is having to talk up the prospects of a trade deal with Mr Trump.
Yet only a few months ago, Mr Johnson was saying that Mr Trump was “clearly out of his mind” and betrayed a “stupefying ignorance” of the world.
Were it not for Brexit — a cause that Mr Johnson enthusiastically championed — the UK government would be able to take an appropriately wary approach to Mr Trump. If Britain had voted to stay inside the EU, the obvious response to the arrival of a pro-Russia protectionist in the Oval Office would be to draw closer to its European allies.
Britain could defend free-trade far more effectively with the EU’s bulk behind it — and could also start to explore the possibilities for more EU defence co-operation. As it is, Britain has been thrown into the arms of an American president that the UK’s foreign secretary has called a madman.
In the declining years of the British empire, some of its politicians flattered themselves that they could be “Greeks to their Romans” — providing wise and experienced counsel to the new American imperium.
But the Emperor Nero has now taken power in Washington — and the British are having to smile and clap as he sets fires and reaches for his fiddle.
gideon.rachman@ft.com
Financial Times
Tuesday, January 31, 2017
Monday, January 30, 2017
Trump's whirlwind first week in office - Financial Times
Trump's whirlwind first week in office - Financial Times
JANUARY 28, 2017 by: Demetri Sevastopulo and Sam Fleming
In The Art of the Deal, Donald Trump described hyperbole as an “innocent form of exaggeration” that was a “very effective form of promotion”. In an interview with ABC News on Wednesday, the US president stretched this definition to the limit with his claim that he would make relations with Mexico “better than ever”, despite his demand that the country pays billions of dollars for a border wall.
Less than 24 hours later, Mr Trump watched his first foreign policy controversy unfold after Enrique Peña Nieto, the Mexican president, angrily cancelled a visit to Washington. To Mr Trump’s supporters, the escalating spat was another example of his negotiating genius but to critics it was further proof that he was acting like a rogue on the global stage.
“Americans are as baffled by the first days of the Trump presidency as the rest of the world,” said David Gergen, a political adviser to former presidents Nixon, Ford, Reagan and Clinton. “The good news for his supporters is he has not changed. But that is the bad news for his detractors, who hoped he would become more presidential and more rational.”
It has become clear that Mr Trump has no intention of changing his behaviour or the populist agenda he laid out on the campaign trail. “I can be the most presidential person ever . . . but I may not be able to do the job nearly as well if I do that,” he told ABC.
Despite unveiling a flurry of policies ìn his first week in office, most of the attention focused on Mr Trump’s behaviour. The man who was preoccupied with his TV ratings as host of The Apprentice spent much of the week obsessing over different metrics, from the size of his inauguration crowd to his loss in the popular vote. This quest for affirmation has pushed Mr Trump and his staff beyond the bounds of fact, sparking criticism that the new president was debasing his office and harming US credibility.
On his first full day in office, Mr Trump used a speech at the CIA to lambast journalists for reporting — accurately — that Barack Obama had a far bigger attendance for his 2009 inauguration than Mr Trump did on January 20. In a pique, he ordered Sean Spicer, his spokesman, to berate them. In an angry performance Mr Spicer repeated Mr Trump’s false claims about the size of the crowd.
Escalating the issue further, Mr Trump pressured the head of the National Park Service to find photographs to prove that the media were lying, according to the Washington Post. He also ordered an investigation into voter fraud, which he blamed for his losing the popular vote despite any evidence.
Kellyanne Conway, a presidential adviser, entered the fray on Sunday and denied that Mr Spicer had lied in his defence of Mr Trump. He had used “alternative facts”, she said, a phrase that went viral and sparked images of her as a doll named “Propaganda Barbie”. Her comment helped catapult Nineteen Eighty-Four, George Orwell’s novel about a dystopian world where the regime engages in “doublespeak”, to the top of Amazon’s bestseller list.
As the sideshows played on, Mr Trump was busy notching up “wins” for his voters. Using his executive powers, he withdrew the US from the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade deal, began moves to repeal Obamacare, resurrected the Keystone XL oil pipeline and started the process to build the border wall.
He summoned US chief executives, including Elon Musk of Tesla and Mark Fields of Ford, to the White House for meetings where he stressed his administration would punish companies that moved production overseas and imported their goods back to the US.
Investors applauded, sending the Dow Jones Industrial Average past the 20,000 mark for the first time on Wednesday. But his policies have also courted concern.
“There are very significant geopolitical implications from a retreat from international engagement and an embrace of protectionism,” said Michael Strain of the American Enterprise Institute, a conservative think-tank.
Despite the fanfare, some of his actions were more symbolic than substantive. Many of these policies will face a challenge in Congress.
While the TPP move seemed dramatic, it was a deal that had effectively collapsed. His order to back the Keystone XL and Dakota Access pipelines — and to demand that the pipes are made in the US — has been pitched as a way of generating jobs. But the demand for the pipelines has diminished because of the US shale revolution, and the effect on employment is disputed.
Chad Bown of the Peterson Institute for International Economics said forcing Keystone XL to use US steel would probably violate World Trade Organisation rules. In that sense, he said, it sent a clear signal about Mr Trump’s disregard for many of the international norms that have governed America as the pillar of the liberal economic order.
Amid the flurry of activity, some campaign promises did not materialise. His vow to brand China a currency manipulator has yet to be enacted, for example, perhaps because Beijing has been trying to prop up its currency. He has still to explain how he will fund his much-heralded $1tn infrastructure blitz.
Critically, Mr Trump’s views on questions such as corporate tax reform remain unclear. On Thursday, Mr Spicer appeared to endorse plans from congressional Republicans for a major overhaul of corporation tax that would penalise imports and exempt exports. The move was pitched as a way to force Mexico to pay for the border wall, but the White House later backtracked.
Lindsey Graham, a South Carolina senator and one of few Republican Trump critics, tweeted that “any policy proposal which drives up costs of Corona, tequila or margaritas is a big-time bad idea. Mucho Sad”.
While some critics hope Congress will act as a brake on Mr Trump, others worry that most of the Republican party has become so intoxicated with power that pro-trade politicians such as Paul Ryan, the Speaker of the House, are willing to ignore the fact that Mr Trump is tearing up decades of party orthodoxy.
“Most of the Republicans have sold out their values for political power,” said Edward Alden, a trade expert at the Council on Foreign Relations. “The last time the US rejected a negotiated treaty on trade was 1950. The last time you had a president running on an openly protectionist platform was Herbert Hoover.”
Beyond the realm of economics, Mr Trump shocked US allies — including UK Prime Minister Theresa May who visited Mr Trump on Friday — by suggesting that he might allow torture, including waterboarding, for interrogations. The White House obfuscated when pressed about a leaked memo that talked about the use of “black sites” — the secret CIA prisons used during the George W Bush administration.
James Stavridis, Nato’s former Supreme Allied Commander Europe, described the first week as a “bumpy start” because of the spat with Mexico and “fairly confrontational” White House comments which suggested that the US try to block China from accessing islands in the South China Sea.
Fans and critics of Mr Trump are arriving at the same conclusion. “What you have seen in the first week is that he intends to pursue what he talked about doing. He is creating turbulence and secondary effects, but it is early days,” said Mr Stavridis.
Mr Gergen, however, says Mr Trump is damaging the US’s reputation. “It is causing a deeper sense of distress that this could become dangerous. You misjudge the Chinese on Taiwan or those islands and guns could be blazing.”
Laura Schisler, a Trump voter from Pittsburgh, said she was “very pleased and not surprised” that Mr Trump was issuing so many executive orders. “He stated these promises over and over again, and his supporters believed him and voted for him. Now he is delivering,” said Mrs Schisler.
Stephen Bannon, former head of Breitbart News turned White House aide, pointed to the disconnect between elites and many voters to explain why the media — which he said should “keep its mouth shut and just listen for a while” — was shocked at Mr Trump’s actions. “The media here is the opposition party. They don’t understand this country,” he told the New York Times.
Some experts say Mr Trump will boost the economy, particularly if he pushes through infrastructure spending. Others worry that the bullying treatment he gave Mexico would backfire with powers such as China. His penchant to sow confusion — such as saying in a single interview that Nato was “very important” and “obsolete” — has left diplomats scratching their heads, while domestic critics worry about the damage he could do to the country’s image.
“Ronald Reagan certainly brought a new spirit of government, but Reagan was willing to respect certain norms of behaviour,” said Timothy Naftali, a presidential historian at New York University.
“The current president seems unwilling and uninterested to respect the bipartisan norms of presidential action. If this week is a harbinger of the future the entire globe is going to get a case of ADD [attention deficit disorder].”
JANUARY 28, 2017 by: Demetri Sevastopulo and Sam Fleming
In The Art of the Deal, Donald Trump described hyperbole as an “innocent form of exaggeration” that was a “very effective form of promotion”. In an interview with ABC News on Wednesday, the US president stretched this definition to the limit with his claim that he would make relations with Mexico “better than ever”, despite his demand that the country pays billions of dollars for a border wall.
Less than 24 hours later, Mr Trump watched his first foreign policy controversy unfold after Enrique Peña Nieto, the Mexican president, angrily cancelled a visit to Washington. To Mr Trump’s supporters, the escalating spat was another example of his negotiating genius but to critics it was further proof that he was acting like a rogue on the global stage.
“Americans are as baffled by the first days of the Trump presidency as the rest of the world,” said David Gergen, a political adviser to former presidents Nixon, Ford, Reagan and Clinton. “The good news for his supporters is he has not changed. But that is the bad news for his detractors, who hoped he would become more presidential and more rational.”
It has become clear that Mr Trump has no intention of changing his behaviour or the populist agenda he laid out on the campaign trail. “I can be the most presidential person ever . . . but I may not be able to do the job nearly as well if I do that,” he told ABC.
Despite unveiling a flurry of policies ìn his first week in office, most of the attention focused on Mr Trump’s behaviour. The man who was preoccupied with his TV ratings as host of The Apprentice spent much of the week obsessing over different metrics, from the size of his inauguration crowd to his loss in the popular vote. This quest for affirmation has pushed Mr Trump and his staff beyond the bounds of fact, sparking criticism that the new president was debasing his office and harming US credibility.
On his first full day in office, Mr Trump used a speech at the CIA to lambast journalists for reporting — accurately — that Barack Obama had a far bigger attendance for his 2009 inauguration than Mr Trump did on January 20. In a pique, he ordered Sean Spicer, his spokesman, to berate them. In an angry performance Mr Spicer repeated Mr Trump’s false claims about the size of the crowd.
Escalating the issue further, Mr Trump pressured the head of the National Park Service to find photographs to prove that the media were lying, according to the Washington Post. He also ordered an investigation into voter fraud, which he blamed for his losing the popular vote despite any evidence.
Kellyanne Conway, a presidential adviser, entered the fray on Sunday and denied that Mr Spicer had lied in his defence of Mr Trump. He had used “alternative facts”, she said, a phrase that went viral and sparked images of her as a doll named “Propaganda Barbie”. Her comment helped catapult Nineteen Eighty-Four, George Orwell’s novel about a dystopian world where the regime engages in “doublespeak”, to the top of Amazon’s bestseller list.
As the sideshows played on, Mr Trump was busy notching up “wins” for his voters. Using his executive powers, he withdrew the US from the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade deal, began moves to repeal Obamacare, resurrected the Keystone XL oil pipeline and started the process to build the border wall.
He summoned US chief executives, including Elon Musk of Tesla and Mark Fields of Ford, to the White House for meetings where he stressed his administration would punish companies that moved production overseas and imported their goods back to the US.
Investors applauded, sending the Dow Jones Industrial Average past the 20,000 mark for the first time on Wednesday. But his policies have also courted concern.
“There are very significant geopolitical implications from a retreat from international engagement and an embrace of protectionism,” said Michael Strain of the American Enterprise Institute, a conservative think-tank.
Despite the fanfare, some of his actions were more symbolic than substantive. Many of these policies will face a challenge in Congress.
While the TPP move seemed dramatic, it was a deal that had effectively collapsed. His order to back the Keystone XL and Dakota Access pipelines — and to demand that the pipes are made in the US — has been pitched as a way of generating jobs. But the demand for the pipelines has diminished because of the US shale revolution, and the effect on employment is disputed.
Chad Bown of the Peterson Institute for International Economics said forcing Keystone XL to use US steel would probably violate World Trade Organisation rules. In that sense, he said, it sent a clear signal about Mr Trump’s disregard for many of the international norms that have governed America as the pillar of the liberal economic order.
Amid the flurry of activity, some campaign promises did not materialise. His vow to brand China a currency manipulator has yet to be enacted, for example, perhaps because Beijing has been trying to prop up its currency. He has still to explain how he will fund his much-heralded $1tn infrastructure blitz.
Critically, Mr Trump’s views on questions such as corporate tax reform remain unclear. On Thursday, Mr Spicer appeared to endorse plans from congressional Republicans for a major overhaul of corporation tax that would penalise imports and exempt exports. The move was pitched as a way to force Mexico to pay for the border wall, but the White House later backtracked.
Lindsey Graham, a South Carolina senator and one of few Republican Trump critics, tweeted that “any policy proposal which drives up costs of Corona, tequila or margaritas is a big-time bad idea. Mucho Sad”.
While some critics hope Congress will act as a brake on Mr Trump, others worry that most of the Republican party has become so intoxicated with power that pro-trade politicians such as Paul Ryan, the Speaker of the House, are willing to ignore the fact that Mr Trump is tearing up decades of party orthodoxy.
“Most of the Republicans have sold out their values for political power,” said Edward Alden, a trade expert at the Council on Foreign Relations. “The last time the US rejected a negotiated treaty on trade was 1950. The last time you had a president running on an openly protectionist platform was Herbert Hoover.”
Beyond the realm of economics, Mr Trump shocked US allies — including UK Prime Minister Theresa May who visited Mr Trump on Friday — by suggesting that he might allow torture, including waterboarding, for interrogations. The White House obfuscated when pressed about a leaked memo that talked about the use of “black sites” — the secret CIA prisons used during the George W Bush administration.
James Stavridis, Nato’s former Supreme Allied Commander Europe, described the first week as a “bumpy start” because of the spat with Mexico and “fairly confrontational” White House comments which suggested that the US try to block China from accessing islands in the South China Sea.
Fans and critics of Mr Trump are arriving at the same conclusion. “What you have seen in the first week is that he intends to pursue what he talked about doing. He is creating turbulence and secondary effects, but it is early days,” said Mr Stavridis.
Mr Gergen, however, says Mr Trump is damaging the US’s reputation. “It is causing a deeper sense of distress that this could become dangerous. You misjudge the Chinese on Taiwan or those islands and guns could be blazing.”
Laura Schisler, a Trump voter from Pittsburgh, said she was “very pleased and not surprised” that Mr Trump was issuing so many executive orders. “He stated these promises over and over again, and his supporters believed him and voted for him. Now he is delivering,” said Mrs Schisler.
Stephen Bannon, former head of Breitbart News turned White House aide, pointed to the disconnect between elites and many voters to explain why the media — which he said should “keep its mouth shut and just listen for a while” — was shocked at Mr Trump’s actions. “The media here is the opposition party. They don’t understand this country,” he told the New York Times.
Some experts say Mr Trump will boost the economy, particularly if he pushes through infrastructure spending. Others worry that the bullying treatment he gave Mexico would backfire with powers such as China. His penchant to sow confusion — such as saying in a single interview that Nato was “very important” and “obsolete” — has left diplomats scratching their heads, while domestic critics worry about the damage he could do to the country’s image.
“Ronald Reagan certainly brought a new spirit of government, but Reagan was willing to respect certain norms of behaviour,” said Timothy Naftali, a presidential historian at New York University.
“The current president seems unwilling and uninterested to respect the bipartisan norms of presidential action. If this week is a harbinger of the future the entire globe is going to get a case of ADD [attention deficit disorder].”
Sunday, January 29, 2017
This is Trump's policy on skilled work visa - Wall Street Journal
By NEWLEY PURNELL
Jan 24, 2017 4:27 pm IST
During his campaign, President Donald Trump assailed a skilled-worker visa program used to send foreigners to the U.S., and in his inaugural speech Friday he said the country would “follow two simple rules; buy American and hire American.”
Indian outsourcing firms are already preparing for potential changes to visa rules, which could present a challenge because they send thousands of workers to the U.S. every year via the H-1B program.
MORE IN H1-B VISA
* What President-Elect Donald Trump Said About Working Visas to the U.S.
* Study: U.S. Must Open to Tech Talent as Immigrants Founded Most of the Biggest Startups
* Donald Trump Says He’s Changing on H-1B Visas
* Is the U.S. Going to Slash the Number of H-1B Visas It Issues?
* U.S. Court Refuses to Order Reversal of Controversial Green Card Flip Flop
* India’s Hard-Working Expat Army - The Numbers
So how much, and how quickly, could Mr. Trump change the regulations?
A significant shakeup would likely need to be approved by Congress, though there are some steps Mr. Trump could take himself immediately, analysts say.
There has been an uptick in proposed immigration bills of late. Policymakers from both sides of the aisle have likely been emboldened by Mr. Trump’s pledge to protect American workers.
“It is clear that there is growing momentum to change the H-1B and visa laws,” said Peter Bendor-Samuel, chief executive of Dallas, Texas-based technology management consulting firm Everest Group, which analyzes the outsourcing industry.
New laws would probably result in more robust restrictions targeting foreign firms like those in India’s $108 billion outsourcing industry, Mr. Bendor-Samuel said.
Last week, two prominent senators, Iowa Republican Chuck Grassley and Illinois Democrat Richard Durbin, said they planned to re-introduce a bill from 2007 that would require all employers seeking to hire workers on H-1B visas to make a “good faith effort” to hire Americans first.
Among other provisions, it would require that rather than H-1Bs being awarded in lotteries, the government would be required to prioritize the top foreign students who have studied in the U.S. These would include advanced degree holders, those earning a “high wage,” and those with “valuable skills.”
The bill’s planned reintroduction comes after Rep. Darrell Issa, one of the highest-profile Republicans in Congress and a supporter of Mr. Trump, said earlier this month he intends to reintroduce a bill clamping down on H-1Bs, though his appears more limited in scope that Sens. Grassley and Durbin’s.
Both bills would need to be passed by Congress and signed by Mr. Trump.
Mr. Trump will also have scope to act independently.
Eric Ruark, director of research at Arlington, Va.-based NumbersUSA, which advocates for limited immigration, said Mr. Trump could use an executive directive to tighten the U.S.’s Optional Practical Training, or OPT, program.
The OPT program gives foreign graduates in fields like science, technology, engineering or math the right to find jobs in the U.S. for up to 36 months, depending on their degree subject.
Mr. Trump could roll the time limit back to the original 12 months, the threshold until it was expanded under President George W. Bush in 2008, and tighten the eligible fields of study.
In addition, Mr. Ruark said the president could end a provision announced under President Barack Obama in 2014 that allows spouses of H-1B visa holders to work in the U.S.
While the timing for any potential action remains unclear under Mr. Trump, Mr. Ruark said H-1B policies are an issue “we feel strongly will be addressed in his administration’s first year.”
Corrections and Amplifications
The OPT program allows graduates to find jobs in the U.S. for up to 36 months, depending on their degree subject. An earlier version of this article said the time limit was 29 months.
Jan 24, 2017 4:27 pm IST
During his campaign, President Donald Trump assailed a skilled-worker visa program used to send foreigners to the U.S., and in his inaugural speech Friday he said the country would “follow two simple rules; buy American and hire American.”
Indian outsourcing firms are already preparing for potential changes to visa rules, which could present a challenge because they send thousands of workers to the U.S. every year via the H-1B program.
MORE IN H1-B VISA
* What President-Elect Donald Trump Said About Working Visas to the U.S.
* Study: U.S. Must Open to Tech Talent as Immigrants Founded Most of the Biggest Startups
* Donald Trump Says He’s Changing on H-1B Visas
* Is the U.S. Going to Slash the Number of H-1B Visas It Issues?
* U.S. Court Refuses to Order Reversal of Controversial Green Card Flip Flop
* India’s Hard-Working Expat Army - The Numbers
So how much, and how quickly, could Mr. Trump change the regulations?
A significant shakeup would likely need to be approved by Congress, though there are some steps Mr. Trump could take himself immediately, analysts say.
There has been an uptick in proposed immigration bills of late. Policymakers from both sides of the aisle have likely been emboldened by Mr. Trump’s pledge to protect American workers.
“It is clear that there is growing momentum to change the H-1B and visa laws,” said Peter Bendor-Samuel, chief executive of Dallas, Texas-based technology management consulting firm Everest Group, which analyzes the outsourcing industry.
New laws would probably result in more robust restrictions targeting foreign firms like those in India’s $108 billion outsourcing industry, Mr. Bendor-Samuel said.
Last week, two prominent senators, Iowa Republican Chuck Grassley and Illinois Democrat Richard Durbin, said they planned to re-introduce a bill from 2007 that would require all employers seeking to hire workers on H-1B visas to make a “good faith effort” to hire Americans first.
Among other provisions, it would require that rather than H-1Bs being awarded in lotteries, the government would be required to prioritize the top foreign students who have studied in the U.S. These would include advanced degree holders, those earning a “high wage,” and those with “valuable skills.”
The bill’s planned reintroduction comes after Rep. Darrell Issa, one of the highest-profile Republicans in Congress and a supporter of Mr. Trump, said earlier this month he intends to reintroduce a bill clamping down on H-1Bs, though his appears more limited in scope that Sens. Grassley and Durbin’s.
Both bills would need to be passed by Congress and signed by Mr. Trump.
Mr. Trump will also have scope to act independently.
Eric Ruark, director of research at Arlington, Va.-based NumbersUSA, which advocates for limited immigration, said Mr. Trump could use an executive directive to tighten the U.S.’s Optional Practical Training, or OPT, program.
The OPT program gives foreign graduates in fields like science, technology, engineering or math the right to find jobs in the U.S. for up to 36 months, depending on their degree subject.
Mr. Trump could roll the time limit back to the original 12 months, the threshold until it was expanded under President George W. Bush in 2008, and tighten the eligible fields of study.
In addition, Mr. Ruark said the president could end a provision announced under President Barack Obama in 2014 that allows spouses of H-1B visa holders to work in the U.S.
While the timing for any potential action remains unclear under Mr. Trump, Mr. Ruark said H-1B policies are an issue “we feel strongly will be addressed in his administration’s first year.”
Corrections and Amplifications
The OPT program allows graduates to find jobs in the U.S. for up to 36 months, depending on their degree subject. An earlier version of this article said the time limit was 29 months.
The wall shows Trump is totally ignorant of Mexico immigration - Huffington Post
President Donald Trump appears to think building a wall on the U.S.-Mexico border will solve unauthorized immigration and other issues at the border. Stats from the last few years tell a completely different story.
Trump signed two executive orders Wednesday that call for the immediate construction of a wall and issue directives to crack down on unauthorized immigration, increase security at the southern border and expand agencies’ deportation powers.
The order describes building the wall as a measure “to prevent illegal immigration, drug and human trafficking, and acts of terrorism.” Prioritizing a wall ― with an estimated cost in the billions ― has been widely condemned by Latino groups and lawmakers as a discriminatory attack on immigrants.
Building a wall to keep Mexicans out is also out of touch with the current realities of unauthorized immigration. Since the recession, more undocumented Mexican immigrants are actually leaving the country than entering it, according to the Pew Research Center.
And as the Mexican economy has improved, the number of people attempting to illegally cross into the U.S. from Mexico has dropped dramatically over the last 15 years, according to Quartz:
As of 2014, the majority of the 11 million undocumented immigrants living in the U.S. are from Mexico, according to Pew’s population estimates, but their numbers have been declining.
At the same time, unauthorized immigration from other countries has risen, driven by people coming from Central America, Asia and sub-Saharan Africa. Pew notes that many of the people from those regions are entering the country legally and overstaying their visas ― something a wall won’t prevent.
On Wednesday, Trump claimed the wall would also help Mexico prevent unauthorized immigration from countries to its south. He addressed the “unprecedented surge of illegal migrants” from Central America, many of whom are families seeking asylum from violence in their countries.
Central Americans outnumbered Mexican immigrants apprehended at the United States’ southern border in 2016. The total number of apprehensions increased last yearcompared to 2015, but was still lower than in 2014 or 2013. The apprehension figures give a sense of trends in the larger number of total illegal border crossings, according to U.S. Border Control.
Building a wall is impractical for other reasons. It won’t address actual enforcement needs, officials in Texas borderlands told HuffPost’s Roque Planas. U.S. Rep. Will Hurd (R-Texas) said a physical barrier isn’t an effective security measure for the area’s rough terrain and protected natural areas. Gilberto Hinojosa, chairman of the Texas Democratic Party, said the Rio Grande Valley area is heavily patrolled by authorities and that they’ve already “reached [their] maximum capacity in enforcement.”
What’s more, it’s not clear how the wall will be funded. Republican leaders said Thursday that Congress would front $12 billion or more for its construction, without clarifying if they’d offset the costs with other cuts. Trump has insisted Mexico will pay for the wall, but Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto has repeatedly refused: He reiterated his stance on Wednesday.
Nieto was scheduled to meet with Trump at the White House next week, but said on Thursday that he was canceling. Nieto’s decision followed Wednesday reports that he was considering whether to keep the meeting. Trump lashed out on Twitter earlier Thursday, threatening to cancel as well, but Nieto pulled the trigger first.
During his presidential campaign, Trump frequently targeted immigrants and blamed them for American job losses, criminal activity and terrorism. He claimed Mexico was purposely sending “the bad ones” to the U.S., suggesting Mexican immigrants are criminals and rapists.
Saturday, January 28, 2017
US ambassador to UN Nikki Haley declared tough stance - NBC News
Speaking Friday for the first time at the United Nations as Ambassador, former South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley outlined her vision for the role of the U.S. at the international organization, one which projects strength.
"Our goal with the admin is to show value at the UN and the way that we will do that is to show strength, show our voice, have the backs of our allies and make sure our allies have our back as well," Haley said. "For those who don't have our backs, we're taking names."
The newly sworn in U.S. ambassador spoke briefly with the press at U.N. Headquarters Friday morning promising changes in the way the United States does business.
"Everything that is working, we are going to make it better. Everything that is not working, we are going to try and fix. And anything that seems to be obsolete and not necessary, we are going to do away with," Haley pledged.
U.S. President Donald Trump has openly criticized the United Nations' effectiveness in the past, describing it as recently as December as "just a club for people to get together and talk." He also warned, "As to the U.N., things will be different after Jan. 20th."
In the course of her Senate confirmation hearing, Haley testified several times that she did not believe in a "slash and burn" approach to U.S. funding at the U.N. instead advocating for "strategic cutting" and at times a withholding of dues.
"I do not think we need to pull money from the U.N.," Haley told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee last week. "It's not something I would consider as ambassador or anything that I would suggest back to you for Congress."
Friday, January 27, 2017
Trump's new immigration rules explained - ABC News
President Donald Trump signed two executive orders Wednesday that call for building a wall along the U.S.-Mexican border and aim to deny federal funds to so-called sanctuary cities that shield undocumented immigrants from deportation.
The actions could have broad implications for the estimated 11 million undocumented immigrants in the United States and set up a potential showdown between the federal government and cities that resist the enforcement of some federal immigration laws.
Here’s what the orders mean:
About That Wall
The first order, entitled “Border Security and Immigration Enforcement Improvements,” is the first concrete step President Trump has taken to deliver on his campaign promise to build a “big, beautiful wall” along the southern border with Mexico.
" />Sandy Huffaker/AFP/Getty Images
The order defines it as a "physical wall or other similarly … impassable physical barrier” and calls for the addition of 5,000 border patrol agents.
The order does not specify how the wall would be funded, though the White House continues to insist that Mexico would reimburse the United States for the cost, even though U.S. taxpayers would foot the bill upfront.
The president of Mexico has said that Mexico would not pay.
Republican congressional leaders said today they will move forward with plans to approve funds for a wall they estimate would cost $12 billion to $15 billion, leaving Trump to “deal with his relations with other countries on that issue and others.”
Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images
But total U.S. aid to Mexico in 2016 was $161 million, which is only a fraction of the estimated cost.
Trump has estimated the wall could cost $8 billion to $12 billion. He told MSNBC host Tamron Hall last February that he only needed a 1,000-mile wall along the nearly 2,000-mile border. “Of the 2,000, we don’t need 2,000, we need 1,000 because we have natural barriers … and I’m taking it price per square foot and a price per square, you know, per mile,” he said of how he arrived at his estimated cost.
However, an analysis published in the MIT Technology Review noted that building a new 1,000-mile wall could cost as much as $40 billion. Their breakdown includes the current price of steel and concrete.
For comparison, the portion of the 700 miles of fencing built in 2007, under the Secure Fence Act of 2006 signed by President Bush, was estimated at about $2.8 million a mile, according to the Congressional Research Service in a 2009 report to Congress. That cost did not include expenses for upkeep.
White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer floated a possible 20 percent border tax on Mexico as one possible idea for paying for the wall today.
"I think when you take a look at the plan that's taking shape now using comprehensive tax reform as a means to tax imports from countries that we have a trade deficit from, like Mexico," he said. "We can do $10 billion a year and easily pay for the wall just through that mechanism alone."
Spicer later clarified that he was just presenting one possible option to pay for the wall and that a broader "comprehensive tax reform" plan is "in the early stages" of being crafted by the White House, with the close cooperation of congressional leaders.
"Our job right now isn't to roll something out or to be prescriptive, it's to show there are ways the wall can be paid for, full stop," Spicer said, qualifying his previous comments.
Trump’s order also calls for ending the “catch and release” policy that temporarily releases some undocumented immigrants because of the limited detention space. They are told to appear in immigration court at a later date.
Sanctuary Cities and Domestic Enforcement
The second order, entitled “Enhancing Public Safety in the Interior of the United States,” is designed to enhance the enforcement of immigration laws within the United States.
The order calls for prioritizing the deportation of undocumented immigrants who have, among other things, been “convicted of any criminal offense,” “have been charged with any criminal offense,” “have committed acts that constitute a chargeable criminal offense” or "have engaged in fraud or willful misrepresentation in connection with any official matter."
The language means that all 11 million estimated undocumented immigrants in the United States could potentially be a priority for deportation, on the basis that anyone who came to the country with no border inspection committed a criminal misdemeanor and anyone who overstayed a visa committed fraud, even though it’s not a crime, some legal experts told ABC News.
The order gives wide discretion to ICE officers in making such determinations. The language is “remarkably broad” and “takes that notion of ‘criminal alien’ to its farthest reaches,” University of Virginia professor and immigration scholar David Martin says.
Michael Wildes, an immigration attorney who formerly represented Trump Models, the Miss Universe Organization and Melania Trump, told ABC News “this is scary stuff for America’s legacy of immigration, for business and for our hospitality.”
The order also aims to strip federal grant money from “sanctuary cities,” which The Associated Press defines as jurisdictions that do not generally cooperate with federal immigration enforcement.
Such cities are “not eligible to receive Federal grants, except as deemed necessary for law enforcement purposes by the Attorney General or the Secretary,” according to the order.
That could be read to bar any federal funds, including law enforcement funds, to these cities, professor Peter Schuck of Yale Law School said.
The order gives the U.S. attorney general and secretary of the Department of Homeland Security the authority to designate what cities constitute sanctuary jurisdictions.
Since Trump signed the order, elected officials in some sanctuary cities across the country have vowed to continue their policy of protecting immigrants.
New York City is among those sanctuary cities promising to fight the order.
“Any attempt to bully local governments into abandoning policies that have proven to keep our cities safe is not only unconstitutional but threatens the safety of our citizens,” New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman said in a statement. “I urge President Trump to revoke this Executive Order right away. If he does not, I will do everything in my power to fight it.”
The action also calls for adding 10,000 additional border enforcement officers, effectively tripling the number of Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers.
The order also calls for the creation of an “Office for Victims of Crimes Committed by Removable Aliens” that will be dedicated to helping U.S. citizens who have been victims of crimes by undocumented immigrants.
"We hear you. We see you. You will never ever be ignored again," Trump said, referring to the victims.
The latest available government data, in a 2011 Government Accountability Office report, placed the number of what it called “criminal aliens” in federal prisons in 2010 at around 55,000, or roughly 3 percent of the total prison population of 1.6M prisoners, and found 90 percent of "criminal aliens" sentenced in federal court in 2009 were convicted of immigration and drug-related offenses.
ABC News’ Lauren Pearle contributed reporting.
Thursday, January 26, 2017
Trump's war with the media has special characteristics - CNN
President Trump's dangerous war on the media
Other presidents have assailed the media, but Trump's assault seems qualitatively different, writes Julian Zelizer.
This administration is conducting a war to systematically undermine the media's ability to act as a watchdog, he says
Editor's Note: Julian Zelizer is a professor of history and public affairs at Princeton University and a New America fellow. He is the author of "Jimmy Carter" and "The Fierce Urgency of Now: Lyndon Johnson, Congress, and the Battle for the Great Society." He also is the co-host of the podcast "Politics & Polls." The opinions expressed in this commentary are his own.
(CNN) - The first war that President Trump has declared is a war against the news media.
In his first few days in the White House, the President and his advisers took direct aim at the reporters who are covering them. Standing in the headquarters of the CIA, President Trump decided to devote much of his remarks to assailing journalists.
"I have a running war with the media. They are among the most dishonest human beings on earth, right?" And press secretary Sean Spicer used his first White House briefing as an opportunity to attack the media falsely for understating the size of the crowds at Trump's inaugural ceremony.
"Some members of the media were engaged in deliberately false reporting," Spicer said. He warned that "This kind of dishonesty in the media, the challenging -- that bringing about our nation together is making it more difficult."
In an interview with NBC's "Meet the Press" the next day, Trump adviser Kellyanne Conway rejected Chuck Todd's assertion that the administration's crowd-size claims were a "falsehood" by saying that Spicer's numbers were legitimate "alternative facts." Trump told a group of legislators that fraudulent votes by illegal immigrants cost him the popular vote, a falsehood repeated by Spicer.
These tussles come after a long presidential campaign in which Trump attacked the media as an institution that was "rigged" against him. At some rallies, some Trump supporters even yelled a term used by the Nazis, "Lugenpresse" (translation: lying press), at media staff members.
This is not the first time that we have seen presidents going after the media. There were open attacks against journalists by President Richard Nixon and Vice President Spiro Agnew, who called the media the "nattering nabobs of negativism." Nixon even kept journalists like Daniel Schorr on a secret "enemies list." Most presidents, as Eric Alterman has reminded us in his classic account of presidential fabrication, "When Presidents Lie," deceive reporters and the public.
Lyndon Johnson hid from reporters his plan to escalate the war in Vietnam when he was questioned about the future of US involvement in Southeast Asia during the 1964 election. President Nixon secretly bombed Cambodia, while President Ronald Reagan's National Security Council conducted an elaborate operation of selling weapons to Iran and using the proceeds to fund the Nicaraguan Contras that they continually insisted to reporters they were not doing.
At a much smaller scale, President Bill Clinton did the same. "I did not have sexual relations with that woman," Clinton said of Monica Lewinsky, even though he did. President George W. Bush said there was solid evidence of weapons of mass destruction being in Iraq. There wasn't.
But the current assault against the media seems qualitatively different. This administration, armed with a new way to communicate directly to the public through social media, has started to conduct a multi-front war to systematically undermine the ability of the press to fulfill its responsibilities as a watchdog on government and as the main source of information for political news.
Trump will continue to directly attack the legitimacy of the news media, a theme that reverberates powerfully with his supporters. Throughout the campaign, and the first few days of the presidency, Trump and his advisers have continued to claim that the press is not a legitimate source of information.
Reporters are biased against him, he says, and mainstream television and print outlets propagate "fake news." He's praised Fox News, whose prime-time opinion hosts back him, and criticized CNN.
The president has immense power to sow doubts with the public over the legitimacy of an institution. Whenever there has been an apparent media slip-up in the first few days, such as one report, soon corrected, that Trump had removed the bust of the Rev. Martin Luther King from the Oval Office, the White House jumped to claim that reporters could not be trusted. In the ultimate form of Kabuki theater, the ultimate disseminator of false information is pointing his finger at others.
The Trump White House is also intent on spreading its own alternative narrative about events to counteract whatever the media has to say. In a striking moment during a meeting with a bipartisan group of congressional leaders, Trump reasserted his claim that voter fraud by unauthorized immigrants had cost him the popular vote.
This was a more dangerous claim, one that fuels the drive for voter restrictions, than the "alternative facts" about crowd size. We can expect to see lying as a continued strategy for the White House, given how Trump ran his campaign.
The President will simply make his own assertions about events, whether true or not, in order to undercut what reporters are saying. If the media zeroes in on a problem that he is facing, he will try to spin the story his own way.
Given Trump's power as President and his skill as the consummate showman, the press will have to figure out how to respond when they find themselves in a direct competition with the White House over telling the story of our times. They will also need to determine when the White House is creating simply a distraction to keep the press focused on the president's outrageous claims while more serious policy decisions are happening on Capitol Hill that require careful attention from reporters.
Attacking reporters, producers and news organizations directly also will be part of this war. We saw this ominously in the final weeks of the campaign when Trump paused in the middle of a rally to call out Katy Tur of NBC for underreporting the size of the crowds at his rally. There were reports that she needed protection after the crowd was incited.
During the transition, Trump castigated television news officials at a meeting in the Trump Tower for their coverage of the campaign. When CNN's Jeff Zeleny aired a segment challenging his allegations about massive voting fraud, he retweeted tweets accusing Zeleny of bring a bad journalist and went on to condemn CNN generally.
At a press conference, Trump refused to call on CNN's Jim Acosta after telling him "You are fake news" and saying he wouldn't answer questions from the organization. While speaking at the CIA, he called out Time magazine's Zeke Miller to attack him for his story about the King bust, even though Miller had corrected the mistake a day earlier.
As Trump ramps up these attacks, there is also the danger for journalists that he will goad them into the exact kind of behavior he is accusing them of doing. Without any question, more and more journalists have been unsettled by the tone of the administration and the attacks that have been coming their way.
The good news is that more journalists have become more determined to call events as they are, and this is a change in a positive direction. Within his first week as President, The New York Times published two dramatic headlines -- one saying that "Trump Repeats Lie About Popular Vote in Meeting with Lawmakers" and the other saying that "With False Claims, Trump Attacks Media on Turnout and Intelligence Rift."
But the danger would be for journalists to have a difficult time keeping a clear eye and avoiding openly partisan and openly biased work about a president they come to see as an opponent rather than the subject.
Of course, the press is far from perfect. Parts of the media focus on trivial issues or give politicians a platform for provocative statements without seriously examining what they say. And the media is under economic pressure, with newspapers in particular cutting back on staffing and coverage due to an eroding advertising base.
The press has become more partisan in recent decades with the expansion of cable television and the end of the Fairness Doctrine.
Worst of all, public trust in the media has plummeted in recent years. According to a Gallup poll released in September, only 32% expressed "a great deal" or a "fair amount" of trust in the media; only 14% of Republicans shared that sentiment. This was a striking contrast to 1976, when in the aftermath of Watergate, trust and confidence in the media was at 72%.
But the flaws and problems of the press don't make the threat posed by a hostile administration any less urgent.
In the end, the press continues to serve a vital function in our polity as a guardian of democracy. We depend on the news media to provide the most accurate accounts of what is going on in Washington, in the statehouses and in the streets. Americans rely on reporters helping to prevent the abuse of power and to filter fact from fiction in an era when the barriers against the dissemination of information have been almost completely torn down.
This moment of challenge can thus turn into an opportunity -- just as journalists remade their profession in the Progressive Era when confronted by rampant political corruption, or in the 1960s and 1970s after Vietnam and Watergate exposed the urgency of tougher investigative reporting.
Never has the need for good journalism been more evident. Never has there been more need for media companies and nonprofit organizations to invest money in sound and careful reporting. With a President saying that everything the press does is irrelevant and wrong, it's time for it to step up and prove to the public just how wrong he is.
CNN
Other presidents have assailed the media, but Trump's assault seems qualitatively different, writes Julian Zelizer.
This administration is conducting a war to systematically undermine the media's ability to act as a watchdog, he says
Editor's Note: Julian Zelizer is a professor of history and public affairs at Princeton University and a New America fellow. He is the author of "Jimmy Carter" and "The Fierce Urgency of Now: Lyndon Johnson, Congress, and the Battle for the Great Society." He also is the co-host of the podcast "Politics & Polls." The opinions expressed in this commentary are his own.
(CNN) - The first war that President Trump has declared is a war against the news media.
In his first few days in the White House, the President and his advisers took direct aim at the reporters who are covering them. Standing in the headquarters of the CIA, President Trump decided to devote much of his remarks to assailing journalists.
"I have a running war with the media. They are among the most dishonest human beings on earth, right?" And press secretary Sean Spicer used his first White House briefing as an opportunity to attack the media falsely for understating the size of the crowds at Trump's inaugural ceremony.
"Some members of the media were engaged in deliberately false reporting," Spicer said. He warned that "This kind of dishonesty in the media, the challenging -- that bringing about our nation together is making it more difficult."
In an interview with NBC's "Meet the Press" the next day, Trump adviser Kellyanne Conway rejected Chuck Todd's assertion that the administration's crowd-size claims were a "falsehood" by saying that Spicer's numbers were legitimate "alternative facts." Trump told a group of legislators that fraudulent votes by illegal immigrants cost him the popular vote, a falsehood repeated by Spicer.
These tussles come after a long presidential campaign in which Trump attacked the media as an institution that was "rigged" against him. At some rallies, some Trump supporters even yelled a term used by the Nazis, "Lugenpresse" (translation: lying press), at media staff members.
This is not the first time that we have seen presidents going after the media. There were open attacks against journalists by President Richard Nixon and Vice President Spiro Agnew, who called the media the "nattering nabobs of negativism." Nixon even kept journalists like Daniel Schorr on a secret "enemies list." Most presidents, as Eric Alterman has reminded us in his classic account of presidential fabrication, "When Presidents Lie," deceive reporters and the public.
Lyndon Johnson hid from reporters his plan to escalate the war in Vietnam when he was questioned about the future of US involvement in Southeast Asia during the 1964 election. President Nixon secretly bombed Cambodia, while President Ronald Reagan's National Security Council conducted an elaborate operation of selling weapons to Iran and using the proceeds to fund the Nicaraguan Contras that they continually insisted to reporters they were not doing.
At a much smaller scale, President Bill Clinton did the same. "I did not have sexual relations with that woman," Clinton said of Monica Lewinsky, even though he did. President George W. Bush said there was solid evidence of weapons of mass destruction being in Iraq. There wasn't.
But the current assault against the media seems qualitatively different. This administration, armed with a new way to communicate directly to the public through social media, has started to conduct a multi-front war to systematically undermine the ability of the press to fulfill its responsibilities as a watchdog on government and as the main source of information for political news.
Trump will continue to directly attack the legitimacy of the news media, a theme that reverberates powerfully with his supporters. Throughout the campaign, and the first few days of the presidency, Trump and his advisers have continued to claim that the press is not a legitimate source of information.
Reporters are biased against him, he says, and mainstream television and print outlets propagate "fake news." He's praised Fox News, whose prime-time opinion hosts back him, and criticized CNN.
The president has immense power to sow doubts with the public over the legitimacy of an institution. Whenever there has been an apparent media slip-up in the first few days, such as one report, soon corrected, that Trump had removed the bust of the Rev. Martin Luther King from the Oval Office, the White House jumped to claim that reporters could not be trusted. In the ultimate form of Kabuki theater, the ultimate disseminator of false information is pointing his finger at others.
The Trump White House is also intent on spreading its own alternative narrative about events to counteract whatever the media has to say. In a striking moment during a meeting with a bipartisan group of congressional leaders, Trump reasserted his claim that voter fraud by unauthorized immigrants had cost him the popular vote.
This was a more dangerous claim, one that fuels the drive for voter restrictions, than the "alternative facts" about crowd size. We can expect to see lying as a continued strategy for the White House, given how Trump ran his campaign.
The President will simply make his own assertions about events, whether true or not, in order to undercut what reporters are saying. If the media zeroes in on a problem that he is facing, he will try to spin the story his own way.
Given Trump's power as President and his skill as the consummate showman, the press will have to figure out how to respond when they find themselves in a direct competition with the White House over telling the story of our times. They will also need to determine when the White House is creating simply a distraction to keep the press focused on the president's outrageous claims while more serious policy decisions are happening on Capitol Hill that require careful attention from reporters.
Attacking reporters, producers and news organizations directly also will be part of this war. We saw this ominously in the final weeks of the campaign when Trump paused in the middle of a rally to call out Katy Tur of NBC for underreporting the size of the crowds at his rally. There were reports that she needed protection after the crowd was incited.
During the transition, Trump castigated television news officials at a meeting in the Trump Tower for their coverage of the campaign. When CNN's Jeff Zeleny aired a segment challenging his allegations about massive voting fraud, he retweeted tweets accusing Zeleny of bring a bad journalist and went on to condemn CNN generally.
At a press conference, Trump refused to call on CNN's Jim Acosta after telling him "You are fake news" and saying he wouldn't answer questions from the organization. While speaking at the CIA, he called out Time magazine's Zeke Miller to attack him for his story about the King bust, even though Miller had corrected the mistake a day earlier.
As Trump ramps up these attacks, there is also the danger for journalists that he will goad them into the exact kind of behavior he is accusing them of doing. Without any question, more and more journalists have been unsettled by the tone of the administration and the attacks that have been coming their way.
The good news is that more journalists have become more determined to call events as they are, and this is a change in a positive direction. Within his first week as President, The New York Times published two dramatic headlines -- one saying that "Trump Repeats Lie About Popular Vote in Meeting with Lawmakers" and the other saying that "With False Claims, Trump Attacks Media on Turnout and Intelligence Rift."
But the danger would be for journalists to have a difficult time keeping a clear eye and avoiding openly partisan and openly biased work about a president they come to see as an opponent rather than the subject.
Of course, the press is far from perfect. Parts of the media focus on trivial issues or give politicians a platform for provocative statements without seriously examining what they say. And the media is under economic pressure, with newspapers in particular cutting back on staffing and coverage due to an eroding advertising base.
The press has become more partisan in recent decades with the expansion of cable television and the end of the Fairness Doctrine.
Worst of all, public trust in the media has plummeted in recent years. According to a Gallup poll released in September, only 32% expressed "a great deal" or a "fair amount" of trust in the media; only 14% of Republicans shared that sentiment. This was a striking contrast to 1976, when in the aftermath of Watergate, trust and confidence in the media was at 72%.
But the flaws and problems of the press don't make the threat posed by a hostile administration any less urgent.
In the end, the press continues to serve a vital function in our polity as a guardian of democracy. We depend on the news media to provide the most accurate accounts of what is going on in Washington, in the statehouses and in the streets. Americans rely on reporters helping to prevent the abuse of power and to filter fact from fiction in an era when the barriers against the dissemination of information have been almost completely torn down.
This moment of challenge can thus turn into an opportunity -- just as journalists remade their profession in the Progressive Era when confronted by rampant political corruption, or in the 1960s and 1970s after Vietnam and Watergate exposed the urgency of tougher investigative reporting.
Never has the need for good journalism been more evident. Never has there been more need for media companies and nonprofit organizations to invest money in sound and careful reporting. With a President saying that everything the press does is irrelevant and wrong, it's time for it to step up and prove to the public just how wrong he is.
CNN
Wednesday, January 25, 2017
USA asked UK to keep the Trident missile accident secret - Independent
The United States asked David Cameron's government to keep details of the alleged failed Trident missile test launch secret, according to reports.
American technology was to blame for the problems in the June 2016 test and Barack Obama's administration pressed the UK not to reveal details, The Times said.
Claims that a missile went off course last year have led to accusations there was a “cover-up” in the run-up to a major Commons debate on renewal of the £40 billion renewal of the Trident system.
Prime Minister Theresa Mayconfirmed she was informed about the test before addressing MPs ahead of the July vote, which came just days after she entered office.
A British military source told the newspaper: “It was the Obama administration that asked the Cameron administration not to comment on this.
”The US administration may have been worried that there could be similar problems on other missiles.
“The British submarine successfully carried and launched the missile; the bit that went wrong was the US proprietary technology.”
Downing Street and the Ministry of Defence refused to comment on the claims.
Defence Secretary Sir Michael Fallon was summoned to the Commons on Monday to update MPs on the incident, but repeatedly refused to discuss details of the launch.
As he was speaking, CNN reported an unnamed US defence official with direct knowledge of the incident had confirmed the unarmed Trident II D5 missile veered off course after being launched from a Royal Navy submarine off the coast of Florida.
The US official was reported to have said the altered trajectory was part of an automatic self-destruct sequence triggered when missile electronics detect an anomaly.
Sir Michael told MPs that a demonstration and shakedown “concludes each time with an unarmed missile firing”, adding: “HMS Vengeance successfully concluded that shakedown operation.”
He added: “There are very few things that we cannot discuss openly in Parliament, but the security of our nuclear deterrent is certainly one of them.
”It has never been the practice of governments to give Parliament details of the demonstration and shakedown operations.“
The Ministry of Defence has repeatedly publicised successful launches of Trident missiles in recent years.
Sir Michael said: ”It may well be that earlier governments in different situations, indeed in more benevolent times, might have take different decisions about how much information they were prepared to reveal about these particular demonstration and shake-down operations.
“But these are not, of course, as benevolent times.”
Tuesday, January 24, 2017
Samsung Announces What Caused the Galaxy Note 7 Fires - TIME Business
Posted: 22 Jan 2017 07:06 PM PST
(SEOUL, South Korea)— Samsung Electronics said Monday that problems with the design and manufacturing of batteries in its Galaxy Note 7 smartphones caused them to overheat and burst into fire.
The announcement of results from the company’s investigation into one of its worst product fiascos comes three months after the flagship phone was discontinued.
Seven-hundred researchers and engineers tested more than 200,000 devices and more than 30,000 batteries and replicated what happened with the Note 7 phones, the world’s biggest smartphone maker said in a statement.
Samsung faulted design and manufacturing errors in two different battery types by two different manufacturers.
A highly technical explanation of the various problems boiled down to the relatively large batteries not fitting well into the phones, and not enough insulating material inside.
U.S. companies UL and Exponent examined the batteries and the German company TUV Rheinland analyzed the supply chain as part of the latest investigation, Samsung said.
Though it faulted batteries from its suppliers, the company said it was “taking responsibility for our failure to ultimately identify and verify the issues arising out of the battery design and manufacturing process.”
The company has recalled 3.06 million Note 7 phones. The recalls began in September after reports the phones were overheating and catching fire. Samsung blamed a flaw in lithium batteries from one of its two suppliers.
New Note 7s with different batteries issued as replacements also caught fire. So Samsung permanently dropped the premium phone in October. It estimates the problems will cost it at least $5.3 billion through early 2017.
Samsung has taken heat for its handling of the recall and its hasty, apparently incomplete initial investigation into what went wrong.
The company has said it is planning the release of its next generation Galaxy phones. To do so, it needed to definitively resolve the mystery over the Note 7.
It is unwise for Trump to start a cold war with China - TIME
The new U.S. administration has been testing Beijing with provocative stances on trade, Taiwan and the South China Sea. But starting up a Cold War with China is a highly risky strategy
There is little about the fragrant sizzle of oysters, or sheets of kelp drying by agave-fringed shores, that hints at a Cold War frontier. But on Xiaodeng, a rocky island off China’s bustling southern port city of Xiamen, seafood and subterfuge go hand in hand. Measuring less than a square mile, it is the closest inhabited part of the People’s Republic to Taiwan, whose island of Kinmen looms through the fog. Over the decades, the periodic exchange of rockets between the two foes has forced people on both sides to retreat into deep defensive tunnels hewn from the solid rock. During times of peace, a propaganda battle has often taken over.
“Taiwan used to send biscuits and even old watches over by balloon,” says a Xiaodeng resident surnamed Hong, 76, beneath an awning in her courtyard. ”But we were told they were poisoned and so never touched them.”
China and Taiwan split after Mao Zedong’s Communists forced the routed Nationalists across the Strait in 1949 at the end of China’s civil war, setting off decades of bristling rancor between the Soviet-backed victor and its American-propped foil. Beijing still considers Taiwan a renegade province to be reunited by force if necessary.
China’s State Council designated Xiaodeng and two neighboring islands—Da Deng and Jiao Yu—a “Hero’s Triangle” in 1958, owing to their frontline positions. Less than two miles separate Xiaodeng from Kinmen. That’s considerably less than the 90 miles from Cuba to Key West, and even narrower than the 2.5-mile Korean DMZ. The peoples of Taiwan and Fujian province, to which Xiaodeng belongs, may have been politically estranged for over half a century, but they share a culture, a cuisine and the Hokkien group of dialects.
In recent years, the political gap has slightly narrowed. In 1992, Beijing signed a consensus with the Kuomintang government then governing Taiwan., stating that there was “One China.” Even if the two sides disagreed over what its sovereign power should be, the consensus that there was an indivisible China was enough to send hourly ferries, packed with selfie-snapping tourists, between Kinmen and Xiamen—the island port city of which Xiaodeng is administratively a part. The consensus also prompted the launch of direct flights between various Chinese cities and Taipei.
But those warming relations have been directly challenged by new U.S. President Donald Trump. In stump speeches through the American heartland, he accused China, with its export-driven economy, of stealing American jobs. He vowed to label Beijing a currency manipulator and to impose 45% tariffs on Chinese imports. But, even worse from Beijing’s point of view, he accepted, while President-elect, a phone call from Taiwan’s President Tsai Ing-wen. A U.S. leader had not had direct contact with his Taiwanese counterpart since Washington recognized the People’s Republic in 1979. In talking to Tsai, Trump broke with four decades of diplomatic protocol and challenged what Beijing deemed its “core interests.”
Things have since escalated. The U.S position on China and Taiwan has long been a diplomatically nuanced acknowledgement of Beijing’s belief that there is “One China,” while holding that Washington will retain robust unofficial relations with Taiwan, to which it sells arms and to which it has pledged military assistance, should it ever come under attack from Beijing. Trump, however, has repeatedly insisted that U.S. recognition of “One China” was up for negotiation, treating it, and Washington’s obligations to the Taiwanese, as bargaining chips to be used to extract more favorable trade terms from Beijing.
Even more worryingly, Rex Tillerson, Trump’s nominee for Secretary of State, told a Senate committee that China should be barred from the seven artificial islands it has built in the South China Sea, over most of which Beijing claims sovereignty, competing with neighbors Vietnam, the Philippines, Taiwan, Malaysia and Brunei, who also claim parts of the sea. The artificial islands, built up through reclamation to bolster Beijing’s maritime claims, are mini Chinese fortresses—hosting antiaircraft guns and other sophisticated weaponry, according to recent analysis.
In a press briefing Monday, Trump’s press secretary Sean Spicer repeated Tillerson’s challenge: “It’s a question of if those islands are in fact in international waters and not part of China proper, then yeah, we’re going to make sure that we defend international territories from being taken over by one country,” Spicer said.
China’s state media has responded forcefully to the suggestion, warning that any such attempt would force a “devastating confrontation” and that both sides should “prepare for a military clash.” In the meantime, tensions are likely to escalate. Although it would benefit nobody, says Zhu Feng, professor of international relations at Nanjing University, “We cannot exclude the possibility of a new Cold War.”
‘The world is opening up, but Trump is trying to close the U.S.’
A return to those dark days would not be welcome in Xiamen, a city that symbolizes the great leaps China has made over the past four decades, as well as its lofty ambitions for the future. Even before it was ceded as a British treaty port in 1842, the city formerly known as Amoy had always buzzed with trade. Its majestic Bund is stacked with Regency-style shophouses, invoking Penang or Singapore, and similarly punctuated with the occasional ruby-red Taoist temple. From here, merchants shipped tea, lacquer, rice and spices to all over the world. And when Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping launched his “reform and opening” in 1978, Xiamen was once again at the vanguard. It was one of China’s original quintet of Special Economic Zones that opened to foreign trade in 1980, spearheading the nation’s transformation into the world’s second largest economy today.
Xiamen, like China, is changing once again. The nation that was once the butt of cruel, Made-in-China jokes is reinventing itself. Today, behind Xiamen’s pearl-white colonial terraces are glistening skyscrapers of steel and glass, where Chinese corporations extend their reach across every continent. A country that once kept its currency devalued to maintain the competitiveness of its exports is now keeping it high to stem huge capital outflows. The factories pumping out plastic toys and cheap novelties—“rubber dogshit,” to quote the immortal line from 1980s movie Top Gun—are now producing the next generation of technology.
Xiamen company Newyea represents this paradigm shift. Founded by 2013, and valued at $145 million, the firm pioneers the latest in contactless charging devices. It has over 100 patents and produces components for cellphone makers like Samsung, Blackberry and LG. It is also currently talking with U.S. aerospace giant Boeing about installing contactless chargers on its aircraft, an innovation that would boost aviation safety by eliminating the considerable fire hazard of live wires and sockets around every seat.
“‘Made in China’ has new meaning today, and the world is opening up, but Trump is trying to close the U.S.,” says Newyea cofounder Xu Ayi over tea in his firm’s office. “Trump’s a bad apple and even Americans need to worry about him.”
Taiwan is not just the only “core interest” attacked by Trump; foreign trade is as much part of modern Chinese DNA today as “One China.” And no one has embraced that transformation more wholeheartedly than its President, Xi Jinping. It is, in fact, part of his family legacy. Xi’s father, Xi Zhongxun, was purged and imprisoned by the Communist Party under Mao Zedong, though was later “rehabilitated” and became a key supporter of Deng’s capitalist experiments. He took various leadership roles in the southern province of Guangdong, and was instrumental in transforming it into China’s most affluent region. When Xi the younger was finally allowed to join the party, he followed in his father’s footsteps, with one of his first official roles as vice-mayor of Xiamen.
Xi was not a local. The singsong Hokkien tongue and muggy sea air were utterly alien for a northerner like him. Yet he quickly made an impression with his dedication to ensuring that Xiamen was a business-friendly environment. Xi served three years in Xiamen—where he also met and married his second and current wife, renowned singer Peng Liyuan—out of 16 years in Fujian province, during which he helped lure an influx of South Korean, Japanese and Taiwanese manufacturers. These are policy priorities that remain central to Xiamen’s identity. Newyea, for one, has received government grants of almost $1.5 million over the past three years.
“Electronics and software are the two pillar industries in Xiamen,” says chairman Lin Guijiang. “Local government has greatly subsidized these industries and that makes Xiamen a magnet for talent.”
These are also the liberal economic values that Xi has taken onto the international stage. When he became the first Chinese leader to address the World Economic Forum in the Swiss Alpine resort of Davos, Xi issued a stern defense of globalization and rebuke of Trump’s protectionism—as unlikely as that was, coming from a nominally communist leader.
“We must remain committed to developing global free trade and investment, promote trade and investment liberalization and facilitation through opening-up and say no to protectionism,” he said. “No one will emerge as a winner in a trade war.”
To be sure, there are still many barriers to such a development. Apple makes one-fifth of its sales and Boeing earns 13% of revenue in China. There are also structural impediments; the WTO was set up primarily to consign trade wars to the history books. However, many argue that the WTO has long failed in its regulatory function, and that China’s accession has not turned it into a great consumer for manufacturers looking to sell to the world’s most populous nation. Despite a raft of WTO measures, and China’s budding affluence, China’s imports have slid steadily relative to its GDP since it signed up in 2001.
China’s own brand of protectionism has contributed to the swell of support for Trump, who has repeatedly accused Beijing of being a currency manipulator and employing predatory trade practices. Trump says that the U.S.-China trade deficit—$367 billion in 2015—costs America jobs. Economists generally disagree—”It’s not true historically and its not true logically,” says Derek Scissors, chief economist of data-analytics firm China Beige Book International—though its undeniable that China’s record on free trade is actually pretty poor. Large sections of the Chinese economy are closed off to foreign investors, its huge state-owned enterprises enjoy massive subsidies, and theft of intellectual property is rife. The landscape for foreign investment is worsening, too, with draconian national-security rules, such as a new cybersecurity law, throwing up onerous hurdles for foreign firms. And at the same time China demands—and largely gets—unfettered access into the markets of other countries.
“I don’t think they are a very good economic partner,” Scissors says of China.
Xi spoke glowingly at Davos about how Chinese plans to have domestic consumption replace exports were taking shape; however, the numbers tell a very different story. China will continue to rely on exports for its fiscal health for the foreseeable future. Economists expect, if realized, Trump’s threat of 45% import tariffs would cut 1% to 3% off Chinese GDP, which is already at a post-reform low of 6.7% (if you believe the official figures). But even if that doesn’t happen, the GOP also has a proposal for a 35% blanket “border adjustment” tax on all imports. China might not be singled out, but as largest trading partner, it will be the worst effected.
To make matters worse, Beijing is already having economic problems. Exports shrank 6.1% to $209.4 billion in December compared with the same month the year before, according to customs data posted last week—the eighth consecutive monthly fall. Trade in general is suffering, with combined imports and exports contracting 6.8% last year. But more pressing for China are its balance of payment woes. China’s foreign-currency reserves shrank by $350 billion in 2016. A lot of money is leaving the country, as wealthy Chinese finding loopholes around every new regulation and hurdle. Although China can weather considerable gross capital outflow because it has by far the world’s biggest trade surplus, once that trade surplus is eaten into then real dangers crop up. China’s holdings of U.S. Treasury securities plunged by a whopping $66.4 billion in November, following a $41 billion the month before—marking six consecutive monthly falls. Standing at $1.049 trillion, China’s holdings are now only second largest behind Japan.
‘If domestic matters prove difficult, a foreign crisis could be helpful’
All this spells bad news for workers like Wu Man. The 29-year-old moved to Xiamen from China’s industrial northern province of Hubei, and spends 10 hours a day, six days week testing and packing lightbulbs at a factory in northern Xiamen. The unrelenting routine of twist, untwist, wrap in plastic, earns her $580 a month, a quarter of which she sends home to her grandparents, who care for her two children, aged one and seven.
“My husband and I are still young, so we decided to stay here and make more money,” she says above the din of industrial machinery. “This company has better welfare than most, and a shuttle bus goes to where I live.”
Under China’s autocratic system, workers like Wu do not vote, but her livelihood is inexorably tied to the political legitimacy claimed by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). The party today is the largest wealth creation organ the world has ever known, having hauled 600 million people out of abject poverty and spawned the world’s highest numbers of billionaires. But its authority will always be under threat unless it can deliver continuing growth and opportunities for all 1.3 billion Chinese. It isn’t coincidental that China is experiencing an ideological tightening at the same time as its economy is slowing, with independent civil society decimated, critical academics and journalists gagged, and even lawyers persecuted and imprisoned.
Trump’s rise is interesting timing for Xi. More than half of the Politburo Standing Committee—the nation’s apex political body—are due to be replaced at the 19th five-yearly National Congress of the CCP in 2017. The next generation of leaders will be anointed and the party’s ideological direction redefined. The stakes are high. Xi is China’s strongest leader for generations—he was named a “core leader” on a level with Mao in October—and he needs to project in fallibility.
As CCP leader, Xi has made enemies by going after the military, the domestic security services, domestic intelligence services, his nation’s sacrosanct state enterprises, and corrupt officials across all strata of the party. “There are a lot of sharp knives and a lot of people who would like to plunge them into Mr. Xi’s back,” says Scott W. Harold, a China specialist for Washington think-tank RAND Corp. The CCP also has a virulent leftist caucus, which abhors the wanton wealth inequality of recent years as a betrayal of socialist values. (To burnish his, Xi reportedly held a “democratic life session” recently for Politburo members to read out Cultural Revolution-style self-criticisms and to profess loyalty.)
In this light, a trade war with the U.S. could be a black mark for Xi. But more likely, Harold says, “if domestic matters prove difficult, a foreign crisis could be helpful.”
Saber-rattling and CCP Congresses go hand in hand. In the lead up to the 18th Congress in 2012, that most sensitive time when Xi was finally named CCP General Secretary and confirmed to take over the presidency, China was positively bellicose, seizing the Scarborough Shoal in the South China Sea and stoking protests against Japan’s purchase of the disputed Diaoyu Islands (known in Japan as the Senkaku). In 2017, attempts by the U.S. to get tough on trade, Taiwan or the South China Sea could feed the narrative that meddlesome foreigners are once again giving downtrodden China a hard time, and also provide Xi with political capital to push forward military reform and modernization. Trump’s bombast gives no shortage of opportunities.
“It’s a risky interaction between Trump’s style and Chinese sensitivity,” says Scissors.
Of course, Sino-U.S. relations were far from rosy under Obama, with the world’s established superpower and its aspirant one clashing over human rights, IP theft, cyber espionage, the South China Sea, how to rein in North Korea, and the deployment of the U.S. THAAD anti-missile system in South Korea. When Obama attempted to forge the Trans-Pacific Partnership free trade pact, which Trump nixed on Monday in a move that will only increase China’s influence, Beijing was one of the few nations to opt out. When Beijing launched the Asian Infrastructure Bank, Washington openly campaigned against allies joining, including Australia and the U.K., despite it being in their clear interests to do so.
Historically, the rapprochement between Washington and Beijing sparked by Nixon’s fabled 1972 visit was never rooted in amity for the Chinese socialist project, but mutual enmity with the Soviet Union. In an attempt to sideline Moscow, Washington was willing to engage with China in the hope that it would reform, open up and democratize. But the latter never happened, and on democracy and human-rights these two blocs remain at ideological loggerheads. “For many in the Trump camp, I don’t think they believe the Cold War with China ever ended,” says Harold. “They think that America just hasn’t been fighting.”
That looks set to change under Trump, who has even been quoted saying, “let there be an arms race” between the nuclear powers. However, China is in the ascendent militarily. The Philippines, traditionally America’s staunchest ally, has become antagonistic with Washington and close to China since President Rodrigo Duterte took office last year. There are resurgent calls to remove U.S. troops from bases in South Korea and Japan, who both list China as their largest trading partners. Recent analysis sponsored by the Naval War College suggests the Chinese navy will have more than 430 major warships and almost 100 submarines by 2030, dramatically outclassing the U.S. Navy in size and capability. Trump has pledged to expand the navy to 350 ships—a prospect experts say will cost half a trillion dollars—while paradoxically campaigning on drawing down commitments on costly wars overseas.
That withdrawal will encourage China to pick up the torch of global leadership. It will also open the door for America’s old arms race competitor, Russia, to assert itself even further in international affairs. “We are going back to a world where you can’t consider the U.S.-China relationship without also considering Russia,” says Professor Rana Mitter, a China specialist at Oxford University.
The emboldened Russian leader Vladimir Putin is already proving instrumental in reshaping the Middle East, where the U.S. is understandably chastened after its experiences in Iraq and Afghanistan. Talks at ending the war in Syria continued between Russia, Iran and Turkey in Kazakhstan this week, with the U.S. conspicuously absent. And having seized Crimea with few repercussions, other than economic sanctions it shrugged aside and that Trump could soon lift, Putin has been making his neighbors extremely nervous. Last July, the Latvian president requested that then U.S. Vice President Joe Biden give a televised speech to assure Baltic states that the U.S. would defend them against a Russian invasion.
Every sign is that the new U.S. administration will be willing to give Putin plenty of latitude. Trump repeatedly praised President Vladimir Putin during his presidential campaign, and Tillerson, the former CEO of ExxonMobil, has a long history of deals with the Kremlin—even being awarded the Russian Order of Friendship in 2013. Trump’s repeated avowal to “put America first” does not indicate his administration will be a reliable backer.
And that brings us back to Taiwan. President Tsai should be very cautious, says Mitter, as “In the short term, [putting America first] might involve provoking China and then using Taiwan as some sort of leverage.” Scott agrees: “Taiwan is clearly the weakest and most vulnerable player in this three person act.”
That is not a new situation for Taiwan, of course, and the plucky islanders have long thrived on adversity. There is a reason why Kinmen, 140 miles from Taiwan proper, remains ruled by Taipei despite being surrounded on three side by the People’s Republic. Simply, it serves to keep the fight alive.
At the same time, the front line is morphing rapidly. Xiaodeng is an island no longer. At its western edge, a gargantuan land reclamation operation is linking Xiaodeng with the mainland beyond. Teams of migrant workers in floral bonnets shovel mountains of sand that will soon become Xiamen’s new international airport. The smooth, level banks of two runways have already taken shape, with the first stage of construction due for completion in 2020. Covering a total area of 9 sq mi, the new complex is designed to eventually handle 75 million annual passengers—rivaling even that of Capital Airport in Beijing. But the project has devastated Xiaodeng’s fishing and seaweed industries.
“Islanders aren’t happy about the airport,” says Qiu Meihui, a tour guide who comes from three generations of islanders. ”But there is no one we can complain to, nothing we can do.” Not even the Hero’s Triangle can stand in the way of China’s growth. America can expect no clemency if its new President tries to do the same.
—With reporting by Zhang Chi/Xiamen
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
