The future of Bulgaria’s vast number of low-wage truck drivers has become a top campaign issue in the country heading into European Parliament elections, with debates raging on how new EU rules could threaten the workers and deepen divisions between rich and poor nations in the bloc.

The European Commission wants to put restrictions on cargo transport to ensure adequate rest for truck drivers and limit driving distances. Bulgaria, where the transport sector accounts for 15 percent of GDP and employs some 200,000 people, fears it will erode its workforce’s low-cost advantage. It says it could cost jobs and force Bulgarian truckers to move to Western Europe, worsening a wealth gap within the EU.

“This package would directly deprive more than 150,000 Bulgarian families of bread and livelihood,” says Angel Dzhambazki, a former member of the European Parliament who is running in this month’s election.

The new rules concern truck drivers’ postings, driving and rest times, and access to the market. Especially worrying for Bulgarian truckers is the requirement that they spend their rest time in a hotel rather than in bunks in their trucks. The rules would also force drivers to return home every three or four weeks with an empty truck.

Dzhambazki said that the European proposal, called the Mobility Package, would cause thousands of Bulgarians to emigrate to wealthier European countries to be closer to the markets they work with. He sees the proposal as an effort by countries like France and Germany to protect their own businesses from the competition of lower-wage countries like Bulgaria.

The proposal has passed a first reading in the European Parliament, with a second approval needed for it to come into force. It has the strong backing of EU heavyweights France and Germany.

Bulgaria, which joined the European Union in 2007, will elect 17 members of the European Parliament’s 751 seats on May 26. Germany, by contrast, will provide 96. Bulgaria could seek strength in numbers, as several other countries in Eastern Europe also oppose the new EU transportation rules, but it remains an uphill battle.

“In the year of Brexit and the European elections, decisions like the Mobility Package only deepen divisions and fuel nationalist feelings in the EU member countries,” warned Madlen Kavrakova, legal advisor of Bulgaria’s union of international hauliers.

Kavrakova told the AP that denying truck drivers full access to the single European market would set a dangerous precedent and could lead to restrictions in other sectors.

“Does it mean that Europe is driving at different speeds?” she asked rhetorically.

Under the new restrictions, many Bulgarian haulage companies could be forced to relocate to countries closer to their key markets in Western Europe. That could mean the emigration of thousands of truck drivers, depriving countries like Bulgaria of an established industry.

Dimitar Rashkov, the owner of transport company Eurospeed, has managed trucks driving across the continent since 1994 and says the new rules will “separate us as people from Eastern and Western Europe, like it was once many years ago.”

Truck driver Ivan Gospodinov is convinced that Europe must be equal for all.

“Like the Germans or Italians who come to Bulgaria and feel comfortable here, we also need to feel comfortable when we go there because we are a big family,” he says. “That is what the European Union stands for.”

 
…

Capitol Hill correspondent Michael Bowman and reporter Ira Mellman contributed to this report

President Donald Trump said the United States “can make a deal with China tomorrow” to resolve the trade dispute between the world’s two largest economies, adding the accusation that China prevented the two sides from completing an agreement.

In a series of tweets Tuesday, Trump portrayed the United States as being “in a much better position now than any deal we could have made,” and restated his frequent refrain that under his administration other countries will not “take advantage” of the United States when it comes to trade.

His latest remarks came after he boosted taxes on $200 billion worth of Chinese goods sent to the United States and moved to impose duties on another $300 billion of Chinese exports. China retaliated by imposing tariffs on $60 billion worth of U.S. goods.

China hits back

The Chinese finance ministry said Monday its new 5% to 25% tax would be imposed June 1 and affect 5,140 U.S. products exported to China. Beijing said its response was targeting “U.S. unilateralism and trade protectionism.”

“China will never succumb to foreign pressure,” the foreign ministry said. “We are determined and capable of safeguarding our legitimate rights and interests. We still hope that the U.S. will meet us half way.”

The escalation of the tit-for-tat tariff increases had an immediate effect on the U.S. stock market, with the key Dow Jones Industrial Average plunging nearly 2.4% by the close of trading Monday in New York.

Trump has threatened to extend tariffs to an additional $300 billion in Chinese exports that have not been targeted yet, but told reporters Monday: “I have not made that decision yet.”

The U.S. Trade Representative’s Office said Monday that a public hearing would be held on July 17 about the possibility of further tariffs on China, which it said could affect 3,805 product categories. It said the new measures could impose an additional duty of up to 25%.

How we got here

The Chinese decision to retaliate with tariffs came after the two countries ended their latest trade talks Friday in Washington without reaching a deal.

Two U.S. lawmakers voiced support for Trump’s trade fight with China, but with reservations.

Republican Sen. Roy Blunt told VOA, “If there’s a trade fight worth having, it’s a trade fight with China. They have not been fair traders.” But he said “there is no doubt” that diminished sales of farm products to China have hurt his home state of Missouri and other parts of the agrarian U.S. Midwest.

Democratic Sen. Chris Van Hollen of Maryland said, “There’s no doubt that we need to challenge China to change a lot of its trade practices and its domestic business practices. For example, they’ve been stealing U.S. secrets for a long time. They have these rules that force U.S. companies to transfer technology. So we’ve got to confront China on that.”

“The question is what’s the smartest, most effective way to do it,” Van Hollen said. “And while I support some of the president’s strategy, I think some of it’s misguided. Obviously, Americans and American consumers are paying more and more by the day. So, it’s important that we address the fundamental issues in China’s economy…. It’s not clear to me that the president’s policies are addressing that, but we’ll see. I see a tariff-only strategy; I don’t see a more comprehensive strategy towards China. I’m not saying that tariffs can’t be part of something, but they cannot be the only tool in your tool box.”

Analyst David Lampton, a fellow at the Stanford Asia Pacific Research Center in Palo Alto, California, said he sees the United States and China as competing to be more than just a dominant economic force.

“It includes a mounting arms race and includes diplomatic competition around the world, with China operating in Latin America and Venezuela and so forth, Middle East, in places where we’ve traditionally seen ourselves as dominant,” Lampton said. “And of course we’re operating on China’s periphery and we’re in Vietnam, trying to keep the Philippines in the U.S. column so to speak.”
…

U.S. President Donald Trump on Monday said U.S. tariffs on China bring billions of dollars into U.S. coffers. He said China’s retaliatory tariffs can have no effect on the U.S. economy. The escalation of the U.S.-China trade war sent stock markets tumbling on Monday, with the Dow Jones Industrial Average falling more than 600 points. Earlier, China announced new tariffs of up to 25 percent on $60 billion worth of U.S. goods, starting June 1. VOA’s Zlatica Hoke has more.
…

The Supreme Court is allowing consumers to pursue an antitrust lawsuit that claims Apple has unfairly monopolized the market for the sale of iPhone apps.

New Justice Brett Kavanaugh is joining the court’s four liberals Monday in rejecting a plea from Cupertino, California-based Apple to end the lawsuit over the 30 percent commission the company charges software developers whose apps are sold through the App Store.

The lawsuit was filed by iPhone users who must purchase software for their smartphones exclusively through Apple’s App Store.

Four conservative justices dissented.

 
…

VOA’s Michael Bowman and Ira Mellman contributed to this report.

China says it is imposing tariffs on $60 billion worth of imports from the United States, retaliating after President Donald Trump boosted taxes on $200 billion worth of Chinese goods sent to the United States and moved to impose duties on another $300 billion of Chinese exports.

The Chinese finance ministry said Monday its new 5% to 25% tax would be imposed June 1 and affect 5,140 U.S. products exported to China. Beijing said its response was targeting “U.S. unilateralism and trade protectionism.”

“China will never succumb to foreign pressure,” the foreign ministry said. “We are determined and capable of safeguarding our legitimate rights and interests. We still hope that the U.S. will meet us half way.”

The new Chinese taxes came hours after Trump, on Twitter, urged China not to strike back, claiming “China has taken so advantage of the U.S. for so many years, that they are way ahead (Our Presidents did not do the job). Therefore, China should not retaliate-will only get worse!”

But later, Trump said, “Tens of billions of dollars are flowing into our coffers” from the tariffs the U.S. has imposed on China.

The escalation of the tit-for-tat tariff increases had an immediate effect on the U.S. stock market, with the key Dow Jones Industrial Average plunging more than 2% in afternoon trading in New York.

The Chinese announcement came after the world’s two biggest economies ended their latest trade talks Friday in Washington without reaching a deal.

Two U.S. lawmakers voiced support for Trump’s trade fight with China, but with reservations.

Republican Sen. Roy Blunt told VOA, “If there’s a trade fight worth having, it’s a trade fight with China. They have not been fair traders.” But he said “there is no doubt” that diminished sales of farm products to China have hurt his home state of Missouri and other parts of the agrarian Midwest U.S.

Democratic Sen. Chris Van Hollen of Maryland said, “There’s no doubt that we need to challenge China to change a lot of its trade practices and its domestic business practices. For example, they’ve been stealing U.S. secrets for a long time. They have these rules that force U.S. companies to transfer technology. So we’ve we’ve got to confront China on that.”

“The question is what’s the smartest, most effective way to do it,” Van Hollen said. “And while I support some of the president’s strategy, I think some of it’s misguided. Obviously, Americans and American consumers are paying more and more by the day. So, it’s important that we address the fundamental issues in China’s economy.”

“It’s not clear to me that the president’s policies are addressing that, but we’ll see. I see a tariff-only strategy; I don’t see a more comprehensive strategy towards China. I’m not saying that tariffs can’t be part of something, but they cannot be the only tool in your tool box,” he said.

Analyst David Lampton, a fellow at the Stanford Asia Pacific Research Center in Palo Alto, California, said he sees the U.S. and China as competing to be more than just a dominant economic force.

“It includes a mounting arms race and includes diplomatic competition around the world, with China operating in Latin America and Venezuela and so forth, Middle East, in places where we’ve traditionally seen ourselves as dominant,” Lampton said. “And of course we’re operating on China’s periphery and we’re in Vietnam, trying to keep the Philippines in the U.S. column so to speak.”

‘Both sides will suffer’

Chief White House economic adviser Larry Kudlow told Fox News Sunday that “both sides will suffer” from the escalating trade war.

Trump claimed in another tweet,  “Their (sic) is no reason for the U.S. Consumer to pay the Tariffs, which take effect on China today.” But Kudlow acknowledged, “In fact, both sides will pay. Both sides will pay in these things.”

The U.S. leader has claimed that the Chinese government unfairly subsidizes Chinese companies and steals intellectual property from U.S. firms to manufacture its own products.

Kudlow said that in the U.S. “maybe the toughest burdens” are on farmers who sell soybeans, corn and wheat to China. But he said the Trump administration has “helped them before on lost exports” with $12 billion in past subsidies and that “we’ll do it again if we have to and if the numbers show that out.” Trump has said he will ask Congress to approve another $15 billion in farm subsidies to offset lost sales to China.

Trump on Friday more than doubled tariffs on $200 billion of Chinese goods, boosting the rate from 10% to 25%, while also moving to impose tariffs on an additional $300 billion of Chinese products, although Kudlow said it could take months for the full effect of the tariffs to be felt. China had previously imposed taxes on $110 billion of American products before Monday’s tariff increase.

Despite the break-off in trade talks Friday, Kudlow said, “We were moving well, constructive talks and I still think that’s the case. We’re going to continue the talks as the president suggested.”

Trump said he will meet with Chinese President Xi Jinping to discuss trade issues at the G20 summit in Japan at the end of June.

The United States has claimed China steals technology and forces U.S. companies to divulge trade secrets it uses in its own production of advanced technology products.

On Saturday, Trump suggested China could be waiting to see if he wins reelection next year, but said Beijing would be “much worse” off during a second term of his in the White House.
…

Honda has confirmed its western England car factory, which employs 3,500 people, will close in 2021.

The Japanese carmaker announced Monday that the Swindon plant will shut in two years, “at the end of the current model’s production life cycle.”

Honda makes its popular Civic model at the factory, 70 miles (115 kms) west of London.

Reports of the closure first emerged in February, heightening concerns about the impact of Brexit-related uncertainty on the U.K. economy.

Honda said the closure is not Brexit-driven but “is part of Honda’s broader global strategy in response to changes to the automotive industry.”

It said it had spoken to the British government and union consultants, but “no viable alternatives to the proposed closure of the Swindon plant have been identified.”

 
…

The U.S. said Sunday it expects that China will retaliate with increased tariffs on U.S. exports after President Donald Trump sharply boosted levies on Chinese products headed to the United States.

Chief White House economic adviser Larry Kudlow told “Fox News Sunday” that “both sides will suffer” from the escalating trade war between the U.S. and China, the world’s two biggest economies.

In the U.S., he said that “maybe the toughest burdens” are on farmers who sell soybeans, corn and wheat to China. But he said the Trump administration has “helped them before on lost exports” with $12 billion in subsidies and that “we’ll do it again if we have to and if the numbers show that out.”

Trump on Friday more than doubled tariffs on $200 billion of Chinese goods, boosting the rate from 10 percent to 25 percent, while also moving to impose tariffs on an additional $300 billion of Chinese products, although Kudlow said it could take months for the full effect of the tariffs to be felt. China had previously imposed taxes on $110 billion of American products, but has not said how it might retaliate against Trump’s latest increase in tariffs.

Trade talks between the two economic super powers have been going on in Beijing and Washington for months, but they recessed again in the U.S. capital on Friday without a deal being reached.

“We were moving well, constructive talks and I still think that’s the case,” Kudlow said. “We’re going to continue the talks as the president suggested.”

Kudlow said Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping are likely to discuss trade issues at the G-20 summit in Japan at the end of June.

The economic adviser renewed U.S. claims that China had backtracked from earlier agreements reached in the talks, forcing negotiators to cover “the same ground this past week.”

“You can’t forget this: This is a huge deal, the broadest scope and scale…. two countries have ever had before,” Kudlow said. “But we have to get through a lot of issues. For many years, China trade was unfair, non-reciprocal, unbalanced in many cases, unlawful.”

The U.S. has claimed that China steals technology and forces U.S. companies to divulge trade secrets it uses in its own production of advanced technology products.

On Saturday, Trump suggested that China could be waiting to see if he wins reelection next year, but said Beijing would be “much worse” off during a second term of his in the White House.

“I think that China felt they were being beaten so badly in the recent negotiation that they may as well wait around for the next election, 2020, to see if they could get lucky & have a Democrat win,” he said, “in which case they would continue to rip-off the USA for $500 Billion a year.”

“Such an easy way to avoid Tariffs?” the U.S. leader said, “Make or produce your goods and products in the good old USA. It’s very simple!”

 
…

President Donald Trump let loose with a morning round of tweets Friday that downplayed the possible consequences of his trade war with China.   

Trump minimized the worth of China’s purchases of U.S. goods and services, which support nearly 1 million jobs in the U.S.; misstated the trade deficit; and ignored the inevitable rise in many costs to consumers when imports are heavily taxed.  

The tweets came as his tariffs kicked in on $200 billion worth of Chinese goods, with another round of tariffs in the offing, and as U.S. and Chinese officials negotiated in Washington. With trade relations between the economic giants seemingly rupturing and the stock market sinking, Trump called the talks “congenial.”  

A look at some of his statements:  

Trump: “Your all time favorite President got tired of waiting for China to help out and start buying from our FARMERS, the greatest anywhere in the World!”  

The facts: The notion that China doesn’t buy from U.S. farmers is false. China is the fourth-largest export market for U.S. agriculture. It bought $9.3 billion in U.S. agricultural products last year.  

As for calling himself “your” favorite president, polls find Trump’s approval rating to be high among Republicans, but it generally ranges between 35% and 45% among Americans overall.   

Trump: “We have lost 500 Billion Dollars a year, for many years, on Crazy Trade with China. NO MORE!”  

The facts: That’s wrong. When sizing up the trade deficit, Trump always ignores trade in services — where the U.S. runs a surplus with China — and speaks only of goods. Even in that context, he misstated the imbalance.  

The U.S. trade deficit with China last year was $378.6 billion, not $500 billion. On goods alone, the deficit was $419.2 billion.      

Trump is also misleading when he puts the deficit in that ballpark for many years. It’s true that the imbalance has long been lopsided, but the U.S. trade representative’s office notes that exports of goods to China have increased by nearly 73% since 2008 and U.S. exports to China overall are up 527% since 2001.  

Nor is the trade gap a “loss” in a pure sense. U.S. consumers and businesses get electronics, furniture, clothing and other goods in return for their money. They are buying things, not losing cash.  

Trump: “Tariffs are NOW being paid to the United States by China of 25% on 250 Billion Dollars worth of goods & products. These massive payments go directly to the Treasury of the U.S.”  

The facts: This is not how tariffs work. China is not writing a check to the U.S. Treasury. The tariffs are paid by American companies, which usually pass the cost on to consumers through higher prices. One theory in support of such tariffs is that higher prices for Chinese imports will encourage consumers to buy goods made in the U.S. or elsewhere instead. But the risk is that consumers could simply respond by spending less than they otherwise would, which would hurt growth. 

The burden of Trump’s tariffs on imports from China and other countries falls entirely on U.S. consumers and businesses that buy imports, said a study in March by economists from the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, Columbia University and Princeton University. By the end of last year, the study found, the public and U.S. companies were paying $3 billion a month in higher taxes and absorbing $1.4 billion a month in lost efficiency.  

A coalition of U.S. trade organizations representing retail businesses, tech, manufacturing and agriculture said this week: For 10 months, Americans have been paying the full cost of the trade war, not China.'' It said:To be clear, tariffs are taxes that Americans pay, and this sudden increase with little notice will only punish U.S farmers, businesses and consumers.” 

Trump: “Tariffs will bring in FAR MORE wealth to our Country than even a phenomenal deal of the traditional kind. Also, much easier & quicker to do. Our Farmers will do better, faster, and starving nations can now be helped. Waivers on some products will be granted, or go to new source!”  

The facts: In addition to repeating the canard that China pays the tariffs, he’s failing to account for the damage that tariffs can do.  

By most private estimates, a trade war leads to slower growth rather than the prosperity that Trump is promising. The president’s tweet also goes beyond past claims that tariffs are simply a negotiating tactic to force better terms with China. Trump appears to be suggesting that a tariff increase would generate revenues that could then be spent on farm products and infrastructure, something that might in theory require support from Congress.  

But on their own, tariffs are a clear drag on growth.  

Analysts at the consultancy Oxford Economics estimate that implementing and maintaining the latest increase would trim U.S. gross domestic product by 0.3%, or $62 billion, in 2020. This would be equal to a loss of about $490 per household.  

Economists at Nomura note that gross domestic product this year could take a hit of as much as 0.4% if Trump expands the taxes to all Chinese imports, as business confidence slumped and financial conditions tightened. 
…

With a ring of the opening bell, Uber began picking up passengers as a newly minted public company Friday and investors waited to bet on a service with huge potential, but a long way from turning a profit.

Shares in the ride-hailing giant were sold in an initial public offering for $45 each, raising $8.1 billion, but it will take several hours for new investors to show how much they’re interested. Officials expect trading to start around 11:30 a.m.

CEO Dara Khosrowshahi and other company officials stood on a balcony above the New York Stock Exchange and clapped as the bell rang to signal the start of the day’s trading.

The IPO price on Thursday came in at the lower end of Uber’s targeted price range of $44 to $50 per share. The caution may have been driven by escalating doubts about the ability of ride-hailing services to make money since Uber’s main rival, Lyft, went public six weeks ago.

Jitters about an intensifying U.S. trade war with China have also contributed to the caution. Stocks opened broadly lower on Wall Street after the two countries failed to reach a deal before Friday’s tariff deadline.

Even at the tamped-down price, Uber now has a market value of $82 billion — five times more than Lyft’s.

Before the opening bell, Khosrowshahi tried to manage expectations for the first day of trading.

“Today is only one day. I want this day to go great, but it’s about what we build in the next three to five years,” he said in an interview with CNBC. “And I feel plenty of pressure to build over that time frame.”

Uber, Khosrowshahi said, is dealing with a potential $12 trillion market so “it makes sense to lean forward.”

He predicted that younger generations will not want to own cars. “I think more and more you’re going to have transportation on demand services, essentially de-bundle the car. They’re going to want to push a button and get the transportation they want.”

Austin Geidt, one of Uber’s first employees, rang the opening bell. She joined the company nine years ago and is now head of strategy for the Advanced Technologies Group, working on autonomous vehicles. Over the years, she helped to lead its expansion in hundreds of new cities and countries.

Both Uber co-founders Travis Kalanick and Garrett Camp were present at the exchange but absent from the podium during the bell ringing.

A black Uber logo was hanging over exchange floor and bright green Uber Eats trucks were parked outside. Men in black T-shirts and hats with the Uber Eats logo handed out drinks and snacks on the trading floor while photos of sedans, helicopters and Jump bikes were shown on screens above.

No matter how Uber’s stock swings Friday, the IPO has to be considered a triumph for the company most closely associated with an industry that has changed the way millions of people get around. That while also transforming the way millions of more people earn a living in the gig economy.

Uber’s IPO raised another $8.1 billion as the company it tries to fend off Lyft in the U.S. and help cover the cost of giving rides to passengers at unprofitable prices. The San Francisco company already has lost about $9 billion since its inception and acknowledges it could still be years before it turns a profit.

That sobering reality is one reason that Uber fell short of reaching the $120 billion market value that many observers believed its IPO might attain.

Another factor working against Uber is the cold shoulder investors have been giving Lyft’s stock after an initial run-up. Lyft’s shares closed Thursday 23% below its April IPO price of $72.

Uber “clearly learned from its `little brother’ Lyft, and the experience it has gone through,” Wedbush Securities analysts Ygal Arounian and Daniel Ives wrote late Thursday.

Despite all that, Uber’s IPO is the biggest since Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba Group debuted with a value of $167.6 billion in 2014.

“For the market to give you the value, you’ve either got to have a lot of profits or potential for huge growth,” said Sam Abuelsamid, principal analyst at Navigant Research.

Uber boasts growth galore. Its revenue last year surged 42% to $11.3 billion while its cars completed 5.2 billion trips around the world either giving rides to 91 million passengers or delivering food.

Uber might be even more popular if not for a series of revelations about unsavory behavior that sullied its image and resulted in the ouster of Kalanick as CEO nearly two years ago.

The self-inflicted wounds included complaints about rampant internal sexual harassment, accusations that it stole self-driving car technology, and a cover-up of a computer break-in that stole personal information about its passengers. What’s more, some Uber drivers have been accused of assaulting passengers, and one of its self-driving test vehicles struck and killed a pedestrian in Arizona last year while a backup driver was behind the wheel.

Uber hired Khosrowshahi as CEO to replace Kalanick and clean up the mess, something that analysts say has been able to do to some extent, although Lyft seized upon the scandals to gain market share.

Kalanick remains on Uber’s board and while he kept a relatively low profile on Friday, he can still savor his newfound wealth. At $45 per share, his stake in Uber will be worth $5.3 billion. Hundreds, if not thousands, of other Uber employees are expected to become millionaires in the IPO.

Meanwhile, scores of Uber drivers say they have been mistreated by the company as they work long hours and wear out their cars picking up passengers as they struggle to make ends meet. On Wednesday, some of them participated in strikes across the United States to highlight their unhappiness ahead of Uber’s IPO but barely caused a ripple. A similar strike was organized ahead of Lyft’s IPO to the same effect.

In its latest attempt to make amends, Uber disclosed Thursday that it reached a settlement with tens of thousands of drivers who alleged they had been improperly classified as contractors. The company said the settlement covering most of the 60,000 drivers making claims will cost $146 million to $170 million.

Now, Uber will focus on winning over Wall Street.

Uber may be able to avoid Lyft’s post-IPO stock decline because it has a different story to tell than just the potential for growth in ride-hailing, says Alejandro Ortiz, principal analyst with SharesPost. Uber, he said, has plans to be more than a ride-hailing company by being all things transportation to users of its app, offering deliveries, scooters, bicycles and links to other modes of transportation including public mass transit systems.

“Whether or not that pitch will work kind of remains to be seen. It’s nearly impossible to tell now,” he said. “Obviously the risk to the company now is they have a lot more shareholders that they have to convince.”

 
…

U.S. President Donald Trump sent a series of tweets Friday on the escalating trade war with China, as the U.S. increased tariffs from 10% to 25% on $200 billion worth of Chinese imports that China vows to retaliate to.

“We have lost 500 Billion Dollars a year, for many years, on Crazy Trade with China. NO MORE!”

Trump went on to tweet that trade talks with China are proceeding in a “congenial manner” and “there is absolutely no need to rush” to finalize a trade agreement.

The president threatened to impose 25% tariffs on an additional $325 billion worth of Chinese goods. He noted that Washington sells Beijing about $100 billion worth of goods, and with the more than $100 billion in tariffs received, the U.S. will buy agricultural products from U.S. farmers and send them as humanitarian assistance to nations in need.

While some taxes are paid directly to the government when products are imported, these taxes, also known as customs duties, are frequently added to the price of the imported product. This means the taxes are paid by those who buy the product. In this case, it would be the American consumer.

Trump also chided China for trying to “redo” the deal at the last minute after the terms already had been set.

China said Friday it “deeply regrets” the increased tariffs and will take the “necessary countermeasures,” without giving any details.

The increases took effect as trade talks entered a second day in Washington between Chinese Vice Premier Liu He, U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer and U.S. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin.

The negotiators ended the first day of talks aimed at saving a trade deal even as Trump said he would proceed with “very heavy tariffs” on Chinese products.”

The White House said late Thursday that U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer and Mnuchin met with Trump to discuss the ongoing talks. Following the meeting, Lighthizer and Mnuchin had a working dinner with China’s vice premier and agreed to continue discussions on Friday.

Vice Premier Liu is leading the Chinese negotiating team in talks that threatened to collapse after the Trump administration accused Beijing of backtracking.

“We were getting very close to a deal, then they started to renegotiate the deal,” said Trump earlier in the day at the White House. “It was their idea to come back” for more talks ahead of Friday’s deadline for additional tariffs.

Trump said he also received “a beautiful letter” from Chinese President Xi Jinping that expressed a sentiment of “let’s work together.” 

Trump told reporters he believes “tariffs for our country are very powerful,” and would benefit America’s economy.

Some economists, however, predict such tariffs would cut by half the rate of U.S. economic growth seen in the first quarter of this year.

​David French of the U.S. National Retail Federation said in a VOA interview “a negotiating strategy based on tariffs is the wrong direction” and expressed hope the Chinese “make substantial concessions to avert this disaster.”

Shanghai University economics professor Ding Jianping told VOA the tariffs would also adversely impact the U.S. financial markets, which have climbed to record highs. Jianping said the record performance makes the markets “most vulnerable” because they are “not supported by science and technology.” He added, “The peak created by fiscal and monetary policy is unsustainable.”

The Trump administration hopes the new tariffs will force changes in China’s trade, subsidy and intellectual property practices.

The two sides have been unable to reach a deal due, in part, to differences over the enforcement of an agreement and a timeline for removing the tariffs.

Trump told reporters Thursday despite the additional tariffs, he is not looking for a trade war with Beijing.

“I want to get along with China,” he said.

 
…

A strike by Uber and Lyft drivers in cities across the United States this week caused barely a ripple to passengers looking to catch a ride, highlighting the challenges in launching a labor movement from scratch in an industry that is by nature decentralized.

Activists and others involved in the labor movement are still declaring it a success. It grabbed headlines, trended on Twitter and won the support of several Democrats running for president. The action was also closely watched by labor organizers, who are brainstorming about ways to build worker power in the 21st-century economy.

Drivers say they wanted to draw the attention of the public, technology investors and political leaders to their plight: low pay and a lack of basic rights on the job.

“The goal is to bring awareness to the incredible disregard for workers,” said Lyft driver Ann Glatt, who helped organize the San Francisco strike and protest outside Uber headquarters.

Starting to organize

App-based workers are thought to comprise a small fraction of the economy, but there are still millions of people making a living in gig work. Uber alone says it has nearly 4 million drivers, while Lyft has more than 1 million.

In pockets around the country, workers are starting to organize themselves, often with the help of workers’ rights groups and labor unions. In Silicon Valley, a workers’ rights group established Gig Workers Rising, which helped with Wednesday’s strike. In New York state, the AFL-CIO is pushing the Legislature to take steps to protect workers who get jobs through digital platforms. A campaign that started in Washington state this year pressured shopping service Instacart to stop counting tips toward workers’ base pay, and even won them back pay.

Among the Lyft and Uber drivers’ top issues are pay, a lack of transparency that makes it difficult to understand how much they were paid and why, and no due process when they are “deactivated,” or barred from the service.

The drivers and workers at other app-based platforms such as Instacart or food delivery service DoorDash are classified by the companies as independent contractors, leaving them without the same safeguards traditional workers receive, such as minimum wage, unemployment insurance, workers compensation and health and safety protections.

Uber settlement

Uber on Thursday disclosed ahead of its Friday IPO that it had reached an agreement to settle with tens of thousands of drivers who dispute the company’s contention that they are independent contractors. It said the payments and attorneys’ fees could reach $170 million.

Uber maintains the drivers are independent because they choose whether, when and where to provide services, are free to work for competitors and provide their own vehicles. It said it has taken steps to make drivers’ earnings more consistent and to improve working conditions, including by providing discounts on gasoline and car repairs and tuition reimbursement for some drivers.

Lyft also pushed back on the complaints, saying its drivers’ hourly earnings have increased 7% in the last two years, that on average, they earn more than $20 per hour and that three-quarters of its drivers work fewer than 10 hours per week.

Legislation push

In California, labor leaders are pushing legislation to classify many gig workers and other independent contractors as regular employees, after a state high court ruling last year.

Nicole Moore is a Lyft driver and organizer with the Los Angeles-based group Rideshare Drivers United. This week’s action came out of a strike drivers held in Los Angeles in March to protest Lyft’s IPO and a cut in Uber’s reimbursement rate from 80 cents to 60 cents per mile. Drivers after that action wanted to do more, and this week’s protest was hatched.

A core group of about 25 drivers organized it, she said, with many of the other 4,300 driver members pitching in to help.

Drivers in different cities described how they spread the word. Some spoke to fellow drivers face-to-face in driver hotspots: airport parking lots, car washes and gas stations. They reached out to driver networks in different immigrant communities and took out targeted ads on Facebook and Google.

Organizing people who don’t work in the same job location can be difficult and requires new, tech-savvy approaches, said Rachel Lauter, executive director of the Seattle-based workers’ rights group Working Washington. The group has helped organize in industries such as fast food and domestic workers, and last year started talking to workers in the gig economy about what mattered to them.

Success vs. Instacart

Their efforts galvanized this year when Instacart changed its pay model and began counting tips toward its shoppers’ base pay. The group launched a campaign using text messages, Facebook, Reddit, online petitions and other digital tools to reach out to workers and customers to let them know about the change. They encouraged customers to give only a minimal tip to send a message of protest to the company then add a tip after delivery or tip in cash. They also created online calculators to help workers understand how much Instacart was actually paying them. They held Zoom conference calls where hundreds of Instacart workers and customers called in to coordinate.

The work paid off when Instacart in February announced a number of steps “to more fairly and competitively compensate” its workers, including leaving tips out of it when they calculate how much each worker will be paid.

Mario Cilento, president of the New York State AFL-CIO, said it isn’t fair that gig platforms don’t have to pay minimum wage, payroll taxes, unemployment insurance and other expenses that traditional employers pay.

“We must get ahead of this now,” Cilento said. “We liken it to where we were with the Fair Labor Standards Act in 1938, when they came up with the eight-hour day, and child labor laws and overtime pay.” 
…

U.S. and Chinese trade negotiators have ended the first of two days of talks aimed at saving a trade deal even as President Donald Trump said “We’re starting that paperwork today” for imposing new “very heavy tariffs” on Chinese products.”

The United States is set to impose an increase in tariffs from 10% to 25% on $200 billion worth of Chinese imports.

They will go into effect before Chinese Vice Premier Liu He, U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer and U.S. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin return to the table.

Liu He is leading the Chinese negotiating team for the talks, which threatened to collapse after the Trump administration accused Beijing of backtracking.

“We were getting very close to a deal, then they started to renegotiate the deal,” said Trump on Thursday in the Roosevelt Room of the White House. “It was their idea to come back” and resume discussion ahead of the Friday deadline for additional tariffs, the president said.

Trump said he had also received “a beautiful letter” from Xi that expressed a sentiment of “let’s work together.”

Trump told reporters that he happens “to think tariffs for our country are very powerful,” in line with a view he has been expressing that such increased punitive taxes would be good for America’s economy.

​Some economists, however, predict such tariffs would cut in half U.S. economic growth seen in the first quarter of this year.

Officials in Beijing say they have “made all necessary preparations” if Trump follows through on the pledge to impose the new set of tariffs.

Chinese Commerce Ministry spokesman Gao Feng told reporters in Beijing on Thursday that China will not bow to any pressure, and warned it has the “determination and ability to defend its own interests.” The ministry issued an earlier statement vowing to take any necessary countermeasures if the tax is implemented.

The Trump administration hopes the new tariffs will force changes in China’s trade, subsidy and intellectual property practices.

The two sides have been unable to reach a deal thanks, in part, to differences over the enforcement of an agreement and a timeline for removing the tariffs.

Trump says despite being poised to impose the additional tariffs, he is not looking for a trade war with Beijing.

“I want to get along with China,” he told reporters.
…

Orlando, Florida, had 75 million visitors last year as the theme park mecca continued to be the most visited destination in the United States

Orlando had 75 million visitors last year as the theme park mecca continued to be the most visited destination in the United States, tourism officials said Thursday.

Orlando in 2018 had 68.5 million domestic visitors, a year-to-year increase of 4.1%, and almost 6.5 million international visitors, a year-to-year increase of 5.4%.

The overall 4.2% increase over 2017 figures was slightly smaller than the previous year-to-year increase of 5%. But there was a robust return of international visitors, a segment that had softened in previous years.

The international improvement was driven by Latin American visitors, especially from Brazil and Mexico, said George Aguel, CEO of Visit Orlando, the area’s tourism marketing agency.

“When folks are thinking about what they can and can’t do, we try to market why this is a good place for them to come. We focus on the feeling you get when you come here,” Aguel said. “There really is no place in the country … where you have the ability to make a connection emotionally. We play a lot on the memories we create.”

Orlando has been in the middle of a years-long expansion of rides and hotel rooms.

Accommodation expansion is at a 20-year high. The metro area already has more than 120,000 hotel rooms, the second highest in the nation behind only Las Vegas.

Additionally, attractions at the area’s theme parks are opening at a break-neck pace.

In 2017, a new water park, Volcano Bay, opened at Universal Orlando, and a new section, Pandora-The World of Avatar, opened at Walt Disney World’s Animal Kingdom.

Last year, Disney World opened a Toy Story Land.

Disney World is opening a Star Wars-themed land in August, SeaWorld debuted a Sesame Street land this spring and Universal Orlando is opening a new Harry Potter-themed ride this summer.

“We think it will help us carry over in 2020,” Aguel said. “A lot of these things start to kick in the following year.”
…

President Donald Trump said Wednesday U.S. automaker General Motors will invest $700 million in Ohio and create 450 jobs, selling one of its shuttered plants to a company that will produce electric trucks.

“GREAT NEWS FOR OHIO!” Trump tweeted.

Trump said he had talked to GM chief Mary Barra who told him of plans to sell the Lordstown, Ohio plant to Workhorse, a company that focuses on producing electric delivery vehicles.

In November, GM shuttered five U.S. plants, including auto assembly plants in Michigan and Ohio, as part of a 15 percent cut in its workforce worldwide — cutting around 14,000 employees — a move which drew Trump’s wrath on Twitter.

But in March, GM announced plans to invest $1.8 billion in U.S. operations creating 700 new jobs. About $300 million will be geared towards production of electric vehicles at the auto giant’s Orion plant in Michigan, creating 400 jobs, the company said in a statement.

“I have been working nicely with GM to get this done. Thank you to Mary B, your GREAT Governor, and Senator Rob Portman. With all the car companies coming back, and much more, THE USA IS BOOMING!” Trump said.

The U.S. president has repeatedly berated companies by name to pressure them into investing more or reversing decisions on job cuts.

 
…

U.S. stocks slid Tuesday as escalating trade tensions between the United States and China triggered global growth fears and drove investors away from riskier assets.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average posted its second-biggest daily percentage drop of the year, while the S&P 500 and Nasdaq registered their third-biggest percentage drops, even as the major indexes pared losses to end off their session lows.

U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer and Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said late Monday that China had backtracked from commitments made during trade negotiations. Those comments followed President Donald Trump’s unexpected statement Sunday that he would raise tariffs on $200 billion worth of Chinese goods to 25 percent from 10 percent.

Beijing said Tuesday that Chinese Vice Premier Liu He will visit the United States Thursday and Friday for trade talks. Additional tariffs are set to take effect Friday if a trade agreement is not reached by then.

Investor concerns

Monday’s comments from Lighthizer and Mnuchin raised concerns among some investors that trade talks between China and the United States could take much longer to resolve than previously thought.

“Week after week, we’ve heard there has been progress and that a deal would be reached,” said Kate Warne, investment strategist at Edward Jones in St. Louis. “Now the goalposts have moved. There’s been quite a shift in expectations.”

Investors expressed concern that additional tariffs, if imposed, could interrupt supply chains and hamper economic growth.

“The threat of tariffs has not been trotted out since the end of December,” said Kim Forrest, chief investment officer at Bokeh Capital Partners in Pittsburgh. “It could disrupt the symbiosis between (China and the United States).”

Stocks sensitive to trade 

Trade-sensitive industrial and technology stocks marked the biggest percentage declines among the S&P 500’s major sectors. All 11 sectors were in the red, with only utilities and energy falling less than 1%.

Shares of Boeing Co., the largest U.S. exporter to China, slipped 3.9%, and shares of Caterpillar Inc., another industrial stalwart sensitive to China, declined 2.3%.

Among technology stocks, Microsoft Inc. shares slid 2.1%, while Apple Inc. shares dropped 2.7%. Apple and Microsoft were the top two drags on the S&P 500.

The CBOE Volatility Index, a gauge of investor anxiety, spiked to its highest level in more than three months.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 473.39 points, or 1.79%, to 25,965.09, the S&P 500 lost 48.42 points, or 1.65%, to 2,884.05 and the Nasdaq Composite dropped 159.53 points, or 1.96%, to 7,963.76.

Bright spots

In a bright spot, American International Group Inc. shares jumped 6.8% after the insurer reported a quarterly profit that blew past expectations.

With earnings season now in its homestretch, first-quarter profits are now expected to rise 1.2%, a sharp improvement from the 2.3% decline expected at the start of the earnings season.

Of the 414 S&P companies that have reported earnings so far, about 75% have surpassed analysts’ estimates, according to Refinitiv data.

Conversely, Mylan NV shares tumbled 23.8%, the most among S&P 500 companies, after the drugmaker reported lower-than-expected quarterly revenue and failed to provide greater clarity on a potential revamp of the company’s strategy.

Declining issues outnumbered advancing ones on the NYSE by a 4.13-to-1 ratio; on Nasdaq, a 3.32-to-1 ratio favored decliners. The S&P 500 posted four new 52-week highs and seven new lows; the Nasdaq Composite recorded 44 new highs and 62 new lows.

Volume on U.S. exchanges was 7.8 billion shares, compared to the 6.71 billion average for the full session over the last 20 trading days.
…

U.S. President Donald Trump’s intention to further hike U.S. tariffs on Chinese goods has alarmed American lawmakers of both parties who fear dire economic consequences from escalating tensions between the United States and its trading partners.

“I’m anxious for the tariff war to come to an end,” Republican Sen. Jerry Moran of agriculturally rich Kansas told VOA on Tuesday. “Exports are very important to the economy of my state. I would encourage the rapid resolution between the United States and China, because it has an immediate and consequential effect on the livelihoods of lots of people.”

“The [president’s] whole tariff policy has been dangerous folly,” New Jersey Democratic Sen. Robert Menendez said. “I hear it from New Jersey companies that recently, just this past week, told me about tariffs they have to pay on particular products that they can’t get anywhere else [but foreign suppliers].”

​Who’s paying?

On Sunday, Trump announced that tariffs on $200 billion of Chinese goods would rise from 10% to 25% as of Friday. He tweeted that “China has been paying” U.S. tariffs and that China’s “payments are partially responsible for our great economic results.”

Such assertions are disputed by many lawmakers, including Republicans who, on other matters, often come to the president’s defense.

“Currently, U.S. importers have paid the U.S. government over $16 billion in tariffs on imports from China,” Oklahoma Republican Sen. James Lankford said via Twitter. “This tax is not paid for by Chinese exporters, this is all paid by U.S. importers.”

​Trade talks to continue

Despite Trump’s tariff threat, Chinese officials have signaled they intend to continue trade discussions with Washington, prompting some lawmakers to applaud what they see as the White House’s hardball negotiating stance toward Beijing.

“The only reason that China is at the [negotiating] table is because of these tariffs, let’s not kid ourselves,” Republican Sen. John Kennedy of Louisiana said. “China has been cheating … and it’s got to stop. And President Trump has been the first president to call their hand.”

Some Democrats, meanwhile, credit Trump for confronting China over its trade practices but fault the strategy and tactics the president has employed.

“I commend President Trump for saying the status quo with China is not working,” Virginia Democratic Sen. John Warner said. “China is not playing by the rules, and my fear is the president may end up with a deal where the president sells an extra $100 billion of [American] soybeans, but these broader issues around technology … and [China’s] ongoing theft of intellectual property go unaddressed.”

“Tariff policy by tweet does not work,” said Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren, who is seeking next year’s Democratic presidential nomination. “We’ve had two years of experience now [with Trump], and it just seems to be getting worse and worse.”

​Beyond China

Tariff concerns on Capitol Hill extend beyond China. A group of Republican lawmakers has urged Trump to halt tariffs targeting Canadian and Mexican goods, warning the measures could torpedo Congress’s consideration of a newly negotiated free trade pact between the United States and both nations.

Regarding the president’s new tariff threat on Chinese exports, some Republicans are willing to give the president the benefit of the doubt — for now.

“Perhaps the president is espousing additional tariffs for purposes of getting China’s attention and to negotiate an agreement. That would be a wonderful outcome,” Moran said. “The challenge is: it’s not just one country that can impose tariffs. So, when the United States [previously] imposed tariffs, China retaliated on products from the United States. And that is very damaging to the ability to earn a living.”
…

German sports car maker and Volkswagen subsidiary Porsche will pay a 535-million-euro ($598 million) fine over diesel vehicles that emitted more harmful pollutants than allowed, Stuttgart prosecutors said Tuesday.

“The Stuttgart prosecutor’s office has levied a 535-million-euro fine against Porsche AG for negligence in quality control,” the investigators said.

Porsche “abstained from a legal challenge” against the decision, the prosecutors office added.

Tuesday’s levy against Porsche is the latest in a string of fines against VW over its years-long “dieselgate” scandal.

The auto behemoth admitted in 2015 to manipulating 11 million vehicles worldwide to appear less polluting in laboratory tests than they were in real driving conditions.

Following fines against VW, high-end subsidiary Audi and now Porsche, no further investigations over “administrative offences” remain open against the group, a spokesman told AFP.

But legal proceedings against individuals, including former chief executive Martin Winterkorn, remain open.

Meanwhile, thousands of investors are suing the company for the losses they suffered on its shares when news of the scandal broke, while hundreds of thousands of drivers are also demanding compensation.

In its own statement, Porsche said the negligence punished by prosecutors was identified “several levels below the board.”

The firm also said that the cost of the fine was included in a provision of around one billion euros booked by the VW group in the first quarter.

So far the total costs of “dieselgate” for the Wolfsburg-based behemoth have mounted to 30 billion euros.

Shares in VW were down 2.2 percent around 2:00 pm in Frankfurt (1200 GMT) at 154.10 euros, against a DAX index of blue-chip shares down 0.7 percent.
…

U.S. Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross said on Tuesday that American technologies and expertise could play an important role in developing India’s economy, but were facing significant barriers to accessing its markets.

Ross told a gathering of business leaders in New Delhi that foreign companies were at a disadvantage due to India’s tariff and non-tariff barriers and myriad regulations.

Ross said India was already the world’s third largest economy and by 2030 it would become the world’s largest consumer market because of the rapid growth of its middle class. “Yet today, India is only the U.S 13th largest export market due to overly restrictive market access barriers.”

Meanwhile, the United States is India’s largest export market, accounting for something like 20 percent of the total. “That’s a real imbalance, and it’s an imbalance we must drive to counter,” he said.

He noted that India’s average applied tariff rate is 13.8 percent, the highest of any major world economy.

India’s Commerce Minister Suresh Prabhu said India would like to work with the United States to resolve such issues in a way that benefits both countries.

“We will address the issues with the United States in a manner that will make this relationship better not just between the United States and India, but for the rest of the world as well,” Prabhu said.

Ross said that American companies now have a unique opportunity to increase defense technology sales to India which in turn would help balance the trade relationship between the two countries.

Bilateral trade in goods and services registered a 12.6% rise to $142 billion in 2018.

Exports of U.S. goods and services to India reached $58.9 billion in 2018, up 19% from 2017, according to the U.S. Embassy.

India offers business opportunities in the sectors of aerospace, defense, energy, health care and environmental technologies.

Representatives of more than 100 U.S. companies are visiting India as part of the U.S. Department of Commerce’s largest annual trade mission program, Trade Winds. They’re looking for opportunities in aerospace, defense, energy, health care and environmental technologies.

The delegation met with government leaders, market experts and potential business partners in New Delhi on Tuesday. They also will visit Ahmadabad, Chennai, Kolkata, Mumbai, Bangalore and Hyderabad.

 
…

China has confirmed that its top trade negotiator will travel to the United States to conduct a new round of trade talks later this week, even after U.S. President Donald Trump threatened higher tariffs on billions of dollars of Chinese goods after he complained the process is taking too long.

The Commerce Ministry issued a statement Tuesday that Vice Premier Liu He, President Xi Jinping’s top economic advisor, will meet with U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer and Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin for two days of talks beginning Thursday.

Trump’s Twitter comments on Sunday about the new tariffs sent Asian stocks and U.S. futures tumbling Monday and added uncertainty over the future of U.S.-China trade negotiations. Despite the market drop, China’s official media stayed silent on Trump’s comments all morning.

Hours later, Foreign Ministry spokesman Geng Shuang told reporters that China is “trying to get more information” about Trump’s comments about new tariffs but stressed that Beijing’s negotiating team is still preparing to travel to the U.S. for talks this week. Geng did not say whether Vice Premier Liu would lead the delegation.

“The tweet is a big wrench in China’s foreign trade policy,” Nick Marro, analyst at The Economist Intelligence Unit (The EIU), told VOA. “There were a lot of expectations that at least the groundwork for a deal will be finalized this week,” he said, explaining why Beijing should be upset by the new threat.

Tweet with teeth

In his tweet, Trump said he would increase tariffs on $200 billion worth of Chinese goods from 10 percent to 25 percent on Friday. This would reverse a decision Washington took last February to keep it at 10 percent in the midst of trade talks.

“The Trade Deal with China continues, but too slowly, as they attempt to renegotiate. No!,” Trump said, expressing dissatisfaction about the pace of trade negotiations and what he considered a Chinese attempt to renegotiate some aspects of the proposed deal.

Lighthizer on Monday confirmed that tariffs will be imposed Friday. He and Treasury Secretary Mnuchin told reporters Trump had learned over the weekend that Chinese officials “were trying to go back on some of the language” that had been negotiated in 10 earlier rounds of talks. They did not offer details.

Trump also said his policy of hiking taxes on Chinese goods had paid dividends.

“These payments are partially responsible for our great economic results,” he said.

He went further, saying another $325 billion of Chinese goods which “remain untaxed” will be taxed at 25 percent. He did not specify a timeline for making this change.

Unaffected stance

In its response Monday, the Chinese foreign ministry expressed hope that there is no change in the situation, and the two countries will continue to strive for an end to the trade war.

“What is of vital importance is that we still hope the United States can work hard with China to meet each other half way, and strive to reach a mutually beneficial, win-win agreement on the basis of mutual respect,” Geng said.

Echoing China’s confidence that trade talks would not be disrupted by Trump’s tweet, Shanghai-based expert Shen Dingli said, “China and the U.S. have big and overlapping stakes in bilateral trade. They will overcome any difficulties for a successful outcome of the trade talks.”

 
…

The United States will impose a 17.5 percent tariff on Mexican tomato imports starting on Tuesday, as the two countries were unable to renew a 2013 agreement that suspended a U.S. anti-dumping investigation, a Mexican official said on Monday.

The U.S. Commerce Department said in early February that the United States would resume an anti-dumping investigation into Mexican tomatoes, withdrawing from a so-called suspension agreement that halted the anti-dumping case as long as Mexican producers sold their tomatoes above a pre-determined price. U.S. growers and lawmakers say that deal has failed.

At the time, Commerce said it was giving the required 90-day notice before terminating the six-year-old agreement.

“As of tomorrow a tariff of 17.5 percent will be applied on the value of the product … Mexican exporters will be affected, it’s going to affect their financial flows but that is going to be directly transferred to U.S. consumers,” said Mexican Deputy Economy Minister Luz Maria de la Mora.

She added that the U.S. measures will remain in place until a new suspension agreement is reached.

“We’re very disappointed but the good news is that negotiations continue, looking for a solution. And we hope that in the coming weeks we can in fact reach an agreement,” said de la Mora.

Mexico exports around $2 billion worth of tomatoes to the United States annually, according to de la Mora.

A trade war over tomatoes was averted twice since the 1990s, most recently in the 2013 deal that put a price floor on Mexican tomatoes sold in the United States while barring U.S. growers from pursuing anti-dumping charges against Mexican exporters.

Fruit and vegetable growers in the southeastern U.S. had persuaded the Trump administration to seek the ability to impose seasonal anti-dumping duties against Mexican produce in negotiations to update the North American Free Trade Agreement.

But this demand was withdrawn in the final talks over the U.S.-Mexico-Canada trade deal reached last October.

A month later, the Florida Tomato Exchange, which represents growers in the state, had petitioned the Commerce Department to terminate the 2013 tomato pact. It argued that the agreement could not be enforced and contained too many loopholes through which Mexican growers could dump tomatoes in the U.S. market.
…

China says its negotiators are preparing to travel to the United States for their next round of trade talks this week, even after U.S. President Donald Trump threatened higher tariffs on billions of dollars of Chinese goods after he complained the process is taking too long.

Trump’s comments about the new tarifs on Twitter on Sunday sent Asian stocks and U.S. futures tumbling Monday and added uncertainty over the figure of U.S.-China trade negotiations. Despite the market drop, China’s official media stayed silent on Trump’s comments all morning.

Hours later, Foreign ministry spokesman Geng Shuang told reporters that China is “trying to get more information” about Trump’s comments about new tariffs but stressed that Beijing’s negotiating team is still preparing to travel to the U.S. for talks this week.

“The tweet is a big wrench in China’s foreign trade policy,” Nick Marro, Analyst at The Economist Intelligence Unit (The EIU) told VOA. “There were a lot of expectations that at least the groundwork for a deal will be finalized this week,” he said, explaining why Beijing should be upset by the new threat.

Tweet with teeth

In his tweet issued on Sunday, Trump said he would increase tariffs on $200 billion worth of Chinese goods from 10 percent to 25 percent on Friday. This would mark a reversal of a decision Washington took last February to keep it at 10 percent in the midst of trade talks.

“The Trade Deal with China continues, but too slowly, as they attempt to renegotiate. No!,” Trump said expressing dissatisfaction about the pace of trade negotiations and what he considers Chinese attempt to renegotiate some aspects of the proposed deal.

President Trump also said that his policy of hiking taxes on Chinese goods had paid dividends. “These payments are partially responsible for our great economic results,” he said.

He went further saying another $325 billion of Chinese goods which “remain untaxed” will be taxed at 25 percent. He did not specify a timeline for making this change.

Unaffected stance

In its response Monday, Chinese foreign ministry expressed hope there is no change in the situation and the two countries will continue to strive for an end to the trade war.

“What is of vital importance is that we still hope the United States can work hard with China to meet each other half way, and strive to reach a mutually beneficial, win-win agreement on the basis of mutual respect,” Foreign Ministry spokesman Geng said.

What the ministry did not clarify is whether China would send the same envoy, Vice Premier Liu He, as head of the official delegation as originally planned.

Echoing China’s confidence that trade talks would not be disrupted by Trump’s tweet, Shanghai based expert Shen Dingli said, “China and the U.S. have big and overlapping stakes in bilateral trade. They will overcome any difficulties for a successful outcome of the trade talks.”

The tweet has also made it difficult for Chinese President Xi to make a proposed China-U.S. deal acceptable to his domestic audience. Xi does not want to be seen as being bulled into accepting a deal by the U.S., Nick Marro said. “It has shattered the potential optics around the deal. The tweet makes the deal look like China has no choice but to listen to the U.S.”

Dingli sees nothing odd about Trump’s use of tweet as a foreign policy instrument although this aspect has been widely criticized in some circles.

“America does not have a propaganda department like the Chinese government. Therefore, Trump has invented something that is good for him,” Dingli said. “A competent propaganda department has made China powerful. My President does not need to use his own account in WeChat [Chinese social media app] to communicate,” he said.

Washington and Beijing have engaged in reciprocal tariff hikes over the last year while negotiators have engaged in lengthy trade talks, alternating negotiations between the two capitals.

Despite an initial goal of finishing by March 1, the two countries have continued to debate several issues, but have yet to complete a deal. Both sides, representing the world’s two biggest economies, have said progress is being made.

The two countries have been trying to resolve disputes over intellectual property theft and forced technology transfers. It is not clear whether the tariffs both countries have imposed will remain in place if an agreement is reached.
…

U.S. President Donald Trump said on Sunday he would raise tariffs to 25 percent from 10 percent on $200 billion of Chinese goods.

The United States has levied tariffs on a total of $250 billion of Chinese imports, global steel and aluminum imports, and shipments of washing machines and solar panels since January 2018, when Trump’s administration levied its first trade tariffs.

Trump has referred to himself as a “Tariff Man” and says the duties he has imposed on a range of goods and metal imports are filling up state coffers.

Through mid-March, Washington netted $15.6 billion through tariffs imposed since February 2018, according to data from U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP). Customs duties receipts in the first half of the current fiscal year, which began on Oct. 1, have shot up by 89 percent from a year ago to $34.7 billion, data from U.S. Treasury shows.

WHO IS PAYING THE TARIFFS?

Trump says China foots the bill for U.S. tariffs on imported Chinese good.

“For 10 months, China has been paying Tariffs to the USA” he wrote on Twitter on Sunday.

“We have billions of dollars coming into our Treasury — billions — from China. We never had 10 cents coming into our Treasury; now we have billions coming in,” he said on Jan. 24.

PAID AT CUSTOMS

A tariff is a tax on imports. The CBP typically requires importers to pay the duties within 10 days of their shipments clearing customs.

So the tariffs are paid to the U.S. government by importing companies. Most importers of Chinese-made goods are U.S. companies, or the U.S.-registered units of foreign companies that import goods from China.

Every item imported into the United States legally has a customs code. Importers are expected to check the tariffs and other taxes and duties due on the goods they bring in, calculate what they owe, and pay it.

The CBP reviews the payments. If it discovers an underpayment, U.S. customs will send the importer a fresh bill.

DO U.S. IMPORTERS PASS ON THE COSTS OF TARIFFS TO THEIR SUPPLIERS IN CHINA?

Some of them do, yes. So Chinese companies pay some of the cost. An importing company paying tariffs can manage the cost in several ways:

1. Pay the full cost and live with a lower profit margin.

2. Cut costs to offset higher tariffs.

3. Ask suppliers in China for a discount to help offset the higher tariffs.

4. Seek to source supplies from outside China. So some Chinese companies are losing business.

5. Pass the tariff costs on to customers by increasing retail prices.

Most importers could use a mix of those options to spread the cost between suppliers, themselves, and consumers or buyers.

HOW DOES THAT ACTUALLY WORK?

For example, higher duties on imports of metals and Chinese products increased Caterpillar’s production costs by more than $100 million last year. In response, the heavy-duty equipment maker increased prices for its products.

Tractor manufacturer Deere & Co estimates a $100 million increase in its raw materials costs this year because of Trump’s tariffs on Chinese imports. Deere has cut costs and increased prices to protect its profits.

A Congressional Research Service report in February found that the tariffs had led to an increase of as much as 12 percent in the price of washing machines in the United States, compared to January 2018 when the duties were not in effect.

According to a study by the Peterson Institute for International Economics, the steel and aluminum tariffs increased the price of steel products by nearly 9 percent last year, pushing up costs for steel users by $5.6 billion.

Separately, a study by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, Princeton University, and Columbia University concluded that the Chinese and steel and aluminum tariffs cost companies and consumers $3 billion a month in additional taxes and companies a further $1.4 billion in efficiency loses in 2018.0

WHAT DO CHINESE FIRMS PAY?

China has retaliated against U.S. tariffs by imposing its own tariffs on imports from the United States.

Most importers in China are Chinese. So in the same way the U.S. government is receiving import taxes on Chinese goods from U.S. importers, the Chinese government is receiving taxes on U.S. goods from Chinese importers.

WHAT’S THE TOTAL BILL?

Trump has imposed a 25 percent tax on $50 billion of Chinese goods, and a 10 percent tax on goods worth $200 billion more.

That, in theory, would mean the U.S government would receive a total of $32.5 billion per year on top of whatever duties were already in place.

U.S. tariff revenue in 2018 was $49.7 billion. That was up 41.2 percent from the $35.2 billion in 2017 before the trade wars started.

China has imposed 25 percent tariffs on $50 billion of U.S. imports, and also has tariffs of 5 to 10 percent on $60 billion more. That equates to around $15.5 billion to $18.5 billion in tariffs.

Chinese tariff revenue in 2018 was 284.8 billion yuan ($42.41 billion), down from 299.8 billion yuan ($44.65 billion) in 2017.

 
…

Boeing did not tell U.S. regulators for more than a year that it inadvertently made an alarm alerting pilots to a mismatch of flight data optional on the 737 MAX, instead of standard as on earlier 737s, but insisted on Sunday the missing display represented no safety risk.

The U.S. plane maker has been trying for weeks to dispel suggestions that it made airlines pay for safety features after it emerged that an alert designed to show discrepancies in Angle of Attack readings from two sensors was optional on the 737 MAX.

Erroneous data from a sensor responsible for measuring the angle at which the wing slices through the air – known as the Angle of Attack – is suspected of triggering a flawed piece of software that pushed the plane downward in two recent crashes.

In a statement, Boeing said it only discovered once deliveries of the 737 MAX had begun in 2017 that the so-called AOA Disagree alert was optional instead of standard as it had intended, but added that was not critical safety data.

A Federal Aviation Administration official told Reuters on Sunday that Boeing waited 13 months before informing the agency in November 2018.

By becoming optional, the alert had been treated in the same way as a separate indicator showing raw AOA data, which is seldom used by commercial pilots and had been an add-on for years.

“Neither the angle of attack indicator nor the AOA Disagree alert are necessary for the safe operation of the airplane,” Boeing said.

“They provide supplemental information only, and have never been considered safety features on commercial jet transport airplanes.”

Boeing said a Safety Review Board convened after a fatal Lion Air crash in Indonesia last October corroborated its prior conclusion that the alert was not necessary for the safe operation of commercial aircraft and could safely be tackled in a future system update.

The FAA backed that assessment but criticized Boeing for being slow to disclose the problem.

Boeing briefed the FAA on the display issue in November, after the Lion Air accident, and a special panel deemed it to be “low risk,” an FAA spokesman said.

“However, Boeing’s timely or earlier communication with the operators would have helped to reduce or eliminate possible confusion,” he added.

Boeing attributed the error to software delivered to the company from an outside source, but did not give details.

Sunday’s statement marked the first time since the two fatal accidents that Boeing explicitly acknowledged doing something inadvertently in the development of the 737 MAX, albeit on an issue that it contends has no impact on safety.

​Boeing has said the feeding of erroneous Angle of Attack data to a system called MCAS that pushed the planes lower was a common link in two wider chains of events leading to both crashes, but has stopped short of admitting error on that front.

The angle of attack measures the angle between the air flow and the wing and helps determine whether the plane is able to fly correctly. If the angle becomes too steep, the flow of air over the wing is disturbed, throwing the plane into an aerodynamic stall. That means it starts to fall instead of fly.

Although the angle itself is key for onboard systems, the industry has debated for years whether such data should be included in already crowded cockpit displays because it is directly related to airspeed, which pilots already scrutinize.

Some analysts and academics say having the AOA Disagree alert installed would have helped Lion Air maintenance crew diagnose a problem on the penultimate flight of the 737 MAX jet that crashed in October, killing all 189 on board.

The 737 MAX was grounded worldwide over safety concerns following the Ethiopian crash in March, killing 157 people.

When the jet returns to service, all new aircraft will have a working AOA Disagree alert as a standard feature and a no-charge optional indicator showing the underlying data, Boeing said. That restores the situation found on the displays of previous 737NG models since around the middle of last decade.

Airlines with grounded 737 MAX jets will be able to activate the AOA Disagree function directly.

Boeing is also developing a software upgrade and training changes to the MCAS system that must be approved by global regulators before the jets can fly again.

Boeing has yet to formally submit the upgrades to the FAA for approval but could do as early as this week once it completes a special test flight.

Federal prosecutors, the Transportation Department inspector general’s office and a blue-ribbon panel are also looking into the 737 MAX’s certification. A U.S. House of Representatives panel will hold a hearing on the plane’s status with the FAA’s acting chief, Dan Elwell, and National Transportation Safety Board Chairman Robert Sumwalt on May 15. 
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Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders on Sunday proposed a sweeping agriculture and rural investment plan to break up big agriculture monopolies and shift farm subsidies toward small family farmers.

“I think a farmer that produces the food we eat may be almost as important as some crook on Wall Street who destroys the economy,” Sanders said during a campaign event in Osage, a town of fewer than 4,000 people. “Those of us who come from rural America have nothing to be ashamed about, and the time is long overdue for us to stand up and fight for our way of life.”

Sanders’ plan expands on themes that have been central to his presidential campaign in Iowa since the start, including his emphasis on rural America and pledge to take on and break up big corporations.

During his Sunday speech, Sanders outlined the dire circumstances confronting rural America — population decline, school and hospital closures and rising addiction and suicide rates in many rural counties nationwide — as the impetus for his policy.

His plan includes a number of antitrust proposals, including breaking up existing agriculture monopolies and placing a moratorium on future mergers by big agriculture companies. He would also ban “vertically integrated” agribusinesses — companies that control multiple levels of production and processing of a product.

One of his competitors in the Democratic race, Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren, included several of those antitrust planks in the agriculture policy she released in March. But Sanders’ policy is more expansive than just targeting major agriculture corporations — he’s also proposing greater government involvement in setting price controls and managing supply and demand of agriculture commodities.

His plan calls for a shift from the current farm subsidy system toward a “parity system,” which means “setting price floors and matching supply with demand so farmers are guaranteed the cost of production and family living expenses.” Critics of the farm bill have argued that the current government subsidy system favors large family farms and corporate farms over small family farms, and Sanders’ policy aims to make that distribution more equal.

Such a major change in agriculture policy would require congressional action and would likely face fierce opposition from the farm lobby — but Sanders pledged to fight for farmers against corporate interests.

“In rural America, we are seeing giant agribusiness conglomerates extract as much wealth out of small communities as they possibly can while family farmers are going bankrupt and in many ways are being treated like modern-day indentured servants,” Sanders said.

Sanders would also classify food supply security as a national security issue and increase scrutiny over foreign ownership of American farmland. And he suggests re-establishing a “national grain and feed reserve” in case of a natural disaster or severe weather event — a proposal inspired in part by the recent flooding on Iowa’s eastern and western borders, which swamped acres of cropland and wiped out farmers’ stores.

Sanders also wants to change patent law to protect small farmers from lawsuits brought by corporate farms, strengthen organic standards and bolster programs aimed at supporting minority farmers. He includes in his proposal planks focused on rural economic and infrastructure development and on incentivizing the agriculture industry to help combat climate change by shifting to more sustainable farming practices.

Sanders’ agriculture proposal includes planks that specifically tailor some of his broader policy priorities to rural America. He has proposed increasing funding for public education and establishing a universal childcare system, and his agriculture plan seeks an increase in funding for rural education and a universal childcare system that provides access for rural Americans to daycare.
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