Secretary of State Mike Pompeo told visiting NATO foreign ministers Thursday that the 29 country alliance must alter its approach to developing threats, singling out Russian aggression and China’s “strategic competition.” Pompeo cautioned his NATO allies that there is a risk the U.S. will not be able to share information in the same way it could if there were not Chinese network supplier systems operating inside of their networks. VOA’s diplomatic correspondent Cindy Saine reports.
…

The U.S. president and the vice premier of China confirmed on Thursday that while significant progress has been made, there is no new trade agreement yet between the world’s two largest economies. 

“We’re certainly getting a lot closer,” Trump said sitting at his desk in the Oval Office with Chinese Vice Premier Liu He alongside him.

Announcement of a deal could come in “the next four weeks, maybe less, maybe more” and at that time, something “monumental could be announced,” he said, adding, “We are rounding the turn. We’ve made a lot of progress.” 

Liu, speaking in English, praised the direct guidance of Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping, adding: “Hopefully, we’ll get a good result.”  

Trump said if a deal can be reached, then he will hold a summit with Xi.

“If we have a deal, there will be a summit,” he said. “I look forward to seeing President Xi. It’ll be here.” 

Intellectual property protection, as well as certain tariffs remain under discussion, Trump confirmed.  

“Some of the toughest things have been agreed to,” he added. 

Asked to make a comment by the president about the status of the negotiations, U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer was more cautious, replying, “We’ve made a lot of headway. We’re working very hard,” but “there are still some major, major issues left.” 

Responding to questions from reporters, Trump said, “We’ve never done a deal like this with China,” predicting the agreement could be “the granddaddy of them all” and “a tremendous thing for the world.”

He also described it as potentially “epic” and “historic.” 

The two countries had originally hoped to reach an agreement by March 1, but negotiations have extended well beyond that date.

“The relationship with China is very strong, probably the strongest it’s ever been,” Trump declared. 

Liu had met Wednesday in Washington with Lighthizer and Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin.

​

For months, the economic superpowers have engaged in a reciprocal tariff war, with both countries imposing levies on hundreds of billions of dollars’ worth of each other’s exports, which could be eased or ended with a deal. 

Officials familiar with their negotiations say an agreement could give Beijing until 2025 to meet its commitment on U.S. commodity purchases and allow U.S. companies to wholly own businesses in China.

“Nobody thought these talks would be easy, but as they enter these final stages, we’re encouraged by the continued progress towards detailed text on both structural and enforcement issues,” said Linda Dempsey, National Association of Manufacturers vice president of International Economic Affairs, following Thursday’s Trump-Liu meeting.

“Manufacturers in the United States have long been harmed by China’s unfair trade practices. That is why we believe negotiations must result in an innovative, enforceable bilateral trade agreement that levels the playing field for manufacturers in the United States,” Dempsey added.

Trump’s meeting with Liu came just days after a Chinese woman, Yujing Zhang, was arrested trying to enter the U.S. president’s Atlantic oceanfront retreat in Florida, and detained after she entered the compound claiming she was there for what turned out to be a non-existent event.

She was charged with illegal entering and lying to U.S. agents. The U.S. Secret Service, which protects Trump and his family, said she was carrying four cellphones, a laptop computer, an external hard drive, thumb drive containing computer malware and two Chinese passports.
…

U.S. lawmakers of both parties say hurdles remain for approving a new trade pact between the United States, Canada and Mexico, rejecting President Donald Trump’s call for prompt votes on a replacement for the North American Free Trade Agreement, NAFTA.

Last year, the administration made good on one of Trump’s main campaign promises – negotiating a replacement for NAFTA, which went into effect in 1994, with a new trade accord, the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement, or USMCA.

Democratic House Speaker Nancy Pelosi of California made headlines Tuesday demanding changes to the pact to strengthen enforcement provisions and announcing the chamber will not vote on the accord until Mexico approves and implements tougher labor standards.

“No enforcement, no treaty,” Pelosi said at a Politico event, adding, “It’s a big issue, how workers are treated in Mexico.”

Senate Democrats echoed the speaker.

“There’s still work to do [on the USMCA]“ Maryland Sen. Chris Van Hollen told VOA. “I agree with Speaker Pelosi that Mexico needs to fully enact the labor rights reform measures. There are also a number of issues on the environmental front, and we need to make sure we have an effective enforcement mechanism.”

“We’re waiting to see whether or not the proposal will have a lot more fortified enforcement provisions, that’s my top concern,” Democratic Sen. Bob Casey of Pennsylvania said. “That’s always been a major concern of trade agreements generally. That’s why I have always been an aggressive skeptic, and I remain so.”

Democrats are not alone in expressing reservations. Forty-six House Republicans wrote a letter to the White House opposing language in the USMCA proposed by Canada to protect the rights of LGBT sexual minorities.

“A trade agreement is no place for the adoption of social policy,” conservative Freedom Caucus members said in the letter.

Devil in the details

Florida Republican Sen. Marco Rubio said he, like all lawmakers, needs time to assess the USMCA’s impact on economic sectors in his state.

“Trade deals are generally difficult to get votes on because, the bigger they are, the likelier there are individual industries affected by some detail of the deal – Florida included, with our vegetable growers [who complete with Mexico],” Rubio said.

To go into effect, the USMCA would have to be approved by legislatures in the United States, Mexico and Canada. Some on Capitol Hill railed against any delay.

“It would be a killer, a big mistake” the Senate’s number two Republican, John Thune of agriculture-rich South Dakota, told VOA. “That’s a very carefully negotiated agreement we got signed, sealed and delivered. Now it’s just a function of signing off on it. And we just need to get it done.”

Thune added, “Any attempt to go back and rewrite it is a non-starter.”

Thune’s impatience matches that of the White House, which is pressing Congress to act on the USMCA as soon as next month to get the vote out of the way before the 2020 U.S. election cycle fully heats up, at which point trade votes could be even more dicey.

Administration officials have sought to reassure wavering lawmakers that their concerns can be addressed in side agreements with Canada and Mexico, rather than reopening negotiations on the pact itself.

Pelosi rejected such assurances.

“We’re saying that enforcement has to be in the treaty,” the House speaker said. “[I]f you don’t have enforcement, you ain’t got nothing.”

Enforcement is key

American business and labor groups are weighing in, as well.

“This agreement right now, for it to be voted on, would be premature,” Richard Trumka, president of America’s largest labor federation, the AFL-CIO, told Bloomberg TV. “The Mexican government has to change their [labor] laws, then they have to start effectively enforcing them, and then they have to demonstrate that they have the resources necessary to enforce those laws, because if you can’t enforce a trade agreement, it’s useless.”

The U.S. Farm Bureau, by contrast, urged swift implementation of the USMCA.

“Farmers know a good deal when we see one,” Farm Bureau president Zippy Duvall wrote in a statement. “Without USMCA, our most critical markets hang in the balance. Both Canada and Mexico have already signed another deal that does not include the United States.”

The USMCA would replace NAFTA, a pact implemented under the Clinton administration in the 1990s. NAFTA has been credited with vastly expanding trade in North America, but also blamed for accelerating the pace of manufacturing job losses in the United States.

Trump repeatedly blasted NAFTA as a disastrous trade deal for America during his successful 2016 campaign — a view Pelosi and other Democrats have echoed.

“I, myself, voted for NAFTA the first time,” the speaker said at the Politico forum. “I do think I was burned by it. I don’t think it lived up [to its promises].”

 
…

Britain’s government redoubled its efforts Thursday to win over the main opposition party in a last-gasp bid to avoid a chaotic exit from the European Union next week.

The latest round of talks came after lawmakers tried to safeguard against a doomsday ending to the 46-year partnership by fast-tracking a bill Wednesday night seeking to delay Brexit.

May is racing against the clock in a desperate search for votes that could push her ill-loved divorce deal with the other 27 EU leaders through parliament on the fourth attempt.

May’s spokesman said there would be “intensive discussions over the course of today”, noting the “urgency” of the situation.

Britain’s latest deadline is April 12 and resistance to May’s plan remains passionately strong.

But increasingly weary EU leaders — tired of Britain’s political drama and eager to focus on Europe’s own problems — want to see either a done deal or a new way forward from May before they all meet in Brussels on Wednesday.

Her European counterparts will decide whether to grant May’s request to push back Brexit until May 22 — the day before nations begin electing a new European Parliament.

One alternative is to force her to accept a much longer extension that could give Britain time to rethink Brexit and possibly reverse its decision to leave.

The other is to let Britain go without a deal on April 12 in the hope that the economic disruption is short-lived and worth the price of eliminating long-term Brexit uncertainties.

‘Sense of resignation’

May dramatically ended her courtship of her own party’s holdouts and resistant Northern Irish allies by turning to the main opposition Labour Party this week.

The premier met Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn on Wednesday for a reported 100 minutes of talks both sides described as “cordial” but inconclusive.

The EU’s chief Brexit negotiator Michel Barnier on Thursday welcomed the cross-party effort to resolved the deadlock.

“It’s time for decisions,” he tweeted.

But May’s decision to hear out Corbyn’s demands for a closer post-Brexit alliance with the bloc that includes membership in its customs union has enraged Britain’s right-wing and seen two junior ministers resign.

One senior minister said May had no other choice.

“It’s very simple — there’s nowhere else to go,” the unnamed cabinet minister told the news website Politico.

“There’s a sense of resignation about her that ‘we get this through and I take the flak’.”

Pro-European members of May’s team also insisted that it was time to compromise on long-standing political beliefs for the benefit of safe resolution of Britain’s biggest crisis in decades.

“Both parties have to give something up,” finance minister Philip Hammond told ITV.

“There is going to be pain on both sides.”

Competing visions

May and Corbyn have competing visions of Britain’s place in Europe and neither has shown much willingness to compromise in the past.

Corbyn said late Wednesday that he did not see “as much change as I expected” from May.

The Times newspaper quoted an unnamed government source as saying that May’s office thought it more likely than not that the negotiations would fail.

May has resisted the customs union idea because it bars Britain from striking its own independent trade agreements with nations such as China and the United States.

And Corbyn is under pressure from Labour’s pro-EU wing to push for a second referendum that would pit May’s final deal against the option of staying in the bloc.

Corbyn has shied away from backing another vote due in part to his own sceptical view of Brussels.

The Labour-backing Mirror newspaper said May and Corbyn would let their teams negotiate Thursday before deciding on whether to meet again face to face Friday.

 
…

White House adviser Ivanka Trump is planning a trip to Africa to promote a global women’s initiative she’s leading.  

President Donald Trump’s daughter will visit Ethiopia and Ivory Coast over four days this month. The White House said Wednesday that her schedule includes a women’s economic empowerment summit in Ivory Coast as well as site visits and meetings with political leaders, executives and female entrepreneurs in both countries. 

Accompanying her will be Mark Green, administrator of the U.S. Agency for International Development. On parts of the trip, they will be joined David Bohigian, acting president of the Overseas Private Investment Corp., and Kristalina Georgieva, interim president of the World Bank Group. 

OPIC provides loans, loan guarantees and political risk insurance, funding projects that stretch across continents and industries. 

It will be Ivanka Trump’s first visit to Africa since the White House undertook the Women’s Global Development and Prosperity Initiative in February. In a statement to The Associated Press, she said she was “excited to travel to Africa” to advance the effort. 

Multi-agency effort

The initiative involves the State Department, the National Security Council and other U.S. agencies. It aims to coordinate current programs and develop new ones to assist women in job training, financial support, legal or regulatory reforms and other areas.  

Ivanka Trump says the goal is to economically empower 50 million women in developing countries by 2025.  

Money for the effort will come through USAID, which initially set up a $50 million fund using dollars already budgeted. The president’s 2020 budget proposal requests $100 million for the initiative, which will also be supported by programs across the government as well as private investment. The White House spending plan would cut overall funding for diplomacy and development.  

Ivanka Trump has made women’s economic empowerment a centerpiece of her White House portfolio. She has made a number of international trips, with a focus on these issues, including to Japan and India. Her travel to Africa follows a five-day tour that first lady Melania Trump made there last year, with a focus on child welfare.  

Like the first lady, Ivanka Trump’s efforts could be complicated by the president, who was criticized last year after his private comments about “s—hole countries” in Africa and other regions were leaked to journalists.
…

U.S. President Donald Trump met NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg at the White House Tuesday, where he took credit for increased burden sharing in collective defense spending. As White House Correspondent Patsy Widakuswara reports, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization is commemorating its 70th birthday in Washington with less pomp than usual, out of concerns for further verbal attacks from an American president who has repeatedly criticized the trans-Atlantic military alliance.
…

The United States will not send high-level officials to attend China’s second Belt and Road summit in Beijing this month, a spokesperson for the U.S. State Department said on Tuesday, citing concerns about financing practices for the project.

China’s top diplomat, Yang Jiechi, said on Saturday that almost 40 foreign leaders would take part in the summit due to be held in Beijing in late April. He rejected criticisms of the project as “prejudiced.”

The first summit for the project, which envisions rebuilding the old Silk Road to connect China with Asia, Europe and beyond with massive infrastructure spending, was held in 2017 and was attended by Matt Pottinger, the senior White House official for Asia.

There are no such plans this year.

“We will not send high-level officials from the United States,” a spokesperson for the U.S. State Department said in answer to a question from Reuters.

“We will continue to raise concerns about opaque financing practices, poor governance, and disregard for internationally accepted norms and standards, which undermine many of the standards and principles that we rely upon to promote sustainable, inclusive development, and to maintain stability and a rules-based order.

“We have repeatedly called on China to address these concerns,” the official added.

Chinese President Xi Jinping’s Belt and Road Initiative has proven controversial in many Western capitals, particularly Washington, which views it as a means to spread Chinese influence abroad and saddle countries with unsustainable debt through non-transparent projects.

On Saturday, Yang called such criticisms “prejudiced,” saying China has never forced debt upon participants and the project was to promote joint development.

On Saturday, he did not name the 40 leaders he said would attend, but some of China’s closest allies have already confirmed they will be there, including Russian President Vladimir Putin, Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan, Philippines President Rodrigo Duterte and Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen.

​The United States has been particularly critical of Italy’s decision to sign up to the plan this month, during a visit by Xi to Rome, the first for a G7 nation.

Washington sees China as major strategic rival and the Trump administration has engaged Beijing in a tit-for-tat tariff war. 

The world’s two biggest economies have levied tariffs on hundreds of billions of dollars’ worth of bilateral trade since July 2018, raising costs, disrupting supply chains and roiling global markets.

White House economic adviser Larry Kudlow on Tuesday said the countries “expect to make more headway” in trade talks this week, while the top U.S. business lobbying group said differences over an enforcement mechanism and the removal of U.S. tariffs were still obstacles to a deal.
…

As movie theater owners converge on Las Vegas for their annual convention, one topic that keeps coming up is how they contend with a company that has resisted their traditional business model: Netflix.

The world’s most successful streaming service sends some movies to theaters but has insisted on making them available on Netflix at the same time, or just a few weeks later. That has upset big movie chains, which refuse to show Netflix films and want a longer “window” of time to play films exclusively.

The issue of how Netflix fits into, or threatens, the theater business dominated a press conference on Tuesday at CinemaCon, the theater industry trade show.

“All of your questions from the first 17 minutes or whatever are about Netflix,” grumbled John Fithian, president and chief executive of the National Association of Theatre Owners.

He insisted that Netflix and theaters can happily co-exist, citing data that showed the biggest consumers of streaming video visit theaters more often. He also said Netflix had helped revive interest in documentaries, which had helped draw people to theaters to see them.

Earlier, Fithian told a crowd in a Caesars Palace theater that films reached their full potential only with a “robust theatrical release.” He spoke just after “Crazy Rich Asians” director Jon M. Chu said his film would not have had as big an impact if it had debuted on a streaming service.

Some members of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences, the group that hands out the Oscars, have been debating whether films must play in theaters for a specific length of time to compete for the awards, which could exclude Netflix or force the company to agree to longer exclusive theatrical runs.

Department of Justice Weighs In

Hollywood publication Variety reported on Tuesday that the Department of Justice had weighed in on the issue.

Antitrust chief Makan Delrahim sent a letter to the academy warning that any changes that limited eligibility for the industry’s highest honors “may raise antitrust concerns,” according to Variety.

An academy spokesperson confirmed it had received the letter and said any rule changes would be considered at an April 23 meeting. A source close to Netflix said the company was not involved with or aware of the Justice Department’s letter.

Netflix is a member of the Motion Picture Association of America, the trade association for Walt Disney Co., AT&T’s Warner Bros. and other movie studios.

“We are all stronger advocates for creativity and the entertainment business when we are working together … all of us,” MPAA CEO Charles Rivkin said on the CinemaCon stage.

Both Rivkin and Fithian noted that box office receipts hit a record $11.9 billion in the United States and Canada in 2018 even as Netflix released dozens of original movies.

Mitch Neuhauser, managing director of CinemaCon, also was asked to address the issue when he wandered into a work room for reporters.

“Streaming is not a problem!” he exclaimed, noting that there are limits to how much people can stand to stay at home with all of the modern conveniences including grocery delivery. “We’ve got to get out of the house. We are talking about becoming a society of hermits!”
…

Three of the eight countries to which Washington granted waivers to import Iranian oil have now cut their shipments from Iran to zero, a U.S. special representative said on Tuesday.

While the United States has set a target of driving Iranian oil exports to zero, it granted temporary import waivers to China, India, Greece, Italy, Taiwan, Japan, Turkey and South Korea.

“In November, we granted eight oil waivers to avoid a spike in the price of oil. I can confirm today three of those importers are now at zero,” Brian Hook, the envoy on Iran, told reporters.

Hook did not identify the three countries.

“There are better market conditions for us to accelerate our path to zero. We are not looking to grant any waivers or exceptions to our sanctions regime,” Hook said.

A senior Trump administration official told reporters on Monday that the U.S. government was considering additional sanctions against Iran that would target areas of its economy that have not been hit before.

The administration aimed to follow through with new sanctions around the anniversary of U.S. President Donald Trump’s announcement last May withdrawing the United States from a 2015 nuclear deal between Iran and several world powers, the official said.

The accord sought to prevent Iran from developing a nuclear bomb in return for the removal of sanctions that had crippled its economy. Trump ordered U.S. sanctions to be reimposed on Iran.
…

Vice President Mike Pence said on Tuesday the United States would continue to pressure Venezuela’s oil industry and those who support it with economic sanctions, citing world oil prices as low enough to allow for the measures.

Oil prices hit their highest point since November on Tuesday, with Brent crude approaching $70 a barrel, based in part on fears that U.S. sanctions against OPEC members Iran and Venezuela would result in a cut to global supplies.

“We recognize the importance of energy to the United States,” Pence told reporters. “But the price of oil around the world has been quite low for some time, quite competitive for some time, and we’re just going to continue to stand firm and bring even more pressure on this regime,” he said.

A White House official said while oil prices have crept up from historic lows recently, prices are still under last year’s highs.

Pence’s comments stood in contrast to concerns that President Donald Trump has voiced about oil prices. As recently as last week, Trump called for the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries to boost production, saying on Twitter that the price of oil was “getting too high.”

Pence, who is helping lead the White House campaign to dislodge Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro from power, made his remarks in a meeting with family members of six executives jailed in Venezuela since 2017. The executives worked for Citgo Petroleum, the U.S. refinery division of Venezuelan state oil firm PDVSA.

The United States and most other Western countries have backed Venezuelan opposition leader Juan Guaido, who declared himself interim president in January, arguing that Maduro’s 2018 reelection was illegitimate. Maduro has called Guaido a puppet of the United States.

The United States slapped stiff sanctions on PDVSA in January, aimed at cutting Maduro’s government off from oil revenues.

Trump is considering expanding the measures with sanctions on foreign companies that do business with Venezuela, his national security adviser John Bolton said on Friday.

“We’re going to continue to bring pressure on the oil industry. We’re going to continue to bring pressure on countries in this hemisphere who are supporting the dictatorship in Venezuela,” Pence said.

Pence also said the Trump administration was considering new measures to punish Cuba, which has close ties with Maduro.

“We’re looking at strong action against Cuba which continues to provide personnel and support for the dictatorship in Venezuela,” he said.

‘Worried for Their Life’

Pence expressed sympathy to the family members of the six Citgo executives – five U.S. citizens and one legal permanent resident – who were arrested in Caracas during corporate meetings and accused of embezzlement and money laundering.

Pence said the men had been “illegally detained” and that 16 court hearings had been canceled as the men languished in basement cells without enough food or medical treatment. He said the Trump administration was working for the prisoners’ release.

“We are just worried for their life and we just want them home as soon as possible,” said Carlos Anez, who told Pence his father had worked for Citgo for more than 20 years before he was detained.
…

NATO foreign ministers are gathering in Washington, D.C. this week to celebrate the 70th anniversary of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. President Donald Trump has been critical of the alliance, blasting other members for under-investing on defense and relying too heavily on the United States. Observers will be watching closely to see how the alliance is weathering internal storms on this anniversary.

Trump, who hosts NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg for talks at the White House on Tuesday, made his views on NATO clear during the 2016 presidential campaign, shocking many on both sides of the Atlantic by calling the alliance “obsolete.”

He cited what he said was a missing focus on terrorism, while repeatedly claiming the United States was shouldering too much of the cost.

Most U.S. foreign policy experts say NATO is one of the most successful military alliances in history and is far from obsolete.

“It has showcased an ability to adapt to change in the past, from dealing with a resurgent Russia, to managing crisis in south of NATO’s flank, to as well dealing with issues like cyber, so NATO is adapting and allies are spending more on defense,” Mark Simakovsky of the Atlantic Council told VOA.

Military spending has been a core issue for Trump, who has frequently pressured European allies to increase their defense expenditures.

“Everyone’s agreed to substantially up their commitment, they are going to up it at levels they have never thought of before,” Trump told reporters during a NATO summit last year.

NATO guidelines say member states should spend at least two percent of their gross domestic product on the military each year. But only seven of the 29 member states reached that level in 2018. Some experts think the two percent rule is very important.

“You’re not giving the money to somebody else, you’re not putting it into a NATO budget somewhere, you’re spending it on yourselves,” said McCain Institute Director Kurt Volker, who formerly served as U.S. ambassador to NATO. “But it is a demonstration of your commitment to your own security, which then gives NATO the confidence that this is a country that we can help defend as well, because they are committed to defense of their own territory.”

Others agree that defense spending is important, but say the alliance is fundamentally about the members’ ability to trust each other, and Trump has damaged that trust.

“When an American president questions the value of the alliance, our enemies in Moscow and Beijing are now questioning whether or not NATO would come to the defense of some smaller NATO nations that the president has criticized as maybe not worthy of NATO’s defense,” said Simakovsky. “But I don’t think at this summit the administration is going to be announcing any departure of the United States.”

Simakovsky said the partners agreed to downgrade the Washington meeting to a foreign minister’s meeting to avert the risk of verbal attacks from Trump.
…

NATO foreign ministers are gathering in Washington, D.C. this week to celebrate the 70th anniversary of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. U.S. President Donald Trump has been critical of other alliance members for under-investing on defense and relying too heavily on the United States. 

We take a look at the alliance. 

What is NATO?

The North Atlantic Treaty Organization is an alliance of 29 countries bordering the North Atlantic Ocean. It was created in 1949 as a bulwark against the Soviet Union. Its purpose is to “guarantee the freedom and security of its members through political and military means,” according to its website. 

Who are the members? 

The initial alliance was entered into by 12 nations, including the United States, Britain, Belgium, Canada, Denmark, France, Iceland, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Norway and Portugal. Seventeen others have joined the group since. Montenegro is the latest member, joining in 2017. According to Article 10 of the Washington Treaty, membership is open to any “European State in a position to further the principles of this Treaty and to contribute to the security of the North Atlantic area.”

What is its aim? 

NATO’s main aim is security and defense of its member nations. Article 5 of the treaty states that “an armed attack against one or more” member state “shall be considered an attack against them all.”

The collective defense principal at the heart of the treaty was invoked for the first time after the 9/11 attacks on the United States. NATO responded to a U.S. request for help in the war on al-Qaida in Afghanistan. It took the lead from August 2003 to December 2014. At its peak, it deployed 130,000 troops.

Who funds NATO? 

Each member country pays a certain amount into the NATO budget based on an agreed upon formula. But, the United States has been bearing nearly two-thirds of the alliance’s defense bill. The NATO charter requires member states to spend 2 percent of the nation’s wealth on defense. According to NATO’s most recent estimate, released in June 2017, six countries hit the 2 percent target: the United States, Greece, the United Kingdom, Estonia, Romania and Poland.

NATO vs. Trump

President Donald Trump has long been critical of U.S. involvement overseas. He has specifically railed against NATO members for not contributing more money to their own defense. In July, he went so far as to claim that the alliance owed the United States money.

“Many countries owe us a tremendous amount of money from many years back, where they’re delinquent, as far as I’m concerned, because the United States has had to pay for them,” he said. “So if you go back 10 or 20 years, you’ll just add it all up, it’s massive amounts of money is owed.”

But that is not how the alliance’s budget works. While not all member states are meeting their commitments, as explained above, more are expected to increase their contributions this year.

Trump has also threatened to pull out of the treaty, which experts say would be a monumental mistake.

The celebration of NATO’s 70th anniversary was downgraded to a meeting of member foreign ministers, because diplomats feared Trump would use the occasion to mount renewed attacks on the alliance. Trump is not expected to address the meeting in Washington this week. 
…

Australia’s treasurer said he will unveil the government’s first balanced annual budget plan in a decade days before general elections are called.

The budget to be announced late Tuesday will be the conservatives coalition’s final major act before going to voters in May with the argument that they are better economic managers than the center-left Labor Party opposition.

Treasurer Josh Frydenberg said the budget for the fiscal year starting July 1 would achieve a surplus without increasing taxes.

“Tonight’s budget sets Australia up for the next decade,” Frydenberg told reporters on arrival at Parliament House.

“It builds a stronger economy and secures a better Australia for every Australian and we do that without increasing taxes,” he added.

Frydenberg also foreshadowed “congestion-busting infrastructure” to reduce commuting times in Australia’s largest and most congested cities.

The government also plans to provide tax breaks for low and middle-income earners.

Up to 4 million low-income Australians in a population of 25 million will receive one-off payments by July to help with rising energy bills.

A conservative government delivered balanced budgets for a decade before the global financial crisis hit in 2008. A newly elected Labor government then ran up a record deficit with economic stimulus spending.

Australia’s revenue has improved with rising prices for its biggest exports, coal and iron ore.

Opinion polls suggest that Labor will win the next election. Scott Morrison would become the sixth Australian prime minister since 2007 to fail to last an entire three-year term.

Parliament will sit for three days this week before it rises for the last time before elections are held on May 11 or May 18.
…

The boom times for the U.S. lobster industry are imperiled this year because of a shortage of a little fish that has been luring the crustaceans into traps for hundreds of years.

Members of the lobster business fear a looming bait crisis could disrupt the industry during a time when lobsters are as plentiful, valuable and in demand as ever. America’s lobster catch has climbed this decade, especially in Maine, but the fishery is dependent on herring — a schooling fish other fishermen seek in the Atlantic Ocean.

Federal regulators are imposing a steep cut in the herring fishery this year, and some areas of the East Coast are already restricted to fishing, months before the lobster season gets rolling. East Coast herring fishermen brought more than 200 million pounds of the fish to docks as recently as 2014, but this year’s catch will be limited to less than a fifth of that total.

The cut is leaving lobstermen, who have baited traps with herring for generations in Maine, scrambling for new bait sources and concerned about their ability to get lobster to customers who have come to expect easy availability in recent years.

“If you don’t have bait, you’re not going to fish. If the price of bait goes up, you’re not going to fish,” said Patrice McCarron, executive director of the Maine Lobstermen’s Association. “We have to take the big picture, and make sure our communities continue to have viable fisheries.”

The cut in the herring quota stems from a scientific assessment of the fish’s population last year by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Northeast Fisheries Science Center. The assessment found a below-average number of young herring are surviving in the ocean.

The loss of herring has sounded alarms among scientists and conservationists, because the fish also serve a critical role in the ocean food chain and they’re valuable as food for humans.

It’s unclear exactly what factors are causing young herring to fail to survive to maturity, said Jonathan Deroba, lead assessment scientist for herring with the Northeast Fisheries Science Center. He said it’s “premature to predict the sky is falling,” though he added the herring population could be suffering from multiple stresses at once.

“We’d be foolish not to look at climate change. The abundance of haddock, which are egg predators. And fishing activity on Georges Bank disrupting herring,” Deroba said. Georges Bank is a key fishing area off New England.

Fishermen bring herring to shore mostly in Maine and Massachusetts, which are also the biggest lobster fishing states. Lobstermen also load traps with other kinds of bait, such as menhaden, and some herring is available in freezers, but fishermen said they’re concerned there won’t be enough to go around.

The New England Fishery Management Council is also considering herring catch quota for 2020 and 2021 later this year, and fishermen said they’re concerned the cuts could be maintained for those years. The loss of herring is also a heavy blow to the fishermen who harvest the species, said Jeff Kaelin, who works in government relations for Lund’s Fisheries, a herring harvester based in Cape May, New Jersey.

“It’s going to be tough on everyone,” Kaelin said, not just the people who catch the herring, but also “the lobstermen who depend on it for historic bait supply.”

The U.S. lobster fishery set an all-time record for value at docks in 2016, when the catch was worth more than $670 million. That was also the year the herring catch fell to its lowest point since 2002, though it was still more than 138 million pounds.

Lobsterman Jeffrey Peterson, who fishes out of the island town of Vinalhaven, Maine, said he’s sure he’ll be able to load his traps with bait this summer. He’s just concerned about how expensive it’ll be to do so.

“It’ll be around,” he said. “It’s just how much they gouge you for it.”
…

The Eiffel Tower was plunged into darkness late on Saturday as the city of Paris switched off the lights on its best-known tourist attraction to mark this 

year’s Earth Hour. 

The 13th annual edition of the global event, organized by environmental group World Wildlife Fund to push for action on climate change and other man-made threats to the planet, called for nearly 200 major landmarks around the world to be unplugged at 8:30 p.m. local time.

They included New York’s Empire State Building, the Christ the Redeemer statue in Brazil and the Sydney Opera House.

Ahead of the Eiffel Tower shutdown, Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo and Junior Environment Minister Brune Poirson appeared at the foot of the 130-year-old edifice for a public discussion on global warming and declining biodiversity. 

Earth Hour has grown steadily since the first event in 2007 and is now marked in more than 180 countries and territories, according to its organizers.
…

The Eiffel Tower, the Empire State Building, the Sydney Opera House, the Brandenburg Gate, the Acropolis and many more iconic landmarks went dark at 8:30 p.m. local time, Saturday night, for Earth Hour, an annual call for local action on climate change.

Earth Hour is the brain child of the World Wildlife Fund.

“By going dark for Earth Hour, we can show steadfast commitment to protecting our families, our communities and our planet from the dangerous effects of a warming world,” said Lou Leonard, WWF senior vice president, climate and energy. “The rising demand for energy, food and water means this problem is only going to worsen, unless we act now.”

Individuals and companies around the world participated in the hour-long demonstration to show their support for the fight against climate change and the conservation of the natural world.

WWF said Earth’s “rich biodiversity, the vast web of life that connects the health of oceans, rivers and forests to the prosperity of communities and nations, is threatened.”

The fund also reports that wildlife populations monitored by WWF “have experienced an average decline of 60 percent in less than a single person’s lifetime, and many unique and precious species are at risk of vanishing forever.”

“We have to ask ourselves what we’re willing to do after the lights come back on,” Leonard said. “If we embrace bold solutions, we still have time to stabilize the climate and safeguard our communities and the diverse wildlife, ecosystems and natural resources that sustain us all.”

“We are the first generation to know we are destroying the world,” WWF said. “And we could be the last that can do anything about it.”
…

Lyft Inc shares on Friday opened up 21.2 percent at $87.24 in its market debut on the Nasdaq after the company was valued at $24.3 billion in the first initial public offering (IPO) of a ride-hailing startup.

On Thursday, Lyft said it priced 32.5 million shares, slightly more that it was offering originally, at $72, the top of its already elevated $70-$72 per share target range for the IPO.

After a few minutes of trading, shares were up 18.6 percent at $85.42.

Instead of celebrating the first day of trading at the Nasdaq in New York, Lyft opted to mark the occasion at a defunct auto dealership in downtown Los Angeles.

A couple hundred people – Lyft staff, family and friends, stakeholders and Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti – gathered before dawn for the kick-off event.

Lyft has recently bought the facility to turn it into a driver services center, the first of several it plans to open across the U.S. in the coming months, where drivers can get discounted services like help with taxes or charging electric vehicles.
…

Influential figures in Washington are calling for the establishment of a bilateral free-trade agreement with Taiwan, even as U.S. and Chinese officials move toward a resolution of their long-running trade dispute. 

“We have a lot of issues with Beijing, and a lot of opportunities with Taiwan,” said Edwin J. Feulner in an interview with VOA. Feulner is the founder and former president of the Heritage Foundation, an influential think tank in Washington known for its conservative views and ties with the Republican Party. 

Feulner thinks trade negotiations between Washington and Beijing will most likely conclude within 60 days, at which point a full-force push for a bilateral trade agreement with Taiwan could begin. Those talks would be “more or less independent of what’s going on with bilateral negotiations with Beijing,” he said. 

WATCH: Feulner: Taiwan Not Seen by Administration as ‘Bargaining Chip’

Feulner predicted “huge bipartisan support on Capitol Hill” for such an agreement. “Both Republican and Democrat, both House and Senate members, are overwhelmingly positive that a free China can exist, and can be there in the world community today,” he said.  

WATCH: Feulner: ‘We Intend to Strengthen Our Friends’ 

However, any such deal could be expected to anger authorities in Beijing, who see Taiwan as a renegade Chinese province and adamantly oppose any initiatives that treat the island as an independent country or entity.   

The international community has seen how Beijing tries to make Taiwan pay for any inroads it makes toward international recognition, said Scott W. Harold, a senior political scientist at the RAND Corporation, a global policy research group. But Beijing’s problem, he said, “is that they’ve dialed the pain up so high, so often, that it’s hard to see what more they can do.”  

On Wednesday, Feulner invited Taiwan’s President Tsai Ing-wen to participate by Skype in a conference at the Heritage Foundation in Washington. Tsai, on a stopover in Hawaii after visiting three Indo-Pacific nations that still maintain diplomatic relations with Taiwan, told the audience her government was enthusiastic about the prospect of bilateral trade talks with the U.S. 

“If we can have a breakthrough in trade with the U.S., this will be very helpful in terms of encouraging many other trading partners to do the same,” she said, adding that a trade deal with the United States would reduce Taipei’s reliance on China “as they increase their political influence in Taiwan, primarily using economic actors.” 

Tsai expressed hope that talks with Washington will include discussion about Taiwan’s role in the global high-tech supply chain “amid concerns of technology theft and control over 5G networks” by Beijing. 

Two prominent members of the U.S. Congress joined Feulner in welcoming Tsai to the U.S. and expressed their support for a bilateral free-trade agreement. Sen. Cory Gardner of Colorado, a Republican and a member of the Foreign Relations Committee, called the pursuit of a bilateral free-trade agreement with Taiwan “imperative.” 

Common values

Rep. Ted Yoho of Florida, a member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee and the most senior Republican on its subcommittee on East Asia, the Pacific and Nonproliferation, told Tsai and the audience that “trade is important between our nations, but more important than that is our common belief in the values we hold, the democracies that we have together. That in itself is the thing that really binds us together.” 

Steve Yates, former U.S. government official and longtime observer of U.S.-Taiwan relations, told VOA that President Donald Trump has “unhesitatingly signed” a series of resolutions and bills in support of closer ties between Washington and Taipei. To him, this signals it might be time “for the administration and Congress to be able to cross that bridge and get some results.” 
…

Britons desperately wanting some clarity in the country’s interminable Brexit saga were disappointed Wednesday when lawmakers plunged the country’s proposed exit from the European Union, after half-a-century of membership, into further disarray, failing to find a majority for any way forward after a series of so-called indicative votes.

The hope had been a majority might emerge from the eight different options they voted on, which included staying in the EU, leaving with no withdrawal agreement, remaining in the bloc’s customs union and/or single market or holding a second Brexit referendum.

“Parliament Finally Has Its Say: No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No.” Britain’s Guardian newspaper announced on its front-page Thursday.

“In summary: the Commons has now overwhelmingly rejected every single type of Brexit, and no Brexit,” tweeted Michel Deacon, the Daily Telegraph’s parliamentary sketch-writer. The option of leaving without a deal was defeated by a huge margin. So, too, was a motion that would see Brexit cancelled altogether.

It wasn’t what the organizers of the indicative votes in the House of Commons had hoped would be the upshot. Backed by the opposition parties and pro-EU Conservative rebels they seized control of the parliamentary agenda from the government, the first time in 140 years that Downing Street hasn’t called the shots on what can be debated and when on the floor of the House of Commons.

“This is going well. Putting the Commons in charge was clearly a brilliant idea,” tweeted Andrew Neil, the arch-Brexiter presenter of a BBC politics show. The EU’s chief executive Jean-Claude Juncker said Britain’s intentions had become more mysterious than those of the mythological sphinxes guarding ancient tombs.

More confusion

To add to the confusion in London, just before the indicative voting, an  exhausted Prime Minister Theresa May told her Conservative lawmakers she would relinquish the party leadership and resign as prime minister, but only if her contentious Brexit withdrawal agreement, which parliament has twice rejected, is passed.

May’s announcement was a last-ditch bid to persuade Conservative Brexiters to back her withdrawal agreement, a deal they disapprove of because it would keep Britain closely aligned with the European Union and obedient to its rules while a longer-term trade relationship is negotiated.

A hardcore of Conservative Eurosceptics and ten lawmakers from Northern Ireland’s Democratic Unionist Party, who May has to rely on because her government is a minority one, have adamantly refused to back her deal. They say the plan poses a risk to the integrity of the union of the United Kingdom. The DUP believes if it took effect, it would cause trade differences between Northern Ireland and Great Britain, and create in effect a “border down the Irish Sea.”

There were no signs Thursday that May will be able to persuade enough holdouts to vote for her deal, if it is put before the Commons for a third time, leaving Britain on course to crash out of the EU without a deal on April 12, unless the British government requests, for the second time, a Brexit postponement.

EU negotiators have indicated they might be open to another delay, but only if it is a lengthy one of a year or more.

It remains unclear how the political deadlock in London can be broken. The idea of leaving without a transition deal has strong opposition in the Commons and would likely be blocked by a majority of lawmakers.

Frustration on EU side

EU negotiators, out of exasperation, could decide to raise the stakes and decline another Brexit postponement, hoping to force the Commons to stop Brexit altogether, say some analysts. But it is unlikely they would risk such a high stakes gamble, fearing that might push Britain into crashing out by accident as much as by design.

European Council President, Donald Tusk, said last week in Brussels that the European Union will work with Britain for as long as it takes and on Wednesday he urged European lawmakers to be open to a long delay in Britain’s departure.

That leaves Britain trapped — paralyzed by a deadlocked House of Commons, itself a reflection of a country split down the middle over staying a member of the EU or quitting. With all avenues seemingly leading to dead-ends, there is more talk now in the British parliament of the need to hold an general election, hoping that returns a parliament that is not so undecided.

Behind-the-scenes Cabinet ministers and Conservative party officials are war-gaming calling an election three years ahead of schedule. David Davies, a pro-Brexit Conservative MP who quit as Brexit minister, says “a general election is a lot more likely now.” He added: “I don’t say it’s going to happen, but clearly if a government can’t get through on the one issue which we were really elected to deal with at the last election it puts us all in a very difficult situation.”

The problem in calling a snap election is the British public doesn’t want another one so soon after the Conservatives called another early poll two years ago, according to opinion surveys, with just 12 percent backing the idea.

The other problem for the Conservatives is that they would be fighting an election with a leader who has announced she intends to step down soon and heading a party that’s even more deeply and rancorously divided than the main opposition Labour party.

In the division lobbies on Wednesday some Conservative lawmakers on different sides of the Brexit question were spotted cursing each other and one clash prompted the intervention of colleagues, who feared a brawl might break out.

Commons in charge

Organizers of Wednesday’s indicative voting are placing some hopes that the Commons can still break the deadlock. They say clarity could be reached on Monday when lawmakers are due for another session of indicative voting, this time on the options that attracted the most support.

Labour’s Stephen Doughty said they never expected the votes on Wednesday to reveal a majority for one option. The whole idea was to narrow down the alternatives that have the most support and for parliament then to reconsider.

The two closest votes Wednesday were for staying in the EU’s customs union and another for a second referendum confirming any Brexit departure. Both attracted more votes than May’s deal has got the two occasions it was voted on in parliament. Campaigners for a second referendum appear buoyed.

They believe Britons have shifted their attitudes on Brexit since the 2016 referendum, pointing to a new polling study by veteran pollster John Curtice, which indicates voters are becoming increasingly doubtful about Brexit. The study suggests two and half years after the plebiscite, leaving the European Union may not now reflect majority thinking.

 
…

Iceland’s budget carrier WOW Air said it had ceased operations and cancelled all flights on Thursday, potentially stranding thousands of passengers.

The collapse of the troubled airline, which transports more than a third of those traveling to Iceland, comes after buyout talks with rival Icelandair collapsed earlier this week.

“All WOW Air flights have been cancelled. Passengers are advised to check available flights with other airlines,” the carrier said in a statement.

“Some airlines may offer flights at a reduced rate, so-called rescue fares, in light of the circumstances. Information on those airlines will be published, when it becomes available.”

WOW Air, founded in 2011, exploited Iceland’s location in the middle of the North Atlantic to offer a low-cost service between Europe and North America as well as tapping into a tourist boom to the volcanic island.

However it had flown into financial trouble in recent years due to heightened competition and rising fuel prices, and had been searching for an investor for months.

On Monday WOW Air said it was in talks to restructure its debt with its creditors after Icelandair ended brief negotiations over buying a stake in the no-frills airline.

WOW Air was left needing $42 million to save the company, according to the Frettabladid newspaper.

The privately-owned airline has undergone major restructuring after posting a pre-tax loss of almost $42 million for the first nine months of 2018.

It has reduced its fleet from 20 to 11 aircraft, eliminating several destinations, including those to the US, and cutting 111 full-time jobs.

A report by a governmental work group has warned that a WOW Air bankruptcy would lead to a drop in Iceland’s gross domestic product, a drop in the value of the krona and rising inflation.

 
…

Nearly one in three people living in West and Central Africa fear losing their homes and land in the next five years, according to a survey of 33 countries, making it the region where people feel most insecure about their property.

More than two in five respondents from Burkina Faso and Liberia worry their home could be taken away from them, revealed Prindex, a global property rights index which gauges citizens’ views.

In West Africa, “a history of governments and investors seizing land for large projects has made people more insecure,” said Malcolm Childress, executive director of the Global Land Alliance, a Washington-based think tank that compiles the index.

Insecurity can lead to people struggling to plan for their futures, holding back entire economies, Childress said.

“In countries like Rwanda, however, which are mapping and registering customary land, that uncertainty is much lower,” he told the Thomson Reuters Foundation, adding that only 8 percent of the country’s respondents feared losing their homes.

In Southeast Asia and Latin America, which Childress said had strong institutions documenting land, only 21 percent and 19 percent of people, respectively, reported feeling insecure about their property.

The survey, conducted by U.S. polling firm Gallup and launched in Washington, D.C., at a World Bank conference on Tuesday, is the largest ever effort documenting how secure people feel about their homes and land at a global level.

A lack of formal documentation and poor implementation of land laws threaten tenure in many countries, experts say, with more than 5 billion people lacking proof of ownership, according to the Lima-based Institute for Liberty and Democracy.

Survey respondents cited being asked by their landlord to leave the property as well as family disagreements as the main reasons for feeling insecure.

The index also found that 12 percent more women than men felt they might lose their property in the event of divorce or death of a spouse.

That gap shows “there is a long way to go in meeting the aspiration of equal economic rights for women worldwide,” said Anna Locke from the Overseas Development Institute, a British think tank that is involved in the index.

The survey for the first time sampled respondents in Britain, where 11 percent of people feared losing their home, mainly due to a lack of money or other resources.

More than 50,000 people were questioned about ownership or tenure in 33 countries most of them from Africa, Latin America and Asia. Over the next year, the poll will be extended to 140 countries.

Prindex is an initiative of the Omidyar Network — with which the Thomson Reuters Foundation has a partnership on land rights coverage — and the U.K.’s Department for International Development.
…

Than Ei lived in the Thilawa area near Yangon for years, growing vegetables in her backyard and sending her two children to school with money from her husband’s construction job.

Then came the government order to move. Than Ei’s family was among 68 households relocated in 2013 to make way for the Thilawa Special Economic Zone (SEZ), the first such industrial area in Myanmar, about 23km (15 miles) southeast of Yangon.

Authorities said each family would get a home a few miles away, or a plot of land and money to build a house, as well as jobs in the new factories, with good wages.

But six years on, Than Ei and others who moved say their incomes are lower than before, and they have only limited access to services. Many families sold their homes and left the area after they ran out of money, Than Ei said.

“There is no land to grow vegetables or to keep chickens, and we are not close to transport or the market anymore,” Than Ei said outside her one-room home in Myaing Thar Yar village.

“My husband only got a job as a security guard two years after (the move). We had to take out a loan until then, which we are still paying off.”

For developing nations like Myanmar – which emerged from decades of economic isolation in 2011 when the military stepped back from direct control – SEZs are seen as a way to attract much-needed foreign investment and create jobs.

Authorities say Thilawa SEZ is being built according to international environmental and social safeguards, which includes getting the consent of residents and offering adequate compensation.

But for those whose lives have been uprooted by the country’s economic ambitions, the reality is different, said Mike Griffiths, a researcher at the Myanmar Social Policy and Poverty Research Group, a think tank based in Yangon.

“They not only have lower levels of income, but are more likely to have higher expenditure, higher rates of debt and lower employment rates,” he wrote in a report last year on the relocated households. “The picture is of extreme vulnerability.”

Risky Model

The model for economic growth that Myanmar and other countries in the region hope to emulate is that of China, which in the 1980s set up about half a dozen major SEZs to boost its market reforms.

Experts say SEZs have contributed significantly to China’s economic growth, with the World Bank estimating in 2015 that they accounted for nearly a quarter of the country’s GDP.

Spurred by China’s example, governments from sub-Saharan Africa to southeast Asia have adopted SEZs, but analysts say they have a mixed record of success.

“The model has passed its use-by-date, and officials have been slow to catch on,” said Charlie Thame, a professor of political science at Bangkok’s Thammasat University.

“Even from an economic point of view they are fraught with risk, mostly borne by host states.”

In poorer nations, SEZs “overwhelmingly fail to provide decent jobs or generate beneficial effects to local economies,” he said, and domestic legislation and international investment frameworks largely fail to protect those affected.

No Consultation

When completed, the Thilawa SEZ will cover some 2,400 hectares (9 sq. miles) of land. Dozens of manufacturers, largely making goods for export, are already operating there.

Thilawa is the only operational SEZ in the country, with the Dawei SEZ in the southern region of Tanintharyi on hold after some initial construction. A third SEZ is planned, with Chinese investment, in Kyauk Pyu in Rakhine state.

The site in Thilawa had been earmarked for industrial use under the junta government in 1996, but the original plans fell through.

When authorities announced the start of development for the SEZ six years ago, they said since the land already belonged to the government, villagers living on it were only eligible to be compensated for their crops.

None of the residents made to move were consulted on the economic or social impacts of the development, said Mya Hlaing, a member of the Thilawa Social Development Group, which was set up to represent the villagers.

“We were also promised training and jobs, but very few have got jobs – and even then, only as cleaners and security guards,” he told the Thomson Reuters Foundation.

A spokesman for Myanmar Japan Thilawa Development, which operates Zone 1 of the SEZ, said the land acquisition was carried out by government authorities, and that those affected had been offered several job opportunities.

Myanmar authorities did not respond to calls and e-mails seeking comment.

Backlash

About 600km away in southern Myanmar, development of the Dawei SEZ has been suspended since 2013, after it sparked community protests and hit funding difficulties.

The project is a joint venture of the Thai and Myanmar governments, and includes a 140-km road to the Thai border, a port, a power plant, a reservoir and an industrial estate.

Most residents affected by the initial phase of construction refused to move into the nearly 500 homes that had been built a couple of miles away.

“We were not told what types of factories would be built or what their impact would be,” said Mar Lar, who sold some of her land in the southern Htein Gyi village but still lives in her own home.

Residents in Dawei fear construction on the stalled project will resume soon, even as a backlash against SEZs is growing.

Protests broke out in Vietnam last year over planned new SEZs.

In India, the Supreme Court has asked why land acquired for SEZs is not being used, and the Myanmar government has scaled back its Kyauk Pyu project with China over fears of a debt trap.

But back in Thilawa, the second phase of construction is about to kick off and will see the relocation of more than 800 families, said Aye Khaing Win, a community leader.

“The government says the SEZ has done many good things, but we have lost our land. We have not benefited,” he said.
…

U.S. labor officials on Tuesday pressed lawmakers to strengthen enforcement of the provisions of the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA) intended to protect workers, the latest sign that the trade deal could face hurdles to passage in the Democrat-led House of Representatives.

Renegotiation of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) was one of President Donald Trump’s campaign promises and part of his broader push for better terms of trade for the United States. He has said that bad deals have cost millions of jobs.

Representatives from some of the largest and most influential unions in the United States told lawmakers on Tuesday that the reworked pact does not go far enough to ensure improvement of wages and working conditions, especially for Mexican workers.

“All the NAFTA renegotiation efforts in the world will not create U.S. jobs, raise U.S. wages or reduce the U.S. trade deficit if the new rules do not include clear, strong and effective labor rules that require Mexico to abandon its low wage policy,” Celeste Drake of the American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations said at a House Ways and Means subcommittee hearing.

In late 2018, the leaders of the United States, Mexico and Canada signed the deal to replace NAFTA, but it has yet to be reviewed and ratified by Congress. Trade among the three countries totals more than $1 trillion.

Democrats, who took control of the House of Representatives in January, have traditionally been skeptical of free trade agreements and sympathetic to labor groups. Their support is essential to USMCA’s passage.

USMCA requires its three signatories to maintain labor laws in line with international standards, and to enforce them. But critics have called the agreement’s enforcement mechanism insufficient, saying it will still allow weak unions and resulting low wages in Mexico, while failing to stanch the flight of U.S. factories to lower-cost Mexico.

NAFTA, launched in 1994, put labor provisions in an unenforceable addendum to the agreement, allowing Mexican wages to stagnate despite a flood of factory investment from U.S. companies.

“The (USMCA) labor chapter is an improvement. The problem is the enforceability mechanism,” said Shane Larson, a director with the Communications Workers of America, advocating for reopening the agreement.

Autoworkers, too, are concerned about the new agreement, despite provisions aimed at requiring more vehicle value content produced in North America and in high-wage areas in the United States and Canada.

USMCA “takes some positive steps but doesn’t measure up to being able to make more good-paying jobs now and going forward,” said Josh Nassar, legislative director of the United Auto Workers union.

The imposition of NAFTA led to decades of lost jobs for autoworkers, who watched U.S. factories close as manufacturers moved production to Mexico.

House Democrats have greeted USMCA coolly, telling U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer earlier this month about their concerns about labor enforcement and provisions that could lock in higher drug prices.

“This agreement is a continuation of the assault on the American middle class,” Brian Higgins, a Democratic representative from New York, said on Tuesday at the hearing.

The Trump administration is lobbying to persuade Congress to ratify USMCA this year. Trump visited Capitol Hill on Tuesday to meet with Senate Republicans, and discussed the trade pact with House Republicans later in the afternoon.
…

The White House and business groups are stepping up efforts to win congressional approval for the U.S.-Mexico-Canada trade accord. But prospects are uncertain given that Republicans are at odds with some aspects of the plan and Democrats are in no hurry to secure a political victory for the president.

President Donald Trump will meet with GOP lawmakers Tuesday to try to kick-start the process for rounding up votes on Capitol Hill. Supporters in Congress and business groups say they have a narrow window to push it through, given that lawmakers tend to avoid tough trade votes during election season.

Rep. Earl Blumenauer, D-Ore., the chairman of the House subcommittee that has jurisdiction over trade, said the pact needs adjustments to be “worthy of support.”

Some Republican lawmakers also have concerns. Sen. Chuck Grassley of Iowa, the Republican chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, maintains that the president should lift steel and aluminum tariffs on products brought in from Canada and Mexico as a first step to getting the trade agreement through Congress.

Trump’s top trade negotiator, Robert Lighthizer, told lawmakers during a recent congressional hearing that if they don’t pass the trade agreement, the United States will have “no credibility at all” with future trading partners, including China.

“There is no trade program in the United States if we don’t pass USMCA. There just isn’t one,” Lighthizer said.

The White House’s legislative affairs team has talked to more than 290 members of Congress and staff over the past two months to push the deal. But the administration knows that making changes in the agreement to win over lawmakers could jeopardize support for the pact from Canada and Mexico.

Sen. Joni Ernst, R-Iowa, told reporters recently that many in her state’s agricultural community are “still with the president, but if we don’t get the trade deals done, they could turn quickly.”

She said, “We need to start wrapping this baby up.”

​The trade deal is designed to supplant the North American Free Trade Agreement, which took effect in 1994 and gradually eliminated tariffs on goods produced and traded within North America.

U.S. trade with its NAFTA partners has more than tripled since the agreement took effect, and more rapidly than trade with the rest of the world.

But Trump has called NAFTA a disaster for the United States. The new pact his administration negotiated is meant to increase manufacturing in the United States. Trump is warning that if lawmakers don’t approve the pact, the U.S. may revert to what he has described as “pre-NAFTA.”

Blumenauer is looking to make changes to the agreement in four areas: enhancing environmental and labor protections, ensuring enforcement of the agreement, and taking on protections for pharmaceutical companies that he believes drive up drug costs for consumers.

“I don’t think anyone wants to blow it up, but there is interest in strengthening it,” Blumenauer said.

Rep. Vern Buchanan of Florida, the ranking Republican on the trade subcommittee, said he believes the vast majority of Republicans will end up voting for the agreement. He’s tried to assure Democratic colleagues that Republicans were “open-minded to try and get some things done” to address their concerns.

“You put a lot of jobs at risk if this blows up,” Buchanan said.

Vanessa Sciarra, a vice president at the National Foreign Trade Council, said it’s too soon to tell how the vote will shake out.

Sciarra said one thing lawmakers don’t want to see is Trump make good on a threat to withdraw from NAFTA if he can’t get Congress to ratify the pact.

“Never has NAFTA been so popular,” Sciarra said.

Canadian officials have been lobbying the U.S. to end Trump’s steel and aluminum tariffs and have suggested that approval by Canada’s Parliament could be conditioned upon them being lifted. David MacNaughton, Ottawa’s ambassador to Washington, has said it will be a tough sell to pass if the tariffs are still in place.

Dan Ujczo, a trade lawyer and Canada-U.S. specialist in Columbus, Ohio, said the trade deal could pass “relatively quickly” once the tariffs are removed.

In Mexico, the administration of then-President Enrique Pena Nieto spearheaded Mexico’s negotiations, but representatives of current President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador were deeply involved in the talks to ensure an agreement that both the outgoing and incoming administrations could live with.

Allies of Lopez Obrador, who took office Dec. 1, enjoy a large majority in the Mexican Senate, so passage of the agreement would seemingly go smoothly.

Kenneth Smith Ramos, who was chief negotiator for Pena Nieto’s government and now works as an international trade consultant at Mexico City-based AGON, said Mexican enthusiasm for the deal could dim though if there are significant new demands on labor, pharmaceuticals, the environment or other issues.

“We made some important concessions,” he said, adding that if “the U.S. still wants more, then that starts to unbalance the agreement and there may be a growing opposition in Mexico.”
…