Very Rare Move as Democrats Are Backing President Trump on China trade probe

WASHINGTON: Three top Democratic senators, in a rare show of bipartisanship, on Wednesday urged US President Donald Trump to stand up to China as he prepares to launch an inquiry into Beijing's intellectual property and trade practices in coming days.

Senate Democratic leader Mr Chuck Schumer pressed the Republican President to skip the investigation and go straight to trade action against China.

"We should certainly go after them," said Mr Schumer in a statement. Senators Ron Wyden of Oregon and Sherrod Brown of Ohio also urged Mr Trump to rein in China.

Tensions between Washington and Beijing have escalated in recent months as Mr Trump has pressed China to cut steel production to ease global oversupply and rein in North Korea's missile program.

Sources familiar with the current discussions said Mr Trump was expected to issue a presidential memorandum in coming days, citing Chinese theft of intellectual property as a problem. The European Union, Japan, Germany and Canada have all expressed concern over China's behavior on intellectual property theft.




US Trade Representative (USTR) Mr Robert Lighthizer would then initiate an investigation under the Trade Act of 1974's Section 301, which allows the president to unilaterally impose tariffs or other trade restrictions to protect US industries, the sources said.

It is unclear whether such a probe would result in trade sanctions against China, which Beijing would almost certainly challenge before the World Trade Organization (WTO).

The Chinese Embassy in Washington said in a statement to Reuters that China "opposes unilateral actions and trade protectionism in any form."

A spokesman for China's Ministry of Commerce told reporters in Beijing on Thursday that China puts a strong emphasis on intellectual property rights and that all WTO members should respect the rules of the organization.

"We hope the positive momentum of cooperation can continue following recent bilateral trade talks," said Commerce Ministry spokesman Gao Feng.

LEVERAGE FOR NEGOTIATIONS
U.S. Section 301 investigations have not led to trade sanctions since the WTO was launched in 1995. In the 1980s, Section 301 tariffs were levied against Japanese motorcycles, steel and other products.




"This could merely be leverage for bilateral negotiations," Mr James Bacchus, a former WTO chief judge and USTR official, said of a China intellectual property probe.

Some trade lawyers said that WTO does not have jurisdiction over investment rules such as China's requirements that foreign companies transfer technology to their joint venture partners, allowing sanctions to proceed outside the WTO's dispute settlement system.

But Mr Bacchus argued the United States has an obligation to turn first to the Geneva-based institution to resolve trade disputes, adding: "There is an obligation in WTO to enforce intellectual property rights that is not fully explored."

Mr Lighthizer and Mr Trump's Commerce Secretary, Wilbur Ross, have complained the WTO is slow to resolve disputes and is biased against the United States.

The threat comes at a time when Mr Trump has become increasingly frustrated with the level of support from Beijing to pressure Pyongyang to give up its nuclear and missile program.

Mr Trump has said in the past that China would get better treatment on trade with the United States if it acted more forcefully against Pyongyang. Beijing has said its influence on North Korea is limited.

China counters that trade between the two nations benefits both sides, and that Beijing is willing to improve trade ties.

A senior Chinese official said on Monday there was no link between North Korea's nuclear program and China-US trade.

Mr Wyden, the top Democrat on the Senate Finance Committee, wrote to Mr Lighthizer urging action to stop China from pressuring US tech companies into giving up intellectual property rights.

Mr Wyden's state of Oregon is home to several companies that could make a case regarding intellectual property rights and China, including Nike Inc. and FLIR Systems Inc.

President Trump Signs Russia Sanctions Bill Reluctantly

President Trump reluctantly signed a bill imposing new sanctions against Russia on Wednesday, calling some of the provisions in the legislation “clearly unconstitutional” and still managing to rankle Moscow in the process.

Trump blasted the bill as “significantly flawed” — mostly because it limits his power.

He said he chose to sign the papers anyway “for the sake of national unity.”

The bill punishes Russia for its attempts to interfere in last year’s election, and also slaps sanctions on North Korea and Iran for human rights violations.

It includes provisions restricting Trump from lifting the sanctions without congressional support — which obviously maddened a man who sees himself as a master businessman.




“I built a truly great company worth many billions of dollars. That is a big part of the reason I was elected,” Trump said in his statement. “As President, I can make far better deals with foreign countries than Congress.”

The President wasn’t the only one who took umbrage with the bill.

Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev called the sanctions tantamount to a “full-scale trade war,” adding in a Facebook post that they showed the Trump administration had demonstrated “utter powerlessness.”

The House and Senate both passed the measure last week with nearly complete bipartisan support.

Russian President Vladimir Putin with President Trump. (EVAN VUCCI/AP)

Despite Trump’s objections, House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) praised the new law.

“Today, the United States sent a powerful message to our adversaries that they will be held accountable for their actions,” he said.

“These sanctions directly target the destructive and destabilizing activities of Iran, Russia and North Korea.”

While Congress has stalled on most major legislation so far under Trump, this was one of the few bills to draw strong approval from both parties.

The wall of support made clear that a potential Trump veto would not stand.

The President pushed back on early attempts to pass the bill, while he has continued shrugging off U.S. intelligence findings about Russia attacking the election to help his campaign.

Trump has blasted his predecessor, President Barack Obama, for doing “nothing” about Russia’s actions, but never announced his own intentions to repudiate the Kremlin.

His administration, however, did throw sanctions on Russia in June as retaliation for its aggressive military actions in Ukraine.

The bill ruffled feathers in Moscow, even as Trump has called for closer relations with the Kremlin.

After Congress passed the sanctions bill, Russian President Vladimir Putin fired back by cutting 755 U.S. diplomatic jobs in his country, reducing the American staff to only a few hundred members.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said “retaliatory measures already have been taken,” and there would be no further punishments on the U.S.

As of Wednesday night, Trump — usually quick to lash out at slights — had made no comment about Russia’s anti-U.S. move.

The President waited nearly a week to sign the sanctions bill, and he did so only after Secretary of State Tillerson made clear that neither of them approved of it.

“The action by the Congress to put these sanctions in place and the way they did, neither the President nor I were very happy about that,” Tillerson told reporters on Tuesday.

Tillerson has been as hesitant as Trump to take action against Russia. Politico reported Wednesday that he has been sitting on nearly $80 million reserved for the State Department to combat cyberattacks from Russia, as well as terrorist organizations.

President Trump Tweeted About London attack And He Was Criticized

President Donald Trump on Sunday called for an end to political correctness, suggesting that terrorism “will only get worse” if the U.S. doesn’t “get smart” and reinstate his administration’s travel ban.

“We must stop being politically correct and get down to the business of security for our people. If we don’t get smart it will only get worse,” the president warned in a tweet Sunday morning.


Trump’s initial response to Saturday’s terror attack in London — which claimed seven lives, left dozens more hospitalized and ended with police shooting dead three attackers — urged the courts to reinstate the travel ban.











“We need the courts to give us back our rights. We need the Travel Ban as an extra level of safety!” the president wrote Saturday night, minutes before assuring London and the United Kingdom that the U.S. will do whatever it can to assist in wake of the attack.

On Sunday, though, the president took a different tack, stoking fears from his personal Twitter account while also criticizing London’s mayor, Sadiq Khan, and noting “we are not having a gun debate right now … because they used knives and a truck!”

Authorities said a white van mounted the pavement on the London Bridge on Saturday night, hitting a number of pedestrians. The van later drove to Borough Market, a venue with many bars and restaurants on the south side of the river Thames and very close to London Bridge. The attackers jumped out of the van and stabbed a number of people but were shot dead by police within eight minutes of the first emergency call.

Khan, London’s first Muslim mayor, told the BBC that no words could describe the grief and anger London feels.

“I’m appalled and furious that these cowardly terrorists would deliberately target innocent Londoners and bystanders enjoying their Saturday night. There can be no justification for the acts of these terrorists, and I’m quite clear that we will never let them win, nor will we allow them to cower our city of Londoners,” Khan said.

He added that Londoners will see an increased police presence over the next few days but said there’s no reason to be alarmed by that.

Trump, who drew criticism for promoting a Drudge Report tweet that NBC’s “Nightly News” refused to share because “the info is unconfirmed,” mischaracterized Khan’s remark Sunday.

“At least 7 dead and 48 wounded in terror attack and Mayor of London says there is ‘no reason to be alarmed!’” Trump said. His social media director, Dan Scavino, urged Khan to “WAKE UP!!!!”

Khan criticized Trump during the U.S. presidential campaign, tweeting in May 2016 that his “ignorant view of Islam could make both our countries less safe” and “risks alienating mainstream Muslims.”

Candidate Trump proposed a “Muslim ban,” but his administration has maintained that its executive order is not a ban on Muslims entering the country but rather a national security directive to keep Americans safe.

After a rampage at a casino in Manila, Philippines, early Friday, Trump labeled it a terrorist attack. But authorities said the incident was likely a robbery attempt.

Trump has often tweeted following terrorist attacks. In April, the president wrote that a shooting on Paris’ Champs Elysées “will have a big effect on presidential election.” Authorities said the attack was “likely terrorist-related.” And following an attack at an Ariana Grande concert in Manchester, England, Trump called the attacker an “evil loser” during remarks while he was overseas in Bethlehem.

Trump has asked the Supreme Court to revive his complex and controversial travel ban executive order, which has been repeatedly blocked by lower courts — even after the administration introduced a revised order in March.

The Justice Department on Thursday asked the Supreme Court to temporarily lift injunctions barring officials from carrying out Trump’s directive to suspend visa issuance to citizens of six majority-Muslim countries and halt the flow of refugees to the U.S. from across the globe. The high court could review the legality of the travel ban this fall.

Republicans in Congress, however, are skeptical about the fate of the ban. Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) said Sunday that she disagrees with the president’s view that the travel ban needs to be enacted now.

“I think that the travel ban is too broad, and that is why it has been rejected by the courts,” she told "Face the Nation” on CBS. “The president is right, however, that we need to do a better job of vetting individuals who are coming from war-torn countries into our nation, but I do believe that the very broad ban that he has proposed is not the right way to go.”

Asked on “Fox News Sunday” whether the Supreme Court would reinstate Trump’s travel ban, Sen. Roy Blunt (R-Mo.) couldn’t say.

“I don’t know what the court will decide,” he said.

Trump spoke with British Prime Minister Theresa May by phone on Saturday, according to a readout from the White House, which said the president “offered his condolences” and “praised the heroic response of police and other first responders.”

May said Saturday that the attack was being treated as a “potential act of terrorism,” which she confirmed on Sunday.

“We believe we are experiencing a new trend in the threat we face as terrorism breeds terrorism, and perpetrators are inspired to attack not only on the basis of carefully constructed plots after years of planning and training — and not even as lone attackers radicalized online — but by copying one another and often using the crudest of means of attack,” May said. “We cannot and must not pretend that things can continue as they are.”

The Anne Frank Center, a nonprofit that focuses on civil and human rights activism, condemned Trump’s first response Saturday, tweeting “SHAME ON YOU … for dedicating your first Tweet after tonight's #LondonBridge attack to your immoral #MuslimBan.”

“Terrorism includes violence that destroys people, as well as prejudice that destroys people's souls. The response cannot be a #MuslimBan,” the center said Sunday.

Watch President Trump Announces The Pulling Of The US Out Of Paris Climate Accord

President Donald Trump announced his decision to pull the United States out of the Paris climate accord at 3 pm Eastern in the White House Rose Garden. A live stream of the announcement is embedded Below.









Multiple reports indicate that Trump is likely to announce a withdrawal from the agreement — though many of these reports have expressed at least some uncertainty, including about precisely what language Trump would use.


Jonathan Swan of Axios reported that, per “two sources with direct knowledge of the decision,” Trump has decided to pull out of the agreement. The Daily Beast’s Lachlan Markay reports that the White House is telling congressional staff that Trump will pull out. The Associated Press’s Jill Colvin and Julie Pace, though, report that “Trump’s decision may not be entirely clear-cut” and that aides continued to deliberate on “caveats in the language.”

The actual Paris deal — agreed to by 195 countries in December 2015 — is aspirational rather than binding, calling on countries to set goals for emissions reduction. Still, the withdrawal of the US would send an unmistakable signal to the rest of the world that the country with the second-highest carbon emissions is no longer interested in even pretending to care about reducing them.

For years now it’s been clear that blocking environmental regulations and obstructing action on climate change are top Republican Party priorities. The GOP’s leading politicians and media outlets have tended to praise fossil fuel companies and ignore or cast doubt on climate science. The major Republican presidential candidates harshly criticized the Paris deal in particular, and Trump promised to withdraw from it during the campaign.

Still, withdrawing from such a recent agreement that the vast majority of countries across the world have signed on to has serious consequences for America’s role as a global leader. So the question of whether the US should actually pull out of the agreement has reportedly been the subject of intense debate within the Trump administration.

According to Politico’s Andrew Restuccia and Josh Dawsey, White House chief strategist Steve Bannon and Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Scott Pruitt have been the leading voices urging Trump to withdraw, while Ivanka Trump and the so-called “New York” or “globalist” White House camp have been advocating for staying in. Silicon Valley business leaders like Apple CEO Tim Cook and Tesla CEO Elon Musk have also been arguing that the US should stick to the agreement.

Trump's Lawyers Refute Claims That He Has Russian Income Or Debt, 'With A Few Exceptions'

In a letter released Friday, President Trump's lawyers said a decade's worth of his tax returns show that he doesn't owe money to Russian lenders and that he has received no income from Russian sources, "with a few exceptions."

The exceptions include this: "In 2008, Trump Properties LLC sold an estate in Florida, that it had acquired in 2005 for approximately $41 million, to a Russian billionaire for $95 million."

That buyer was Dmitry Rybolovlev, who never moved into the 62,000-square-foot mansion before tearing it down.

Another exception was the $12.2 million made from holding the Miss Universe pageant in Moscow in 2013, according to the letter signed by attorneys Sheri A. Dillon and William F. Nelson.

The March 8 letter was addressed to Trump, who passed it along to Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C. Trump mentioned it during his Thursday NBC News interview with Lester Holt, saying he had "nothing to do with Russia. I have no investments in Russia. None whatsoever."The lawyers also noted that Trump very likely has received undisclosed payments from Russians for hotel rooms, rounds of golf and Trump-licensed products, such as wine, ties and mattresses.

Without copies of Trump's tax returns, the claims by his lawyers cannot be verified. The lawyers did not define "Russians." Many companies based in Russia use subsidiaries in other places, such as Cyprus or the British Virgin Islands, to conduct transactions overseas.

In an interview with The Economist this week, Trump dismissed calls for his tax returns. Asked whether he would release them, he replied: "I doubt it. I doubt it. Because they're not going to ... nobody cares about my tax return except for the reporters. Oh, at some point I'll release them. Maybe I'll release them after I'm finished because I'm very proud of them actually."

In recent days, the Trump administration has been caught up in an intensifying swirl of questions about potential financial ties involving Russians, Trump and his associates.

The lawyers who wrote the letter about his finances are with the firm Morgan Lewis & Bockius, which was named "Russia Law Firm of the Year" for 2016 by Chambers & Partners, which ranks lawyers.