President Trump visited Ohio, a state essential to his 2020 reelection strategy, with Australia's Prime Minister Scott Morrison,
taking the stage at a recycled-paper factory Sunday evening to
highlight the United States’ investment partnership with the country.
Trump
and Morrison visited the new factory in Wapakoneta, which is being
opened by Anthony Pratt, an Australian businessman investing billions of
dollars in the United States to create thousands of manufacturing jobs.
Wapakoneta is about an hour north of Dayton.
"If it wasn't for
your presidency, this mill would not be here today," Pratt said,
praising the Trump administration's economic and tax policies.
“Today
we celebrate the extraordinary economic partnership between our nations
and we proudly declare that Pratt Industries and this great, great
state of Ohio is open for business,” Trump said as he addressed the
cheering crowd at the new Pratt Industries plant, which was still under
construction. He added, “Australia is one of our most important allies
and trading partners with more than 65 billion dollars in trade between
our nations last year.”
President Trump and Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison
shaking hands at Pratt Industries on Sunday in Wapakoneta, Ohio.
(AP Photo/Evan Vucci)
He added, “Unlike so many other nations, Australia upholds the principles of fair and reciprocal trade.”
People
in Ohio crowded into the hot factory and chanted "USA" when the
president talked about products displaying the words "Made in America."
The plant is expected to open in a couple of weeks and has offered jobs
to veterans, which Trump highlighted as he addressed the crowd on
Sunday.
“I am especially excited to announce that one in four
workers at this plant is a veteran,” Trump said. The audience responded
with cheers.
Trump
said, “Over the next decade, Pratt Industries is creating 5000 new jobs
in the United States. This massive new investment is made possible by
the historic tax cuts and tax credits that we signed into law.”
Trump had nothing but praise for the Australian prime minister, who also praised the U.S. president.
President Trump speaking as Australian Prime Minister Scott
Morrison, center, and Pratt Industries chairman Anthony Pratt watched
during a factory tour Sunday.
(AP Photo/Evan Vucci)
“The president and I
are here today because we believe in jobs, we believe in the way jobs
transform lives,” Morrison said, adding, “What we are celebrating here
is jobs.”
He also pointed out America's 3.7-percent unemployment
rate, saying, “That is an amazing achievement, Mr. President, the lowest
unemployment rate we have seen in the United States for a very, very
long time.”
The president and first lady Melania Trump hosted Morrison and his wife, Jennifer, at a state dinner on Friday night, two days before the Ohio visit.
Earlier
Sunday, Trump visited Texas and met with Indian Prime Minister Narendra
Modi to highlight the growth of U.S. exports to India and billions of
dollars spent by India on U.S. defense equipment. Neither mentioned
trade tensions on Sunday.
Trump and Modi clasped hands as they
walked across the stage in a packed NRG Stadium in Houston, sending an
apparent message of unity between the world's two largest democracies.
The
president also discussed border security on Sunday, an important
campaign issue for Texas, which shares a border with Mexico. The Associated Press contributed to this report.
China already lost in the trade war
with the U.S. Although you will never hear Chinese authorities,
especially President Xi Jinping, admit it as such, the evidence is
everywhere and only becoming more compelling by the day.
Reuters
recently reported that based on the Chinese government's
own data, China's economic slowdown has worsened in August, with "growth
in industrial production is at its weakest in 17-1/2 years amid
spreading pain from a trade war with the United States and softening
domestic demand. Retail sales and investment gauges worsened too."
Despite such poor readings, Premier Li Keqiang insists that China is still on track to achieve 6 to 6.5 per cent growth rate this year.
Given the Chinese government's tendency to present a rosier economic picture
to satisfy political goals, most China watchers believe that Li's
statement was an about-face, and that the actual economic
situation is much worse.
Researchers
at the Brookings Institute estimated that China had inflated its GDP
growth rate by close to 2 percent every year between 2008-2016. So in
reality, China hasn't seen a 6 percent growth rate for nearly a decade
(someone should send a copy of this to Premier Li). Moreover, the actual
size of the Chinese economy was an estimated $10.9 trillion, 18 percent
lower than the officially stated $13.4 trillion, as of 2018.
More from Opinion
President
Donald Trump's trade tariffs struck the Chinese economy when it was
already declining and the effects have been devastating. The tariffs
have not only reduced imports from China , but also caused foreign
companies to shift their supply chain out of China. Beijing had hoped
that its stimulus measures, including tax cuts and easy credits to
local governments and big businesses, would reduce or even eliminate
anticipated negative impacts on the Chinese economy. However, the latest
data are a wakeup call that those stimulus measures were not sufficient
enough to absorb the blow from the trade war.
Beijing can't count
on Chinese consumers to stimulate economic growth either because of
rising pork prices. Pork is a staple food for Chinese households. Since
the trade war began, China had imposed higher tariffs on agricultural
products from the U.S., with the tariff on pork rising from 12 to 62
percent. China hoped that causing pain to U.S. farmers would pressure
Trump to back off his trade war. That strategy failed spectacularly in
two ways. First, while U.S. farmers are suffering and are critical of
the trade war, their support for the president is growing.
Bloomberg reports that, "about 67 percent of farmers are saying that
they’d back Trump for reelection in 2020."
President Trump's trade tariffs struck the Chinese economy when it was already declining and the effects have been devastating.
Second, China's
own hog industry is experiencing the worst African swine fever in
decades. The government has been criticized for its ineffective measures
to stamp out the epidemic. It is estimated that China could lose up to
50 percent of its pig population by the end of 2019. Pork prices
have spiked by more than 46 percent so far, and some experts predict the
price increase may be over 80 percent by next year. This spike has
pushed prices for other types of meat higher as well,
increasing inflation pressure to the overall economy. This has hindered
Chinese consumers' willingness and capacity to spend in other areas.
Given the pivotal role pork plays in the Chinese diet, the country could
potentially experience social unrest if the pork price continues to
skyrocket while the supply continues to be sparse.
China exempted
U.S. farm products, including soybean and pork, from additional
tariffs, effective Sept. 17. This announcement was seen widely as a
goodwill gesture ahead of the October trade talks between U.S.
and China. But this seems to be a desperate, self-serving measure,
because all the other pork exporting countries combined couldn't
fill China's supply shortage. Simply put, China has a need of pork from
the U.S., and its suspension from additional tariffs is, in essence, a
tactical and indirect acknowledgment that it won’t be able to sustain
this trade fight for much longer.
If China had hoped that it could
simply wait until Trump loses the 2020 presidential election to get out
of the trade war, it has to think again. At the most recent Democrat
presidential debate, not a single candidate proposed to remove the trade
tariffs Trump imposed on China. So even if Trump loses, China likely
would not get someone friendlier in the White House.
It
also doesn't help that, after Iran attacked Saudi oil facilities this
month, oil prices spiked and may stay elevated. Nathaniel Taplin of the
Wall Street Journal called China “the biggest loser of rising oil
prices,” because it is the world's largest crude oil importer. A
combination of higher oil and food prices will not only
increase pressure on an already slowing Chinese economy, but will also
make some of China's go-to stimulus measures, such as the devaluation of
its currency, more risky. Ironically, China has poured billions into
the Iranian economy through China's "One Road One Belt" initiative.
Chairman Xi probably didn't expect the Iranian regime to pay him back
this way.
The U.S. and China will resume trade talks in October
and China will continue to act tough in these negotiations, but its
rhetoric won't hide the fact that China has already lost the trade war.
Democratic presidential candidate former Vice President Joe Biden works
the grill during the Polk County Democrats Steak Fry, Saturday, Sept.
21, 2019, in Des Moines, Iowa. (AP Photo/Charlie Neibergall)
A GOP lawmaker said as the nation’s top diplomat, the president has
broad discretion regarding his conversations with foreign leaders.
Representative Scott Perry said Saturday, reports focus on the
president’s effort to curb alleged corruption, not the alleged
corruption itself.
He adds, with congressional oversight and aides on the line, he doesn’t believe the president would act inappropriately.
However, the Pennsylvania lawmaker said there’s at least “smoke” when
it comes to accusations of self-dealing involving the Bidens that
warrant a further look.
He even said Ukraine was offering the U.S. information about the incident during the prior administration, but wasn’t accepted.
WASHINGTON
(AP) — A whistleblower’s complaint over President Donald Trump’s
interactions with a foreign leader is testing the political and
practical power Democrats can use against a Republican in the White
House who so brazenly ignores protocol and presidential norms.
Democrats
were unanimous in their condemnation of Trump for going to
extraordinary lengths to tear down a chief political rival by asking the
new leader of Ukraine to investigate the son of former Vice President
Joe Biden. But even as calls for impeachment amplified — Elizabeth
Warren blasted Congress as “complicit” in Trump’s transgressions — there
were no signs that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi would move quickly to try
to remove the president.
Allies
of Biden, the early front-runner in the Democratic presidential
primary, seized on the developments to portray him as the candidate
Trump least wants to face next fall.
But the
controversy could just as easily revive interest in the business
activities of Biden’s son, which would do little to further his
campaign. Taken together, the developments bear a striking resemblance
to the tumult of the 2016 campaign, in which Trump was accused of
enlisting a foreign power to help him win an election.
The
president on Saturday denied any wrongdoing, and his most vocal allies
and critics were energized. Political operatives in both parties
suggested that for many increasingly numb to a constant sense of crisis,
the fresh explosion of political drama may not seem so alarming.
One thing is becoming clear: Trump is more than willing to cast aside norms to gain a political advantage.
Jesse
Ferguson, a Democratic strategist and former top aide to Hillary
Clinton, said the country “has to be ready for the president to try to
weaponize the government against them in a way we’ve never seen before
in American history.”
The president on Saturday embraced the parallels to the 2016 campaign and predicted he would prevail again in 2020.
Trump
said the latest allegations from a government whistleblower are “just
as ridiculous as the others,” branding it “the Ukraine Witch Hunt” — a
nod to former special counsel Robert Mueller’s Russia probe, which he
mocked as a “witch hunt.”
“Will fail again!” Trump tweeted.
The
complaint from the intelligence community whistleblower is based on a
series of events, including what sources now say is Trump’s conversation
with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy. The conversation happened
on July 25, just a day after Mueller wrapped up his own work by
testifying on Capitol Hill.
Trump
urged Zelenskiy to probe the activities of Biden’s son Hunter, who had
worked for a Ukrainian gas company, according to a person who was
briefed on the call.
For legal scholars and
ethics watchdogs, the interaction between Trump and the foreign leader
is seen as nothing less than a pressure campaign that cuts to the core
of the nation’s public corruption and bribery laws. It came as the White
House was holding up $250 million in military aid for Ukraine. Even if
there was no quid-pro-quo from the president, the conversation could be
seen by legal experts as improper.
“It
appears that the president might have used his official powers — in
particular, perhaps the threat of withholding a quarter-billion dollars
in military aid — to leverage a foreign government into helping him
defeat a potential political opponent in the United States,” wrote
lawyer George T. Conway III, who is married to a top Trump adviser, and
Neal Katayal, a Georgetown University law professor and former acting
solicitor general, in an op-ed in The Washington Post. “If Trump did
that, it would be the ultimate impeachable act.”
Campaigning
in Iowa on Saturday, Joe Biden said the president “deserves to be
investigated,” but he stopped short of calling for impeachment.
“He’s using the abuse of power and every element of the presidency to try to do something to smear me,” Biden told reporters.
Sen.
Chris Coons, D-Del., said Trump’s actions show “Joe Biden is correctly
perceived by President Trump as the greatest threat to his re-election.”
It’s
less clear whether the situation may ultimately hurt Biden, who has
claimed the moral high ground in his 2020 campaign. When speaking about
his experience as vice president, Biden often says he’s most proud of
the lack of scandal during his eight years in the Obama White House.
Trump’s allies hope that the focus on Biden’s involvement in Ukraine may
begin to chip away at his squeaky clean image.
“The
longer we talk about what the Bidens did in Ukraine, the better,” said
Barry Bennett, a former Trump campaign adviser, who dismissed those who
believe Trump will pay a political price for the latest controversy.
The
questions about Hunter Biden have circulated for years, particularly in
conservative circles, after he was hired in 2014 by Burisma Holdings,
whose founder had been a political ally of Russia-friendly former
Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych. At the time questions were raised
about whether the Ukrainian firm was seeking to gain influence with the
Obama administration through its employment of Joe Biden’s son.
This
year, Trump’s personal lawyer Rudolph Giuliani revived interest in the
issue and said he reached out directly to the Ukrainian government.
Joe
Biden said he’s never spoken to his son about his overseas business
dealings. Hunter Biden has denied the claims that he used his influence
with his father to aid Burisma, saying the criticism is false and stoked
by far-right political critics.
While Sen.
Warren and other Democrats say there’s no choice but to start
impeachment proceedings, other Democrats have been reluctant to launch a
process they say could scare away more moderate and centrist voters,
especially for lawmakers in Congress.
Pelosi
showed no signs of moving off her position that Congress must continue
to investigate the administration and not start impeachment proceedings
unless the American public demands it. Instead, she said that Trump
faces “repercussions” if the whistleblower’s allegations prove true and
she said it’s time to change the law to make sure future presidents can
be indicted for wrongdoing.
Democratic
strategist Jefrey Pollock, who was a pollster for former presidential
candidate Kirsten Gillibrand, suggested that the latest explosive
allegations against the Republican president would have little impact on
the broader 2020 debate.
“To date, no
scandal has seemed to impact Donald Trump on its own,” Pollock said.
“And the fact that this one involves a political rival I suspect is no
different.”
__
Associated
Press writers Alexandra Jaffe and Tom Beaumont in Des Moines, Iowa, and
Stephen Braun in Washington contributed to this report.
NYC students recently cut class for a climate change strike as more and more young people want to bring attention to the issue.
Children
today should be enjoying their youth. They arguably live in the
greatest time ever, with unparalleled access to information,
connectivity around the globe, advances in health care and tremendous
opportunity. But instead of embracing optimism, the adults in their
lives are filling them with fear.
In the last few weeks, from town halls on climate change
to “climate justice” marches, I have seen scores of children – some
teens, some squarely of elementary school-age – proclaim their anxiety
about the world ending.
Depending on the source, children are
being told that if we don’t act right now to solve one particular
“crisis” or another, we will all be dead in anywhere from 18 months to
12 years. That’s not a message of hope and optimism that kids should be
embracing.
More from Opinion
While
it is great for children to learn to be responsible global citizens and
take care of our planet, there’s a positive and responsible way to
communicate that.
I recall in my own childhood celebrating Earth
Day, where we raised money to help plant more trees (something that
actually helps the environment, by the way) and learned about recycling,
all without having the living daylights scared out of us.
Adults
can deliver the message of taking care of the planet and have an impact
doing so with positive language and outcomes instead of nihilistic ones.
While
I am not a psychologist (and I don’t play one on TV, either), I do
believe that for kids, who are developing mentally, having this fear
communicated to them during this critical time of their lives is
abusive. Worse, it is done by parents, schools, the media and
politicians alike. Everyone needs to immediately get a grip. I
remember when adults acted like adults instead of fear-mongers. Back in
the 80s, when network television ran the nuclear war movie “The Day
After,” there were warnings that it wasn’t appropriate for children and
our parents wouldn’t let us watch it.
Now, the adults who are
supposed to be shielding kids from unlikely doomsday scenarios are
forcing those beliefs upon them and using the kids as political pawns.
It’s
not just the climate change fear. I am not the first one to note that
school shooter drills are also an unnecessary form of fear theater that
does far more harm than good.
While any school shooting is one too
many and more needs to be done to ensure school safety, planting the
security threat in kids’ heads with practice drills surely creates
needless trauma with no evidence of better outcomes.
Negativity
is all around us, from mainstream media to social media. It’s not
healthy for us to be constantly consuming a negative information diet,
particularly when the general outlook for life is so robust. We need
more gratitude towards the abundance, opportunities and advancements
that surround us.
As an adult, if you want to mire yourself in pessimism, that’s your choice. But please, leave the kids out of it.
U.S. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has apparently reached a boiling point over moderate House Democrats’ caution regarding the prospect of impeaching President Trump.
The go-slow approach is personified by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi,
with whom Ocasio-Cortez has had an often contentious relationship since
the freshman lawmaker arrived in Washington just eight months ago.
The
New York Democrat told her more than 5 million Twitter followers late
Saturday that the Democrats’ “refusal” to seek the removal of the
president was a “bigger national scandal” than what she alleged was the
president’s “lawbreaking behavior.”
Calls for impeachment have grown louder from some Democrats in the wake of last week’s news that a purported “whistleblower” had expressed concern about a phone call said to have taken place between President Trump and the leader of Ukraine, in which Trump allegedly sought information about 2020 Democratic frontrunner Joe Biden, whose son Hunter Biden had business dealings in Ukraine.
Soon
after Ocasio-Cortez posted her Saturday comment, she received a
response from James Fallows, the noted author, journalist and former
speechwriter for President Jimmy Carter, who asserted that Ocasio-Cortez
was overstating the case in criticizing members of her own party for
exercising restraint regarding impeachment.
“IMO,
this is ‘false equivalence’ of its own sort,” Fallows wrote. “What
Trump is doing remains objectively the biggest threat, scandal, and
problem.
“Second-ranking: the silent acquiescence of the GOP Senate.
“Then: it’s time for the House to act.”
Ocasio Cortez doubled down in her response to Fallows.
“It is one thing for a sitting president to break the law,” she wrote. “It’s another to let him.
“The integrity of our democracy isn’t threatened when a president breaks the law. It’s threatened when we do nothing about it.
“The GOP’s silence & refusal to act shouldn’t be a surprise. Ours is.”
Ocasio-Cortez’s online outburst followed remarks earlier in the day by fellow progressive and 2020 presidential candidate Sen. Elizabeth Warren,
D-Mass., who took a veiled shot at Pelosi, the standard-bearer among
Democrats of a “wait and see” approach regarding potential action
against the president.
"Donald Trump did everything he could to
obstruct justice,” Warren said at an event in Iowa. “I read all 448
pages [of former Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s report on the Russia
investigation] and when I got to the end, I called for the impeachment
of Donald Trump.
“Congress failed to act,”
Warren added, “and now Donald Trump has shown that he believes he is
above the law. He has solicited another foreign government to attack our
election system.”
Just over a week ago, Pelosi had lashed out at reporters when they repeatedly asked her about impeachment at a news conference.
“Impeachment
is a very divisive measure,” a clearly frustrated Pelosi said, “but if
we have to go there, we have to go there and we can't go there unless we
have the facts. And we’ll follow the facts and follow the obstruction
the president is making ... and make a decision when we’re ready.
“That’s
the only question, that’s all I’m going to say about this subject, and
there's nothing different from one day to the next,” she added.
The
struggles experienced by the 79-year-old Pelosi, a three-decade member
of Congress from California, have included frequent clashes with
Ocasio-Cortez, 29, and other progressive – and aggressive – young
lawmakers who were swept into office during last year’s midterm
elections. The progressives’ push for far-left policies, including
Ocasio-Cortez’s Green New Deal,
as well as their vocal opposition to President Trump, have been at odds
with the moderates’ typically lower-key approach to getting things
done.
Pelosi and Ocasio-Cortez appeared to reach a truce of sorts after a closed-door meeting in July, in which both sought to ease infighting that some Democrats viewed as counterproductive. The meeting was soon followed by the departure of Ocasio-Cortez’s chief of staff, Saikat Chakrabarti.
But
with Ocasio-Cortez’s Twitter posts that began late Saturday, it appears
the truce with Pelosi – at least regarding impeachment – may be over. Fox News’ Sam Dorman and Adam Shaw contributed to this story.
President Trump and Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison
shaking hands at Pratt Industries on Sunday in Wapakoneta, Ohio.
(AP Photo/Evan Vucci)
President Trump speaking as Australian Prime Minister Scott
Morrison, center, and Pratt Industries chairman Anthony Pratt watched
during a factory tour Sunday.
(AP Photo/Evan Vucci)
