Pres. Trump Plans to Announce Trade Investigation into Chinese Goods

The People’s Republic of China flag and the U.S. Stars and Stripes fly along Pennsylvania Avenue near the U.S. Capitol in Washington, January 18, 2011. REUTERS/Hyungwon Kang

President Trump is expected to announce an investigation into Chinese trade practices Monday.
This is in response to allegations of violated U.S. intellectual property rights and forced technology transfers.
The announcement comes amid heightening tensions between the U.S. and China, despite voting in favor of sanctions on North Korea.
Although the investigation will not immediately impose sanctions on Beijing, it could lead to tariffs on Chinese goods.

President Trump will sign an executive memorandum on Monday authorizing the U.S. trade representative to determine whether to investigate China's intellectual property and trade practices, according to senior administration officials.
While administration officials said Saturday that it's too early to discuss specific actions against China, such an investigation could eventually pave the way for Trump to impose tariffs on Chinese goods.
Trump is expected to return to Washington from his golf club in Bedminster, N.J. on Monday to sign the memo.
It was reported earlier Saturday that Trump spoke with Chinese President Xi Jinping about the upcoming memo during a phone call Friday.
Administration officials, however, said that that call focused on Washington's current tensions with North Korea and an official readout of the conversation provided by the White House did not mention China's trade practices.
Trump's memo comes amid heightened tensions between the U.S. and North Korea and increasing frustration in the White House that China has not done more to rein in Pyongyang.
But a senior administration official said that concerns over China's trade practices have been longstanding, and that the president's memo was unrelated to efforts to put pressure on Beijing over North Korea.
While China joined the rest of the United Nations Security Council last week in voting for new sanctions against North Korea, Trump has continued to call on China to do more in regards to Pyongyang, suggesting this week that he would go easier on China if it stepped up its efforts to rein in its reclusive neighbor.
Trump was expected to sign the executive memo earlier this month, but the decision was delayed in order to press for China's cooperation on North Korea.

North Korea factories humming with ‘Made in China’ clothes, traders say

North Korean workers make soccer shoes inside a temporary factory at a rural village on the edge of Dandong

By Sue-Lin Wong and Philip Wen
DANDONG, China (Reuters) – Chinese textile firms are increasingly using North Korean factories to take advantage of cheaper labor across the border, traders and businesses in the border city of Dandong told Reuters.
The clothes made in North Korea are labeled “Made in China” and exported across the world, they said.
Using North Korea to produce cheap clothes for sale around the globe shows that for every door that is closed by ever-tightening U.N. sanctions another one may open. The UN sanctions, introduced to punish North Korea for its missile and nuclear programs, do not include any bans on textile exports.
“We take orders from all over the world,” said one Korean-Chinese businessman in Dandong, the Chinese border city where the majority of North Korea trade passes through. Like many people Reuters interviewed for this story, he spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue.
Dozens of clothing agents operate in Dandong, acting as go-betweens for Chinese clothing suppliers and buyers from the United States, Europe, Japan, South Korea, Canada and Russia, the businessman said.
“We will ask the Chinese suppliers who work with us if they plan on being open with their client — sometimes the final buyer won’t realize their clothes are being made in North Korea. It’s extremely sensitive,” he said.
Textiles were North Korea’s second-biggest export after coal and other minerals in 2016, totaling $752 million, according to data from the Korea Trade-Investment Promotion Agency (KOTRA). Total exports from North Korea in 2016 rose 4.6 percent to $2.82 billion.
The latest U.N. sanctions, agreed earlier this month, have completely banned coal exports now.
Its flourishing textiles industry shows how impoverished North Korea has adapted, with a limited embrace of market reforms, to sanctions since 2006 when it first tested a nuclear device. The industry also shows the extent to which North Korea relies on China as an economic lifeline, even as U.S. President Donald Trump piles pressure on Beijing to do more to rein in its neighbor’s weapons programmes.
Chinese exports to North Korea rose almost 30 percent to $1.67 billion in the first half of the year, largely driven by textile materials and other traditional labour-intensive goods not included on the United Nations embargo list, Chinese customs spokesman Huang Songping told reporters.
Chinese suppliers send fabrics and other raw materials required for manufacturing clothing to North Korean factories across the border where garments are assembled and exported.
FACTORIES HUMMING
Australian sportswear brand Rip Curl publicly apologized last year when it was discovered that some of its ski gear, labeled “Made in China”, had been made in one of North Korea’s garment factories. Rip Curl blamed a rogue supplier for outsourcing to “an unauthorized subcontractor”.
But traders and agents in Dandong say it’s a widespread practice.
Manufacturers can save up to 75 percent by making their clothes in North Korea, said a Chinese trader who has lived in Pyongyang.
Some of the North Korean factories are located in Siniuju city just across the border from Dandong. Other factories are located outside Pyongyang. Finished clothing is often directly shipped from North Korea to Chinese ports before being sent onto the rest of the world, the Chinese traders and businesses said.
North Korea has about 15 large garment exporting enterprises, each operating several factories spread around the country, and dozens of medium sized companies, according to GPI Consultancy of the Netherlands, which helps foreign companies do business in North Korea.
All factories in North Korea are state-owned. And the textile ones appear to be humming, traders and agents say.
“We’ve been trying to get some of our clothes made in North Korea but the factories are fully booked at the moment,” said a Korean-Chinese businesswoman at a factory in Dalian, a Chinese port city two hours away from Dandong by train.
“North Korean workers can produce 30 percent more clothes each day than a Chinese worker,” said the Korean-Chinese businessman.
“In North Korea, factory workers can’t just go to the toilet whenever they feel like, otherwise they think it slows down the whole assembly line.”
“They aren’t like Chinese factory workers who just work for the money. North Koreans have a different attitude — they believe they are working for their country, for their leader.”
And they are paid wages significantly below many other Asian countries. North Korean workers at the now shuttered Kaesong industrial zone just across the border from South Korea received wages ranging from a minimum of around $75 a month to an average of around $160, compared to average factory wages of $450-$750 a month in China. Kaesong was run jointly with South Korea and the wage structure – much higher than in the rest of North Korea – was negotiated with Seoul.
WORKERS IN CHINA
Chinese clothing manufacturers have been increasingly using North Korean textile factories even as they relocate their own factories offshore, including to Bangladesh, Vietnam and Cambodia.
“Wages are too high in China now. It’s no wonder so many orders are being sent to North Korea,” said a Korean-Chinese businesswoman who works in the textiles industry in Dandong.
Chinese textile companies are also employing thousands of cheaper North Korean workers in China.
North Korea relies on overseas workers to earn hard currency, especially since U.N. sanctions have choked off some other sources of export earnings. Much of their wages are remitted back to the state and help fund Pyongyang’s ambitious nuclear and missile programmes, the U.N. says.
The new U.N. sanctions imposed on North Korea this month ban countries from increasing the current numbers of North Korean laborers working abroad.
China does not disclose official figures for the number of North Koreans working in factories and restaurants in China, although numbers are down from a peak period two to three years ago, according to Cheng Xiaohe, a North Korea specialist at Beijing’s Renmin University.
“It’s a hassle to hire North Korean workers though,” the Korean-Chinese businesswoman from Dalian said. “You need to have the right set-up. Their living space has to be completely closed off, you have to provide a classroom where they can take classes every day. They bring their own doctor, nurse, cook and teachers who teach them North Korean ideology every day.”
One clothing factory that Reuters visited in Dandong employs 40 North Korean workers. They fill smaller orders for clients who are more stringent about their supply chains and expressly request no production inside North Korea.
North Korean factory workers in China earn about 2,000 yuan ($300.25), about half of the average for Chinese workers, the factory owner said.
They are allowed to keep around a third of their wages, with the rest going to their North Korean government handlers, he said. A typical shift at the factory runs from 7:30 a.m. to around 10 p.m.
The workers – all women dressed in pink and black uniforms – sat close together behind four rows of sewing machines, working on a consignment of dark-colored winter jackets. The Chinese characters for “clean” and “tidy” were emblazoned in bold blue lettering above their heads and the main factory floor was silent but for the tapping and whirring of sewing machines.
(Reporting by Sue-Lin Wong and Philip Wen; Additional reporting by Lusha Zhang and the Beijing newsroom; Editing by Bill Tarrant)

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Trump riles conservative media allies with Alabama Senate primary pick

In between ratcheting up the rhetoric on North Korea and taunting Mitch McConnell – all while on vacation at his New Jersey golf club – President Trump did something else unusual this week: He endorsed the establishment pick in Alabama's upcoming Senate GOP primary. 

The president is now facing a backlash from his usual conservative media allies for stepping into the race in favor of incumbent Sen. Luther Strange. 

Some are irked that Trump sided with the mild-mannered Strange over Alabama Rep. Mo Brooks, a conservative with a penchant for provocative comments who has been endorsed by Ann Coulter, Laura Ingraham, Mark Levin and Sean Hannity.
“I love him, but that was completely idiotic,” Coulter complained to Breitbart News this week about the president's endorsement.
Trump unexpectedly tweeted his support Tuesday for Strange, who has the emphatic backing of Senate Majority Leader McConnell. The endorsement is significant because the top candidates have been portraying themselves as loyal advocates for the president in a state where Trump remains widely popular.
Strange, the state’s former attorney general who was once a lobbyist, was appointed to the seat in April after then-Sen. Jeff Sessions joined the Trump administration. Trump's endorsement was all the stranger – so to speak – considering he backed McConnell's pick even as he chastised the Senate GOP leader for not getting a health care bill passed.
“What has Trump gotten from McConnell?” Coulter asked after the endorsement. “But he’s still sucking up to establishment Republicans.”
Levin, the syndicated conservative radio host who is sympathetic to Trump, vented on Facebook about “Trump's pathetic endorsement of Luther Strange, McConnell's RINO puppet, screwing conservatives in Alabama and across the nation.”
While Strange has established a conservative voting record, his critics have painted him as someone too close to the GOP establishment.
Erick Erickson, the conservative radio host who has been critical of Trump in the past, argued the president was given bad political advice, saying: “This is not how the president drains the swamp.”
“Strange is a pillar of the establishment status quo and will not rock Mitch McConnell’s boat,” Erickson wrote for The Resurgent website. “In fact, Strange is one of McConnell’s oar hands in the boat.”
ERICK ERICKSON: MR. TRUMP, THIS IS HOW YOU DRAIN THE SWAMP?!
The primary to fill the seat once held by now-Attorney General Sessions is set for Tuesday. A runoff will be held Sept. 26 if no candidate gets more than 50 percent of the vote, which seems likely in the crowded field.
Trump weighed into the race with a single tweet on Tuesday evening.
“Senator Luther Strange has done a great job representing the people of the Great State of Alabama,” Trump tweeted. “He has my complete and total endorsement!”
TRUMP ENDORSES STRANGE IN ALABAMA’S GOP SENATE PRIMARY
Still reeling from Trump’s endorsement of Strange, Brooks on Friday released a new ad, which his campaign called a “direct address to President Trump.”
“McConnell and Strange are weak,” Brooks says. “But, together, we can be strong. Mr. President, isn’t it time we tell McConnell and Strange, ‘you're fired’?”
Meanwhile, Strange is running television ads touting the president’s endorsement -- while seemingly reminding people of Brooks' past Trump criticism.
“Others attack our president,” Strange says in the ad. “I’m fighting with him to drain the swamp and repeal ObamaCare.”
Strange said in a Thursday statement he was "deeply honored and humbled" to get the president's endorsement.
During the 2016 Republican presidential primary, Brooks supported Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, something that has been used to paint him as insufficiently pro-Trump. The McConnell-backed Senate Leadership Fund has been spending millions running television ads of Brooks’ past critical comments about Trump to try to drive a wedge between him and the president’s supporters.
But the race isn’t just between Strange and Brooks: the other major candidate in the race, former Alabama Supreme Court Chief Justice Roy Moore, is also fighting for a place in the likely runoff. Recent polling in Alabama has shown Moore, who is enthusiastically supported by some Christian conservatives, leading both Strange and Brooks.
Moore, who traditionally rides a horse to the polls on election day, is beloved by his supporters in Alabama after being removed twice from his position on Alabama’s Supreme Court. Such loyalty could be beneficial in a special election where turnout is likely to be low.
In 2003, Moore refused to remove a bust of the Ten Commandments from the state’s judicial building despite orders from a federal court. In 2016, he was removed the bench for ordering Alabama judges to defy federal court orders on gay marriage.
He, too, has been endorsed by national figures: Moore’s campaign announced Thursday the endorsement of Duck Dynasty’s Phil Robertson. Earlier this week, actor Chuck Norris announced his support for Moore.

National Guard on standby for ‘Unite the Right’ rally in Virginia

Hundreds of white nationalists – and those who oppose them -- were expected for a “Unite the Right” rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, on Saturday after a federal judge’s ruling Friday cleared the way for the event.

The judge’s ruling sparked a pre-rally march Friday night on the University of Virginia campus, resulting in clashes between marchers, protesters and police.

The unrest prompted Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe, a Democrat, to place National Guard members on standby, and encourage Virginians to stay away from Saturday’s event.
“Men and women from state and local agencies will be in Charlottesville [on Saturday] to keep the public safe,” McAuliffe said in a statement, “and their job will be made easier if Virginians, no matter how well-meaning, elect to stay away from the areas where this rally will take place.”
On Friday night, marchers holding tiki torches and chanting “White lives matter!” in front of a statue of university founder Thomas Jefferson were confronted by protesters, the Washington Post reported.
After fights broke out, police dispersed the crowd, claiming it was an unlawful assembly, Richmond’s WTRV-TV reported.
Saturday’s event is scheduled for Emancipation Park after U.S. District Judge Glen Conrad issued a preliminary injunction in a lawsuit that right-wing blogger and rally organizer Jason Kessler filed against the city of Charlottesville.
Kessler wants to protest Charlottesville’s decision to remove a statue of Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee from Emancipation Park. He sued the city over free speech violations after the officials ordered the rally moved from Emancipation Park to a larger venue because of safety concerns.
In a statement, the city said it would honor the judge’s decision. Kessler is being represented in his case by the Rutherford Institute and the American Civil Liberties Union of Virginia.

In phone call, Trump and Xi discuss a nuke-less Korean Peninsula

A Korean Peninsula free of nuclear weapons is a goal both Washington and Beijing are interested in pursuing, U.S. President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping agreed during a phone conversation Friday.

That portion of their phone call was confirmed early Saturday in a White House statement and in a report on Chinese state television.

During the conversation, Xi also requested that the U.S. and North Korea both tone down their recent rhetoric and avoid actions that could worsen tensions between the two nations, Chinese Central Television said.
“At present, the relevant parties must maintain restraint and avoid words and deeds that would exacerbate the tension on the Korean Peninsula,” Xi was quoted as saying.

“At present, the relevant parties must maintain restraint and avoid words and deeds that would exacerbate the tension on the Korean Peninsula.”

The White House confirmed early Saturday that Trump and Xi spoke Friday.
“The leaders affirmed that the recent adoption of a new United Nations Security Council resolution regarding North Korea was an important and necessary step toward achieving peace and stability on the Korean Peninsula,” the White House statement said. “President Trump and President Xi agreed North Korea must stop its provocative and escalatory behavior.
“The Presidents also reiterated their mutual commitment to denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula.”
The statement added that Trump was looking forward to meeting with Xi in China later this year.
The trip, announced in April, was recently confirmed by Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi, who met in Manila with U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, the Sydney Morning Herald reported.
Trump has urged China to pressure North Korea to halt its nuclear weapons program, which North Korea says is nearing the capability of targeting the United States.
China is the North’s biggest economic partner and source of aid, but says it alone can’t compel Pyongyang to end its nuclear and missile programs.
Trump also spoke with Guam Gov. Eddie Calvo, reassuring him that U.S. military forces stand ready to ensure the safety and security of the U.S. territory, a White House statement said.
Japan’s leader makes pledge
Meanwhile, Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe pledged Saturday to do “everything, to the best of my ability,” to protect his nation’s people as tensions escalate over North Korea’s plans to send missiles over Japan toward Guam.
Abe made the comments while visiting his father’s tomb in his ancestral hometown of Nagato, in western Japan.
On Friday, Japan’s Defense Ministry said it was deploying four surface-to-air Patriot interceptors in western Japan to respond to a possible risk of fragments falling from missiles.
The ministry did not confirm whether newly appointed Defense Minister Itsunori Onodera has already issued an order to shoot down incoming missiles.
Trump on Friday issued fresh threats of swift and forceful retaliation against nuclear North Korea, declaring the U.S. military “locked and loaded” and warning that the communist country’s leader, Kim Jong Un, would “regret it fast” if he takes any action against U.S. territories or allies.

Ex-Fox News host O’Reilly debuts ‘No Spin News’ webcast

Bill O'Reilly poses on the set of his show "The O'Reilly Factor" in New York March 17, 2015.

Former Fox News host Bill O’Reilly has launched his first “No Spin News” online show with a format that closely follows the brand of conservative politics and pugnacious punditry that made him one of the most popular voices on U.S. television.
The 30-minute show, which debuted on Wednesday, featured the ousted Fox News personality analyzing the war of words between U.S. President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, and his take on the FBI raid on the home of former Trump aide Paul Manafort.
“North Korea has been a pain in the butt for decades,” O’Reilly said. As for Trump, he said, “He’s not going to take any guff from North Korea, but he’s not going to do anything unilaterally.”
O’Reilly was fired from Fox News in April after 20 years following allegations of sexual harassment. He called the claims unfounded, but he had previously paid some $13 million to settle lawsuits.
Since then, O’Reilly has been producing daily podcasts on his website, for which members pay a yearly fee of $49.95 for full access to his material and the chance to ask questions and submit comments.
His “The O’Reilly Factor” show on Fox News was the most-watched prime-time cable news show on U.S. television, averaging some 4 million viewers a night.

Poll: Roy Moore Increasing Lead for Alabama Senate Seat

Alabama Chief Justice Roy Moore smiles before announcing his candidacy for U.S. Senate in Montgomery, Ala.

OAN Newsroom

A new poll shows an increasingly wide gap in the primary race for Alabama’s Senate seat.
The survey from the Trafalgar Group shows former State Chief Justice Roy Moore has 35% support.
Luther Strange — who was appointed to fill the seat left by Attorney General Jeff Sessions earlier this year — has 23% of the vote.
He also has the support of President Trump but other Republican leaders are split on their support.
Congressman Mo Brooks rounds out the top three with 20%.
This is the largest lead in a poll for Moore, as previous data has shown just a single digit lead for him.

Could Republican Infighting Send the ‘Ayatollah of Alabama’ to the Senate?

Alabama Republicans are holding a primary election next week to choose their replacement candidate in the Senate for Jeff Sessions. Until recently, the widespread expectation was that in the outcome of the three-horse race between appointed incumbent Luther Strange, U.S. Representative Mo Brooks, and suspended Supreme Court Chief Justice Roy Moore, either Strange or Brooks would survive this round of voting to make it to the September 26 runoff election. The survivor would defeat Moore, then roll over whatever paper candidate the Democrats proffered in the general. Moore’s universal name ID and dedicated conservative Evangelical following seemed certain to guarantee him a spot in the September 26 runoff, though the heavy spending of Strange and Brooks opened the possibility that they’d squeeze Moore, who has never been much of a fundraiser, into third place. After all, the last time Moore ran for a nonjudicial position, in the 2010 governor’s race, he finished a very disappointing fourth in the primary.

But now, the dynamics of the primary are beginning to resemble one of those murder-suicide scenarios where two candidates damage each other so much that a third eclipses both of them. Strange and Brooks have been going after each other with claw hammers from the get-go, with the former benefiting from massive spending by national party groups controlled by his colleague Mitch McConnell, and the latter accusing his appointed rival of being a puppet of the hated Washington Establishment. Both campaigns have largely ignored Roy Moore. Other than posturing over who’s the truest conservative of them all, there aren’t many actual issues dividing the three candidates.

A new robo-poll of Alabama Republicans shows Moore holding a comfortable lead over his rivals with 30 percent, to 22 percent for Strange and 19 percent for Brooks. That’s not particularly new; Moore has led most of the polls in this race. What’s new is that the judge’s approval ratios are vastly better than those of the two main combatants in the race: Moore is at 53/34; Strange is at 35/50; and Brooks is at 31/43. The nastiness between Strange and Brooks could get even worse down the stretch, as a wealthy Brooks backer invests in ads accusing Strange of a corrupt deal with disgraced former governor Robert Bentley to secure his appointment (Strange was attorney general at the time, and was supposedly investigating Bentley for the personal and financial irregularities that eventually forced him to resign).

Suddenly, it’s not so hard to envision Moore winning the runoff, as embittered supporters of the major candidate who finishes third stay home or gravitate to the judge.

If Moore does win the GOP nomination for the U.S. Senate, Alabama opinion-leaders will have to take a good look at themselves and decide whether they really want to be represented at the highest levels of government for six long years by a grim theocrat who was removed from his chief justice position once for insisting on displaying the Ten Commandments in his courtroom, and then suspended years later because he refused to accept the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision legalizing same-sex marriage. The man known as the “Ayatollah of Alabama” isn’t likely to burnish the reputation of his state as a sane and safe place to do business.

Indeed, a Moore nomination could even create the possibility of something even more unimaginable than his election: a viable Democratic candidacy in the general election scheduled for December 12. Unfortunately, Democrats have their own unusual problem this year: In all the polls, the consensus Democratic Establishment candidate, former U.S. Attorney Doug Jones, is badly trailing an unknown African-American businessman from Mobile with the fortunate name of Robert Kennedy Jr. It looks like Jones will at best need a runoff to gain the nomination, if, er, RFK — with no campaign staff, treasury, or so far, platform — doesn’t win outright.

Yes, it could be a wild ride for Alabama this year.