STRASBOURG, France: French President Emmanuel Macron will on Tuesday address the European Parliament for the first time in a bid to shore up support for his ambitious plans for post-Brexit reforms of the EU.
The energetic young French leader wants big changes in the face of growing skepticism about the European project, but there has been a marked lack of enthusiasm from Berlin to Budapest.
Macron’s speech to MEPs in the eastern French city of Strasbourg is part of a charm offensive ahead of European Parliament elections in May 2019, the first after Britain’s departure.
“He will say that it is urgent to take action at a difficult time both inside the European Union, and outside,” said the Elysee, the French presidency, ahead of Macron’s address.
Internal problems include election results in Italy and Hungary which both saw euro skeptics surge in popularity, compounding fears that the 2016 Brexit vote was part of a pattern.
Externally the EU is dealing with the war in Syria — France and Britain joined the US in air strikes targeting the regime’s alleged chemical weapons at the weekend — a hostile Russia, and the unpredictable figure of Donald Trump in the United States.
Macron said in a television interview on Sunday that Europe was experiencing a “rise in illiberalism... the populism of people who call the rule of law into question.”
Later this week Macron will travel to Berlin for crucial talks with German Chancellor Angela Merkel to try to win her support for his plans for the future of the eurozone.
Merkel’s conservative CDU party pushed back on Monday against plans for deeper eurozone integration, including a separate eurozone budget and the expansion of the EU’s bailout fund.
Any reforms have to be “in the European and in the German interest,” CDU secretary-general Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer told reporters.
EU leaders are set to adopt preliminary Macron-backed plans for eurozone reforms and for an overhaul of its troubled asylum system in June, but there is still a large amount of work to do.
Merkel is due to address the European Parliament in November, officials said on Monday.
In contrast, Merkel made a joint speech with then-French president Francois Hollande in Strasbourg in 2015 in which they urged unity in the face of the migrant crisis.
European lawmakers welcomed Macron’s decision to address the parliament but urged him to turn words into action as soon as possible.
Macron had “lots of projects for Europe” but “not everything he has proposed has been well received,” said Manfred Weber, a Merkel ally who heads the center-right European People’s Party, the biggest group in the European Parliament.
He added that it was a “handicap” that Macron — who rose to power on the back of his new En Marche party — did not belong to any of the main political groups in the European Parliament.
France’s Macron to push EU lawmakers on reforms
France’s Macron to push EU lawmakers on reforms
- EU leaders are set to adopt preliminary Macron-backed plans for eurozone reforms and for an overhaul of its troubled asylum system in June
Pakistan launched multiple attacks along India’s western border, India says
- Indian army reports repulsing Pakistan’s drone attacks along western border
- Pakistan denies earlier accusations of attacks in Pathankot, Srinagar, Jaisalmer cities
JAMMU/SRINAGAR, India: Pakistan’s armed forces launched “multiple attacks” using drones and other munitions along India’s entire western border on Thursday night and early Friday, the Indian army said, as conflict between the nuclear-armed neighbors intensified.
The old enemies have been clashing since India struck multiple locations in Pakistan on Wednesday that it said were “terrorist camps“ in retaliation for a deadly attack in its restive region of Kashmir last month, in which it said Islamabad was involved.
Pakistan denied the accusation but both countries have exchanged cross-border firing and shelling and sent drones and missiles into each other’s airspace since then, with nearly four dozen people dying in the violence.
The army also said Pakistani troops had resorted to “numerous cease fire violations” along the countries’ de-facto border in Kashmir, a region that is divided between them but claimed in full by both.
“The drone attacks were effectively repulsed and befitting reply was given to the CFVs ,” the army said, adding all “nefarious designs” would be responded to with “force.”
There was no immediate response from Pakistan to the Indian statement.
Islamabad had earlier denied attacking Pathankot city in India’s Punjab state, Srinagar in the Kashmir valley, and Rajasthan state’s Jaisalmer, saying the accusations were “unfounded” and “politically motivated.”
Sirens in Amritsar
A “major infiltration bid” was “foiled” in Kashmir’s Samba region on Thursday night, India’s Border Security Force said, and heavy artillery shelling persisted in the Uri area on Friday, according to a security official who did not want to be named.
“Several houses caught fire and were damaged in the shelling in the Uri sector...one woman was killed and another injured in overnight shelling,” the official said.
Sirens blared for more than two hours on Friday in India’s border city of Amritsar, which houses the Golden Temple revered by Sikhs, and residents were asked to remain indoors.
Ansab, a student at the Sher-e-Kashmir University of Agriculture, Science and Technology in Jammu city, which was among the places where blasts were heard overnight, said the explosions were “more violent and louder” around 4 a.m.
“For two to three minutes it became very loud, windows started shaking as if they will break,” she said, adding the air was “smoggy” later — a mixture of smoke and fog.
World powers from the US to China have urged the two countries to calm tensions, and US Vice President JD Vance on Thursday reiterated the call for de-escalation.
“We want this thing to de-escalate as quickly as possible. We can’t control these countries, though,” he said in an interview on Fox News show “The Story with Martha MacCallum.”
The relationship between Hindu-majority India and Islamic Pakistan has been fraught with tension since they became separate countries after attaining independence from colonial British rule in 1947.
Kashmir, a Muslim-majority region, has been at the heart of the hostility and they have fought two of their three wars over the region.
Trump, Starmer hail limited US-UK trade deal, but 10 percent duties remain
- Starmer says ‘historic’ deal to expand US-UK trade
- Deal opens ‘a tremendous market’ for the US: Trump
WASHINGTON/LONDON: US President Donald Trump and British Prime Minister Keir Starmer on Thursday announced a limited bilateral trade agreement that leaves in place Trump’s 10 percent tariffs on British exports, modestly expands agricultural access for both countries and lowers prohibitive US duties on British car exports.
The “general terms” agreement is the first of dozens of tariff-lowering deals that Trump expects to land in coming weeks after upending the global trading system with steep new import taxes aimed at shrinking a $1.2 trillion US goods trade deficit.
Trump hailed the deal in the Oval Office with Starmer patched in on a speaker phone, as US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and top trade negotiator Jamieson Greer head to Switzerland to launch negotiations with Chinese negotiators.
He pushed back against seeing the UK deal as a template for other negotiations, saying that Britain “made a good deal” and that many other trading partners may end up with much higher final tariffs because of their large US trade surpluses.
In April, Trump imposed reciprocal duties of up to 50 percent on goods from 57 trading partners including the European Union, pausing them days later to allow time for negotiations until July 9. He has also heaped new 25 percent tariffs on auto imports, ended all exemptions on steel and aluminum duties, and announced new tariff probes on pharmaceuticals, copper, lumber and semiconductors. This week he added movies to the list.
“It opens up a tremendous market for us,” Trump told reporters, noting that he had not fully understood the restrictions facing American firms doing business in Britain.
“This is a really fantastic, historic day,” Starmer said, noting that the announcement came nearly at the same hour 80 years ago when World War Two ended in Europe. “This is going to boost trade between and across our countries, it’s going to not only protect jobs, but create jobs, opening market access.”
The two leaders heralded the plan as a “breakthrough deal” that lowers average British tariffs on US goods to 1.8 percent from 5.1 percent but keeps in place a 10 percent tariff on British goods.
A UK official told reporters that the United States and the United Kingdom have more serious work to do, and noted the deal did not include Washington’s demand for restructuring of Britain’s digital services tax, levied at 2 percent of UK revenue for online marketplaces. Washington could revisit the issue, but there was no agreed process for doing so, the official said.
“This is not a finished, classic ‘bells and whistles’ free trade agreement. It started off as a tactical response to President Trump’s tariffs, but actually morphed into a more substantive trade deal,” the official said. “And it will be built on. ... We’ve done the Oval Office, now we’ve got more serious work to do.”
Trump’s first trade deal fueled a rally on Wall Street, sending major US indexes briefly up over 1 percent. The S&P 500 passenger airlines index closed up 5.4 percent, led by a 7.2 percent surge in Delta Air Lines as US Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick said British-made Rolls-Royce engines would enter the US duty-free.
Trump’s administration has been under pressure from investors to strike deals and de-escalate its tariff war after the US president’s often chaotic policymaking upended global trade with friends and foe alike, threatening to stoke inflation and tip the global and US economies into recession.
Lutnick told CNBC on Thursday that Washington will roll out dozens of trade deals over the next month.
Trump’s biggest challenge, however, is resolving a virtual trade embargo between the US and China, with tariffs of 145 percent and 125 percent, respectively on each side. Greer and Bessent will lead talks with Chinese officials in Switzerland, on Saturday and Sunday. Trump said the talks would be substantive — more than an ice-breaker — and predicted the tariffs would come down.
Warm relationship, some disappointment
The British-American Business group expressed disappointment that the deal leaves in place Trump’s 10 percent tariffs for many products, including cars, raising costs for UK exporters. It said it hoped that the deal would be a start of deeper US-UK trade integration including the digital economy.
The deal will provide potential new export opportunities for American producers worth $5 billion a year, Lutnick said, while the higher tariffs would generate $6 billion in annual US revenue.
It will reduce US tariffs on British auto imports to 10 percent from the current 27.5 percent, according to a UK statement. The lower rate will apply to a quota of 100,000 British vehicles, almost the total exported to the US last year.
US tariffs on imports from the struggling UK steel industry will fall to zero from 25 percent, while Britain’s 19 percent tariffs on US ethanol will fall to zero through a 1.4 billion-liter quota that far exceeds US exports last to the UK last year.
Both sides have agreed to new reciprocal market access on beef, with UK farmers given a first-ever tariff-free quota for 13,000 metric tons.
There will be no weakening of UK food standards on imports, despite repeated entreaties by the US side.
Crucially there will be no weakening of UK food standards on US beef imports, which was an election manifesto pledge for the Labour government. That means US beef bred with growth hormones still won’t be allowed in.
US Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins said the deal would “exponentially increase” US beef exports to Britain.
But much depends on whether American beef could compete with the British beef on price and find favor with British consumers.
Currently 100 percent of the fresh beef sold by Britain’s two biggest supermarket chains Tesco and Sainsbury’s is British and Irish.
Details were scant on tariffs on UK pharmaceuticals imports, which could damage AstraZeneca and GSK, although a White House fact sheet said the deal would create a secure pharma supply chain.
The US agreed to give Britain preferential treatment in any further tariffs imposed under Section 232 national security investigations, which include ongoing probes of pharmaceutical and semiconductor imports. GSK and AstraZeneca declined comment.
In addition to assurances “future-proofing” Britain from additional sectoral tariffs, the UK official also welcomed Trump’s assurance during the Oval Office event on finding ways to avoid his new push to tariff foreign-made movies.
Starmer’s government has been seeking to build new trading relationships post-Brexit with the US, China and the EU without moving so far toward one bloc that it angers the others.
With the British economy struggling to grow, the tariffs had added to the pressure on his government.
Jaguar Land Rover paused its shipments to the US for a month and the government was forced to seize control of British Steel to keep it operating.
Economists and one FTSE 100 chief executive said the immediate economic impact of a tariff deal was likely to be limited, but that trade agreements in general would help long-term growth. Britain struck a free trade agreement with India this week.
China says it has full confidence in ability to manage US trade issues
MALIPO, China: China has full confidence in its ability to manage US trade issues, Vice Foreign Minister Hua Chunying said on Friday, a day before officials from both sides are set to meet in Switzerland to discuss the tariffs they have imposed on each other.
“We have no fear,” Hua told a small group of reporters at a middle school in a rural county in southwestern China, adding that the trade policy of the US administration cannot be sustained.
The weekend talks involving top US and Chinese economic and trade officials are widely seen as a first step toward resolving a trade war that has disrupted the global economy. President Donald Trump said on Thursday that the US tariffs on Beijing of 145 percent would likely come down.
“We have full confidence,” Hua said during a Beijing-organized trip to Malipo county to showcase China’s efforts to build up rural economies.
“We do not want any kind of war with any country. But we have to face up to the reality. As you can see, people have full confidence in our capability to overcome all the difficulties.”
Trump’s tariffs on many of the United States’ trading partners, including China, are increasingly weighing on a world economy which for decades had benefited from predictable and relatively free trade.
Many economists are calling the Trump tariffs a “demand shock” to the world economy which, by making imports more expensive for American businesses and consumers, will sap activity elsewhere.
“What the United States is doing cannot be sustained,” Hua said. “Ordinary people in the US already feel suffering from the tariff war.”
The US administration will come back to “normal,” she said.
China can play hardball at looming trade talks with US, analysts say
A formidable set of cards that includes granting access to its vast market and an ability to withstand economic pain will allow Beijing to play hardball in upcoming trade talks with the United States in Geneva, analysts say.
Trade between the world’s two largest economies has nearly skidded to a halt since US President Donald Trump slapped China with various rounds of levies that began as retaliation for Beijing’s alleged role in a devastating fentanyl crisis.
With additional measures justified by Trump as efforts to rebalance the trade relationship and prevent the United States from being “ripped off,” tariffs on many Chinese products now reach as high as 145 percent — with cumulative duties on some goods soaring to a staggering 245 percent.
Beijing has responded with 125 percent tariffs on US imports, along with other measures targeting American firms.
But after weeks of tit-for-tat escalation that sent global markets into a tailspin, the two powers will meet this weekend for a chance to break the ice.
Washington has said it’s not expecting a “big trade deal” that could address Trump’s longstanding complaint about the major goods imbalance with the export powerhouse — but it is hoping the two sides can at least begin to de-escalate tensions.
Beijing has vowed to stick to its guns and insisted its demand that all US tariffs be lifted remains “unchanged.”
Analysts say, however, China is in no major rush to make a deal.
“Beijing can impose some pain on the United States,” Chong Ja Ian, associate professor of political science at National University of Singapore, told AFP.
China’s core strengths going into the talks are its huge domestic market, as well as “key technologies and control of a significant proportion of processed rare earth minerals,” Chong said.
Compared to its approach during Trump’s first term, Beijing’s response to his tariffs this time has been “more mature,” said Dylan Loh, an assistant professor at Singapore’s Nanyang Technological University.
“There’s no wild bluster,” he explained.
“I think they have learnt from their earlier responses and they know that they cannot be led by the nose,” he said.
Analysts say China has been able to take more of a hard-line posture to Trump’s tariffs this time, despite its struggling economy.
“It still has meaningful retaliatory tools and — just as important — staying power,” said Lizzi Lee from the Asia Society Policy Institute’s Center for China Analysis.
China’s autocratic system, she said, allowed it “to absorb economic pain in ways democracies often cannot.”
Beijing has also concurrently launched a charm offensive aimed at tightening trade ties in Southeast Asia and Europe — positioning itself as a more stable and reliable partner in contrast to the mercurial Trump administration.
That move allowed Beijing to “build buffers” against trade war vicissitudes, Lee said.
“It won’t replace the US market overnight, but every incremental diversification reduces exposure and increases negotiating room,” she added.
That’s not to say China isn’t hurting.
Sales of Chinese goods to the US last year totalled more than $500 billion — 16.4 percent of the country’s exports, according to Beijing’s customs data.
But as the effects of the trade war sunk in, China’s factory activity shrank in April, with Beijing blaming a “sharp shift” in the global economy.
While not as colossal as China’s export levels, US shipments to the country last year were a considerable $143.5 billion, according to the US Trade Representative website.
“Even in the case that one of the two countries would clearly have ‘the upper hand’, it is still worse off economically than before the trade war started,” said Teeuwe Mevissen, senior China economist at Rabobank.
Beijing and Washington have “found out that it is not so easy to fully decouple.”
Policymakers this week unveiled measures to boost domestic consumption — a sign that leaders are “not panicking but feeling some pressure,” said Shehzad Qazi, managing director of China Beige Book.
Beijing will need to strap in for potentially long and drawn-out negotiations with Washington that could bring “much more volatility along the way,” said Qazi.
Analysts broadly agree that upcoming talks are a first step toward a de-escalation of tensions that could, a long way down the line, lead to a lifting of tariffs.
“A best-case scenario would be agreement around a process to enter future negotiations,” Ryan Hass, senior fellow at Brookings Institution, told AFP.
Beijing could insist on receiving the same 90-day waiver on tariffs that other countries had received, he suggested.
And China’s insistence that the Switzerland talks came at the request of Washington suggests it is the United States that is desperate for a deal, said Dan Wang, China Director at the Eurasia Group.
“The fact that it is happening is showing some concessions already on the US side.”
A day after saying FBI needs more resources, Patel strikes different tone to Congress on budget plan
A day after saying FBI needs more resources, Patel strikes different tone to Congress on budget plan
WASHINGTON: FBI Director Kash Patel said Thursday that he would make the bureau’s mission “work on whatever budget we’re given,” striking a different tone from comments a day earlier in which he called for the agency to be funded at far higher levels than what the Trump administration had proposed.
The 2026 budget proposal released on Friday calls for a funding cut of about $545 million for the FBI as part of what the White House said was a desire to “reform and streamline” the bureau and reduce “non-law enforcement missions that do not align” with the priorities of President Donald Trump
Patel told lawmakers at a House Appropriations subcommittee hearing on Wednesday that the FBI needs “more than what has been proposed” to operate as it should and that it “can’t do the mission on those 2011 budget levels.”
But on Thursday, appearing at a separate hearing of a Senate Appropriations subcommittee, he took a different stance when asked by Democratic Sen. Chris Van Hollen of Maryland about his earlier testimony that the FBI required substantially more money than what the Trump budget plan had called for.
“My view is that we agree with this budget as it stands and make it work for the operational necessity of the FBI, and as the head of the FBI, I was simply asking for more funds because I can do more with more money,” he said.
He added that he would “make the mission work on whatever budget we’re given.”
Trump says he is naming Fox News host and former judge Jeanine Pirro as top federal prosecutor in DC
Trump says he is naming Fox News host and former judge Jeanine Pirro as top federal prosecutor in DC
- She was elected as a judge in New York’s Westchester County Court in 1990 before serving three terms as the county’s elected district attorney
WASHINGTON: President Donald Trump said Thursday that he is naming Fox News host Jeanine Pirro, a former county prosecutor and elected judge, to be the top federal prosecutor for the nation’s capital after abandoning his first pick for the job.
Pirro, who joined Fox News in 2006, cohosts the network’s show “The Five” on weekday evenings. She was elected as a judge in New York’s Westchester County Court in 1990 before serving three terms as the county’s elected district attorney.
Trump tapped Pirro to at least temporarily lead the nation’s largest US Attorney’s office after pulling his nomination of conservative activist Ed Martin Jr. for the position earlier Thursday. In a post on Truth Social, Trump said he was naming Pirro as the interim US attorney in Washington, D.C., but didn’t indicate whether he would nominate her for the Senate-confirmed position on a more permanent basis.
“Jeanine is incredibly well qualified for this position, and is considered one of the Top District Attorneys in the History of the State of New York. She is in a class by herself,” Trump wrote.
Trump withdrew Martin from consideration after a key Republican senator said he could not support Martin for the job due to his defense of rioters who stormed the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.
“He’s a terrific person, and he wasn’t getting the support from people that I thought,” Trump told reporters in the Oval Office on Thursday. He later added, “But we have somebody else that will be great.”
Martin’s leading role in Trump’s “Stop the Steal” movement was demoralizing for subordinates who spent four years prosecuting over 1,500 riot defendants only to see the president pardon them en masse. Pirro has her own connection to the baseless conspiracy theories of election fraud.
In 2021, voting technology company Smartmatic USA sued Fox News, Pirro and others for spreading false claims that the company helped “steal” the 2020 presidential election from Trump. The company’s libel suit, filed in a New York state court, sought $2.7 billion from the defendants.
Pirro is the latest in a string of Trump appointments coming from Fox News — a list that includes Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, who co-hosted “Fox & Friends Weekend.”
“Jeanine Pirro has been a wonderful addition to The Five over the last three years and a longtime beloved host across Fox News Media who contributed greatly to our success throughout her 14-year tenure. We wish her all the best in her new role in Washington,” a Fox News Media spokesperson said in a statement.
Martin has served as acting US Attorney for the District of Columbia since Trump’s first week in office. But his hopes of keeping the job faded amid questions about his qualifications and background. Martin had never served as a prosecutor or tried a case before taking office in January.
Martin has stirred up a chorus of critics during his brief but tumultuous tenure in office. He fired and demoted subordinates who worked on politically sensitive cases. He posted on social media about potential targets of investigations. And he forced the chief of the office’s criminal division to resign after directing her to scrutinize the awarding of a government contract during Democratic President Joe Biden’s administration.
Martin’s temporary appointment is due to expire May 20.
Pirro, a 1975 graduate of Albany Law School, has significantly more courtroom experience than Martin. She led one of the nation’s first domestic violence units in a prosecutor’s office.
After her elected terms as a judge and district attorney, Pirro briefly campaigned in 2005 as a Republican to unseat then-Democratic Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton before announcing that she would would run for New York attorney general instead. She lost that race to Andrew Cuomo, son of former New York Gov. Mario Cuomo.
Pirro became an ubiquitous television pundit during O.J. Simpson’s murder trial, often appearing on CNN’s “Larry King Live.” During her time on Fox News, she has frequently interviewed Trump.
In the final minutes of his first term as president, Trump issued a pardon to Pirro’s ex-husband, Albert Pirro, who was convicted in 2000 on conspiracy and tax evasion charges.
