TOKYO — 

U.S. President Donald Trump on Monday became the first foreign leader to meet with Japan’s Emperor Naruhito, who ascended to the throne May 1.

Trump, who began a four-day visit to Japan on Saturday, started his formal visit on Monday, meeting with Naruhito and Empress Masako.

Trump and first lady Melania Trump took part in an elaborate welcoming ceremony at the Imperial Palace shortly after 9 a.m. local time.

The U.S. delegation was greeted at the palace by several dozen elementary schoolchildren waving Japanese and American flags. A military band played the U.S. “Star Spangled Banner” and Kimigayo anthems.

Later Monday, Trump will attend meetings at the Japanese state guest house, where he and Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe are expected to discuss trade and defense matters.

No quick breakthrough on trade is expected although both leaders have expressed a desire for a bilateral trade pact after Trump pulled the United States out of the comprehensive 12-nation Trans-Pacific Partnership, which Tokyo had spearheaded with Washington under Trump’s predecessor, Barack Obama.

Abe and Trump will hold a joint news conference Monday afternoon.

The emperor is hosting an imperial banquet at the palace Monday night.

On Sunday, Trump and National Security Advisor John Bolton were publicly at odds about the seriousness of the threat currently posed by North Korea.

In a Sunday morning tweet from Tokyo, Trump issued a retort to Bolton who the previous day here had told reporters that there was “no doubt” North Korea’s recent test firing of short-range ballistic missiles violated a United Nations resolution.

Bolton’s remark was the first by a U.S. official describing the North Korean launches as a violation of U.N. resolutions.

“North Korea fired off some small weapons which disturbed some of my people and others, but not me,” said Trump in his tweet.

Trump’s tweet on North Korea caused confusion and consternation, not only within the administration but also among America’s allies in the region, acknowledged senior White House officials traveling with the president

Some analysts say the missile launches are indeed a concern.

“It’s pretty clear the missile launch was a violation of U.N. sanctions, whatever the range. The reality is that U.S. forces and civilians in South Korea and Japan are already in range of North Koreans missiles, so accepting shorter or mid-range missiles puts the United States at risk, not to mention our allies Japan and the Republic of Korea,” Kevin Maher, a Washington security consultant and a former head of the State Department’s Office of Japan Affairs, tells VOA. “These realities are inconvenient if the objective is to show a personal relationship with the dictator Kim Jung UN will stop North Korea’s continuing nuclear and missile programs.”

The U.S. president also expressed confidence the North Korean leader, Kim Jong Un, “will keep his promise to me” in moving towards denuclearization.

Trump in the tweet also said he smiled when Kim called former U.S. Vice President Joe Biden “a low IQ individual.”

The initial presidential tweet misspelled the Democratic Party presidential contender’s name as “Bidan” and was later replaced. And it was not Kim who made the disparaging remark about Biden, rather an unsigned commentary carried by North Korea’s central news agency, which referred to the American politician as a “fool of low IQ” and an “imbecile bereft of elementary quality as a human being.”

Trump concluded his tweet by stating that perhaps Kim was trying “to send me a signal” — apparently a reference that the leader in Pyongyang prefers to negotiate with the current American president over the opposition party’s top-polling contender.

Trump and Kim have held two summits – in Singapore and Hanoi. Neither has led to any significant breakthroughs although the meetings were seen as reducing tensions between the two countries which have no diplomatic relations and their leaders had never met before.

The United States and North Korea were belligerents in a three-year war in the early 1950’s which devastated the Korean peninsula. It ended with an armistice, but no peace treaty has ever been signed.

Bolton, who 13 months ago replaced retired Army General H.R. McMaster as the president’s national security adviser, is known as a hardliner who distrusts Pyongyang’s intentions.

North Korea has a long track record of violating international agreements and has repeatedly defied U.N. sanctions against its nuclear weapons and ballistic missile programs.

Before Trump departs Japan on Tuesday, he is to visit the naval base at Yokosuka to tour a Japanese helicopter carrier and address American service personnel in conjunction with the U.S. Memorial Day holiday (observed on Monday).

Source: https://www.voanews.com/a/trump-meets-japan-emperor-naruhito-at-imperial-palace/4933728.html

The post Trump Meets Japan’s Emperor Naruhito at Imperial Palace first appeared on Garner Ted Armstrong Evangelistic Association.

Germany has warned the United States that it will take retaliatory measures against the administration of US President Donald Trump if it decides to escalate his trade standoff with the European Union.

German Economy Minister Peter Altmaier said Thursday that the EU didn’t want to engage in a trade war with Washington but was ready to defend itself should Trump take punitive measures.

“I believe that wars are generally not a good idea, and that trade wars are not a good idea either, because at the end, everyone will lose,” Altmaier told ZDF.

“Therefore, the goal and interest is that we avoid this trade war,” Altmaier said, noting that the EU wanted to resolve differences with the US by lowering tariffs.

He said Brussels will respond with its own measures, “so that everyone knows that we protect and defend our own interests,” Altmaier added.

Ever since taking office in 2017, Trump has repeatedly vowed to reduce US trade deficits with other countries, calling out India, China and a number of European countries for their high tariffs.

The president has put tariffs on $250 billion of Chinese goods, as well as on most foreign steel and aluminum, solar panels and washing machines. They were meant to make US-made goods cheaper than foreign competitors’ and incentivize consumers to buy American.

PressTV-US trade deficit in 2018 hits record high in decade

An official report shows the US trade deficit last year hit the highest level in a decade, despite the sweeping tariffs Trump imposed on imported goods.

Trump pulled the United States out of the Trans-Pacific Partnership and renegotiated the North American Free Trade Agreement, both of which he called some of the “worst” deals.

He’s currently pursuing separate deals with China and the European Union.

An avid protectionist, Trump has also attempted to revive American manufacturing and reduce dependence on imported goods, including steel and other materials.

However, the US government’s Census Bureau revealed this week that the country’s trade deficit hit a 10-year high in 2018 as it grew to 621 billion dollars. That’s over $100 billion since he entered the White House.

Trump views the trade deficit as a measure of whether the US is winning or losing on trade.

Source: https://www.presstv.com/Detail/2019/03/08/590462/US-EU-Germany-trade-war-Trump-Altmaier

The post Germany vows retaliation for US trade war on EU first appeared on Garner Ted Armstrong Evangelistic Association.

More than a dozen Pacific nations will convene in the capital of Papua New Guinea next week, where Vice President Pence will lay out the next phase of the Trump administration’s ever evolving Asia strategy. His task is to convince the countries of Southeast Asia that the United States and its allies can offer them better options than capitulation to Chinese economic regional dominance.

With the midterm elections behind it, the Trump administration is turning to foreign policy in a major way. President Trump will visit Paris later this week and Argentina for the Group of 20 summit at the end of the month. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo is trying to arrange a second summit between Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, while Pence, who rolled out the new U.S. approach to China last month, is headed to Asia for a week-long tour that will culminate in a major speech on the administration’s Indo-Pacific strategy at a meeting of Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) leaders on a ship off the coast of Port Moresby.

Pence’s whirlwind Asia tour — his third since taking office — will also take him to Japan, Singapore and Australia, representing the United States at the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) summit and the East Asia Summit. These three conferences comprise the most important diplomatic gatherings of Asian leaders each year. Pence will also meet with the leaders of Japan, South Korea, Vietnam, Australia, Malaysia and New Zealand along the way.

His trip comes at a crucial juncture in the U.S. relationship with countries in Southeast Asia and the Trump administration’s strategy on China.

“He’s going to the region with an affirmative message to talk about what we and our partners are doing across the region to reinforce the idea of a free and open Indo-Pacific,” a senior administration official told me.

The idea is to put meat on the bone of the Asia strategy Trump unveiled at last year’s APEC meeting in Vietnam. Pence is not going to the region to criticize the Chinese government directly, as he did in his recent speech. The plan is to argue that the U.S. vision for the region is better for those countries economically and politically — and that the U.S. commitment there is real.

Whether the countries of Southeast Asia believe the Trump administration has the capability or focus to put forth a real alternative to China’s comprehensive regional expansion is another question. Beijing has been flooding Southeast Asia with billions of dollars in infrastructure projects and other investments as part of its Belt and Road Initiative. So far, the United States’ counterproposals have been light on actual resources.

Officials said the vice president is preparing announcements that will add more substance to the U.S. argument that private investment by American companies — along with U.S. government support for governance and technological infrastructure development — is healthier than China’s often predatory lending schemes.

“One Belt, One Road is a one-way street,” the senior administration official said. “It is a political and geostrategic ploy by the Chinese government to insinuate themselves into the politics of countries and advance military basing options under the guise and rubric of development assistance.”

There’s good reason to think Southeast Asian nations are open to the U.S. pitch. The new governments in Malaysia and the Maldives are struggling to undo the huge and hugely corrupt infrastructure deals their predecessors struck with Beijing. Chinese projects in Pakistan and Sri Lanka have shown that taking massive loans on unfair terms can have grim consequences for a country’s financial and territorial sovereignty.

Southeast Asian nations don’t want to be forced to choose between China and the United States, and many are still sore about Trump exiting the Trans-Pacific Partnership. When it comes to Asia, Trump has been more focused on tariffs than making deals. But on infrastructure and investment, the United States has more to offer since Congress passed the Build Act, which could provide up to $60 billion for private development financing.

Offering real competition to Beijing’s massive investment scheme is not just about economics, especially not for the Chinese government. The Chinese Communist Party uses these programs to cultivate and corrupt regional elites, which then enables them to neuter democratic institutions and roll back liberal norms.

“China’s willingness to invest heavily in developing countries irrespective of good governance bolsters the fortunes of illiberal leaders who take credit for Chinese investment and dilutes Western leverage to press for human rights and rule of law reforms,” said David Shullman, senior adviser at the International Republican Institute.

In other words, economics is emerging as the key battleground in the greater competition between China and the world’s democracies over who will decide the regional and world order for the next decades. The Trump administration has correctly articulated the strategic challenge, but now the United States must put its money where its mouth is.

Read more from Josh Rogin’s archive, follow him on Twitter or subscribe to his updates on Facebook.

The post Pence takes the new U.S. Asia strategy on the road first appeared on Garner Ted Armstrong Evangelistic Association.

The European Union trades with America “very unfairly”, President Donald Trump said in an interview aired Sunday, warning that his many problems with Brussels “may morph into something very big”.

“The European Union has treated the United States very unfairly when it came to trade,” Trump told Britain’s ITV channel in the interview conducted Thursday.

“I’ve had a lot of problems with (the) European Union, and it may morph into something very big from that standpoint — from a trade standpoint.”

Trump delivered the warning during a wide-ranging interview on the sidelines of the World Economic Forum in Davos, where he took his “America First” agenda to the global business elite.

In a speech Friday he told the forum that his mantra “does not mean America alone” and hinted that the US could rejoin the Trans-Pacific Partnership, a deal he withdrew from a year ago.

But earlier this month the Trump Administration imposed steep tariffs on imported washing machines and solar panels, and his interview comments may cause alarm in European capitals over future trade relations with the US.

Last year it vowed to impose nearly 300 percent punitive tariffs on airplanes manufactured by Canada’s Bombardier.

A bipartisan US trade panel blocked that decision on Friday but the dispute, which has inflamed relations with Ottawa — and to a lesser degree Britain, where Bombardier has a large workforce — could be a harbinger for the EU.

“We cannot get our product in. It’s very, very tough. And yet, they send their product to us — no taxes, very little taxes. It’s very unfair,” Trump added.

“They’re not the only one, by the way, and I could name many countries and places that do (the same).

“But the European Union has been very, very unfair to the United States. And I think it will turn out to be very much to their detriment.”

‘I certainly apologise’

In other remarks aired Sunday, Trump appeared to slight British Prime Minister Theresa May’s handling of fraught Brexit negotiations, declaring that he would have “negotiated it differently”.

“I would have had a different attitude,” he said of the talks, which have followed Britain’s June 2016 referendum vote to leave the EU, and will continue through to its planned departure in March 2019.

“I think I would have said that the European Union is not cracked up to what it’s supposed to be. And I would have taken a tougher stand in getting out,” Trump added.

But May will welcome his prediction — reinforced by US Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin in Davos — that the US could swiftly strike a post-Brexit trade deal with London.

“We are going to make a deal with (the) UK that’ll be great,” he said, noting constraints imposed by the Brexit process.

“When that restriction is up we’re going to be your great trading partner.”

The US president also apologised for the first time for retweeting a British far-right group’s videos apparently showing Islamist violence.

“If you’re telling me they’re horrible racist people, I would certainly apologise if you’d like me to do that,” he said.

Trump confirmed he will visit Britain later this year, where he believes he is “very popular”.

The president said he does not care about those opposed to his British visit, who include London mayor Sadiq Khan and the opposition Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn, amid predictions of large protests.

“I think a lot of people in your country like what I stand for, they respect what I stand for,” he told his interviewer Piers Morgan.

Asked if he had received an invitation to the royal wedding of Prince Harry and Meghan Markle later this year, Trump replied “not that I know of”.

“I really want them to be happy. They look like a lovely couple,” he said, when pressed on disparaging comments Markle previously made about the president.

Not a feminist

During the interview — billed as the first of his presidency with a non-US international broadcaster — Trump was asked if he identifies as a feminist.

“No, I wouldn’t say I’m a feminist,” he replied.

“I mean, I think that would be, maybe, going too far. I’m for women, I’m for men, I’m for everyone.”

Trump also signalled he would be willing to recommit the US to the Paris climate accord, but only if the treaty undergoes major change.

“The Paris accord, for us, would have been a disaster,” he said in the interview Sunday.

“If they made a good deal… there’s always a chance we’d get back.”

(AFP)

Source: http://www.france24.com/en/20180129-trump-blasts-very-unfair-eu-over-trade

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