USA: Susan Rice calls Trump administration 'racist to its core,' says Senate backers belong in 'trash heap of history'

Former national security adviser Susan Rice slammed the Trump administration as “racist to its core” and said that supportive senators belong in the “trash heap of history.”

“I'd say better late than never. You know, to serve an administration which has been racist to its core for the last three and a half years, from comparing the peaceful protesters at Charlottesville to white supremacists, calling white supremacists very fine people, all the way through to the recent weeks where the administration has disparaged the Black Lives Matter movement, disparaged the peaceful protesters, and basically made plain that they prefer to stand by a Confederate legacy than a modern America, it's been an administration whose record on race is just disgraceful,”

Rice said on MSNBC regarding the resignation of Secretary of State for Legislative Affairs Mary Elizabeth Taylor, the Trump administration’s highest ranking female African American official.

Rice also praised Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.) for withdrawing her name from consideration to be former Vice President Joe Biden’s running mate and calling for him to tap a woman of color.

Read more at: Susan Rice calls Trump administration 'racist to its core,' says Senate backers belong in 'trash heap of history' | TheHill

USA: Coronavirus: Trump’s botched response and the lack of testing, explained - by German Lopez

President Donald Trump’s failure to respond to the coronavirus pandemic didn’t begin with the administration’s inability to send out the millions of test kits and the protective medical gear for health care workers that experts say are needed to tackle the crisis. It didn’t start with Trump’s bungled messaging downplaying the crisis even as it’s worsened, nor with his mid-March insistence that social distancing measures could be lifted by Easter (he later backpedaled).

It began in April 2018 — more than a year and a half before the SARS-CoV-2 virus and the disease it causes, Covid-19, sickened enough people in China that authorities realized they were dealing with a new disease. 

The Trump administration, with John Bolton newly at the helm of the White House National Security Council, began dismantling the team in charge of pandemic response, firing its leadership and disbanding the team in spring 2018.

The cuts, coupled with the administration’s repeated calls to cut the budget for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and other public health agencies, made it clear that the Trump administration wasn’t prioritizing the federal government’s ability to respond to disease outbreaks. 

That lack of attention to preparedness, experts say, helps explain why the Trump administration has consistently botched its response to the coronavirus pandemic.

Read more at: Coronavirus: Trump’s botched response and the lack of testing, explained - Vox

WTO: Canada urges U.S. to save WTO from chaos " brought on by the US Trump Administration"

The global trading system that took decades to build is days away from disarray as the U.S. appears keen to paralyze the World Trade Organization's enforcement system.

Read more at:
https://www.cbc.ca/news/world/canada-urges-u-s-to-save-wto-from-chaos-1.5369843

China-US relations: Arrest Meng Wanzhou, executive of Huawei, not favorable to improving relations China - US

Huawei arrest: China demands release of Meng Wanzhou

Note EU-Digest: Meng Wanzhou was arrested in Canada at the request of the US, who wants her extradited to US because of business dealings Huawei has with Iran. For those who might have forgotten - the US (Trump Administration) unilattery broke off relations with Iran, when the Trump Administration pulled out of the International Nuclear Agreement, signed between Iran and many other nations around the world, including the EU and the US. Hopefully Canada (Trudeau) will show some "backbone", by not extraditing her to the US, specially since all the other co-signers of the International Nuclear Agreement, including the EU and Canada, are still respecting the agreement with Iran.

Read more at 

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-46465768

USA: Trump’s Washington: Drowning In Conflicts of Interest? - by Frank Vogl

Not a single day passes without new tales of the ganefs in the Trump Administration. “Ganef” in Yiddish means swindler. These are mostly small-time crooks, but not always.

The New York Times just highlighted the activities of Elliott Broidy, the deputy finance chairman of the Republican Party National Committee and a wealthy old friend of Donald Trump.

Broidy seems to have taken some lucrative payments for helping friends associated with the governments of Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates to see that U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson is fired (he was), to influence U.S. foreign policy against Qatar, and to strengthen personal ties for the Saudi and UAE rulers with Trump.

When it comes to lobbying and the expense accounts of government officials, not to mention conflicts of interest, U.S. law — which is generally described as very tough in many other domains — is often as flexible as a rubber band.

At a minimum, the Trump team is unified by questionable ethics – small, big and sometimes ridiculous.

The Veterans Affairs Administration runs U.S.-based hospitals. Nevertheless, its chief, David Shulkin, needed to go on business to London and Copenhagen last summer with his wife. One of the highlights was a day watching tennis at Wimbledon.

The entire trip was billed to the Veterans Administration at a cost of over $100,000. When the details leaked, Shulkin first claimed that there were misunderstandings. Then he agreed to make a reimbursement.

Efforts at excuses or repayments are not, however, the style of his Trump cabinet colleagues, Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke and Environmental Protection Agency chief Administrator Scott Pruitt. They just feel entitled.

Note EU-Digest:  Sad - Corruption in Government circles now not only seems limited to Dictatorships, Third World Counties, or Banana Republics

Read more: Trump’s Washington: Drowning In Conflicts of Interest? - The Globalist

EU-US Relations: EU Sours on Reviving Trade-Pact Push With U.S. Amid Tariffs Row

The European Union distanced itself from the idea of reviving talks on a broad free-trade agreement with the U.S. as part of EU efforts to gain a permanent exemption from President Donald Trump’s controversial import tariffs on steel and aluminum.

A day after U.S. Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross said the Trump administration is willing to restart negotiations on the stalled Trans-Atlantic Trade and Investment Partnership, the European Commission said it’s seeking a “dialog” with Washington “on issues of common interest” including global steel overcapacity.

“More contacts will be held in the coming weeks to agree the exact scope and framework of this EU-U.S. dialog,” a spokesman for the commission, the 28-nation EU’s executive arm in Brussels, said on Friday. “The commission is committed to engage in this process in an open and constructive way. However, it should be clear that this dialog does not represent the revival of the process for a comprehensive Trans-Atlantic Trade and Investment Partnership.”

The TTIP negotiations to expand the world biggest economic relationship have been frozen since Trump entered the White House with an “America First” agenda that has shunned multilateral trade initiatives. This extended to the completed Trans-Pacific Partnership, from which Trump withdrew.

“He terminated the trans-Pacific deal; he didn’t terminate TTIP,” Ross said in an interview with Bloomberg Television on Thursday.

“That was meant quite deliberately and quite overtly as a message that we’re open to discussions with the European Commission.”

EU leaders showed as much annoyance as relief at the temporary exemption on March 23, with French President Emmanuel Macron saying “we won’t talk about anything while there’s a gun pointed at our head.”

Note EU-Digest: Given the hole Mr. Trump buried the US in with his tariffs, quitting the Paris Climate Agreement, getting out of the TTIP negotiations, and  putting the agreed on Iran deal on ice,  the EU in no way should let the Trump Administration get away with this. It is high time for the EU to let the Trump Administration swallow their own spit, and accept the consequences of their arrogance.  


Read  more: EU Sours on Reviving Trade-Pact Push With U.S. Amid Tariffs Row - Bloomberg

Tariff Wars: EU goes on war footing in response to Trumps declaration "that trade wars are good and easy to win" - by RM

"The reincarnation of US Voodoo Economics"

First a look at the "big picture"  of trade between the EU and the US, which Mr. Trump is now ready to undermine with his recent nonsensical "tariffs" statement.

• Total US investment in the EU is three times higher than in all of Asia.
• EU investment in the US is around eight times the amount of EU investment in India and China together.
• EU and US investments are the real driver of the transatlantic relationship, contributing to growth and jobs on both sides of the Atlantic. It is estimated that a third of the trade across the Atlantic actually consists of intra-company transfers.
• The transatlantic relationship also defines the shape of the global economy as a whole. Either the EU or the US is the largest trade and investment partner for almost all other countries in the global economy.
• The EU and the US economies account together for about half the entire world GDP and for nearly a third of world trade flows.

 The EU response to the Trump Tarrifs announcement was swift and surgical .

The European Union’s top trade official mentioned cranberries, orange juice and peanut butter as possible targets Wednesday as the E.U. prepares to strike back if President Trump follows through with tariffs on imports of steel and aluminum.

European officials are also preparing to target $3.5 billion in American goods through a 25 percent "tit-for-tat" levy across consumer, agricultural and steel imports, Bloomberg reported, citing a list compiled by the European Commission.
 
This came after EC President Jean-Claude Junker on Friday mentioned targeted products like Harley-Davidson (HOG) motorcycles, Levi's jeans and bourbon if the U.S. tariffs are implemented. Canada President Justin Trudeau called Mr. Trump Monday evening to register his "serious concer".

"Retaliation against US  by trading partners is likely," Goldman Sachs (GS) economists wrote in a note. "In the past, retaliatory tariffs have focused on the product in dispute (in this case steel and/or aluminum), consumer goods with a particular focus on luxury items and agriculture. We expect a similar pattern this time."

While retaliation is likely to come in  tariff form, "more subtle changes to tax and regulatory policies targeting U.S. companies could also follow," the economists wrote.

Ford (F) and GM (GM) could feel a pinch of about $1 billion each, or 12 percent and 7 percent of each company's respective operating income for 2017, if the 25 percent steel tariff is implemented and prices rise at a similar rate, Goldman Sachs analysts estimated in a recentseparate report.

U.S.-based machinery companies would get squeezed as costs increase. Well-known brands with good distribution, like Deere (DE) and Caterpillar (CAT) might do better than Terex (TEX) and Oshkosh (OSK), Goldman said. Oshkosh is based in House Speaker Paul Ryan's home state of Wisconsin. 

 E.U. Trade Commissioner Cecilia Malmstrom also took aim at Trump’s assertion that U.S. national security justified plans to impose tariffs of 25 percent on steel and 10 percent on aluminum.

The U.S. measures “would mainly impact traditional allies of the United States,” she said.

E.U. officials had previously flagged Kentucky bourbon, Harley-Davidson motorcycles and Levi’s jeans among the products they have in their sights for retaliatory tariffs. A draft of European countermeasures published by Bloomberg News targets $3.5 billion in annual imports from the United States, including $1.1 billion in U.S. steel products, along with clothing, makeup, motorcycles, boats, corn, rice, beans and other agricultural products.

E.U. countries exported $6.2 billion worth of steel to the United States in 2016, according to E.U. figures. The E.U. is the top trading partner of the United States in goods, and it is the top U.S. export market.The European Union’s top trade official mentioned cranberries, orange juice and peanut butter as possible targets Wednesday as the E.U. prepares to strike back if President Trump follows through with tariffs on imports of steel and aluminum.

Note EU-Digest  2017 :  See list below of U.S. trade in goods with European Union
 
Please note that: All figures are in millions of U.S. dollars on a nominal basis, not seasonally adjusted unless otherwise specified. Details may not equal totals due to rounding. Table reflects only those months for which there was trade.

Month	Exports	Imports	Balance
January 2017	21,290.3	32,828.8	-11,538.5
February 2017	22,994.8	32,386.5	-9,391.7
March 2017	25,691.5	36,881.1	-11,189.6
April 2017	22,960.2	35,498.7	-12,538.5
May 2017	23,732.0	36,488.1	-12,756.1
June 2017	23,768.1	36,237.8	-12,469.7
July 2017	21,438.3	34,892.7	-13,454.5
August 2017	23,383.6	35,772.4	-12,388.8
September 2017	24,277.9	35,702.6	-11,424.7
October 2017	25,689.3	39,411.6	-13,722.3
November 2017	23,528.5	38,256.8	-14,728.3
December 2017	24,762.9	40,575.7	-15,812.8
TOTAL 2017	283,517.4	434,933.1	-151,415.6

Given the low average tariffs (under 3%), the key to unlocking this potential lies in the tackling of non-tariff barriers. These consist mainly of customs procedures and behind the border regulatory restrictions
.
The non-tariff barriers come from diverging regulatory systems (standards definitions notably), but also other non-tariff measures, such as those related to certain aspects of security or consumer protection.

The tariffs statement  by President Trump, if he persists to follow through on his threat, could  eventually also turn into a total trade war between the EU and US, and mean the end of the Atlantic Alliance, which has brought stability, peace and prosperity to Europe and the US,  since the end of the second world war. 

It must not be allowed to happen.   

EU-Digest  The above article can be republished only if EU-Digest is referred to as its source

USA: This is not Trump's economy

How much credit should President Trump get for a U.S. economy that's generating lots of jobs and for a stock market that keeps setting record highs?

Very little.

Trump, of course, thinks MAGAnomics is doing the trick, as do his most ardent supporters. After the July jobs numbers came out last week, Fox News and other members of Team Trump were touting the more than 1 million private-sector jobs created since Inauguration Day. Over on Trump TV, former CNN pundit Kayleigh McEnany was even crediting the president with personally creating them. That Obama created the same number of jobs during his final six months was considered less newsworthy, apparently.

Presidents are always given too much credit or blame for economic performance on their watch. So many factors are outside their control. But beyond that, the idea that this is already "Trump's economy" is ridiculous. None of Trump's big agenda items — at least the ones corporate America and Wall Street really care about — have become law. No ObamaCare repeal. No massive tax cuts. No trillion-dollar infrastructure. Nothing.

Read more: This is not Trump's economy

USA - Transgenders: Donald Trump’s transgenders ban announcement is met with swift backlash - Michael Glassman -

Immediately after President Donald Trump tweeted Wednesday that he was barring transgender Americans from serving in the military, the head of the U.S. armed forces was met with stunned disbelief over the slap in the face to thousands of service members.

Read more: Donald Trump’s transgender ban announcement is met with swift backlash - Salon.com

The Global Order Shuffling The Cards: China and Europe are moving forward without Trump

The EU looks ahead at the future without TRUMPLAND

Beijing is in prime position to capitalize on major policy fissures that have emerged between Europe and the Trump administration on climate, trade and defense.

The new dynamic will be on full display on Thursday (June 1)  in Brussels, when Chinese Premier Li Keqiang meets with EU counterparts at the annual EU-China Summit. Hours later, President Trump is expected to announce the withdrawal of the U.S. from the Paris climate agreement.

"If peace and prosperity are the object of the global economic order, the Trump administration offers neither to Europeans," wrote analysts at High Frequency Economics, a research firm. "A new axis of power, based on economic power, will form between Europe and China if the U.S. continues to shirk its role as global leader."

Beijing appears to be chomping at the bit, having asked for the summit to be moved forward to June.

A closer relationship between the two giant economies is easier said than done, however. There are major questions over the compatibility of the economic systems promoted by Europe and China, as well as differences over flashpoint issues including human rights.

"If peace and prosperity are the object of the global economic order, the Trump administration offers neither to Europeans," wrote analysts at High Frequency Economics, a research firm. "A new axis of power, based on economic power, will form between Europe and China if the U.S. continues to shirk its role as global leader." 

Note EU=Digest: "The United States and Europe appear to be hurtling toward a messy breakup. China, meanwhile, is ready to pounce. The EU, however, better not jump in bed with China immediately, before making certain all bases are covered", said an EU Commissioner.

EU-Digest

USA: Former Obama Pentagon official Osa Brook, says anti-Trump military coup possible-by Carlo Muñoz

A former Defense Department official under the Obama administration has raised the specter of a military coup to remove President Donald Trump from power.

In an editorial penned for Foreign Policy, senior Pentagon policy official Rosa Brooks publicly suggested a military insurrection against the Trump administration may be the only option to oust one of the most divisive presidents in American history.

“Donald Trump’s first week as president has made it all too clear: Yes, he is as crazy as everyone feared,” Ms. Brooks wrote. “[One] possibility is one that until recently I would have said was unthinkable in the United States of America: a military coup, or at least a refusal by military leaders to obey certain orders.”

For the first time in her career in public service, including three years as senior counselor to the Pentagon’s policy chief from 2009 to 2011, “I can imagine plausible scenarios in which senior military officials might simply tell the president: ‘No, sir. We’re not doing that.’”

Ms. Brooks‘ editorial comes as a recent poll by Public Policy Polling group found that 40 percent of registered voters support Mr. Trump’s impeachment.

In addition, 52 percent of voters polled said they would rather have President Obama in the Oval Office, opposed to the 43 percent who support the Trump presidency.

Read more: Rosa Brooks, Obama Pentagon official, says anti-Trump military coup possible - Washington Times

US Environmental Data: Hackers downloaded US government climate data and stored it on European servers as Trump was being inaugurated

As Donald Trump was sworn into office as the new president of the US on Jan. 20, a group of around 60 programmers and scientists were gathered in the Department of Information Studies building at the University of California-Los Angeles, harvesting government data.

A spreadsheet detailed their targets: Webpages dedicated to the Department of Energy’s solar power initiative, Energy Information Administration data sets that compared fossil fuels to renewable energy sources, and fuel cell research from the National Renewable Energy Laboratory, to name a few out of hundreds.

Many of the programmers who showed up at UCLA for the event had day jobs as IT consultants or data managers at startups; others were undergrad computer science majors. The scientists in attendance, including ecologists, lab managers, and oceanographers, came from universities all over Southern California. A motley crew of data enthusiasts who assemble for projects like this is becoming something of a trend at universities across the country: Volunteer “data rescue” events in Toronto, Philadelphia, Chicago, Indianapolis, and Michigan over the last few weeks have managed to scrape hundreds of thousands of pages off of EPA.gov, NASA.gov, DOE.gov, and whitehouse.gov, uploading them to the Internet Archive. Another is planned for early February at New York University.

Hackers, librarians, scientists, and archivists had been working around the clock, at these events and in the days between, to download as much federal climate and environment data off government websites as possible before Trump took office. But suddenly, at exactly noon on Friday as Trump was sworn in, and just as the UCLA event kicked off, some of their fears began to come true: The climate change-related pages on whitehouse.gov disappeared. It’s typical of incoming administrations to take down some of their predecessor’s pages, but scrubbing all mentions of climate change is a clear indication of the Trump administration’s position on climate science.

“We’re having a heart attack,” said Laurie Allen on Friday afternoon. Allen is the assistant director for digital scholarship in the University of Pennsylvania libraries and the technical lead on a recent data-rescuing event there. “In the last four days I think we’ve been working 22 hours a day, because we were hearing that these precise changes were going to happen.”

“I wish we had been wrong about our concerns. But this is what we internally had predicted and prepared for,” added Bethany Wiggin, the director of the environmental humanities program at Penn and another organizer of the data-rescuing event.

Over the first 100 days of the new administration, a volunteer team of programmers will be scanning government websites and comparing them to the archived, pre-Trump versions, to check for changes. “We’ll be letting people know what the changes exactly are. We hope to produce a weekly report on changes,” Wiggin says, perhaps in the form of a newsletter.

Read more: Hackers downloaded US government climate data and stored it on European servers as Trump was being inaugurated