US President Donald Trump on Friday (local time) called Prime Minister Narendra Modi a ‘very good friend’ and said US was working with India as the two countries battle the COVID-19 outbreak.

“So, India has been so great. Your Prime Minister has been a very good friend of mine. I just got back, a short while ago, from India recently. And we are working very much with India too,” the US President told reporters here. The US President made the remarks on being asked about his message to Indian-Americans.
Trump along with his family had visited India in February earlier this year.
“And we have a tremendous Indian population in the United States. And many of the people that you are talking about are working on the vaccine too. Great scientists and researchers. Yeah, we are working very closely also with India,” he said.

Asked if a US vaccine would be available to the rest of world at an affordable rate, the US President said: “The last thing anybody is looking for is profit, in terms of what we are doing. Every company, they want to get it out. We have had that — we have had a great experience on remdesivir. We have had a great experience on everything we have done.”
Earlier, the President announced in a tweet that US will donate ventilators to India.

“I am proud to announce that the United States will donate ventilators to our friends in India. We stand with India and Narendra Modi during this pandemic. We are also cooperating on vaccine development. Together we will beat the invisible enemy!” Trump said in a tweet.

Speaking to reporters at White House later, Trump reiterated US is sending ‘quite a few’ ventilators to India.
“We are sending quite a lot of ventilators to India. I spoke to Prime Minister (Narendra) Modi and we are sending quite a few ventilators to India. We have a tremendous supply of ventilators,” Trump said at the White House.

India had last month allowed the export of millions of hydroxychloroquine tablets to treat COVID-19 patients in America and Trump had lauded Prime Minister Narendra Modi for his “strong leadership” in helping “not just India, but humanity”. (ANI) ,RSS, FILE PHOTO

WASHINGTON, July 5: President Donald Trump celebrated the story of America as “the greatest political journey in human history” in a Fourth of July commemoration before a soggy but cheering crowd of spectators, many of them invited, on the grounds of the Lincoln Memorial. Supporters welcomed his tribute to the U.S. military while protesters assailed him for putting himself center stage on a holiday devoted to unity.

As rain fell on him, Trump called on Americans to “stay true to our cause” during a program that adhered to patriotic themes and hailed an eclectic mix of history’s heroes, from the armed forces, space, civil rights and other endeavors of American life.

He largely stuck to his script, avoiding diversions into his agenda or re-election campaign. But in one exception, he vowed, “Very soon, we will plant the American flag on Mars,” actually a distant goal not likely to be achieved until late in the 2020s if even then.

A late afternoon downpour drenched the capital’s Independence Day crowds and Trump’s speech unfolded in occasional rain. The warplanes and presidential aircraft he had summoned conducted their flyovers as planned, capped by the Navy Blue Angels aerobatics team.

By adding his own, one-hour “Salute to America” production to capital festivities that typically draw hundreds of thousands anyway, Trump became the first president in nearly seven decades to address a crowd at the National Mall on the Fourth of July.

Protesters objecting to what they saw as his co-opting of the holiday inflated a roly-poly balloon depicting Trump as an angry, diaper-clad baby.

Trump set aside a historic piece of real estate — a stretch of the Mall from the Lincoln Monument to the midpoint of the reflecting pool — for a mix of invited military members, Republican and Trump campaign donors and other bigwigs. It’s where Martin Luther King Jr. gave his “I have a dream” speech, Barack Obama and Trump held inaugural concerts and protesters swarmed into the water when supporters of Richard Nixon put on a July 4, 1970, celebration, with the president sending taped remarks from California.

Aides to the crowd-obsessed Trump fretted about the prospect of empty seats at his event, said a person familiar with the planning who was not authorized to be identified. Aides scrambled in recent days to distribute tickets and mobilize the Trump and GOP social media accounts to encourage participation for an event hastily arranged and surrounded with confusion.

Back at the White House, Trump tweeted an aerial photo showing an audience that filled both sides of the memorial’s reflecting pool and stretched to the Washington Monument. “A great crowd of tremendous Patriots this evening, all the way back to the Washington Monument!” he said.

Many who filed into the sprawling VIP section said they got their free tickets from members of Congress or from friends or neighbors who couldn’t use theirs. Outside that zone, a diverse mix of visitors, locals, veterans, tour groups, immigrant families and more milled about, some drawn by Trump, some by curiosity, some by the holiday’s regular activities along the Mall.

Protesters earlier made their voices heard in sweltering heat by the Washington Monument, along the traditional parade route and elsewhere, while the VIP section at the reflecting pool served as something of a buffer for Trump’s event.

In the shadow of the Washington Monument hours before Trump’s speech, the anti-war organization Codepink erected a 20-foot tall “Trump baby” balloon to protest what activists saw as his intrusion in Independence Day and a focus on military might that they associate with martial regimes.

“We think that he is making this about himself and it’s really a campaign rally,” said Medea Benjamin, the organization’s co-director. “We think that he’s a big baby. … He’s erratic, he’s prone to tantrums, he doesn’t understand the consequences of his actions. And so this is a great symbol of how we feel about our president.”

The balloon remained tied down at the Mall because park officials restricted the group’s permission to move it or fill it with helium, Benjamin said.

Protesters also handed out small Trump-baby balloons on sticks. Molly King of La Porte, Indiana, a 13-year-old Trump supporter in sunglasses and a “Make America Great Again” hat, happily came away with one.

“They’re making a big stink about it but it’s actually pretty cute,” she said. “I mean, why not love your president as you’d love a baby?”

A small crowd gathered to take pictures with the big balloon, which drew Trump supporters and detractors.

“Even though everybody has different opinions,” said Kevin Malton, a Trump supporter from Middlesboro, Kentucky, “everybody’s getting along.”

But Daniela Guray, a 19-year-old from Chicago who held a “Dump Trump” sign, said she was subjected to a racial epithet while walking along the Constitution Avenue parade route and told to go home.

She said she did not come to the Mall to protest but ended up doing so. “I started seeing all the tanks with all the protests and that’s when I said, ‘Wait, this is not an actual Fourth of July,’” she said. “Trump is making it his day rather than the Fourth of July.”

Trump had sounded a defensive note Wednesday, tweeting that the cost “will be very little compared to what it is worth.” But he glossed over a host of expenses associated with the display of military might, including flying in planes and tanks and other vehicles to Washington by rail.

Not since 1951, when President Harry Truman spoke before a large gathering on the Washington Monument grounds to mark the 175th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence, has a commander in chief made an Independence Day speech to a sizable crowd on the Mall.

Pete Buttigieg, one of the Democrats running for president, said, “This business of diverting money and military assets to use them as a kind of prop, to prop up a presidential ego, is not reflecting well on our country.” Buttigieg, the mayor of South Bend, Indiana, is a Navy Reserve veteran who served in Afghanistan in 2014.

Two groups, the National Parks Conservation Foundation and Democracy Forward, want the Interior Department’s internal watchdog to investigate what they say may be a “potentially unlawful decision to divert” national parks money to Trump’s “spectacle.”

Trump has longed for a public display of U.S. military prowess ever since he watched a two-hour procession of French military tanks and fighter jets in Paris on Bastille Day in July 2017.

Washington has held an Independence Day celebration for decades, featuring a parade along Constitution Avenue, a concert on the Capitol lawn with music by the National Symphony Orchestra and fireworks beginning at dusk near the Washington Monument.

Trump altered the lineup by adding his speech, moving the fireworks closer to the Lincoln Memorial and summoning the tanks and warplanes.

Amid all the theatrics, Trump did pay tribute to the reason for the holiday — the signing of the Declaration of Independence in 1776. “With a single sheet of parchment and 56 signatures,” Trump said, “America began the greatest political journey in human history.” AP

Feb 25: US President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un meet in Hanoi this week, faced with putting meat on the bones of the vaguely worded declaration that emerged from their historic first summit in Singapore.

That encounter — the first-ever between the leaders of the US and North Korea — left many ambiguities on the key question of denuclearization and analysts say clearer answers need to emerge in the Vietnamese capital.

At the June meeting, Kim pledged to “work towards complete denuclearization of the Korean peninsula” but the lack of progress since then has drawn criticism that the leaders were only after headlines and short-term gains.

Stephen Biegun, the US Special Representative for North Korea, acknowledged last month that Pyongyang and Washington did not have a “shared agreement of what denuclearization entails”.

The United States has repeatedly demanded the North give up its nuclear arsenal in a final, fully verifiable way.

Pyongyang sees denuclearization more broadly, seeking an end to sanctions and what it sees as US threats — usually including the American military presence in the South, and sometimes in the wider region.

“The ambiguity and obscurity of the term denuclearization only exacerbates the skepticism about both the US and North Korean commitments to denuclearization,” wrote Shin Gi-wook, director of the Korea Program at Stanford University.

Trump has employed both carrots and sticks to pursue North Korea’s denuclearization, praising the regime’s potential as a “great economic powerhouse” but saying tough sanctions will remain until it takes a “meaningful” step.

At a White House event on Sunday, he said the sanctions — imposed over Pyongyang’s missile and nuclear tests — would remain, and appeared to temper any expectations of a major breakthrough in Hanoi.

“The sanctions are on. Everything is on. But we have a special feeling and I think it will lead to something very good. Maybe not,” Trump said.

“I don’t want to rush anybody. I just don’t want testing. As long as there’s no testing, we’re happy.”

Pyongyang insists it has already taken such steps, by not testing ballistic missiles or nuclear weapons for more than a year, and blowing up the entrances to its atomic test site.

But at the same time, North Korea says it has completed the development of its arsenal and the facilities are no longer needed.

‘WORST SCENARIO’

Diplomats in Pyongyang say authorities have emphasized Kim’s demand in his New Year speech that the US must respond with “trustworthy measures and corresponding practical actions”.

The two need to take “at least one step forward on denuclearization” in Hanoi, said Harry Kazianis of the Center for the National Interest, adding: “Nothing would be worse than for either side to come out of the meeting as if it was a waste of time.”

Officials are scrambling to prepare for the summit, with Biegun and his North Korean counterpart Kim Hyok Chol expected to wrangle over the text of the joint statement until early morning on Wednesday.

Some of Washington’s recent rhetoric has stressed the safety of US citizens rather than the North abandoning its arsenal.

That has raised questions whether Trump might be willing to accept a nuclear-armed North if it gives up the intercontinental ballistic missiles with which it can target the US.

That would leave US allies South Korea and Japan both within range of the North’s arsenal, and was described as “the worst scenario” in an editorial by the Korea Herald.

The US president proclaimed that the North Korean nuclear threat was over after the Singapore summit, and Scott Seaman of the Eurasia Group said he had one eye on a Nobel Prize.

“Trump will likely focus more on reinforcing a narrative that he has secured peace than on pushing Kim to denuclearize,” he wrote.

– ‘Symbolic step’ –

The best-case scenario, said Kim Yong-hyun of Dongguk University, would be if Trump and Kim can agree a roadmap for the denuclearization process.

North Korea could agree to “visible, symbolic measures” such as the shuttering of the Yongbyon nuclear complex or dismantling ICBMs.

Washington could promise security guarantees in the form of a declaration of an end to the 1950-53 Korean War — which ended with an armistice instead of a full peace treaty — or opening liaison offices.

That would signal the first stage of normalizing US-North Korean relations, said Go Myong-hyun of the Asan Institute of Policy Studies, and would be an ideal “politically symbolic step” rather than prematurely agreeing to sanctions relief.

“The previous expectation that this is going to be a milestone… is probably misplaced,” he told AFP.

But Trump is unpredictable, and could look to deflect attention from his domestic woes.

His former lawyer Michael Cohen is due to testify to Congress on February 28, and former CIA analyst Soo Kim told AFP: “Trump could impulsively agree to give away significant concessions to Kim in Vietnam expressly for his own interests.” AFP

WASHINGTON, Feb 19: US President Donald Trump on Monday urged Venezuela’s military to accept opposition leader Juan Guaido’s amnesty offer, or stand to “lose everything,” as a crisis deepened over President Nicolas Maduro’s refusal to let in desperately needed humanitarian aid.

Bringing in humanitarian aid is crucial to the viability of Guaido, who has denounced Maduro’s re-election last year as fraudulent and in January declared himself interim president, a move recognized by some 50 countries.

He has given the Maduro government until Saturday to let shipments of mainly US aid into the country, which is in the grip of a humanitarian crisis due to shortages of food and medicine exacerbated by hyperinflation.

Addressing supporters and Venezuelan expatriates in Miami, Trump said he had a message for officials helping keep Maduro in place.

“The eyes of the entire world are upon you today, every day and every day in the future.

“You cannot hide from the choice that now confronts you. You can choose to accept president Guaido’s generous offer of amnesty to live your life in peace with your families and your countrymen.

“Or you can choose the second path: continuing to support Maduro. If you choose this path, you will find no safe harbor, no easy exit and no way out. You will lose everything.”

Guaido has set a target of signing up to a million volunteers to help bring in the aid, with 600,000 already registered.

“On February 23, we have the opportunity to save the lives of hundreds of thousands of Venezuelans,” he said.

Maduro countered with his own announcement of 300 tons of aid from Russia, which he said would reach Venezuela by Wednesday — three days ahead of a potential showdown brought about by his February 23 deadline.

Speaking at an official event broadcast on TV, Maduro said the shipment contained “high-value medicine.”

Maduro has previously announced the arrival of aid from China, Cuba and Russia, his main international allies.

COMMITTED TO CHANGE

Earlier, opposition officials hit out at state internet provider CANTV for blocking the website where volunteers are signing up to help bring in the US aid stockpiled in Colombia just over the border from Venezuela.

A second aid collection center is due to begin operations in Brazil’s northeastern state of Roraima, which borders Venezuela. But there is much uncertainty over the aid in Brazil, with officials there saying they have no information at this point.

Military officials in Roraima said they had yet to receive orders, although a collection center could be set up quickly, with some businesses having already provided warehouses to that effect.

A third center is due to open this week on the Dutch island of Curacao, off Venezuela’s north coast.

The humanitarian aid standoff is due to come to a head this weekend, when caravans of buses are set to carry volunteers to border entry points to meet and transport arriving cargo.

It is unclear how Guaido will overcome the border barriers put up by the Venezuelan military, on Maduro’s orders.

Volunteer groups have begun meeting in “humanitarian camps” in several Venezuelan states to organize and prepare for the arrival of the aid to alleviate hardship from an imploding economy has driven an estimated 2.3 million Venezuelans to migrate from the oil-rich country.

Maduro, who denies the existence of a humanitarian crisis, dismisses the opposition moves as a “political show” and a cover for a US invasion.

AN ‘INTERNATIONAL CRIME’

“Whoever prevents the entry of humanitarian aid is condemned to spend the rest of their lives fleeing international justice, because that is an international crime,” US Senator Marco Rubio said as he toured the Colombian collection center in Cucuta on Sunday.

Three US military cargo planes delivered several dozen tons of food assistance to Cucuta on Saturday. Another US aircraft is due in Curacao from Miami on Tuesday.

Guaido has ordered the armed forces to let the aid pass, but they remain loyal to Maduro, who has instructed his army to prepare a “special deployment plan” for the 2,200-kilometer (1,370-mile) border with Colombia.

Maduro has dismissed the humanitarian assistance as “crumbs” and “rotten and contaminated food,” while blaming shortages of food and medicine on US sanctions.

The government also said Monday it will stage a concert on the Colombian border the same day Richard Branson has said he will hold one just over the frontier to push for aid to be allowed in. This will unfold on February 22-23. AFP

WASHINGTON, Feb 15: Congress lopsidedly approved a border security compromise Thursday that would avert a second painful government shutdown, but a new confrontation was ignited — this time over President Donald Trump’s plan to bypass lawmakers and declare a national emergency to siphon billions from other federal coffers for his wall on the Mexican boundary.

Money in the bill for border barriers, about $1.4 billion, is far below the $5.7 billion Trump insisted he needed and would finance just a quarter of the 200-plus miles he wanted. The White House said he’d sign the legislation but act unilaterally to get more, prompting condemnations from Democrats and threats of lawsuits from states and others who might lose federal money or said Trump was abusing his authority.

The uproar over Trump’s next move cast an uncertain shadow over what had been a rare display of bipartisanship to address the grinding battle between the White House and lawmakers over border security.

The Senate passed the legislation 83-16, with both parties solidly aboard. The House followed with a 300-128 tally, with Trump’s signature planned Friday. Trump will speak Friday morning in the Rose Garden about border security, the White House said.

Trump is expected to announce that he will be spending roughly $8 billion on border barriers — combining the money approved by Congress with funding he plans to repurpose through executive actions, including a national emergency, said a White House official who was not authorized to speak publicly. The money is expected to come from funds targeted for military construction and counterdrug efforts.

House Democrats overwhelmingly backed the legislation, with only 19 — most of whom were Hispanic — opposed. Just over half of Republicans voted “no.”

Should Trump change his mind, both chambers’ margins were above the two-thirds majorities needed to override presidential vetoes. Lawmakers, however, sometimes rally behind presidents of the same party in such battles.

Lawmakers exuded relief that the agreement had averted a fresh closure of federal agencies just three weeks after a record-setting 35-day partial shutdown that drew an unambiguous thumbs-down from the public. But in announcing that Trump would sign the accord, White House Press Secretary Sarah Sanders also said he’d take “other executive action, including a national emergency,”

In an unusual joint statement, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., said such a declaration would be “a lawless act, a gross abuse of the power of the presidency and a desperate attempt to distract” from Trump’s failure to force Mexico to pay for the wall, as he’s promised for years.

“Congress will defend our constitutional authorities,” they said. They declined to say whether that meant lawsuits or votes on resolutions to prevent Trump from unilaterally shifting money to wall-building, with aides saying they’d wait to see what he does.

Democratic state attorneys general said they’d consider legal action to block Trump. Puerto Rico Gov. Ricardo Rossello told the president on Twitter “we’ll see you in court” if he makes the declaration.

Despite widespread opposition in Congress to proclaiming an emergency, including by some Republicans, Trump is under pressure to act unilaterally to soothe his conservative base and avoid looking like he’s lost his wall battle.

The abrupt announcement of Trump’s plans came late in an afternoon of rumblings that the volatile president — who’d strongly hinted he’d sign the agreement but wasn’t definitive — was shifting toward rejecting it. That would have infused fresh chaos into a fight both parties are desperate to leave behind, a thought that drove some lawmakers to ask heavenly help.

“Let’s all pray that the president will have wisdom to sign the bill so the government doesn’t shut down,” Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, said Thursday’s Senate session opened.

Moments before Sanders spoke at the White House, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., took to the Senate floor to announce Trump’s decisions to sign the bill and declare an emergency.

Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, told reporters there were two hours of phone calls between McConnell and the White House before there were assurances that Trump would sign.

McConnell argued that the bill delivered victories for Trump over Pelosi. These included overcoming her pledge to not fund the wall at all and rejecting a Democratic proposal for numerical limits on detaining some immigrants, said a Republican speaking on condition of anonymity to describe private conversations.

In a surprising development, McConnell said he would support Trump’s emergency declaration, a turnabout for the Kentucky Republican, who like many lawmakers had opposed such action.

Democrats say there is no border crisis and Trump would be using a declaration simply to sidestep Congress. Some Republicans warn that future Democratic presidents could use his precedent to force spending on their own priorities, like gun control. GOP critics included Maine Sen. Susan Collins, who said emergency declarations are for “major natural disasters or catastrophic events” and said its use would be of “dubious constitutionality.”

White House staff and congressional Republicans have said that besides an emergency, Trump might assert other authorities that could conceivably put him within reach of billions of dollars. The money could come from funds targeted for military construction, disaster relief and counterdrug efforts.

Congressional aides say there is $21 billion for military construction that Trump could use if he declares a national emergency. By law, the money must be used to support U.S. armed forces, they say.The Defense Department declined to provide details on available money.

With many of the Democrats’ liberal base voters adamantly against Trump’s aggressive attempts to curb immigration, four declared presidential hopefuls opposed the bill in the Senate: Cory Booker of New Jersey, New York’s Kirsten Gillibrand, Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts and Kamala Harris of California. Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota voted for it, as did Vermont independent Bernie Sanders, who is expected to join the field soon.

Notably, the word “wall,” the heart of many a chant at Trump campaign events and his rallies as president, is absent from the compromise’s 1,768-page legislative and descriptive language. “Barriers” and “fencing” are the nouns of choice, a victory for Democrats eager to deny Trump even a rhetorical victory.

The agreement, which took bargainers three weeks to strike, would also squeeze funding for Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE, in an attempt to pressure the agency to detain fewer immigrants. To the dismay of Democrats, however, it would still leave an agency many of them consider abusive holding thousands more immigrants than last year.

The measure contains money for improved surveillance equipment, more customs agents and humanitarian aid for detained immigrants. The overall bill also provides $330 billion to finance dozens of federal programs for the rest of the year, one-fourth of federal agency budgets.

Trump sparked the last shutdown before Christmas after Democrats snubbed his $5.7 billion demand for the wall. The closure denied paychecks to 800,000 federal workers, hurt contractors and people reliant on government services and was loathed by the public.

With polls showing the public blamed him and GOP lawmakers, Trump folded on Jan. 25 without getting any of the wall funds. His capitulation was a political fiasco for Republicans and handed Pelosi a victory less than a month after Democrats took over the House and confronted Trump with a formidable rival for power.

Trump’s descriptions of the wall have fluctuated, at times saying it would cover 1,000 miles of the 2,000-mile boundary. Previous administrations constructed over 650 miles of barriers. AP

WASHINGTON, Jan 6: President Donald Trump said Tuesday that he will hold a two-day summit with North Korea leader Kim Jong Un February 27-28 in Vietnam to continue his efforts to persuade Kim to give up his nuclear weapons.

Trump has said his outreach to Kim and their first meeting last June in Singapore opened a path to peace. But there is not yet a concrete plan for how denuclearization could be implemented.

Denuclearizing North Korea is something that has eluded the US for more than two decades, since it was first learned that North Korea was close to acquiring the means for nuclear weapons.

“As part of a bold new diplomacy, we continue our historic push for peace on the Korean Peninsula,” Trump said in his State of the Union address.

Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats told Congress last week that US intelligence officials do not believe Kim will eliminate his nuclear weapons or the capacity to build more because he believes they are key to the survival of the regime. Satellite video taken since the June summit has indicated North Korea is continuing to produce nuclear materials at its weapons factories.

Last year, North Korea released American detainees, suspended nuclear and long-range missile tests and dismantled a nuclear test site and parts of a rocket launch facility without the presence of outside experts.

It has repeatedly demanded that the United States reciprocate with measures such as sanctions relief, but Washington has called for North Korea to take steps such as providing a detailed account of its nuclear and missile facilities that would be inspected and dismantled under a potential deal.

At the second Trump-Kim summit, some experts say North Korea is likely to seek to trade the destruction of its main Yongbyon nuclear complex for a US promise to formally declare the end of the 1950-53 Korean War, open a liaison office in Pyongyang and allow the North to resume some lucrative economic projects with South Korea.

“Our hostages have come home, nuclear testing has stopped, and there has not been a missile launch in more than 15 months,” Trump said. “If I had not been elected president of the United States, we would right now, in my opinion, be in a major war with North Korea.

“Much work remains to be done, but my relationship with Kim Jong Un is a good one,” he said in announcing their second meeting.

Stephen Biegun, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo’s special representative for North Korea, is hopeful, but acknowledges that many issues make it especially complicated for the two countries to “embark on a diplomatic initiative of this magnitude.” Biegun was in Pyongyang on Tuesday.

The Vietnamese city where the two leaders will meet was not announced. The country, however, is keen to project itself on the world stage. It is a single-party communist state that boasts of tight political control and a tough security apparatus similar to Singapore’s.

Where Singapore leans West, generally appreciative of US influence in Asia, Vietnam leans East. Even with its edgy relationship with China, it has a long fraternal history with Asia’s communist states. This is friendly ground for Kim and closer than Singapore.

On a related issue, the State Department said this week that the U.S. and South Korea have reached a tentative agreement on sharing the costs of keeping 28,500 American troops in South Korea, but no final deal has been signed to replace the existing agreement, which expired at the end of 2018. South Korea pays more than $800 million a year, but Trump has demanded that Seoul pay 50 percent more.

News that a tentative agreement has been reached offers relief to those who worried Trump would use the lack of a deal as a reason to pull US troops out of South Korea as part of negotiations with Kim. North Korea has claimed that the presence of American troops in the South is proof that the US has hostile intentions in the region.

Trump said after his first meeting with Kim in June that while he’d like to bring troops home, “that’s not part of the equation right now.” AP

Feb 3: United States President Donald Trump thought Nepal and Bhutan were a part of India, TIME magazine reported on Saturday, quoting unidentified officials in the American intelligence establishment.

The alleged incident took place when Trump’s advisors brought out a map of the region during a briefing on South Asia. The officials claimed that Trump pointed at the map and said he knew that Nepal was a part of India. When told that it was an independent country, he said Bhutan was in India.

In August, Politico had reported that Trump mispronounced Nepal as “Nipple”, and Bhutan as “Button” during a briefing prior to his meeting with Prime Minister Narendra Modi in 2017.

Last week, Trump lashed out at US intelligence agencies, accusing them of being “passive and naive” about Iran. “Perhaps Intelligence should go back to school!” he tweeted, a day after intelligence chiefs contradicted his views on Iran and North Korea during a “Worldwide Threat Assessment” report briefing.

“The Intelligence people seem to be extremely passive and naive when it comes to the dangers of Iran,” he said in another tweet. “They are wrong.”

The intelligence heads said North Korea was unlikely to give up its nuclear weapons, and Iran was not making a nuclear bomb at present.

Two intelligence officers told TIME on Saturday that Trump reacts angrily when contradicted by his advisors. They said officials have been told to avoid giving the president intelligence estimates that contradict his own public positions.

Trump has reportedly ignored warnings from the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency, which oversees US spy satellites, that North Korea can reopen the entrances to a nuclear facility that was closed after the president’s summit with his counterpart Kim Jong-un in Singapore in June. The intelligence officials tried to explain to Trump the size and complexity of North Korea’s nuclear facility. However, in public, he exaggerated the steps that North Korea has taken to get rid of the nuclear complex, TIME added. SCROLL.IN

WASHINGTON, June 2: After a week of hard-nosed negotiation, diplomatic gamesmanship and no shortage of theatrics, President Donald Trump has announced that the historic nuclear-weapons summit he had canceled with North Korea’s Kim Jong Un is back on.

The June 12 meeting in Singapore, the first between heads of the technically still-warring nations, is meant to begin the process of ending North Korea’s nuclear program, and Trump said he believes Kim is committed to that goal. The announcement puts back on track a high-risk summit that could be a legacy-defining moment for the American leader, who has matched his unconventional deal-making style with the mercurial Kim government.

Despite recently envisioning Nobel laurels, Trump worked on Friday to lower expectations for a quick breakthrough.

“We’re going to deal, and we’re going to really start a process,” Trump said. He spoke from the South Lawn of the White House after seeing off a senior Kim deputy who spent more than an hour with him in the Oval Office. Much had been made of a letter his visitor was bringing from the North Korean leader, but Trump’s comments left it unclear when he had even managed to take a look at it.

The president said it was likely that more than a single meeting would be necessary to bring about his goal of denuclearizing the Korean Peninsula. He said, “I think you’re going to have a very positive result in the end, not from one meeting.”

In the latest sign of hostility cooling down but hopes kept in check, Trump said he had unilaterally put a hold on hundreds of new sanctions against the North, without Kim’s government even asking. “I’m not going to put them on until such time as the talks break down,” he said.

“I don’t even want to use the term ‘maximum pressure’ anymore,” Trump added, referencing his preferred term for the punishing US economic sanctions imposed on North Korea in response to its nuclear and ballistic missile tests. But he said he would not remove current sanctions until the North took steps to denuclearize.

Trump warmly greeted Kim Yong Chol, the vice chairman of the North Korean ruling party’s central committee, in the Oval Office, where a brief encounter meant for the hand delivery of a personal letter from Kim Jong Un became a longer discussion of areas of disagreement between the two countries.

After the meeting, Trump posed for photos with Kim Yong Chol outside the Oval Office, and they talked amiably at Kim’s black SUV before he was driven away. AP

WASHINGTON, May 30: President Donald Trump’s administration is planning to impose tariffs on European steel and aluminum imports after failing to win concessions from the European Union, a move that could provoke retaliatory tariffs and inflame trans-Atlantic trade tensions.

The tariffs are likely to go into effect on the EU with an announcement by Friday’s deadline, according to two people familiar with the discussions. The administration’s plans could change if the two sides are able to reach a last-minute agreement, said the people, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss internal deliberations.

Trump announced in March the United States would slap a 25 percent tariff on imported steel, and a 10 percent tariff on imported aluminum, citing national security interests. But he granted an exemption to the EU and other US allies; that reprieve expires Friday.

Europe has been bracing for the US to place the restrictions even as top European officials have held last-ditch talks in Paris with American trade officials to try to avert the tariffs.

“Realistically, I do not think we can hope” to avoid either US tariffs or quotas on steel and aluminum, said Cecilia Malmstrom, the European Union’s trade commissioner. Even if the US were to agree to waive the tariffs on imported steel and aluminum, Malmstrom said, “I expect them nonetheless to want to impose some sort of cap on EU exports.”

European officials said they expected the US to announce its final decision Thursday. The people familiar with the talks said Trump could make an announcement as early as Thursday.

US Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross attended meetings at the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development in Paris on Wednesday, and U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer joins discussions in Paris on Thursday.

The US plan has raised the threat of retaliation from Europe and fears of a global trade war — a prospect that is already weighing on investor confidence and could hinder the global economic upturn.

If the US moves forward with its tariffs, the EU has threatened to impose retaliatory tariffs on US orange juice, peanut butter and other goods in return. French Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire pledged that the European response would be “united and firm.”

Besides the US steel and aluminum tariffs, the Trump administration is also investigating possible limits on foreign cars in the name of national security.

“Unilateral responses and threats over trade war will solve nothing of the serious imbalances in the world trade. Nothing,” French President Emmanuel Macron said in an impassioned speech at the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development in Paris.

In a clear reference to Trump, Macron added: “These solutions might bring symbolic satisfaction in the short term. … One can think about making voters happy by saying, ‘I have a victory, I’ll change the rules, you’ll see.’”

But Macron said those “who waged bilateral trade wars … saw an increase in prices and an increase in unemployment.”

Tariffs on steel imports to the US can help local producers of the metal by making foreign products more expensive. But they can also increase costs more broadly for US manufacturers who cannot source all their steel locally and need to import the raw material. That hurts the companies and can lead to more expensive consumer prices, economists say.

Ross criticized the EU for its tough negotiating position.

“There can be negotiations with or without tariffs in place. There are plenty of tariffs the EU has on us. It’s not that we can’t talk just because there’s tariffs,” he said. He noted that “China has not used that as an excuse not to negotiate.”

But German Economy Minister Peter Altmaier insisted the Europeans were being “constructive” and were ready to negotiate special trade arrangements, notably for liquefied natural gas and industrial goods, including cars.

Macron also proposed to start negotiations between the US, the EU, China and Japan to reshape the World Trade Organization to better regulate trade. Discussions could then be expanded to include other countries to agree on changes by the end of the year.

Ross expressed concern that the Geneva-based World Trade Organization and other organizations are too rigid and slow to adapt to changes in global business.

“We would operate within (multilateral) frameworks if we were convinced that people would move quickly,” he said.

Ross and Lighthizer seemed like the odd men out at this week’s gathering at the OECD, an international economic agency that includes the US as a prominent member.

The agency issued a report Wednesday saying “the threat of trade restrictions has begun to adversely affect confidence” and tariffs “would negatively influence investment and jobs.” AP

WASHINGTON, May 26: One day after abruptly pulling the plug on a high-stakes summit with North Korea, US President Donald Trump said Friday the meeting with Kim Jong Un could go ahead after all — and would “likely” happen on the originally scheduled date of June 12.

The summit would be an unprecedented meeting between a sitting US president and a North Korean leader, which Washington hopes will result in the full denuclearization of the reclusive state.

Trump said in a tweet that “very productive talks” were ongoing with North Korea about reinstating the summit.

“If it does happen, will likely remain in Singapore on the same date, June 12th,” he wrote, adding the meeting could be extended further if necessary.

On Thursday, Trump cancelled the summit that was due to take place in Singapore, blaming “tremendous anger and open hostility” from Pyongyang in recent days.

But North Korea responded Friday by saying it was willing to talk to the United States “at any time” — a reaction Trump welcomed as “warm and productive.”

“We’re talking to them now,” Trump said of the North Koreans. “They very much want to do it. We’d like to do it.”

US Defense Secretary Jim Mattis said there was “possibly some good news” on the summit, while White House Press Secretary Sarah Sanders told reporters: “If the meeting takes place on June 12, we will be ready.”

On Saturday, South Korea, which had brokered the remarkable detente between Washington and Pyongyang, cautiously welcomed Trump’s latest comments.

“We find it fortunate that the embers of the North Korea-US talks are reignited. We are watching developments carefully,” Presidential Blue House spokesman Kim Eui-gyeom said.

Trump’s initial cancellation of the summit blindsided treaty ally Seoul, with President Moon Jae-in calling the move “shocking and very regrettable”.

 ‘TWISTS AND TURNS’

State Department spokeswoman Heather Nauert cast the fast-moving developments as simply “twists and turns” in the process.

“We never expected it to be easy,” Nauert told reporters.

But the whiplash from the White House was unusual even for the chaos-loving president. In March, apparently acting on impulse, Trump agreed to the talks with Kim after only limited input from aides.

In a letter to Kim, Trump blamed Pyongyang for his decision to call off the summit, and warned North Korea against committing any “foolish or reckless acts” while also highlighting America’s “massive and powerful” nuclear capabilities.

North Korea’s First Vice Foreign Minister Kim Kye Gwan called Trump’s decision “unexpected” and “regrettable” but sounded a conciliatory tone, saying officials were willing “to sit face-to-face at any time.”

Just before Trump announced the cancellation of the meeting, North Korea declared it had completely dismantled its nuclear test site in the country’s far northeast, in a carefully choreographed goodwill gesture.

 ‘SHOW GOODWILL’

Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said he respected and supported the US president’s move to cancel the summit while China, Pyongyang’s sole major ally, urged the two foes to “show goodwill.”

Russia’s President Vladimir Putin held out hope the talks would eventually take place.

Politically, Trump had invested heavily in the success of the planned summit.

As the date drew nearer, however, a gulf in expectations between the two sides became apparent.

Before Trump’s announcement, Pyongyang had hardened its rhetoric, calling comments by Vice President Mike Pence “ignorant and stupid.”

Washington has made it clear it wants to see the “complete, verifiable and irreversible denuclearization” of the North.

Pyongyang has vowed it will never give up its nuclear deterrent until it feels safe from what it terms US aggression.

LIBYAN MODEL

The White House was unhappy about what it considered to be a “trail of broken promises” by North Korea — including failure to show up for summit preparatory talks and complaints about the latest US-South Korean joint military exercise.

It also was unhappy about the North’s failure to allow international observers to verify the dismantling of the Punggye-ri test site, the staging ground for all six of its nuclear tests.

But the North’s Kim Kye Gwan countered that Pyongyang’s angry statements were “just a backlash in response to harsh words from the US side that has been pushing for a unilateral denuclearization.”

Both Pence and Trump’s hawkish National Security Advisor John Bolton had raised the specter of Libyan leader Moamer Khadafi, who gave up atomic weapons only to die years later at the hands of US-backed rebels.

Joel Wit, founder of the respected 38 North website that monitors North Korea, said Kim’s hand has been strengthened regardless of whether the summit goes ahead because recent weeks have seen him forge connections with Chinese President Xi Jinping, as well as with Russia and South Korea.

“Kim has created sort of a cushion for failure that if the US backs away, the Chinese and Russians will be behind him,” Wit said.

But others said Trump’s demonstrated willingness to walk away could yet extract further concessions from Pyongyang.

“North Korea will have to propose more detailed plans for denuclearization if it wants to talk in the future,” said Go Myong-hyun, an analyst at the Asan Institute of Policy Studies. AFP