Russian Foreign Ministry is summoning envoys of foreign states that expelled Russian diplomats to hand them notes of protest and inform them of Russia’s retaliatory measures.

The Ambassador of Germany was seen leaving the Russian Foreign Ministry Friday, while the ambassadors of the Netherlands, Ukraine, France, Italy and Poland were seen arriving.

The United States on Thursday declared there is no justification for Russia’s retaliatory expulsion of American diplomats.

Later Thursday, the White House issued a statement saying the action by Moscow “marks a further deterioration” of the relationship between the U.S. and Russia.

“The expulsion of undeclared Russian intelligence officers by the United States and more than two dozen partner nations and NATO allies earlier this week was an appropriate response to the Russian attack on the soil of the United Kingdom. Russia’s response was not unanticipated, and the United States will deal with it,” the statement said.

The Under Secretary of State for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs, Heather Nauert, also criticized Moscow’s actions, announced earlier in the day by Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov.

“Russia should not be acting like a victim,” the State Department spokeswoman added, remarking that the only real victims are those poisoned and inconvenienced by the March 4 release of a nerve agent in the British city of Salisbury.

Retaliation

Lavrov announced the expulsion of 60 U.S. diplomats in response to Washington ordering the departure of the same number of Russian envoys.

Russia also is closing the U.S. consulate in the city of Saint Petersburg, ordering it to cease operations in two days.

“It’s clear from the list provided to us that the Russian Federation is not interested in a dialogue on issues that matter to our two countries,” Nauert told reporters at Thursday’s State Department briefing. “We reserve the right to respond.”

The United States, along with more than two dozen other nations, has revoked the credentials of Russian diplomats the nations accuse of working as spies after Moscow was blamed for the nerve agent attack on former Russian double agent Sergei Skripal and his daughter, Yulia, earlier this month in Salisbury.

“The United States is better off with fewer Russian spies,” Nauert told reporters at Thursday’s State Department briefing.

All of the Americans declared persona non grata — 58 diplomats in Moscow and two officials of the consulate in Yekaterinburg — are to leave Russia by April 5.

Russia also is expected to expel diplomats from the other countries that took action against it.

Moscow denies responsibility for the nerve agent attack. It alleges that the attack was carried out by British intelligence services in order to make Russia look bad. Britain dismisses that allegation.

Call for dialogue

Expressing concern about deteriorating relations between the two nuclear powers, the United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres is calling for Washington and Moscow to discuss their differences.

“During the Cold War there were mechanisms of communication and control to avoid the escalation of incidents, to make sure that things would not get out of control when tensions would rise. Those mechanisms have been dismantled,” Guterres told reporters. “I do believe that mechanisms of this sort are necessary again.”

U.S. Ambassador to Russia, Jon Huntsman — who was summoned to the foreign ministry on Thursday — told VOA that it is “our desire, of course is to maintain dialogue on the issues that matter the most. Issues like strategic stability and arms control, which are not just a U.S.-Russia set of issues, but indeed impact the stability and the well being of the entire globe.”

British Prime Minister Theresa May, in a phone call this week with U.S. President Donald Trump, praised Washington’s “very strong response” in the wake of the poisoning.

The White House said, “Both leaders agreed on the importance of dismantling Russia’s spy networks in the United Kingdom and the United States to curtail Russian clandestine activities and prevent future chemical weapons attacks on either country’s soil.”

Poisoning victim improving

Meanwhile, Yulia Skripal is “improving rapidly” after the nerve agent attack and is no longer in critical condition, said Salisbury District Hospital Medical Director Christine Blanshard.

Sergei Skripal remains in critical condition, according to the physician.

British police say detectives believe the Skripals first made contact with the toxin at the front door of their home. They cautioned that those living in the neighborhood will see continued searches, but that the risk to the public remains low.

Margaret Besheer at the UN and Jamie Dettmer in Moscow contributed to this report
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A wider Sino-U.S. trade dispute would help export-reliant Vietnam compete against Chinese companies but put the country at risk of any global fallout, analysts say.

The numerous exporters in Vietnam that ship manufactured goods to the United States would save money compared with Chinese peers if not subject to American tariffs, said Dustin Daugherty, senior associate with business consultancy Dezan Shira & Associates in Ho Chi Minh City.

The U.S. government said this month it would develop a list of tariffs on up to $60 billion in Chinese imports. China has threatened to impose its own in response.

“Let’s say (the United States) went the more traditional route, tensions kept escalating and more tariffs are slapped on Chinese products,” Daugherty said. “In that case Vietnam’s export sector definitely benefits. We’re already seeing the U.S. being very warm to Vietnam and U.S. businesses keen on doing business with Vietnam.”

But Chinese firms hit by tariffs might flood Vietnam with raw materials for local manufacturing, while overall world market volatility caused by a Sino-U.S. trade dispute could hamper the country’s trade, said Carl Thayer, emeritus professor at the University of New South Wales in Australia.

​A tariff-free Vietnam scenario

Vietnamese exporters would save money compared to their Chinese peers if the U.S. government placed tariffs on Chinese firms alone without touching their cross-border supply chains, Daugherty said.

The government of U.S. President Donald Trump calls China unfair in its trade practices, the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative says on its website. China enjoys a $375 billion trade surplus with the United States.

Vietnam counts the United States as its top single-country export destination and it shipped $46.484 billion worth of goods to that market last year.

Vietnamese officials have carved out an investment environment since the 1980s that hinges on low costs for manufacturers. American-invested factories such as a Ford Motor plant and an Intel chip factory are among those active in Vietnam today.

Foreign investment contributed to exports worth $155.24 billion in 2017, financial services firm SSI Research in Hanoi says. Vietnam’s economy grew about 7 percent in the first quarter this year, it says.

Attractive investment

Vietnam would be a more attractive investment compared with China under higher U.S. tariffs, analysts say.

Some new investors might be formerly China-based firms hoping to flee the tariffs, said Song Seng Wun, an economist in the private banking unit of CIMB in Singapore.

China itself might offer Vietnam, along with other countries, preferential trade policies or infrastructure help to shore up trade ties, some believe. Stronger trade relations outside the United States would help China offset any tariff damage, Daugherty said.

This week China’s commerce minister pledged to relax trade rules affecting India.

​Specter of a broader trade war

U.S. import tariffs that hit China’s extensive cross-border supply chain would hurt Vietnam as a place that finishes Chinese goods for final export, Thayer said. It’s unclear whether Washington would tax Chinese firms alone or their wider supply networks.

Chinese firms already co-invest with Vietnamese partners, Song said, and supply chains for goods such as consumer electronics can net multiple countries, not just China.

More co-investment might follow if Vietnam can offer shelter from tariffs. But Sino-Vietnamese political tension over a maritime dispute risks giving Vietnamese firms a bad name at home if they work too extensively with Chinese partners.

“I would say there will be all kinds of repercussions and implications just because of the very integrated supply chain in the world these days,” Song said. “Take an Apple phone as an example. Parts from here and there are assembled in China.”

Steel, aluminum tariffs

U.S. steel and aluminum tariffs that took effect last week cover much of the world including China and Vietnam. Vietnam exported 380,000 tons of steel, worth $303 million, to the United States in 2017, domestic news website VnExpress International says.

Chinese firms hit by the range of tariffs being mulled now in Washington might boost sales to Vietnam, Thayer said. Chinese sellers of raw materials for Vietnamese exports could dump goods into Vietnam to keep up their own balance sheets as U.S. tariffs hurt them, he added.

Chinese sellers often have an economy of scale that lets them sell for less in Vietnam than local vendors do. Vietnam counts China as its top trading partner.

An escalation of Sino-U.S. trade tensions could also chill global markets or trade as a whole, some analysts fear. That fallout could slow global growth, he said.

“Disruption to trade shouldn’t affect Vietnam overall, but it’s the way the entire globe is reacting to this that I think could affect Vietnam,” he said. “Vietnam is overall heavily committed to global integration with a number of partners, so disruption along that way would have an effect.”
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A recent fatality involving one of Uber’s self-driving cars may have created uncertainty and doubt regarding the future of autonomous vehicles, but it’s not stopping automakers who say autonomous and self-driving vehicles are here to stay. At the New York International Auto Show this week, autonomous vehicles and electric cars were increasingly front and center as VOA’s Tina Trinh reports.
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U.S. President Donald Trump has spoken with his top defense official about using military funding to build the border wall with Mexico.

“It’s been an initial conversation,” Chief Pentagon Spokesperson Dana White said Thursday when asked if Trump had broached the subject with Defense Secretary Jim Mattis.

“Remember, securing Americans and securing the nation is of paramount importance to the secretary,” White said.

This past Sunday, the president tweeted, “Because of the $700 & $716 Billion Dollars gotten to rebuild our Military, many jobs are created and our Military is again rich.”

He followed that with a second Tweet, saying, “Building a great Border Wall, with drugs (poison) and enemy combatants pouring into our Country, is all about National Defense. Build WALL through M!”

The Pentagon has not provided any details about how much military funding could be used to build the border wall, which has an estimated price tag of more than $20 billion, or what impact that would have on the U.S. military itself.  

But the defense appropriations act passed by Congress tells the Pentagon where to spend its money and a change in the budget would need Congressional approval.

“That’s a bridge too far because we don’t have those details,” the Defense Department’s White told reporters Thursday. “It’s been an initial conversation.”

“There’s no daylight between them (Mattis and Trump) with respect to making sure this military stays the most lethal in the world,” White added.

 
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A U.S. federal judge has rejected a bid by a lawyer for adult film actress Stormy Daniels to question President Donald Trump under oath about their alleged 2006 affair and a $130,000 hush payment to her just before the 2016 election to keep quiet about the alleged liaison.

Judge James Otero said the request for the Trump testimony by the porn star’s attorney, Michael Avenatti, was premature because it came before an anticipated request by the president and his personal attorney, Michael Cohen, to settle the case through private arbitration, rather than a public hearing as Avenatti is seeking.

The legal wrangling is occurring in a lawsuit brought by Daniels to void the hush money agreement on grounds that it is invalid because Trump never signed it, either under his own name, or as “David Dennison,” the pseudonym he is identified as in the legal document.

Trump, through Cohen and White House aides, has denied the affair.

But he has not publicly commented about it in the days since Daniels described in detail her encounter with the future U.S. leader last Sunday on CBS’s nationally televised 60 Minutes show, a spectacle that drew 22 million viewers. On Thursday, Trump ignored reporters’ questions about it as he headed to Ohio for a speech.

Avenatti told CNN he thinks he eventually will succeed in forcing Trump and Cohen to answer questions under oath about Daniels’s claim the one-night affair occurred at a celebrity golf tournament in Nevada in mid-2006, months after Trump’s wife Melania gave birth to their son Barron.

“Our goal is to get straight answers,” Avenatti said, including whether Trump knew about the hush money paid to Daniels and whether he reimbursed Cohen, who says he paid the money out of a personal line of credit after creating a new company to facilitate the payment.

Cohen’s attorney, David Schwartz, says the president did not know ahead of time about Cohen’s decision to pay the hush money.
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