White House trade adviser Peter Navarro said Sunday that President Donald Trump is not planning to exempt any countries from his increase in tariffs on imported steel and aluminum coming from foreign shores.

Navarro told CNN that final details on Trump’s anticipated 25 percent tax on steel imports and a 10 percent tariff on aluminum should be completed by later in the week or early next week at the latest.

Trump’s new tariffs for the key metals have drawn wide condemnation from business-oriented Republican lawmakers in the U.S., as well as key allied trading partners — Canada and the European Union. But Navarro said the tariffs are needed to “protect our national security and economic security, broadly defined.”

He dismissed concerns from Defense Department officials who voiced support for targeted tariff increases aimed at specific countries but not increases on the imported metals from throughout the world.

Watch: Washington Braces for Possible Trump-Induced Trade War

Navarro said Trump “listens to all sides and makes the tough decisions. I think it’s the right decision.” He called it “a slippery slope” to target only some countries with increased tariffs while exempting others. He said there would be a mechanism to exclude some businesses, on a case-by-case basis, from having to pay higher prices for the imported metals.

Canada, the largest U.S. trading partner, could be the hardest hit, since last year it shipped $7.2 billion worth of aluminum to the U.S. and steel valued at $4.3 billion. The tariffs would also hit other U.S. allies — Britain, Germany, South Korea, Turkey and Japan. But China, the world’s biggest steel producer, only sends 2 percent of its supply to the U.S. and would be less affected.

Navarro said the message to the world on U.S. trade practices is simple: “We’re not going to take it anymore. We don’t get good results,” Navarro said, adding that U.S. trade overseas is “not fair and reciprocal.”

In another news talk show appearance, Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross told ABC News that Trump has talked with “a number of the world leaders” about his trade tariff plans.

British Prime Minister Theresa May’s office said that in a Sunday phone call with Trump she had “raised our deep concern at the president’s forthcoming announcement on steel and aluminium tariffs, noting that multilateral action was the only way to resolve the problem of global overcapacity in all parties’ interests.”

U.S. Commerce secretary Ross said the total value of the impending U.S. tariffs amounts to about $9 billion a year, a fraction of 1 percent of the annual $18.6 trillion U.S. economy, the world’s largest.

“So, the notion that it would destroy a lot of jobs, raise prices, disrupt things, is wrong,” Ross said.

Ross dismissed European Union threats of imposing retaliatory tariffs on such prominent American products as Harley Davidson motorcycles, bourbon and Levi’s jeans as unimportant and a “rounding error.”

In response on Saturday, Trump threatened European automakers with a tax on imports if the European Union retaliates against the U.S.

Ross called the possible European levies a “pretty trivial amount of retaliatory tariffs, adding up to some $3 billion of goods. In our size economy, that’s a tiny, tiny fraction of 1 percent. So, while it might affect an individual producer for a little while, overall, it’s not going to be much more than a rounding error.”

Trump weighed in Saturday on his rationale for the tariff hikes with a pair of Twitter comments.

“The United States has an $800 Billion Dollar Yearly Trade Deficit because of our ‘very stupid’ trade deals and policies,” he said. “Our jobs and wealth are being given to other countries that have taken advantage of us for years. They laugh at what fools our leaders have been. No more!

​

In 2017, the U.S. imported $151 billion more in goods from Europe than it exported to EU countries.
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President Donald Trump threatened on Saturday to impose a tax on European cars if the European Union chooses to retaliate against his plans to place tariffs on imported steel and aluminum.

In a tweet Saturday morning, Trump said the U.S. had an “$800 Billion Dollar Yearly” trade imbalance because of “very stupid” trade deals and policies. He warned that if the EU increased “tariffs and barriers” against American-made products, “we will simply add a Tax on their Cars.”

Presently, the U.S. imposes a 2.5 percent tariff on European-built cars and Europe imposes a 10 percent tariff on U.S.-built cars.

Earlier this week, Trump announced that he plans sometime in the coming week to impose tariffs of 25 percent on steel and 10 percent on aluminum imports. He said the tariffs would be in effect for a long period of time.

Trump’s tweet Saturday appeared to be in response to European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker’s warning that the EU could respond by taxing quintessentially American-made products, such as bourbon whiskey, blue jeans and Harley-Davidson motorcycles.

Juncker told German media Friday that he does not like the words “trade war.” “But I can’t see how this isn’t part of warlike behavior,” he said.

Trump had tweeted earlier in the day: “Trade wars are good, and easy to win.”

Trump’s announcement, made during a meeting with steel and aluminum industry executives at the White House, led a sharp drop in the U.S. markets and sparked concerns of a trade war Friday.

China, Canada respond

Later Friday, China warned about the “huge impact” on global trading if Trump proceeds with his tariff plans.

Wang Hejun, head of China’s commerce ministry’s trade remedy and investigation bureau, said in a statement the tariffs would “seriously damage multilateral trade mechanisms represented by the World Trade Organization and will surely have huge impact on normal international trade order.” 

The Chinese official added, “If the final measures of the United States hurt Chinese interests, China will work with other affected countries in taking measures to safeguard its own rights and interests.”

China ranks 11th among the countries that export steel to the U.S. 

Canada is the United States’ biggest foreign source of both materials.

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said Friday that Trump’s tariff plans were “absolutely unacceptable.” He said he is prepared to “defend Canadian industry” and warned the tariffs would also hurt U.S. consumers and businesses by driving up prices.

The director of the World Trade Organization, Roberto Azevedo, responded coolly, saying, “A trade war is in no one’s interests.” 

Trump spent Friday defending his threat to impose the tariffs, saying potential trade conflicts can be beneficial to the United States.

“When a country (USA) is losing many billions of dollars on trade with virtually every country it does business with, trade wars are good, and easy to win,” Trump wrote in a post on the social media site Twitter. “Example, when we are down $100 billion with a certain country and they get cute, don’t trade anymore – we win big. It’s easy!” 

A Japanese government official told VOA that Tokyo “has explained several times to the U.S. government our concerns,” but declined to comment further on any ongoing discussions with Washington.

“While we are aware of the president’s statement, we understand that the official decision has not been made yet,” the Japanese official said. “If the U.S. is going to implement any measures, we expect the measures be WTO-rules consistent.” 

China on Friday expressed “grave concern” about the matter. 

Trump said Thursday the tariffs of 25 percent on steel and 10 percent on aluminum imports will be in effect for a long period of time. He said the measure will be signed “sometime next week.” 

In 2017, Canada, Brazil, South Korea and Mexico accounted for nearly half of all U.S. steel imports. That year, Chinese steel accounted for less than 2 percent of overall U.S. imports.
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Three people were partially buried in an avalanche that closed a ski resort in the Sierra Nevada mountains in central California Satuday morning.

The three people, who were able to extricate themselves from the snow, were unhurt, officials with the Mammoth Mountain ski area said. Mammoth Mountain is located about 500 kilometers north of Los Angeles.

The slide occurred in an area of the mountain where avalanche control work — where crews purposely set off smaller slides in an effort to prevent a larger one — was being done. The area had been closed to the public, but debris from the purposely set slides crossed into an area where people were skiing and snowboarding.

The resort remained closed Saturday and was expected to open on Sunday, resort officials said.

On Friday, an avalanche struck the Olympic Valley ski area near Lake Tahoe, about 225 kilometers north of Mammoth Mountain.

Five people were swept up in that avalanche, leaving one hospitalized with lower-body injuries, officials said. In a video shared on social media, rescuers could be seen using their hands to dig out one buried snowboarder.

Recent snowstorms have dropped nearly 2 meters of snow in some areas. On Thursday at Mammoth Mountain, heavy wet snow was covered with a lighter snow. A storm on Friday did the same, leading to conditions that often cause slides, local residents told the Los Angeles Times.
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Nearly 2 million households and businesses remained without power Saturday on the U.S. East Coast after a heavy storm system brought rain, snow and hurricane-force winds to states from Maine, where the governor declared a state of emergency, all the way to North Carolina.

Seven deaths were reported as a result of trees falling during the storm, in Virginia, Maryland, Pennsylvania, New York, Connecticut and Rhode Island.

Maine Governor Charlie Baker declared a state of emergency on Saturday, as did the governors of Virginia and Maryland a day earlier. The declaration gives those states access to federal funds to help with storm recovery. Baker said the National Guard was deployed in parts of Maine to evacuate and rescue people in hard-hit areas.

By late Saturday, Amtrak train service suspended during the storm had begun again, although with delays. More than a quarter of flights were canceled in and out of airports in New York and Boston.

The storm set in on Friday, bringing winds up to 145 kph (90 mph) and flooding the streets of Boston and nearby coastal towns. More flooding was expected late Saturday, during high tide.

In New York and Pennsylvania, the private forecasting service AccuWeather said as much as 46 centimeters (18 inches) of rain had fallen.

And in upstate New York, some areas were hit with a meter (3.2 feet) of snow.

Meteorologists nicknamed the storm a “bomb cyclone,” the second such phenomenon in two months, named for how quickly the barometric pressure falls during such an event.
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The mass shooting of 17 people at a Florida high school in February has reignited the long-running debate over gun laws in the United States. Here is a look at some gun rights and gun control groups in the U.S.:

Prominent gun rights groups

National Rifle Association

The NRA, which claims 5 million members, is one of the country’s most powerful lobbying groups for gun rights. Founded in 1871, it seeks to educate the public about firearms and defend U.S. citizens’ Second Amendment rights. It has directly lobbied for and against legislation since 1975.

The Center for Responsive Politics, which tracks data reported to the Federal Election Commission, says the group has made nearly $23 million in direct political contributions since 1989.

Gun Owners of America

Gun Owners of America was formed in 1975 to protect the rights of gun owners. The group says on its website that it sees “firearms ownership as a freedom issue.”

The group has built a nationwide network of attorneys and says they’ve fought court battles in almost every U.S. state to protect gun owners’ rights. It says it has also worked with members of Congress, state legislators and local citizens to protect gun ranges and local gun clubs from closure by “overzealous government anti-gun bureaucrats.”​

​National Association for Gun Rights

NAGR was founded in 2001 and claims on its website that it is the fastest-growing gun rights group in America. The group says that it has 4.5 million grass-roots activists and that it focuses on educating gun owners about state and federal legislation that affects their gun rights

One of its main efforts is to advance “constitutional carry” legislation, which would allow people to carry weapons without first obtaining a permit. “Law-abiding people shouldn’t be forced to get a government permission slip to exercise their right to self-defense. No one should be treated like a criminal simply for wishing to carry a firearm in defense of themselves or their family,” NAGR says on its website.

The group also differentiates itself from the NRA. “Unlike the NRA, NAGR believes in absolutely 100% NO COMPROMISE on gun rights issues,” it says.

Prominent gun control groups

Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence

The Brady Campaign works to elect public officials who support gun control legislation and to increase public awareness of gun violence.

Named after James Brady, President Ronald Reagan’s press secretary who was shot and nearly killed in a presidential assassination attempt, this group scored a victory in the 1990s with the federal assault weapons ban. (Legislative efforts to renew the ban failed, and it expired in September 2004.)

The group’s stated mission is to cut the number of U.S. gun deaths in half by 2025, partly by working to implement background checks on all gun sales. In addition, the group wants to lead a new national conversation and “change social norms around the real dangers of guns in the home, to prevent the homicides, suicides and unintentional shootings that happen every day as a result.”​

​Giffords

Giffords was founded by shooting victim and former Democratic U.S. Representative Gabby Giffords of Arizona and her husband, former astronaut Mark Kelly. It was originally known as Americans for Responsible Solutions.

Giffords’ stated goal is to “research, write and propose policies that make Americans safer and mobilize voters and lawmakers in support of safer gun laws.”

Giffords, who was shot in 2011, announced the formation of the group following the mass shooting of 20 children and six adults at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut, in December 2012.

Giffords and Kelly call themselves Second Amendment supporters, but are also committed to lobbying for expanded background checks, stiffer penalties on gun trafficking, and funding for research on the causes of gun violence.

Everytown for Gun Safety

Everytown for Gun Safety was founded by former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg. Formerly called Mayors Against Illegal Guns, the group lobbies for gun control legislation on a local and federal level and provides a support network for gun violence survivors.

On its website, the group says, “For too long, change has been thwarted by the Washington gun lobby and by leaders who refuse to take common-sense steps that will save lives.”

The Center for Responsive Politics, which tracks data reported to the Federal Election Commission, says Bloomberg gave a total of $28 million to outside spending groups during the 2014 cycle to push for changes in gun control.
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Before a phone conversation this week to discuss the war in Syria and Russian nuclear arms, German Chancellor Angela Merkel and U.S. President Donald Trump had not spoken to each other in more than five months.

That gap, described by diplomats on both sides of the Atlantic as shockingly long, underscores the challenge Merkel faces if she succeeds in forming a coalition government later this month and, as German officials suggest, tries to reset the relationship with Trump.

A strong believer in close transatlantic ties, Merkel was the go-to leader in Europe for both Presidents Barack Obama and George W. Bush when Washington and Berlin were navigating the global financial crisis, Russia’s annexation of Crimea from Ukraine and Iran’s nuclear program.

But her relationship with Trump got off to a frosty start and has never recovered.

Is trust lacking?

At a time of rising transatlantic tensions over trade, the Iran nuclear deal and NATO defense spending, some German officials and analysts worry the personal divide between the brash, impulsive president and cautious, analytical chancellor could lead to a further deterioration in bilateral ties.

Jan Techau, a senior fellow at the German Marshall Fund think tank in Berlin, described the five month gap as a “very very bad sign.” He saw no connection with the conservative chancellor’s struggle to form a new government more than five months after federal elections.

“I don’t think it has anything to do with the political limbo in Germany. It is a sign of a relationship where there is no trust,” Techau said. “If you don’t have a personal relationship between the leaders to fall back on, it can be very difficult to stop the downward spiral.”

Juergen Hardt, a senior lawmaker in Merkel’s Christian Democrat party, said: “Especially in times of stress, when immediate communication is required, they need to be able to pick up the phone and find solutions. There needs to be a good personal relationship and a good working relationship.”

​In contrast, Macron

German government officials play down the prolonged “radio silence” between Merkel and Trump, noting that the chancellor has ratcheted back her contacts with many foreign leaders during the months of arduous coalition talks at home.

They say the dialogue between Germany and the United States at lower levels of the government remains strong.

Some question whether any foreign leader can influence Trump, who shocked his European allies again Thursday by announcing plans to introduce hefty tariffs on imported steel and aluminum, sending financial markets reeling on fears of a trade war.

“Germany needs to make up for the vacuum at the top level by engaging on other levels, with Congress, with the states and with civil society,” said Thomas Matussek, a former German ambassador to the United Nations and Britain.

Still, the contrast between Merkel’s icy start with Trump and the rapport that French President Emmanuel Macron has developed with the American president is stark.

Macron has gone out of his way to woo Trump with a mix of machismo and flattery. The two engaged in a macho handshake contest when they first met last May. Two months later, Macron hosted Trump at Bastille Day celebrations in Paris, dining with him in the Eiffel Tower.

Next month Macron will travel to Washington for the first official state visit by a foreign leader since Trump became president early last year.

Over the past five months, Macron and Trump have spoken by phone seven times, according to the Elysee. Over the same span, British Prime Minister Theresa May has spoken with Trump four times, according to Downing Street.

U.S. and German officials confirmed to Reuters that before Thursday, Merkel had not spoken with Trump since Sept. 28. She often spoke with Obama and Bush on a weekly basis, according to German officials, who could not recall a gap of more than a month with Trump’s two predecessors.

Public opinion

A French official close to Macron rejected the notion that the French president and Merkel were engaged in a coordinated “good cop, bad cop” act with Trump, and noted that the chancellor had to take her more skeptical public into account.

“German public opinion towards Trump is a catastrophe. It is much more violent (than in France),” the official said.

A poll by the Pew Research Center last year showed that just 11 percent of Germans have confidence in Trump. Another Pew poll published earlier this week showed that 56 percent of Germans view the relationship with the United States as “bad.”

German officials still expect Merkel, who has continued to talk with Russia’s Vladimir Putin and Turkey’s Tayyip Erdogan during times of acute bilateral tensions, to do her best to re-engage with Trump over the coming months.

The two will see each other at a G7 summit in Canada in June and at a NATO summit in Brussels a month later.

U.S.-German contacts may pick up if Merkel finally forms a new government. Social Democrat party members are voting on whether to endorse another four years of the “grand coalition” with the Christian Democrats, with the result of the postal ballot due Sunday.

“Once there is a new government in place, all Cabinet members will engage. Expect a new wave of visits from Berlin to Washington,” one senior official said.

But German officials say there are no current plans for Merkel to return to the White House, where Trump ignored entreaties to shake her hand during a meeting in the Oval Office a year ago. And there are no plans for Trump to return to Germany following his visit to Hamburg for a G20 summit last July.
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