U.S. President Donald Trump accused China Tuesday of “actively trying to impact and change” the U.S. election and threatened “great and fast economic retaliation” if it retaliates with measures that would hurt American workers.

Trump did not offer evidence to support his accusation nor did he specify whether it was the upcoming midterm elections China was allegedly targeting.

The accusation comes one day after China promised to take “countermeasures” against Trump’s plan to impose tariffs on an additional $200 billion worth Chinese imports.

The new duties, which take effect on September 24, will begin at 10 percent, then rise to 25 percent on January 1, 2019. The tariffs will be imposed on thousands of consumer goods, including electronics, food, tools and housewares.

The Trump administration exempted numerous other items from the new tariffs, including smart watches, Bluetooth devices, and infant car seats.

China’s Commerce Ministry issued a statement Tuesday warning that it would respond to the new U.S. tariffs “to safeguard its legitimate rights and interests and the global free trade order.”

Beijing has previously released a list of $60 billion in American-made goods subject to its retaliatory tariffs.

In the statement announcing the new tariffs, Trump warned that “if China takes retaliatory action against our farmers or other industries, we will immediately pursue phase three, which is tariffs on approximately $267 billion of additional imports.”

China has previously said it will welcome new trade talks with Washington, but also suggested it would not engage in more negotiations if the United States imposed the tariffs.

In recent months, Washington and Beijing imposed 25 percent tariffs on $34 billion worth of goods headed across each other’s borders.

Earlier Monday, White House economic adviser Larry Kudlow told the Economic Club of New York that the United States is “ready to negotiate and talk with China any time that they are ready for serious and substantive negotiations toward free trade to reduce tariffs and non-tariff barriers, to open markets, to allow the most competitive economy in the world, ours, to export more and more goods and services to China.
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China says it has no choice but to retaliate to U.S. President Donald Trump’s 10 percent tariffs on $200 billion in Chinese goods, risking a further escalation of trade tensions between the world’s two biggest economies.

On Tuesday, China announced a tariff hike on $60 billion of American products.

 

In a brief statement posted online Tuesday, China’s Commerce Ministry said, “To protect its legitimate rights and interests and order in international free trade, China is left with no choice but to retaliate simultaneously.”

 

On Monday, the Communist Party backed Global Times newspaper warned that if Trump went ahead with the tariffs, China would not just play defense.

 

At about the same time the Commerce Ministry statement was released, a research director for North America and the Pacific at the Commerce Ministry also delivered a commentary on China’s state-run CCTV news network.

 

The official said the latest round of tariffs have brought uncertainty to ongoing efforts for representatives from both countries to meet again and hold trade talks.

 

“Under the party’s strong central leadership, China has the resolve and confidence to press ahead and use deeper reforms and deeper opening up as well as the development of our domestic market to counter United States unilateralism,” Li Wei said.

 

Foreign Ministry spokesman Geng Shuang told a daily briefing Tuesday in Beijing that talks are the only correct way to resolve the issue and accused the United States of being insincere.  Last week, the United States extended an invitation to China’s top negotiator, Liu He, to resume talks later this month in Washington.

 

The $200 billion in U.S. tariffs go into effect in less than a week, on September 24, leaving the two sides little time to sit down.

 

On Monday, President Trump warned, in a statement announcing his move, if China retaliates against U.S. farmers or other industries, Washington “will immediately pursue phase three, which is tariffs on approximately $267 billion in additional imports.”

The additional $267 billion in tariffs is expected to cover all Chinese imports to the United States.

American and European businesses operating in China say that if Washington presses ahead with more and more tariffs, it is likely to only add to the challenges businesses are already facing.

 

According to surveys conducted by the American Chamber of Commerce in China and the European Chamber of Commerce, trade tensions are already hitting and hurting supply chains of foreign businesses.  Some companies have begun to move manufacturing away from China and the United States to avoid the impact of growing trade tensions, the European Chamber said.

 

European Chamber President Mats Harborn said engagement on the part of Washington and Beijing is the answer.

 

He said that what the United States is doing now is “economic madness” that risks creating a vicious cycle for business that could have an impact in China and elsewhere.  But the root of the trade dispute is that China’s reform is lagging behind its development, creating a “reform deficit.”

 

“Closing the reform gap will create better private companies in China, foreign companies,” Harborn said.  “And reducing the reform deficit should also help reduce tensions in the ongoing trade war.”

 

In its annual position paper on European business in China, the chamber lists 828 recommendations for Chinese authorities to address that deficit.

 

One of the key hurdles both private Chinese enterprises and foreign companies face is the dominant position state owned enterprises (SOEs) enjoy.  State owned enterprises account for around 30 percent of the economy and yet enjoy nearly 70 percent of all financing, the report said.

 

Unfair trade practices and the way SOEs contribute to an unbalanced playing field in China are key elements of the investigation the Trump administration carried out prior to launching its first round of tariffs.

 

But how far China is willing to go to change is uncertain.  Later this month, a meeting on SOEs will be held that many are expecting will be an indicator of the future course China’s Communist Party leaders plan to chart.

 

“We hear that there is a move to make the SOEs stronger, bigger and better,” Harborn said.  “Such ambitions are hindering the further opening and development of the vibrant private Chinese sector.”

 

If reform of SOEs is not on the agenda at the meeting, that would be seen as a clear provocation, given the current climate, he said.  

 

 

 

 
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What is left of tropical storm Florence is soaking the mid-Atlantic with buckets of rain as it drifts toward New England, leaving death and destruction behind in the Carolinas.

Flash flood watches and warnings are posted from southern Virginia into Vermont and New Hampshire through Tuesday.

Several tornadoes damaged buildings in the Richmond, Virginia, area Monday afternoon, with tornado watches posted for parts of Maryland, Pennsylvania and Delaware. 

Florence is now a what forecasters call a post-tropical cyclone, with top sustained winds of 35 kilometers per hour (22 mph). But the storm’s slow speed as it approached the Carolina coast late last week allowed it to pick up a huge amount of moisture.

Authorities continue to worry about more floods, breached dams and landslides, particularly as Florence makes its way across mountainous regions.

At least 20 deaths are blamed on the storm. 

“Unfortunately, we’ve still got several days to go. People fail to heed warnings and get out, or they get into the floodwaters trying to escape their home. And that’s where you start to see deaths escalate,” Brock Long, head of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, told U.S. television networks. 

Some parts of North Carolina have already gotten about 100 centimeters (39 inches) of rain. All of that rain is swelling streams and rivers and creating what the National Hurricane Center called “prolonged significant river flooding.”

Floods have cut off entire towns and cities in North Carolina, making helicopters the only way to get into these places and help the stranded. More than 700,000 homes have no power.

One of the hardest hit cities in North Carolina was New Bern, a riverfront city not far from the Atlantic coast. Mayor Dana Outlaw said the city was hit by a three-meter (10 feet) storm surge at the height of the hurricane Friday. He said 4,200 homes were damaged.

The White House said President Donald Trump would visit the storm-ravaged region in the coming days, but only after it is determined his arrival would not disrupt continuing rescue and recovery efforts.

WATCH: N. Carolina Gov. Cooper speaks on Hurricane Florence
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The military’s new Space Force, if approved by Congress, will initially consist of 13,000 personnel and cost nearly $13 billion over five years, according to a U.S. Air Force memo obtained on Monday by VOA.

The Air Force, which currently oversees the bulk of military space assets, estimated in the memo that Space Force’s creation will cost more than $3 billion in its first year and an additional $10 billion over the four following years. 

Air Force Secretary Heather Wilson wrote in the memo, dated Sept. 14, that strategic competition with Russian and China is the military’s “top priority, [and] nowhere is this more evident than in space.”

Her plan, she added, acts quickly to counter competitors’ attempts to “erode” U.S. military advantages in space by establishing a Space Force Headquarters in 2020 and transitioning all programs to the new department through proposed Congressional legislation and funding in 2021.

The Air Force Secretary pushed back on some of the initial Space Force proposals by Deputy Secretary of Defense Patrick Shanahan, such as the need to create a Space Development Agency to oversee satellite acquisition and the creation of a new top-level position in the Office of the Secretary of Defense.

“Establishing an Assistant Secretary of Defense for Space or new defense bureaucracy, or moving programs to a temporary holding organization, is not in line with the President’s intent,” she said.

She instead planned to use an already-established asset, the Air Force Space Rapid Capabilities Office, to oversee satellite purchases.

The Pentagon will include legislation to create the president’s desired Space Force in the Defense Department’s fiscal year 2020 budget proposal, which is expected to be sent to Congress in early 2019.

President Donald Trump repeatedly has called for the creation of a space force as a new military branch that he says is needed to ensure U.S. dominance in space. 

Vice President Mike Pence formally announced some of the steps underway to create the new force last month after the Pentagon submitted a report to Congress detailing its space management changes.  

About 18,000 people across the Department of Defense work in the field of space, with tasks that include protecting about 140 military satellites that generate trillions of dollars of economic output, according to senior military officials.
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The U.S. Air Force is predicting it will need to grow sharply over the next decade or so, boosting the number of operational squadrons by nearly a quarter to stay ahead of increasingly muscular militaries in China and Russia, officials said.

Air Force Secretary Heather Wilson told reporters that the preliminary analysis drew partly from classified intelligence about possible threats in the 2025 to 2030 time frame, showing that the service, at its current size, would be unable to preserve America’s edge.

“The Air Force is too small for what the nation is asking us to do,” Wilson told a small group of reporters ahead of a speech on Monday that will lay out her arguments.

The Air Force analysis did not include a price tag and Wilson declined to speculate on costs. But such growth could conceivably cost billions of dollars, given the need to hire more personnel and buy substantially more aircraft, from refueling tankers and fighter jets to bombers, made by companies like Boeing and Lockheed Martin.

Wilson estimated the Air Force would need about more 40,000 personnel as part of the plan to have a total of 386 operational squadrons, up 24 percent from the 312 today. The increase would bring the Air Force to about 717,000 personnel, including the Guard and Reserve.

The U.S. Air Force had 401 squadrons in 1987, at the peak of the Cold War between the United States and the Soviet Union.

Usually commanded by a lieutenant colonel, squadrons are the core fighting units of the Air Force and are often composed of about 18 to 24 aircraft.

The Air Force estimate is likely to set the stage for greater debate about military spending priorities, including within the Pentagon, where branches of the world’s most powerful military already fiercely vie for resources.

That competition is set to grow if President Donald Trump succeeds in creating a new “Space Force” as the sixth branch of the military, something he hopes to do by 2020.

About one-sixth of U.S. federal spending goes to defense, according to the Congressional Budget Office. Although some lawmakers complain the Pentagon gets too big a share of U.S. resources, defense spending enjoys broad support in Congress.

Growing Risk

Trump last month signed a massive, $716 billion defense policy bill meant to help address shortcomings in the U.S. military, which is trying to shift its focus to challenges posed by countries like China and Russia after nearly 17 years fighting militants in places like Afghanistan.

Wilson declined to get into details about classified analysis of future military threats.

But she pointed to events already making global headlines, like how Russia staged its largest military exercise this month since the fall of the Soviet Union, mobilizing 300,000 troops.

Pentagon officials believe the bigger challenge, however, will be staying ahead of China’s rapidly expanding military capabilities.

“The threat is growing,” Wilson said. “We have to be clear-eyed about the world in which we live.”

Wilson acknowledged that the Air Force’s estimates would be further refined in the weeks and months ahead. The latest analysis would be among the reports submitted to Congress in March next year that seek to address a basic question: What kind of Air Force America does America need?

Air Force Chief of Staff General David Goldfein noted that was different from the typical question of what is the best Air Force that the United States can afford, given current budget priorities.

Wilson said: “We also know that there will be a debate about what we can afford – and that’s fair.”

“But I think we have to be clear on what is needed to protect our vital national interest in this country,” she said.
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U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said on Monday the United States would cap the number of refugees allowed into the country at 30,000 for fiscal year 2019, a sharp drop from a limit of 45,000 it set for 2018.

“We proposed resettling up to 30,000 refugees under the new refugee ceiling as well as processing more than 280,000 asylum seekers,” Pompeo said in an announcement at the State Department, calling the United States “the most generous nation in the world when it comes to protection-based immigration.”

“This year’s proposed refugee ceiling must be considered in the context of the many other forms of protection and assistance offered by the United States,” he said.

Refugee advocates quickly condemned the lower cap.

“Today’s announcement is a shameful abdication of our humanity in the face of the worst refugee crisis in history,” Jennifer Quigley, of Human Rights First, said in a statement.

Pompeo said the new limit reflected the administration’s preference for settling refugees closer to their home countries, something President Donald Trump has said would be cheaper than admitting them to the United States.

Pompeo said the decision was also based on security concerns.

“We must continue to responsibly vet applicants to prevent the entry of those who might do harm to our country,” he said.

Officials at the State Department and the Pentagon initially supported maintaining the cap at 45,000, according to one former and one current official. It was unclear whether they changed their position as the debate proceeded or failed to persuade the White House.

The refugee ceiling of 45,000 set last year was the lowest since 1980, when the modern refugee program was established. The United States is on track to admit only 22,000 refugees this year, about half the maximum allowed.

Trump campaigned in 2016 promising tight restrictions on immigration, and his administration has sharply reduced refugee admissions through executive orders and closed-door decisions in the past year and a half.

In the last year, the administration has tightened security vetting procedures that current and former officials say have slowed admission of refugees.

Ryan Mace, a refugee specialist at Amnesty International USA, urged Congress to oppose the decision as it finalizes fiscal year 2019 appropriations.

“The Trump administration is abandoning this country’s promise to refugees,” said Mace. “Today’s announcement demonstrates another undeniable political attack against people who have been forced to flee their homes.”

In addition to far lower admissions overall, the type of refugee admitted has changed under Trump, a Reuters analysis of government data shows. The percentage who are Muslim is now a third what it was two years ago; the percentage who are Europeans has tripled.

The shift has led to striking imbalances. Refugees admitted to the United States from the small European country of Moldova, for example, now outnumber those from Syria by three to one, although the number of Syrian refugees worldwide outnumbers the total population of Moldova.
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Donald Trump on Monday declassified a trove of documents related to the early days of the FBI’s Russia investigation, including portions of a secret surveillance warrant and former FBI Director James Comey’s text messages.

 

Trump made the extraordinary move in response to calls from his allies in Congress who say they believe the Russia investigation was tainted by anti-Trump bias within the ranks of the FBI and Justice Department. It also came as Trump continued his efforts to undermine special counsel Robert Mueller’s probe in the wake of the guilty plea of his former campaign chairman, Paul Manafort, and amid the ongoing grand jury investigation into a longtime associate, Roger Stone.

 

Trump’s decision will result in the release of text messages and documents involving several top Justice Department and FBI officials who Trump has repeatedly attacked over the last year.

 

White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders announced Trump’s decision in a written statement, saying the president had directed the Office of the Director of National Intelligence and the Justice Department to declassify the documents “at the request of a number of committees of Congress, and for reasons of transparency.”

 

According to the statement, Trump declassified about 20 pages of the warrant obtained under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act to monitor the communications of former Trump campaign adviser Carter Page and FBI interviews conducted to secure that warrant.

He also is declassifying all FBI reports documenting interviews with senior Justice Department official Bruce Ohr, who was in contact with ex-British spy Christopher Steele. Steele was a longtime FBI informant whose Democratic-funded research into Trump ties to Russia was compiled into a dossier that has become a partisan lightning rod since its publication in January 2017.

 

According to Sanders’ statement, Trump also directed the Justice Department to publicly release in full the text messages of Comey, Ohr, former FBI Director Andrew McCabe, former FBI lawyer Lisa Page and former FBI special agent Peter Strzok.
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