Trump says there is a ‘good chance’ of a deal with Mexico that could avert tariffs - The Washington Post

President Trump said Friday that there is a “good chance” that U.S. and Mexican officials could strike a deal that would remove the need to impose tariffs he has threatened, shifting his tone as the two sides continued to negotiate steps to address the surge of migrants crossing the U.S. southern border.

“If we are able to make the deal with Mexico, & there is a good chance that we will, they will begin purchasing Farm & Agricultural products at very high levels, starting immediately,” Trump said in a tweet. “If we are unable to make the deal, Mexico will begin paying Tariffs at the 5% level on Monday!”

He sent his tweet from Air Force One as he was returning from a trip to Europe.

Several hours earlier, a senior White House official also raised the possibility that a deal could be struck by Monday.

“There’s a long way to go still, that’s the bottom line,” Marc Short, chief of staff to Vice President Pence, told reporters at the White House, adding that the administration plans to issue a “legal notification” Friday in advance of the imposition of 5 percent tariffs Monday.

“But I think that there is the ability, if negotiations continue to go well, that the president can turn that off at some point over the weekend,” Short said.

[Mexico aims to avoid tariffs with potential deal limiting migrants going north, allowing U.S. to deport Central American asylum seekers]

Short said that the negotiations taking place in Washington had been “wholly insufficient” Wednesday but that the White House was “more encouraged” as of Thursday.

The Washington Post reported Thursday that U.S. and Mexican officials are discussing the outlines of a deal that would dramatically increase Mexico’s immigration enforcement efforts and give the United States far more latitude to deport Central Americans seeking asylum.

The potential deal was described by a U.S. official and a Mexican official who cautioned that the accord is not final and that Trump might not accept it.

[GOP lawmakers warn White House they’ll try to block Trump’s Mexico tariffs]

Faced with Trump’s threat to impose steadily rising tariffs on goods imported from Mexico beginning Monday, Mexican officials have pledged to deploy as many as 6,000 national guard troops to the area of the country’s border with Guatemala, a show of force they say will immediately reduce the number of Central Americans heading north toward the U.S. border.

The plan, a sweeping overhaul of asylum rules across the region, would require Central American migrants to seek refuge in the first country they enter after leaving their homeland, the two officials said. For Guatemalans, that would be Mexico. For migrants from Honduras and El Salvador, that would be Guatemala, whose government held talks last week with acting homeland security secretary Kevin McAleenan.

Any migrants who made it to the U.S. border generally would be deported to the appropriate third country. And any migrants who express a fear of death or torture in their home country would be subjected to a tougher screening standard by U.S. asylum officers more likely to result in rejection.

David J. Lynch, Nick Miroff and Kevin Sieff contributed to this report.

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2019-06-07 17:37:30Z
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US and Russian warships nearly collide in the Pacific - CNN

The US and Russian warships came somewhere between 50 feet and 165 feet of each other, according to the two opposing reports, with both sides alleging their ships were forced to perform emergency maneuvers to avoid a collision, which can be seen in video and a picture of the event obtained by CNN.

In the video taken from the American ship, the two ships come so close that Russian sailors can be seen appearing to sunbathe on the stern of their vessel.

"A Russian destroyer .... made an unsafe maneuver against USS Chancellorsville, closing to 50-100 feet, putting the safety of her crew and ship at risk," US Navy spokesman Cmdr. Clayton Doss told CNN in a statement.

"This unsafe action forced Chancellorsville to execute all engines back full and to maneuver to avoid collision," Doss said.

This latest incident comes just days after the US Navy accused Russia of intercepting a US aircraft and amid tensions with Moscow on a wide range of geopolitical issues.

Last month, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo met Russian Vladimir Putin in the resort town of Sochi, where he warned Russia about interfering in US elections, taking a tougher public line than President Donald Trump on the issue.

It also comes at a time of increasing cooperation between China and Russia. After a meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping at the Kremlin Wednesday, Russian leader Vladimir Putin said relations between the two countries have reached an "unprecedented level."

Russia's geopolitical views align with those of China on many international and regional issues, Putin added.

Both leaders agreed that there is no alternative to a peaceful solution on the Korean Peninsula. They discussed joint efforts to resolve the crisis in Syria and attempts to stabilize the situation in Venezuela, he said.

Xi called the Russian President a "a friend," and reiterated Putin's view, saying that "our cooperation is based on mutual trust."

'Unsafe and unprofessional'

The US guided-missile cruiser was traveling in a straight line and trying to recover its helicopter when the incident occurred, he said.

"We consider Russia's actions during this interaction as unsafe and unprofessional," Doss said.

CNN obtained the video and picture of the event after a US official told CNN earlier that the Navy was working to declassify images to dispute the Russian narrative that the US was at fault.

Two navy officials tell CNN the Russian wake in the photo could only come from a steep turn that has to be executed at high speed.

"The wakes suggest the Russian ship didn't adhere to either the rules of the road or the incidents at sea agreement," according to Carl Schuster, a retired US Navy captain and former director of operations at the US Pacific Command's Joint Intelligence Center.

International maritime law requires ships to maintain a safe distance, normally interpreted as 1,000 yards, when passing another. It also requires navies not to interfere with another ship conducting flight operations, he said.

The US account was contradicted by Russia's Pacific Fleet, which claimed it was the US ship that instigated the incident, according to comments carried by the state-run RIA-Novosti news agency.

"When moving (on) parallel courses of a detachment of ships of the Pacific Fleet and a carrier group of the US Navy, the cruiser Chancellorsville suddenly changed its direction and crossed within 50 meters of the Admiral Vinogradov," forcing the Russian destroyer to take emergency evasive action, the RIA-Novosti report said.

The US Navy said the incident occurred in the Philippine Sea while the Russian report said it happened in the East China Sea. The boundary between the two bodies of water is the Senakaku Islands (also known as the Diaoyu islands in China), to the south of Japan and east of Taiwan.

Regardless, the incident occurred in international waters and unusually far away from Russia, Schuster said.

"The Russians normally harass our ships when they are operating in waters the Russian consider to be within their sphere of Influence (Black Sea, Barents Sea and the waters off Validvostok," said Schuster, who spent 12 years at sea on US warships.

Sending a message?

Retired rear admiral and CNN military analyst John Kirby added that the timing of the encounter is also noteworthy as it coincides with Xi's visit to Moscow.

"Clearly this sends a strong message to President Xi, from Putin's perspective, that we are on your team," Kirby told CNN's Jim Sciutto.

"We have seen the Russians and Chinese cooperate increasingly ... when it suits their interests," he said, adding that the two countries participated in a major military exercise together just last year.

But at the end of the day, both Kirby and Schuster said that Friday's incident was primarily about sending a message to the US.

"Putin clearly has ordered the Russian Navy to pressure the USN whenever opportunities exist. It may possibly be a show of political support for China while Xi is in Moscow, but more likely to signal that Russia is willing to challenge the US dominance on the world stage and at sea," Schuster said.

On Tuesday, the US accused Russia of intercepting a US aircraft flying in international airspace over the Mediterranean Sea three times in just under three hours.

The second of the three interactions "was determined to be unsafe" due to the Russian aircraft "conducting a high speed pass directly in front of the mission aircraft, which put our pilots and crew at risk," the US Navy said.

The Russian aircraft was armed and passed about 150 feet directly in front of the US plane, according to two US officials.

The Russian military disputed the US Navy's characterization of the intercept as unsafe.

"All flights of Russian aircraft were carried out in accordance with the international rules for the use of airspace," the Russian Ministry of Defense told reporters Wednesday. "There were no questions or complaints from the American center of flight deconfliction line in Syria to the Russian command."

CNN's Mary Ilyushina contributed to this report.

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2019-06-07 14:31:00Z
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Mexico to deploy 6,000 troops near its southeastern border - POLITICO

Mexican Foreign Affairs Secretary Marcelo Ebrard holds a news conference June 5 following talks with Vice President Mike Pence and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo. | Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images

Mexico has told the United States that it plans to deploy 6,000 national guard troops near its border with Guatemala to help stem the flow of Central American migrants reaching the U.S.

"Among the points discussed, the delegation explained the operation of Mexico's National Guard, saying its priority will be southeastern Mexico, with 6,000 guard members deployed in the region," the Mexican Foreign Ministry said in a statement following two days of talks with Trump administration officials.

Story Continued Below

The Mexican delegation, led by Foreign Secretary Marcelo Ebrard and Ambassador Martha Bárcena, met twice on Thursday with U.S. officials and more talks are scheduled Friday, the ministry said.

Still, some Mexican officials, including Agriculture and Rural Development Secretary Víctor Manuel Villalobos and Economy Secretary Graciela Márquez Colín have already returned to Mexico City.

There was no mention in the statement of whether Mexico was willing to agree to a "safe third country" agreement, which would require Central American migrants to seek asylum in Mexico if they pass through that country en route to the U.S.

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The Trump administration has been pressing Mexico to commit to such a pact. Asked about the issue on Thursday, Vice President Mike Pence told reporters he didn't want to negotiate in public.

"But," he said, " we made it very clear that, in addition to internal enforcement, that there would have to be new understandings between the United States and Mexico."

President Donald Trump plans to impose a 5 percent duty on all Mexico goods entering the U.S., beginning on Monday unless the two sides reach a deal to control the migrant flow.

As that deadline approaches, businesses are increasingly frantic about being hit with a steep tax bill.

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce estimates a 5 percent tariff on the approximately $350 billion in Mexican goods the U.S. imported last year would total about $17 billion.

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2019-06-07 12:42:00Z
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US Navy releases video of near-miss with Russian ship - CNN

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2019-06-07 12:45:57Z
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US and Russian warships nearly collide in the Pacific - CNN

The US and Russian warships came somewhere between 50 feet and 165 feet of each other, according to the two opposing reports, with both sides alleging their ships were forced to perform emergency maneuvers to avoid a collision.

This latest incident comes just days after the US Navy accused Russia of intercepting a US aircraft and amid tensions with Moscow on a wide range of geopolitical issues. Last month, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo met Russian Vladimir Putin in the resort town of Sochi, where he warned Russia about interfering in US elections, taking a tougher public line than President Donald Trump on the issue.

"A Russian destroyer .... made an unsafe maneuver against USS Chancellorsville, closing to 50-100 feet, putting the safety of her crew and ship at risk," US Navy spokesman Cmdr. Clayton Doss told CNN in a statement.

"This unsafe action forced Chancellorsville to execute all engines back full and to maneuver to avoid collision," Doss said.

The US guided-missile cruiser was traveling in a straight line and trying to recover its helicopter when the incident occurred, he said.

"We consider Russia's actions during this interaction as unsafe and unprofessional," Doss said.

The US account was contradicted by Russia's Pacific Fleet, which claimed it was the US ship that instigated the incident, according to comments carried by the state-run RIA-Novosti news agency.

CNN has obtained a picture of the event after a US official told CNN earlier that the Navy was working to declassify images to dispute the Russian narrative that the US was at fault.

"When moving (on) parallel courses of a detachment of ships of the Pacific Fleet and a carrier group of the US Navy, the cruiser Chancellorsville suddenly changed its direction and crossed within 50 meters of the Admiral Vinogradov," forcing the Russian destroyer to take emergency evasive action, the report said.

The US Navy said the incident occurred in the Philippine Sea while the Russian report said it happened in the East China Sea. The boundary between the two bodies of water is the Senakaku Islands (also known as the Diaoyu islands in China), to the south of Japan and east of Taiwan.

Regardless, the incident occurred in international waters and unusually far away from Russia, according to Carl Schuster, a retired US Navy captain and former director of operations at the US Pacific Command's Joint Intelligence Center.

"The Russians normally harass our ships when they are operating in waters the Russian consider to be within their sphere of Influence (Black Sea, Barents Sea and the waters off Validvostok," said Schuster, who spent 12 years at sea on US warships.

"Putin clearly has ordered the Russian Navy to pressure the USN whenever opportunities exist. It may possibly be a show of political support for China while Xi is in Moscow, but more likely to signal that Russia is willing to challenge the US dominance on the world stage and at sea," he said.

International maritime law requires ships to maintain a safe distance, normally interpreted as 1,000 yards, when passing another, Schuster added. It also requires navies not to interfere with another ship conducting flight operations, he said.

On Tuesday, the US accused Russia of intercepting a US aircraft flying in international airspace over the Mediterranean Sea three times in just under three hours.

The second of the three interactions "was determined to be unsafe" due to the Russian aircraft "conducting a high speed pass directly in front of the mission aircraft, which put our pilots and crew at risk," the US Navy said.

CNN's Mary Ilyushina contributed to this report.

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2019-06-07 11:58:00Z
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Countdown to Trump's Mexico tariff deadline: Talks focus on asylum for migrants - USA TODAY

Deirdre Shesgreen USA TODAY

Published 7:56 AM EDT Jun 7, 2019

WASHINGTON – The biggest flashpoint in the U.S.-Mexico negotiations over tariffs and immigration revolves around asylum – specifically which country should be responsible for absorbing the desperate migrants fleeing poverty and violence in Central America.

The Trump administration wants Mexico to agree to take almost every asylum seeker that crosses into Mexico – pushing the Mexican government to sign an agreement that would essentially bar Central American migrants from trying to gain asylum in the United States.

Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador has resisted that step so far, although there were signs Thursday that Mexican negotiators might relent.

If that happens, the U.S. and Mexico could sign a little-known treaty – called a safe third-country agreement – that would carry huge implications for immigration in both countries.

“That’s probably the most important demand that we have of Mexico,” said Mark Krikorian, executive director of the Center for Immigration Studies, a think tank that favors stronger limits on immigration.

Migrants generally must seek asylum in the first country they reach after fleeing their homeland – but only if that country is considered safe. If it’s not safe, migrants can pass through – as they’re doing in Mexico right now – and apply in the next country they reach, in this case the United States.

If Mexico agrees to be designated as a safe third-party country, the U.S. could deny the asylum claims of virtually all the Central American migrants now seeking refuge in the U.S.

American immigration authorities could “turn them around and send them back” to Mexico, Krikorian said. He has accused Mexico of being an “asylum free rider” by enacting liberal asylum laws but steering most refugees to the U.S. border.

Designating Mexico as a safe asylum country “would really take away most of the incentive” for migrants to trek across Mexico to the U.S. border, Krikorian said.

But immigration advocates say Mexico’s asylum system is already overwhelmed, and the country is not safe – particularly for vulnerable migrants. Trump’s own State Department has advised Americans not to travel to five Mexican states, citing rampant and often violent crime.

“Robberies, extortion, kidnapping ... these are common situations,” said Aaron Reichlin-Melnick, a policy analyst with the American Immigration Council, an advocacy group devoted to stronger protections for immigrants.

The council recently conducted a survey of migrant mothers detained in Mexico, and 90% said they did not feel safe. Nearly half of the 500 women said that they or their child had been robbed, sexually assaulted, threatened or subject to other harm.  

“The Mexican police and state agencies charged with providing security are often the very actors robbing migrants, charging them fees in order to pass, or handing them over to criminal groups who tax or victimize migrants,” Stephanie Leutert, director of the Mexico Security Initiative at the University of Texas, wrote in a 2018 analysis of the issue.

She and others note that Mexico has already moved to take in more refugees. Asylum requests have increased each of the past five years, with the nation on track to reach nearly 60,000 in 2019, nearly double the number from the year before, according to data from the Mexican Commission for Refugee Assistance.

Leutert said Mexico’s government institutions are too weak to absorb more migrants than they’re already taking in.

“I think the U.S. should be working with Mexico more on these issues and not pushing all this enforcement onto a country that doesn’t” have the resources to handle it, she said in an interview.

Krikorian says the U.S. might need to offer Mexico financial assistance in exchange for an asylum agreement.

“I think we should combine carrots along with the sticks,” he said, referring to President Trump’s threat to impose tariffs on all Mexican imports if the Obrador government does not stop the flow of migrants.

Indeed, Obrador has called for the U.S. to help Mexico address the root causes of the migrant crisis – urging the Trump administration to help foot the bill for economic development and other initiatives aimed at relieving the crippling poverty and corruption in Guatemala, Honduras and other Central American countries.

“The U.S. stance is centered on immigration control measures, while our focus is on development,” Roberto Velasco, a spokesman for the Mexican Foreign Ministry, tweeted on Thursday evening. “We have not yet reached an agreement but continue to negotiate.”

Mexico’s Foreign Secretary Marcelo Ebrard declined to comment Thursday on the prospect of a safe third-country agreement. And the White House did not respond to questions about the Trump administration’s demands for that.

But Krikorian said a fat financial aid package could go a long way in persuading Mexico to accede to Trump’s demand.

“We can make it worth Mexico’s while, in combination with a stick that if they don’t take our more money that they’re going to suffer some consequences,” he said.

Contributing: Alan Gomez

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2019-06-07 10:23:00Z
52780309231204

US and Russian warships nearly collide in the Pacific - CNN

The US and Russian warships came somewhere between 50 feet and 165 feet of each other, according to the two opposing reports, with both sides alleging their ships were forced to perform emergency maneuvers to avoid a collision.

This latest incident comes just days after the US Navy accused Russia of intercepting a US aircraft and amid tensions with Moscow on a wide range of geopolitical issues. Last month, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo met Russian Vladimir Putin in the resort town of Sochi, where he warned Russia about interfering in US elections, taking a tougher public line than President Donald Trump on the issue.

"A Russian destroyer .... made an unsafe maneuver against USS Chancellorsville, closing to 50-100 feet, putting the safety of her crew and ship at risk," US Navy spokesman Cmdr. Clayton Doss told CNN in a statement.

"This unsafe action forced Chancellorsville to execute all engines back full and to maneuver to avoid collision," Doss said.

The US guided-missile cruiser was traveling in a straight line and trying to recover its helicopter when the incident occurred, he said.

"We consider Russia's actions during this interaction as unsafe and unprofessional," Doss said.

The US account was contradicted by Russia's Pacific Fleet, which claimed it was the US ship that instigated the incident, according to comments carried by the state-run RIA-Novosti news agency.

CNN has obtained a picture of the event after a US official told CNN earlier that the Navy was working to declassify images to dispute the Russian narrative that the US was at fault.

"When moving (on) parallel courses of a detachment of ships of the Pacific Fleet and a carrier group of the US Navy, the cruiser Chancellorsville suddenly changed its direction and crossed within 50 meters of the Admiral Vinogradov," forcing the Russian destroyer to take emergency evasive action, the report said.

The US Navy said the incident occurred in the Philippine Sea while the Russian report said it happened in the East China Sea. The boundary between the two bodies of water is the Senakaku Islands (also known as the Diaoyu islands in China), to the south of Japan and east of Taiwan.

Regardless, the incident occurred in international waters and unusually far away from Russia, according to Carl Schuster, a retired US Navy captain and former director of operations at the US Pacific Command's Joint Intelligence Center.

"The Russians normally harass our ships when they are operating in waters the Russian consider to be within their sphere of Influence (Black Sea, Barents Sea and the waters off Validvostok," said Schuster, who spent 12 years at sea on US warships.

"Putin clearly has ordered the Russian Navy to pressure the USN whenever opportunities exist. It may possibly be a show of political support for China while Xi is in Moscow, but more likely to signal that Russia is willing to challenge the US dominance on the world stage and at sea," he said.

International maritime law requires ships to maintain a safe distance, normally interpreted as 1,000 yards, when passing another, Schuster added. It also requires navies not to interfere with another ship conducting flight operations, he said.

On Tuesday, the US accused Russia of intercepting a US aircraft flying in international airspace over the Mediterranean Sea three times in just under three hours.

The second of the three interactions "was determined to be unsafe" due to the Russian aircraft "conducting a high speed pass directly in front of the mission aircraft, which put our pilots and crew at risk," the US Navy said.

CNN's Mary Ilyushina contributed to this report.

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2019-06-07 11:44:00Z
52780310465763