Minggu, 09 Juni 2019

Boris Johnson to EU: I won't pay unless deal improved - Fox News

Former Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson is stepping up his campaign to be Britain's next prime minister by challenging the European Union over Brexit terms.

Johnson told the Sunday Times he would refuse to pay the agreed-upon 39 billion pound ($50 billion) divorce settlement unless the EU offers Britain a better withdrawal agreement than the one currently on the table.

Johnson told the newspaper he is the only Conservative Party leadership contender who can triumph over the Labour Party led by Jeremy Corbyn and Nigel Farage's Brexit Party.

He is threatening to leave the EU on the Oct 31 deadline even if there is no deal in place.

The contest for leadership of the Conservative Party officially begins Monday. The post was vacated Friday by Prime Minister Theresa May.

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2019-06-09 12:07:24Z
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Massive Crowds Take to Streets in ‘Last Fight’ for Hong Kong - The Wall Street Journal

Protesters crowd Hong Kong’s Victoria park, the starting point of a march that snaked for more than a mile and a half through the global financial hub, to the legislature. Photo: Joyu Wang/The Wall Street Journal

HONG KONG—Huge crowds of demonstrators took to the streets Sunday to protest a proposed law that would allow Beijing to take people from Hong Kong to stand trial in mainland China.

Organizers said more than half a million people joined the march, the biggest turnout since 2003, when 500,000 people demonstrated against national security legislation that was later withdrawn by the government. Police said protesters leaving the march’s starting point numbered 153,000.

Protest signs in multiple languages decried the proposed law that would allow Beijing to take people into mainland China to stand trial. Photo: charly triballeau/Agence France-Presse/Getty Images

The mass turnout, with crowds filling public parks and thronging roads up to six lanes wide for more than a mile and a half, heaps pressure on the city’s leaders and their political masters in Beijing to shelve the law. Unlike 2003, however, China’s ruling Communist Party under President Xi Jinping has in recent years taken a much stronger line against dissent in the former British colony.

“This is the last fight for Hong Kong,” said Martin Lee, a veteran opposition leader who founded the city’s Democratic Party. “The proposal is the most dangerous threat to our freedoms and way of life since the handover” of sovereignty, he said.

The proposed law, which would allow suspects to be extradited to mainland China for trial, has sparked anger in an unusually wide swath of the population, from teachers to lawyers and business leaders. The uniting fear is that the law, if passed, would expose citizens to the mainland’s more opaque legal system, where detainees could be subject to torture and other abuses of human rights.

Foreign business groups and diplomats have warned the proposal poses a threat to the rule of law that has helped Hong Kong prosper for decades as an international financial center, and which was guaranteed by China when it resumed sovereignty over the city from Britain in 1997. Opposition has grown even after the city’s leader, Carrie Lam watered down the bill slightly by removing offense categories liable to extradition from 46 to 37.

Police detain a demonstrator during the protest against Hong Kong’s controversial extradition bill. Photo: thomas peter/Reuters

Ms. Lam’s government has said fears about the law are unfounded and stressed that only those suspected of the most serious crimes would be subject to extradition. The government says there will be safeguards against abuse and that the law won’t damage the city’s business environment or relate to offenses of a political nature. China’s Foreign Ministry didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment on the protests and their potential impact on the proposed extradition law. Phone and fax lines to China’s Hong Kong and Macau Affairs Office, which oversees Beijing’s policies to those territories, rang unanswered Sunday.

We need to defend our home for the next generation

—Kitty Wong, protester

Ms. Lam bypassed a lawmakers’ review committee to push the bill through for a second reading in the city’s legislature on June 12. The government has enough votes to pass the law within a few weeks, having used legal action to oust several democratically elected opposition legislators from office over the past two years.

Anger over the extradition has revived an opposition movement that had dwindled after street protests in 2014 paralyzed parts of the city for 79 days, but ended without achieving their goal of obtaining more democracy. Beijing’s influence over the city has grown since, while room for dissent has shrunk as the government has jailed protesters, declaring a pro-independence political party illegal and expelling a foreign journalist.

Families and church groups joined opposition activists, many dressed in white and holding red placards denouncing the law, as police were forced to close more roads and traffic lanes to enable the snaking mass of humanity to move.

Crowds were so massive that some train stations across the city were temporarily closed and protesters had to line up in sweltering heat to enter a local park, chanting slogans to oppose the law and cheering each other on taking to the streets to express their discontent.

The march stretched for more than a mile and a half through the heart of Hong Kong. Photo: tyrone siu/Reuters

“I needed to let my voice be heard,” said Kitty Wong, a 38-year-old teacher who joined a protest for the first time. Gesturing to her two children, ages 8 and 9, she said: “We need to defend our home for the next generation.”

Veteran activist Mr. Lee was on drafting committee of the Basic Law, the city’s mini constitution that enshrined people’s freedoms and rights until 2047. He said there was deliberately no extradition clause in the agreement because the two jurisdictions were too different. Beijing could extradite Hong Kong residents and foreigners on trumped-up charges, he said.

Write to Natasha Khan at natasha.khan@wsj.com

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2019-06-09 11:54:00Z
CAIiEKf_Td26A9jcD8rFT9r95gkqFwgEKg8IACoHCAow1tzJATDnyxUw54IY

Massive Crowds Take To Streets in ‘Last Fight’ For Hong Kong - The Wall Street Journal

Protesters crowd Hong Kong’s Victoria park, the starting point of a march that snaked for more than a mile and a half through the global financial hub, to the legislature. Photo: Joyu Wang/The Wall Street Journal

HONG KONG—Huge crowds of demonstrators took to the streets Sunday to protest a proposed law that would allow Beijing to take people from Hong Kong to stand trial in mainland China.

Organizers expect hundreds of thousands of people to join the march in what would be the biggest turnout since 2003, when half a million people demonstrated against national security legislation that was later withdrawn by the government.

Protest signs in multiple languages decried the proposed law that would allow Beijing to take people into mainland China to stand trial. Photo: charly triballeau/Agence France-Presse/Getty Images

The mass turnout, with crowds filling public parks and thronging roads up to six lanes wide for more than a mile and a half, heaps pressure on the city’s leaders and their political masters in Beijing to shelve the law. Unlike 2003, however, China’s ruling Communist Party under President Xi Jinping has in recent years taken a much stronger line against dissent in the former British colony.

“This is the last fight for Hong Kong,” said Martin Lee, a veteran opposition leader who founded the city’s Democratic Party. “The proposal is the most dangerous threat to our freedoms and way of life since the handover” of sovereignty, he said.

The proposed law, which would allow suspects to be extradited to mainland China for trial, has sparked anger in an unusually wide swath of the population, from teachers to lawyers and business leaders. The uniting fear is that the law, if passed, would expose citizens to the mainland’s more opaque legal system, where detainees could be subject to torture and other abuses of human rights.

Foreign business groups and diplomats have warned the proposal poses a threat to the rule of law that has helped Hong Kong prosper for decades as an international financial center, and which was guaranteed by China when it resumed sovereignty over the city from Britain in 1997. Opposition has grown even after the city’s leader, Carrie Lam watered down the bill slightly by removing offense categories liable to extradition from 46 to 37.

Police detain a demonstrator during the protest against Hong Kong’s controversial extradition bill. Photo: thomas peter/Reuters

Ms. Lam’s government has said fears about the law are unfounded and stressed that only those suspected of the most serious crimes would be subject to extradition. The government says there will be safeguards against abuse and that the law won’t damage the city’s business environment or relate to offenses of a political nature. China’s Foreign Ministry didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment on the protests and their potential impact on the proposed extradition law. Phone and fax lines to China’s Hong Kong and Macau Affairs Office, which oversees Beijing’s policies to those territories, rang unanswered Sunday.

We need to defend our home for the next generation

—Kitty Wong, protester

Ms. Lam bypassed a lawmakers’ review committee to push the bill through for a second reading in the city’s legislature on June 12. The government has enough votes to pass the law within a few weeks, having used legal action to oust several democratically elected opposition legislators from office over the past two years.

Anger over the extradition has revived an opposition movement that had dwindled after street protests in 2014 paralyzed parts of the city for 79 days, but ended without achieving their goal of obtaining more democracy. Beijing’s influence over the city has grown since, while room for dissent has shrunk as the government has jailed protesters, declaring a pro-independence political party illegal and expelling a foreign journalist.

Families and church groups joined opposition activists, many dressed in white and holding red placards denouncing the law, as police were forced to close more roads and traffic lanes to enable the snaking mass of humanity to move.

Crowds were so massive that some train stations across the city were temporarily closed and protesters had to line up in sweltering heat to enter a local park, chanting slogans to oppose the law and cheering each other on taking to the streets to express their discontent.

The march stretched for more than a mile and a half through the heart of Hong Kong. Photo: tyrone siu/Reuters

“I needed to let my voice be heard,” said Kitty Wong, a 38-year-old teacher who joined a protest for the first time. Gesturing to her two children, ages 8 and 9, she said: “We need to defend our home for the next generation.”

Veteran activist Mr. Lee was on drafting committee of the Basic Law, the city’s mini constitution that enshrined people’s freedoms and rights until 2047. He said there was deliberately no extradition clause in the agreement because the two jurisdictions were too different. Beijing could extradite Hong Kong residents and foreigners on trumped-up charges, he said.

Write to Natasha Khan at natasha.khan@wsj.com

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2019-06-09 10:25:00Z
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Trump is 'perfectly happy' to hit China with new tariffs if Xi meeting doesn't go well, Mnuchin says - CNBC

U.S. President Donald Trump walks with Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin in Washington, U.S., April 21, 2017.

Kevin Lamarque | Reuters

U.S. President Donald Trump will make a decision about whether to slap China with more tariffs after meeting with his Chinese counterpart later this month in Japan.

That's according to U.S. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, who told CNBC on Sunday that the American leader will be trying to determine if Chinese President Xi Jinping is willing to head "in the right direction" on a deal to reshape the trade and commercial relationships between the world's top two economies.

"We're going to need to see action, and President Trump is going to need to make sure he's clear that we're moving in the right direction to a deal," Mnuchin told CNBC's Nancy Hungerford. "The president will make a decision after the meeting."

Trump has previously indicated he expects to plan his next trade war moves after that G-20 meeting.

"If China wants to move forward with the deal, we're prepared to move forward on the terms we've done. If China doesn't want to move forward, then President Trump is perfectly happy to move forward with tariffs to re-balance the relationship," he said.

The two presidents last met in December 2018 in Buenos Aires — already several months into their escalating trade war. At that time, Xi and Trump agreed to suspend planned increases in tariffs while both sides redoubled negotiating efforts. The subsequent few months saw no further escalations amid repeated rounds of talks in both Washington and Beijing, but that pause ended in May when Trump unexpectedly said on Twitter that his administration would be levying new taxes on $200 billion worth of Chinese goods — and he threatened even more to come.

'We've stopped negotiating'

American officials have repeatedly claimed that action was in response to China attempting to renegotiate parts of a deal it had previously agreed to — which Beijing has denied —  and the prospect of additional tariffs on that $325 billion worth of Chinese products has hung over the bilateral relationship for the last month.

"We made enormous progress, I think we had a deal that was almost 90% done. China wanted to go backwards on certain things," Mnuchin said. "We've stopped negotiating."

Where the countries go from here, according to the Treasury secretary, is up to Trump to decide when he and Xi meet in Osaka, Japan at the end of June. 

"In the case of Buenos Aires, we came out of that, we had direction from the two presidents, (Trump) put the increases on hold. The president will make a decision after the meeting," Mnuchin said.

"I believe if China is willing to move forward on the terms that we were discussing, we'll have an agreement. If they're not, we will proceed with tariffs," he added.

The thorny issues

Mnuchin weighed in on several of the thorniest subjects thought to be separating the American and Chinese sides from a deal.

For one, he said that the issue of removing China's so-called non-tariff barriers to foreign companies succeeding within its borders remains central to the U.S. position on the talks.

"In negotiating our agreement, one of the big parts of the agreement has always been about non-tariff barriers, is about forced technology transfer. These are very important issues to us, and critical to any agreement," Mnuchin said. "These are issues where we've made a lot of progress, and any agreement we have, we'll need to be certain that that's included."

American officials and businesses have long argued that China's official and unofficial rules put non-Chinese firms at a disadvantage in the country. One of the most frequently cited examples is a "forced tech transfer" regime — in which companies are coerced into sharing their advanced technology and know-how with Chinese organizations in exchange for market access.

Trump has also suggested that he may want his negotiating teams to pick up the issue of China's currency, but Mnuchin on Sunday dismissed the notion that Beijing is actively keeping the yuan low in an effort to win a trade advantage over the likes of the U.S.

Instead, he said, any weakness now seen in the Chinese currency is the result of downward economic pressures — in part due to Trump's tariffs on the country.

"I do think their currency has been under pressure," the Treasury secretary said. "There's no question that, as we put on tariffs, people will move their manufacturing outside of China, into other areas, and that's going to have a very negative impact on their economy. And I think you see that reflected in the currency."

Another topic that has raised tensions between Beijing and Washington is Chinese telecommunications giant Huawei. The U.S. government has cracked down on the tech firm, effectively blacklisting it from doing business with American businesses, on the basis of claims it is a security risk. The rationale, according to the Trump administration is that the firm's involvement in sensitive networking technology could potentially be leveraged by Beijing for spying or other malicious actions. Both China and the company have denied such a risk exists.

Mnuchin emphasized that the Huawei blacklisting is solely a national security issue, and isn't a non-tariff front of the trade war — even though Trump has suggested that the telecom company could get wrapped into a wider deal.

"They're separate from trade: Both we and China have acknowledged that in our discussions," he said. "Now, of course, President Trump, when he has the meeting, to the extent he gets certain comfort on Huawei or other issues, obviously we can talk about national security issues, but these are separate issues, they're not being linked to trade."

He emphasized the U.S. claim — central to recruiting allies in its effort to control the spread of Huawei tech — that Trump's prior comments do not reveal an effort to gain trade leverage over Beijing: "I think what the president is saying is, if we move forward on trade, that perhaps he'll be willing to do certain things on Huawei if he gets comfort from China on that, and certain guarantees."

The next meeting

The American official told CNBC he had recently met with Yi Gang, the governor of China's central bank, to discuss preparations for the upcoming meeting between the two presidents.

Mnuchin declined to go into details of that interaction, but said he and Yi "had a private conversation and it was very candid and constructive" on the subject of Trump and Xi meeting.

The Treasury chief said he did not foresee any further trade talks between Washington and Beijing diplomats before the presidents meet, and, for his part, Mnuchin declined to project what he expected to happen in Osaka.

"What I would say is we look forward to them meeting, they had a very productive discussion in Buenos Aires — that's what led to these rounds of negotiation," he said of Trump and Xi. "I know they have a very close relationship, and if there's a desire on China's part to reach a real agreement with us, we will negotiate in good faith."

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2019-06-09 08:11:42Z
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Sabtu, 08 Juni 2019

Trump is avoiding a crisis of his own making with US-Mexico migrant deal, critics say - USA TODAY

WASHINGTON – President Donald Trump kept American business leaders, GOP lawmakers and Mexican negotiators on a knife's edge for seven anxiety-filled days with his threat to slap an escalating series of tariffs on all Mexican imports if the country didn't address migrants coming to the southern border.

When Trump yanked back his economic ultimatum late Friday night, he seemed to walk away with a win-win: no new trade war with a major U.S. economic partner, and "strong measures" by Mexico to curb the flow of Central American migrants. 

But critics say Trump avoided a political crisis of his own making – one that could have wreaked havoc on the U.S. economy and sparked a political revolt from within his own party. And it's not clear how much the agreement with Mexico will really accomplish on illegal immigration, Trump's signature issue.  

"One of Donald Trump’s signature moves as president is to act as both arsonist and firefighter, taking credit for resolving pseudo-crises that he in fact initiated," Brendan Nyhan, a public policy professor at the University of Michigan, wrote in a recent post on Medium. 

U.S. reaches deal with Mexico: Trump pulls Mexico tariff threat while claiming deal over migrants reached

Countdown to US-Mexico tariff deadline: Trump says there's 'good chance' a deal can be reached

He noted that Trump's threatened tariffs could have hurt his own re-election prospects in 2020, as U.S. companies and consumers absorbed increased costs of Mexican imports. The president, he said, had a strong incentive to "solve" the problem that began last week when Trump first tweeted his tariff threat. 

Nyhan isn’t alone. While Republicans applauded the president and the deal, others argued he shouldn't receive credit.

Ned Price, a spokesman for the National Security Council under President Barack Obama, tweeted that Trump is "so predictable" and follows a "simple recipe."

Price said the president manufactures "a crisis on an issue of importance to the base," then leaves "success undefined," pretends "to play hardball in a way that rallies the base," solves the manufactured crisis and then disguises "the status quo as a 'huge success.'"

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., had asked Trump to brief Republican lawmakers before imposing tariffs. Lawmakers grew more nervous Friday after a weaker-than-expected jobs report, which some analysts said was due at least in part to the recent escalation of U.S. trade battles.

Trump's defenders say the end result – a new immigration deal with Mexico – shows the strength of the president's negotiating skills. 

“President Trump’s newly-signed agreement with Mexico is great news for both our economy and our country’s border security," House Republican Whip Steve Scalise of Louisiana, declared in a statement Friday night. "Once again, President Trump has proven those who doubted him wrong by getting Mexico to step up their efforts to help us secure our southern border." 

How the deal works

The agreement itself, released Friday by the U.S. State Department, is light on details, lacking specific numbers or other hard targets. But there are essentially two tangible elements: 

• Mexico agreed to take "unprecedented steps to increase enforcement" along its southern border with Guatemala, where many Central Americans are crossing into Mexico on their way to the U.S. The country also said it would crack down on human smuggling organizations. 

• Mexico agreed to expand a U.S. policy in which migrants seeking asylum in the U.S. will wait in Mexico for their claims to be adjudicated, something that can take months, though the U.S. said it would “work to accelerate” the process. While there, Mexico will offer jobs, health care and other services to the refugees. 

More: President Trump: 'Progress' but no breakthrough with Mexico as tariff deadline looms

The resulting deal shows the Trump administration abandoned its most controversial demand – that Mexico agree to be designated as a safe third-party country, which would have meant accepting asylum applications from thousands of Central American migrants.

However, the agreement does include a trigger for another round of talks if the U.S. isn't satisfied over the next several months: “Both parties also agree that, in the event the measures adopted do not have the expected results, they will take further actions,” meaning Trump could revive his tariffs threat if the number of migrants arriving at the U.S. border doesn't go down. The president had previously threatened a 5% tariff on all Mexican imports.

The Senate's top Democrat, Chuck Schumer, mocked the agreement on Twitter, saying that since the president claimed to have solved the migrant crisis, “I’m sure we won’t be hearing any more about it in the future.”

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., said the deal did not address the root causes of the migration crisis. And she said Trump undermined America's status as a world leader by "recklessly threatening to impose tariffs on our close friend and neighbor to the south." 

Civil rights groups mount attacks

Immigration advocates said the deal could put vulnerable migrants in greater danger. 

They took aim at the expansion of a program known as the Migrant Protection Protocols, which the U.S. rolled out in January to place asylum seekers back in Mexico until their claims are decided. Critics said that prevents migrants from seeking needed legal help in their asylum claim. 

"This is just another chaotic, cruel and counterproductive attempt to block refugees from the United States," said Eleanor Acer, senior director of refugee protection at Human Rights First.

The groups say that Mexico is unsafe, and the country cannot be entrusted with the massive task of housing potentially thousands of migrants, given that the small number of shelters operating in Mexican border towns are already overwhelmed.

The American Civil Liberties Union vowed to continue a legal challenge it has mounted against that program.

“The Trump administration announced that it intends to further expand its forced return to Mexico policy, which has been illegal since Day 1 and has already proven to be a disaster,” Omar Jadwat, director of ACLU’s Immigrants’ Rights Project, said in a statement on Friday.

Breaking a record: Border Patrol apprehended record number of migrant families in May as Trump threatens Mexico

Asylum win for Trump: Appeals court rules Trump administration can make asylum seekers wait in Mexico for now

Halting aid over migrant flow: US cutting off humanitarian aid to Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador

Contributing: Alan Gomez 

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2019-06-08 19:13:00Z
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Russian Journalist Ivan Golunov Arrested On Drug Charges, Then Hospitalized - NPR

Russian journalist Ivan Golunov in Moscow on October 27, 2018. Reuters hide caption

toggle caption
Reuters

Well-known Russian investigative journalist Ivan Golunov was hospitalized Saturday after two days in police custody. He was detained on Thursday and charged with attempting to sell drugs on Saturday, according to Meduza, the online news site where Golunov, 36, works.

According to police, authorities found mephedrone, a narcotic, on the journalist during a search Thursday. They say they also found additional drugs, including cocaine, along with scales, in Golunov's apartment.

Supporters of detained journalist Ivan Golunov rally at the Moscow police headquarters on Friday, June 7. Dmitry Serebryakov/AP hide caption

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Dmitry Serebryakov/AP

Golunov says the drugs were planted, according to a statement from Meduza's CEO and editor-in-chief. The site also wrote that its correspondent was beaten in police custody and that he had to wait almost 14 hours to see his lawyer.

Russian authorities denied beating Golunov during his arrest. But on Saturday, officials announced that he was taken to a hospital after a medical examination in police custody. Independent Russian news agency Interfax reported that Golunov left the hospital Saturday and taken to a court in Moscow.

News of Golunov's arrest prompted an outcry in Moscow, especially among journalists. Dozens gathered outside Moscow's police headquarters on Friday.

"Russia has a long history of politically motivated charges against independent reporters. Investigative journalism is treated as a crime where it ought to be viewed as a public service," said a representative from Committee to Protect Journalists, Gulnoza Said. "We are convinced that Ivan Golunov is innocent. Moreover, we have reason to believe he's been targeted because of his work as a journalist."

PEN America, which advocates for free expression around the world, also weighed in: "These questionable accusations reflect the Russian government's long-standing practice of harassing its critics via both legalistic and clearly extra-legal means, which appear to have widened as regional elections are coming in September."

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2019-06-08 18:57:00Z
CAIiEEjwrSsIxLZsyLzGCkhwqhMqFggEKg4IACoGCAow9vBNMK3UCDCvpUk

Mexican officials hail tariff-averting pact with U.S. even as worries emerge - The Washington Post

President Trump agreed not to impose a five percent tariff on Mexican products in exchange for the country expanding a controversial asylum program.

MEXICO CITY — Mexican officials sought to portray victory Saturday after a deal with the Trump administration to potentially curb migration and avert U.S. tariffs, but others questioned whether the bargain may end up as an open-ended burden.

The contrasting views — after a late Friday announcement of the agreement by President Trump — highlighted the uncertainties in Mexico about the provisions of the pact and whether the White House could use similar tariff threats in the future to try to exact more concessions.

The agreement calls for the Mexican government to widely dispatch its national guard forces to help with immigration enforcement on its border with Guatemala, according to a joint statement.

It also expands the so-called “Remain in Mexico” program, returning asylum seekers across the border to await their hearings in U.S. immigration court — a process that can take months.

Mexican diplomats called it a triumph that they were able to secure a deal without agreeing to a “safe third country” agreement, which would have forced Central American asylum seekers to apply for refuge in Mexico, rather than allowing them to make their claims in the United States.

“The bilateral relationship is strengthened for the benefit of the region,” wrote Jesus Seade, Mexico’s deputy foreign minister for North America.

Mexico’s president, Andres Manual López Obrador, planned a speech later Saturday in the border city of Tijuana.

Mexico’s private sector meanwhile celebrated its reprieve from tariffs, which business leaders said would have been catastrophic.

“As little damage as possible,” wrote Gibrán Ramírez Reyes, a professor at the National Autonomous University of Mexico. “Diplomacy has triumphed.”

[Mexico aims to avoid tariffs with possible deal to limit northbound migrants]

Still, if the United States sends the bulk of asylum seekers to wait in Mexico during often-lengthy cases, Mexico might suddenly see a surge of tens of thousands of migrants stuck on its northern border. Politicians in the region, in particular, worried about what that surge might mean for their cities, which have already seen an increase in migrants waiting to enter the United States.

“We need to know how the Mexican government is going to contain the migrants, how they are going to identify those who make it into Mexico,” said Maki Ortiz, the mayor of Reynosa, across the border from McAllen, Tex. “We need to know how long the migrants are going to be on our border, how they’re going to get access to health services, to employment.”

“If the United States makes them wait long enough in Mexico for their asylum claims, eventually they’ll all try to cross illegally,” Ortiz added.

In border cities like Reynosa, migrants and deportees are frequently targeted by criminal groups, sometimes extorted and attacked.

In 2011, 193 bus passengers, most of them migrants, were killed in the nearby town of San Fernando. A Mexican government report later found that they had been abducted by local police officers linked to a drug cartel.

“In a worst-case scenario, this quantity of people could create a major problem for border cities that will have to house a population of migrants waiting for their hearings in the United States, with no prospects for work or permanent housing, and at the mercy of groups criminals who will see migrants as easy prey,” wrote Andrew Selee, the president of the Migration Policy Institute, an op-ed in Mexico’s El Universal newspaper.

Before the agreement was announced, business leaders expressed concern that even Trump’s threat of tariffs abated, he would use the same tactic to pressure Mexico in the near future.

“Even if Mexico accepts all of the conditions right now, what could happen next week? Maybe Mr. Trump wakes up in the morning and decides to say something else. This might not be the end. We will appear like a piñata,” said Rafael Villanueva, the president of the San Luis Potosi chapter of Index, a national manufacturing council.

Christian Torres

AP

Semitrailers idle in line on the Córdova-Américas International Bridge as seen from Ciudad Juarez, Mexico.

Business leaders said they were caught off guard by Trump’s tariff threat because it came after both countries, along with Canada, had mostly finished renegotiating the North American Free Trade Agreement, an arduous process that many believed would allow for the growth of North America’s interconnected supply chain. 

[Trump pushes tariff decision amid fevered talks ]

 “Everything seemed to be positive. We were awaiting the ratification of the [the new trade deal] in both congresses. We did not foresee see that this pressure would come,” said Luis Enrique Zavala Gallegos, the vice president of Mexico’s national association for importers and exporters. “Anyone who says they were prepared is not telling the truth. Even the government wasn’t prepared for this.”

One report from the Perryman Group, an economic analysis firm based in Texas, estimated that the tariffs would lead to a $41.5 billion loss to the U.S. economy and 400,000 lost American jobs. Mexico’s government has said that the impact will ripple across the country’s entire economy. The minister of agriculture, livestock and rural development, Víctor Manuel Villalobos Arámbula, said Mexico’s agricultural sector alone would lost $3.8 million per day. 

Hector Vivas

Getty Images

Export freight containers with Mexican-produced goods are seen ready to be shipped to the United States in the Pantaco customs complex on June 7 in Mexico City.

“Mexico cannot and should not bend the knee to Trump’s ultimatum,” said Arturo Sarukhan, a former Mexican ambassador to the United States.

He called it a “bad omen” and worried that Trump could seek further pressure on Mexico as the 2020 presidential race heats up.

“More than a deal, what Trump is looking for is a trophy,” Sarukhan said.

Some argued the Trump’s threat made it clear that the time had come for Mexico to look to other trading partners, especially China.

“We must look for other markets to compensate us for these lower sales,” said Jorge Macias, the president of Tijuana’s chamber of commerce.

Like many in the private sector, Macias expressed frustration at Trump that went well beyond the recent threat of tariffs.

“It is exhausting for Mexico and puts us in a scenario where we lose out,” Macias said. “It is a constant aggression by President Trump.” 

Read more

GOP lawmakers warn White House they will try to block tariffs

Trump defies close advisers in deciding to threaten Mexico with tariffs

U.S. hiring slows sharply as Trump trade war start to bite

Today’s coverage from Post correspondents around the world

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2019-06-08 17:04:38Z
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