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U.S. trade deficit just hit a 10-year high due to record shortfall with China

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…As Trump voices disappointment over North Korea’s fresh missile site activity***

The U.S. trade deficit surged to a 10-year high in 2018, with the politically sensitive shortfall with China hitting a record peak, despite the Trump administration slapping tariffs on a range of imported goods in an effort to shrink the gap.

The Commerce Department said on Wednesday that an 18.8 percent jump in the trade deficit in December had contributed to the $621 billion shortfall last year. The 2018 deficit was the largest since 2008 and followed a $552.3 billion gap in 2017.

The trade deficit has deteriorated despite the White House’s protectionist trade policy, which President Donald Trump said is needed to shield U.S. manufacturers from what he says is unfair foreign competition.

The United States last year imposed tariffs on $250 billion worth of goods imported from China, with Beijing hitting back with duties on $110 billion worth of American products, including soybeans and other commodities. Trump has delayed tariffs on $200 billion worth of Chinese imports as negotiations to resolve the eight-month trade war continue.

The United States has also slapped duties on imported steel, aluminum, solar panels and washing machines. The goods trade deficit with China increased 11.6 percent to an all-time high of $419.2 billion in 2018. The United States had record imports from 60 countries in 2018, led by China, Mexico and Germany. Imports of good hit a record $2.6 trillion last year.

The December trade deficit of $59.8 billion was the largest since October 2008 and overshot economists’ expectations for a $57.9 billion shortfall, as exports fell for a third straight month and imports rebounded.

The release of the December report was delayed by a 35-day partial shutdown of the government that ended on Jan. 25.

When adjusted for inflation, the goods trade deficit surged $10 billion to a record $91.6 billion in December. The jump in the so-called real goods trade deficit suggests that trade was probably a bigger drag on fourth-quarter gross domestic product than initially estimated by the government.

Other data on Wednesday suggested some slowing in the labor market, though the pace of job gains remains more than enough to drive the unemployment rate down. The ADP National Employment Report showed private payrolls increased by 183,000 in February after surging 300,000 in January. The ADP report, which is jointly developed with Moody’s Analytics, was published ahead of the government’s more comprehensive employment report for February scheduled for release on Friday.

In the meantime, fresh reports of missile-related activity in North Korea have emerged, hours after Donald Trump said he would be “very disappointed” if separate reports about a rocket launch site being rebuilt proved to be true.

On Thursday, South Korean media reported cargo vehicles had been spotted recently moving around a factory at Sanumdong in Pyongyang. The site is an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) plant that produced the first such missiles capable of reaching the US, the JoongAng Ilbo and Donga Ilbo newspapers reported, citing lawmakers briefed by the National Intelligence Service.

Spy chief Suh Hoon said he viewed the activity as missile-related, according to the JoongAng Ilbo.

Earlier, two US thinktanks and South Korea’s Yonhap news agency reported that work was under way to restore part of the Sohae satellite launching station even as Trump met Kim in Hanoi last week for their second summit.

“I would be very disappointed if that were happening,” Trump said in the Oval Office, when asked if North Korea was breaking a promise.

“Well, we’re going to see. It’s too early to see … It’s a very early report. We’re the ones that put it out. But I would be very, very disappointed in Chairman Kim, and I don’t think I will be, but we’ll see what happens. We’ll take a look. It’ll ultimately get solved.”

The White House did not immediately respond when asked what Trump meant by “we’re the ones that put it out”, but US and South Korean intelligence agencies cooperate very closely.

North Korea began work to dismantle a missile engine test stand at Sohae in 2018 after pledging to do so in a first summit with Trump in June.

A second summit between Trump and Kim broke down last week in Hanoi over differences on how far North Korea was willing to limit its nuclear programme and the degree of US willingness to ease sanctions.

“We have a very nasty problem there. We have to solve a problem,” Trump said, while adding in apparent reference to Kim: “The relationship is good.”

Trump, eager for a big foreign policy win on North Korea that has eluded predecessors for decades, has repeatedly stressed his good relationship with Kim. In 2018 he went as far as saying they “fell in love” but the bonhomie has failed so far to bridge the wide gap between the two sides.

Satellite images seen by 38 North, a Washington-based North Korea project, showed that structures on the Sohae launch pad had been rebuilt sometime between 16 February and 2 March, Jenny Town, managing editor at the project and an analyst at the Stimson Center think tank, told Reuters.

The Center for Strategic and International Studies thinktank released a separate report, also citing satellite imagery, that concluded North Korea was “pursuing a rapid rebuilding” at the site.

News of the work at Sohae was first reported by Yonhap, which quoted South Korean lawmakers on details of a briefing by the country’s National Intelligence Service.

On Wednesday, Yonhap quoted South Korea’s Suh Hoon, chief of the National Intelligence Service, as saying uranium enrichment facilities at North Korea’s Yongbyon nuclear complex continued to operate normally during the Vietnam summit.

Trump’s national security adviser, John Bolton, warned on Tuesday that new sanctions could be introduced if North Korea did not scrap its nuclear weapons program.

Some analysts have interpreted the work at Sohae as an attempt by North Korea to put pressure on Washington to agree to a deal rather than as a definite move to resume tests there.

Democrat Ed Markey, ranking member of the Senate east Asia subcommittee, said: “North Korea’s apparent work at this launch site raises the troubling possibility that yet again Kim Jong-un is more interested in garnering concessions than conducting serious, good-faith efforts to denuclearise,” the senator said.

The US secretary of state, Mike Pompeo, said on Monday that he hoped to send a delegation to North Korea in the coming weeks but had “no commitment yet”.

NBC with additional report from Guardian UK

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Alleged Boko Haram Funding: Senate Invites NSA, NIA, 2 Other Security Agencies

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Alleged Boko Haram Funding: Senate Invites NSA, NIA, 2 Other Security Agencies

The Senate has summoned the National Security Adviser, Malam Nuhu Ribadu, to provide a briefing on the alleged funding of Boko Haram by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID).

Also invited are the heads of the National Intelligence Agency (NIA), Defence Intelligence Agency (DIA) and the Department of State Security Services (DSS).

According to the upper legislative chamber, the meeting with the heads of these security agencies will be in close session.

The senate’s resolution follows a motion sponsored by Sen. Ali Ndume (APC-Borno) during the plenary session on Wednesday in Abuja.

The motion was prompted by a trending social media video in which U.S. Congressman Scott Perry claimed that the U.S. aid agency, the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), had funded terrorist organisations, including Boko Haram.

Perry, a Republican representative from Pennsylvania, made this claim during the inaugural hearing of the Sub-committee on Delivering on Government Efficiency.

The session, titled “The War on Waste: Stamping out the Scourge of Improper Payments and Fraud,” focused on alleged misappropriations of taxpayer funds.

Ndume said the social media had been awash with the trending video of a United States Republican congressman, Scott Perry representing Pennsylvania alleged that USAID had been funding terrorist organisations across the world, Boko Haram inclusive.

He said that the devastation caused by Boko Haram in the North-East region of Nigeria and other parts of the country, included bombing, the UN office in Abuja and police headquarters among other attacks.

He stated that the attacks had become a major concern, causing the loss of thousands of Nigerian lives and widespread destruction of property, leading to an unprecedented level of internal displacement across the country.

Ndume noted that over the years, the Federal Government had made significant efforts to implement measures aimed at curbing the activities of terrorist groups, spending substantial resources.

However, these efforts appeared to have yielded limited results, as terrorist activities persisted.

He said that the monumental devastation caused by Boko Haram in Nigeria should be a matter of concern as it had dented the image of the country among the community of nations.

Ndume said allegations began to emerge at this point that some international organisations were behind the unwholesome acts.

He therefore added that urgent steps needed to be taken by the federal government to unravel the mystery.

Contributing Sen.Shehu Kaka (APC-Borno), who seconded the motion said the allegation was weighty, saying that banditry and other forms of criminality had affected the 109 senatorial districts.

He emphasised that efforts should be focused on uncovering the sources of funding for Boko Haram.

Sen. Abdul Ningi (PDP-Bauchi) said that it would be impossible for the senate to adequately address the matter in plenary without the input of relevant security agencies, who should be invited to brief the senate on the issue.

Ningi, therefore, urged the senate to adopt a single motion to invite the NSA, as well as the heads of the DSS, NIA, and DIA, to brief the senate on the allegation.

In his remarks, Senate President, Godswill Akpabio thanked Ningi for his contribution and emphasised that the concerned security agencies should brief the senate in a closed session.

He noted that such sensitive security matters should not be discussed in public.

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Trump Administration Mandates There are Only Two Biological Sexes

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Macron, Scholz, Other World Leaders Congratulate Trump

…Revokes ‘nearly 80 destructive radical executive actions’ of Biden administration

On Monday, U.S. President Donald Trump signed an order proclaiming that there are only two biological sexes: male and female.

Trump signed the order from the White House just hours after his inauguration.

“My Administration will defend women’s rights and protect freedom of conscience by using clear and accurate language and policies that recognise women are biologically female, and men are biologically male,” the order states.

“It is the policy of the United States to recognise two sexes – male and female.

“These sexes are not changeable and are grounded in fundamental and incontrovertible reality.”

The order directs that official government documents, such as passports and visas, reflect male and female as the only two sexes.

“The erasure of sex in language and policy has a corrosive impact not just on women but on the validity of the entire American system,” the order states, referring to “gender ideology extremism.”

U.S. presidents can implement political priorities with the help of so-called executive orders without the approval of the U.S. Congress.

However, they can also be challenged in court more easily than laws.

Trump had announced during his election campaign that he would take political measures against the rights of transgender people in the United States.

He spoke of “transgender lunacy” and “child sexual mutilation,” and repeatedly made disparaging comments about those affected.

The participation of trans women in sports events was particularly made an election campaign topic by the Republicans.

Trans people or transgender individuals are those who do not feel they belong to the gender they were born as.

Trump’s statements are part of a broader societal debate in the U.S., where conservative circles are increasingly demanding measures against the rights of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT+) individuals.

Tech billionaire Elon Musk, one of Trump’s closest confidants, has also expressed criticism of medical treatments for trans young people.

His child, Vivian Jenna Wilson, who has lived openly as a trans woman since 2020, has publicly criticised him for his stance. 

In another development, U.S. President Donald Trump on Monday took gigantic steps to revoke immediate past U.S. President Joe Biden’s policies by signing executive orders.

Trump signed a few other executive orders in front of the crowd at Capital One Arena in Washington, D.C., just a few hours after being sworn in as the 47th president of the United States, including the revocation of nearly 80 executive orders from the Biden administration.

“I’m revoking nearly 80 destructive radical executive actions of the previous administration,” Trump told the crowd at the signing ceremony.

Trump signed an executive order to delay the TikTok ban imposed by the Biden administration by 75 days “to permit my Administration an opportunity to determine the appropriate course of action concerning TikTok.”

He also signed an executive order that will let the United States withdraw from the World Health Organisation.

Trump also declared a national energy emergency in an executive order with an eye on driving down energy costs.

As the first of this kind declared by the U.S. Federal Government, the emergency is expected to enable the government to crank up energy production by tapping emergency powers.

The United States is the largest producer of both crude oil and natural gas and is also the top exporter of liquified natural gas (LNG) globally.

The incoming U.S. president also signed an executive order to pull the United States out of the Paris climate accord.

The move means the United States will pull out of the Paris climate accord for the second time.

During his inauguration speech, Trump, who has long regarded clean energy as expensive and wasteful, also vowed to redouble the efforts to extract and utilise fossil fuels.

“I will also declare a national energy emergency. We will drill, baby, drill,” he said.

“We have something that no other manufacturing nation will ever have — the largest amount of oil and gas of any country on Earth,” Trump claimed. “And we are going to use it.”

Adopted in December 2015, the Paris Agreement is an international endeavour to tackle human-caused global warming and related crises, which the United States formally joined in September 2016.

The first Trump administration officially let the United States, one of the world’s top emitters of greenhouse gases, exit the Paris climate accord in November 2020, dealing a major blow to international efforts to combat the climate crisis.

The latest executive order among many others by Trump will mark another round of back-and-forth moves regarding the U.S. commitment to dealing with climate change on the global stage.

Joe Biden, who succeeded Trump in becoming the 46th U.S. president in 2021, signed an executive order on Jan. 20, 2021 — his first day in office — to bring the United States back into the Paris climate accord.  

– dpa, with additional information from Xinhua

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WTO Hosts Seminar On Green Supply Chains

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WTO Hosts Seminar On Green Supply Chains

A seminar on “Building greener and more Resilient Supply Chains” was held in Geneva as part of the World Trade Organisation (WTO) Public Forum 2024.

It was co-hosted by the China Council for the Promotion of International Trade (CCPIT) and the International Trade Centre (ITC).

The four-day public forum would feature over 130 sessions with nearly 4,400 participants from government, business, academia, and civil society.

CCPIT Chairman Ren Hongbin said that today’s globalised economy created both opportunities and challenges.

He emphasised the need to embrace openness and inclusiveness while upholding true multilateralism.

He also stressed that building greener and more resilient supply chains was crucial to addressing global challenges.

ITC Deputy Executive Director Dorothy Tembo underscored the ITC’s commitment to collaborating with partners to offer technical assistance to small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs).

It would offer assistance, especially to those in developing countries, to tap into the potential of cross-border e-commerce.

She said the goal was to build greener supply chains and reduce the carbon footprint of e-commerce, thereby contributing more to sustainable development.

In its Digital Economy Report 2024, the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) emphasised the urgent need to adopt an environmentally sustainable and inclusive digital strategy, said UNCTAD’s head of E-Commerce and Digital Economy.

Torbjorn Frederick stressed that China had issued innovative guidelines promoting the sustainable development of the digital economy. 

– Xinhua

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