Politics

By David Lawder and Andrea Shalal

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen’s trip to China has raised hopes in Beijing that Trump-era tariffs on Chinese imports may be eased as she tries to smooth relations between the two nations, but strong anti-China sentiment in the U.S. may make that impossible.

Trade and political analysts in Washington say that even though cutting some of the “Section 301” tariffs would help U.S. companies and consumers, as well as Chinese exporters, doing so would expose Biden to a buzz-saw of Republican criticism at a dangerous time.

“The political calculus is pretty clear,” said Harry Broadman, a former White House, World Bank and U.S. trade official who is now a managing director with Berkeley Research Group. “That would be red meat for the opposition.”

Looking soft on China could cost Biden the 2024 presidential election, he said, adding that anti-China sentiment in the U.S. in recent years is the highest he’s ever seen, fueled by former President Donald Trump’s China policies.

HIGH HOPES IN CHINA

Yellen discussed trade irritants and other policy differences with China’s top economic officials and Premier Li Qiang for a marathon 10 hours over two days last week — meetings that she said put U.S.-China ties “on surer footing.”

U.S. tariffs and high technology export controls to Beijing’s new anti-espionage law that threatens the activities of U.S. companies in China were among the topics, the U.S. Treasury said. Yellen said nothing publicly to indicate that the U.S. was poised to ease tariffs, but commentators in China were hopeful, amid a U.S. Trade Representative review.

In a statement on Monday, China’s Finance Ministry called for the U.S. to cancel punitive tariffs, roll back export curbs and end import bans from Xinjiang province.

“Yellen has a say in the next phase of the U.S.’s four-year tariff review,” said Hong Hao, chief executive of Grow Investment Group in Hong Kong. “While U.S might continue its technological curbs on China, a reduction or exemption of non-core tariffs against China is possible.”

China’s state-run Global Times, normally a harsh U.S. critic, called Yellen a “professional and pragmatic” official who could influence the Biden administration to take such steps to improve the economic relationship.

Yellen last year advocated eliminating some duties on “non-strategic” goods as a way to ease some specific costs amid high inflation.

But U.S. political pressure to raise China tariffs is growing, said Chad Bown, a trade economist with the Peterson Institute of International Economics who has researched them extensively.

“There is no political appetite to reduce tariffs on China – Secretary Yellen will do well in this political climate if they manage to stay where they are,” Bown said.

U.S. officials have been tight-lipped about any response to the Chinese call for action, noting that no new initiatives were under way. A U.S. Treasury spokesperson declined comment on tariffs.

A USTR spokesperson said the agency was continuing its review and was evaluating feedback received, nearly seven months after it closed public comments.

Collections of U.S. tariffs on Chinese goods peaked at $49 billion in fiscal 2022, bringing the total amount collected from U.S. importers over four years to $182.9 billion, according to U.S. customs data.

U.S. imports from China had nearly reached their 2018 peak in 2022, but are down 24% so far this year.

ENDLESS ‘GROVELING’

Hardliners who dominate China discussions within the U.S. Republican party took to social media memes to mock Yellen for appearing to bow to Chinese vice premier He Lifeng at the start of a meeting.

Firebrand Republican Senator Josh Hawley said in a tweet that such “embarrassing groveling to China is a historic mistake.”

Republican presidential hopefuls have adopted confrontational rhetoric with respect to China, which they see as the nation’s top geopolitical foe.

Florida Governor Ron DeSantis and former UN Ambassador Nikki Haley have laid out the most specific plans so far to confront China on trade, and advocate revoking China’s permanent normal trade relations status, a legal designation granted by the U.S. that lowers trade barriers with specific nations.

Haley has said she would push Congress to revoke China’s trade status until China curbs its alleged role in the fentanyl trade. China is a major producer of chemicals required to create fentanyl, which is frequently smuggled over the U.S.-Mexico border.

Former President Donald Trump, who leads the Republican field with DeSantis a distant second, told Reuters that he would give China 48 hours to remove what sources say is Chinese spy capability on the island of Cuba 90 miles off the U.S. coast. If China fails to comply, his administration would impose new tariffs.

(This story has been refiled to add missing words in paragraph 4)

(Reporting by David Lawder, Andrea Shalal; Additional reporting by Gram Slattery and Jeff Mason. Editing by Heather Timmons and Nick Zieminski)

source

By Richard Cowan and Moira Warburton

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -Republican U.S. Senator Tommy Tuberville on Tuesday said white nationalists are racist after having denied that earlier in the day, an incident that drew criticism from the chamber’s top Democrat, Majority Leader Chuck Schumer.

“White nationalists are racist,” Tuberville, a first-term senator and former college football coach, told reporters on Tuesday afternoon, after a morning interview on CNN in which he said the opposite.

The Alabama senator’s earlier comments defending white nationalists were not the only controversy involving him on Tuesday.

Democratic President Joe Biden’s nominee to become the top U.S. general earlier in the day warned that Tuberville’s blockade of military promotions in a protest over abortion policy could have a far-reaching impact across the armed forces.

Tuberville has used a Senate procedure to hold up hundreds of military nominations.

Hardline Republicans in both chambers of Congress have increasingly turned to stonewalling tactics in pursuit of conservative culture-war goals, with a group in the House last month bringing that chamber to a halt in protest over their leader Speaker Kevin McCarthy’s deal with Biden to avoid a catastrophic debt default.

Schumer earlier on Tuesday took to the Senate floor to declare that Tuberville was “on a one-man mission to excuse and even defend the meaning of white nationalism.”

He called on Tuberville’s fellow Republicans to urge him to apologize, recounting recent interviews in which he was asked about white nationalists serving in the U.S. military.

“I call them Americans,” Tuberville responded during a May interview with an Alabama radio station.

On Monday, Tuberville was pressed on that statement in an interview on CNN, and said: “If we are going to do away with most white people in this country out of the military, we’ve got huge problems.”

In comments to reporters later Tuesday morning, he said that he was “totally against racism” but added: “If Democrats want to say that white nationalists are racist, I’m totally against that too.”

No. 2 Senate Republican John Thune, asked by reporters whether Tuberville should issue an apology for his remarks, said there is no place in the Republican Party, the military or the country for white nationalism.

“I’m not sure exactly what it was he thinks he was saying there,” Thune said. “I’m sure it’s probably something different than how, perhaps, it’s being interpreted.”

Tuberville, who came to the Senate in 2021, has blocked Biden’s military nominees to protest the Pentagon’s practice of funding travel costs for abortions for service members and their dependents.

The Defense Department began providing that funding after the Supreme Court last year struck down the Roe v. Wade ruling granting a constitutional right to abortion.

(Reporting by Richard Cowan and Moira Warburton, additional reporting by David Morgan; editing by Scott Malone, Jonathan Oatis and Lincoln Feast.)

source

By Patricia Zengerle

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Democratic and Republic senators renewed an effort to block any U.S. president from leaving NATO on Wednesday, as leaders of the alliance attended an eventful summit in Vilnius, Lithuania.

The joint resolution, seen by Reuters, is a fresh effort by Congress to prevent the president from withdrawing from the alliance without the Senate’s approval.

“The President shall not suspend, terminate, denounce, or withdraw the United States from the North Atlantic Treaty, done at Washington, DC, April 4, 1949, except by and with the advice and consent of the Senate, provided that two-thirds of the Senators present concur or pursuant to an Act of Congress,” the measure says.

Lead sponsors include Democratic Senator Tim Kaine, a member of the Foreign Relations and Armed Services committees, and Republican Senator Marco Rubio, vice chairman of the intelligence committee, who is also a senior member of the foreign relations panel.

The bill has been introduced repeatedly in recent years, including during the term of former Republican President Donald Trump, who voiced a desire for the United States to leave the military alliance.

It has yet to pass the full Senate, but an aide to Kaine noted that it was backed by the foreign relations committee last year with strong bipartisan support and that, given the war in Ukraine and the expansion of NATO, backers expect stronger support than ever.

The current president, Democrat Joe Biden, has been a strong supporter of NATO, backing its expansion and working with other members, especially on the response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. He is expected to celebrate its unity over Ukraine in a speech at the Vilnius summit on Wednesday.

The summit included an inaugural session of the NATO-Ukraine Council, a body established to upgrade relations between Kyiv and the 31-member transatlantic military alliance.

(Reporting by Patricia Zengerle, Editing by Rosalba O’Brien)

source

(Reuters) -Former President Donald Trump and his aide Walt Nauta have asked a federal court in Florida to postpone their criminal trial in a classified documents case, saying Trump’s busy presidential campaign schedule ahead of the 2024 election will make the current trial schedule “untenable.”

“President Trump is running for President of the United States and is currently the likely Republican Party nominee. This undertaking requires a tremendous amount of time and

energy, and that effort will continue until the election on November 5, 2024,” attorneys for Trump and Nauta wrote in a joint court filing late on Monday.

“Such preparation requires significant planning and time, making the current schedule untenable and counseling in

favor of a continuance.”

Trump, the front-runner for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination, pleaded not guilty in federal court on June 13 in Miami to charges that he had unlawfully kept classified national security documents when he left office in 2021 and tried to obstruct justice when the federal government sought to retrieve them.

Federal prosecutors had already asked U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon to delay her proposed Aug. 14 trial date until Dec. 11 to give both sides more time to prepare.

A spokesman for Special Counsel Jack Smith’s office declined to comment on Trump and Nauta’s request, but said the office intends to file a response in the coming days.

Federal prosecutors and attorneys for Trump and Nauta are due to appear before Cannon on July 18 for the first time for a pre-trial conference to discuss scheduling and other logistical issues.

In addition to citing his campaign schedule, Trump’s lawyers also told the judge that the unprecedented indictment raises “significant” legal questions and challenges that will be posed by the classified nature of the evidence.

The documents case will unfold under a strict set of rules prescribed by the Classified Information Procedures Act, which aims to protect classified evidence and manage disclosure of such records at a public jury trial.

Nauta, Trump’s aide, pleaded not guilty last week in a Miami federal courthouse to charges that he had helped Trump hide top secret documents taken when he left the White House.

(Reporting by Sarah N. Lynch in Washington and Bharat Govind Gautam in Bengaluru; Editing by Clarence Fernandez and Alistair Bell)

source

By Phil Stewart and Patricia Zengerle

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -President Joe Biden’s nominee to become the top U.S. general warned on Tuesday that a Republican senator’s blockade of military promotions could have a far-reaching impact across the U.S. armed forces, affecting troops and their families.

“We will lose talent,” General Charles “CQ” Brown, the outgoing Air Force chief of staff, told his Senate confirmation hearing to become chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

Brown made the remarks shortly after being questioned by Republican Senator Tommy Tuberville, who has used a Senate procedure to put a hold on hundreds of military nominations from moving forward because he believes the Pentagon is improperly using government funding to cover travel costs for abortions for service members and their dependents.

An aide to Tuberville said his block would also apply to Brown.

The military is already having to shuffle staff to fill a top leadership post after the commandant of the Marine Corps, one of the members of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, stepped down on Monday when his four-year term ended. His Number 2 has taken over but the hold on promotions has left the Marine Corps without a confirmed leader in the job for the first time in more than a century, the Pentagon says.

Democrats including U.S. Senator Elizabeth Warren slammed Tuberville for punishing uniformed military leaders who were not responsible for the policy on abortion travel that he was protesting.

“If the senator from Alabama continues his reckless action, he will soon be holding 650 leaders who have served their country honorable hostage,” Warren said.

A former fighter pilot with command experience in the Pacific, Brown has been warmly received by the Senate and he fielded questions on China, Russia and Ukraine throughout the two-and-a-half hour hearing.

CULTURE WAR ISSUES

But the most contentious moments during the hearing involved culture war issues including diversity and inclusion, the COVID-19 vaccine and Tuberville’s abortion dispute.

Senator Eric Schmitt, a Republican, accused the military of engaging in “cultural Marxism” for setting diversity goals in recruitment in an August, 2022 memorandum, signed by Air Force leadership. Schmitt asked if the Air Force had too many white officers.

Brown, the country’s first Black service chief, explained to the Senate committee that the U.S. Air Force recruitment goals were only aimed at reflecting the U.S. population, and did not limit anyone’s chances. The memorandum also stated that merit would determine entry in the Air Force.

“If that statement was not included, I would never have signed that letter,” Brown said.

Asked when the Senate might vote on Brown’s nomination, Majority Leader Chuck Schumer called on the top Republicans in the Senate to put pressure on Tuberville.

“The Republican leaders say they oppose what Senator Tuberville is doing, risking our military security and it’s up to them – they have to put the pressure on him to back off,” the Democrat told a news conference.

Brown would be only the second Black officer to become chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, after Colin Powell two decades ago.

A self-described introvert, Brown’s public persona contrasts sharply with the outgoing chairman, Army General Mark Milley, a loquacious Boston native whose tenure included both the Trump and Biden administrations.

Known by colleagues as “CQ,” Brown’s experiences include overseeing coalition air operations against Islamic State from the Air Force’s top base in the Middle East.

But it’s his experiences as commander of the U.S. Air Force in the Pacific from 2018 to 2020 that gave him a primer on tensions with China’s rapidly strengthening military, an issue likely to loom large over his four-year term as chair.

Committee members extolled his experience.

“You’ve got a stellar background,” said Republican Senator Rick Scott.

(Reporting by Phil Stewart and Patricia Zengerle; additional reporting by Katharine Jackson; Editing by Alistair Bell)

source

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – President Joe Biden’s nominee to become the top U.S. general warned on Tuesday that a Republican senator’s blockade of military promotions could have far-reaching impact across the U.S. armed forces, affecting troops and their families.

General Charles “C.Q.” Brown, the outgoing Air Force chief of staff, made the remarks at his Senate confirmation hearing to become chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

Republican Senator Tommy Tuberville, who represents Alabama, has blocked hundreds of military nominations from moving forward because he believes the Pentagon is improperly using government funding to cover travel costs for abortions for service members and their dependents. An aide to Tuberville said his block would also apply to Brown.

(Reporting by Phil Stewart and Patricia Zengerle)

source

By Sharon Bernstein, Julia Harte

(Reuters) -Iowa’s Republican-controlled legislature was poised to pass a bill in a special session on Tuesday that would ban abortions as soon as fetal cardiac activity can be detected, after around six weeks of pregnancy and before most women know they are pregnant.

Lawmakers and Iowans on both sides of the issue weighed in on the bill in a room in the State Capitol, as abortion rights activists held a loud protest just outside. Republican Governor Kim Reynolds called the special session after the Midwestern state’s Supreme Court on June 16 blocked a similar measure passed in 2018 from going into effect.

Both chambers are expected to pass the bill by the end of the day. The state Senate’s Republican president, Amy Sinclair, said on Tuesday afternoon that debate over the new bill had already gone on “too long,” and said it did not violate either the state or federal constitutions.

Democratic state Senator Janice Weiner responded that making the bill law with immediate effect, as Republicans aim to do, would show “incredible disrespect” to Iowa doctors by not giving them sufficient time to understand the new rules.

Iowa’s highest court had deadlocked in the 3-3 decision in June, leaving abortion legal in Iowa for up to 20 weeks of pregnancy.

However, the three judges who opposed reinstating the 2018 law said they were doing so to avoid legislating from the bench, leading Republican lawmakers to believe they have a good chance of beating future challenges by passing a new law now.

Fourteen states have banned most abortions since the U.S. Supreme Court in June 2022 overturned the landmark 1973 Roe v. Wade case and stripped away a nationwide right to abortion.

Iowa’s 2018 ban on abortions after about six weeks was put on hold by the courts while Roe v. Wade and similar state constitutional protections were in effect, but both have now been reversed.

A draft of the new Iowa bill calls for outlawing abortions with limited exceptions after cardiac activity can be detected, weeks before the fetus has developed an actual heart.

In its current form, the bill would make some exceptions for rape and incest. Abortions after six weeks would also be allowed in the case of a medical emergency, a fetal abnormality that a doctor reasonably believes is incompatible with life and in the event that continuing the pregnancy would create a serious risk of irreversible harm to the woman’s body.

It would not make exceptions for the age of the pregnant person or any mental health condition.

Planned Parenthood Advocates of Iowa on Monday asked abortion rights supporters to contact their legislators, sign up to speak against the bill and rally against the measure at Tuesday’s session.

The Iowa Faith and Freedom Coalition advocacy group also asked its members to contact their lawmakers to support the bill.

(Reporting by Sharon Bernstein; Editing by Colleen Jenkins and Jonathan Oatis)

source

By Sharon Bernstein

(Reuters) – Iowa’s Republican-controlled legislature on Tuesday will consider a ban on abortions as soon as fetal cardiac activity can be detected, after around six weeks of pregnancy and before most women know they are pregnant.

Governor Kim Reynolds, a Republican, ordered the special legislative session after the Iowa Supreme Court on June 16 blocked a similar measure passed in 2018 from going into effect.

The Midwestern state’s highest court deadlocked in a 3-3 decision, leaving abortion legal in Iowa for up to 20 weeks of pregnancy.

However, the three judges who opposed reinstating the 2018 law said they were doing so to avoid legislating from the bench, leading Republican lawmakers to believe they have a good chance of beating future challenges by passing a new law now.

Fourteen states have banned most abortions since the U.S. Supreme Court in June 2022 overturned the landmark 1973 Roe v. Wade case and stripped away a nationwide right to abortion.

Iowa’s 2018 ban on abortions after about six weeks was put on hold by the courts while Roe v. Wade and similar state constitutional protections were in effect, but both have now been reversed.

A draft of the new Iowa bill calls for outlawing abortions with limited exceptions after cardiac activity can be detected, weeks before the fetus has developed an actual heart.

In its current form, the bill would make some exceptions for rape and incest. Abortions after six weeks would also be allowed in the case of a medical emergency, a fetal abnormality that a doctor reasonably believes is incompatible with life and in the event that continuing the pregnancy would create a serious risk of irreversible harm to the woman’s body.

It would not make exceptions for the age of the pregnant person or any mental health condition.

The state Senate and the state House of Representatives were set to begin debate on Tuesday, and it was unclear how long discussions would last.

Planned Parenthood Advocates of Iowa on Monday asked abortion rights supporters to contact their legislators, sign up to speak against the bill and rally against the measure at Tuesday’s session.

The Iowa Faith and Freedom Coalition advocacy group has also asked its members to contact their lawmakers to support the bill.

(Reporting by Sharon Bernstein; Editing by Colleen Jenkins and Jonathan Oatis)

source

By David Shepardson

ARLINGTON, Virginia (Reuters) -U.S. lawmakers are considering changes to address concerns about a bill that would give the Biden administration new powers to ban Chinese-owned TikTok, the chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee who has cosponsored the legislation said on Monday.

Democratic Senator Mark Warner told Reuters that aggressive lobbying by the ByteDance-owned short video app TikTok against the Restrict Act “slowed a bit of our momentum” after it was introduced in March.

Warner said lawmakers have “a proposal on a series of amendments to make it explicitly clear” and address criticisms, including that individual Americans could be impacted or that the bill represents a broad expansion of government power.

“We can take care of those concerns in a fair way,” Warner said.

The legislation endorsed by the White House would grant the Commerce Department new authority to review, block, and address a range of transactions involving foreign information and communications technology that pose national security risks.

“I will grant TikTok this – they spent $100 million in lobbying and slowed a bit of our momentum,” Warner said, adding that initially it seemed it would be almost “too easy” to get the bill approved.

TikTok did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Warner’s assessment of its lobbying.

In March, Republican Senator Rand Paul blocked a bid to fast-track a separate bill to ban TikTok introduced by Senator Josh Hawley, who said the Restrict Act “doesn’t ban TikTok. It gives the president a whole bunch of new authority.”

The Biden administration in March demanded TikTok’s Chinese owners divest their stakes or face a U.S. ban. Attempts in 2020 by then President Donald Trump to ban TikTok were blocked by U.S. courts.

Warner said there are a lot of conversations about the bill, adding it could be attached to an annual defense bill or could be part of a China-related bill that Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer wants.

The need for legislation is clear, he said.

“There have been another three or four apps that have come out that are Chinese controlled so we need a fair rules-based process to deal with this rather than kind of a one-off basis,” Warner said.

TikTok, which is used by more than 150 million Americans, says it has spent more than $1.5 billion on rigorous data security efforts and rejects spying allegations.

The company is fighting a ban by the state of Montana set to take effect on Jan. 1. A judge has scheduled an Oct. 12 hearing on TikTok’s request.

(Reporting by David Shepardson; Editing by Leslie Adler and Sonali Paul)

source

By David Morgan and Richard Cowan

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -More than 20 U.S. House Republican hardliners warned Speaker Kevin McCarthy on Monday that they will try to block their party’s fiscal 2024 appropriations bills unless spending levels are cut below levels that McCarthy and Democratic President Joe Biden agreed to in May.

The hardliners, including members of the House Freedom Caucus, also called on McCarthy to delay appropriations votes in the House of Representatives until all 12 government funding bills have been finalized and can be subjected to a side-by-side review.

The threat comes in the face of a looming showdown between the Republican-controlled House and Democratic-led Senate, potentially complicating efforts to avoid a government shutdown after the current fiscal year ends on Sept. 30.

“We expect all appropriations measures … to be in line with the enacted FY 2022 topline level of $1.471 trillion,” the 21 lawmakers said in a letter, led by Representatives Scott Perry and Chip Roy, both prominent House Freedom Caucus members.

“Absent adhering to the $1.471 trillion spending level … we see an impossible path to reach 218 Republican votes on appropriations or other measures,” the letter said.

The group includes lawmakers who shut the House floor down last month to protest McCarthy’s May deal with Biden that averted default on U.S. debt.

McCarthy’s office did not respond to a Reuters query seeking comment on the letter.

In the meantime, Senate appropriators are aiming for bipartisan deals — all of which point to difficult negotiations ahead — as Congress returned on Monday from the two-week July 4 recess.

A host of hot-button issues ranging from abortion to transgender rights are expected to be pulled into upcoming debates, further complicating matters. If lawmakers fail to agree on a budget before the next fiscal year begins on Oct. 1, the United States could see its fourth partial government shutdown in a decade.

Senate negotiators, who were largely sidelined during the recent talks between House Republicans and the White House over the federal government’s $31.4 trillion debt ceiling, were working on bills that are attracting strong bipartisan support.

“We are determined to continue working together in a bipartisan manner to craft serious funding bills that can be signed into law,” Democratic Senator Patty Murray and Republican Senator Susan Collins said in a joint statement.

Republicans hold the House by a narrow 222-212 majority, while Democrats hold a razor-thin 51-49 majority in the Senate, meaning that nothing can pass into law without votes from both parties.

CONFLICTING TARGETS

Leaders of the two chambers don’t even agree on the spending targets they are aiming at.

Senate negotiators plan to hold to the $1.59 trillion discretionary spending target that Biden and McCarthy agreed to in the May deal.

House Republicans last month voted on a lower target of $1.47 trillion, which would cut spending for the environment, public assistance and foreign aid.

The House target does not take into account $115 billion in existing funding that Republican leaders could redirect to party priorities to compensate for cuts.

House Republicans are also trying to use the legislation to rescind key Biden priorities in areas such as climate change and tax collection. They also seek to eliminate or alter some existing programs involving workforce diversity, transgender protections and women’s access to abortion that Democrats are fighting for.

“I am ready to end this charade of considering extreme Republican funding bills and join my colleagues in both chambers and on both sides of the aisle in working toward a final agreement” on government spending for next year, Democratic Representative Rosa DeLauro said in a statement on Friday.

DeLauro, the senior Democrat on the House Appropriations Committee, noted that House Republicans “know and have said publicly, that in the end they are going to need Democratic votes to keep the government open.”

Failure to agree on appropriations could lead to a partial government shutdown into the autumn and winter that could hobble many federal activities, including air traffic control, military pay increases and the operation of national parks.

Representative David Joyce, who chairs the Republican Governance Group, or RG2, a more moderate group of 42 lawmakers concerned with House governance, said there could be scope for a short-term funding deal to maintain government operations while talks continue into the fall.

“I’m not a big fan at all of shutdowns, and I don’t think anybody in RG2 or our groups are really thinking about that,” Joyce told Reuters. “We’re trying to think how to make things work.”

(Reporting by David Morgan and Richard Cowan; Editing by Scott Malone, Jonathan Oatis and Leslie Adler)

source