monitoring Trump and relevant contemporary events

11-Year-Old Docked Points for Not Bashing Trump

American farmers are facing the "imminent collapse" of key markets and fear uneven trade playing fields as Australian, Canadian and other rival nations take advantage of the soon-to-be implemented Trans-Pacific Partnership.

After President Donald Trump withdrew the US from the TPP on just his third day in the White House in 2017, the States will be left on the sidelines when the re-shaped TPP-11 comes into effect 12am on Sunday AEDT.

Australia, Canada, Japan, Mexico, New Zealand and Singapore were the first nations to ratify the agreement, formally titled the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement. Vietnam, Chile, Brunei, Peru and Malaysia are set to follow in coming months

US farmers, already hit hard by Trump's tariff battle with China and the lack of a free trade agreement with Japan, are bracing to immediately lose market share.

American wheat and beef producers have been particularly vocal.

They expect Australian farmers to use their TPP advantage to sell more to Japan.

"Japan is generally a market where we seek to maintain our strong 53 per cent market share, but today we face an imminent collapse," US Wheat Associates President Vince Peterson told a public hearing held by the US Trade Representative earlier this month.

"Frankly, this is because of provisions negotiated by (former US president Barack Obama's administration) for our benefit under the Trans-Pacific Partnership.

"Our competitors in Australia and Canada will now benefit from those provisions, as US farmers watch helplessly."

Peterson said Australian and Canadian wheat producers will enjoy an immediate seven per cent drop in tariffs selling to Japan because of the TPP-11.

"By April it will have gone down by 12 per cent," he said.

"In very real terms, as of April 1, 2019, US wheat will face a 40 cent per bushel, or $US14 per metric tonne, resale price disadvantage to Australia and Canada.

"After nine years the US will face an automatic premium of $US70 per tonne.

"But by that time most of the market will be long gone."

The National Cattlemen's Beef Association says exports to Japan, the top market for US beef with nearly $US2 billion in sales in 2017, could be eroded by Australian beef exporters enjoying tariff reductions to Japan under TPP-11.

The beef tariff in Japan will be cut by 27.5 per cent for Australian producers in the first year of the agreement for fresh and frozen products.

The NCBA said in most cases TPP-11 countries will see their tariff rates for beef exports to Japan fall nine per cent over the next 15 years.

"NCBA strongly supports prioritising and expediting negotiations for a US-Japan Trade Agreement," NCBA President Kevin Kester told a public hearing earlier this month.

"The US beef industry is at risk of losing significant market share in Japan unless immediate action is taken to level the playing field."

Just out of curiosity: why did you post this nearly two years old story?
Are you going to post the follow-up stories as well?

Just out of curiosity: why did you post this nearly two years old story?

What changed during the last 22 months, cj?

Facebook BANS Posts That Point Out An ILLEGAL ALIEN Killed Cpl. Singh

Australian farmers are also pleased

Australians have been against the TPP from the get-go.

E-Beth is a globalist shill....

Obama charged with 'facilitating' Christian persecution

Jonathan – who served as Nigeria’s president from 2010 to 2015 – alleges in his new book, My Transition Hours, that Obama went out of his way to meddle in Nigerian politics so that he was deposed and succeeded by his Muslim rival, who has gone after Christians with a vengeance.

I do think everybody is struggling on how to deal with disinformation. Part of the problem is, and not speaking specifically to Pakistan, but generally, governments are real offenders when it comes to disinformation. You know, governments are putting out false information. I mean, in my own country, the United States, the worst perpetrator of false information is the President of the United States. So one thing is how do we deal with government “fake news” — if you want to call it that, but propaganda is a better phrase for it. So on that front, I think journalists need to be covering it. And again that’s hard for people in societies where you face all sorts of threats. So that’s something: You need to do it; it’s time consuming; it takes away from other reporting you might do, and when you do it you can come under pressure from the government or other actors. So that’s one thing is that journalists can be doing some of this.

David Kaye wrote:

So one thing is how do we deal with government “fake news” — if you want to call it that, but propaganda is a better phrase for it. So on that front, I think journalists need to be covering it. And again that’s hard for people in societies where you face all sorts of threats.

Case in point.

Quote:

An Egyptian appeals court has imposed a two-year prison sentence against the women's rights activist Amal Fathy, who criticised the authorities for failing to tackle sexual harassment.

Fathy was charged with "spreading fake news" in May after posting a video in which she recounted her experiences.

She was handed a two-year jail term by a lower court in September, but it was suspended pending an appeal.

The appeal ruling came days after she was freed on bail over a separate case.

Her husband Mohamed Lotfy, head of the independent Egyptian Commission for Rights and Freedoms, said she could be taken back into detention at "any time".

Fathy, a 34-year-old mother-of-one, is a former activist in the April 6 youth movement that was at the forefront of the 2011 uprising against former President Hosni Mubarak.

She was arrested in Cairo two days after posting a 12-minute video on Facebook in which she described how she had been sexually harassed twice in one day and condemned the government's failure to protect women.

She also criticised deteriorating human rights, socio-economic conditions and public services.

Fathy was convicted four months later of "spreading fake news that harms national security". A judge sentenced her to two years in prison that could be suspended until appeal pending payment of $1,120 (£885) in bail and a $560 fine.

Despite paying the bail and fine she was kept in custody because she faced trial on separate charges, including "belonging to a terrorist group". Mr Lotfy said they were not aware what the charges related to.

Last Thursday, Fathy was released on probation after a judge in the capital accepted her appeal against her pre-trial detention in relation to the terrorism case.

But on Sunday an appeals court upheld her two-year sentence for spreading fake news - a decision Amnesty International called an "outrageous injustice".

"The fact that a survivor of sexual harassment is being punished with a two-year prison sentence simply for speaking out about her experience is utterly disgraceful," said Najia Bounaim, the human rights group's North Africa campaigns director.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-46720727

Critics not only warn of a resurgence of IS, but worry that the American exit is a betrayal of U.S.-backed Kurdish forces in Syria and leaves them vulnerable to an attack from Turkish forces. Turkey considers the U.S.-backed Kurdish People's Protection Units, which now controls nearly 30 percent of Syria, a terrorist group linked to an insurgency within its own borders. Other critics feared an abrupt withdrawal.

Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., a Trump backer and leading voice on national security and foreign affairs on Capitol Hill, had lunch with the president on Sunday and emerged from the White House saying that Trump was slowing down the withdrawal from Syria.

"I think we're in a pause situation," Graham said. It was unclear if he meant that the troop withdrawal was actually being paused, or if Graham was echoing Trump's promise for a "strong, deliberate and orderly withdrawal of U.S. forces from Syria."

"I think we're slowing things down in a smart way," Graham said, adding that Trump was very aware of the plight of the Kurds.

Trump on Monday reiterated that he was slowly withdrawing troops.

"If anybody but Donald Trump did what I did in Syria, which was an ISIS loaded mess when I became President, they would be a national hero. ISIS is mostly gone, we're slowly sending our troops back home to be with their families, while at the same time fighting ISIS remnants," Trump tweeted.

US President Donald Trump has now said the abrupt withdrawal of US troops from Syria he announced earlier this month will be carried out "slowly".

"We're slowly sending our troops back home to be with their families, while at the same time fighting Isis [Islamic State] remnants," he tweeted on Monday.

His clarification confirmed remarks by Republican Senator Lindsey Graham.

When Mr Trump first announced the move, he had said: "They're all coming back and they're coming back now."

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Democrats in the U.S. House of Representatives will introduce legislation later this week to fund the Department of Homeland Security through Feb. 8 that includes $1.3 billion for border security, a senior Democratic aide said on Monday.

Democrats will also offer bills that will provide year-long funding for other agencies and departments that have been closed by a partial government shutdown, the aide said.

House Democrats ready bills to reopen government with $1.3 billion for border security.