WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump's new national security adviser will represent the United States at the East Asia Summit, the White House said Tuesday, the lowest-level official to lead the Washington delegation since it was first invited to the regional forum.
With Trump embroiled in an impeachment inquiry, the muted presence at the Nov. 3-4 summit in Bangkok is sure to renew charges that the United States is not focused on Asia at a time that China's clout is growing.
The White House said that Robert O'Brien, who took over the position in September from the hawkish John Bolton, would lead a US delegation that will include Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross, who will also travel separately to Indonesia and Vietnam.
Despite Trump's non-attendance, he is expected to go the following week to a separate summit of the Pacific Rim-wide APEC bloc in Santiago, Chile.
The East Asia Summit concept was promoted for years by Malaysia's veteran Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad, an outspoken proponent of the continent's future who envisioned an eventual bloc akin to the European Union.
But the United States was controversially excluded from the inaugural summit in Kuala Lumpur in 2005, drawing widespread commentary in Asia that Washington was too preoccupied with the Middle East.
After President Barack Obama vowed to pivot US attention toward Asia, the United States -- as well as Russia -- were invited as full participants in the summits starting in 2011.
Obama attended each year except 2013, when he was fighting congressional Republicans over a government shutdown and sent secretary of state John Kerry instead.
Trump flew to the Philippines for his first East Asia Summit in 2017 but, with the session running late, he left early and ended a 12-day trip to Asia, with then secretary of state Rex Tillerson taking his place.
Last year, Vice President Mike Pence attended the summit in Singapore, where he described China's militarization of the dispute-rife South China Sea as "illegal and dangerous" and vowed to stand by US allies in the region.
Trump has said that he plans to meet Chinese President Xi Jinping to seek headway in a trade war at the November 16-17 APEC summit in Chile, to which Russian President Vladimir Putin has also confirmed his attendance.
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El Salvador's President Nayib Bukele, whose social media savvy helped win him power earlier this year, took a selfie before his maiden speech at the UN General Assembly, which he called "obsolete" and suggested scrapping.
In a dark suit and no tie, his hair slicked back in his signature style, the 38-year-old thanked the other leaders present and said he especially wanted to greet his wife and baby daughter sitting in the gallery.
"If you'll just bear with me a second," he then added, pulling out his iPhone 11, lifting it up to his grinning face and snapping a photo he later posted on Twitter to his 1.1 million followers.
"Believe me, many more people will see that selfie when I share it than will listen to this speech -- I hope I took a good one."
"A couple of images on Instagram can have more impact than any speech delivered in this assembly," he said, quipping that the annual summit of the world's leaders could be done by video-conference.
The conservative businessman and former mayor of the capital San Salvador was sworn into office in June in the small Central American country of 6.6 million people, tasked with turning around grinding poverty and rampant gang violence that are sending thousands fleeing to the United States.
He traded on his telegenic looks and promises of a break with the past, but critics have called him light on policy and substance.
TRUMP BROMANCE
On Wednesday, he held his first meeting with US President Donald Trump, a fellow prolific social media user and self-styled iconoclast whom Bukele has aggressively courted -- a contrast with his predecessor Salvador Sanchez Ceren, a leftist former guerrilla.
The 2 countries reached an agreement last week to curb illegal migration that opens the door for the United States to send refugees back to the violent Central American country, a move slammed by migrant rights advocates.
"For us, the United States is not only a partner and an ally, but also a friend," Bukele told reporters after that meeting.
"We're hoping that this meeting will only strengthen our relationship even more, and I think it will because, you know, President Trump is very nice and cool, and I'm nice and cool, too. We both use Twitter a lot, so, you know, we'll get along."
Talking to journalists on Thursday after his speech, he defended his show of bonhomie with the US leader.
"Someone made fun of the fact that I joked with Trump. Did they want me to come fight with him -- or for me put on a cranky face or something?"
On the controversial migration agreement, he appeared to agree that those Salvadorans fleeing to the US were involved in gangs.
"We've supported our natural and biggest ally," he said. "We've caught human traffickers, we've seized their money, their arms, false documents."
"El Salvador has to propose a positive migration, academic migration, business migration, work migration, not those with false documents or drugs."
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The United States ramped up pressure on China at the UN General Assembly Tuesday, rallying countries against Beijing's treatment of Uighur Muslims and warning it is watching on Hong Kong.
President Donald Trump fired several shots across the bow of the fellow Security Council member, moving beyond his typical attacks against China on international trade.
"The world fully expects that the Chinese government will honor its binding treaty... (and) protect Hong Kong's freedom and legal system and democratic ways of life," Trump told the General Assembly.
"How China chooses to handle the situation will say a great deal about its role in the world and the future," the Republican tycoon added during his third appearance at the diplomatic forum in New York.
It marked one of his most strident speeches on the situation in Hong Kong since massive anti-government protests broke out there three months ago.
The demonstrations have triggered the Asian financial hub's biggest political crisis since its handover from Britain to China in 1997.
Until Tuesday, Trump had largely left it to the State Department to demand respect for the handover treaty which grants the territory a "high degree of autonomy," its own judicial, legislative and executive system, and the protection of its "way of life."
He said the world was "counting on President Xi (Jinping) as a great leader" who could resolve the crisis.
The US president also let rip on international trade during his address, declaring that the time of Beijing's "abuses" of the system was "over."
"For years, these (trade) abuses were tolerated, ignored, or even encouraged," he said, arguing that globalism had caused world leaders "to ignore their own national interests.
Touting what he argued were the benefits of his tariff war with China, Trump reiterated his hope that a trade agreement "beneficial to both countries" could be struck.
"But as I said very clearly, I will not accept a bad deal for the American people," he said.
'GREAT FRACTURE'
If proof was needed of the animosity between the 2 rival powers, then it could be found in the US State Department organizing an event Tuesday to highlight the plight of Uighurs in China.
The conference was held on the sidelines of the general assembly to garner support "to demand and compel an immediate end to China’s horrific campaign of repression," John Sullivan, the US's second-highest diplomat, said.
"We cannot be the only guardians of the truth nor the only members of the international community to call out China and demand that they stop," Sullivan added.
Washington and human rights organizations accuse Beijing of interning a million or more Muslims, mainly ethnic Uighurs, in the northwestern Xinjiang region of China.
"History will judge the international community for how we respond to this attack on human rights and fundamental freedoms," said the deputy secretary of state.
He rejected China's claims that the camps are vocational training centers and slammed their efforts to present the policy in the region as a "counter-terrorist" campaign.
"In Xinjiang, the Chinese government prevents Muslims from praying and reading the Quran, and it has destroyed or defaced a great number of mosques," Sullivan said.
"This is a systematic campaign by the Chinese Communist Party to stop its own citizens from exercising their unalienable right to religious freedom."
Sullivan said the UN must seek "unhindered" access to Xinjiang so that it can "investigate and closely monitor China's human rights abuses."
China angrily criticized the US for organizing the conference and called for it "to stop interfering in China's internal affairs," according to the Xinhua state news agency.
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres opened the summit on Tuesday warning of a "great fracture" between the US and China.
He said he feared them "creating two separate and competing worlds, each with their own dominant currency, trade and financial rules, their own internet and artificial intelligence capacities, and their own zero sum geopolitical and military strategies."
Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi will address the UN on Friday.
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Britain's Prime Minister Boris Johnson meets U.S. President Donald Trump for bilateral talks during the G7 summit in Biarritz, France on Sunday. Leaders of the world's top economies met in France over the weekend to discuss issues ranging from the Iranian nuclear crisis to trade, and fires in the Amazon.
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BIARRITZ, France - The G7 will give $20 million (18 million euros) to send firefighting planes to tackle the blazes engulfing parts of the Amazon, the presidents of France and Chile said Monday.
"We must respond to the call of the forest which is burning today in the Amazon," France's Emmanuel Macron said as President Sebastian Pinera of Chile, a guest of the G7, underlined that "countries of the Amazon are in dire need of fire brigades and water bomber planes."
Nearly 80,000 forest fires have been detected in Brazil since the beginning of the year -- just over half of them in the massive Amazon basin.
Macron had declared the situation an "international crisis" and made it a priority of the summit of the G7, which comprises Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan and the United States.
G7 leaders gathered in Biarritz held talks on the many environmental challenges facing planet Earth, with a focus on the record number of fires destroying swathes of the Amazon.
Macron has threatened to block a huge new trade deal between the EU and Latin America unless Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro, a climate change sceptic, takes serious steps to protect the fast-shrinking forest from logging and mining.
Bolsonaro lashed out at the French leader over his criticism and suggested NGOs could be setting the fires to embarrass him -- without giving any evidence to back the claim.
But at the weekend, he finally caved in to international pressure to save a region crucial for maintaining a stable global climate, deploying two aircraft to douse fires and authorizing the army to help tackle the blazes.
'UNIVERSAL HERITAGE'
Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced his country would send a water bomber plane to fight the Amazon blazes and contribute some $15 million to the effort.
The G7 also agreed to support a reforestation plan to be unveiled in September, the leaders said.
Brazil would have to agree to any reforestation plan, as would indigenous communities living in the world's biggest rainforest.
UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres said new planting was needed "to preserve this universal heritage, which is absolutely essential for the well-being of the world's population."
He said the issue would be discussed during the UN General Assembly in New York in September.
Macron told France 2 it was hoped "at least 30 million" dollars could be raised for the project.
On Monday evening, the French leader met Brazilian indigenous chief Raoni Metuktire, who said he had asked Macron to "help us preserve our lands."
"The forests and lands of Brazil help the entire planet live," said the chief, an advocate for indigenous rights.
Greenpeace executive director Jennifer Morgan welcomed the G7 aid, but said the club must also "stop fueling the destruction of the Amazon through the import of agricultural products associated with deforestation and soil degradation."
British Prime Minister Boris Johnson promised 10 million pounds ($12 million) for Amazon reforestation projects, while luxury fashion giant LVMH pledged 10 million euros.
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French President Emmanuel Macron said Monday G7 members had reached an agreement on the taxation of tech giants, a long-standing subject of friction between France and the US which has threatened to retaliate with tariffs on French wines.
Speaking alongside US President Donald Trump at a G7 summit in southwest France, Macron admitted that there had been "a lot of nervousness" about France's new tax on tech behemoths such as Google and Facebook.
But negotiations between France and the United States had produced "what I think is a very good deal," he said.
Macron explained that France would scrap its own digital tax once a new international levy being discussed among 134 OECD countries is in place. France hopes it will be ready in 2020.
Asked whether he would now rescind his threat to slap punitive retaliatory tariffs on French wines, Trump, who had described the French tax as "very unfair", was non-committal.
His wife Melania "loves the French wine", he joked.
The US leader, who was elected on a protectionist platform, had earlier announced that Paris and Washington were "close" to a deal.
"They want to make a deal and we'll see if we can make a deal," Trump said.
REIMBURSE EXCESS TAX
The French parliament passed its new levy in July amid frustration at the slow pace of negotiations on a new global accord to ensure tech multinationals pay a larger share of taxes on their operations.
Under EU law, American tax giants can declare their profits from across the bloc in a single jurisdiction -- in most cases low-tax jurisdictions such as Ireland or the Netherlands.
The French tax, which targets local sales rather than profits, has drawn accusations of discrimination from the so-called GAFA companies (Google, Apple, Facebook and Amazon).
It is expected to add 400 million euros ($444 million) to France's coffers this year, rising to 450 million in 2020.
Under the agreement struck in Biarritz, French tax authorities will look at how much companies paid in French "GAFA" taxes and how much they would have paid under the yet-to-be-decided international formula, French Economy Minister Bruno Le Maire told AFP.
"Everything that is paid in excess compared to the international solution will be credited to the company," he added.
Britain has also announced plans for a tax on tech giants, accused of exploiting fiscal rules to sharply cut their tax bills despite soaring profits.
"Frankly, we must do something to tax fairly and properly the online businesses that have such colossal sales in our country," British Prime Minister Boris Johnson said ahead of talks with Trump in Biarritz on Saturday.
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TOKYO - Japan's top government spokesman denied on Monday that Tokyo made too many concessions in trade talks with the United States, saying the fact the 2 countries were able to reach a broad agreement was "very valuable."
The United States and Japan agreed in principle on Sunday to core elements of a trade deal that US President Donald Trump and Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said they hoped to sign in New York next month.
The agreement, if finalized, would cool a trade dispute between the two allies just as a trade war between the United States and China escalates, but some Japanese commentators say Tokyo gave up too much.
At a news conference in Tokyo, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga was asked if the United States had dropped its threat to impose additional tariffs on Japanese automobiles.
"Negotiations are still under way so I'd like to refrain from commenting," Suga told reporters.
"But I believe that won't be the case," he added, because the two countries' leaders had confirmed, including at a summit in September, that Washington would not impose higher tariffs on auto and auto parts while trade talks were under way.
"Japan and the US have negotiated based on the joint statement last September. And related ministers agreed based on that, so it was very valuable," Suga said.
At the G7 summit in France, US Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer said the deal, which covered agriculture, industrial tariffs and digital trade, would open up Japanese markets to US goods and lead to a substantial reduction in tariffs such as on beef.
Lighthizer said Japan imports about $14 billion worth of US agricultural products and added the agreement would open up markets to over $7 billion of such products. He said beef, pork, wheat, dairy products, wine, and ethanol would benefit.
The Nikkei newspaper reported on Saturday that Japan has agreed to cut its tariffs on US beef and pork to the levels applied to members of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) agreement. Trump pulled the US out of the TPP, which had been championed by his predecessor, Barack Obama.
Trump said on Sunday Japan had agreed to buy excess U.S. corn that is burdening farmers as a result of the tariff dispute between Washington and Beijing.
Abe referred to a potential purchase of the corn and said it would be handled by the private sector.
"It's a very big transaction, and we've agreed in principle. It's billions and billions of dollars. Tremendous for the farmers," Trump told reporters about the deal during a joint announcement with Abe at the G7 meeting in France.
The Japanese leader said more work remained, but he expressed optimism that it would be finished by the time of the United Nations General Assembly next month. (Reporting by Leika Kihara and Kaori Kaneko Editing by Chang-Ran Kim and Darren Schuettler)
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BIARRITZ, France - US President Donald Trump and Japan's Prime Minister Shinzo Abe on Sunday announced a deal in principle on a major bilateral trade deal.
"It's a very big transaction," Trump said after talks with Abe on the sidelines of the G7 summit in the French resort town of Biarritz.
"Billions and billions of dollars," he said.
"It involves agriculture, it involves e-commerce. It involves many things. We've agreed in principle."
Abe confirmed the two nations had "successfully reached consensus" after "intense" negotiations.
Both leaders said they hoped for a formal signing during the UN General Assembly in New York next month.
However, Abe cautioned: "We still have some remaining work that has to be done… mainly finalizing the wording."
US Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer said the agreement will especially benefit US farmers -- a politically important group for Trump in his uphill push for reelection in 2020.
Asked whether US tariffs already imposed on Japanese cars would be scrapped as a result of the deal, Lighthizer said some tariffs would be removed "but not those."
Trump also said the tariffs were "staying the same" but would not go up.
BILATERAL ALTERNATIVE TO TPP
Trump and Abe enjoy close ties but the US president has frequently claimed that Tokyo has an unfair advantage in bilateral trade.
Negotiators have agreed Japan will place tariffs on US agricultural products up to levels that apply to members of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) pact, Japan's public broadcaster NHK and major Japanese dailies reported.
Both sides agreed Japan will cut tariffs on US beef and pork to TPP levels, but will not set new quotas for butter and skimmed milk, NHK said, citing unnamed sources.
Japan has repeatedly said the extent of the opening up of its agricultural market would be within the concession it had made to members of the TPP pact.
After an abrupt US withdrawal from the TPP, 11 countries circling the Pacific last year signed a slimmed-down version of the trade deal, and the pact has been championed as an antidote to growing US protectionism under Trump.
The US president has since sparked fears of a trade war by levying steep tariffs and denouncing unfair trading practices.
The United States will eliminate levies on a wide range of Japanese industrial products, but its tariffs on Japanese automobiles will be left for further negotiations as Trump sees the US trade deficit with Japan as a problem, NHK said.
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TOKYO -- Donald Trump on Monday became the first foreign leader to meet with Japan's newly enthroned Emperor Naruhito -- an honor Prime Minister Shinzo Abe hopes will help charm the US president when it comes to thorny trade talks.
The palace visit in the morning, followed by a royal banquet in the evening, was the main event in a feel-good trip that started Saturday and has seen Abe and Trump playing golf, eating out, watching sumo and generally enjoying an all-Japanese weekend.
Dining with Abe and their wives at a typical Tokyo grill restaurant on Sunday, Trump said he "had a great time" and was looking forward to meeting Naruhito, who took the Chrysanthemum Throne only three weeks ago, after his father stepped down in the first abdication in two centuries.
"Tomorrow is really the main event -- a very important event in the history of Japan. It's over 200 years since something like this has happened. So it's a great honur to be representing the United States," Trump said.
After calling on Naruhito in the morning, Trump and his avowed close friend Abe will meet for summit talks and have lunch, before holding a press conference.
On Sunday, they grinned for a selfie and praised each other's golf game. Before the dinner, Abe also accompanied Trump to a sumo tournament where the US president presented a gigantic trophy, brought from the United States, to the champion wrestler.
Abe hopes those good vibes will spread into talks on trade, military ties, the stumbling efforts to rein in North Korea's nuclear weapons program, and a growing superpower rivalry between Washington and Beijing.
Within an hour of touching down in Tokyo, Trump railed against what he sees as a trade imbalance between the world's top and third-largest economies and vowed to make the relationship "a little bit more fair".
But on Sunday, Trump struck a softer note, saying that "much" of that deal would wait until Abe faces upper house elections likely in July -- as rumors swirl that the popular prime minister will combine that vote with a snap general election.
With his trade war against China getting bogged down, Trump won't want to rock the boat for his closest Asian ally.
Top Japanese and American trade negotiators spent more than two hours locked in talks on Saturday night but failed to achieve a breakthrough, although the Japanese side said there was more "understanding" between the two sides.
'SMALL WEAPONS'
On North Korea, Trump appeared to undercut his own national security advisor, the hawkish John Bolton, by downplaying 2 recent short-range missile tests by Kim which raised tensions in the region.
"North Korea fired off some small weapons, which disturbed some of my people, and others, but not me," Trump tweeted.
"I have confidence that Chairman Kim will keep his promise to me."
Before Trump landed in Tokyo, Bolton had told reporters there was "no doubt" that the launches contravened UN Security Council resolutions, the first time a senior US administration official has said this.
The issue is bound to come up as the leaders meet families of people abducted by North Korea during the Cold War era to train Pyongyang's spies, an emotive issue in Japan that Abe has pressed Trump to raise in talks with Kim.
The nationalist Abe himself has frequently offered to meet Kim to solve the "abductee problem", as it is known in Japan.
On Tuesday, Trump is expected to address troops at a US base in Japan, highlighting the military alliance between the two allies.
His visit there will underline another big US priority -- arms sales to Japan, which is considering revamping its air force with advanced US F-35 warplanes.
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