Month: July 2017

U.S. President Donald Trump is expected to sign into law new sanctions against Russia, Iran, and North Korea. While Washington awaits the president’s signature, Russia is promising retaliation if punitive measures are implemented. VOA’s Michael Bowman reports from Washington
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U.S. President Donald Trump and key aides pressed lawmakers Sunday to not abandon an overhaul of the country’s health care law in the face of the Senate’s rejection last week of three measures to repeal or replace it.

“Don’t give up Republican Senators, the World is watching: Repeal & Replace,” Trump said in a Twitter comment.

Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell said it was “time to move on” to other issues after three Republican senators joined all 48 Democrats early Friday to defeat a slimmed-down repeal of Obamacare, former President Barack Obama’s signature domestic legislative achievement, on a 51-49 vote.

Republican leaders viewed the vote as their last best effort to be able to advance the repeal effort and negotiate with the House of Representatives on how to dismantle the law, coming after two other attempts at revamping the law were defeated earlier in the week.

But Trump budget chief Mick Mulvaney told CNN, “In the White House’s view, they can’t move on in the Senate.” He said that senators “need to stay, they need to work, they need to pass something.”

Health care secretary Tom Price, speaking on NBC’s “Meet the Press” show, said lawmakers need to continue to work to replace Obamacare with a law that “actually works for patients … so they’re making the decisions, not Washington.”

Most American workers receive their health insurance coverage through their employers, with poorer and older Americans assisted through long-standing government plans. Aside from those plans, individuals who buy insurance to help cover their medical bills are most affected by Obamacare.

But Price contended that the law is “imploding,” and that as it currently stands, 40 percent of the more than 3,000 counties in the U.S. will have only one insurer or none next year in the individual insurance market.

Senator Susan Collins of Maine, one of the three Republicans who voted against what McConnell and other party leaders characterized as a “skinny bill” repealing only parts of Obamacare and leaving much of it intact, told NBC that new hearings on the law are needed that “would produce way better legislation … on the best path forward.”

Republican lawmakers have tried dozens of times to overturn Obamacare, enacted in 2010 by a Democratic-controlled Congress without a single Republican supporting it. Party leaders and Washington political analysts thought 2017 was their best chance to overhaul the law, with Trump in the White House and Republicans controlling both the Senate and House.

But after extensive debate throughout the first six months of the Trump presidency, Republicans are riven in deciding how to overhaul the law, with conservative lawmakers trying to upend as much of the law as possible and more moderate lawmakers looking to keep as much funding as possible for insurance coverage for poorer Americans.

The third major Senate vote last week on health care ended in dramatic fashion early Friday.

With the outcome hanging in the balance, Republican Senator John McCain, who had returned to Congress just days after being diagnosed with brain cancer, walked to the front of the Senate and turned a thumb down, giving the minority Democrats the extra vote they needed to block passage of the scaled-down repeal of Obamacare.

 
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The Kremlin vowed Sunday to retaliate against the United States for approving new sanctions against Russia for its meddling in last year’s presidential election to help President Donald Trump win the White House.

Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov told ABC News’ “This Week” show, “I think this retaliation is long, long overdue.”

He said Moscow has “a very rich toolbox at our disposal. It would be ridiculous on my part to start speculating on what may or may not happen. But I can assure you that different options are on the table and consideration is being given to all sorts of things.”

The White House says that Trump will sign legislation overwhelmingly approved by Congress that imposes new sanctions against Russia, Iran and North Korea.

Trump aides had objected to the measure because of inclusion of a provision that gives Congress 30 days to review and block any Trump effort to ease sanctions against Russia, including those imposed by former President Barack Obama for Russia’s interference in the election. But the lopsided congressional approval of the sanctions left Trump with the prospect that if he vetoed the legislation, Congress would likely have overridden it.

Ryabkov said the U.S. Senate’s 98-2 vote for the sanctions was “the last drop” on what he described as “a completely weird and unacceptable piece of legislation.”

Obama closed two Russian compounds in the U.S. and expelled 35 diplomats in late December, less than a month before leaving office. But Moscow did not retaliate in kind until last week, when it shut two U.S. facilities in Russia and ordered 745 American diplomats out of the country by September 1.

Political analysts in the U.S. had thought that Trump, in an attempt to ease tensions with Russian President Vladimir Putin, might overturn the Obama sanctions when he assumed power, but he did not.

Since then, the early months of Trump’s presidency have been consumed by numerous investigations of Russian meddling in the election, including whether Trump aides colluded with Moscow to help him win and whether Trump obstructed justice by firing James Comey, the Federal Bureau of Investigation director leading the agency’s Russia investigation. Subsequently, another former FBI director, Robert Mueller, was named to take over the criminal investigation.

Moscow has rejected the conclusion of the U.S. intelligence community that Putin personally directed Moscow’s interference in the election, while Trump has been dismissive of the investigations, describing them as a “witch hunt” and an excuse by Democrats to explain his upset win over the Democratic candidate, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.

Ryabkov told ABC, “If the U.S. side decides to move further towards further deterioration, we will answer, we will respond in kind. We will mirror this. We will retaliate. But my whole point is don’t do this, it is to the detriment of the interests of the U.S.”

The Russian diplomat said, “I believe there are several areas where the U.S. and Russia can and should work together cooperatively. Nonproliferation of weapons of mass destruction, countering terrorism, illicit immigration, trafficking in people, climate change, you name it.

“We are ready, we are stretching our hand forward, we are hopeful that someone on the other side, President Trump included, but also others may see here a chance for a somewhat different way,” he added.
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North Korea said Sunday its latest test missile, deemed by weapons experts as capable of reaching the U.S. mainland, was a “stern warning” to Washington against a new round of sanctions aimed at Pyongyang.

The North Korean Foreign Ministry said Washington should “wake up from the foolish dream of doing any harm” to the reclusive communist nation.

Pyongyang’s statements came hours after the U.S. Air Force flew two B-1B bombers over the Korean Peninsula, accompanied by South Korean and Japanese jet fighters, as a show of strength against North Korean threats.

Meanwhile, the U.S. Missile Defense Agency said it conducted its 15th successful shoot-down of a medium-range ballistic missile in 15 tests of its Terminal High Altitude Area Defense system. The target ballistic missile was launched from a fighter jet over the Pacific Ocean, but the military said it was detected, tracked and intercepted by the defense system located in Alaska.

Military Defense Agency chief Lieutenant General Sam Greaves said data collected from the test would improve the U.S.’s “ability to stay ahead of the evolving threat.”

The U.S. Pacific Command said its fly-over conducted with South Korean and Japanese jet fighters was in “direct response” to North Korea’s “escalatory launch” of intercontinental ballistic missiles on July 3 and last Friday.

“North Korea remains the most urgent threat to regional stability,” said General Terrence O’Shaughnessy, U.S. Pacific Air Forces commander. “Diplomacy remains the lead; however, we have a responsibility to our allies and our nation to showcase our unwavering commitment while planning for the worse-case scenario. If called upon, we are ready to respond with rapid, lethal, and overwhelming force at a time and place of our choosing.”

The 10-hour joint forces mission began at Andersen Air Force Base in Guam. U.S. Air Force bomber jets were joined by two Japanese F-2 fighter jets in Japanese airspace. The U.S. bombers then flew over the Korean Peninsula and were accompanied by four South Korea fighter jets. The U.S. bombers also did a low-pass over South Korea’s Osan Air Base, before returning to Guam.

U.S. President Donald Trump again criticized China for failing to stop North Korea’s ballistic missile and nuclear weapons programs.

Following Friday’s launch of an intercontinental ballistic missile that landed west of Japan, Trump singled out China for blame on Saturday evening, saying Beijing could “easily solve this problem.

“I am very disappointed in China,” Trump wrote on his Twitter account. “Our foolish past leaders have allowed them to make hundreds of billions of dollars a year in trade, yet they do NOTHING for us with North Korea, just talk. We will no longer allow this to continue.”

Trump’s remarks echoed those made by Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, who released a statement that blamed both China and Russia for North Korea’s continued violations of U.N. Security Council resolutions.

“As the principal economic enablers of North Korea’s nuclear weapon and ballistic missile development program, China and Russia bear unique and special responsibility for this growing threat to regional and global stability,” Tillerson said.

In April, Trump praised his first meeting with China’s President Xi Jinping, later telling reporters that Xi had agreed to suspend coal and fuel shipments to pressure North Korea to stop its belligerent behavior. However, since then, the North has continued to threaten its neighbors and the United States, and Trump has grown more critical of Beijing.

Even though the North Korean missile landed west of Japan, experts said it would be powerful enough to reach much of the U.S. mainland. North Korea’s official news agency said leader Kim Jong Un boasted that the latest test was “meant to send a grave warning to the U.S.”

China condemned the launch, while Japan, South Korea and the U.S. vowed to work together on a new Security Council measure aimed at curbing North Korea’s nuclear ambitions.

At the same time, the U.S. Congress has overwhelmingly approved new sanctions aimed at North Korea, Russia and Iran, a measure the White House says Trump plans to sign into law.
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A young Ethiopian immigrant who has spent most of her life in the United States, has founded a project to give back to her country of birth. VOA’s Amber Wihshi has more.
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President Donald Trump took to Twitter on Saturday morning to criticize Republican senators following their failed vote to repeal parts of the Affordable Care Act, better known as Obamacare.

Trump said the Republican senators “look like fools.” He also suggested they alter rules that require 60 votes to break a filibuster, even though that would not have changed the results of the health care bill debate.

Senate Republicans failed to gather the 50 votes needed to pass the “skinny” repeal bill that would have ended several key parts Obamacare, including the requirement that most Americans buy health insurance or pay a penalty.

The bill was written through the budget reconciliation process, which meant, among other things, that it required only 50 votes for passage instead of a 60-vote filibuster-proof majority. A 50-50 tie would have let Vice President Mike Pence, in his role as president of the Senate, cast the tie-breaking vote in favor of the legislation. But even though Republicans control the Senate by a 52-48 margin, the bill failed to reach the 50-vote mark.

Republican Senators John McCain of Arizona, Lisa Murkowski of Alaska and Susan Collins of Maine voted with Democrats and independents in the 51-49 defeat of the Republican-led repeal effort early Friday morning.

Republican senators had wanted for seven years to do away with Obamacare, the signature domestic legislative achievement of former President Barack Obama.

Trump’s tweetstorm also included a reference to the investigation into alleged Russian interference in the 2016 election.

U.S. intelligence agencies have concluded that Russia worked to help Trump’s campaign and hurt his Democratic challenger, Hillary Clinton. But Trump continues to question that conclusion and recently claimed that in fact the opposite was true — that Moscow favored Clinton.

Trump’s tweet included a link to a Fox News story from earlier this week detailing the congressional testimony of a witness who said the company behind an anti-Trump dossier that played a large role in the Russia investigation was working on behalf of the Russian government.

Financier Bill Browder, whose investment firm was once the largest portfolio investor in Russia, testified Thursday before the Senate Judiciary Committee in its probe of the apparent Russian meddling in the 2016 presidential election. He told the senators that Fusion GPS, the company that produced the dossier full of unsubstantiated and lurid claims about Trump, also launched a “smear campaign” against him in an effort to fight sanctions against Russia.

“What I’m familiar with is Fusion GPS and Glenn Simpson’s role working on behalf of the Russian government to overturn the Magnitsky Act,” Browder told members of Congress. “The steps they took there compromised their integrity.”

Glenn Simpson is the founder of Fusion GPS. He, too, had been summoned to testify publicly before Congress about his work on the dossier and his alleged ties to the Russian government, but he reached a deal with members to conduct an interview in private.

The Magnitsky Act is a U.S. law that imposed sanctions on Russian officials whom the U.S. held responsible for the 2009 death in jail of Russian lawyer Sergei Magnitsky, who had been retained by Browder to investigate corruption.
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What does a president who campaigned on an “America First” foreign policy do with the longest war in U.S. history? That is the dilemma for Donald Trump as the White House conducts a policy review of Afghanistan, where U.S. troops have fought for nearly 16 years.

With Trump skeptical of committing more troops to what some see as an unwinnable war, one idea has come to the forefront: using Western companies to extract Afghanistan’s vast, untapped mineral deposits.

How much is there? A 2010 U.S. study estimated more than $1 trillion worth of untapped mineral deposits, but Afghanistan’s violence, corruption and poor infrastructure would make mining extremely difficult.

That’s part of the reason why, although U.S. officials have discussed using Afghanistan’s mineral wealth to bolster the government and economy, the plan has not gone anywhere.

There are also concerns about whether such a move would feed into the Taliban narrative that the U.S. military is only in Afghanistan because it wants to plunder the country’s natural resources.

Still, Trump appears to be interested in using Afghanistan’s minerals as a selling point for continued U.S. military engagement.

A recent New York Times report said Trump had spoken about mineral deposits with Afghan President Ashraf Ghani, who is also open to the idea.

White House officials declined to comment on the story, citing the ongoing policy review. But Afghan officials confirmed to VOA they were expecting a U.S. envoy for talks on mines.

Means of attracting investors

“We have received information about the U.S. delegation,” Abdul Qadeer Mutfi, a spokesman for the Afghan Ministry of Mines and Petroleum, told VOA’s Afghan service. “We are working on an orderly mechanism of attracting foreign investments.”

The idea is consistent with Trump’s long-standing practice of linking U.S. military intervention to the exploitation of natural resources.

Trump has lamented for years that the U.S. did not “keep the oil” when it invaded Iraq in 2003.

After Islamic State seized oil fields in Iraq and Syria, Trump felt his views were vindicated, and his “take the oil” mantra eventually became a standard part of his presidential campaign speeches.

The rhetoric continued during his early days in office. In a speech to CIA employees a day after becoming president, Trump spoke positively of the phrase “to the victor belong the spoils.”

It’s not clear how to reconcile those comments with Trump’s at times heated criticism of costly U.S. wars overseas, or his opposition at times to the U.S. conflict in Afghanistan.

More recently, Trump has been said to be skeptical of a proposal by U.S. military generals to boost the number of troops in Afghanistan in a bid to regain Taliban territory.

Sebastian Gorka, a deputy assistant to Trump for national security issues, declined to comment on whether the president was looking into mineral extraction in Afghanistan.

When asked more broadly whether the Trump administration intended to make foreign policy decisions based at least in part on the exploitation of natural resources, Gorka said that was a “gross oversimplification.”

“Look, geopolitics are completely intertwined with geoeconomics,” Gorka told VOA. “The idea that you can disconnect economics from national security in the age of a globalized market … that is a very dangerous assertion to make.

“The president can speak for himself, but would you prefer to have groups like ISIS profiting from things like oil wells in Iraq? We’ve seen the cost of that, which led to slave markets, mass destruction and hundreds of thousands of people killed in Syria,” he said.

Challenges

If Trump did decide to prioritize the extraction of Afghanistan’s minerals, the plan would face a dizzying number of challenges, including ongoing violence, regional competition from countries like Russia and China, and government corruption.

While Afghanistan has cleaned up its governance in recent years, it still ranks among the 10 most corrupt countries in the world, according to an annual index by Transparency International.

Without substantial governance reforms, any decision to press ahead with mining in Afghanistan “will likely backfire, possibly creating even more infighting in the Afghan government,” according to Global Witness, a human rights group that has studied the issue.

The country also lacks the infrastructure needed to manage such massive projects, said Ahmad Shuja, a former Afghanistan researcher for Human Rights Watch who now works at the American University of Afghanistan.

“There’s very limited national grid. So you’ll have to develop your own electricity, you’ll have to create your own roads, bring your own security teams. All of those are essential barriers to entry issues,” he said.

Ghani is aware of these obstacles, which is why he has paused many of the mining development projects and is reviewing the country’s mineral law that would govern them, Shuja said.

“But in the short term, I think this is a really smart pitch to President Trump,” he said. “It plays to his business sensibilities.”

If it’s done correctly, it could help the Afghan people, said Aimal Faizi, an aide to former Afghan President Hamid Karzai.

“Generally, it is a good idea in the relations between the two countries,” Faizi said. But in a country like Afghanistan, “where the government does not have control of its land or air,” anything is possible, he said, “including looting.”

Other ideas

Trump himself has been fairly quiet on Afghanistan. He barely mentioned it during the campaign.

Since becoming president, one of his most substantive comments on Afghanistan came this month, during a luncheon with U.S. service members who had fought in the country.

“I want to find out why we’ve been there … how it’s going and what we should do in terms of additional ideas,” he said.

VOA’s Afghan service contributed to this report.
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