Author: Worldcrew

Right-wing provocateur Milo Yiannopoulos has been disinvited to this year’s Conservative Political Action Conference after his attempt to clarify past comments on relationships between boys and older men fell flat with organizers. Hours later, his publisher cancelled his book Dangerous, which had been scheduled to come out in June.

The American Conservative Union founded and hosts CPAC, which is being held Wednesday through Saturday outside Washington. In a tweet on Monday, ACU chairman Matt Schlapp said that “due to the revelation of an offensive video in the past 24 hours condoning pedophilia, the American Conservative Union has decided to rescind the invitation of Milo Yiannopoulos to speak.”

After the polarizing Breitbart News editor was invited, his invitation sparked a backlash. The conservative Reagan Battalion blog tweeted video clips Sunday in which Yiannopoulos discussed Jews, sexual consent, statutory rape, child abuse and homosexuality.

Later Monday, Simon & Schuster and its Threshold Editions imprint announced that “after careful consideration” they had pulled the book, for which pre-orders placed it high on Amazon.com’s best-seller lists. The subject of intense controversy, Dangerous was originally scheduled to come out in March. But Yiannopoulos pushed back the release to June so he could write about the protests during his recent campus tour, including a cancelled appearance at the University of California, Berkeley.

At the time of his publisher’s decision Monday, Dangerous ranked No. 83 on Amazon’s overall list and No. 1 in the subcategory of “Censorship & Politics.”

More than 100 Simon & Schuster authors had objected to his book deal, which was announced last December, and Roxane Gay withdrew a planned book. Some bookstores had said they would not sell it, although the National Coalition Against Censorship and other free speech organizations had defended the publisher. Threshold is a conservative imprint that has published books by President Donald Trump, who has defended Yiannopoulos, and former Vice President Dick Cheney among others.

On Facebook, Yiannopoulos blamed deceptive editing and his own “sloppy phrasing” for any indication he supported pedophilia. The British author said he spoke of his own relationship when he was 17 with a man who was 29. The age of consent in the U.K. is 16.

It’s unclear who edited the videos.

“We realize that Mr. Yiannopoulos has responded on Facebook, but it is insufficient,” Schlapp said. “We urge him to immediately further address these disturbing comments.”

Schlapp said the invitation was initially extended knowing that free speech on college campuses is a “battlefield where we need brave, conservative standard-bearers.”

But he added: “There is no disagreement among our attendees on the evils of sexual abuse of children.”

Yiannopoulos writes for Breitbart News, considered by many a platform for the so-called alt-right movement, an offshoot of conservatism that mixes racism, white nationalism and populism.
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They both call themselves the Taliban. They regularly carry out deadly suicide bombings, kill civilians with impunity and, in many respects, behave like brutish terrorist groups. So why is one — the Tehrik-I Taliban of Pakistan — on the State Department’s list of Foreign Terrorist Organizations, while the other — Afghanistan’s Taliban — is not?

To the U.S., the Afghan Taliban is largely an insurgency with control over vast swaths of territory and aspirations to govern the country, while its Pakistani offspring is considered nothing but a terrorist organization. But the real reason the Afghan Taliban is not on the list has more to do with political considerations than whether or not it meets the statutory criteria for a terrorist designation.

To be declared a foreign terrorist organization by the State Department, a foreign group must engage in terrorism and threaten the security of U.S. nationals or the national security of the United States. The Afghan Taliban meet both criteria.

Yet political expedience has obligated keeping the group off the list of 61 organizations ranging from the Afghanistan branch of the Islamic State group to the Palestinian group Hamas. In the case of the Taliban, the deterring factor has long been a concern that applying the terror label to the group would restrict U.S. and Afghan government diplomatic contacts with the Taliban, making peace talks more difficult.

“There is no doubt that the Taliban occasionally attacks civilians intentionally, not accidentally, and that’s the definition of terrorism,” said James Dobbins, a former U.S. Special Representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan. “And, thus, the designation would be accurate enough. The question is whether or not it would serve the U.S. and Afghan government purposes for that step to be taken.”

‘Call the enemy by its name’

With the Trump administration scaling up its war on Islamic terrorist groups with a vow to “call the enemy by its name,” the question has entered into discussions over a new Afghan war strategy.

Gen. John Nicholson, the top U.S. commander in Afghanistan, told VOA’s Afghan service earlier this month that the question of whether the Taliban should be designated as a terrorist organization “is an important one for the [new] administration to consider and it will be part of our conversation with them as the weeks unfold.”

Nicholson did not say whether he favored a terrorist designation, but he left little doubt how he viewed the Taliban, calling the group “an enabler of terrorists” with links to many terrorist organizations, including al-Qaida and the Haqqani network.

Nicholson told the U.S. Senate’s Armed Services Committee earlier that 20 of the 98 U.S.-designated terrorist groups in the world operate in Afghanistan and Pakistan and that the U.S. was seeking to set up an “enduring counterterrorism platform” in Afghanistan.

Asked whether the administration is considering designating the Taliban as a terror group, a State Department spokesperson referred to a 2002 executive order labeling the Taliban a “Specially Designated Global Terrorist Entity” and a 2008 Congressional law mandating that the Taliban be considered a terrorist organization for immigration purposes.

While the Global Terrorist Entity sanctions are focused on financial transactions, a foreign terrorist organization designation prohibits “material support,” such as training, and carries greater weight, according to Oliver Krischik, a trade law attorney specializing in U.S. economic sanctions.

“Just the act of designating an organization on the Foreign Terrorist Organization list itself is a powerful move just in name, and that is something which can have a severe impact on the way other people around the world will or will not engage in business with you,” Krischik said.

Long eager to reach a political settlement with the Taliban, successive Afghan governments have stopped short of calling for the group to be designated as a terrorist organization, said Dobbins, who led the 2001 Bonn negotiations that created the first post-Taliban government in Afghanistan.

“If the U.S. was seriously proposing to do it, my guess is it would lead some Afghan officials to counsel against it precisely because they’d still hope eventually to be able to launch some process of reconciliation,” Dobbins said.  “If [the Trump administration] really wants to create an obstacle to communications with the Taliban, then this probably could have that effect.”

A spokesman for Afghan President Ashraf Ghani said he was unaware of any proposal to designate the Taliban as a terrorist organization.

Advantages of the label

With the U.S. military enjoying broad authority to target the Taliban, a terrorist designation would have little impact on the battlefield. But declaring the Taliban a terror group could have one advantage, according to Michael Ryan, a senior fellow at the Jamestown Foundation in Washington: It would make it politically easier for the Trump administration to pressure foreign governments backing the Taliban. The U.S. has long accused Pakistan of sheltering the Taliban, a charge denied by Islamabad.

In labeling the Taliban a terror group, the administration could also argue that “we’re just tidying up the list,” Ryan said, noting that the Taliban-allied Haqqani network and IS branch of Afghanistan and Pakistan are on the list. “Or they could say, as some Republicans said in the last administration, President [Barack] Obama was too weak on this issue and they’re going to strengthen it up.”

Gianni Koskinas, a former military officer now with the New America think tank in Washington, argued that merely excluding the Taliban from the terror list is unlikely to encourage the group to enter into peace talks.

“Ultimately, if the Afghan government chooses to reconcile with the Taliban, that is irrelevant as far as I’m concerned to the designation of terrorist or not,” Koskinas said. “The notion that you can tie and bind reconciliation with something that is a very black-and-white fact that they’re a terrorist organization, that they’re behaving as one, is illogical to me.”

Designating the Taliban as a terrorist organization would bring clarity to the U.S. position in Afghanistan, Koskinas said. “The message should be clear: If you behave like this, then you’re a terrorist organization. Period,” he said.

VOA State Department correspondent Nike Ching and VOA’s Afghanistan Service contributed to this report.
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More than a thousand people of various faiths rallied in New York City in support of Muslim Americans and to protest President Donald Trump’s immigration policies.

The “I Am A Muslim Too” rally was held in Times Square on Sunday and was organized by several groups, including the Foundation for Ethnic Understanding.

The protesters waved American flags, held signs saying “No Muslim Ban,” and chanted “We are One.”

Mayor Bill de Blasio spoke at the peaceful rally, saying “we have to dispel the stereotypes” and that America is “a country founded to protect all faiths and all beliefs.”

Hip-Hop mogul Russell Simmons headlined the rally. He said the Muslim community was being used as a scapegoat, but that “diversity will prevail.”
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A senior Trump administration official was fired following criticism in a private speech of President Donald Trump’s policies and his inner circle of advisers.

Craig Deare, whom Trump appointed a month ago to head the National Security Council’s Western Hemisphere division, was on Friday escorted out of the Executive Office Building, where he worked in Washington.

A senior White House official confirmed that Deare is no longer working at the NSC and has returned to the position he previously held at the National Defense University. The official spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss an incident not otherwise made public, and provided no further details.

White House spokeswoman Sarah Huckabee Sanders said Sunday that Deare “was sent back to his original position.” Asked if government employees should be concerned that they could be fired for criticizing the president, she said: “I don’t think any person that is there in order to carry out the president’s agenda should be against the president’s agenda.”

Current and former administration officials say Deare’s termination was linked to remarks he made Thursday at a private talk at the Wilson Center, a Washington think tank. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the matter.

According to one person who attended the discussion, Deare slammed the Trump administration for its policies on Latin America, specifically its rocky start to relations with Mexico. That person spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss a private event.

Trump signed an order in the first week of his presidency to build a border wall with Mexico, jumpstarting a campaign promise. The move prompted Mexico’s President Enrique Pena Nieto to cancel his trip to Washington in late January.

The person who attended the Wilson Center discussion also said that Deare openly expressed frustration over being cut out of most of the policy discussions about Mexico, saying that members of Trump’s inner circle, including chief strategist Steve Bannon and Trump’s son-in-law and adviser, Jared Kushner, have not consulted with NSC directorates as the White House formulates policy.

Deare has been on the faculty of National Defense University in Washington since 2001. He joined the university’s College of International Security Affairs in 2010 and most recently served as dean of administration.

The person who attended the Wilson Center talk also noted that Deare made several remarks about how attractive Trump’s daughter, Ivanka Trump, appeared, remarks that person described as “awkward.”

Deare did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Officials with the Wilson Center also declined a request for information, saying the discussion was off the record.

Deare is the second senior NSC official to leave in under a week. On Monday, Trump’s national security adviser, retired Gen. Michael Flynn, resigned after revelations that he discussed sanctions with a Russian diplomat before Trump was sworn in, then misled Vice President Mike Pence about the nature of those conversations.
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Home to countless journalists and defenders of a free press, Washington is abuzz over President Donald Trump’s increasingly ferocious attacks on America’s news media. VOA’s Michael Bowman reports, U.S. lawmakers are weighing in, with Republican Senator John McCain telling a television network that cracking down on press freedom is ‘how dictators get started.’
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An explosion and fire at an oil refinery in Torrance, California, on Saturday forced the partial shutdown of the plant, leading oil traders to expect a spike this week in West Coast gasoline prices.

Police and the plant owner said no one was hurt in the fire, which was extinguished by local firefighters.

Two years ago, a fire at the same plant led to its closure for several months and a sustained increase in West Coast gasoline prices for more than a year. After the fire on Saturday, a group of local residents worried about pollution and accidents protested at the refinery. The event had been planned to mark the anniversary of the Feb. 18, 2015 incident.

Catherine Leys, one of the protesters, lives 1.4 miles from the plant and said industrial ash drifted down on the playground near her home after the 2015 blast.

The plant supplies 10 percent of California’s gasoline.

Traders said they expected local gasoline prices to jump this week.

“I expect prices will be firming on Tuesday, maybe 5 cents or 15 cents a gallon,” a West Coast refined products trader said. He was talking about wholesale gasoline prices in the Los Angeles market. In California, pump prices normally follow wholesale price movements within hours.

PBF Energy owns and operates the refinery in the city of Torrance, just outside Los Angeles. PBF purchased it from Exxon Mobil Corp in 2016.

PBF shuttered the plant’s crude distillation unit after the pre-dawn blaze, energy industry intelligence service Genscape reported.

The unit refines 155,000 barrels of oil per day, turning it into gasoline and diesel among other products.

PBF told state regulators it was forced to use its safety flare system on an emergency basis after the incident. The crude distillation unit, which produces motor fuel, is the workhorse of the refinery. Within 24 hours of the Feb. 18, 2015 explosion, wholesale gasoline prices initially jumped 10 cents a gallon.

A RAND study found drivers ultimately paid an extra $2.4 billion for gasoline because of the 2015 Torrance refinery outage.

The Torrance refinery had at least two outages in 2016 after a power outage at a local utility knocked the facility offline.

In October, PBF received a violation notice from the California’s air regulator for excessive flaring following one of the outages.

California gasoline prices are frequently among the highest in the United States. Only Hawaii residents pay more.

California requires cleaner-burning fuel than most other U.S. states do. The state is geographically isolated with no pipeline connections to major refining centers on the Gulf Coast and Midwest, leaving the market tightly balanced between what West Coast refineries can produce and what can be shipped in.
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A United States aircraft carrier strike group has begun patrols in the South China Sea, the U.S. navy said on Saturday, amid renewed tension over the disputed waterway.

China’s Foreign Ministry on Wednesday warned Washington against challenging its sovereignty, responding to reports the United States was planning fresh naval patrols in the South China Sea.

The navy said the force, including Nimitz-class aircraft carrier USS Carl Vinson, began routine operations in the South China Sea on Saturday. The announcement was posted on the Vinson’s Facebook page.
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Satsuki Ina was born behind barbed wire in a prison camp during World War Two, the daughter of U.S. citizens forced from their home without due process and locked up for years following Japan’s attack on Pearl Harbor.

Roughly 120,000 Japanese immigrants and Japanese-Americans were sent to desolate camps that dotted the West because the government claimed they might plot against the U.S. Thousands were elderly, disabled, children or infants too young to know the meaning of treason. Two-thirds were citizens.

And now, as survivors commemorate the 75th anniversary of the executive order that authorized their incarceration, they’re also speaking out to make sure that what happened to them doesn’t happen to Muslims, Latinos or other groups.

Executive orders

They’re alarmed by recent executive orders from President Donald Trump that limit travel and single out immigrants.

In January, Trump banned travelers from seven majority Muslim nations from entering the U.S., saying he wanted to thwart potential attackers from slipping into the country. A federal court halted the ban. Trump said at a news conference Thursday that he would issue a replacement order next week.

“We know what it sounds like. We know what the mood of the country can be. We know a president who is going to see people in a way that could victimize us,” said Ina, a 72-year-old psychotherapist who lives in Oakland, California.

President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9066 on February 19, 1942, to protect against espionage and sabotage. Notices appeared ordering people of Japanese descent to report to civil stations for transport.

Desperate families sold off belongings for cheap and packed what they could. The luckier ones had white friends who agreed to care for houses, farms and businesses in their absence.

“Others who couldn’t pay their mortgage, couldn’t pay their bills, they lost everything. So they had to pretty much start from scratch,” said Rosalyn Tonai, 56, executive director of the National Japanese American Historical Society in San Francisco.

Tonai was shocked to learn in middle school that the U.S. government had incarcerated her mother, aunts and grandparents. Her family hadn’t talked about it. Her mother, a teenager at the time, said she didn’t remember details.

‘Internment’

Her organization, the Japanese American Citizens League and others oppose the use of the word “internment.” They say the government used euphemisms such as “internment,” “evacuation,” and “non-alien” to hide the fact that U.S. citizens were incarcerated and the Constitution violated.

The groups say this White House has what they see as the same dangerous and flippant attitude toward the Constitution. Japanese-American lawmakers expressed horror when a Donald Trump supporter cited the camps as precedent for a Muslim registry.

The Japanese American Citizens League “vehemently” objected to executive orders signed by Trump last month, to build a wall along the Mexican border, punish “sanctuary” cities that protect people living in the country illegally, and limit refugees and immigrants from entering the country.

“Although the threat of terrorism is real, we must learn from our history and not allow our fears to overwhelm our values,” the statement read in part.

Hiroshi Kashiwagi was 19 when his family was ordered from their home in Northern California’s Placer County and to a temporary detention center.

He remembers slaughtering his prized chickens — New Hampshire Reds — for his mother to cook with soy sauce and sugar. She stored the bottled birds in sturdy sacks to take on the trip. The family ate the chickens at night to supplement meals. The birds didn’t last long.

Today, Kashiwagi, 94, is a poet and writer in San Francisco who speaks to the public about life at Tule Lake, a maximum security camp near the Oregon border. Winters were cold, the summers hot. They were helpless against dust storms that seeped inside.

“I feel obligated to speak out, although it’s not a favorite subject,” he said. “Who knows what can happen? The way this president is, he does not go by the rules. I’m hoping that he would be impeached.”

Orders against Japanese-Americans were revoked after the war ended in 1945. They returned to hostility and discrimination in finding work or places to live.

‘Race prejudice’

A congressional commission formed in 1980 blamed the incarceration on “race prejudice, war hysteria and a failure of political leadership.” In 1988, President Ronald Reagan signed a bill to compensate every survivor with a tax-free check for $20,000 and a formal apology from the U.S. government.

Ina said that only then did her mother, Shizuko, feel she got her face back, her dignity returned. By then her father, Itaru, had died.

“This is a burden we’ve been carrying, and if we can make that burden into something meaningful that could help and protect other people, then it becomes not so much an obligation but more as a responsibility,” Ina said.

After Trump’s election, Ina vowed to reach out to the Muslim community and protest and tell everyone about what happened to her family. She brought her message to a gathering of camp survivors in the Los Angeles area.

“And this old woman, she had a cane, she said, ‘OK. I’m going to tell everybody about what happened. This is very bad. It’s happening again,’ ” she said. “It’s that kind of spirit.”
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U.S. President Donald Trump seems to relish an occasional fight, and that was evident during his first solo news conference as president, which he dedicated almost entirely to chastising the news media.

For nearly 80 minutes, Trump scolded individual reporters for being “unfair,” dismissed specific media outlets as purveyors of “fake news” and generally attacked the American press as being “out of control.”

Addressing reporters arrayed in front of him at the White House, Trump told them: “You’re dishonest people.” The crowded news conference was arranged on short notice, but it was broadcast live by every major U.S. television network.

The president anticipated he might be criticized in headlines around the country. “But I’m not ranting and raving,” he said with a smile. “I love this. I’m having a good time doing it.”

Trump vs media: love/hate

Thursday’s angry outburst may have been unusual compared with the public behavior of past U.S. presidents, but for Trump, it was a continuation of his lifelong love/hate relationship with the news media.

The billionaire real estate developer and former reality television star has for decades benefited from, and even bragged about, his ability to cultivate media attention. But more recently, since he entered politics and won the presidency, Trump’s relationship with the media has turned sour.

Since announcing his candidacy in 2015, Trump has been the target of a barrage of negative news stories. Since entering the White House, the bull’s-eye on his back has only gotten larger.

In response, Trump has called reporters members of an “opposition party,” in contrast to the image most White House journalists have of themselves — nonpartisan observers who chronicle the activities of the nation’s chief executive — and he often seems to view the press as his political rivals.

Just as he referred to his political opponents last year, Trump has adopted a nickname for the reporters who cover his every move — the “dishonest media” — and he regularly dismisses news coverage he does not like as “fake news.”

Obsessed by news, even if ‘fake’

But as much as Trump quarrels with the media, he can’t stop obsessing over it. The president is said to spend most of his mornings and evenings watching cable news, often responding to what he sees and hears in real time, on  Twitter. The interaction has left longtime political observers stunned.

“I’ve covered politics off and on in Washington since 1964, and I have never seen a public figure this obsessed with media coverage,” said veteran journalist Steven Roberts, a longtime correspondent for The New York Times and other news outlets who now teaches media and public affairs at George Washington University.

Trump says he’s just “counterpunching” — going after the media only when it attacks him first. But it would be a mistake to view the exchange in that way, says Gwenda Blair, a Trump family biographer who has been following Trump for decades.

“It’s easy to forget that he loves combat. He loves confrontation. He loves this aggressive, charged, conflict-filled environment,” Blair said in an interview with VOA. “That’s normal. That’s his comfort zone.”

Sensational = a good story

Trump has explicitly suggested that he sometimes engages in provocative behavior simply to attract media attention.

In his 1987 book The Art of the Deal, Trump said: “One thing I’ve learned about the press is that they’re always hungry for a good story, and the more sensational the better. … The point is that if you are a little different, a little outrageous, or if you do things that are bold or controversial, the press is going to write about you.”

Blair chalks up that kind of behavior to Trump’s natural ability as an entertainer.

“The number-one rule as a performer is to do something unexpected, so people won’t look away,” she said. “And he’s aces at that. He’s constantly doing something unexpected, contradicting himself, lashing out at somebody.”

It’s exactly the kind of behavior that plays perfectly into the media’s need to have fresh news all the time, Blair pointed out.

Approval ratings suffer

So far, that strategy has worked well for Trump. He is, after all, the most powerful leader in the world. But it’s not clear the plan will work as well for him in the White House as it has in the real estate business or the world of entertainment.

Since taking office, Trump’s approval rating has suffered. Generally trusted public-opinion surveys show his popularity ratings are much lower than those his predecessors enjoyed at this early stage of their presidencies.

However, there also is reason to think Trump’s efforts to undermine the news media may be working. A recent poll by Emerson College found Americans trust the Trump administration more than they do the news media.

Trump’s team has repeatedly pointed to the poll as evidence he is winning his battle with the media, suggesting he won’t change tactics anytime soon.

Michael D’Antonio, another Trump biographer, agrees, saying anyone who expects Trump to change at this point will be disappointed.

“He’s 70 years old. He believes that his impulses and perspective are the source of his success,” D’Antonio said. “So there’s not a real sense in his mind that he should change.”
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U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson on Friday raised the need to “create a level playing field for trade and investment” in his first meeting with Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi, according to the State Department.

In the readout by the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs, both had agreed to “strengthen cooperation in the fields of economy, finance and security,” seen by some as much diluted wording.

Both met for about an hour on the sidelines of a meeting of foreign ministers of the G-20 top economies in Bonn, Germany.

“So nice to see you,” Tillerson said as he shook Wang’s hand, while apologizing for keeping Wang waiting. The top diplomat for the U.S. was late because of another sideline meeting about Syria.

China criticized as a ‘cheater’

While in many ways this seems typical of prior meetings of foreign ministers between Washington and Beijing, it is “unusual” for a secretary of state to advocate the need for a fair playing field in commerce, according to Bonnie Glaser, the director of the China Power Project at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

“That signals the priority this set of issues is accorded by President Trump,” Glaser told VOA on Friday.  

President Donald Trump has bluntly criticized China as a “cheater” and a currency manipulator, accusing it of unfair practices that have blocked many U.S. exports, and producing a trade imbalance that has killed American jobs.  

Trump also has threatened to impose a comprehensive tax on Chinese imports.

‘One-China policy’

In the Chinese readout, Beijing said, “The U.S. side made it clear that it would continue to adhere to the one-China policy,” which is absent in the State Department’s readout.  

“There is the classic testing of intentions on big issues, to get a quick read where the other stands,” said Center for the National Interest Director of Defense Studies Harry Kazianis.

“They set the foundation for the future and are critically important,” Kazianis added.

China pressed over North Korea

Notably, North Korea’s threats are both highlighted by Tillerson and his Chinese counterpart. Washington pressed Beijing to help assert more control over North Korea after a series of nuclear and ballistic missile tests.

Acting State Department spokesman Mark Toner said Friday in Bonn that Tillerson “urged China to use all available tools to moderate North Korea’s destabilizing behavior.”

North Korea fired a ballistic missile into the Sea of Japan on February 12, followed by strong international condemnation, including that of the U.N. Security Council.  

Wang told Tillerson the U.S. and China have joint responsibilities to maintain global stability, adding common interests between the two countries far outweigh their differences.

One of the channels to manage U.S.-China relations is the bilateral Strategic and Economic Dialogue (S&ED), an annual high-level gathering for two countries to discuss a wide range of regional and global issues.

It started under the George W. Bush administration as the Strategic Economic Dialogue and was later upgraded by former President Barack Obama after he took office.

A different approach

Some regional scholars expect the Trump administration to veer from the long-standing U.S. approach, though, and downsize such a mechanism, or even end it.

“I would be somewhat surprised if the S&ED has any future,” Atlantic Council resident senior fellow Robert Manning told VOA.

“It has become a somewhat hollow bureaucratic ritual, a checklist for the vast sweep of U.S.-China bilateral issues,” said Manning, adding the “structure and content” of relations between Washington and Beijing is “at a tipping point.”

Manning said the key is to identify a few core issues that can define the character of the relationship. “Finding a formula for reciprocity is key to a sustainable economic relationship,” he said.  

A change in S&ED

Proponents of continuing the S&ED said it mobilizes bureaucracies on both sides, promotes interagency coordination, and helps to increase cooperation in areas where the U.S. and China have shared interests.  

“My guess is that it will continue in some form, but will be much smaller and policy-focused,” said Glaser.  

“This administration wants to see progress on a much more fair trade relationship,” said Kazianis, adding “if Beijing is willing to work toward a more equitable and fair trade relationship, I would assume this would continue. If not, it could very well be downsized or disregarded all together.”

The first year will be rocky and it may be until June before there is a functioning policy process, given the chaos in the White House and State Department, according to Manning.  

Tillerson’s deputy and many senior positions at the State Department have yet to be filled.
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The mayor of Miami-Dade County, Florida, is an immigrant, and more than half its residents are foreign born.

But unlike many other areas with large numbers of immigrants, there’s no sanctuary for people living illegally in this county. A recent decision by Mayor Carlos Gimenez requires local authorities to cooperate with federal officials to enforce immigration law.

The decree by Cuban-born Gimenez has roiled the area, drawing criticism from the mayors of the cities of Miami and Miami Beach. The county’s commissioners called for a special meeting Friday to confront the mayor on the issue.

They’re not the only ones who are unhappy with the mayor. Immigration advocates and others opposed to the shift have filled the streets in protest, and a long-standing divide between Cuban-Americans and other Latinos has reappeared. Meanwhile, farmworkers who have lived in the area for years to plant and harvest vegetables on vast commercial farms fear they’ll be deported

‘I would be lost in Mexico’

“I have four children. To get picked up like that would break me,” said Itzel, 23, who arrived as a baby from Mexico, works in nurseries near the city of Homestead and whose children were born in this country. She spoke on condition that her surname not be used because she feared deportation.

“I would be lost in Mexico. I’ve never been there. I’ve never traveled out of here,” she said.

Gimenez said his order to end Miami-Dade’s status as a sanctuary city, where policy forbids local police from enforcing federal immigration laws, was a financial decision. President Donald Trump recently signed an executive order that would cut federal funds to local governments that did not fully cooperate on immigration enforcement. But immigration advocates said Gimenez’s decision sent the wrong message at a delicate time.

“To be fair, in a community where 50 percent were not born here, it sends an erroneous and a somewhat negative image of our community,” said County Commissioner Xavier Suarez, who was born in Cuba.

The divide, however, is also rooted in immigration policy that gave preferential treatment to Cubans fleeing the island’s communist government. For more than 50 years, Cubans arrived to open arms in the U.S. and were able to become citizens much more easily than people from other countries.

“Cuban families, in a general way, haven’t been as aware of what it means to be undocumented in this country,” said Michael Bustamante, a Florida International University expert on contemporary Cuban history. “They have had a different process to achieve legal status. Not to say that they haven’t faced other difficulties.”

Majority born abroad

Miami-Dade is the only U.S. county where a majority of residents — 51.7 percent — were born abroad. But the share of immigrants living there illegally is lower than it is in places like Houston or Atlanta, precisely because Cuban immigrants could quickly get employment authorization cards and a Social Security number and become legal residents.

But that’s changed. Former President Barack Obama in January announced that Cubans without residency or visas would be treated as any other immigrant with similar status.

Many of Miami’s Cubans have openly embraced Trump’s ideas on immigration. Hillary Clinton may have won 63 percent of the vote in Miami-Dade County, but Trump drew more votes than Clinton in the three heaviest Cuban-American neighborhoods.

Ibrahim Reyes, a retired furniture salesman who was having coffee and reading a newspaper in Miami’s Little Havana recently, said he supported the president’s efforts to deport criminals and his actions toward Mexico, noting the country supported Fidel Castro after Cuba’s revolution.

“It’s bad, what is happening in Mexico,” Reyes said. “But they didn’t show solidarity toward us when we were refugees.”

In 2013, Miami-Dade commissioners passed a resolution saying local law enforcement officers would comply with federal immigration officials only in cases of serious charges or convictions and only when the federal government agreed to reimburse the county for holding an offender in jail for more than two days. Longer detention while awaiting deportation was costing local taxpayers, Miami-Dade officials said.

The move put the county on a list of sanctuaries in a 2016 Justice Department report. Gimenez contested the designation, and then on January 26, a day after Trump announced he would strip federal funding from sanctuary cities, Gimenez sent a memo instructing the corrections director to honor all immigration detainer requests.

No active pursuit

Gimenez defended his decision on local TV and said the county’s police were not actively chasing suspects in the U.S. illegally or asking for their immigration status — they were only agreeing to hold people flagged by Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

“I’m an immigrant. I believe in comprehensive immigration reform. I believe that the vast majority of undocumented immigrants in our county are law-abiding citizens — never had a run-in with Miami-Dade police,” Gimenez said.

He acknowledged that immigration authorities had already requested 27 people be held during the first week of the order, and, reading from his smartphone, said they were wanted on charges including murder, domestic violence, petty theft and drug trafficking. County officials later said an additional seven immigrants had been arrested as of February 9, bringing the total to 34.

Marina, a 34-year-old Mexican woman who arrived in Homestead in 1999, said she wished the mayor would recognize the contribution migrants make to the region’s agriculture and construction industries and protect families like hers.

“All of us,” she said, “We are Latinos.”
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An extraordinary 77 minutes. That’s how long President Donald Trump stood at the lectern Thursday for a contentious marathon news conference like no other.

But was it?

Veterans of encounters between presidents and the press who tuned in Thursday to Trump’s angry defense of his four-week-old administration remembered March 19, 1974, and the performance of President Richard Nixon, then embroiled in the Watergate scandal.

Held at the National Association of Broadcasters’ convention in Houston, CBS White House correspondent Dan Rather drew cheers and jeers when he stood to ask a question, prompting Nixon to ask him: “Are you running for something?”

Rather replied, “No, sir, Mr. President. Are you?”

Nixon glared, not appreciating being upstaged by what was, at the time, considered an insolent quip at the president of the United States.

Nixon’s fate just months away

Quizzed about withholding information from congressional investigators, Nixon concluded that media encounter by telling NBC’s Tom Brokaw: “I will not participate in the destruction of the office of the president of the United States while I am in this office.”

Facing impeachment, Nixon resigned less than six months later.

Nixon’s performance that day in Houston left “a sense he was more than a little unhinged,” said David Greenberg, a professor of history and journalism at Rutgers University.

While Nixon clearly dreaded his encounters with the media, however, Trump appears to relish them.

Trump predicted his latest bout with the media would be summarized with wild headlines. But “I’m not ranting and raving. I love this!” he said, and professed he was “having a good time.”

Thursday’s news conference in the East Room of the White House was hastily arranged; reporters were given about 90 minutes’ advance warning. Ostensibly, it was to announce the president had selected law school dean Alexander Acosta as his nominee for secretary of labor after fast-food chain executive Andrew Puzder withdrew amid a barrage of criticism.

Warnings to ‘fake news media’

The new Cabinet nominee was not present, so the announcement was brief. Then the president launched into a long, sometimes rambling monologue touting his campaign promises and making bold assertions that reporters (from what Trump repeatedly referred to as the “fake news media”) would soon challenge for veracity.

Unfettered and unbridled, which has endeared him to his political base, Trump “has certainly not won over anybody new, which is what you are supposed to do at this stage of the presidency,” Greenberg told VOA.

The Trump performance on Thursday “was unhinged, it was wild,” CNN’s Jake Tapper declared on air after it was over.

Media critics and political scientists across the spectrum credit Trump for taking to a new level the simplicity of communicating with constituencies — a trait also seen in one of his Republican predecessors, George W. Bush.

“There is a talent in being able to put things in pithy, memorable phrasing,” said Greenberg, author of Republic of Spin: An Inside History of the American Presidency.

Trump, in that context, “deserves credit in addition to astonishment,” Greenberg said.

Memories of Jackson, Teddy Roosevelt

Historians who seek further presidential comparisons are reaching back to the era way before White House news conferences, recalling the mercurial personalities of Andrew Jackson and Theodore Roosevelt.

The latter, said Greenberg, “could be blind to his own contradictions. But it was couched in a warm, almost ebullient style.”  

Roosevelt termed the White House his “bully pulpit,” which was a platform Trump clearly mounted on Thursday.

“The press, honestly, is out of control,” Trump declared, shortly after accusing reporters of “not telling the truth” because they speak for “special interests.”

Since televised presidential news conferences began in the era of Dwight Eisenhower in the 1950s (the first ones were not aired live, however), there has been no event surpassed by Thursday’s blended stream of consciousness, combativeness and pointed attacks on judges, leakers and reporters.  

A veteran reporter: ‘Utterly fascinating’

“It was utterly fascinating, so out of the mold,” Charles Bierbauer, dean of the College of Information and Communications at the University of South Carolina, told VOA.

The performance was a reflection of the Trump presidency, which “is in a state of constant flux, highly unpredictable,” said Bierbauer, a former president of the White House Correspondents’ Association who covered the Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush administrations for CNN. “It’s very much in Trump’s nature to be spontaneous, confrontational.”

Presidential news conferences, usually lasting 45 minutes or less, generally are meant to get across a particular point. Under Reagan, Bierbauer recalled, they were heavily choreographed.

“We would have never had an event like that” seen Thursday, he said.

However, Bierbauer said, George H.W. Bush was “much more freewheeling,” and when it came to planning which reporters would be called on to ask the first questions, he was sometimes impromptu.

‘Still acting out the play’

Presidential news conferences usually wind down with a verbal signal from the press secretary: “Last question.”   

Nowadays, though, “I don’t think you can ‘last question’ Donald Trump,” Bierbauer said. He suspects the president sees his public role as an extension of his performance on The Apprentice TV show, but with no set time for ending the program.  

“He’s still acting out the play,” the former CNN correspondent said. “But now we’re seeing it in the role of the president, whom we expect to be presidential.”

The current White House occupant, according to Bierbauer, appears to have concluded “being presidential means being Donald Trump, not the other way around.”

At the end of the day, “this is Trump being Trump, and we will have to get used to it,” concluded presidential historian Greenberg.
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Vice Admiral Robert Harward has turned down an offer to be President Donald Trump’s new national security adviser.

Harward would have replaced retired Gen. Michael Flynn, who resigned at Trump’s request Monday after revelations that he misled Vice President Mike Pence about discussions he held with a Russian diplomat.

A senior White House official says Harward turned down the offer due to financial and family commitments. Harward is a senior executive at Lockheed Martin.

Two sources familiar with the decision said Harward had wanted to bring in his own team.

That put him at odds with Trump, who had told Flynn’s deputy, K.T. McFarland, that she could stay.

The sources spoke anonymously because Harward’s decision has not been publicly announced.

Some information for this report was provided by Reuters.

Officials said this week that there were two other contenders: acting national security adviser Keith Kellogg, and retired Gen. David Petraeus.
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The president of CNN said Thursday that neither the network’s journalism nor its business had been hurt as a result of President Donald Trump’s attacks.

Jeff Zucker, president of CNN Worldwide, spoke at the same time Trump was holding a news conference in Washington in which he continued his barrage against media coverage of the administration.

Zucker said he was worried enough about Trump’s labeling of CNN as “fake news” through the campaign that he ordered a study last month to see whether it had damaged the network’s reputation with viewers. He said it hadn’t, although CNN did not immediately release details of the survey.

“The CNN brand has been as strong as it has ever been,” Zucker said. Network executives said CNN had its most profitable year in 2016 and was on pace to do even better this year.

The administration has reportedly banned its officials from appearing on CNN, although there have been sporadic exceptions. The dispute has been most apparent on Sundays, where on two weekends Vice President Mike Pence and presidential aide Stephen Miller were guests on other network political affairs shows but not on Jake Tapper’s CNN show, “State of the Union.”

Zucker, who said he had not spoken with Trump since December about this or other issues, said the administration’s ban hadn’t affected CNN’s ability to tell the political story.

“We don’t feel it’s hurt us in any way,” he said.

Angered by the Pence snub, CNN said that it declined an administration offer to instead have aide Kellyanne Conway on Tapper’s show, saying she had credibility issues. Conway has said she wasn’t available that day. But Tapper interviewed her two days later. “Saying that we have questions about her credibility does not mean that we would never interview her,” Zucker said.

Like its rivals, particularly Fox News Channel, CNN has benefited from extraordinary interest in the new administration. CNN’s ratings are up 51 percent this year compared with last, he said. That’s unusual, because news network ratings usually tumble after a presidential election.

Trump’s lengthy news conference on Thursday was filled with media criticism, but he took questions from a range of reporters. Many White House reporters, including CNN’s Jim Acosta, had been concerned over the past week when Trump bypassed the mainstream media in three separate news conferences connected to visits by foreign leaders, instead calling on representatives from more friendly news outlets. On Thursday, Trump even took questions from Acosta, but also specifically criticized some of CNN’s coverage of him.

The president said that CNN’s 10 p.m. EST news show, hosted by Don Lemon, “is almost exclusive anti-Trump.”

“I would be your biggest fan in the world if you treated me right,” Trump said. “I sort of understand there’s a certain bias, maybe by Jeff or somebody, you know, whatever reason. And I understand that. But you’ve got to be at least a little bit fair and that’s why the public sees it. They see it. They see it’s not fair. You take a look at some of your shows and you see the bias and the hatred.”

Acosta told the president that “just for the record, we don’t hate you. I don’t hate you.”

After the news conference, CNN’s Tapper said the president was “unhinged.” He said that Trump’s performance might play well among people who voted for him, but “a lot of people are going to say, ‘That guy isn’t focused on me. I don’t know what he’s focused on.’ ”

A few minutes later on Fox, Bret Baier said that Trump’s “mesmerizing” performance was an illustration of why people had supported him.

“There are people who are going to say that it was unhinged, or their heads are going to explode at something he said, but this is Trump being Trump,” Baier said.
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