TodayPrice

Category: International

  • Trump says trade deal with China ‘possible’

    Trump says trade deal with China ‘possible’

    US President Donald Trump suggested on Wednesday that a trade deal was “possible” with China — a key target in the US leader’s tariffs policy.

    In 2020, the United States had already agreed to “a great trade deal with China” and a new deal was “possible,” Trump told reporters.

    Asked about the comments, Beijing’s foreign ministry said Thursday the two countries should handle trade tensions with “mutual respect.”

    One month into his second term in office, Trump has threatened sweeping tariffs on allies and adversaries alike — targeting China as well as neighbors Canada and Mexico, and the European Union — and using levies as his main policy tool for lowering the massive US trade deficit.

    At the beginning of February, he slapped additional customs duties of 10 percent on all products imported from China.

    Beijing’s foreign ministry said Thursday that China and the US “should resolve their concerns through dialogue and consultation based on equality and mutual respect.”

    “Trade and tariff wars have no winners and only serve to damage the interests of people all over the world,” ministry spokesman Guo Jiakun said at a regular press briefing.

    At a separate news conference, China’s commerce ministry said Beijing “urges the US side not to wield the big stick of tariffs at every turn, using tariffs as a tool to engage in coercion all around.”

    Trump is also threatening to impose 25 percent tariffs on all imported cars, and similar or higher duties on pharmaceuticals and semiconductors as he turns up the heat on some of the biggest US trading partners.

    He also told journalists aboard Air Force One on Wednesday that his administration was considering lumber tariffs of “maybe 25 percent” in the coming months.

    The president also initially announced tariffs of 25 percent on all Canadian and Mexican imports, before U-turning hours before they were due to come into effect, granting a one-month reprieve in principle until March 1.

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    And he signed executive orders last week imposing new 25 percent tariffs on steel and aluminum imports, due to come into effect on March 12.

    – Exemptions requested –

    Experts have warned it is often Americans who pay the tariffs on US imports — not the foreign exporter.

    Beijing has responded to the US tariffs with customs duties of 15 percent on coal and liquefied natural gas and 10 percent on oil and other goods, such as agricultural machinery and vehicles.

    China is the country with the largest trade surplus with the United States in goods — $295.4 billion in 2024, according to the Bureau of Economic Analysis, which reports to the US Department of Commerce.

    US ally Japan last week said it had asked the United States to be exempt from Trump’s tariffs on steel and aluminum exports, and has underlined the importance of its auto industry.

    Tokyo’s trade minister is arranging a visit to the United States in the coming weeks to further push for exemptions, Japanese media reported Thursday.

    Yoji Muto was expected to meet US officials including new commerce secretary Howard Lutnick before March 12, when the 25 percent tariffs on steel and aluminum imports were set to come into effect, Kyodo News said.

    Trump’s latest remarks on tariffs came as the European Union’s trade chief vowed Wednesday that the bloc would respond “firmly and swiftly” to protect its interests if Washington imposes tariffs on EU goods.

    Maros Sefcovic rejected Trump’s claim that US-EU trade ties were unfair, calling them the “very definition of a win-win partnership.”

    But he signaled the EU’s willingness for dealmaking, such as the possibility of reducing or eliminating tariffs on autos and other products.

    “If we are going to talk about lowering the tariffs, even eliminating the tariffs, let’s say for industrial products, this would be something which we are ready to discuss,” he said.

    Within the 27-nation EU, Germany has by far the largest trade surplus with the United States, largely thanks to its automobile industry and chemical giants such as Bayer and BASF, according to the European statistics agency, Eurostat.

  • Hamas hands over four Israeli captives’ bodies in Gaza

    Hamas hands over four Israeli captives’ bodies in Gaza

    Hamas handed over coffins it said contain the bodies of four Israeli hostages on Thursday, including those of the Bibas family who became symbols of the ordeal that has gripped Israel since the Gaza war began.

    The transfer of the bodies is the first by Hamas since its October 7, 2023 attack on Israel triggered the war, and is taking place under a fragile ceasefire that has seen living hostages exchanged for Palestinians held in Israeli prisons.

    The ceremony to return the bodies of Shiri Bibas, her two young boys —- Kfir and Ariel -— and a fourth captive, Oded Lifshitz, 83 at the time of his capture, took place at a former cemetery in the southern Gaza city of Khan Yunis.

    Ahead of the handover, Hamas displayed four black coffins on a stage erected on the sandy patch of ground. A banner behind them depicted Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as a blood-stained vampire. An armed militant stood nearby.

    Each casket bore a small photo of each of the deceased. White mock-up missiles placed near the coffins bore the inscription: “They were killed by USA bombs.”

    A militant, his face wrapped in a red and white keffiyeh scarf, sat on the stage to complete documents with a Red Cross official before the coffins were loaded into Red Cross vehicles, AFPTV images showed.

    The Israeli military said later that “the hostages’ bodies were handed over” to it and the Shin Bet internal security agency in Gaza.

    Hundreds of people gathered to witness the ceremony. A fence had been erected to keep onlookers away from the immediate area where the handover to the Red Cross was to occur.

    Armed men in military fatigues and wearing Hamas headbands were ubiquitous, standing near the stage for the ceremony — carefully choreographed as for previous transfers of hostages during the truce.

    Footage of the family’s abduction, filmed and broadcast by Hamas during their attack, showed the mother and her sons Ariel, then four, and Kfir, just nine months old, being seized from their home near the Gaza border.

    Yarden Bibas, the boys’ father and Shiri’s husband, was abducted separately that day and released from the Gaza Strip in a previous hostage-prisoner exchange on February 1.

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    – ‘Day of grief’ –

    The repatriation of their bodies is part of the first six-week phase of a fragile ceasefire between Israel and Hamas, which took effect on January 19 after more than 15 months of fighting in Gaza.

    Netanyahu said Thursday would be “a very difficult day for the State of Israel -— a heartbreaking day, a day of grief”.

    Under the ceasefire’s first phase, 19 Israeli hostages have been released by militants so far in exchange for more than 1,100 Palestinian prisoners in a series of Red Cross-mediated swaps.

    Of the remaining 14 Gaza hostages eligible for release under phase one, Israel says eight are dead.

    The Bibas family members became national symbols of the despair that has gripped the nation since the Hamas attack and hostage takings.

    While their deaths are largely accepted as fact abroad after Hamas said an Israeli air strike killed them early in the war, Israel has never confirmed the claim and many remained unconvinced — including the Bibas family.

    Late on Wednesday, the Israeli campaign group the Hostages and Missing Families Forum said it had been informed about the “heart-shattering” news of the deaths of the three Bibas family members.

    The Bibas family said it would wait for a confirmation.

    “Should we receive devastating news, it must come through the proper official channels after all identification procedures are completed,” it said in a statement late Wednesday.

    The national forensic medicine institute in Tel Aviv has mobilised 10 doctors to expedite the identification process, public broadcaster Kan reported.

    – Single swap –

    Israel and Hamas announced a deal earlier this week for the return of the remains of eight hostages in two groups this week and next, as well as the release of the last six living Israeli captives on Saturday.

    The hostages’ forum named the six as Eliya Cohen, Tal Shoham, Omer Shem Tov, Omer Wenkert, Hisham al-Sayed, and Avera Mengistu.

    The ceasefire in Gaza has held despite accusations of violations on both sides. It has also been under strain from US President Donald Trump’s widely condemned plan to take control of rubble-strewn Gaza and relocate its population of more than two million Palestinians.

    Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Saar said on Tuesday that talks would begin “this week” on the truce’s second phase, which is expected to lay out a more permanent end to the war.

    Senior Hamas official Taher al-Nunu told AFP on Wednesday that Hamas was ready to free all remaining hostages held in Gaza in a single swap during phase two.

    He did not clarify how many hostages were currently being held by Hamas or other militant groups.

    Hamas and its allies took 251 people hostage during their attack. Prior to Thursday’s handover, there were 70 hostages in Gaza, including 35 the Israeli military says are dead.

    That attack resulted in the deaths of 1,211 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally of Israeli official figures.

    Israel’s retaliatory campaign has killed at least 48,297 people in Gaza, the majority of them civilians, according to figures from the health ministry in the Hamas-run territory that the United Nations considers reliable.

  • US appeals court keeps lock on Trump’s birthright order

    US appeals court keeps lock on Trump’s birthright order

    An appeals court upheld an order on Wednesday blocking President Donald Trump from ending birthright citizenship for children whose parents are in the United States illegally.

    The emergency request was filed by the Justice Department in an attempt to clear the path for Trump’s executive order, which has been blocked by judges in lower district courts since it was issued in January.

    Trump’s order attempts to redefine the 14th Amendment to the US Constitution, which decrees that anyone born on US soil is a citizen.

    Among the most controversial of Trump’s executive orders, it claims the right does not apply to the children of anyone other than permanent residents and citizens.

    The request was denied by a panel of three judges from the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, who were nominated by Trump and former presidents Jimmy Carter and George W. Bush.

    “Here, the Government has not shown that it is entitled to immediate relief,” judge Danielle Forrest, who was appointed by Trump in 2019, said in the ruling.

    She said the “sole basis” for seeking the emergency request was that the district court had “stymied the implementation of an Executive Branch policy… nationwide for almost three weeks.”

    She said “deciding important substantive issues on one week’s notice turns our usual decision-making process on its head” and that the circumstances did not “dictate that we must.”

    Trump’s executive order was due to come into effect by February 19 but was first blocked temporarily by a federal judge in January and the timeframe has since been extended.

    His orders have faced growing pushback from the courts, with about a dozen injunctions issued so far from among some 40 lawsuits.

    The Trump administration made its first appeal to the Supreme Court in a separate case on Sunday to allow him to fire the head of a whistleblower protection agency.

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    The Supreme Court, which includes three Trump-nominated justices, is primed to play a significant role in what some experts suggest is a looming constitutional crisis as the president tests the limits of his executive power and the judiciary pushes back.

  • BREAKING: US Ambassador Refutes Claim of USAID Funding Boko Haram

    BREAKING: US Ambassador Refutes Claim of USAID Funding Boko Haram

    Richard Mills, the United States Ambassador to Nigeria has refuted allegation that the United States Agency for International Development, (USAID) is funding Boko Haram or any terrorist group, asserting that there is no evidence.

    Mills declared at the aftermath of meeting with the Nigeria Governors Forum in Abuja late Wednesday night that no nation condemns Boko Haram’s destruction more greater than the US.

    He affirmed that if any evidence is discovered, the US government will collaborate with the Nigerian government in it investigation.

    TodayPriceNG had earlier reported that on February 13, Congressman Scott Perry accused USAID of funding terrorist groups, not excluding Boko Haram.

    Boko Haram is a terrorist group established in year 2002 by Mohammed Yusuf. The group’s motives is the promotion of Sunni Islam and terminating Shia Islam in Nigeria.

    In previous years, many Nigerians lives had been lost, properties worth billions of Naira has been destroyed, while many families have experience displacement.

    Perry, a Republican from Pennsylvania, made the declaration during the first hearing of the Subcommittee on Delivering on Government Efficiency.

    The session, titled “The War on Waste: Stamping Out the Scourge of Improper Payments and Fraud,” centered on alleged misappropriations of taxpayer funds.

    “Who gets some of that money? Does that name ring a bell to anybody in the room? Because your money, your money, $697 million annually, plus the shipments of cash funds in Madrasas, ISIS, Al-Qaeda, Boko Haram, ISIS Khorasan, terrorist training camps. That’s what it’s funding,” he stated.

    In a reaction, the Senate has beckoned on the National Security Adviser, Nuhu Ribadu, including the heads of the National Intelligence Agency and the Defence Intelligence Agency, to tackle allegations of terrorist funding with the involvement of USAID.

    While answering a question, the US Ambassador declared that the US has rigid policies in the prevention of USAID or any other US assistance from being redirected to terrorist groups like Boko Haram.

    He stated, “Let me be clear—there is no friend of Nigeria stronger in condemning Boko Haram’s violence and disregard for human life than the United States. We have designated Boko Haram as a foreign terrorist organisation since 2013, blocking the group from transferring assets to the US and allowing us to arrest and seize its members.

    “We cooperate in investigations with the Nigerian government. I can assure you that we have strict policies and procedures to ensure that USAID funding or any other US assistance, whether from USAID, the Department of Defence, or the State Department, is not diverted to terrorist groups like Boko Haram.

    “There is absolutely no evidence of such diversion, and if we ever had evidence that any programme funding was being misused by Boko Haram, we would immediately investigate it with our Nigerian partners.

    “So, when it comes to Boko Haram, the United States stands with Nigeria in wanting to rid this country of the scourge that this organisation represents.”

    He cleared the air that President Donald Trump’s administration did not stop assistance but implemented a 90-day pause to develop ways in making it more effective.

    Mills highlighted, “No assistance has been cut yet, and no decisions have been made about the future of our assistance. In fact, US Secretary of State, Marco Rubio, has said that this is not about ending foreign assistance to our partners like Nigeria. It’s about making our assistance more effective and aligning it with US government policies and interests.

    “That’s what this 90-day pause is for. However, there are waivers for life-saving assistance, such as support for HIV patients, maternal and child nutrition, and internally displaced people. So that continues. In 90 days, we will know where we stand.”

    In relation to other issues discussed with the 36 state governors, the US Ambassador stated that he highlighted the embassy’s vision for the future of the US-Nigerian relationship.

    He stated, “I explained to them that we are going to focus on four key priorities in the coming years. The first is improving the business environment to increase trade and investment between the United States and Nigeria.

    “Second, a renewed focus on improving transparency and accountability in Nigeria, fighting corruption, and empowering Nigerian voices advocating for more transparency.

    “Third, we want to be more engaged at the subnational level, at the state level, and with local governing authorities. I believe the embassy needs to engage more in this area as we develop our programs and assistance.

    “Lastly, we discussed our health care programmes, which are a large part of US assistance to Nigeria. As these programmes succeed—such as reducing HIV cases and eradicating polio—we want to ensure their sustainability and transition them to the Nigerian government at the federal and state levels.”

    Mills declared that the target is to foster the sustainability of these health programmes and bring them to the Nigerian government for adequate management, helping to establish a healthcare

  • Brazil charges ex-President Bolsonaro with attempting coup

    Brazil charges ex-President Bolsonaro with attempting coup

    Brazil’s Attorney General’s Office has filed charges against former right-wing president Jair Bolsonaro in connection with an alleged coup plot to overturn the 2022 election.

    The charges, which must be formally accepted by the Supreme Court, came following a recommendation from Brazil’s national police.

    In addition,  Prosecutor-General, Paulo Gonet filed charges against 33 other people.

    They faced a number of charges including being involved in an attempted coup d’état and an armed criminal organisation and the violent abolition of the rule of law.

    This is according to a statement from Gonet’s office.

    In November, police said that Bolsonaro “directly and actively participated’’ in plotting a coup to overturn the election along with his supporters.

    Bolsonaro, who was president from 2019 to 2022, was also fully aware of an alleged plan by soldiers to kill Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, who defeated him in the election.

    This was well as Lula’s vice president and a Supreme Court judge, the November report said.

    Bolsonaro rejected the accusations against him.

    Bolsonaro’s defence team said in a statement it met the accusations with dismay and indignation, the G1 website reported.

    His team said Bolsonaro had never collaborated with a movement that aimed to undermine the democratic rule of law.

    Bolsonaro’s son, Flávio Bolsonaro wrote on X that there was no proof against his father.

    On Jan. 8, 2023, Bolsonaro supporters who refused to recognise Lula’s election victory stormed the Brazilian Congress, the government buildings and the Supreme Court in Brasília, causing significant damage.

    A number of other proceedings were underway against Bolsonaro.

    The police accuse him of illegally selling jewellery and luxury watches that he received as official gifts in Saudi Arabia during his term in office for his own benefit.

    The former president has consistently denied the allegations.

    According to investigators, he also had vaccination passports forged for him, family members and employees during the Coronavirus pandemic. (dpa/NAN).

  • African Union slams ‘non-stop war crimes’ in Sudan

    African Union slams ‘non-stop war crimes’ in Sudan

    The African Union expressed “deep concern” on Wednesday over the continued escalation of the war in Sudan and relentless “crimes against humanity”.

    The African Union held a special meeting of its Peace and Security Council last Friday to discuss the conflict.

    It published its official statement on Wednesday, expressing its “deep concern over the continued escalation of the conflict, between the two warring parties, particularly the non-stop perpetration of war crimes and crimes against humanity”.

    The statement highlighted “the ongoing siege and relentless fighting in El Fasher, the capital city of Sudan’s North Darfur State, with devastating impact on livelihood on a massive scale”.

    It also called on the warring parties — the Sudanese Armed Forces and rebel Rapid Support Forces — to observe a humanitarian truce during the Muslim holiday of Ramadan starting next month.

  • Zelensky says Trump living in Russian ‘disinformation space’

    Zelensky says Trump living in Russian ‘disinformation space’

    Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on Wednesday said Donald Trump was living in a Russian “disinformation space”, responding to scathing comments by the US president that  Zelensky’s popularity rating is four percent.

    “Unfortunately, President Trump, who we have great respect for as leader of the American people … lives in this disinformation space,” Zelensky told reporters in Kyiv, accusing Moscow of misleading Trump.

    Calling for presidential elections in Ukraine, which are banned under martial law, Trump said Tuesday of Zelensky: “He’s down at four percent approval rating”,

    Zelensky said the figure “comes from Russia”.

    A telephone poll of 1,000 people by the respected Kyiv International Institute of Sociology, published Wednesday, found that 57 percent of respondents trusted Zelensky, while 37 percent said they did not and the rest were undecided.

    Trump’s comments came after the US and Russian foreign ministers held talks in Saudi Arabia — their first since Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022 — on resetting relations and finding a way to end the conflict.

    Kyiv and its European allies have become alarmed at being cut out of the process with Russia to end the conflict.

  • Video: Elon Musk reacts as White House posts clip of deportees in handcuffs, chains

    Video: Elon Musk reacts as White House posts clip of deportees in handcuffs, chains

    The White House has released a 41-second video on social media showing undocumented immigrants being shackled and escorted onto a deportation flight departing from Seattle.

    Titled “ASMR: Illegal Alien Deportation Flight,” the clip features close-up shots of chains and cuffs on the tarmac, as well as detainees walking with their hands and ankles restrained.

    One segment shows an individual walking past an officer with hands cuffed in front and ankles bound by chains. Other shots highlight a close-up of a man’s handcuffs being secured, another individual’s feet in chains while ascending the stairway to the plane, and a detainee preparing to board. The faces of those being deported are not visible.

    Since taking office, President Donald Trump has intensified deportation efforts as part of his immigration policy. Thousands of undocumented immigrants have already been removed, including more than 300 Indian nationals.

    Trump’s border czar, Tom Homan, reaffirmed the administration’s commitment to stricter immigration enforcement, stating he will not rest until every “illegal criminal migrant” is “eradicated” from the country. He also claimed that illegal border crossings have decreased under Trump compared to previous years.

    Reacting to the video, senior advisor to Trump, Elon Musk, expressed excitement with the words: “Haha wow.”

  • How Putin and Trump shook up the world in a week

    How Putin and Trump shook up the world in a week

    When he penned his eyewitness account of the 1917 Russian Revolution, American journalist John Reed famously titled it Ten Days That Shook The World.

    But 10 days is too long for Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin. They’ve shaken things up in a week.

    It began with the Putin-Trump telephone conversation on 12 February and their presidential pledges to kickstart relations.

    It continued with the Munich Security Conference and a schism between Europe and America.

    Next stop Saudi Arabia for the Russia-US talks: the first high-level in-person contacts between the two countries since the Kremlin’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

    It is a week that has upended traditional alliances, left Europe and Ukraine scrambling to respond, raised fears for European security, and put Russia where it wants to be: at the top table of global politics, without having made any concessions to get there. One image dominates Wednesday morning’s Russian newspapers: senior Russian and American officials at the negotiating table in Riyadh.

    The Kremlin wants the Russian public and the international community to see that Western efforts to isolate Russia over the war in Ukraine have failed.

    Russian media are welcoming the prospect of warmer ties with Washington and pouring scorn on European leaders and Kyiv.

    “Trump knows he will have to make concessions [to Russia] because he is negotiating with the side that’s winning in Ukraine,” writes pro-Kremlin tabloid Moskovsky Komsomolets. “He will make concessions. Not at America’s expense, but at the expense of Europe and Ukraine.

    “For so long Europe had gone around all puffed up, thinking of itself as the civilised world and as a Garden of Eden. It failed to notice it had lost its trousers… now its old comrade across the Atlantic has pointed that out…”

    On the streets of Moscow I don’t detect that level of gloating.

    Instead, people are watching and waiting to see whether Trump will really turn out to be Russia’s new best friend and whether he can bring an end to the war in Ukraine.

    “Trump is a businessman. He’s only interested in making money,” Nadezhda tells me. “I don’t think things will be any different. There’s too much that needs to be done to change the situation.”

    “Perhaps those talks [in Saudi Arabia] will help,” says Giorgi. “It’s high time we stopped being enemies.”

    Reuters

    Donald Trump meets with Russian President Vladimir Putin at the G20 leaders summit in 2019

    “Trump is active. He’s energetic. But will he do anything?” wonders Irina.

    “We dream that these negotiations will bring peace. It’s a first step. And maybe this will help our economy. Food and other goods keep going up in price here. That’s partly because of the special military operation [the war in Ukraine] and the general international situation.”

    Putin and Trump have spoken on the phone; their two teams have met in Saudi Arabia; a presidential summit is expected soon.

    But a few days ago the newspaper Moskovsky Komsomolets tried to imagine what the two leaders had said to each other during last week’s phone call.

    They came up with this rendition:

    “Trump called Putin.

    ‘Vladimir! You’ve got a cool country and I’ve got a cool country. Shall we go and divide up the world?’

    ‘What have I been saying all along? Let’s do it!….”

    Make-believe? We’ll see.

  • Trump orders firing of all ‘Biden-era’ US attorneys

    Trump orders firing of all ‘Biden-era’ US attorneys

    President Donald Trump said Tuesday that he has ordered the firing of all remaining US attorneys nominated by his predecessor Joe Biden.

    “Over the past four years, the Department of Justice has been politicized like never before,” Trump posted on his Truth Social platform.

    “Therefore, I have instructed the termination of ALL remaining ‘Biden Era’ U.S. Attorneys,” he said.

    “We must ‘clean house’ IMMEDIATELY, and restore confidence,” Trump added. “America’s Golden Age must have a fair Justice System – THAT BEGINS TODAY!”

    It is standard practice for an incoming president to replace the federal prosecutors, known as US attorneys, nominated by their predecessor.

    There are 93 US attorneys, one for each of the 94 federal court districts in the country. Two districts share a US attorney.

    US attorneys are the top federal law enforcement officer in each district.

    A number of US attorneys nominated by Democrat Biden resigned following Trump’s November election victory in anticipation of being replaced.

    The Justice Department, which Trump has accused of unjustly prosecuting him, has been the target of a sweeping shakeup since the Republican took office and a number of high-ranking officials have been fired, demoted or reassigned.

    Among those sacked were members of the office of special counsel Jack Smith, who brought two now-abandoned criminal cases against Trump.

    The acting US attorney for the powerful Southern District of New York, a Trump appointee, resigned last week after being asked by the Justice Department to drop corruption charges against New York Mayor Eric Adams.