6A
THE DAILY ASTORIAN • FRIDAY, JUNE 1, 2018
Trump takes aim at Canada as world protests his tariffs
By PAUL WISEMAN
and KEN THOMAS
Associated Press
WASHINGTON — Already
under fire for his combative
trade policies, President Donald
Trump today intensified pres-
sure on Canada, demanding
that America’s neighbor and
close ally “open their markets
and take down trade barriers.”
Trump’s tweet came a day
after he ignited global con-
demnation by imposing tariffs
on steel and aluminum imports
from Canada and two other
key U.S. allies — the Euro-
pean Union and Mexico.
The United States had
sought use the tariff threat
as cudgel to win conces-
sions from Canada and Mex-
ico in talks to renegotiate the
North American Free Trade
Agreement. But the NAFTA
talks sputtered anyway, and
the Trump administration
imposed the tariffs at midnight
Thursday.
The president took to Twit-
ter today to accuse Canada of
treating U.S. “farmers very
poorly for a long period of
time.” And he repeated his
inaccurate claim that Canada
runs a trade surplus with the
United States. In fact, U.S.
Commerce Department num-
bers show, the United States
recorded a trade surplus with
Canada for each of the past
three years.
Trump’s antagonistic trade
policies — and specifically
the steel and aluminum tariffs
— drew international denun-
ciation.
French President
Emmanuel Macron said today
that he told Trump in a phone
call that the new U.S. tariffs on
European, Mexican and Cana-
dian goods were illegal and a
“mistake.”
And Macron pledged the
retaliation would be “firm”
and “proportionate” and in
line with World Trade Organi-
zation rules.
Germany’s Volkswagen,
Europe’s largest automaker,
warned that the decision could
start a trade war that no side
would win.
The European Union and
China said they will deepen
AP Photo/Martin Meissner
Steel coils are stored at the Thyssenkrupp steel factory in
Duisburg, Germany.
ties on trade and investment as
a result.
“This is stupid — it’s
counterproductive,” Francis
Maude, a former British trade
minister, told the BBC. “Any
government that embarks on
a protectionist path inflicts the
most damage on itself.”
Trump’s move makes good
on his campaign vows to crack
down on trading partners that
he claims exploit poorly nego-
tiated trade agreements to run
up big trade surpluses with the
United States.
The tariffs his administra-
tion has imposed — 25 per-
cent on imported steel, 10
percent on aluminum from
Canada, Mexico and the Euro-
pean Union — threaten to
drive up prices for American
consumers and companies and
heighten uncertainty for busi-
nesses and investors around
the globe.
Mexico complained that
the tariffs will “distort inter-
national trade” and said it will
penalize U.S. imports includ-
ing pork, apples, grapes,
cheeses and flat steel.
In Canada, Prime Minister
Justin Trudeau said the tariffs
were “totally unacceptable,”
and Canada announced plans
to slap tariffs on $12.8 billion
worth of U.S. products, rang-
ing from steel to yogurt and
toilet paper.
“Canada is a secure supplier
of aluminum and steel to the
U.S. defense industry, putting
aluminum in American planes
and steel in American tanks,”
Trudeau said. “That Canada
could be considered a national
security threat to the United
States is inconceivable.”
Trump had originally
imposed the tariffs in March,
saying a reliance on imported
metals threatened national
security. But he exempted Can-
ada, Mexico and the European
Union to buy time for negotia-
tions — a reprieve that expired
at midnight Thursday.
Other countries, including
Japan, America’s closest ally
in Asia, are already paying the
tariffs.
“This is protectionism, pure
and simple,” said Jean-Claude
Juncker, president of the Euro-
pean Commission.
The EU earlier threat-
ened to counterpunch by tar-
geting U.S. products, includ-
ing Kentucky bourbon, blue
jeans and motorcycles. David
O’Sullivan, the EU’s ambas-
sador in Washington, said the
retaliation will probably be
announced in late June.
Trump had campaigned for
president on a promise to crack
down on trading partners that
he said exploited poorly nego-
tiated trade agreements to run
up big trade surpluses with the
U.S.
The U.S. tariffs coincide
with — and could complicate
— the Trump administration’s
separate fight over Beijing’s
strong-arm tactics to overtake
U.S. technological supremacy.
U.S. Commerce Secretary Wil-
bur Ross is leaving Friday for
Beijing for talks aimed at pre-
venting a trade war with China.
The world’s two biggest
economies have threatened to
impose tariffs on up to $200
billion worth of each other’s
products.
WORLD IN BRIEF
Associated Press
5 dead, nearly 200
sickened in romaine
lettuce outbreak
NEW YORK — Four more deaths have been
linked to a national food poisoning outbreak
blamed on tainted lettuce, bringing the total to
five.
Health officials have tied the E. coli outbreak
to romaine lettuce grown in Yuma, Arizona. The
growing season there ended six weeks ago, and
it’s unlikely any tainted lettuce is still in stores
or people’s homes, given its short shelf life. But
there can be a lag in reporting, and reports of ill-
nesses have continued to come in.
In an update today on the nation’s largest E.
coli outbreak in a decade, health officials said
25 more cases have been added, raising the total
number of illnesses to 197 in 35 states. At least
89 people were hospitalized.
Previously one death had been reported, in
California. Today, health officials said they had
learned of four more — one in Arkansas, one in
New York, and two in Minnesota.
The first illnesses occurred in March, and the
most recent began on May 12, according to the
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Many of the new cases were people who
became ill two to three weeks ago, when con-
taminated lettuce was still being sold. Some
said they did not eat romaine lettuce but were in
close contact with someone who got sick after
eating it.
Most E. coli bacteria are not harmful, but
some produce toxins that can cause severe ill-
ness. People who get sick from toxin-producing
E. coli come down with symptoms about three
to four days after swallowing the germ, with
many suffering bloody diarrhea, severe stomach
cramps and vomiting.
Most people recover within a week, but some
illnesses can last longer and be more severe.
North Koreans to
meet Trump; deliver
letter from leader
NEW YORK — A top aide to Kim Jong
Un was en route to Washington today to hand
a letter from the North Korean leader to Pres-
ident Donald Trump, Secretary of State Mike
Pompeo said after reporting “good progress”
in talks between the two sides to revive an
on-again, off-again nuclear summit.
“I am confident we are moving in the right
direction,” Pompeo told reporters at a news con-
ference in New York after meeting Thursday
with former North Korean military intelligence
chief Kim Yong Chol. “Our two countries face a
pivotal moment in our relationship, and it would
be nothing short of tragic to let this opportunity
go to waste.”
He would not say that the summit is a defi-
nite go for Singapore on June 12 and could not
say if that decision would be made after Trump
reads Kim Jong Un’s letter. However, his com-
ments were the most positive from any U.S. offi-
cial since Trump abruptly canceled the meeting
last week after belligerent statements from the
North.
The two countries, eying the first sum-
mit between the U.S. and the North after six
decades of hostility, have also been holding
negotiations in Singapore and the demilitarized
zone between the two Koreas.
Kim Yong Chol left his hotel in New York
City today for the trip to Washington in a con-
voy of SUVs. He is the highest-ranking North
Korean official to visit the U.S. in 18 years, and
his trip to the White House will be a highly sym-
bolic sign of easing tensions after fears of war
escalated amid North Korean nuclear and mis-
sile tests last year.
North Korea’s flurry of diplomatic activ-
ity following an increase in nuclear weapons
and missile tests in 2017 suggests that Kim is
eager for sanctions relief to build his economy
and for the international legitimacy a summit
with Trump would provide. But there are linger-
ing doubts on whether he will ever fully relin-
quish his nuclear arsenal, which he may see as
his only guarantee of survival in a region sur-
rounded by enemies.
Manhunt: Suspect
captured in slaying of
Tennessee deputy
DICKSON, Tenn. — After a two-day man-
hunt, a trooper came across the suspect in the
slaying of a sheriff’s deputy not far from the
scene of the crime, authorities said today.
The Tennessee Bureau of Investigation
tweeted photos of a handcuffed Steven Joshua
Wiggins, grimacing as he was placed into the
back seat of a law enforcement vehicle this
morning. His clothes were muddy and his jeans
were ripped open.
Dickson County sheriff’s Sgt. Daniel Baker
was killed after responding to a call about a
suspicious car on Wednesday, the state police
agency said. Baker couldn’t be contacted for
some time, but the deputy’s car was eventually
tracked by GPS to a wooded area 2 or 3 miles
away. The deputy was found dead inside of it.
The TBI said a video recording enabled
them to identify the 31-year-old Wiggins as
the suspect. Federal, state and local authorities
searched for Wiggins over two days, checking
into hundreds of tips.
Wiggins had been already wanted on charges
that he assaulted a woman and stole her car
when he was pulled over Wednesday, accord-
ing to a report from the Kingston Springs Police
Department.
That woman was in the car with Wiggins
when he pulled the trigger, and is now jailed on
a murder charge in Baker’s death, according to
court documents.
The report says 38-year-old Erika Cas-
tro-Miles told police early Tuesday that Wiggins
had slapped her in the face and pulled out some
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of her hair, then put a gun to her head and threat-
ened to kill her if she called police. She said he
then grabbed her keys and took her car without
her permission.
Trump: Pardoned
conservative author’s
conviction was ‘fishy’
WASHINGTON — An Obama adminis-
tration critic pardoned by Donald Trump said
today that the president told him he was being
cleared because the campaign finance charges
filed against him were “fishy.”
Trump pardoned Dinesh D’Souza, a conser-
vative author and filmmaker, on Thursday and
announced he’s thinking about clemency for
Martha Stewart and former Illinois Gov. Rod
Blagojevich, among “lots” of other people.
D’Souza said he was surprised when he got a
call at his office from the president.
“The president said ‘Dinesh, you’ve been a
great voice for freedom. I got to tell you man-to-
man you’ve been screwed,’” D’Souza told “Fox
& Friends” in an interview.
Conservatives rallied around D’Souza, say-
ing he had been singled out in a politically moti-
vated prosecution by President Barack Obama’s
Justice Department. D’Souza was sentenced
to five years’ probation in 2014 after pleading
guilty to violating federal election law by mak-
ing illegal contributions to a U.S. Senate cam-
paign in the names of others.
D’Souza claimed his conviction was polit-
ically motivated because Obama was angry
over a movie he had made about him. D’Souza,
who spent eight months in a halfway house in
San Diego, said he was grateful he is no longer
labeled a felon and can vote again.
Watchdog groups criticized D’Souza’s par-
don, saying it signaled contempt for the rule of
law.
“Donald Trump has sent a message to his
friends and cronies that if you break laws to pro-
tect him or attack our democracy, he’s got your
back,” said David Donnelly, president and CEO
of Every Voice.
Both Blagojevich and Stewart had connec-
tions to Trump’s “Celebrity Apprentice” real-
ity television show: Blagojevich was a contes-
tant in 2010 and Stewart hosted the 2005 spinoff
series, “The Apprentice: Martha Stewart.”
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