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A8 NATION/WORLD East Oregonian Saturday, August 3, 2019 Landmark U.S.-Russia arms control treaty is dead United States, Russia both walk away from Intermediate-range Nuclear Forces treaty By DEB RIECHMANN Associated Press WASHINGTON — A landmark arms control treaty that President Ronald Reagan and Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev signed three decades ago is dead, prompting fears of a new global arms race. The United States and Russia both walked away from the Intermediate-range Nuclear Forces treaty on Friday. If they choose not to extend or replace the larger New START treaty when it expires in early 2021, there will be no legally binding limits on the world’s two largest nuclear arsenals for the first time in nearly a half century. The U.S. blames Rus- sia for the demise of the treaty, saying that for years Moscow has been devel- oping and fielding weap- ons that violate the treaty and threaten the U.S. and its allies, particularly in Europe. But without the con- straints of the treaty, the Trump administration says it can now counter Rus- sia — and China. The U.S. has complained for years of an unfair playing field — that Russia was develop- ing weapons that violated the treaty and China, which wasn’t a signatory, was developing similar weapons that would have violated it, too. President Donald Trump hasn’t committed to extend- ing or replacing New START, which imposed limits starting in 2018 on the number of U.S. and Rus- sian long-range nuclear war- heads and launchers. Trump has called New START “just another bad deal” made by the Obama administration, and Trump’s national secu- rity adviser, John Bolton, AP Photo A Russian Iskander-K missile launches during a military ex- ercise at a training ground at the Luzhsky Range, near St. Pe- tersburg, Russia. A landmark arms control treaty that Pres- ident Ronald Reagan and Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev signed three decades ago is dead. The U.S. and Russia both walked away from the deal on Friday. said in June that it’s unlikely the administration will agree to extend the treaty for five years, which could be done without legislative action in either capital. The Trump adminis- tration thinks talks about extending New START are premature. The administra- tion claims that with China’s growing arsenal of nuclear warheads, Beijing can no longer be excluded from nuclear arms control agree- ments. Trump has expressed a desire to negotiate a tri- lateral arms control deal signed by the U.S., Russia and China. “We’ll see what hap- pens,” Trump told report- ers at the White House on Thursday. “I will say Russia would like to do something on a nuclear treaty and that’s OK with me. They’d like to do something and so would I.” German Foreign Min- ister Heiko Maas said this week that the collapse of the treaty means a bit of secu- rity in Europe is being lost. “We regret the fact that Russia has not done what was necessary to save the INF treaty. Now we call all the more on Russia and the U.S. to preserve the New START treaty as a cornerstone of worldwide arms control,” Maas said. “Nuclear powers, such as China, must also face up to their responsibility on arms control — they have more weight in the world than at the time of the Cold War.” Arms control advocates remain worried about the future. Laura Kennedy, who for- merly represented the U.S. at the Conference on Disar- mament in Geneva, warned Americans not to let their eyes glaze over when con- fronted with the complex diplomacy of arms control. She said they should raise the issue now with Congress and all candidates running for the White House in 2020. “This isn’t ‘wonkiness.’ It’s our future and the future of the planet,” Kennedy said. “Nuclear issues are so consequential that we sim- ply cannot abandon a seri- ous arms control effort. Nor can the U.S. afford to cite its concerns over INF or other issues as an excuse to let the New START treaty lapse.” Over its lifetime, the 1987 so-called INF treaty led to the elimination of 2,692 U.S. and Soviet Union nuclear and conventional ground-launched ballistic and cruise missiles. Until its demise, the treaty banned land-based missiles with a range between 310 and 3,410 miles. David Wright, co-di- rector of the Global Secu- rity Program at the Union of Concerned Scientists, said withdrawing from the treaty was “shortsighted.” He said it will trigger a competition in convention- ally armed missiles that will undermine stability. How Trump’s latest China tariffs could squeeze U.S. consumers Latest tariffs could cost $200 a year per household By JOSH BOAK, ANNE D’INNOCENZIO AND JOE MCDONALD Associated Press WASHINGTON — The latest batch of tariffs that President Donald Trump plans to impose on Chi- nese goods would likely cost U.S. households an average of $200 a year, some econo- mists have estimated. That would come on top of the roughly $831 imposed per household from Trump’s existing tariffs, according to a New York Federal Reserve analysis. Trump plans to tax $300 billion of Chinese imports at 10% starting in Septem- ber with the goal of accelerat- ing trade talks with Beijing to favor the United States. The new tariffs would be in addi- tion to 25% tariffs Trump has imposed on $250 billion in Chinese products. Those are mostly industrial goods. By contrast, the new tariffs would target products used by American consumers, such as shoes, clothing and cellphones. By Friday, Trump’s new planned tariffs had trig- gered worries, especially among retailers, about the consequences. Retail stores, many of which have been struggling, would have to make the painful choice of either absorbing the higher costs from the new tariffs or imposing them on price-con- scious customers. Additionally, China has signaled the likelihood of imposing counter-tariffs on U.S. goods, which would hurt American exporters. The stock market sold off sharply on Friday, in part over con- cerns about the effect on cor- porate profits. Some economists have estimated that Trump’s addi- tional tariffs would cost an average U.S. household $200 a year. For retailers already feeling pressure, the higher prices would hit hard as the critically important holiday shopping season is getting underway. Some companies are con- sidering moving up their delivery of goods before the new tariffs take effect. Isaac Larian, CEO of Los Ange- les-based MGA Entertain- ment, which makes the pop- ular L.O.L. doll, said the company will be accelerat- ing shipments from China to the U.S. ahead of the Sept. 1 deadline — and will pay an extra $300 to $400 more per shipping container to do so. He envisions having to raise prices 10% across his entire toy line. “A lot of consumers can’t afford it, and demand will go down,” Larian said. Peter Bragdon, executive vice president at Columbia Sportswear, said the com- pany had been diversify- ing away from China and now makes products in more than 20 countries. He said he thinks companies, such as Columbia Sportswear, will fare better than the smaller outdoor rivals. “The larger companies that have the experience are going to be able to weather really bad public policy,” he said. Washington and Bei- jing are locked in a battle over complaints that China steals or pressures compa- nies to hand over technol- ogy. The Trump administra- tion worries that American industrial leadership might be threatened by Chinese plans for government-led cre- ation of global competitors in robotics and other technolo- gies. Europe and Japan echo U.S. complaints that those plans violate Beijing’s mar- ket-opening commitments. Companies were already shifting to suppliers outside of China in countries, such as Vietnam, to avoid the exist- ing tariffs on $250 billion worth of Chinese imports. But plenty of clothing and footwear companies are still vulnerable as importing for holiday sales is starting — and the president’s announce- ment means that all Chinese imports might be taxed. In 2018, 42% of all U.S. sold apparel was made in China, according to the American Apparel & Foot- wear Association, a trade group. That number is 69% for footwear. “This creates a cash crunch, a lot of confusion and uncertainty,” said Steve Lamar, executive vice pres- ident of the trade group. “It couldn’t come at a worse time.” The Trump administra- tion has publicly denied that consumers would be signifi- cantly harmed by the tariffs. “Any consumer impact is very, very small,” Larry Kudlow, director of the National Economic Council, told reporters Friday. The tariffs taken together would more than wipe out the savings a middle-class household received from Trump’s 2017 income tax cuts. The average tax filer earning between $50,000 and $75,000 paid $841 less in taxes last year, according to Congress’ Joint Committee on Taxation. Many economists fore- cast that the proposed tar- iffs would shave about 0.1% off economic growth but that the real risk is a further esca- lation and side effects that could be devastating. Douglas Porter, chief economist at BMO Capital Markets, compared the pres- ident’s moves to the errors that ultimately led to the ter- rifyingly destructive World War I. He said of World War I, “Leaders were relentlessly overconfident on the pros- pects of victory, fully con- vinced that any war would be brief, incompetent in plan- ning and execution, and mis- calculated economic damage. Accordingly, the war dragged on for over four years at ter- rible, terrible costs. See any parallels?” In answer to his own ques- tion, Porter noted that Trump has declared trade wars are “good” and “easy to win.” On Friday, China threat- ened retaliation in ways that could magnify the poten- tial damage to both of the world’s two biggest econo- mies. Stocks fell around the globe as investors adjusted to these risks. China’s government accused Trump of violat- ing his June agreement with President Xi Jinping to revive negotiations aimed at ending a costly fight over Beijing’s trade surplus and technology ambitions. Cities now see more overdose deaths than rural areas By MIKE STOBBE Associated Press NEW YORK — U.S. drug overdose deaths, which have been concentrated in Appala- chia and other rural areas for more than a dozen years, are back to being most common in big cities again, according to a government report issued Friday. The report by the Centers for Disease Control and Pre- vention said the urban over- dose death rate surpassed the rural rate in 2016 and 2017. Rates for last year and this year are not yet available. But experts, citing available data, say the urban rate is likely to stay higher in the near future. The difference between the urban and rural coun- ties was not large. In 2017, there were 22 overdose deaths per 100,000 people living in urban areas, compared with 20 per 100,000 in rural areas. The nation is battling the deadliest drug overdose epi- demic in U.S. history. About 68,000 Americans died of overdoses last year, according to preliminary CDC statistics reported last month. Experts believe the epi- demic has been playing out differently in different parts of the country, and they say it is best understood by com- paring geographic regions — Appalachia and the Northeast, for example. The new CDC report looked at urban and rural overdose death rates for the nation overall. The research- ers found both rates have been rising, but the urban rate shot 3234 S.W. Nye Pendleton, OR AP Photo/Steven Senne An unidentified heroin user, left, is injected by another man, right, on the street near a strip of land sometimes referred to as “Methadone Mile,” in Boston. up more dramatically after 2015 to surpass the rural rate. New York, Chicago and Baltimore all reported dra- matic spikes in overdose deaths in the last few years, and they are not alone. Diego Cuadros, a Univer- sity of Cincinnati researcher, said the CDC findings are consistent with what he and his colleagues have seen in Ohio. “Most of the hot spots are in the urban areas,” he said. The CDC found the urban rates are driven by deaths in men and deaths from heroin, fentanyl and cocaine. That probably is due to a shift in the current overdose epidemic, said Dr. Daniel Cic- carone, a drug policy expert at the University of California, San Francisco. The epidemic was initially driven by opioid pain pills, which were often as widely available in the country as in the city. But then many drug users shifted to heroin and then to fentanyl, and the ille- gal drug distribution sys- tem for heroin and fentanyl is more developed in cities, Cic- carone said. Another possible expla- nation is increasing overdose deaths among blacks and His- panics, including those con- centrated in urban areas, he added. “Early on, this was seen as an epidemic affecting whites more than other groups,” he said. “Increasingly, deaths in urban areas are starting to look brown and black.” Women still die of over- doses at higher rates in rural areas, the CDC report found. And death rates tied to meth- amphetamine and prescrip- tion opioid painkillers remain higher in rural areas, too. Using death certificate data, the CDC research- ers looked at whether over- dose victims were living in rural or urban counties at the time they died. They defined urban areas as counties with large and small cities and their suburbs. Rural areas were non-suburban counties with fewer than 50,000 residents. Join us at 5 August 29th for our Annual ROUND-UP BBQ! • Round-Up Queen & Court • Happy Canyon Princesses • Main Street Cowboys • Side Saddlers • Good Food • Great Entertainment With VENUES INSIDE AND OUT.
