A6
NATION/WORLD
East Oregonian
Democrats, White House forge
new North American trade deal
Wednesday, December 11, 2019
BRIEFLY
U.S. to review
international
student vetting
in the Senate.
Pelosi was the key con-
gressional force behind the
deal, which updates the
25-year-old NAFTA accord
that many Democrats —
especially from manufactur-
ing areas hit hard by trade-re-
lated job losses — have long
lambasted.
She and Ways and Means
Committee Chairman Rich-
ard Neal, D-Mass., forged
a positive working relation-
ship with Lighthizer, whom
they credited with working in
good faith.
“Thanks to President
Trump’s leadership, we have
reached an historic agree-
ment on the USMCA. After
working with Republicans,
Democrats, and many other
stakeholders for the past two
years we have created a deal
that will benefi t American
workers, farmers, and ranch-
ers for years to come,” Ligh-
thizer said. “This will be the
model for American trade
deals going forward.”
WASHINGTON
—
The Pentagon on Tuesday
ordered a broad review
of vetting procedures for
international
students
who participate in train-
ing on U.S. military instal-
lations and demanded the
process be strengthened,
in direct reaction to last
week’s deadly shooting at
a Pensacola Navy base by
a Saudi aviation student.
The memo signed by
Deputy Defense Secre-
tary David Norquist also
suspends fl ight and other
operational training for
all Saudi Arabian stu-
dents in U.S. military pro-
grams. It follows a deci-
sion by the U.S. Navy to
halt fl ight training for
more than 300 Saudi Ara-
bian students at the Pen-
sacola Naval Air Station
and two other bases in
Florida.
The FBI confi rmed
Tuesday that the 21-year-
old Saudi Air Force offi -
cer who killed three U.S.
sailors and injured eight
other people at the Pen-
sacola base on Friday
legally bought the 9mm
Glock pistol he used.
Investigators are dig-
ging into whether 2nd Lt.
Mohammed Alshamrani
acted alone, amid reports
he hosted a party earlier
last week where he and
others watched videos of
mass shootings.
The incident has raised
questions about how well
international military stu-
dents are screened before
they attend training at
American bases.
Norquist’s memo says
the review of the vet-
ting must be completed
in 10 days, and the fl ight
restrictions will continue
throughout the review
and until they are lifted
by senior leaders.
Afghanistan’s Karzai: U.S. cash fed corruption
6 killed in N.J. gun
battle, including
police offi cer
By ANDREW TAYLOR
Associated Press
WASHINGTON
—
House Democrats and the
White House announced a
deal Tuesday on a modifi ed
North American trade pact,
handing President Donald
Trump a major Capitol Hill
win on the same day that
impeachment charges were
announced against him. Both
sides hailed the deal as a win
for American workers.
They said the revamped
U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agree-
ment was a signifi cant
improvement over the orig-
inal North American Free
Trade Agreement, with Dem-
ocrats crowing about win-
ning stronger provisions on
enforcing the agreement
while Republicans said it will
help keep the economy hum-
ming along.
“There is no question of
course that this trade agree-
ment is much better than
NAFTA,” House Speaker
Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., said
in announcing the agree-
ment, saying the pact is
“infi nitely better than what
was initially proposed by the
administration.”
Trump said the revamped
trade pact will “be great” for
the United States.
“It will be the best and
most important trade deal
ever made by the USA. Good
for everybody — Farm-
ers, Manufacturers, Energy,
Unions — tremendous sup-
port. Importantly, we will
fi nally end our Country’s
worst Trade Deal, NAFTA!,”
the president said in a tweet.
The deal announcement
came on the same morn-
ing that Democrats outlined
impeachment charges against
Trump. The trade pact is
Trump’s top Capitol Hill pri-
ority along with funding for
his long-sought border fence.
Trump said it was no
coincidence that Democrats
By KATHY GANNON
Associated Press
KABUL,
Afghani-
stan — Afghanistan’s for-
mer president argued Tues-
day that Washington helped
fuel corruption in his nation
by spending hundreds of
millions of dollars over the
past two decades without
accountability.
In an interview with The
Associated Press, Hamid
Karzai responded to fi ndings
from a trove of newly pub-
lished documents that succes-
sive U.S. administrations mis-
led the public about the war in
Afghanistan.
Karzai said the documents,
obtained by The Washington
Post, confi rm his long-run-
ning complaints about U.S.
spending.
The documents also
describe Karzai, Afghani-
stan’s president for 14 years,
as having headed a govern-
ment that “self-organized
AP Photo/Marco Ugarte
Mexico’s Treasury Secretary Arturo Herrera, left, Deputy Prime Minister of Canada Chrystia
Freeland, second left, Mexico’s President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, center, Mexico’s
top trade negotiator Jesus Seade, second right, and U.S. Trade Representative Robert Ligh-
thizer, hold the documents after signing an update to the North American Free Trade Agree-
ment, at the national palace in Mexico City on Tuesday.
announced they had come
to an agreement shortly after
laying out the two impeach-
ment charges they will seek
against him.
“They were very embar-
rassed by (impeachment),
and that’s why they brought
up USMCA an hour after
because they fi gure it will
muffl e it a little bit,” Trump
told reporters at the White
House
before
depart-
ing for a campaign rally in
Pennsylvania.
In Mexico City, Trump’s
son-in-law
and
senior
adviser, Jared Kushner, U.S.
Trade Representative Rob-
ert Lighthizer and Cana-
dian Deputy Prime Minis-
ter Chrystia Freeland joined
Mexican offi cials to sign the
updated version of the United
States-Mexico-Canada trade
agreement, or USMCA,
at a ceremony in Mexico
City’s centuries-old National
Palace.
Mexican Foreign Min-
ister Marcelo Ebrard con-
into a kleptocracy.” Karzai
has denied wrong-doing but
hasn’t denied involvement of
offi cials in his government in
corruption.
K a r -
zai became
Afghani-
stan’s presi-
dent after a
2001 U.S.-
led
inva-
sion ousted
Karzai
the Taliban
government. Thousands of
pages of documents recently
obtained by the Post por-
tray U.S. governments lying
about successes and hiding
failures. After 18 years and
over $1 trillion dollars in U.S.
taxpayer money spent on the
war, the Taliban is now at its
strongest and controls or holds
sway over half the country.
Karzai said the U.S. spent
hundreds of millions of dol-
lars in its war on terror, with
the money fl owing to con-
tractors and private security
gratulated the negotiators
for reaching a second set of
agreements to answer U.S.
concerns about labor rights in
Mexico, and regional content.
“Mission accomplished!”
Ebrard told the gathered
offi cials.
Lighthizer praised the
joint work of the Trump
administration, Democrats,
business and labor leaders
to reach an agreement, call-
ing it “nothing short of a mir-
acle that we have all come
together.”
“This is a win-win-win
agreement which will pro-
vide stability for working
people in all three countries
for years to come,” Freeland
said. “That is no small thing.”
A U.S. House vote is likely
before Congress adjourns
for the year and the Senate
is likely to vote in January
or February. Senate Major-
ity Leader Mitch McCon-
nell said the vote on the trade
deal will likely occur after an
expected impeachment trial
fi rms, and that this fostered
corruption.
“What could we do? It
was U.S. money coming here
and used by them and used
for means that did not help
Afghanistan,” Karzai said.
He argued that there was
no accountability.
“I’m glad this report is out,
and I hope this becomes an
eye-opener to the American
people and that the U.S. gov-
ernment begins to change its
attitude now toward Afghan-
istan,” he said.
Michael Kugelman, dep-
uty director of the Asia Pro-
gram at the U.S. based Wil-
son Center has said, “I’m not
sure I’d go so far as to say
that the U.S. used corrup-
tion as a tool, but it has long
been suspected — and these
new documents make quite
clear — that U.S. offi cials
have thrown huge amounts of
money at Afghanistan know-
ing full well that this would
lead to more corruption than
development or peace.”
The Pentagon said Mon-
day there had been “no intent”
to mislead Congress or the
public, and that the Defense
Department gave regular
updates to lawmakers on U.S.
challenges in Afghanistan.
Meanwhile, the Trump
administration has been try-
ing to broker a peace deal that
would pave the way for a pull-
out of U.S. forces.
U.S. peace envoy Zalmay
Khalilzad on Saturday held
the fi rst offi cial talks with
Afghanistan’s Taliban since
previous seemingly success-
ful efforts ran aground in
September.
The talks will initially
focus on getting a Taliban
promise to reduce violence,
with a permanent cease-fi re
being the eventual goal, said
a U.S. statement. Khalilzad is
also trying to lay the ground-
work for negotiations between
Afghans on both sides of the
protracted confl ict.
Bloomberg to U.N. on climate: You can count on the U.S.
By FRANK JORDANS
AND ARITZ PARRA
Associated Press
MADRID
—
New
York billionaire and presi-
dential candidate Michael
Bloomberg led a high-pow-
ered charge against President
Donald Trump’s climate pol-
icies Tuesday, assuring activ-
ists, scientists and politicians
from around the world that
Americans are committed
to reducing greenhouse gas
emissions “even with a cli-
mate change denier in the
White House.”
Bloomberg, who launched
his 2020 campaign less than
three weeks ago, spoke
during a trip to the U.N.
global climate conference in
Madrid, even as the offi cial
U.S. delegation at a booth
nearby kept a low profi le.
Together with former
Secretary of State John
Kerry and former Vice Pres-
ident Al Gore, Bloomberg
constituted a sort of shadow
delegation at a time when
Trump is moving to pull the
United States out of the 2015
Paris climate
accord.
As other
Democratic
ca ndid ates
have done,
Bloomberg
vowed
to
Bloomberg
immediately
rejoin the pact if elected
president.
“The fi rst thing you do,
Day One, is you say we’re
going back in,” he said.
“That’s a no-brainer.”
The former New York
mayor has helped support
and fund a private push to
get U.S. states, cities and
businesses to abide by the
terms of the Paris accord.
He touted a report that
said non-federal actors repre-
senting more than two-thirds
of the U.S. economy are on
course to cut the nation’s
emissions 37% by 2030 com-
pared with 2005 levels. If the
next administration joins in,
that fi gure could rise to 49%,
bringing the U.S. roughly
in line with the Paris treaty,
according to the report.
“Americans are willing
to continue to work, even
with a climate change denier
in the White House,” the
77-year-old businessman told
a packed room.
The U.S. remains a party
to the climate pact until Nov.
4, 2020 — the day after the
U.S. presidential election.
Bloomberg, who has
made climate change a cen-
tral pillar of his bid for the
nomination, also called for
an end to U.S. subsidies and
tax breaks for fossil fuels,
which are one of the main
sources of greenhouse gases.
Scientists say their use
needs to end by the mid-
dle of the century if average
temperatures on Earth are to
rise no more than 1.5 degrees
Celsius by 2100, the target
set in the Paris agreement.
By taking aim at fossil
fuel subsidies, Bloomberg is
challenging both a power-
ful American industry and
Trump, who has championed
the extraction of oil, gas and
coal.
According to a report by
the International Monetary
Fund, fossil fuel subsidies in
the U.S. amounted to $649
billion in 2015. Only China
spent more tax money —
$1.4 trillion — to keep fossil
fuel prices low that year.
The IMF report calcu-
lated that if prices for fos-
sil fuels refl ected their true
cost, including the environ-
mental damage they cause,
consumption would drop
so much that global car-
bon emissions would be
28% lower.
JERSEY CITY, N.J.
— Six people, including
a police offi cer and three
bystanders, were killed in
a furious gun battle Tues-
day that fi lled the streets
of Jersey City with the
sound of heavy fi re for
hours, authorities said.
The dead included the
two gunmen, Jersey City
Police Chief Michael
Kelly said.
The slain offi cer, Det.
Joseph Seals, 40, was
credited by his superi-
ors with having led the
department in the number
of illegal guns removed
from the streets in recent
years, and might have
been trying to stop an
incident involving such
weapons when he was
cut down by gunfi re that
erupted near a cemetery,
authorities said.
The shooting then con-
tinued at a kosher super-
market about a mile away,
where fi ve more bodies
were found, Kelly said.
“It’s a really tough day
for the city of Jersey City,”
Mayor Steven Fulop said.
Seals “was one of the best
offi cers for getting the
most guns off the streets.
He was a good cop.”
Two other offi cers were
wounded but were later
released from the hospi-
tal, authorities said.
Brazil’s Bolsonaro
calls activist Greta
Thunberg a ‘brat’
RIO DE JANEIRO —
Brazil’s President Jair Bol-
sonaro on Tuesday called
young Swedish envi-
ronmental activist Greta
Thunberg a “brat” after she
expressed concern about
the slayings of indigenous
Brazilians in the Amazon.
Bolsonaro questioned
the coverage news media
have given Thunberg, 16,
who on Sunday tweeted
a link to a story about the
murder of two indigenous
people in Brazil’s Maran-
hao state.
“Greta said that the Indi-
ans died because they were
defending the Amazon,”
Bolsonaro told a group of
journalists. “It’s impres-
sive that the press is giving
space to a brat like that,”
he added, using the Portu-
guese word ”pirralha.”
Following
Bolsona-
ro’s comments, Thun-
berg changed the bio on
her Twitter profi le to say
“Pirralha.”
Thunberg became a
symbol for youth demand-
ing radical change to con-
front climate change when
she sparked global school
strikes.
Nobel winner Abiy:
‘hell’ of war fueled
desire for peace
STOCKHOLM
—
The winner of this year’s
Nobel Peace Prize says
his horrifying experi-
ences as a young Ethio-
pian soldier informed his
determination to seek the
end of a long confl ict with
a neighboring country.
Ethiopian Prime Min-
ister Abiy Ahmed spoke
at Oslo City Hall during
the ceremony in Nor-
way’s capital where he
received his Nobel on
Tuesday, saying: “War is
the epitome of hell for all
involved. I know because
I was there and back.”
Abiy won the prize, in
part, for making peace
with Eritrea after one of
Africa’s longest-running
confl icts. Abiy served in
the army during the war.
“Twenty years ago,
I was a radio opera-
tor attached to an Ethio-
pian army unit in the bor-
der town of Badame,” he
recalled. “I briefl y left
the foxhole in the hopes
of getting a good antenna
reception. ... It only took
but a few minutes. Yet
upon my return I was
horrifi ed to discover that
my entire unit had been
wiped out in an artillery
attack.”
— Associated Press
n
i
W
o
t
r
e
t
En
0!
0
0
3
$
Newspaper Sponsored Local Shopping Survey
No Purchase Necessary
ENTER TO WIN NOW!
ww
m
o
c
.
l
l
o
eP
s
l
u
P
.
w