US policy shifts on Syria, Yemen, Iran
United States President Donald Trump visited the Middle East, which saw a shift in US policy on Yemen, Iran, and Syria.
Duss tells host Steve Clemons that the Democratic Party would be wise to learn from Trump's foreign policy. 'The Democrats have completely left the antiwar, pro-diplomacy, pro-peace lane open for Donald Trump to fill,' he says.
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Qatar Tribune
3 hours ago
- Qatar Tribune
UN conference reaffirms fight against poverty
MadridcTypeface:> The global community has agreed on intensified efforts in combating poverty, in open contradiction to the position of US President Donald Trump. The US government is sceptical of multilateral cooperation and the UN's sustainable development goals. Consequently, the United States did not endorse the 'Seville Commitment,' which was adopted by 192 countries at the 4th International Conference on Financing for Development in the southern Spanish metropolis on Thursday. After the start of his second term, Trump had US aid cut by around 80%, which accounts for about a quarter of all global development aid. According to estimates by the United Nations, the funding gap has now grown to at least $4 trillion annually. This gap was not nearly closed at the conference in Seville, but according to financial expert Bodo Ellmers from the non-governmental organization Global Policy Forum Europe, this was not the primary goal. Instead, he said that structural reforms in areas such as tax cooperation, debt crisis management, or reform of international financial institutions should be agreed upon. Currently, 3.4 billion people live in countries that have to spend more on interest payments than what remains for education and health. This reform project was 'only moderately successful' in Seville, Ellmers criticized, saying there are hardly any concrete measures or specific quantitative or time targets included. Whether the funding gap will continue to grow depends on the concrete implementation of the agreements. German Development Minister Reem Alabali-Radovan nevertheless praised the agreement as a 'powerful boost for a fairer world.' 'Despite the difficult global situation, conflicts, and nationalist tendencies, almost all states are pulling together here,' she stressed. (DPA)
Qatar Tribune
3 hours ago
- Qatar Tribune
Vietnam strikes US tariff deal, but risks Beijing backlash
Agencies Vietnam's newly announced trade deal with the U.S. averts the most punishing of President Donald Trump's 'reciprocal' levies, but analysts warned it could lead to a fresh standoff between Washington and Beijing. The Southeast Asian nation has the third-biggest trade surplus with the U.S. of any country after China and Mexico, and was targeted with one of the highest rates in the U.S. president's 'Liberation Day' tariff blitz on April 2. The deal announced Wednesday is the first full pact Trump has sealed with an Asian nation, and analysts say it may give a glimpse of the template Washington will use with other countries still scrambling for accords. The 46% tariff rate, which was due to take effect next week, has been averted, with Vietnam set to face a minimum 20% levy in return for opening its market to U.S. products, including cars. But a 40% tariff will hit goods passing through the country to circumvent steeper trade barriers – a practice called 'transshipping.' Washington has accused Hanoi of relabeling Chinese goods to skirt its tariffs, but raw materials from the world's number two economy are the lifeblood of Vietnam's manufacturing industries. 'From a global perspective, perhaps the most interesting point is that this deal again seems in large part to be about China,' said Capital Economics. It said the terms on transshipment 'will be seen as a provocation in Beijing, particularly if similar conditions are included in any other deals agreed over the coming days.' Shares in clothing companies and sports equipment manufacturers – which have a large footprint in Vietnam – rose on news of the deal in New York. But they later declined sharply as details were released. 'This is a much better outcome than a flat 46% tariff, but I wouldn't celebrate just yet,' said Hanoi-based Dan Martin of Asian business advisory firm Dezan Shira & Associates. 'Everything now depends on how the U.S. decides to interpret and enforce the idea of transshipment,' he added. 'If the U.S. takes a broader view and starts questioning products that use foreign parts, even when value is genuinely added in Vietnam, it could end up affecting a lot of companies that are playing by the rules.' Vietnam's government said in a statement late on Wednesday that under the deal, the country had promised 'preferential market access for U.S. goods, including large-engine cars.' But the statement gave scant detail about the transshipment arrangements in the deal, which Trump announced on his Truth Social platform. Bloomberg Economics forecast Vietnam could lose a quarter of its exports to the U.S. in the medium term, endangering more than 2% of its gross domestic product (GDP) as a result of the agreement. Uncertainty over how transshipping will be 'defined or enforced' is likely to have diplomatic repercussions, said Bloomberg Economics expert Rana Sajedi. 'The looming question now is how China will respond,' she said. 'Beijing has made clear that it would respond to deals that came at the expense of Chinese interests.' And on Thursday, China warned against trade deals that 'hurt third parties.' 'China has always advocated that all parties resolve economic and trade differences through equal dialogue and consultation,' Foreign Ministry spokesperson Mao Ning said. 'At the same time, relevant negotiations and agreements should not target or harm the interests of third parties,' she said. The U.S. deal with Vietnam comes less than a week before Trump's self-imposed July 9 deadline for steeper tariffs on U.S. trade partners to take effect if agreements are not reached. Trump's trade adviser Peter Navarro has called Vietnam a 'colony of China,' saying that one-third of Vietnamese products are, in fact, relabeled Chinese goods. Beijing's commerce ministry said on Thursday it had 'always firmly opposed' U.S. tariffs. 'China's position is consistent,' He Yongqian, spokesperson for China's Ministry of Commerce, told a briefing. 'We are happy to see all parties resolve economic and trade differences with the United States through equal consultations, but we firmly oppose any party reaching a deal at the expense of China's interests,' she said.
Al Jazeera
4 hours ago
- Al Jazeera
Trump's ‘One Big Beautiful Bill' passes the US House of Representatives
After nearly 29 hours of debate, the United States House of Representatives have passed the 'One Big Beautiful Bill', an enormous tax cut and spending package that represents a pillar of President Donald Trump's agenda. The lower house of the US Congress voted by a margin of 218 to 214 in favour of the bill on Thursday. All 212 Democratic members of the House opposed the bill. They were joined by Representatives Thomas Massie of Kentucky and Brian Fitzpatrick of Pennsylvania, who broke from the Republican majority. After the bill's passage, Speaker of the House Mike Johnson, the top Republican, applauded his fellow party members. 'I believed in this vision. I believed in the group. I believe in America,' Johnson said to applause. The bill now heads to the White House for Trump to sign it into law. The Republican president had called on his fellow party members to pass the legislation before July 4, the country's Independence Day. As a result of the new legislation, the US will lift its debt ceiling — the amount the federal government is allowed to borrow — by $5 trillion. The bill also pours tens of billions of dollars into immigration enforcement, one of Trump's top priorities, and it will also cement the 2017 tax cuts that Trump championed during his first term as president. To pay for those expenditures, the bill scales back social initiatives like Medicaid — government health insurance for low-income households — and the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), otherwise known as food stamps. The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office has estimated that the bill will increase the number of people without health insurance by 17 million over the next 10 years. It also projected that the country's deficit — the amount of money the US owes — would climb by about $3.3 trillion over the same period. Democratic lawmakers had slammed the bill as a massive redistribution of wealth from the poor to the rich, noting that the tax cuts will mainly benefit the wealthiest earners. Republican supporters like Trump have countered that the bill will fuel growth and cut waste and fraud in programmes like Medicaid. Yet, not all conservatives initially backed the 'One Big Beautiful Bill' as it wound its way through the chambers of Congress. There were several Republican holdouts who feared how the Medicaid cuts would impact low-income and rural communities, and some fiscal conservatives objected to the increase in the national debt. 'FOR REPUBLICANS, THIS SHOULD BE AN EASY YES VOTE,' Trump said in a social media post on Wednesday night. 'RIDICULOUS!!!' Even Trump's erstwhile ally, billionaire Elon Musk, has publicly opposed the bill over provisions he described as 'pork'. A record-breaking speech In the lead-up to Thursday's vote, Democrats attempted to stall, with the stated aim of allowing voters more time to contact their local representatives in protest. The face of that effort was Democratic Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, who exercised a privilege known as the 'magic minute' that allows party leaders to speak as long as they want from the House floor. Jeffries stretched that privilege into an hours-long appeal to Republicans to stand up against what he described as Trump's harmful policies. He started at around 4:53am local time (8:53 GMT) and ended past 1:39pm (17:39 GMT). It was the longest speech ever delivered on the House floor, approximately eight hours and 44 minutes. 'I'm here to take my sweet time on behalf of the American people,' Jeffries told the House, his voice wavering at points during the speech. He directed his remarks to the speaker of the House, a leadership role normally occupied by Johnson. 'Donald Trump's deadline may be Independence Day. That ain't my deadline,' Jeffries said. 'You know why, Mr Speaker? We don't work for Donald Trump. We work for the American people.' Jeffries warned that the 'One Big Beautiful Bill', which he dubbed the 'One Big Ugly Bill', 'hurts everyday Americans and rewards billionaires with massive tax breaks'. The legislation, he added, was simply reckless. He called his colleagues across the aisle to 'show John McCain-level courage', dropping a reference to the late Republican senator from Arizona, known for standing up to Trump on the question of healthcare. McCain has often been cited as a symbol of bipartisanship in Congress, and Jeffries urged his Republican colleagues to reach across the aisle. 'We acknowledged the election of President Donald Trump, offered to work with our colleagues on the other side of the aisle whenever and wherever possible in order to make life better for the American people,' Jeffries said. 'But the route, Mr Speaker, that has been taken by House Republicans is to go it alone and to try to jam this One Big Ugly Bill — filled with extreme right-wing policy priorities — down the throats of the American people.' In a poll last week from Quinnipiac University, for example, just 29 percent of respondents indicated they were in favour of the legislation, while 55 percent were against it. Jeffries later added, 'We're not here to bend the knee to any wannabe king,' comparing resistance to Trump to the US's revolutionary war era. When he finally said he would yield back the floor, Democrats exploded into applause, chanting his name: 'Hakeem! Hakeem! Hakeem!' Republicans rally in final stretch In order to reach Thursday's vote, the House had remained in session overnight, as part of a marathon session. But in the minutes before the dramatic vote took place, Speaker Johnson himself briefly spoke to the House, rallying Republicans to show a unified front. He also took a jab at Jeffries's record-breaking speech, 'It takes a lot longer to build a lie than to tell the simple truth.' 'We've waited long enough. Some of us have literally been up for days now,' Johnson continued. 'With this One Big Beautiful Bill, we are going to make this country stronger, safer and more prosperous than ever before, and every American is going to benefit from that.' He added that the 'One Big Beautiful Bill' would make programmes like Medicaid 'stronger with our reforms'. Still, at the final hurdle, two Republicans did break away from their party caucus to vote against the 'One Big Beautiful Bill'. One of the nay-votes, Representative Fitzpatrick of Pennsylvania, released a statement saying he had previously voted to 'strengthen Medicaid'. The Senate version of the 'One Big Beautiful Bill', he argued, did the opposite. 'The original House language was written in a way that protected our community; the Senate amendments fell short of our standard,' Fitzpatrick wrote. 'I believe in, and will always fight for, policies that are thoughtful, compassionate, and good for our community.' Massie, meanwhile, had been a consistent holdout from the start. His sticking point, he said on social media, was the increase to the national debt. 'I voted No on final passage because it will significantly increase U.S. budget deficits in the near term, negatively impacting all Americans through sustained inflation and high interest rates,' he wrote. A months-long process It has been a long road for Republicans to reach Thursday's vote, stretching back months. The House first passed the 'One Big Beautiful Bill' on May 22, in another overnight vote. In that May vote, the legislation passed by the narrowest of margins, with 215 voting in favour and 214 against. Representatives Massie and Warren Davidson of Ohio joined a unified Democratic front in voting against the bill at that time, and Maryland's Andy Harris voted 'present'. Two more Republicans missed the vote entirely. That propelled the bill to the Senate, where it faced another uphill battle. The 100-seat chamber has 53 Republicans and 47 Democrats and left-leaning independents. To avoid facing a Democratic filibuster, Republicans subjected the 'One Big Beautiful Bill' to the Byrd Rule, which allows legislation to pass with a simple majority. But in order to comply with the Byrd Rule, Republicans had to strike provisions that had little to no budget impact or increased the deficit outside of a 10-year window. Still, the revised Senate version of the bill faced a nail-biter of a vote. On July 1, after another all-nighter, the vote was 50 to 50, with three Republicans siding with the Democrats. Vice President JD Vance cast the tie-breaker to advance the bill. Democrats did, however, notch a small symbolic victory, with Senator Chuck Schumer knocking the name 'One Big Beautiful Bill' off the final piece of legislation. It was the Senate's version of the bill that the House voted on Thursday. At least one Republican senator, Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, has expressed distaste for the legislation since voting for its passage. 'It is the people of Alaska that I worry about the most, especially when it comes to the potential loss of social safety net programs — Medicaid coverage and SNAP benefits — that our most vulnerable populations rely on,' she wrote in a statement earlier this week. 'Let's not kid ourselves. This has been an awful process — a frantic rush to meet an artificial deadline that has tested every limit of this institution.' The bill is expected to be signed into law on July 4 at 5pm US Eastern time (21:00 GMT) at a White House ceremony.
