| EU Seeks to Halt U.S. Tariffs Over Airbus Aid in Last-Gasp Plea Posted: 13 Oct 2019 12:38 PM PDT  (Bloomberg) -- The European Union made a last-ditch appeal to the U.S. to refrain from triggering retaliatory tariffs over illegal subsidies to Airbus SE, warning of economic harm to both sides and repeating a call for a negotiated solution.European Trade Commissioner Cecilia Malmstrom told her U.S. counterpart, Robert Lighthizer, that his plan to hit $7.5 billion of EU goods ranging from planes to whiskey with duties would compel the EU to apply countermeasures in a parallel lawsuit over market-distorting aid to Boeing Co. U.S. levies would make a negotiated settlement harder to reach, she said."I strongly believe that imposing additional tariffs in two aircraft cases is not a solution," Malmstrom said in an Oct. 11 letter to Lighthizer seen by Bloomberg News. "It would only inflict damage on businesses and put at risk jobs on both sides of the Atlantic, harm global trade and the broader aviation industry at a sensitive time."The World Trade Organization is due to give final approval for U.S. retaliation in the Airbus case on Monday, allowing tariffs to kick in as planned on Friday.The trans-Atlantic dispute over aircraft aid risks fraying a trade truce struck between the U.S. and EU in July 2018. At the time, both sides pledged to try to scale back commercial barriers and avoid a repeat of tit-for-tat tariffs that began with President Donald Trump's duties on European steel and aluminum on U.S. national-security grounds.The WTO cases over subsidies to Airbus and Boeing are 15 years old. Because of the calendar, the U.S. is entitled to strike first and the EU would follow suit sometime in 2020.Malmstrom gave no sign in her letter to Lighthizer that an idea floated in some EU circles for quicker European retaliation is gaining ground. The idea weighed was to hit back by invoking an unrelated, older WTO case against a now-defunct U.S. tax break given to companies, including Boeing, via subsidiaries known as foreign sales corporations.Instead, Malmstrom said the EU's planned countermeasures of $12 billion would be applied "when the time comes on the parallel Boeing case."Aside from causing economic harm, hastier European retaliation could undermine the EU's claim to be working to uphold the WTO system that Trump's protectionism is shaking."We are ready to negotiate a settlement for both the Airbus and the Boeing case addressing remaining compliance obligations on both sides, putting these cases behind us," Malmstrom said.To contact the reporter on this story: Jonathan Stearns in Brussels at jstearns2@bloomberg.netTo contact the editors responsible for this story: Ben Sills at bsills@bloomberg.net, Tony Czuczka, Linus ChuaFor more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com©2019 Bloomberg L.P.
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| James Mattis says Trump's troop pullout has led to 'disarray' in Syria Posted: 12 Oct 2019 09:41 PM PDT  * Ex-defense secretary calls resurgence of Isis 'a given' * Withdrawal will 'have an impact' on Kurds' ability to fight IsisJames Mattis declined the opportunity to directly criticise his former boss, Donald Trump. Photograph: Leah Millis/ReutersThe former defense secretary James Mattis has said Donald Trump's abrupt withdrawal of US troops from the Syria-Turkey border has led to "disarray" in the war-torn territory, increasing the chances of a resurgence of Islamic State militants.But the retired general passed up an opportunity to directly criticise the president.Trump announced the withdrawal this week, taking supporters by surprise and prompting widespread accusations of a betrayal of Kurds allied to the US whom Turkey swiftly attacked.The president said it was time to end one of America's "endless wars" – a sentiment he repeated on Saturday – and fulfil a campaign promise by bringing troops home. He also announced that the Turkish president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, would visit the White House.On Saturday, airstrikes and shelling continued in Kurdish areas and harrowing scenes among panicked refugees were reported and broadcast worldwide.CNN reported that earlier this week Gen Mazloum Kobani Abdi, head of the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces, told a senior US diplomat: "You have given up on us. You are leaving us to be slaughtered."Also on Saturday, another SDF commander told a press conference: "The protection of Isis prisons will not remain our priority. The defence of our soil will be prioritised if [the] Turkish military continues its attacks."Mattis spoke to NBC's Meet the Press with Chuck Todd in an interview to be broadcast in full on Sunday."It's in a situation of disarray right now," he said in excerpts released by the broadcaster. "Obviously, the Kurds are adapting to the Turkish attacks. And we'll have to see if they're able to maintain the fight against Isis. It's going to have an impact. The question is, how much?"Asked if the US would regret Trump's decision, Mattis said: "We have got to keep the pressure on Isis so they don't recover."We may want a war over. We may even declare it over. You can pull your troops out as President Obama learned the hard way out of Iraq, but the 'enemy gets the vote', we say in the military. And in this case, if we don't keep the pressure on, then Isis will resurge. It's absolutely a given that they will come back."Trump said this week any Isis prisoners escaping from camps guarded by Kurds "will be escaping to Europe".He also said the Kurds "didn't help us in the second world war, they didn't help us in Normandy, for example".Mattis's apparent disinclination to directly criticise the president's words and behaviour over Syria – which many usually supportive Republicans in Congress have been perfectly happy to do – is in keeping with his approach since resigning in December 2018.The retired US Marine Corps general has said he has a "duty of silence" regarding the president he served. That commitment has held despite Mattis having resigned in response to an earlier attempt by Trump to pull US troops from Syria and in protest at his treatment of America's allies.In September, Mattis published a memoir, Call Sign Chaos. The book skirted his service in the Trump administration, focusing instead on his career in the US armed forces.
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| Caravan of 2,000 migrants head toward US from south Mexico Posted: 12 Oct 2019 03:47 PM PDT  Around 2,000 migrants set out in a caravan from southern Mexico Saturday in the hopes of reaching the United States amid pressure from Washington to impede migrant arrivals that has made obtaining permission to pass through Mexico increasingly difficult. Many of the migrants who departed from Tapachula, Chiapas early in the morning had been waylaid in the city just north of Guatemala for weeks or months, awaiting residency or transit papers from Mexican authorities. The migrants are originally from Central America, Africa and the Caribbean.
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