USA: Will Trump declare a national emergency ?

Will Trump declare a National Emergency and turn America in a "Democratic Dictatorship"

Read more at:

https://www.lawfareblog.com/can-president-trump-fund-wall-declaring-national-emergency

USA: European and many other countries around the world now giving the middle finger to the US

Read more at:
https://www.politico.eu/article/french-paper-gives-trump-the-middle-finge

The Global Order: Trump aims for the total destruction of the established order, including all alliance partnerships the US ever entered into - by Stephan Richter

Trump: The Most Disruptive Global Start-Up Ever By Stephan Richter Trump aims for the total destruction of the established order, including all alliance partnerships the United States ever entered into. Trump aims for the total destruction of the established order, including all alliance partnerships the United States ever entered into. The post Trump: The Most Disruptive Global Start-Up Ever appeared first on The Globalist

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For the complete report click here;

https://www.theglobalist.com/donald-trump-global-order-china-startup-disruption/#noredi

Mexico: US border authorities block Central American migrant caravan

US officials have told would-be asylum seekers at the Mexican border that the crossing is too full to process their cases. The migrants have already drawn the wrath of US President Trump during their trek through Mexico.

More than a hundred migrants from Central American countries have camped out at the US-Mexican border after being told by US border inspectors on Sunday that a crossing facility had no capacity for them

It was not immediately clear whether the migrants, who have traveled 3,200 kilometers (2,000 miles) through Mexico to the border at Tijuana, would be turned back or allowed in later.

"We have reached capacity at the San Ysidro port of entry," US Customs and Border Patrol (CBP) Commissioner Kevin McAleenan said in a statement. He added that the asylum seekers might need to wait temporarily in Mexico.

Organizers of the caravan expressed surprise that border inspectors were not ready to receive the group.

"They have been well aware that a caravan is going to arrive at the border," Nicole Ramos, a lawyer working on behalf of caravan members, told a news conference. "We can build a base in Iraq in under a week. We can't process 200 refugees. I don't believe it."

Read more: US border authorities block Central American migrant caravan | News | DW | 30.04.2018

EU-Mexico Trade Relations: Mexico aims for EU free-trade deal by end of February - by Philip Blenkinsop

Mexico reducing its reliance on US

\Mexico believes it can conclude a new free-trade agreement with the European Union before the end of February, a Mexican official close to the talks said on Wednesday.

The EU and Mexico intend to update a trade deal agreed 21 years ago that largely covers industrial goods. They want to add farm products, more services, investment and government procurement, and include provisions on labor standards and environmental protection. 

Mexican negotiators are in Brussels this week, with the two sides due to reconvene next week in Mexico. 

The Mexican official said EU Trade Commissioner Cecilia Malmstrom could come in the week starting Feb. 19 to help push talks to a close and to allow an initial deal to be announced, though only if a deal was within reach. 

For Mexico, a deal with the EU would be part of a strategy to reduce its reliance on the United States, the destination of nearly 80 percent of its exports. That has become more urgent, given U.S. President Donald Trump’s threat to scrap the North American Free Trade Agreement. 

Mexico is one of 11 countries expected to sign an Asia-Pacific trade pact in March after the United States pulled out of an earlier version.

Read more: Mexico aims for EU free-trade deal by end of February

Christianity under threat: ‘Worst Year Yet’: The Top 50 Countries Where It’s Hardest to Be a Christian: by Sarah Eekhoff Zylstra

For decades, North Korea has clearly been the world’s worst persecutor of Christians. But now, another nation nearly matches it.

Open Doors recently released its 2018 World Watch List (WWL), an annual ranking of the 50 countries where it is most dangerous to follow Jesus. Approximately 215 million Christians now experience high, very high, or extreme levels of persecution; that means 1 in 12 Christians live where Christianity is “illegal, forbidden, or punished,” according to Open Doors researchers.

Kim Jung-un’s country hasn’t moved from the No. 1 spot on the list for 16 years in a row. “With more than 50,000 in prison or labor camps, such a ranking is little surprise for the totalitarian regime that controls every aspect of life in the country and forces worship of the Kim family,” Open Doors reported.

But rivaling it this year is Afghanistan, which ranked No. 2 by less than a point. North Korea’s total score was 94 (on a 100-point scale), pushed above Afghanistan’s 93 by a 0.6 difference in their 

Open Doors recently released its latest World Watch List (WWL). The annual list ranks the top 50 countries "where Christians face the most persecution," aiming to create "effective anger" on believers' behalf.

“This year, the threshold was higher for a country to make the list, indicating that worldwide levels of persecution have increased,” stated Open Doors in announcing its analysis of the "significant trends" in 2014 that drove persecution higher worldwide, "even in places where it has not been reported in the past."

So while countries such as Sri Lanka and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) fell significantly in rank on this year's watch list (Sri Lanka dropped 15 spots to No. 44, and the UAE dropped 14 spots to No. 49), their level of persecution dropped only slightly from last year's list (by four points and two points, respectively, on a 100-point scale). 

Bahrain, Morocco, and Niger—were removed from the list this year, the level of persecution in each remained virtually the same from 2013 to 2014.

Overall in 2014, pressure on Christians increased in 29 countries, decreased in 11, and remained stable in 7. Three countries—Mexico, Turkey, and Azerbaijan—were added to the watch list this year. 

To get the complete report click go to: https://www.opendoorsusa.org/2018-world-watch-list-report/

Read more: ‘Worst Year Yet’: The Top 50 Countries Where It’s Hardest to Be a Christian | News & Reporting | Christianity Today

Mexico-US Relations: Mexican president cancels meeting with Trump (after being insulted) - by David Jackson

President Trump's proposed wall along the U.S.-Mexico drove a diplomatic divide between the two countries Thursday, as Mexican counterpart Enrique Peña Nieto canceled a scheduled meeting with the new American president.

Trump, speaking to a congressional Republican retreat in Philadelphia, said he and Peña Nieto "agreed" to the cancellation; the president said he has made it clear to Mexico that it will finance the proposed wall and that the U.S. will seek changes to trade agreement with its southern neighbor.

“Unless Mexico is going to treat the United States fairly, with respect, such a meeting would be fruitless and I want to go a different route," Trump said. "We have no choice.”

Read more: Mexican president cancels meeting with Trump

TTIP: U.S. Trade Policy: Populist Anger or Out-of-Touch Elites? - by Jeff Faux,

Nobody wants it except the
Corporate and Government elites

The presidential primary campaigns of both political parties have exposed widespread voter anger over U.S. global trade policies. In response, hardly a day has recently gone by without the New York Times, the Washington Post and other defenders of the status quo lecturing their readers on why unregulated foreign trade is good for them.

The ultimate conclusion is always the same – that voters should leave complicated issues like this to those intellectually better qualified to deal with them. So much for democracy.

Trade experts, according to Binyamin Appelbaum of the Times have been “surprised” at the popular discontent over this issue. Their surprise only shows how disconnected the elite and the policy class that supports it is from the way most people actually experience the national economy.

The United States has always been a trading nation. But until the 1994 North American Trade Agreement, trade policy was primarily an instrument to support domestic economic welfare and development.

Starting with NAFTA, pushed through not by a Republican president, but by the Bill Clinton in 1994, it became a series of deals in which profit opportunities for American investors were opened up elsewhere in the world in exchange for opening up U.S. labor markets to fierce foreign competition.

As Jorge Castañeda, who later became Mexico’s foreign minister, put it, NAFTA was “an agreement for the rich and powerful in the United States, Mexico and Canada, an agreement effectively excluding ordinary people in all three societies.”

For 20 years, leaders of both parties have assured Americans that each new NAFTA-style deal would bring more jobs and higher wages for workers, and trade surpluses for their country. It was, they were told, an iron law of economics.

What actually followed were outsourced jobs, wage declines, shrunken opportunities and rising trade deficits. The result has been a dramatic weakening of the bargaining power of American workers.

So it should come as no surprise when the large parts of the U.S. workforce now conclude that these trade deals may have had something to do with the redistribution of income from their pockets to the bank accounts of the top 1% who own and manage large multinational corporations.

Read more: U.S. Trade Policy: Populist Anger or Out-of-Touch Elites? - The Globalist

Soccer World Cup: Netherlands beat Mexico 2-1 to qualify for quarters

Netherlands qualified for the quarter-finals defeating Mexico 2-1 when Klaas-Jan Huntelaar made the decisive goal on a penalty kick in extra time here on Sunday. Earlier, the first half ended goalless but just after the second half began Mexico made a breakthrough when Giovani dos Santos netted a goal in the 48th minute.

However, Wesley Sneijder leveled the score 1-1 just two minutes before the end and The Netherlands emerged victorious in the fourth minute during an extra time.

The Netherlands is the third team to reach the quarter-finals after Brazil and Columbia.

Read more: Netherlands beat Mexico 2-1 to qualify for quarters - thenews.com.pk

Mexico - NAFTA: The "Three Caballeros" meet In Mexico: "Poor Results, No Deals and Many Promisses"

NAFTA Showtime: Stephen Harper, Enrique Peña Nieto, and Barrack Obama

The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation noted: "Jean Chretien famously pronounced his last G8 summit as prime minister a success. When asked why, he replied, "Because it could have been a disaster.'
'
That same logic could be applied to this past weeks meeting of the three North American leaders in Toluca, Mexico.

Even though the" three Caballeros" called NAFTA a great success - looking at the results - tells another story. .

The Financial Times wrote about NAFTA: "Treally wenty years into Nafta, Mexico has too many criminals and not enough policemen; too many workers earning low wages and not enough skilled jobs; too many false dawns and not enough economic growth.

NAFTA really is a big economic failure. From 1994 through 2003, the Mexican economy has grown by only 11 percent per person. This is less than one-fourth the rate of growth that Mexico experienced in the 1960s and 1970s. This is the relevant economic comparison for anyone who wants to evaluate Mexico's experience with NAFTA.

Of course, the reforms embodied in NAFTA did not begin in 1994 - they started in the early 1980s. But if we take the longer view, it looks even worse: From 1980 to the present, income per person in Mexico has grown by about 19 percent. This compares to 93 percent for the 1960-1979 (somewhat shorter) period. In other words, there is no economic evidence that the NAFTA model is a success at least not for the tax paying public.

U.S. economic winners and losers under NAFTA vary with company size, type of industry or sector, and geographical location. Sectors affected positively include planes, trains and automobiles, large agri-businesses, appliance makers and energy corporations. Clearly, large multi-national companies with investment capacities, world-market savvy and capital resources have benefited from protected investment and cheap labor. These companies enhanced management performance-based compensation while putting downward pressure on production-worker wages and benefits, collective bargaining clout and available jobs, especially in manufacturing. Many view their actions as a major contributor to compensation inequality.

According to one estimate, workers in Canada and Mexico have displaced 829,280 U.S. jobs, mostly high-wage positions in manufacturing. The heaviest U.S. manufacturing-job losses were in states such as Ohio, Michigan, Pennsylvania, New York, North Carolina, Texas, Connecticut, New Jersey, California, Indiana and Florida. 

Canada has so far experienced significant benefit from:

• U.S. investment in automotive production,
• Increases in oil exports to the U.S. and the rest of the world,
• Increases in shipment of beef, agricultural, wood and paper products to the U.S.
• Export of mineral and mining products, which have fared well in U.S. markets.

Canada has, however, also experienced some losses in narrow sectors such as specialty steel production and processed foods due to U.S. imports.

Overall the conclusion is that NAFTA has not lived up to the high expectations of its proponents. It has made many U.S. companies and investors rich - and their managements even richer. But it has also cost many U.S. manufacturing workers their livelihoods while failing to raise living standards for most Mexicans. Any major market changes not dictated by market forces usually lead to both opportunity and loss, and this has happened with NAFTA. 

EU-Digest