Respect for the dignity of all people brings happiness more sublime that life's fleeting pleasures - John McCain
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| DAILY SPECIALS |
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| HIDDEN IN THE ATTIC |
From the War of 1812. Horse Island at Sackets Harbor, New York—was
the site of an amphibious assault in which British troops overwhelmed a few
hundred Albany Volunteers. But that was only the first phase of a larger battle
that spread to the New York shoreline—the first chapter in the story of the
Battle of Sackets Harbor.
As you
may recall, British forces under Sir George Prevost, Canada’s governor general,
attacked the U.S. naval base at Sackets Harbor in the predawn hours of May 29,
1813—payback for the American raid on York earlier that year. However, American
General Jacob Brown anticipated such an attack, and had months to plan. Horse
Island—the land you and I saved this year—offered the only place for British
infantry to land, but it was connected to the mainland by a narrow causeway of
rocks and sand. Brown planned to concede Horse Island if necessary and prepare
to defeat the British on the New York shores of Lake Ontario.
As
expected, the British came ashore on Horse Island and, after defeating a small
force of Albany Volunteers, chased the Americans across the causeway. But once
across, they received an unsettling welcome: American artillery crashing down
among their ranks. After driving off another band of New Yorkers, Prevost’s
forces assaulted the town, only to run headlong into well-entrenched U.S.
Regulars. Seeing that his ultimate objective—destruction of the naval base at
Sackets Harbor—could not be achieved, Prevost ordered his troops back to their
boats. [Campaign 1776,
September 2, 2017]
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| CLIMATE CHANGE |
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| IMMIGRATION |
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| FROM THE PORCH |
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| Medicine |
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| NATURE & OUTDOORS |
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| TECHNOLOGY |
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| TRADE |
U.S., MEXICO MAKING SWIFT PROGRESS TO WRAP NAFTA TALKS: After
two weeks of renewed talks, negotiators from the U.S. and Mexico have moved to
wrap up an additional 10 chapters as part of their latest push to finish a new
NAFTA by the end of the month. Mexican Economy Minister Ildefonso Guajardo said
Friday that negotiators "practically have 20 chapters closed of 30
chapters in total."
"The rest aren't full chapters, but more the definition of
a paragraph, the specific language," he said, adding that at the technical
level, there isn't much drafting left to do.
State of play: Nine chapters and nine
sectoral annexes were already closed when Guajardo first resumed talks with
U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer in Washington two weeks ago. But
while they've wrapped up 10 more chapters, some of the biggest sticking points
- such as automotive rules of origin and the U.S.'s proposal to include a
so-called sunset clause - have not been fully solved.
Mark your calendars: Guajardo will be back in
Washington on Wednesday or Thursday to continue high-level talks, he said. In
the meantime, technical teams from the two countries continued to meet
throughout the weekend and are working on "creative solutions" for the
remaining issues. The Canadian negotiating team has not been deployed to
Washington, but that could happen in the coming days, Guajardo said.
"We know that Canada has to come into these discussions and
probably it will happen quite soon," he said. [POLITICO's Morning Trade, August 6, 2018]
POMPEO GOES TO BAT OVER TRUMP'S TRADE POLICY: Trump's
trade policy will help the U.S. and also benefit the economies of Southeast
Asia and the rest of the world, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said Friday.
Speaking on the sidelines of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations
ministers meeting, Pompeo underscored that the U.S. wants to engage in more
free and fair trade with Indo-Pacific countries.
"We are a radically free-trade country, and President Trump
is enormously supportive of that," Pompeo said in an interview with
Channel NewsAsia in Singapore. Trump is "simply looking for open, free
trade. We want that with the Indo-Pacific, we want it with Singapore, with
Southeast Asia. It's an imperative."
TPP-11 connection: While Pompeo expressed
his desire to deepen trade ties with ASEAN members, four of those countries -
Singapore, Brunei, Malaysia and Vietnam - are in the process of ratifying the
updated Trans-Pacific Partnership, which Trump withdrew the U.S. from on his
third day in office. More here. [POLITICO's Morning Trade,
August 6, 2018]
TRUMP, KENYAN PRESIDENT TO TALK TRADE: Trump
will host Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta on Aug. 27 to "explore ways to
bolster trade and investment between the two countries, while strengthening
security cooperation," the White House said Monday.
The meeting comes as USTR has been searching for a country in
Africa that is ready to begin trade talks with the United States. Kenya is the
ninth-largest economy in Africa and one of the largest in the sub-Saharan
Africa region that receives unilateral U.S. trade benefits under the African
Growth and Opportunity Act program.
Lighthizer's bilateral vision: "We
believe that there are countries in Africa that are ready to move from AGOA
beneficiary to U.S. free trade agreement partner," U.S. Trade
Representative Robert Lighthizer said at the annual AGOA Forum meeting last
month. "We hope we can work with a willing partner to create an agreement
that can serve as a template for additional deals on the continent."
Last month, Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross and Commerce
Undersecretary for International Trade Gilbert Kaplan did a four-nation visit
through Africa, which included stops in Kenya, Ethiopia, Côte D'Ivoire and
Ghana. Kaplan signed a cooperative agreement with Kenya that identified
projects to help strengthen U.S. private-sector participation and development
in the country.
Bilateral problem: Still, there could
be obstacles to selecting Kenya as an FTA partner, since it is a member of the
East African Community, a regional economic bloc that also includes Burundi,
Rwanda, South Sudan, Tanzania and Uganda. The entire African continent also is
moving toward regional economic integration under the African Continental Free
Trade Area. [POLITICO's Morning Trade, August 7, 2018]
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| PREVARICATOR TRUMP |
TRUMP CLAIMS TARIFFS WILL PAY DOWN LARGE PART OF NATIONAL
DEBT: Trump defended his tariff policy on Twitter on
Sunday, falsely arguing the duties he has imposed and threatened so far will
allow the federal government "to start paying down large amounts of the
$21 Trillion in debt that has been accumulated, much by the Obama Administration,
while at the same time reducing taxes for our people. At minimum, we will make
much better Trade Deals for our country!"
However, the Treasury Department's latest monthly statement shows that tariffs
account for a small portion of U.S. government receipts. U.S. customs officials
collected about $3.5 billion in duties in June, bringing the total for the
first nine months of the fiscal year to about $28.3 billion. That's only about
$3.1 billion more than the $25.2 billion collected during the same period in
fiscal 2017.
In addition, Trump so far has actually imposed duties on a small
portion of U.S. goods imports, which totaled about $2.3 trillion in 2017. He
set a 25 percent duty or quota restrictions on $29 billion worth of steel
imports; a 10 percent duty on $18 billion worth of aluminum imports; a 25
percent duty on $34 billion worth of Chinese goods; a 30 percent duty on $8.5
billion worth of solar product imports and a tariff-rate quota on around $1.8
billion of washing machine imports. [POLITICO's
Morning Trade, August 6, 2018]
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