President Donald Trump has threatened to withdraw the US from the World Trade Organization (WTO) if the body fails to change the way it treats America.
“If they don’t shape up, I would withdraw from the WTO,” Mr. Trump said in an interview with Bloomberg News.
The WTO was established to provide rules for global trade and resolve disputes between countries.
But Mr. Trump, who has been pushing protectionist policies, says the US is treated unfairly by the body.
He said on Thursday that the 1994 agreement to establish the WTO “was the single worst trade deal ever made,” though he acknowledged that the US had won some judgments in the past year.
His warning about a possible US pull-out from the organisation highlights the conflict between the president’s trade policies and the open trade system that the WTO oversees.
Meanwhile, Washington has recently been blocking the election of new judges to the WTO’s dispute settlement system, which could potentially paralyse its ability to issue judgments.
US Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer has also accused the WTO of interfering with US sovereignty.
The US president has been sounding off about unfair trade since even before he became president.
Last year, Mr. Trump told Fox News: “The WTO was set up to benefit everybody but us… We lose the lawsuits, almost all of the lawsuits in the WTO.”
The US has been embroiled in a tit-for-tat trade battle on several fronts in recent months.
The one creating the most interest is the one with China, as the world’s two largest economies wrangle for global influence.
Mr. Trump has introduced tariffs on a number of goods imported into the US.
A third round of tariffs on $200bn (£154bn) of Chinese goods could come as soon as a public-comment period concludes next week, according to a Bloomberg report citing various sources.
Asked to confirm this during the Bloomberg interview, President Trump said that it was “not totally wrong.”
China has responded to US tariffs by imposing retaliatory taxes on the same value of US products and has filed complaints against the tariffs at the WTO.
China’s commerce ministry has said it “clearly suspects” the US of violating WTO rules.
An initial complaint at the WTO was filed by China in July after Mr. Trump imposed his first round of tariffs.
The WTO is at the heart of the system of rules for international trade.
It is the forum for sorting disputes between countries about breaches of global trade rules and it is the forum for negotiating new trade liberalisation.
On Monday Mr. Trump announced that the US and Mexico had agreed to revamp the North American Free Trade Agreement (Nafta), calling it a “really good deal” that was “much more fair” for both countries.
He had previously threatened to pull out of the deal, triggering a year of talks, and demanded a renegotiation of the 1994 agreement – which he blames for a decline in US manufacturing jobs, especially in the car industry.
Canada, the third member of Nafta, is yet to agree to the new terms.
On Thursday, Mr. Lighthizer held talks in Washington with Canadian Foreign Minister Chrystia Freeland aimed at reaching a new deal.
Following four separate meetings, which continued late into the night, Ms. Freeland told reporters that a deal could not be reached, adding that talks would resume on Friday.
Mr. Trump has set Friday as the deadline for Canada to sign an agreement, and has threatened to tax the country’s automotive sector or cut it out entirely.
UN ‘alarmed’ by reports of China’s mass detention of Uighurs
The UN says it is alarmed by reports of the mass detention of Uighurs in China and called for the release of those held on a counter terrorism “pretext.”
It comes after a UN committee heard reports that up to one million Muslim Uighurs in Xinjiang were held in re-education camps.
Beijing has denied the allegations but admitted that some religious extremists were being held for re-education.
China blames Islamist militants and separatists for unrest in the province.
During a review earlier this month, members of the United Nations Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination said credible reports suggested Beijing had “turned the Uighur autonomous region into something that resembles a massive internment camp.”
China responded that Uighurs enjoyed full rights but Beijing made a rare admission that “those deceived by religious extremism… shall be assisted by resettlement and re-education.”
Xinjiang has seen intermittent violence – followed by crackdowns – for years.
The UN body on Thursday released its concluding observation, criticising the “broad definition of terrorism and vague references to extremism and unclear definition of separatism in Chinese legislation”.
The committee called on Beijing to:
*End the practice of detention without lawful charge, trial and conviction;
*Immediately release individuals currently detained under these circumstances;
*Provide the number of people held as well as the grounds for their detention;
*Conduct “impartial investigations into all allegations of racial, ethnic and ethno-religious profiling.”
Human rights groups including Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch have submitted reports to the UN committee documenting claims of mass imprisonment, in camps where inmates are forced to swear loyalty to China’s President Xi Jinping.
The World Uyghur Congress said in its report that detainees were held indefinitely without charge, and forced to shout Communist Party slogans.
It said they were poorly fed, and reports of torture were widespread.
Most inmates have never been charged with a crime, it is claimed, and do not receive legal representation.
The latest UN statement comes amid worsening religious tensions elsewhere in China.
In the north-western Ningxia region, hundreds of Muslims have been engaged in a standoff with authorities to prevent their mosque from being demolished.
The Uighurs are a Muslim ethnic minority mostly based in China’s Xinjiang province.
They make up around 45% of the population there.
Xinjiang is officially designated as an autonomous region within China, like Tibet to its south.
Reports that more and more Uighurs and other Muslim minorities are being detained in Xinjiang have been circulating for some months.
China is said to carry out the detentions under the guise of combating religious extremism.
READ ALSO: Kanye West apologises for his “Slavery was a choice” comment
John McCain: Sarah Palin ‘excluded from his funeral’
Sarah Palin, the ex-Alaska governor who served as John McCain’s running mate when he ran for president in 2008, is reportedly banned from his funeral.
According to US media, the request to Mrs. Palin – who Senator McCain later regretted selecting – was sent through a family intermediary.
A Palin “family source” told NBC News that “out of respect” to the family, “we have nothing to add at this point.”
Mrs. Palin was unveiled as McCain’s running mate exactly 10 years ago.
“The Palin family will always cherish their friendship with the McCains and hold those memories dear,” the family representative told a reporter on Wednesday.
The 81-year-old Arizona Republican senator and former Vietnam prisoner-of-war died last Saturday after a battle with brain cancer.
In a pair of tweets after the death, Mrs Palin praised her former running mate as “a maverick and a fighter, never afraid to stand for his beliefs.”
“John McCain was my friend,” she wrote. “I will remember the good times. My family and I send prayers for Cindy and the McCain family.”
A McCain family source told People magazine on Wednesday that the decision probably came from his widow, Cindy McCain.
“She is very protective of John’s memory and legacy. She’s also a grieving widow. I think she wants to get through this as best she can,” the unnamed source said.
According to the magazine, stay-away messages were conveyed through an intermediary to Mrs. Palin.
Carla Eudy, a fundraiser who worked with the McCain family for decades, told the magazine that “invitations were not extended” to either Mrs. Palin or US President Donald Trump.
The relatively unknown Alaska politician rocketed to fame after she was selected by Mr. McCain in 2008 as his vice-presidential running mate.
In May he published a book, saying he regretted choosing Mrs. Palin and should have instead picked his friend and former Democratic senator Joe Lieberman.
Mrs. Palin said at the time that his words, which were published in McCain’s memoir The Restless Wave, were “a gut punch.”
She added that his comments hurt “a bit,” but encouraged the ailing senator to find some “positive aspect in decisions that he’s made in the past – even about that campaign.”
Astronauts tackle air leak on International Space Station
Astronauts on the International Space Station (ISS) are having to deal with an air leak from a possible collision.
It has been traced to a small hole in a capsule that was used to deliver a new crew to the laboratory 400km (250 miles) above the Earth in June.
It is thought the damage was caused by the impact of a high-speed rocky fragment flying through space.
Mission controllers in Houston, Texas, and Russia’s capital, Moscow, say the six-strong crew are in no danger.
Impacts from tiny meteoroids are a permanent threat to the orbiting platform and it was built to withstand the constant bombardment from the dusty fragments that whizz about above the Earth.
Mission controllers were first alerted to the issue by air pressure sensors on board the station.
The astronauts were asleep at the time, but when they rose for their day’s work on Wednesday they were instructed to search for the leak.
They found it in the Russian Soyuz vehicle used to bring three crewmen to the station on 8 June, among them Europe’s Alexander Gerst, who is set to take command of the outpost.
“Overnight and in the morning there was an abnormal situation – a pressure drop, an oxygen leak at the station,” chief of the federal space agency Roscosmos, Dmitry Rogozin, was quoted as saying by Russian news agencies.
“A micro-fracture was found; most likely it is damage from the outside. The design engineers believe it is the result of a micrometeorite,” he said.
Germany’s Gerst confirmed the presence of the hole by running his finger over it.
An immediate fix was implemented using a sealant and tape to cover the hole, which is said to measure a couple of millimetres in diameter.
The astronauts are now working with engineers on the ground to assess whether a more robust repair is needed.
Gerst, along with US astronaut Serena Auñón-Chancellor and Russian cosmonaut Sergei Prokopyev, are due to use the same Soyuz vehicle to return to Earth at the end of the year.
