Tag Archives: President Trump

Trump says likely to sign new healthcare order this week

U.S. President Donald Trump meets with former U.S. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington, U.S., October 10, 2017. REUTERS/Kevin Lamarque

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – President Donald Trump said on Tuesday he would sign a measure, likely this week, to allow people in the United States to buy healthcare across state lines.

“They’ll be able to buy, they’ll be able to cross state lines and they will get great competitive healthcare, and it will cost the United States nothing,” Trump told reporters in the Oval Office during a meeting with former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger.

“With Congress the way it is, I decided to take it upon myself, so we’ll be announcing that soon as far as the signing’s concerned, but it’s largely worked out,” he said.

Republicans in Congress have failed to make good on Trump’s campaign promise to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act, President Barack Obama’s signature healthcare law, also known as Obamacare.

Trump has suggested before that he was eying an executive order that would allow individuals to purchase insurance across state lines through so-called health associations, which Republican Senator Rand Paul has advocated.

(Reporting by Jeff Mason; Editing by James Dalgleish)

Iran has ‘all options on table’ if U.S. blacklists Revolutionary Guards

FILE PHOTO: Members of the Iranian revolutionary guard march during a parade to commemorate the anniversary of the Iran-Iraq war (1980-88), in Tehran September 22, 2011. REUTERS/Stringer/File Photo

LONDON (Reuters) – Iran told the United States on Tuesday that it will keep “all options on table” if President Donald Trump designates its elite Revolutionary Guards (IRGC) as a terrorist organization.

It came hours after the government said Washington itself would be aiding terrorism if it took such an action.

U.S. President Donald Trump is expected to announce this week his final decision on how he wants to contain Iran’s regional influence.

Trump is also expected to “decertify” a landmark 2015 deal Iran struck with world powers to curb its nuclear program in return for the lifting of most international sanctions. Trump’s announcement would stop short of pulling out of the agreement, punting that decision to Congress which would have 60 days to decide whether to reimpose sanctions.

He is also expected to designate Iran’s most powerful security force, the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps, as a terrorist organization.

U.S. sanctions on the IRGC could affect conflicts in Iraq and Syria, where Tehran and Washington both support warring parties that oppose the Islamic State militant group.

“The Americans are too small to be able to harm the Revolutionary Guards,” Ali Akbar Velayati, the top adviser to Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei was quoted as saying by ISNA. “We have all options on the table. Whatever they do, we will take reciprocal measures,” he added.

The Iranian nuclear deal, agreed in 2015 and supported by European countries, Russia and China, lifted international sanctions on Iran in return for it agreeing to curbs on its nuclear program.

“FIRM, DECISIVE AND CRUSHING”

Washington maintains separate unilateral sanctions on Iran over its missile program and allegations that it supports terrorism in the Middle East. It already blacklists some individuals and entities for supporting IRGC activities, but not the Guards themselves.

The Guards have a vast economic empire in Iran. Designating them terrorists could make it more difficult for some Iranian businesses to take advantage of the lifting of sanctions to interact with global banks, which are required to verify that their clients are not on terrorism blacklists.

Iran’s rial has dropped against the U.S. dollar in recent days in a sign of concern about Trump’s policy. The rial was quoted in the free market around 40,400 to the dollar, currency exchangers in Tehran told Reuters, compared to 39,200 last week. Several exchangers said they had stopped selling dollars from Monday and were waiting to assess the trend in the market.

An Iranian government spokesman said that the world should be “thankful” to the Revolutionary Guards for fighting against the Islamic State and other terrorist groups.

“By taking a stance against the Revolutionary Guards and designating it a terrorist group, the Americans would be joining the terrorists’ camp,” Mohammad Baqer Nobakht said in a weekly news conference broadcast live on state television.

IRGC commander Mohammad Ali Jafari said on Sunday that if Washington designated the Guards a terrorist organization, they “will consider the American army to be like Islamic State all around the world.”

Iran’s Foreign Ministry spokesman Bahram Qasemi said on Monday that Tehran would give a “firm, decisive and crushing” response if the United States goes ahead with such a plan.

Washington aims to put more pressure on the IRGC, especially over its missile program. Trump said in September that recent IRGC missile tests illustrated the weakness of the nuclear deal reached by his predecessor Barack Obama.

Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif said Iran purposefully excluded its military capability from the nuclear deal, as “it is not intended as leverage or a bargaining chip in future negotiations”.

In an article published in the Atlantic on Monday Zarif added: “No party or country need fear our missiles … unless it intends to attack our territory.”

(Reporting by Bozorgmehr Sharafedin; editing by Jeremy Gaunt and Peter Graff)

Kim Jong Un praises nuclear program, promotes sister

Kim Jong Un praises nuclear program, promotes sister

By James Pearson

SEOUL (Reuters) – North Korea’s leader Kim Jong Un said his nuclear weapons were a “powerful deterrent” that guaranteed its sovereignty, state media reported on Sunday, hours after U.S. President Donald Trump said “only one thing will work” in dealing with the isolated country.

Trump did not make clear to what he was referring, but his comments seemed to be a further suggestion that military action was on his mind.

In a speech to a meeting of the powerful Central Committee of the ruling Workers’ Party on Saturday, a day before Trump’s most recent comments, state media said Kim had addressed the “complicated international situation”.

North Korea’s nuclear weapons are a “powerful deterrent firmly safeguarding the peace and security in the Korean peninsula and Northeast Asia,” Kim said, referring to the “protracted nuclear threats of the U.S. imperialists.”

In recent weeks, North Korea has launched two missiles over Japan and conducted its sixth nuclear test, and may be fast advancing toward its goal of developing a nuclear-tipped missile capable of hitting the U.S. mainland.

North Korea is preparing to test-launch such a missile, a Russian lawmaker who had just returned from a visit to Pyongyang was quoted as saying on Friday.

Donald Trump has previously said the United States would “totally destroy” North Korea if necessary to protect itself and its allies.

The situation proved that North Korea’s policy of “byungjin”, meaning the parallel development of nuclear weapons and the economy was “absolutely right”, Kim Jong Un said in the speech.

“The national economy has grown on their strength this year, despite the escalating sanctions,” said Kim, referring to U.N. Security Council resolutions put in place to curb Pyongyang’s nuclear and missile program.

SISTER PROMOTION

The meeting also handled some personnel changes inside North Korea’s secretive and opaque ruling center of power, state media said.

Kim Jong Un’s sister, Kim Yo Jong, was made an alternate member of the politburo – the top decision-making body over which Kim Jong Un presides.

Alongside Kim Jong Un himself, the promotion makes Kim Yo Jong the only other millennial member of the influential body.

Her new position indicates the 28-year-old has become a replacement for Kim Jong Un’s aunt, Kim Kyong Hui, who had been a key decision maker when former leader Kim Jong Il was alive.

“It shows that her portfolio and writ is far more substantive than previously believed and it is a further consolidation of the Kim family’s power,” said Michael Madden, a North Korea expert at Johns Hopkins University’s 38 North website.

In January, the U.S. Treasury blacklisted Kim Yo Jong along with other North Korean officials over “severe human rights abuses”.

Kim Jong Sik and Ri Pyong Chol, two of the three men behind Kim’s banned rocket program, were also promoted.

State media announced that several other high ranking cadres were promoted to the Central Committee in what the South Korean unification ministry said could be an attempt by North Korea to navigate a way through its increasing isolation.

“The large-scale personnel reshuffle reflects that Kim Jong Un is taking the current situation seriously, and that he’s looking for a breakthrough by promoting a new generation of politicians,” the ministry said in a statement.

North Korea’s foreign minister Ri Yong Ho, who named Donald Trump “President Evil” in a bombastic speech to the U.N. General Assembly last month, was promoted to full vote-carrying member of the politburo.

“Ri can now be safely identified as one of North Korea’s top policy makers,” said Madden.

“Even if he has informal or off the record meetings, Ri’s interlocutors can be assured that whatever proposals they proffer will be taken directly to the top,” he said.

(Additional reporting by Yuna Park in SEOUL; Editing by Christian Schmollinger and John Stonestreet)

Discord among Republicans already weighs on Trump’s tax plan

U.S. President Donald Trump meets with a bipartisan group of members of Congress, including U.S. Representative Josh Gottheimer (D-NJ) (L) and Representative Tom Reed (R-NY) (R), at the White House in Washington, U.S. September 13, 2017. REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst

By Amanda Becker and David Morgan

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Disagreement among U.S. congressional Republicans is already swirling around a tax cut plan unveiled days ago by President Donald Trump, who has proposed repealing the tax on inheritances and eliminating a deduction for state and local tax payments.

The discord shows the difficulty of overhauling the complex U.S. tax code. This task has defied Washington since 1986, the last time a comprehensive rewrite was completed despite lobbyists who defend each tax break.

Trump has yet to score a major legislative win since taking office in January and is pushing hard for a tax code revamp. But his plan is meeting the same internal Republican tensions between moderates and conservatives that have sunk his efforts this year to repeal the Obamacare health law.

“There’s a lot of give and take,” Trump economic adviser Gary Cohn told Fox Business Network on Friday.

Members of the administration “have been meeting everyday with the tax writers trying to figure out where they need to end up to get the votes … we’re going to make sure the president gets what he asks for,” he added.

One obstacle is the projected fiscal impact of the plan, which would slash U.S. revenues and expand the federal deficit and the national debt, which now exceeds $20 trillion.

Republican lawmakers from high-tax states such as New York exited meetings this week with Kevin Brady, chairman of the House of Representatives’ tax-writing committee, saying there would be some sort of compromise on repealing the deduction for state and local tax payments.

Separately, some Republican senators were questioning the repeal of a 40 percent inheritance tax levied on estate assets worth more than $5.5 million, or $11 million for married couples. That tax affects only about 0.2 percent of estates, according to the Tax Policy Center, a Washington think tank.

“That is not a priority for me as we seek to craft this tax bill,” Senator Susan Collins, who has often been a key Republican vote, said in a statement on Thursday.

Republicans want to use a procedure known as budget reconciliation to pass eventual tax legislation, which allows passage with a simple majority in the 100-seat Senate. Republicans hold 52 Senate seats and can only afford to lose support from two senators, with Vice President Mike Pence able to cast a tie-breaking vote. Democrats will likely oppose the legislation.

One Republican fiscal hawk, Senator Bob Corker, has already said he cannot support tax legislation that adds to the annual federal deficit.

“We remain very bearish on any tax legislation passing this year – or next,” Cowen and Co analyst Chris Krueger said in a Friday research note.

The Trump plan, made public last week, calls for up to $6 trillion in tax cuts over 10 years. Without accompanying spending reductions, the budget would hugely expand the deficit, according to some estimates.

The administration contends tax cuts would spur so much economic growth that the resulting new revenues would help offset the cost.

In addition, Republicans are proposing “revenue raisers,” such as ending the deduction for payments of state and local tax, known as SALT. Doing that would raise about $1.3 trillion over a decade, the Tax Policy Center said.

Almost 30 percent of taxpayers currently deduct state and local taxes. In New Jersey, for example, 41 percent of tax filers, meaning individuals or married couples, claimed the deduction, which averaged $17,850, according to a Government Finance Officers Association analysis of Internal Revenue Service data.

Although the deduction disproportionately benefits people in high-tax states and localities, individuals in all states claim it. In Georgia, for example, 33 percent of tax filers claim an average deduction of $9,158, the report said.

Republican Representative Chris Collins of New York, a Trump ally, told reporters earlier this week that lawmakers from high-tax states, such as his own, were discussing “ways to level the playing field,” including capping the amount of the deduction or putting other limits on it.

“There are many districts with Republican members where state and local deduction is used by a large portion of the taxpayers,” said Frank Sammartino, a senior fellow at the Tax Policy Center. “So it’s not surprising that it’s not strictly a blue state/red state thing.”

Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer called the state and local tax deduction the “Achilles’ heel” of tax reform and said his party would oppose any move to repeal it. He dismissed compromise plans as unfeasible.

Brady said on Thursday that at this point there has been no change to the framework, but tax writers are “listening very carefully” to lawmakers’ concerns.

“It’s got to be frustrating when you’re in a state where local and state officials really put the screws to taxpayers,” Brady told reporters. “We are determined to provide tax relief to every American, regardless of where they live.”

(Additional reporting by Richard Cowan; Writing by Amanda Becker; Editing by Leslie Adler and Lisa Von Ahn)

Trump to unveil new responses to Iranian ‘bad behavior’: White House

Trump to unveil new responses to Iranian 'bad behavior': White House

By Jonathan Landay

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – President Donald Trump will announce new U.S. responses to Iran’s missile tests, support for “terrorism” and cyber operations as part of his new Iran strategy, the White House said on Friday.

“The president isn’t looking at one piece of this. He’s looking at all of the bad behavior of Iran,” Sarah Huckabee Sanders, the White House press secretary, told reporters.

“Not just the nuclear deal as bad behavior, but the ballistic missile testing, destabilizing of the region, Number One state sponsor of terrorism, cyber attacks, illicit nuclear program,” Sanders continued.

Trump “wants to look for a broad strategy that addresses all of those problems, not just one-offing those,” she said. “That’s what his team is focused on and that’s what he’ll be rolling out to address that as a whole in the coming days.”

A senior administration official told Reuters on Thursday that Trump was expected to announce he will decertify the landmark international deal curbing Iran’s nuclear program, in a step that could cause the accord to unravel.

Trump on Friday declined to explain what he meant when he described a gathering of military leaders the evening before as “the calm before the storm,” but the White House said his remarks were not meant to be mischievous.

The administration was considering Oct. 12 for Trump to give a speech on Iran, but no final decision had been made, an official said previously.

It was not clear to what illicit nuclear program Sanders was referring as the International Atomic Energy Agency says Iran is complying with the 2015 nuclear deal reached with the United States, Russia, China, Britain, France, Germany and the European Union.

The Trump administration also has acknowledged that Iran has not breached the accord’s Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, or JCPOA, which is designed to prevent Iran developing a nuclear weapon. The administration, however, contends that Tehran has violated the “spirit” of the deal.

The issue came up during a telephone call on Friday between Trump and French President Emmanuel Macron. The pair discussed “ways to continue working together to deny Iran all paths to a nuclear weapon,” according to a White House statement.

Macron has been a fierce defender of the JCPOA, denounced by Trump as “the worst deal ever negotiated.” But the French leader also has suggested that restraints on Iran’s nuclear program that expire in 2025 could be bolstered, a senior French official said last month.

A senior U.S. official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said on Friday that steps Trump is reviewing as part of a broader strategy also include imposing targeted sanctions in response to Iran’s ballistic missile tests, cyber espionage and backing of Lebanese Hezbollah and other groups on the U.S. list of foreign terrorist organizations.

The administration earlier this year considered, but then put on hold, adding the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, Iran’s most powerful internal and external security force, to the U.S. list of foreign terrorist organizations.

The Quds Force, the IRGC’s foreign espionage and paramilitary wing, and individuals and entities associated with the IRGC are on the list, but the organization as a whole is not.

Last month, current and former U.S. officials told Reuters the broader strategy Trump is weighing is expected to allow more aggressive U.S. actions to counter what the administration views as Iran’s efforts to boost its military muscle and expand its regional influence through proxy forces.

Under a 2015 U.S. law, Trump has until Oct. 15 to certify to Congress that Iran is complying with the JCPOA. If he decides to decertify, lawmakers would have 60 days in which to consider reimposing U.S. sanctions on Iran lifted under the deal, an action that many experts warn could unhinge the accord.

Knowledgeable sources, speaking on condition of anonymity, have said the administration is looking for ways to fix what it views as serious flaws without necessarily killing the deal.

Critics say the flaws include the so-called sunset clauses, under which some of the restrictions on Iran’s nuclear program expire over time.

Trump’s national security adviser, General H.R. McMaster, met with Republican and Democratic lawmakers on Wednesday in an effort to win their support for the strategy.

(Additional reporting by John Walcott; Editing by James Dalgleish)

Trump eviscerates health insurance birth control mandate

Supporters of contraception rally before Zubik v. Burwell, an appeal brought by Christian groups demanding full exemption from the requirement to provide insurance covering contraception under the Affordable Care Act, is heard by the U.S. Supreme Court in Washington, U.S., March 23, 2016. REUTERS/Joshua Roberts/File Photo

By Sarah N. Lynch and Caroline Humer

WASHINGTON/NEW YORK (Reuters) – President Donald Trump’s administration on Friday eviscerated requirements under the Obamacare law that employers provide insurance to cover women’s birth control, keeping a campaign pledge that pleased his conservative Christian supporters.

Administration officials said two new federal rules will let any non-profit or for-profit entity make religious or moral objections to obtain an exemption from the law’s contraception mandate. The changes also let publicly traded companies obtain a religious exemption.

The move drew fire from reproductive rights advocates and praise from a conservative Christian activists. California’s Democratic attorney general pledged to fight to protect the mandate from circumvention. It remained unclear how many women would lose contraception coverage and which companies would use the exemptions.

“The Trump administration just took direct aim at birth control coverage for 62 million women,” Planned Parenthood Federation of America President Cecile Richards said in a statement.

“This is an unacceptable attack on basic healthcare that the vast majority of women rely on. With this rule in place, any employer could decide that their employees no longer have health insurance coverage for birth control,” Richards added.

Trump, who criticized the birth control mandate in last year’s election campaign, and won strong support from conservative Christian voters. The Republican president signed an executive order in May asking for rules that would allow religious groups to deny their employees insurance coverage for services they oppose on religious grounds.

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services on Friday moved to broaden those narrow religious exemptions to include an exception “on the basis of moral conviction” for non-profit and for-profit companies.

The contraception mandate was one provision of the 2010 Affordable Care Act, Democratic former President Barack Obama’s signature legislative achievement, also called Obamacare.

The law required employers to provide health insurance that covers birth control, but religious houses of worship were exempted. Some private businesses sued regarding their rights to circumvent such coverage, and the Supreme Court ruled in 2014 that they could object on religious grounds.

“All Americans should have the freedom to peacefully live and work consistent with their faith without fear of government punishment,” the conservative Christian legal activist group Alliance Defending Freedom said in a statement praising the administration’s action.

“HHS has issued a balanced rule that respects all sides – it keeps the contraceptive mandate in place for most employers and now provides a religious exemption,” said Mark Rienzi, one of the lawyers for the Little Sisters of the Poor, an order of Roman Catholic nuns that runs care homes for the elderly and previously challenged the mandate in court.

“The Little Sisters still need to get final relief in court, which should be easy now that the government admits it broke the law,” Rienzi added.

The Little Sisters and other Christian nonprofit employers objected to a 2013 compromise offered by the Obama administration that allowed entities opposed to providing contraception insurance coverage to comply with the law without actually paying for the required coverage.

California Attorney General Xavier Becerra said he was “prepared to take whatever action it takes” to defend the mandate that health insurers provide birth control.

The administration’s new contraception exemptions “are another example of the Trump administration trampling on people’s rights, but in this case only women,” Becerra told Reuters.

The Justice Department on Friday released two memos that will serve as the government’s legal basis for justifying the rule and laying out a framework for how apply religious liberty issues in legal opinions, federal rules and grant making.

One memo instructs Justice Department employees to incorporate its legal arguments on religious freedom into litigation strategies and how they review rules. A second memo used a similar directive to government agencies to be used in the course of “employment, contracting and programing.”

(Reporting by Sarah N. Lynch in Washington and Caroline Humer in New York; writing by Will Dunham; Editing by David Gregorio)

Trump expected to decertify Iran nuclear deal, official says

U.S. President Donald Trump speaks after meeting with police at the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department in the wake of the mass shooting in Las Vegas, Nevada, U.S., October 4, 2017. REUTERS/Kevin Lamarque

By Steve Holland and Yara Bayoumy

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – President Donald Trump is expected to announce soon that he will decertify the landmark international deal to curb Iran’s nuclear program, a senior administration official said on Thursday, in a step that potentially could cause the 2015 accord to unravel.

The official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said Trump is also expected to roll out a broader U.S. strategy on Iran that would be more confrontational. The Trump administration has frequently criticized Iran’s conduct in the Middle East.

Trump, who has called the pact an “embarrassment” and “the worst deal ever negotiated,” has been weighing whether it serves U.S. security interests as he faces an Oct. 15 deadline for certifying that Iran is complying with its terms.

“We must not allow Iran … to obtain nuclear weapons,” Trump said during a meeting with military leaders at the White House on Thursday, adding:

“The Iranian regime supports terrorism and exports violence, bloodshed and chaos across the Middle East. That is why we must put an end to Iran’s continued aggression and nuclear ambitions. They have not lived up to the spirit of their agreement.”

Asked about his decision on whether to certify the landmark deal, Trump said: “You’ll be hearing about Iran very shortly.”

Supporters say its collapse could trigger a regional arms race and worsen Middle East tensions, while opponents say it went too far in easing sanctions without requiring that Iran end its nuclear program permanently.

Iranian authorities have repeatedly said Tehran would not be the first to violate the accord, under which Iran agreed to restrict its nuclear program in return for lifting most international sanctions that had crippled its economy.

If Trump declines to certify Iran’s compliance, U.S. congressional leaders would have 60 days to decide whether to reimpose sanctions on Tehran suspended under the agreement.

Whether Congress would be willing to reimpose sanctions is far from clear. While Republicans, and some Democrats, opposed the deal when it was approved in 2015, there is little obvious appetite in Congress for dealing with the Iran issue now.

The prospect that Washington could renege on the pact, which was signed by the United States, Britain, France, Germany, Russia, China, the European Union and Iran, has worried some of the U.S. allies that helped negotiate it.

“We, the Europeans, we have hammered this: the agreement is working,” said a European diplomat who asked to remain anonymous. “We as Europeans, have repeated … it’s impossible to reopen the agreement. Period. It’s impossible.”

French President Emmanuel Macron said last month there was no alternative to the nuclear accord, formally known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA).

A senior Iranian diplomat told Reuters on Thursday the end result of Trump’s expected move would be to isolate the United States since the Europeans would continue to support it.

“Many foreign investors told us that they will not be scared away from Iran’s market if Trump de-certifies the deal,” the diplomat said.

Trump has long criticized the pact, a signature foreign policy achievement of his Democratic predecessor Barack Obama.

The administration was considering Oct. 12 for Trump to give a speech on Iran but no final decision had been made, an official said previously.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, a close ally of Trump, last month said that unless provisions in the accord removing restrictions on Iran’s nuclear program over time are eliminated, it should be canceled.

“Fix it, or nix it,” Netanyahu said in a speech at the U.N. General Assembly annual gathering of world leaders on Sept. 19.

Many of Trump’s fellow Republicans who control Congress also have been critical of the deal.

‘CANNOT ABIDE’

Trump blasted the deal in his speech to the U.N. General Assembly, also on Sept. 19.

“We cannot abide by an agreement if it provides cover for the eventual construction of a nuclear program,” Trump said, adding that Iran’s government “masks a corrupt dictatorship behind the false guise of a democracy.”

Trump is weighing a strategy that could allow more aggressive U.S. responses to Iran’s forces, its Shi’ite Muslim proxies in Iraq and Syria and its support for militant groups.

Trump’s defense secretary, Jim Mattis, told a congressional hearing on Tuesday that Iran was “fundamentally” in compliance with the agreement. He also said the United States should consider staying in the deal unless it were proven that Tehran was not abiding by it or that it was not in the U.S. national interest to do so.

When Mattis was asked by a senator whether he thought staying in the deal was in the U.S. national security interest, he replied: “Yes, senator, I do.”

Last week, Iran’s foreign minister said Tehran may abandon the deal if Washington decides to withdraw.

A State Department official said the Trump administration was “fully committed to addressing the totality of Iranian threats and malign activities and seeks to bring about a change in the Iranian regime’s behavior.”

The official said that behavior includes ballistic missiles proliferation, “support for terrorism,” support for Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, “unrelenting hostility to Israel,” “consistently threatening freedom of navigation in the Persian Gulf,” cyber attacks against the United States and its allies, human rights abuses and “arbitrary detentions of U.S. citizens.”

“The JCPOA was expected to contribute to regional and international peace and security, and Iran’s regime is doing everything in its power to undermine peace and security,” the State Department official added.

The move also would represent another step by Trump that would undo key parts of Obama’s legacy.

If Trump moves to decertify the accord, it would mark another example of walking away from international commitments as he pursues his nationalist “America First” agenda. He previously announced plans to abandon the Paris climate accord and the ambitious 12-nation Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) trade deal, two key Obama achievements.

(Reporting by Steve Holland and Yara Bayoumy in Washington; Additional reporting by Jeff Mason, Patricia Zengerle and David Alexander in Washington and Parisa Hafezi in Ankara; Writing by Will Dunham; Editing by James Dalgleish)

Discord among Republicans already weighs on Trump’s tax plan

U.S. President Donald Trump meets with a bipartisan group of members of Congress, including U.S. Representative Josh Gottheimer (D-NJ) (L) and Representative Tom Reed (R-NY) (R), at the White House in Washington, U.S. September 13, 2017. REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst

By Amanda Becker and David Morgan

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Disagreement among U.S. congressional Republicans is already swirling around a tax cut plan unveiled days ago by President Donald Trump, with disputes over proposals to repeal a deduction for state and local tax payments and repeal the tax on inheritances.

The discord showed the difficulty of overhauling the complex U.S. tax code, a task that has defied Washington since 1986, the last time a comprehensive rewrite was completed despite lobbyists who defend each tax break.

Trump has yet to score a major legislative win since taking office in January and is pushing hard for a tax code revamp. But his plan is meeting the same internal Republican tensions between moderates and conservatives that have sunk his efforts this year to repeal the Obamacare health law.

Another early obstacle is the projected fiscal impact of the plan, which would slash U.S. revenues and expand the federal deficit and the national debt, which now exceeds $20 trillion.

Republican lawmakers from high-tax states such as New York exited meetings this week with Kevin Brady, chairman of the tax-writing committee of the House of Representatives, saying there would be some sort of compromise on repealing the deduction for state and local tax payments.

Separately, some Republican senators were questioning the repeal of a 40 percent inheritance tax levied on estates worth more than $5.5 million, or $11 million for married couples — a tax paid only by the wealthiest American taxpayers, or about 0.2 percent of Americans, according to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, a research and policy institute.

“That is not a priority for me as we seek to craft this tax bill,” Republican Senator Susan Collins, who has often been a key Republican vote, told Reuters in a statement on Thursday.

Republicans want to use a procedure known as budget reconciliation to pass eventual tax legislation, which allows passage with a simple majority in the 100-seat Senate. With Republicans holding 52 Senate seats, and Democrats already lining up against the measure, they can lose the support of only two Republican senators and still pass a bill – with Vice President Mike Pence able to cast a tie-breaking vote.

One Republican fiscal hawk, Senator Bob Corker, has already said he cannot support tax legislation that adds to the annual federal deficit.

The Trump plan, made public last week, calls for as much as $6 trillion in tax cuts over 10 years. Without accompanying spending reductions, the tax cuts would hugely expand the deficit, according to some estimates. The administration contends tax cuts would spur so much economic growth that the resulting new revenues would help offset the cost of the cuts.

In addition, Republicans are proposing “revenue raisers,” such as ending the deduction for payments of state and local tax, known as SALT. Doing that would raise about $1.3 trillion over a decade, said the Tax Policy Center, a Washington think tank.

Almost 30 percent of taxpayers currently deduct state and local taxes. In New Jersey, for example, 41 percent of tax filers, meaning individuals or married couples, claimed the deduction, which averaged $17,850, according to a Government Finance Officers Association (GFOA) analysis of Internal Revenue Service data.

Though the deduction disproportionately benefits people in high-tax states and localities, individuals in all states claim it. In Georgia, for example, 33 percent of tax filers claim an average deduction of $9,158, the GFOA report said.

The high-tax states, however, tend to be Democratic-leaning, such as California and New York, and of the seven states with no income tax of their own, six are Republican-leaning.

Republican Representative Chris Collins of New York, a Trump ally, told reporters earlier this week that lawmakers from high-tax states, such as his own, were discussing “ways to level the playing field,” including capping the amount of the deduction or putting other limits on it.

“There are many districts with Republican members where state and local deduction is used by a large portion of the tax payers. So it’s not surprising that it’s not strictly a blue state/red state thing,” said Frank Sammartino, a senior fellow at the Tax Policy Center.

Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer called the state and local tax deduction the “Achilles’ heel” of tax reform and said Democrats would oppose any move to take it away. He dismissed compromise plans as unfeasible.

Brady said on Thursday that at this point there has been no change to the framework, but tax writers are “listening very carefully” to lawmakers’ concerns.

“It’s got to be frustrating when you’re in a state where local and state officials really put the screws to taxpayers. We are determined to provide tax relief to every American regardless of where they live,” Brady told reporters.

(Additional reporting by Richard Cowan; Writing by Amanda Becker; Editing by Kevin Drawbaugh and Leslie Adler)

In meeting with military, Trump talks of ‘calm before the storm’

In meeting with military, Trump talks of 'calm before the storm'

By Jeff Mason

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – After discussing Iran and North Korea with U.S. military leaders on Thursday, President Donald Trump posed for a photo with them before dinner and declared the moment “the calm before the storm.”

“You guys know what this represents?” Trump said after journalists gathered in the White House state dining room to photograph him and first lady Melania Trump with the uniformed military leaders and their spouses.

“Maybe it’s the calm before the storm,” he said.

What storm?

“You’ll find out,” Trump told questioning reporters.

Classical music played in the background and tables were set in the nearby Blue Room for a fancy meal.

The White House did not immediately reply to a request to clarify Trump’s remark.

Earlier in the evening, while seated with the top defense officials in the cabinet room, Trump talked about the threat from North Korea and preventing Iran from getting a nuclear weapon.

“In North Korea, our goal is denuclearization,” he said. “We cannot allow this dictatorship to threaten our nation or our allies with unimaginable loss of life. We will do what we must do to prevent that from happening. And it will be done, if necessary, believe me.”

During his speech to the United Nations General Assembly last month, Trump said the United States would “totally destroy” North Korea if needed to defend itself or U.S. allies.

The president on Thursday also had tough words for Iran, saying the country had not lived up to the spirit of an agreement forged with world powers to curb its nuclear program.

A senior administration official said on Thursday

that Trump was expected to announce soon he would decertify the landmark agreement.

Trump has filled top posts within his administration with military generals, including his chief of staff, retired General John Kelly, and national security adviser, Lieutenant General H.R. McMaster. McMaster, who normally dresses in civilian clothes at the White House, wore his uniform for the meeting.

Without being specific, Trump pressed the leaders to be faster at providing him with “military options” when needed.

“Moving forward, I also expect you to provide me with a broad range of military options, when needed, at a much faster pace. I know that government bureaucracy is slow, but I am depending on you to overcome the obstacles of bureaucracy,” he said during their cabinet room meeting.

(Reporting by Jeff Mason; Editing by Peter Cooney)

Challengers urge U.S. Supreme Court to rule on Trump travel ban

International travelers arrive on the day that U.S. President Donald Trump's limited travel ban, approved by the U.S. Supreme Court, goes into effect, at Logan Airport in Boston, Massachusetts, U.S., June 29, 2017. REUTERS/Brian Snyder - RC1393C705B0

By Lawrence Hurley

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Challengers to President Donald Trump’s travel ban targeting several Muslim-majority countries on Thursday urged the U.S. Supreme Court to decide the policy’s legality even though it has been replaced with a revised plan, while his administration asked that the case be dismissed.

In separate letters to the court, the American Civil Liberties Union and the state of Hawaii said the justices should still hear the case, which had been scheduled for arguments next week but was taken off their calendar after the administration announced the reworked ban last month.

The Justice Department urged the justices not to hear the case, to throw out earlier lower court rulings that had invalidated the ban and to order that the legal challenges be dismissed.

Trump’s three successive moves to block entry into the United States by people from several predominantly Muslim countries have been among his most contentious acts since taking office in January. Trump had promised as a candidate “a total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States.”

The ACLU told the court that the plaintiffs who sued to stop the policy “retain an all-too-real stake in the outcome of the case” even though the original 90-day travel ban on people from six countries expired on Sept. 24. That order was signed by Trump in March and was enacted with some changes in June with the high court’s blessing.

The justices on Sept. 25 asked all the parties to file court papers expressing views on whether the case was moot, meaning there is nothing left to decide, because the temporary ban expired.

That ban had targeted people from Iran, Libya, Syria, Yemen, Somalia and Sudan. The new open-ended ban announced in a presidential proclamation on Sept. 24 removed Sudan from the list and blocked people from Chad and North Korea and certain government officials from Venezuela from entering the United States.

Among the issues raised by the challengers is whether the ban discriminated against Muslims in violation of the U.S. Constitution’s prohibition on the government favoring or disfavoring a particular religion.

REFUGEE BAN

A separate 120-day ban on refugees entering the United States that was part of Trump’s March order expires on Oct. 24.

Hawaii’s lawyers said that even if the high court decides not to issue a ruling, it should still leave the lower court decisions in place. To do otherwise would allow the administration to effectively win the case by erasing rulings that had gone against Trump, Hawaii argued.

The Justice Department said that it wants the lower court rulings tossed because the challengers will otherwise cite them in new litigation against Trump’s reworked ban.

“The lower courts should be considering challenges to the proclamation anew based on its text, operation, and findings,” Justice Department lawyers wrote.

The weekly behind-closed-doors meeting in which the justices consider next steps in cases before them is scheduled for Friday morning. The court could make an announcement at any time.

The new ban could affect tens of thousands of potential immigrants and visitors to the United States. Opponents have said that like the earlier two orders from January and March, it is still effectively a “Muslim ban.”

Even if the Supreme Court dismisses the older case, it may still have to weigh in on the issue in the future. Various challengers have filed suit against the reworked ban, and those cases potentially could reach the high court.

(Reporting by Lawrence Hurley; Editing by Will Dunham)