Tag: TRUMP

Trump to make ‘major announcement’ about shutdown

WASHINGTON, United States (AFP) — US President Donald Trump will make a “major announcement” Saturday about the long-running US government shutdown and the situation on the country’s southern border. The partial shutdown — which began when Trump refused to sign off on budget legislation that did not include funding for his planned border wall — enters its fifth week on Saturday. “I will be making a major announcement concerning the Humanitarian Crisis on our Southern […]

Trump, Kim to meet anew in month after N.Korean visits White House

by Shaun TANDON Agence France Presse WASHINGTON, United States (AFP) — President Donald Trump will meet for the second time with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un around the end of February, the White House said Friday, after a top general from Pyongyang paid a rare visit to Washington. Vice Chairman Kim Yong Chol, a right-hand man to the North Korean strongman, met the embattled president at the White House for an unusually long 90 […]

Top N.Korean in Washington to prepare new Trump summit

by Shaun TANDON Agence France Presse WASHINGTON, United States (AFP) — A top North Korean general was paying a rare visit Friday to Washington, where he is expected to meet President Donald Trump to finalize a new summit aimed at denuclearization and easing decades of hostility. Kim Yong Chol, a right-hand man to leader Kim Jong Un, is the first North Korean dignitary in nearly two decades known to have spent the night in the […]

Trump grounds Democratic speaker’s foreign travel

by Sebastian SMITH and Michael MATHES Agence France Presse WASHINGTON, United States (AFP) — Deadlock in Washington reached a new low Thursday as Donald Trump hit his chief Democratic opponent Nancy Pelosi with a last-minute cancellation of her plan to take an air force plane to Afghanistan — citing the four-week-old government shutdown as a motive. The mess in Washington, where swaths of government workers are not being paid while Congress feuds with the White […]

Erdogan, Trump consider creating security zone in Syria

by Luana Sarmini-Buonaccorsi and Raziye Akkoc Agence France Presse ANKARA, Turkey (AFP) — Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and US counterpart Donald Trump mooted Monday the creation of a “security zone” in northern Syria as tensions rose over the fate of Kurdish fighters in the war-torn country. In a telephone conversation, the leaders “discussed the idea of creating a security zone cleared of terrorism in the north of the country,” the Turkish presidency said in […]

On US-Mexico border, Trump’s wall stirs mixed feelings

by Inès BEL AIBA Agence France Presse LAREDO, United States (AFP) — Mexico is just minutes away on foot, the time it takes to walk across one of the bridges that span the Rio Grande, intimately connecting Laredo, Texas to its Mexican sister Nuevo Laredo. The wall Donald Trump promises to build would slice through that, and here as elsewhere in America opinions are divided over whether it’s needed. Already, the raging national debate over […]

Government shutdown becomes longest in US history

  by Sebastian Smith Agence France Presse WASHINGTON, United States (AFP) — The US government shutdown that has left 800,000 federal employees without salaries as a result of President Donald Trump’s row with Democrats over building a Mexico border wall entered a record 22nd day Saturday. The Democrats’ refusal to approve $5.7 billion demanded by Trump for the wall project has paralyzed Washington, with the president retaliating by refusing to sign off on budgets for […]

Trump threatens to declare national emergency over border wall fight

by Eleonore Sens / with Sebastian Smith in Washington Agence France Presse McAllen, United States (AFP) — President Donald Trump has again threatened to declare a national emergency along the border with Mexico as he seeks funding for a wall he says will keep out dangerous immigrants — his latest jab in a fight with Democrats in Congress that has now shut down parts of the government for a record-tying 21 days. Such a declaration, […]

FBI says operations threatened by US govt shutdown

WASHINGTON, United States (AFP) — Federal Bureau of Investigation agents warned Thursday that the ongoing partial shutdown of the government is threatening their ability to investigate crimes and maintain staffing. “Special Agents remain at work for the American people without being paid, and FBI leadership is doing all it can to fund FBI operations with increasingly limited resources — this situation is not sustainable,” the FBI Agents Association (FBIAA) said in a statement. “The important […]

Trump threatens to axe emergency fire aid for California

WASHINGTON, United States (AFP) — President Donald Trump on Wednesday said he is cutting emergency federal aid sent to help California after devastating wildfires unless the Democratic-led state gets its “act together.” “Billions of dollars are sent to the State of California for Forrest fires that, with proper Forrest Management, would never happen,” Trump tweeted, initially misspelling the word forest before repeating the tweet with the word corrected. “Unless they get their act together, which […]

Stop holding Americans ‘hostage’ over shutdown, Pelosi tells Trump

WASHINGTON, United States (AFP) — Top congressional Democrats on Tuesday accused President Donald Trump of holding Americans “hostage” by refusing to strike a deal to fund shuttered government agencies, and using fear mongering to justify his demand for his much-hyped border wall. “President Trump must stop holding the American people hostage, must stop manufacturing a crisis, and must re-open the government,” Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi said in a curt rebuttal to Trump’s address to […]

Trump demands $5.7 bn for steel barrier on US-Mexico border

WASHINGTON, United States (AFP) — US President Donald Trump repeated his demand Tuesday for $5.7 billion to fund a wall on the border with Mexico, describing a “growing crisis” of illegal immigration hurting millions of Americans. In his first ever televised Oval Office address, the president stopped short of calling for a much-touted state of emergency, instead appealing to the need to slash the cost of the illegal drug trade, which he put at $500 billion […]