Trump, Carney to speak in coming days, Canadian official says
Dominic LeBlanc, the federal cabinet minister in charge of U.S.-Canada trade, also told CBS News' 'Face the Nation' that he was 'encouraged' by recent discussions and believed a deal to bring down tariffs remained an option.
'We're encouraged by the conversations with Secretary Lutnick and Ambassador Greer, but we're not yet where we need to go to get the deal that's in the best interest of the two economies,' LeBlanc said, referring to U.S. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick and U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer.
The trade minister said he expected Carney and Trump to speak 'over the next number of days.'
'We think there is an option of striking a deal that will bring down some of these tariffs provide greater certainty to investment,' LeBlanc said.
Washington linked Friday's tariff announcement in part to what it said was Canada's failure to stop fentanyl smuggling. It was the latest blow in a months-long tariff war which Trump initiated shortly after returning to power this year.
Carney says Canada accounts for just 1% of U.S. fentanyl imports and has been working intensively to further reduce the volumes.
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India's deceit of nuclear programme
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India's nuclear programme involved a pattern of exploiting civilian cooperation to build military capacity. The deception lies in how India used international support for peaceful purposes, while developing and later openly declaring nuclear weapons, without being held fully accountable like other NPT-defying nations. India began its nuclear programme in the 1940s and 1950s with so-called declared peaceful intentions. Homi Bhaba, famous Indian physicist, led the foundation of the Indian nuclear programme. Initially, the country gained international cooperation from Canada and the US under the promise that the nuclear material and technology would not be used for weapon purposes. However, India viciously diverted plutonium from a reactor supplied by Canada for 'Smiling Buddha' tests. Indian scientist Raja Ramanna, who led these so-called PNEs, lately confirmed this assertion in 1997: "The Pokhran test was a bomb, I can tell you now An explosion is an explosion and a gun is a gun, whether you shoot at someone or shoot at the ground I just want to make clear that the test was not all that peaceful." In 1968, US National Security Archives also recorded that, while visiting Trombay's Canada-India Reactor, Canadian inspectors were unnerved by data suggesting that India was heading towards developing a nuclear device. This declassified US State Department telegram revealed that Canadian nuclear experts told US diplomats about reactor fuel which had been irradiated at a low enough level to produce weapons grade plutonium. According to them, if India wanted, it could produce up to 12 kilogram of plutonium a year. Another set of US-declassified documents revealed that long before India detonated a nuclear device in May 1974, the US Intelligence Community was monitoring and analysing Indian civilian and military nuclear energy activities. US State Department official George McGhee indicated to Secretary of State Dean Rusk that people throughout the State Department seriously contemplated helping India to acquire a nuclear explosive. It was proposed that "it would be desirable if a friendly Asian power beat Communist China to the punch" by detonating a nuclear device first. Another CIA intelligence report observed in 1964 that India had all of the elements necessary to produce a nuclear weapon and it had a capability to assemble a bomb quickly. India did not plan to complete the work on a bomb initially because Indian government was convinced that the Chinese would not have an offensive capability for at least five years. 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Business Recorder
20 hours ago
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Trump, Carney to speak in coming days, Canadian official says
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Express Tribune
21 hours ago
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'Trump tariff rates unlikely to change'
New US tariff rates are "pretty much set" with little immediate room for negotiation, Donald Trump's trade advisor said in remarks aired Sunday, also defending the president's politically driven levies against Brazil. Trump, who has wielded tariffs as a tool of American economic might, has set tariff rates for dozens of economies including the European Union at between 10 and 41 percent come August 7, his new hard deadline for the duties. In a pre-taped interview broadcast Sunday on CBS's "Face the Nation," US Trade Representative Jamieson Greer said "the coming days" are not likely to see changes in the tariff rates. "A lot of these are set rates pursuant to deals. Some of these deals are announced, some are not, others depend on the level of the trade deficit or surplus we may have with the country," Greer said. "These tariff rates are pretty much set." Undoubtedly some trade ministers "want to talk more and see how they can work in a different way with the United States," he added. AFP
