Pakistani army chief and Trump discussed trade, crypto in Washington meet
Pakistan's army chief Field Marshal Asim Munir and US President Donald Trump discussed trade, economic development, and cryptocurrency during their meeting at the White House on Wednesday, the Pakistan army said.
'President Trump expressed keen interest in forging a mutually beneficial trade partnership with Pakistan based on long-term strategic convergence and shared interests,' the army said in a statement on Thursday.
Munir and Trump also exchanged views on prevailing tensions between Israel and Iran, the statement added.
Hashtags

Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles


Arab News
an hour ago
- Arab News
‘Very bad decision' if Hezbollah joins Iran-Israel war, says US official
BEIRUT: A top US official visiting the Lebanese capital on Thursday discouraged Tehran-backed armed group Hezbollah from intervening in the war between Iran and Israel, saying it would be a 'very bad decision.'US special envoy for Syria Thomas Barrack, who also serves as ambassador to Turkiye, met Lebanese officials in Beirut as Iran and Israel traded more strikes in their days-long war and as the US continues to press Lebanon to disarm meeting Lebanon's Speaker of Parliament Nabih Berri, a close ally of Hezbollah, Barrack was asked what may happen if Hezbollah joined in the regional conflict.'I can say on behalf of President (Donald) Trump, which he has been very clear in expressing as has Special Envoy (Steve) Witkoff: that would be a very, very, very bad decision,' Barrack told has condemned Israel's strikes on Iran and expressed full solidarity with its leadership. On Thursday, it said threats against Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei would have 'dire consequences.'But the group has stopped short of making explicit threats to intervene. After Israel began strikes on Iran last week, a Hezbollah official told Reuters the group would not launch its own attack on Israel in was left badly weakened from last year's war with Israel, in which the group's leadership was gutted, thousands of fighters were killed and strongholds in southern Lebanon and near Beirut were severely damaged.A US-brokered ceasefire deal which ended that war stipulates that the Lebanese government must ensure there are no arms outside state also met Lebanese President Joseph Aoun on Thursday and discussed the state's monopoly on all is a private equity executive who has long advised Trump and chaired his inaugural presidential committee in 2016. He was appointed to his role in Turkiye and, in late May, also assumed the position of special envoy to Syria.


Al Arabiya
2 hours ago
- Al Arabiya
ICE Raids and Their Uncertainty Scare Off Workers and Baffle Businesses
Farmers, cattle ranchers, and hotel and restaurant managers breathed a sigh of relief last week when President Donald Trump ordered a pause to immigration raids that were disrupting those industries and scaring foreign-born workers off the job. 'There was finally a sense of calm,' said Rebecca Shi, CEO of the American Business Immigration Coalition. 'That respite didn't last long.' On Wednesday, Assistant Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security Tricia McLaughlin declared, 'There will be no safe spaces for industries who harbor violent criminals or purposely try to undermine (immigration enforcement) efforts. Worksite enforcement remains a cornerstone of our efforts to safeguard public safety, national security, and economic stability.' The flip-flop baffled businesses trying to figure out the government's actual policy, and Shi says now there's 'fear and worry' once more. 'That's not a way to run a business when your employees are at this level of stress and trauma,' she said. Trump campaigned on a promise to deport millions of immigrants working in the US illegally–an issue that has long fired up his GOP base. The crackdown intensified a few weeks ago when Stephen Miller, White House deputy chief of staff, gave US Immigration and Customs Enforcement a quota of 3,000 arrests a day, up from 650 a day in the first five months of Trump's second term. Suddenly, ICE seemed to be everywhere. 'We saw ICE agents on farms pointing assault rifles at cows and removing half the workforce,' said Shi, whose coalition represents 1,700 employers and supports increased legal immigration. One ICE raid left a New Mexico dairy with just 20 workers, down from 55. 'You can't turn off cows,' said Beverly Idsinga, the executive director of the Dairy Producers of New Mexico. 'They need to be milked twice a day, fed twice a day.' Claudio Gonzalez, a chef at Izakaya Gazen in Los Angeles' Little Tokyo district, said many of his Hispanic workers–whether they're in the country legally or not–have been calling out of work recently due to fears that they will be targeted by ICE. His restaurant is a few blocks away from a collection of federal buildings, including an ICE detention center. 'They sometimes are too scared to work their shift,' Gonzalez said. 'They kind of feel like it's based on skin color.' In some places, the problem isn't ICE but rumors of ICE. At cherry-harvesting time in Washington state, many foreign-born workers are staying away from the orchards after hearing reports of impending immigration raids. One operation that usually employs 150 pickers is down to 20. Never mind that there hasn't actually been any sign of ICE in the orchards. 'We've not heard of any real raids,' said Jon Folden, orchard manager for the farm cooperative Blue Bird in Washington's Wenatchee River Valley. 'We've heard a lot of rumors.' Jennie Murray, CEO of the advocacy group National Immigration Forum, said some immigrant parents worry that their workplaces will be raided and they'll be hauled off by ICE while their kids are in school. 'They ask themselves,' she said, ''Do I show up and then my second-grader gets off the school bus and doesn't have a parent to raise them? Maybe I shouldn't show up for work.'' The horror stories were conveyed to Trump, members of his administration, and lawmakers in Congress by business advocacy and immigration reform groups like Shi's coalition. Last Thursday, the president posted on his Truth Social platform that 'Our great Farmers and people in the Hotel and Leisure business have been stating that our very aggressive policy on immigration is taking very good, long-time workers away from them, with those jobs being almost impossible to replace.' It was another case of Trump's political agenda slamming smack into economic reality. With US unemployment low at 4.2 percent, many businesses are desperate for workers, and immigration provides them. According to the US Census Bureau, foreign-born workers made up less than nineteen percent of employed workers in the US in 2023. But they accounted for nearly twenty-four percent of jobs preparing and serving food and thirty-eight percent of jobs in farming, fishing, and forestry. 'It really is clear to me that the people pushing for these raids that target farms and feed yards and dairies have no idea how farms operate,' Matt Teagarden, CEO of the Kansas Livestock Association, said Tuesday during a virtual press conference. Torsten Slok, chief economist at Apollo Global Management, estimated in January that undocumented workers account for thirteen percent of US farm jobs and seven percent of jobs in hospitality businesses, such as hotels, restaurants, and bars. The Pew Research Center found last year that seventy-five percent of US registered voters–including fifty-nine percent of Trump supporters–agreed that undocumented immigrants mostly fill jobs that American citizens don't want. And an influx of immigrants in 2022 and 2023 allowed the US to overcome an outbreak of inflation without tipping into recession. In the past, economists estimated that America's employers could add no more than 100,000 jobs a month without overheating the economy and igniting inflation. But economists Wendy Edelberg and Tara Watson of the Brookings Institution calculated that because of the immigrant arrivals, monthly job growth could reach 160,000 to 200,000 without exerting upward pressure on prices. Now Trump's deportation plans–and the uncertainty around them–are weighing on businesses and the economy. 'The reality is a significant portion of our industry relies on immigrant labor–skilled, hardworking people who've been part of our workforce for years. When there are sudden crackdowns or raids, it slows timelines, drives up costs, and makes it harder to plan ahead,' says Patrick Murphy, chief investment officer at the Florida building firm Coastal Construction and a former Democratic member of Congress. 'We're not sure from one month to the next what the rules are going to be or how they'll be enforced. That uncertainty makes it really hard to operate a forward-looking business.' Adds Douglas Holtz-Eakin, former director of the Congressional Budget Office and now president of the conservative American Action Forum think tank: 'ICE had detained people who are here lawfully, and so now lawful immigrants are afraid to go to work … All of this goes against other economic objectives the administration might have. The immigration policy and the economic policy are not lining up at all.'

Al Arabiya
2 hours ago
- Al Arabiya
Hezbollah involvement in Iran Israel war would be ‘very bad decision': US envoy
The US special envoy for Syria Tom Barrack on Thursday warned Hezbollah against getting involved in the war between its main backer Iran and Israel. 'I can say on behalf of President (Donald) Trump... that would be a very, very, very bad decision,' Barrack said, responding to a question on what the US position would be on any involvement by Hezbollah in the war. Developing