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No US tariffs on ‘unavailable natural resources', commerce chief tells lawmakers
No US tariffs on ‘unavailable natural resources', commerce chief tells lawmakers

South China Morning Post

time16 hours ago

  • Business
  • South China Morning Post

No US tariffs on ‘unavailable natural resources', commerce chief tells lawmakers

US Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick on Thursday said Washington would refrain from imposing tariffs on natural resources the country does not hold in abundance amid tough questioning by House lawmakers about American consumers facing rising prices. 'In our trade deals, our expectation is … we will not have tariffs on unavailable natural resources, but we will have market access for our farmers and our ranchers,' said Lutnick in testimony at a budget hearing of the House Appropriations Committee. Pressed by both US congresswoman Grace Meng of New York about the rising cost of 'anything from basmati rice to the burdock root to different sauces' used by Asian-Americans and US congresswoman Madeleine Dean of Pennsylvania about the higher price of bananas, Lutnick named bananas, spices and roots as examples of items that would be exempt from duties as trade negotiations continue. 'Our chicken and pork and beef are treated horribly around the world, horribly,' the commerce secretary added. 'That has to end.' 'And if we use that by saying, 'you can export coffee to us, but you need to treat us better' … I think that is fair trade,' he said. Play

FBI head Kash Patel goes ballistic after House Dem accuses him of lying about appearing on anti-semitic podcast
FBI head Kash Patel goes ballistic after House Dem accuses him of lying about appearing on anti-semitic podcast

Daily Mail​

time07-05-2025

  • Politics
  • Daily Mail​

FBI head Kash Patel goes ballistic after House Dem accuses him of lying about appearing on anti-semitic podcast

FBI Director Kash Patel went on the offensive after he was accused by a Democrat of lying during his Senate confirmation hearing. It came just days after MSNBC was forced to retract bizarre, unfounded allegations of Patel spending more time partying than in the office. Patel was nominated to run the bureau just 10 days into Donald Trump 's second term and faced questions during hearings about his association with podcaster Stew Peters. Peters is considered by many to be an antisemite, including the Anti-Defamation League. During his hearing, Patel claimed to be unfamiliar with Peters, though several reports uncovered that he had appeared on his podcast at least eight times. Madeleine Dean, a Pennsylvania Democrat who served as a House impeachment manager during the second of two impeachment cases against Trump in his first term, used the hearing to try and tar and feather Patel as a liar. She brought up both this and evidence he had been involved in the January 6th riot and asked: 'Mr. Patel, my second question is, should we worry more about your memory or your veracity?' Patel shot back and offered similar accusations toward Dean. 'We should worry more about your lack of candor. You're accusing me of committing perjury. Tell the American people how I broke the law and committed a felony,' he said. Patel added: Have the audacity to actually put the facts forward instead of lying for political banter so you can have a 20-second donation hit.' Dean then chose to try and answer her own question: 'The answer is both.' 'The answer is you're failing, not me,' quipped Patel. Dean accused the FBI Director of having 'eagerness and childlike giddiness to carry out the president's revenge tour.' 'In your statements before you were sworn in and some after, you have shown yourself unfit to lead this important agency.' Patel also denied accusations from Dean that his book, Government Gangsters, included a so-called 'enemies list.' She asserted that the FBI had become 'weaponized' under Patel and confronted him over a book he had authored, saying a list of Trump adversaries he included in it amounted to an 'enemies list' and was being used by Trump as a 'blueprint for revenge.' Patel replied that he was the one who had been 'targeted by a weaponized FBI,' presumably referring to the fact that he was among the people whose records were secretly seized by the Justice Department years earlier as part of media leak investigations when he was a staffer on the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence conducting an investigation into Russian election interference. 'You should read the book because there´s no enemies list (in) that book,' Patel continued. 'There are people that violated their constitutional obligations and their duties to the American people, and they were rightly called out. And you should give that book to every one of your constituents so they can read' about it. 'I won't be doing that,' Dean shot back. 'That's their loss,' Patel said. Patel broke with the Trump administration Wednesday over a budget proposal that would dramatically slash funding for the bureau, telling lawmakers, 'We need more than what has been proposed.' The 2026 budget proposal released on Friday calls for a funding cut of more than $500 million for the FBI as part of what the White House said was a desire to 'reform and streamline' the bureau and reduce 'non-law enforcement missions that do not align' with the priorities of President Donald Trump. He warned that such a cut would be harmful for the FBI as it reorients priorities to focus on violent crime. The 2026 budget proposal released on Friday calls for a funding cut of more than $500 million for the FBI as part of what the White House said was a desire to 'reform and streamline' the bureau and reduce 'non-law enforcement missions that do not align' with the priorities of President Donald Trump Asked to specify at a House Appropriations subcommittee which positions would need to be cut if the funding reduction was implemented, Patel replied: 'At this time, we have not looked at who to cut. We are focusing our energies on how not to have them cut by coming in here and highlighting to you that we can´t do the mission on those 2011 budget levels.' Rep. Rosa DeLauro, a Connecticut Democrat, pressed Patel for details, saying, 'This is your budget. You have to have some idea of what you want to fund or not fund, or where you can cut or not cut, and provide that information' to the Office of Management and Budget. 'That's the proposed budget - not by the FBI,' Patel replied. 'The proposed budget that I put forward is to cover us for for $11.1 billion, which would not have us cut any positions.' Patel also defended the FBI's plan to relocate about 1,000 FBI employees from the Washington area to cities around the country, one of the first initiatives he revealed upon being sworn in as director in February. 'Part of the process is not just putting people out sporadically, throwing darts on the map. What we´ve done is we´ve taken a process with the (career employees) at the FBI and said, `Where are some of the most violent crime places in America?´' Patel said.

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