$3bn pledged for girls education
US threatens automakers with tariffs
LA MALBAIE, Canada, June 10, (AFP): Pledges worth nearly $3 billion dollars to help vulnerable women and girls, including refugees, get an education were announced at a G7 summit on Saturday.
Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, who hosted his fellow leaders at a Quebec resort, called it “the single largest investment in education for women and girls in crisis and conflict situations.”
Canada will provide $300 million of the total.
The amount was more than feminists groups that met with Trudeau on the sidelines of the summit had asked for, earning the G7 praise from civil society groups and activists, including Nobel prize-winner Malala Yousafzai who said it would “give more girls hope that they can build a brighter future for themselves.”
The funds gives “young women in developing countries the opportunity to pursue careers instead of early marriage and child labor,” Malala, who was shot in the head while campaigning for girls’ education in Pakistan, wrote on Twitter.
Canadian Council for International Co-operation’s Julia Sanchez called it “a most welcome set of results, especially in the face of the tense political context that has dominated the summit.”
The cash — to be spent over three to five years — will be used to train teachers and improve curriculums, track educational data, support innovative education methods, and boost women and girls’ graduation rates in developing countries.
The G7’s closing statement also included a general pledge against ocean pollution by cutting down on plastic, although neither the United States or Japan put their names to a detailed timeline.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel and France’s President Emmanuel Macron said at press briefings that the goal was to have 100 percent recycling of plastics by 2030, and to develop more viable alternatives to plastic packaging.
Merkel said that Washington did not want to commit to quantified targets. Japan did not immediately explain its position.
The commitment of the G7’s four European countries — Italy, France, Britain and Germany — is in line with that of the European Union, which is looking to ban single-use plastic products and recycle 90 percent of plastic bottles by 2025.
Meanwhile, US President Donald Trump’s renewed threat to impose tariffs on auto imports will hit foreign automakers that export a large number of vehicles to the US market, but many also manufacture cars domestically.
After yanking his endorsement of a joint statement at the G7 summit in Canada, Trump tweeted that his administration taking a “look at tariffs on automobiles flooding the US market.”
Most of these brands, such as Mercedes and BMW as well as Nissan, Honda and Volkswagen, have at least one auto plant on US soil, where they employ tens of thousands of workers.
These automakers have invested billions of dollars in their US facilities. Toyota and Mazda announced at the start of the year plans to build a $1.6 billion joint facility in Alabama that will be capable of producing 300,000 vehicles a year.
Volvo Cars, which plans to open a plant in South Carolina by the end of the year, has warned that new import duties would affect its investment plans.
In 2017, about 17.2 million vehicles were sold in the United States, according to AutoData, which compiles figures from manufacturers and dealers.
Nearly 8.7 million of these were imports, according to the Center for Automotive Research, mostly from Mexico and Canada — partners in the North American Free Trade Agreement — as well as from Japan, Germany and South Korea.
Since the start of this year, the share of domestically-manufactured autos sold in the US has fallen to 50.1 percent, down from 51.1 percent over the same period in 2017, according to Edmunds.com.
At least 82 percent of Volkswagens sold in the US were imports, according to Edmunds, as well as 55 percent of Toyotas, 57 percent of Hyundais, 70 percent of Mercedes-Benz and 68 percent for BMW.