Mexican president cancels Trump meeting over border wall row Doomsday Clock adjusted, partly due to US president
MEXICO’S President Enrique Pena Nieto cancelled on Thursday a scheduled meeting with US President Donald Trump next week amid a deepening dispute over a border wall promised by America’s new leader.
“This morning we informed the White House that I will not attend the work meeting planned for next Tuesday with the POTUS [president of the US],” Pena Nieto said on Twitter. “Mexico reiterates its willingness to work with the United States to reach accords that favour both nations.”
The Mexican president’s rejection came after Trump said it was “better to cancel” the scheduled visit to Washington if Mexico was unwilling to foot the bill for a border wall.
There was much debate over who would pay for the costly wall. Trump said throughout his campaign that he would force Mexico to pay, a proposal Mexico has repeatedly rejected.
The White House said on Thursday that Trump wants a new 20 percent tax on imports from Mexico to pay for the barrier on the southern border. Trump wants the measure to be part of a broader tax overhaul package that the US Congress is contemplating, White House spokesman Sean Spicer told reporters.
Explaining how the tax would work, Spicer said: “We have a new tax at $50bn at 20 percent of imports —which is, by the way, a practice that 160 other countries do right now.”
“Our country’s policy is to tax exports and let imports flow freely in, which is ridiculous. But by doing it that way we can do $10bn a year and easily pay for the wall. Just through that mechanism alone,” Spicer said. No further details were available.
Manuel Suarez-Mier, a columnist for Mexico’s Excelsior ATOMIC scientists say the world is inching closer to an apocalypse, partly due to the words and actions of US President Donald Trump.
The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, a group of nuclear scientists who have been assessing global security for 70 years, said they were moving their symbolic Doomsday Clock 30 seconds closer to midnight for a number of reasons, but cited Trump’s campaign rhetoric on nuclear proliferation and denial of climate change in particular.
“Even though he has just now taken office, the president’s intemperate statements, lack of openness to expert advice and questionable cabinet nominations have already made a bad international security situation worse,” the scientists said.
Trump, who assumed office on January 20, has made contradictory statements about climate change, at newspaper, told Al Jazeera from Washington, DC, that Trump’s ultimatum came as a surprise for the Mexican government.
Meanwhile, a Massachusetts man is accused of attacking a Muslim airline employee at New York’s John F Kennedy International Airport, allegedly kicking and shouting obscenities at the woman and telling her that Trump “will get rid of all of you,” authorities said.
The Queens District Attorney’s Office said Robin Rhodes, of times calling it a hoax and other times saying he would keep an open mind about it.
Beyond the election of Trump, the scientists listed a number of other reasons for their assessment, including strains in relations between the US and Russia, which together possess more than 90 percent of the world’s nuclear weapons, and North Korea’s underground nuclear tests.
“The Doomsday Clock is closer to midnight than it has ever been in the lifetime of almost everyone in this room,” Lawrence Krauss, the chairman of the Bulletin’s board of sponsors, told reporters on Thursday.
“The last time it was closer was 63 years ago in 1953 after the then Soviet Union exploded its first hydrogen bomb, creating the modern arms race,” he added.
Alluding to Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin, he said: “This is the first time that the words Worchester, had arrived from Aruba and was awaiting a connecting flight to Massachusetts on Wednesday night when he approached Delta employee Rabeeya Khan, who wears a hijab, while she was sitting in her office.
Queens District Attorney Richard A Brown said Rhodes came up to the door and went on a profanity-laced tirade, asking the woman if she was praying. Rhodes then allegedly punched the door, which hit the back of Khan’s chair. Khan asked Rhodes what and stated policies of one or two people placed in high positions have so impacted on our perception of the existential threats we believe the world faces.”
In a lengthy 18-page explanation of its decision, the scientists said that the international community failed to “come effectively to grips” with both nuclear weapons and climate change last year.
The Doomsday Clock was created in 1947 by a group of scientists who worked on the Manhattan Project, the American-led clandestine effort to build the world’s first nuclear weapons.
Over the decades the scientists have recognised climate change as an additional threat, and in their report said “it could change life on Earth as we know it”.
Last year, the bulletin opted not to change the clock’s time from three minutes to midnight. — AFP she had done to him and Rhodes replied, “You did nothing”. He then cursed at her and kicked her in the leg, Brown said. When another person tried to calm him down, Brown said Rhodes moved away from the door and Khan ran out of the office. Rhodes followed her, got down on his knees and began to bow down in imitation of a Muslim praying, shouted obscenities and said “Trump is here now. He will get rid of all of you. You can ask Germany, Belgium and France about these kind of people. You see what happens,” Brown said.
At the time of his arrest, Rhodes allegedly told police, “I guess I am going to jail for disorderly conduct. I couldn’t tell if it was a man or woman because their back was to me and they had something covering their head”. — AFP