Chris Hedges's Blog, page 560

9 Numbers That Capture the Brutality of Trump’s Immigration Policy

Workplace raids. The separation of families at the border. The end of temporary protected status. The Trump administration has made vast changes to immigration policy since 2017, dramatically altering the landscape of enforcement priorities both on the border and in the nation’s interior.

The changes have touched people of all ages, some just arriving in the United States, others who have lived here for most of their lives. Here are key numbers that illustrate what’s at stake under President Donald Trump’s immigration policies for hundreds of thousands of people:

50,000

People traveling in families arrested at the southern border since October. U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions introduced a “zero tolerance” policy in April. The policy requires that first-time crossers who try to enter the country without authorization be prosecuted and children separated from their families at the border. Source: The New York Times

61 percent

Percentage of asylum cases denied in 2017. Nearly 9 out of 10 Mexican nationals who claim they’re fleeing persecution are denied asylum. Those from Haiti, El Salvador, Honduras and Guatemala don’t fare much better. Source: Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse

155,000

Immigrants arrested last year by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Thirty percent of those arrested had no criminal record. During the last year of the Obama administration, 110,000 immigrants were arrested, and 16 percent had no history of arrest. During the final presidential debate in 2016, Trump promised to clean up the border by targeting drug dealers and ridding the nation of what he called “bad hombres.” Source: CNN

Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s Stewart Detention Center in Lumpkin, Ga., has a capacity of 1,924 detainees and is operated by the private corrections company CoreCivic.Credit: Kate Brumback/Associated Press

3,410

Workplace inspection raids by ICE to arrest workers without authorization to be in the U.S. between October and May. This figure is double the 1,716 operations conducted in fiscal year 2016. Source: Independent

14,000

ICE detainers issued per month over the last nine months, according to ICE data released through November. Immediately following Trump’s election, there was a large spike in detainer numbers. However, data indicates that the numbers have stabilized since March 2017. Sometimes called holds, detainers are voluntary requests for local jurisdictions to detain someone on behalf of federal immigration agents. It’s unknown how many ICE detainers requested are honored. Source: Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse

428,250

Number of people who will have to leave the U.S. within the next two years with the end of temporary protected status for people from six countries. The Department of Homeland Security decided to end provisional residency for 262,500 Salvadorans, 86,000 Hondurans, 58,600 Haitians, 14,800 Nepalis, 5,300 Nicaraguans and 1,050 Sudanese. Source: CNN

119,100

Immigrant workers from El Salvador, Honduras and Haiti lost with the end of their temporary protected status. This will affect a number of leading U.S. industries, including construction, restaurants and other food services, landscaping services, child day care services, and grocery stores. Source: Journal on Migration and Human Security

15,000

Additional H-2B temporary nonagricultural worker visas available in 2018. In announcing the increase, Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen suggested that there are not enough workers in the U.S. to keep up with the needs of U.S. businesses. Source: U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services 

218

Lawmaker signatures needed for a petition to bypass Republican leadership and permit the House to decide the fate of over 800,000 Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals recipients. As of Tuesday, only three more signatures were needed. Source: Politico

Reporter Aura Bogado contributed to this story.

Vanessa Swales can be reached at vswales@revealnews.org.

Truthdig is running a reader-funded project to document the  Poor People’s Campaign . Please help us by  making a donation .

Scapegoating Iran

NEW YORK—Seventeen years of war in the Middle East and what do we have to show for it? Iraq after our 2003 invasion and occupation is no longer a unified country. Its once modern infrastructure is largely destroyed, and the nation has fractured into warring enclaves. We have lost the war in Afghanistan. The Taliban is resurgent and has a presence in over 70 percent of the country. Libya is a failed state. Yemen after three years of relentless airstrikes and a blockade is enduring one of the world’s worst humanitarian disasters. The 500 “moderate” rebels we funded and armed in Syria at a cost of $500 million are in retreat after instigating a lawless reign of terror. The military adventurism has cost a staggering $5.6 trillion as our infrastructure crumbles, austerity guts basic services and half the population of the United States lives at or near poverty levels. The endless wars in the Middle East are the biggest strategic blunder in American history and herald the death of the empire.

Someone has to be blamed for debacles that have resulted in hundreds of thousands of dead, including at least 200,000 civilians, and millions driven from their homes. Someone has to be blamed for the proliferation of radical jihadist groups throughout the Middle East, the continued worldwide terrorist attacks, the wholesale destruction of cities and towns under relentless airstrikes and the abject failure of U.S. and U.S.-backed forces to stanch the insurgencies. You can be sure it won’t be the generals, the politicians such as George W. Bush, Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, the rabid neocons such as Dick Cheney, Paul Wolfowitz and John Bolton who sold us the wars, the Central Intelligence Agency, the arms contractors who profit from perpetual war or the celebrity pundits on the airwaves and in newspapers who serve as cheerleaders for the mayhem.

“The failed policies, or lack of policies, of the United States, which violate international law, have left the Middle East in total chaos,” the Iranian ambassador to the United Nations, Gholamali Khoshroo, told me when we met in New York City. “The United States, to cover up these aggressive, reckless and costly policies, blames Iran. Iran is blamed for their failures in Yemen, Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria and Lebanon.”

The Trump administration “is very naive about the Middle East and Iran,” the ambassador said. “It can only speak in the language of threats—pressure, sanctions, intervention. These policies have failed in the region. They are very risky and costly. Let the Americans deal with the problems of the countries they have already invaded and attacked. America lacks constructive power in the Middle East. It is unable to govern even a village in Iraq, Afghanistan, Yemen or Syria. All it can do is use force and destructive power. This U.S. administration wants the Middle East and the whole world to bow to it. This is not a policy conducive to sound relationships with sovereign states, especially those countries that have resisted American influence.”

“The plan to arm ‘moderate’ rebels in Syria was a cover to topple [Syrian President] Bashar al-Assad,” the ambassador went on. “The Americans knew there were no ‘moderate’ rebels. They knew these weapons would get into the hands of terrorist groups like Daesh [Islamic State], Al-Nusra and their affiliates. Once again, the American policy failed. The Americans succeeded in destroying a country. They succeeded in creating bloodbaths. They succeeded in displacing millions of people. But they gained nothing. The sovereignty of Syria is expanding by the day. It is hard to imagine what President Trump is offering as a strategy in Syria. One day, he says, ‘I will move out of Syria very soon, very quickly.’ The next day he says, ‘If Iran is there, we should stay.’ I wonder if the American taxpayers know how much of their money has been wasted in Iraq, Syria and Yemen?”

Trump’s unilateral decision to withdraw from the Iran nuclear deal, although Iran was in compliance with the agreement, was the first salvo in this effort to divert attention from these failures to Iran. Bolton, the new national security adviser, and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, along with Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani, advocate the overthrow of the Iranian government, with Giuliani saying last month that Trump is “as committed to regime change as we [an inner circle of presidential advisers] are.”

“The Iran nuclear deal was possible following several letters by Ppresident Barack Obama assuring the Iranian leadership that America had no intention of violating Iranian sovereignty,” Ambassador Khoshroo said. “America said it wanted to engage in a serious dialogue on equal footing and mutual interests and concerns. These assurances led to the negotiations that concluded with the JCPOA [Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action]. From the beginning, however, America was not forthcoming in its dealings with us on the JCPOA. President Obama wanted the agreement to be implemented, but he did not want it implemented in its full capacity. Congress, on the day JCPOA was implemented, passed a law warning Europeans that were doing business with Iran. The staffs of companies had to apply for a visa to the United States if they had traveled to Iran for business purposes. This began on the first day. The Americans were not always very forthcoming. OFAC [Office of Foreign Funds Control] gave ambiguous answers to many of the questions that companies had about sanctions, but at least in words the Obama administration supported the JCPOA and saw the agreement as the basis for our interactions.”

“President Trump, however, even as a candidate, called the agreement ‘the worst deal America ever made,’ ” the ambassador said. “He called this deal a source of embarrassment for America. Indeed, it was not the deal but America’s unilateral decision to walk away from an agreement that was supported by the United Nations Security Council, and in fact co-sponsored and drafted by the United States, that is the source of embarrassment for America. To walk away from an international agreement and then threaten a sovereign country is the real source of embarrassment since Iran was in full compliance while the U.S. never was.”

“In 2008, the Israelis told the world that Iran was only some days away from acquiring an atomic bomb,” he said. “The Israelis said there had to be a military strike to prevent Iran from acquiring a nuclear weapon. What has happened since? During the last two years, there have been 11 reports by the IAEA [International Atomic Energy Agency] clearly confirming and demonstrating Iran’s full compliance with the JCPOA. All of the accusations [about] Iran using nuclear facilities for military purposes were refuted by the IAEA as well as by Europe, Russia, China, along with many other countries in Asia, Latin America, Africa. America is concerned about Iranian influence in the region and seeks to contain Iran because the U.S. administration realizes that America’s policies in the Middle East have failed. Their own statements about Iran repeatedly contradict each other. One day they say, ‘Iran is so weak it will collapse,’ and the next day they say, ‘Iran is governing several Arab capitals in the Middle East.’ ”

Iran announced recently that it has tentative plans to produce the feedstock for centrifuges, the machines that enrich uranium, if the nuclear deal is not salvaged by European members of the JCPOA. European countries, dismayed by Trump’s decision to withdraw from the agreement, are attempting to renegotiate the deal, which imposes restrictions on Iran’s nuclear development in exchange for the lifting of international sanctions.

Why go to war with a country that abides by an agreement it has signed with the United States? Why attack a government that is the mortal enemy of the Taliban, along with other jihadist groups, including al-Qaida and Islamic State, that now threaten us after we created and armed them? Why shatter the de facto alliance we have with Iran in Iraq and Afghanistan? Why further destabilize a region already dangerously volatile?

The architects of these wars are in trouble. They have watched helplessly as the instability and political vacuum they caused, especially in Iraq, left Iran as the dominant power in the region. Washington, in essence, elevated its nemesis. It has no idea how to reverse its mistake, beyond attacking Iran. Those both in the U.S. and abroad who began or promoted these wars see a conflict with Iran as a solution to their foreign and increasingly domestic dilemmas.

For example, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, mired in corruption scandals, hopes that by fostering a conflict with Iran he can divert attention away from investigations into his abuse of power and the massacres Israel carries out against Palestinians, along with Israel’s accelerated seizure of Palestinian land.

“The most brutal regime is now in power in Israel,” the Iranian ambassador said. “It has no regard for international law or humanitarian law. It violates Security Council resolutions regarding settlements, its capital and occupation. Look at what Israel has done in Gaza in the last 30 days. On the same day America was unlawfully transferring its embassy to Jerusalem, 60 unarmed Palestinian protesters were killed by Israeli snipers. [Israelis] were dancing in Jerusalem while the blood of unarmed Palestinians was running in Gaza. The Trump administration gives total support and impunity to Israel. This angers many people in the Middle East, including many in Saudi Arabia. It is a Zionist project to portray Iran as the main threat to peace in the Middle East. Israel introducing Iran as a threat is an attempt to divert attention from the crimes this regime is committing, but these too are failed policies that will backfire. They are policies designed to cover weakness.”

Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, facing internal unrest, launched the war in Yemen as a vanity project to bolster his credentials as a military leader. Now he desperately needs to deflect attention from the quagmire and humanitarian disaster he created.

“Saudi Arabia, as part of [the civil war in Yemen], has a tactical and strategic cooperation with Israel against Iran,” the ambassador said. “But the Saudi regime is defying the sentiments of its own people. How long will this be possible? For three years now, Saudi Arabia, assisted by the United States, has bombed the Yemeni people and imposed a total blockade that includes food and medicine. Nothing has been resolved. Once again, Iran is blamed for this failure by Saudi Arabia and the United States in Yemen. Even if Iran wanted to help the Yemenis, it is not possible due to the total blockade. The Yemeni people asked for peace negotiations from the first day of the war. But Saudi military adventurism and its desire to test its military resolve made any peaceful solution impossible. The U.S. and the U.K. provide military and logistical support, including cluster bombs to be used by the Saudis in Yemen. The Emiratis are bombing Yemen. All such actions are doomed to failure since there is no military solution in Yemen. There is only a political solution. Look at the targets of Saudi airstrikes in Yemen: funerals. Wedding ceremonies. Agricultural fields. Houses. Civilians. How do the Saudis expect the Yemeni people to greet those who bomb them? With hugs? The war has cost a lot of money, and Trump responds by saying [to Saudi Arabia], ‘Oh you have money. [Paraphrasing here.] Please buy our ‘beautiful weapons.’ They are killing beautiful children with these ‘beautiful’ weapons. It is a disaster. It is tragic.”

And then there is President Donald Trump, desperate for a global crusade he can use to mask his ineptitude, the rampant corruption of his administration and his status as an international pariah when he runs for re-election in 2020.

“Of course, blaming and threatening Iran is not new,” the ambassador said. “This has been going on for 40 years. The Iranian people and the Iranian government are accustomed to this nonsense. United States intervention in the internal affairs of Iran goes back a long time, including the [Iranian] war with Iraq, when the United States supported Saddam Hussein. Then America invaded Iraq in 2003 in their so-called ‘intervention for democracy and elimination of WMDs.’ Iran has always resisted and will always resist U.S. threats.”

“America was in Iran 40 years ago,” the ambassador said. “About 100,000 U.S. advisers were in Iran during the rule of the shah, who was among the closest allies of America. America was unable to keep this regime in power because the Iranian people revolted against such dependency and suppression. Since the fall of the shah in 1979, for 40 years, America continued to violate international law, especially the Algeria agreements it signed with Iran in 1981.”

The Algeria Declaration was a set of agreements between the United States and Iran that resolved the Iranian hostage crisis. It was brokered by the Algerian government. The U.S. committed itself in the Algeria Declaration to refrain from interference in Iranian internal affairs and to lift trade sanctions on Iran and a freeze on Iranian assets.

The warmongers have no more of a plan for “regime change” in Iran than they had in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya or Syria. European allies, whom Trump alienated when he walked away from the Iranian nuclear agreement, are in no mood to cooperate with Washington. The Pentagon, even if it wanted to, does not have the hundreds of thousands of troops it would need to attack and occupy Iran. And the idea—pushed by lunatic fringe figures like Bolton and Giuliani—that the marginal and discredited Iranian resistance group Mujahedeen-e-Khalq (MEK), which fought alongside Saddam Hussein in the war against Iran and is viewed by most Iranians as composed of traitors, is a viable counterforce to the Iranian government is ludicrous. In all these equations the 80 million people in Iran are ignored just as the people of Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya and Syria were ignored. Perhaps they would not welcome a war with the United States. Perhaps if attacked they would resist. Perhaps they don’t want to be occupied. Perhaps a war with Iran would be interpreted throughout the region as a war against Shiism. But these are calculations that the ideologues, who know little about the instrument of war and even less about the cultures or peoples they seek to dominate, are unable to fathom.

“The Middle East has many problems: insecurity, instability, problems with natural resources such as water, etc.,” Khoshroo said. “All of these problems have been made worse by foreign intervention as well as Israel’s lawlessness. The issue of Palestine is at the heart of turmoil in the Middle East for Muslims. Any delay in finding solutions to these wounds in the Middle East exposes this region to more dangerous threats. Americans say they want the Middle East to be free from violent extremism, but this will only happen when the Middle East is free from occupation and foreign intervention. The Americans are selling their weapons throughout the Middle East. They calculate how much money they can earn from destruction. They don’t care about human beings. They don’t care about security or democratic process or political process. This is worrisome.”

“What are the results of American policies in the Middle East?” he asked. “All of the American allies in the region are in turmoil. Only Iran is secure and stable. Why is this the case? Why, during the last 40 years, has Iran been stable? Is it because Iran has no relationship with America? Why is there hostility between Iran and America? Can’t the Americans see that Iran’s stability is important for the region? We are surrounded by Pakistan, Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Yemen. What good would come from destabilizing Iran? What would America get out of that?”

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U.S., North Korea Make Final Summit Preparations

SINGAPORE — The Latest on a summit between North Korean leader Kim Jong Un and President Donald Trump in Singapore (all times local):

6:50 a.m.

North Korea’s official media have reported that leader Kim Jong Un is in Singapore to meet President Trump to discuss how to forge a new relationship.

The first word Kim is in Singapore for Tuesday’s summit came early Monday morning. Though North Koreans have been left largely in the dark about the summit, the reports of his arrival came relatively quickly by North Korean standards.

A dispatch by the state-run Korean Central News Agency says Kim and Trump will exchange “wide-ranging and profound views” on establishing a new relationship, the issue of building a “permanent and durable peace mechanism” and realizing the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula.

The report notes the summit is being held “under the great attention and expectation of the whole world.”

___

11:35 p.m.

U.S. and North Korean officials are set to meet in Singapore to make final preparations for the summit between President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un.

White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders says the U.S. ambassador to the Philippines, who has taken the lead on policy negotiations with the North, will hold a working group with a North Korean delegation at 10 a.m. Monday local time, or 10 p.m. Sunday on the U.S. East Coast.

Sanders says Trump spent his flight from Canada to Singapore “meeting with his staff, reading materials and preparing for his meetings in Singapore.”

Trump and Kim are set to meet at 9 a.m. Tuesday in Singapore, which is 9 p.m. Monday on the U.S. East Coast.

___

10:30 p.m.

The top Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee says the North Korean leader has already achieved some success just by bringing the American president to the table.

Sen. Bob Menendez of New Jersey says: “To the extent that Kim Jong Un has already gone from international pariah to being normalized internationally, you have to say that he’s had some success here.”

Menendez also stresses that getting a nuclear deal with North Korea will not be the hard point, noting that several previous presidents were able to strike deals only to see them fall apart. The test will be whether a deal has “verifiable elements of a denuclearization,” to prove whether the North has dismantled its nuclear and ballistic missile programs.

Menendez spoke Sunday on ABC’s “This Week” as President Donald Trump arrived in Singapore ahead of Tuesday’s talks with Kim.

___

8:25 p.m.

President Donald Trump has arrived in Singapore where he will meet with North Korea’s leader Kim Jong Un.

Trump landed at 8:21 Sunday evening at the island city-state’s Paya Lebar Air Base, traveling from Canada, where he attended a meeting of the Group of Seven Nations.

Trump’s high-risk meeting with Kim is scheduled for 9 a.m. Tuesday, or 9 p.m. June 11 on the U.S. East Coast. The president hopes to win a legacy-making deal with the North to give up their nuclear weapons, though he has recently sought to manage expectations, saying that it may take more than one meeting.

This will be the first summit of its kind between a leader of North Korea and a sitting U.S. president. The North has faced crippling diplomatic and economic sanctions as it has advanced development of its nuclear and ballistic missile programs.

___

7:10 p.m.

Pope Francis has prayed that the summit this week between the U.S. and North Korean leaders succeeds in laying the groundwork for peace.

Francis expressed hope Sunday that Tuesday’s talks between U.S. President Donald Trump and North Korea’s leader Kim Jong Un in Singapore will “contribute to the development of a positive path that will assure a future of peace for the Korean Peninsula and the entire world.”

He invited the thousands of faithful in St. Peter’s Square to pray with him so that the Virgin Mary “accompany these talks.” Francis said he wanted yet again to send “a special thought in friendship and prayer” to the beloved Korean people.

___

6:50 p.m.

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un has met with Singapore Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong ahead of Tuesday’s summit with President Donald Trump.

Kim smiled broadly in the meeting Sunday evening.

Kim told Lee: “The entire world is watching the historic summit between the DPRK and the United States of America, and thanks to your sincere efforts … we were able to complete the preparation for the historic summit.”

___

3:15 p.m.

A plane presumably carrying North Korean leader Kim Jong Un has arrived in Singapore ahead of Kim’s summit Tuesday with President Donald Trump.

The jet landed at the airport Sunday afternoon amid huge security precautions on the city-state island.

Kim is set to meet Tuesday with Trump in what’s shaping up to be one of the most unusual summits in modern history.

Despite the initial high stakes of a meeting meant to rid North Korea of its nuclear weapons, the talks have been portrayed by Trump in recent days more as a get-to-know-each-other meeting. He has also raised the possibility of further summits.

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Mitt Romney and Donald Trump? ‘It’s Really Complicated’

PARK CITY, Utah — On the edge of a mountaintop in Utah, it’s getting complicated for Mitt Romney.

With the sun setting over his shoulder, the former Republican presidential nominee and would-be senator tells his audience, gathered on the patio of a resort, that President Donald Trump will win a second term. Romney also says that annual $1 trillion deficits under Trump are “highly stimulative.” And ignoring Trump’s new trade tariffs, Romney says there’s nothing already on the horizon that will push the U.S. into a recession.

Once the face of the “Never Trump” movement, Romney appears to be embracing Trump’s presidency as he re-enters national politics, this time as a 71-year-old candidate for the Senate from Utah.

Perhaps no Republican leader demonstrates the transformation of the modern-day party better than Romney.

Two years ago, Romney attacked Trump’s very same policies on trade, spending and national security. Today, like other candidates across the country this election season, Romney is taking an approach that suggests there’s no room for an outspoken Trump critic in Republican Party.

“Whatever the disagreements have been, I think they’ve put them behind each other,” said Anthony Scaramucci, a former Romney fundraiser who briefly served as Trump’s communications director.

Scaramucci was among dozens of high-profile business and political leaders at Romney’s annual summit in Park City this weekend. Outspoken Trump supporters were scarce.

The president has forgiven Romney, Scaramucci said, and Romney “can be an ally.”

It may not be that simple.

Many Romney loyalists, in comments in the hallways of the Stein Eriksen Lodge, said Romney remains deeply concerned about Trump’s policies and leadership style. For many among the Trump faithful, Romney will never be forgiven for his speech two years ago when he laid out in stark terms his case for why a Trump presidency would be a disaster.

Publicly, the two men have been respectful to each other, at a distance, since the 2016 election.

Trump endorsed Romney’s Senate bid on Twitter earlier this year. And on Friday, the president had this to say after learning Romney predicted a 2020 Trump victory: “Mitt’s a straight shooter — whether people love him or don’t love him.”

The backhanded compliment is evidence of the lingering tension between Republican heavyweights who represent different wings of the GOP.

Romney is the face of the establishment. He spent much of the past decade working to strengthen the conservative movement and elect Republicans. Trump has taken over the GOP by attacking its own leaders at times with a brand of populism that defies long-cherished conservative positions on trade, fiscal discipline and foreign policy.

Romney must make it through the June 26 primary and the general election in November, but most see it as a foregone conclusion that he will succeed retiring GOP Sen. Orrin Hatch in this Republican stronghold.

The focus, therefore, has already begun to shift toward Romney’s fit in Trump’s GOP once he gets to Washington.

“There are issues he wants to dive deep on — and I don’t think he’ll be bashful in taking on Donald Trump or (Senate Majority Leader) Mitch McConnell for that matter,” said Jason Chaffetz, a close Romney ally and a recently retired congressman from Utah. “He’s no rookie freshman senator. He’s going to come with a little more clout and gravitas than that.”

Those closer to Romney suggest a murkier path ahead.

“It’s really complicated,” said Lanhee Chen, a senior aide on Romney’s 2012 presidential campaign who remains close to Romney’s inner circle. “I don’t think he’s going there to be an agitator.”

But Chen said Romney sees a void in Congress he’s eager to fill, particularly on foreign policy and federal spending, as more independent-minded Republican senators such as Arizona’s Jeff Flake and Tennessee’s Bob Corker prepare to step down, and Arizona’s John McCain battles brain cancer.

In the time since Trump won the presidency, however, there are signs that Romney is inclined to defer to the undisputed Republican leader.

Romney disappointed some admirers with his prediction on Thursday about Trump’s re-election. A spokeswoman later declined to say whether Romney was formally endorsing Trump’s 2020 campaign. But Romney’s words echoed across the political world, discouraging what remains of the GOP’s Never Trump movement.

“Everybody gets sucked into the Trump vortex. I really thought Romney would somewhat stay above it,” said Kendal Unruh, a Colorado-based conservative activist who tried to block Trump’s nomination at the 2016 national convention.

Unruh said Romney’s latest remarks prompted her to re-read his March 2016 speech in which he called Trump “a phony” and “a “fake.”

In that scathing attack, Romney warned that Trump’s proposed tariffs would trigger recession, his spending plans would explode the national debt and his foreign policy would endanger America’s security.

“All those things are happening,” Unruh said. “Isn’t it amazing what an endorsement can do? I’ve lost respect for Mitt Romney.”

Romney has walked a fine line on Trump in his Senate campaign, aligning himself with many of the president’s policies while subtly raising concerns about Trump’s leadership style.

In his weekend remarks, Romney initially described the increase in deficit-spending under Trump as one of the “extraordinary stimulus actions” in Trump’s first year in office. Romney later raised concerns about the cost of such red ink.

“We don’t seem to be making much progress on that,” Romney said.

With the primary approaching, Romney doesn’t appear to be paying a political price for the balancing act in Utah, where Romney remains a beloved adopted son and many conservatives share mixed views of the president.

There are Romney critics, however.

Former Republican state lawmaker Curt Oda said he doesn’t trust Romney. “I think he’ll do things to stall the president, whether it’s good or not … just because he hates the president so badly,” he said.

Scaramucci, however, insists there’s no bad blood from Trump’s perspective.

Romney “said the guy’s going to win re-election,” Scaramucci said. ‘I think he can be an ally.”

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Migrant Rescue Ship Awaits OK to Dock After Italy, Malta Say No

ROME — A private rescue ship carrying 629 migrants remained Sunday evening on a northward course in the Mediterranean Sea after more than a day of not receiving permission to dock in either Italy or the small island nation of Malta.

Aid group SOS Mediterranee said the passengers on its ship, the Aquarius, included 400 people who were picked up by the Italian navy, the country’s coast guard and private cargo ships and transferred. The rescue ship’s crew itself pulled 229 migrants from the water or from traffickers’ unseaworthy boats Saturday night, including 123 unaccompanied minors and seven pregnant women.

The Aquarius and its passengers were caught up in a crackdown swiftly implemented by the right-wing partner in Italy’s new populist government, which has vowed to stop the country from becoming the “refugee camp of Europe.”

“Starting today, Italy, too, begins to say NO to the trafficking of human beings, NO to the business of clandestine immigration,” Interior Minister Matteo Salvini, leader of the anti-migrant League party, tweeted Sunday.

Salvini and Italian Transportation Minister Danilo Toninelli, who is part of the 5-Star Movement faction in the new government, said in a joint statement Sunday that it was Malta’s responsibility to “open its ports for the hundreds of the rescued on the NGO ship Aquarius.”

“The island can’t continue to turn the other way,” the ministers said. “The Mediterranean is the sea of all the countries that face it, and it (Malta) can’t imagine that Italy will continue to face this giant phenomenon in solitude.”

The Maltese government, however, was not moved. It said in a statement that the Aquarius took on the passengers in waters controlled by Libya and where Italian authorities in Rome coordinate search-and-rescue operations.

The Maltese Rescue Coordination Center “is neither the competent nor the coordinating authority,” the statement said.

SOS Mediterranee spokeswoman Mathilde Auvillain told The Associated Press the ship was “heading north following instructions received after the rescues and transfers” Saturday night. The Rome-based rescue coordination center gave the instructions.

The aid group said in a statement it had taken “good note” of Salvini’s stance, as reported earlier by Italian media. It added that the Aquarius “is still waiting for definitive instructions regarding the port of safety.”

SOS Mediterranee said Maltese search-and-rescue authorities were contacted by their Italian counterparts “to find the best solution for the well-being and safety” of the people on the ship.

Farther west in the Mediterranean, Spain’s maritime rescue service saved 334 migrants and recovered four bodies from boats it intercepted trying to reach Europe over the weekend. The rescue service said its patrol craft reached nine different boats carrying migrants that had left from Africa on Saturday and early Sunday.

One boat found Sunday was carrying four bodies along with 49 migrants. The cause of death was yet to be determined.

To the east, Libya’s coast guard intercepted 152 migrants, including women and children, from two boats stopped in the Mediterranean off the coast of the western Zuwara district Saturday. The migrants were taken to a naval base in Tripoli.

Human rights groups oppose returning rescued migrants to Libya, where many are held in inhumane conditions, poorly fed and often forced to do slave labor.

Libya was plunged into chaos following a 2011 uprising. The lawlessness in Libya has made it a popular place for migrants to try to depart for Europe.

Driven by violent conflicts and extreme poverty, hundreds of thousands of migrants have reached southern Europe in recent years by crossing the Mediterranean in smugglers’ boats that often are unseaworthy.

The United Nations says at least 785 migrants have died crossing the sea so far this year.

___

Joseph Wilson contributed from Barcelona, Spain and Stephen Calleja contributed from Malta.

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Associated Press: Trump’s Stats on Trade Are Wrong

WASHINGTON—President Donald Trump is using some goosey numbers to rationalize his aggressive rhetoric on trade, disregarding strong points in U.S. competitiveness to paint a dark portrait of a world taking advantage of his country.

Conversely, he’s glossing over aspects of the economy that don’t support his faulty contention that it’s the best it’s ever been. The complexities of health care for veterans are also set aside as he hails a new era in the Department of Veterans Affairs’ system.

A look at some of his statements over the past week and the reality behind them:

TRUMP: “Last year, they lost 800 — we as a nation, over the years — but the latest number is $817 billion on trade. That’s ridiculous and it’s unacceptable. And everybody was told that.” — news conference Saturday at the Group of Seven summit in Canada.

THE FACTS: Trump’s bottom-line number in his dispute with trading partners is wrong. The U.S. ran a trade deficit last year of $568.4 billion, says his administration’s Census Bureau and Bureau of Economic Analysis, not $817 billion.

Trump refers only to the deficit in goods. Last year, the U.S. bought $811 billion more in goods from other countries than other countries bought from the U.S. But the U.S. had a surplus in trade in services, which brought the actual trade deficit down.

He made a similar error in a tweet Thursday, saying “The EU trade surplus with the U.S. is $151 Billion.” It was $101 billion.

The U.S. is more competitive in services than in goods overall, and services are a big part of the trade equation. Trump glosses over that aspect of trade.

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TRUMP: “Why isn’t the European Union and Canada informing the public that for years they have used massive Trade Tariffs and non-monetary Trade Barriers against the U.S. Totally unfair to our farmers, workers & companies. Take down your tariffs & barriers or we will more than match you!” — tweet Thursday.

TRUMP: “Farmers have not been doing well for 15 years. Mexico, Canada, China and others have treated them unfairly. By the time I finish trade talks, that will change. Big trade barriers against U.S. farmers, and other businesses, will finally be broken. Massive trade deficits no longer!’ — tweet Monday.

THE FACTS: Whatever his beef with farm trade with specific countries, he’s wrong in suggesting U.S. agriculture runs a trade deficit. The U.S. exports more food products than it imports, running a $17.4 billion surplus last year. It’s long been a bright spot in the trade picture and it’s why many U.S. farmers are worried about losing markets as Trump retreats from, renegotiates or disparages trade deals.

U.S. farmers do brisk business with the three countries he complains about in the tweet, two of them under the umbrella of the North American Free Trade Agreement, which Trump is threatening to leave if it’s not recast to give the U.S. greater advantage. The U.S. exported $20.5 billion in agricultural products last year to Canada, the largest market for U.S. farmers. That made for a modest deficit of $1.8 billion. The U.S. exported $18.6 billion in farm goods to Mexico, running a deficit of $6 billion.

The U.S. has a lopsided advantage with China on farm goods, in contrast to manufactured products. It sold $21 billion in agricultural products to China in 2016, for a surplus of $16.7 billion.

The Agriculture Department says exports of food products have grown “steadily over the last two decades.”

Trump’s unrelievedly negative view of the EU may be grounded in a substantial trade deficit with the continent, but his administration’s trade office takes a longer and more benevolent view of the relationship.

“Two-way U.S.-EU trade has been roughly balanced over time,” says the U.S. Trade Representative’s Office, “and the very high levels of foreign investment accounted for by each in the other’s markets means that the transatlantic economy is arguably the most integrated on Earth.”

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TRUMP: “We have the strongest economy that we’ve ever had in the United States — in the history of the United States. We have the best unemployment numbers.” — news conference Saturday.

TRUMP: “Best Economy & Jobs EVER, and much more.” — tweet Monday referring to achievement in his first 500 days in office.

THE FACTS: May’s unemployment rate of 3.8 percent is not the best ever. And the economy has seen many periods of stronger growth.

The lowest unemployment rate since World War II was reached in 1953, when it averaged 2.9 percent, almost a full point lower than today. The job market is certainly strong, with unemployment at an 18-year low, and if it drops another tenth of a point, it’ll be the lowest since 1969.

Yet the jobless rate was at or below 4 percent for four straight years back then, from 1966 through 1969, and wages were rising more quickly. The cost of items such as college and health care was much lower then.

Overall the economy has yet to show it can sustain growth in excess of 3 percent, as Trump has promised.

In the 1990s boom, still the longest on record, the U.S. economy expanded at an average annual pace of 4.3 percent for five years, from 1996 through 2000. In the 1980s, growth averaged 4.6 percent annually from 1983 through 1987. While the economy has picked up from 2016, its best showing since Trump took office was 3.2 percent in last year’s third quarter.

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TRUMP: “Separating families at the Border is the fault of bad legislation passed by the Democrats. Border Security laws should be changed but the Dems can’t get their act together! Started the Wall.” — tweet Tuesday.

THE FACTS: No law mandates that parents must be separated from their children at the border, and it’s not a policy Democrats have pushed or can change alone as the minority in Congress. Children are probably being separated from the parents at the border at an accelerated rate because of a new “zero tolerance policy” being put in place by Trump’s own administration. Announced April 6 by Attorney General Jeff Sessions, the policy directs authorities to prosecute all instances of illegal border crossings, even against people with few or no previous offenses.

Administration officials are quick to note that Sessions’ policy makes no mention of separating families. That is correct. But under U.S. protocol, if parents are jailed, their children are separated from them because the children aren’t charged with a crime.

So while separating families might not be official U.S. policy, it is a direct consequence of Sessions’ zero-tolerance approach.

According to U.S. Customs and Border Protection, more than 650 children were separated from parents at the border during a two-week period in May.

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TRUMP: “I have to tell you, the Coast Guard saved 16,000 people. … Saved 16,000 people, many of them in Texas, for whatever reason that is. People went out in their boats to watch the hurricane. That didn’t work out too well. That didn’t work out too well.” — hurricane preparation briefing Wednesday.

THE FACTS: There is no indication the Coast Guard was busy saving the lives of foolhardy hurricane gawkers drifting off the Texas coast. Texas officials are baffled at Trump’s words and the Coast Guard does not back them up. Some of the most powerful images from Hurricane Harvey were of flooded Houston streets swarming with volunteer boaters who answered the call of overwhelmed first responders and used their personal watercraft to rescue families from their homes.

Coast Guard Petty Officer Edward Wargo of Houston said the service didn’t take note of how or why people got stranded during Harvey, but said most rescues appeared to occur within city limits and neighborhoods. Republican Gov. Greg Abbott said he had “no information one way or the other” about Trump’s claim that people were on the water to watch Harvey. But the outgoing speaker of the Texas House, Republican Joe Straus, rejected the idea.

“The people who took their boats into the water during Harvey were not storm-watchers,” Straus tweeted. “They were heroes who went toward danger to rescue friends, neighbors, strangers. Texans helping Texans in a time of desperate need.”

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TRUMP: “In the campaign, I also promised that we would fight for Veterans Choice. … It seemed like if they’re waiting on line for nine days and they can’t see a doctor, why aren’t they going outside to see a doctor and take care of themselves, and we pay the bill? It’s less expensive for us, it works out much better, and it’s immediate care. And that’s what we’re doing.” — remarks Wednesday during the signing of a bill intended to give veterans more access to private health care as an alternative to the VA system.

THE FACTS: The care provided under the Choice private-sector program is not as immediate as Trump suggests, nor does it always work out much better. Currently, only veterans who endure waits of at least 30 days — not nine days — for an appointment at a VA facility are eligible to receive care from private doctors at government expense. Under a newly expanded Choice program that will take at least a year to implement, veterans will still have to meet certain criteria before they can see a private physician, such as when a local VA facility does not offer the services required or veterans face an “unusual or excessive burden” to getting the care they need.

Waits for a private doctor are not always shorter. The VA has said its medical facilities are “often 40 percent better in terms of wait times” compared with the private sector.

There also is little evidence that providing private care to veterans compared with treatment at one of VA’s 1,300 clinics and hospitals will be “less expensive.” Experts generally agree that VA care is less costly due to economies of scale. A congressional commission in 2016 determined that giving veterans more flexibility to see doctors outside the VA system would probably increase costs, due in part to growing demand from veterans who are drawn by the idea of picking their own doctor.

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TRUMP: “This bill speeds up the claims process, increases the health services, expands access to walk-in clinics, and fights opioid addiction.”

THE FACTS: It’s not clear whether a newly expanded Choice program will speed up the claims process.

A Government Accountability Office report released this past week found that despite the Choice program’s guarantee of providing an appointment within 30 days, veterans waited an average of 51 to 64 days; the process took as long as 70 days. Investigators faulted bureaucratic inefficiency and understaffing at VA, which contributed to delays in making referrals and scheduling appointments. They warned of continuing problems of long waits under a newly expanded Choice program until the VA is able to more easily exchange veterans’ medical records with outside physicians; the VA has said achieving that could take years.

Pointing to faulty data, government investigators said the VA “cannot determine whether the Choice program has helped to achieve the goal of alleviating veterans’ wait times for care.”

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TRUMP, on expanding the Choice program: “This has been for years; for 30, 40 years, they’ve been trying to get this done, and they haven’t been able to. And we got it done.”

THE FACTS: It’s not done. Trump signed into law a bill that would loosen restrictions for veterans seeking medical care outside the VA system, but it’ll take at least a year to implement and its actual scope in expanding choice to veterans will depend on the next VA secretary, who has yet to be confirmed by the Senate. A successful expansion of private care will also depend on an overhaul of electronic health records at VA to allow for a seamless sharing of records with private physicians. That overhaul will take at least 10 years to be complete.

Limited money for the program could also hamper its effectiveness. A group of senators is seeking to pay for the law by adding new money to cover the VA private care program, but the White House has been quietly working to block that plan, saying it is “anathema to responsible spending.” The White House is insisting that added costs of the newly expanded private care program be paid for by cutting spending elsewhere at the VA, something that major veterans groups generally oppose.

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Associated Press writers Hope Yen, Josh Boak, Christopher Rugaber and Anne Flaherty in Washington and Paul J. Weber in Austin, Texas, contributed to this report.

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Find AP Fact Checks at http://apne.ws/2kbx8bd

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White House Vents Fury at Canada Over Tariffs

QUEBEC CITY—Bashing the leader of one of America’s venerable allies, the White House escalated its trade tirade and leveled more withering and unprecedented criticism Sunday against Canada’s prime minister, branding Justin Trudeau a back-stabber unworthy of President Donald Trump’s time.

“There’s a special place in hell for any foreign leader that engages in bad faith diplomacy with President Donald J. Trump and then tries to stab him in the back on the way out the door,” Trump trade adviser Peter Navarro said in an interview nationally broadcast in the U.S.

The verbal volleys by Navarro and Trump’s top economic adviser, Larry Kudlow, picked up where Trump left off Saturday evening with a series of tweets from Air Force One en route to Singapore for his nuclear summit Tuesday with North Korea’s Kim Jong Un. Kudlow suggested Trump saw Trudeau as trying to weaken his hand before that meeting, saying the president won’t “let a Canadian prime minister push him around. … Kim must not see American weakness.”

Just as the Trudeau-hosted Group of Seven meeting of the world’s leading industrialized nations had seemed to weather Trump’s threats of a trade war, the president backed out of the group’s joint statement that Trudeau said all the leaders had come together to sign. Trump called Trudeau “dishonest & weak” after Trudeau said at a news conference that Canada would retaliate for new U.S. tariffs.

Trudeau didn’t respond to questions about Trump when the prime minister arrived at a Quebec City hotel Sunday for meetings with other world leaders. A Trudeau spokesman, Cameron Ahmad, said Saturday night that Trudeau “said nothing he hasn’t said before — both in public and in private conversations” with Trump.

And Roland Paris, a former foreign policy adviser to Trudeau, jabbed on Trump on Twitter: “Big tough guy once he’s back on his airplane. Can’t do it in person. … He’s a pathetic little man-child.”

Trudeau said he had reiterated to Trump, who left the G-7 meeting before it ended, that tariffs would harm industries and workers on both sides of the U.S.-Canada border. Trudeau told reporters that imposing retaliatory measures “is not something I relish doing” but that he wouldn’t hesitate to do so because “I will always protect Canadian workers and Canadian interests.”

Navarro, the Trump trade adviser, said his harsh assessment of what “bad faith” Trudeau did with “that stunt press conference” on Saturday “comes right from Air Force One.”

He said Trump “did the courtesy to Justin Trudeau to travel up to Quebec for that summit. He had other things, bigger things, on his plate in Singapore. … He did him a favor and he was even willing to sign that socialist communique. And what did Trudeau do as soon as the plane took off from Canadian airspace? Trudeau stuck our president in the back. That will not stand.”

Kudlow, in a separate TV appearance, said Trudeau was “polarizing” and “really kind of stabbed us in the back.” The Canadian leader pulled a “sophomoric political stunt for domestic consumption,” Kudlow said, that amounted to “a betrayal.”

“Don’t blame Trump. It was Trudeau who started blasting Trump after he left, after the deals had been made.” Kudlow said Trump won’t let people “take pot shots at him” and that Trudeau “should’ve known better.”

But the criticism left a former Canadian prime minister, Stephen Harper, stumped. “I don’t understand the obsession with trade relations with Canada,” he said, given that Canada is the biggest single buyer of American goods and services in the world. From promoting democracy and to fighting terrorism, “we’re on the same page. We’re the closest partners in the world and you don’t want to see a dispute over one particular issue poison everything.”

Trudeau had said Canadians “are polite, we’re reasonable, but also we will not be pushed around.” He described all seven leaders coming together to sign the joint declaration despite having “some strong, firm conversations on trade, and specifically on American tariffs.”

In the air by then, Trump tweeted: “Based on Justin’s false statements at his news conference, and the fact that Canada is charging massive Tariffs to our U.S. farmers, workers and companies, I have instructed our U.S. Reps not to endorse the Communique as we look at Tariffs on automobiles flooding the U.S. Market!”

He followed up by tweeting: “PM Justin Trudeau of Canada acted so meek and mild during our @G7 meetings only to give a news conference after I left saying that, “US Tariffs were kind of insulting” and he “will not be pushed around.” Very dishonest & weak. Our Tariffs are in response to his of 270% on dairy!”

Before leaving for Singapore, Trump had delivered a stark warning to America’s trading partners not to counter his decision to impose tariffs on steel and aluminum imports. The G-7 also includes Britain, Italy, France, Germany and Japan.

“If they retaliate, they’re making a mistake,” Trump said.

Trump insisted relationships with allies were a “10” just before he left the summit.

At a rare solo news conference before heading to Asia, Trump said he pressed for the G-7 countries to eliminate all tariffs, trade barriers and subsidies in their trading practices. He reiterated his longstanding view that the U.S. has been taken advantage of in global trade, adding, “We’re like the piggy bank that everybody’s robbing, and that ends.”

Navarro appeared on “Fox News Sunday,” and Kudlow was on CNN’s “State of the Union” and CBS’ “Face the Nation” and Harper spoke on Fox’s “Sunday Morning Futures.”

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Lucey reported from Singapore and Thomas from Washington.

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How a North Korean Disarmament Deal Might Look

History will be made Tuesday when President Donald Trump and North Korean Premier Kim Jong Un meet in Singapore for an unprecedented summit—no meeting between the leaders of these two countries has ever taken place. The transition from the threats of war and insult-hurling that defined what constituted “relations” to the current atmosphere of mutual respect—even admiration—has been as dramatic as it has been head-spinning. It was barely two weeks ago that the summit was cancelled due to an impolitic exchange initiated by national security adviser John Bolton and Vice President Mike Pence, who stated that the model America was drawing upon as a template for North Korea to follow was that of Libya, which gave up its weapons of mass destruction in 2002-2003, only to have its government overthrown as part of a U.S.-led intervention in 2011, resulting in the particularly brutal murder of the ousted dictator, Moammar Gadhafi.

North Korea vociferously objected to this characterization of its disarmament, reminding the United States that it possesses a viable nuclear arsenal that it is not afraid to use to protect itself. Trump, taking umbrage, announced that he would not attend the Singapore summit. But his announcement, delivered in the form of a letter, was surprisingly diplomatic, leaving open the possibility of the summit being reconstituted. North Korea followed by sending its spy master to the United States, where he hand-delivered a letter from Kim to Trump. After a photo op with handshakes and smiles on the White House lawn, the American president announced that the summit was back on—such is American diplomacy in the age of Trump.

Trump has gone out of his way to keep expectations of what will be accomplished in Singapore low, especially when it comes to the issue of any disarmament agreement, indicating that while he will insist upon the complete denuclearization of North Korea (something Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has said North Korea both understands and supports), the process of negotiating a disarmament agreement will most probably take place in phases. There has been a surprising amount of secrecy surrounding the actual disarmament aspects of this summit, attributed both to the sensitivity of the subject and to the fact that the Trump administration has limited the number of people involved in the pre-negotiations, cutting off the traditional routes of leaking that exist when large bureaucracies are engaged.

Any discussion of a disarmament agreement involving the elimination of North Korea’s nuclear weapons, as well as any other capabilities, such as uranium enrichment, plutonium production, and ballistic missiles and associated manufacturing infrastructure, would be purely speculative. However, Trump’s precipitous decision to withdraw from the Iranian nuclear agreement provides an indirect indication that whatever form a prospective North Korean disarmament agreement takes, it will have to contain robust verification procedures that, given the level of intrusiveness Trump has demanded of an acceptable Iran nuclear agreement, may prove problematic.

In principle, arms control agreements and their associated verification mechanisms are reasonably straightforward. An objective is agreed upon, the various components for which elimination and/or monitoring comprise the objective are identified, the inspected party provides a declaration that lists in total the items, activities and locations of interest, and a mechanism of verifying the desired outcome (destruction, dismantling, demilitarization, monitoring) is defined, organized and implemented. In the case of North Korea, at least one objective already has been identified—denuclearization. What is not known is what “denuclearization” constitutes. At its most basic, denuclearization would involve the dismantling of North Korea’s actual nuclear weapons. North Korea is estimated to possess at least 60, and possibly many more. These weapons would have to be declared in their totality, locations identified, a mechanism of dismantling defined and a means of disposing of the weapons-grade nuclear material agreed to.

Nuclear weapons have been eliminated under prior disarmament agreements. The bilateral arms reduction agreements between the U.S. and Russia have allowed for nuclear material used in dismantled weapons to be stored in “reserve.” This would not be an acceptable solution for North Korea—both the U.S. and Russia were permitted, under the terms of their agreement, to retain a nuclear arsenal. North Korea will not be allowed to do so, so the nuclear material will need to be disposed of. There are precedents for this: The elimination of South Africa’s nuclear weapons, and those of Ukraine, Belarus and Kazakhstan all involved the removal of all fissile material from the territory and control of the disarmed party.

The simple elimination of North Korea’s declared nuclear arsenal would represent the most basic measure that could be taken to meet the definition of denuclearization. However, it is unlikely that the United States will agree to such a limited agreement. More realistically, it will require North Korea to give up both the nuclear weapons and their means of production, inclusive of any program dedicated to the manufacture of fissile material, specialized high explosives, weapons assembly and weapons testing (North Korea, in a show of good faith, claims to have destroyed its sole nuclear weapons test facility by blowing up tunnels used as part of the testing process. While this destruction was witnessed by international reporters, it has not been verified by any process agreed to in support of any potential denuclearization agreement).

The declarations involved in any such exercise would be extensive and extraordinarily complicated, comprising specific industrial facilities, specialized equipment unique to nuclear weapons manufacturing, dual-use equipment (that which can be used in support of a nuclear weapons program but also has legitimate non-nuclear use as well). North Korea could be expected to provide a breakdown of what materials and equipment used in its nuclear weapons program were produced indigenously, and what was procured from abroad. The latter has historically proven to be a sensitive issue, especially when the importation of sensitive materials fell afoul of international law or sanction (the case of Iraq and Iran both stand out in this regard).

The United States has linked the threat of North Korea’s nuclear weapons to an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) capable of delivering a nuclear warhead to American soil. As such, it is highly likely that the United States will insist on the inclusion of North Korea’s ICBM capability in any denuclearization agreement. Both Japan and South Korea have indicated that they would like any such agreement to also involve North Korea’s short- and intermediate-range missiles, which pose a threat to their respective homelands. As with nuclear weapons, any agreement involving ballistic missiles would require a declaration of the numbers of missiles and their locations. Likewise, the industrial facilities involved in the manufacture of North Korea’s ballistic missile arsenal would have to be declared, along with all associated equipment (including a breakdown of what was produced indigenously, and what was procured abroad). The United States has a wealth of experience in framing agreements of this nature, both in terms of bilateral disarmament agreements with the Soviet Union/Russia and the elimination of the ballistic missile capability of Iraq (overseen by the United Nations) and Argentina (overseen by the Missile Technology Control Regime).

The elimination of the totality of North Korea’s ballistic missile programs would provide the most convenient mechanism of disarmament, allowing for the destruction of all missiles, regardless of range, and the dismantling of all manufacturing plants associated with ballistic missile production. However, it is unlikely that North Korea will agree to give up this capability upfront. Rather, there would be a phased approach toward ballistic missile disarmament, beginning with ICBM capabilities and progressing to intermediate-range missiles before culminating in short-range missiles. The last two phases would more than likely be linked to confidence-building measures on the part of the U.S. and South Korea, including the reduction and eventual elimination of joint military exercises, the drawdown of U.S. combat power in South Korea, the signing of a peace treaty formally ending the state of war on the Korean Peninsula that has existed since 1950 (when the Korean War started), and the U.S. providing specific security assurances to the North Korean government.

In the case of such a phased approach, any agreement would have to differentiate between permitted and proscribed activity, similar to the approach taken by the U.S. and the Soviet Union/Russia in the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty, in which short- and intermediate-range missiles were eliminated while ICBMs were permitted, and Iraq after the Gulf War, in which missiles with a range greater than 500 kilometers (310 miles) were prohibited, but Iraq was permitted to produce missiles possessing a range of less than 500 kilometers.

As difficult as all of this sounds, the most challenging aspect of any disarmament agreement is verification. While historically, arms control agreements have been put in place using nonintrusive technical means to verify compliance (the Strategic Arms Limitation Talks, or SALT, between the U.S. and Soviet Union relied exclusively on each nation’s so-called “national technical means,” or spy satellites and other remote intelligence-collection capabilities for this purpose), since the ground-breaking INF Treaty in 1988, almost every arms control and disarmament agreement or treaty has included a form of on-site inspection involving teams of inspectors gaining direct access to the locations and materials of interest.

There are basically two schools of thought on the issue of on-site inspection. The first is a treaty-oriented approach that defines the mandate of the conduct of inspections, detailing everything from team size and composition, notifications of inspection activity, how a team travels to and from an inspected site, what equipment can or cannot be carried by the team, how inspection equipment is to be used during an inspection, what information is allowed to be collected during an inspection, how this information is recorded, and who has access to inspection-derived information. The INF Treaty serves as the ideal case study in this regard and has influenced every on-site inspection-based arms control/disarmament agreement that has transpired since.

The other school of thought is derived from the United Nations experience in Iraq after the Gulf War, in which inspectors were given unprecedented access to virtually any site they deemed to be of interest, including the right to immediate access to facilities that were declared to Iraq only when the inspection team arrived at the gates of the facility to be inspected. There was virtually no limit to the number of inspectors who could be employed, the equipment they could carry and use, and the information they could collect and remove from Iraq.

History has shown that the Iraq model, while on the surface attractive from a verification standpoint, is inefficient from a disarmament standpoint. First and foremost, it is an imposed system of verification—the inspected party in this model was not a willing participant in the process. The conditions that led to the framing and implementation of the Iraq disarmament process was likewise unique—Iraq had been defeated in war and was compelled to accept the stringent disarmament terms, including the extreme verification measures, as part of a cease-fire agreement.

Complicating matters further, the disarmament process was a one-way street—only Iraq was required to be disarmed. There was no partner in disarmament for which issues of reciprocation could serve as a means of moderating inspector behavior (the INF Treaty, by contrast, relied heavily on reciprocation in implementing on-site inspection activity, ensuring that what was good for the goose was good for the gander). Finally, the Iraq model operated on a foundation that assumed mistrust: Each inspection was based on the premise that Iraq was cheating, and therefore every result—even a negative one—was interpreted in a manner that found Iraq to be noncompliant, even though history has shown that Iraq had fully complied with its disarmament obligation by 1995. As a model for verification, “anywhere, anytime” simply did not work.

Moreover, void of conditions that replicate Iraq’s defeat in 1991, the model of unfettered “anywhere, anytime” inspections as a means of verification is unrealistic. The experience of the Iranian nuclear agreement stands as a case point in this regard. While the United States and Europe insisted that the verification mechanisms used to ascertain Iranian compliance include “anywhere, anytime” on-site inspections, Iran refused, citing its sovereignty and legitimate national security concerns that existed unfettered by the terms of any cease-fire agreement. The result was a workable verification regime that melded existing nuclear safeguard inspection mechanisms used by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) along with challenge inspection procedures based on the INF model.

Trump walked away from the Iran nuclear agreement, citing as one of his main reasons the lack of “anywhere, anytime” on-site inspection provisions. Iran has made it clear that it will not accede to any verification regime that violates its sovereignty and legitimate national security. It is more than likely that North Korea will operate under the same premise, putting Trump and his team of negotiators in a policy bind. At the end of the day, the verification provisions of a North Korean denuclearization agreement will likely more resemble the Iran nuclear agreement than the Iraqi disarmament model, with the apparent policy contradiction being explained away by the Trump team noting that because their negotiators were involved, a North Korean denuclearization agreement can be trusted.

This is not to say that any verification regime modelled on the INF Treaty would not be robust. For any agreement to succeed, North Korea will have to sign off on the totality of its obligations, which will be listed in detail. Any on-site inspection regime will be tasked with verifying compliance with these obligations, most of which are technical in nature and lend themselves to a checklist approach that enables a detailed delineation of the obligations and responsibilities of both parties. Under such a detailed approach, cheating becomes very difficult. Moreover, on-site inspections are but one component of what will be a comprehensive verification process—national technical means and other remote intelligence collection capabilities will be employed to monitor North Korean compliance and can be used to trigger challenge inspections of the sort employed by both the INF Treaty and the Iran nuclear accord.

The final facet of what a North Korean denuclearization agreement could look like rests on who the parties are to such an agreement and what their respective roles would be. Likewise, there would need to be a mechanism and forum for resolving disputes, technical or otherwise, that are likely to arise during implementation of a North Korean denuclearization accord. Under the INF Treaty, a Special Verification Commission (SVC) was created for this purpose; the Iran nuclear agreement saw the creation of a joint commission composed of all parties involved. What form such a corresponding body tasked with overseeing a North Korean denuclearization agreement would depend on who was party to the agreement, and what legal authority underpinned its operation. For the INF Treaty, both the U.S. and Soviet Union signed and ratified the treaty, making it the law of the land in their respective countries. The SVC operated as a formal part of the treaty, with all the legal authority that involved.

The Iranian nuclear agreement was different in several regards. First, the verification aspects of the agreement were overseen by the IAEA, not the United States or any other state party. The controlling legal authority was the Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT), which gave the IAEA the mandate to carry out its safeguard activities in Iran, as well as other non-safeguard inspection activity permitted by the nuclear agreement. The United States, which had ratified the NPT and its safeguard provisions, did not ratify the non-safeguard aspects of the Iranian nuclear agreement—there was no legally binding treaty per se, only a complicated mechanism of executive certification to Congress. For this reason, while the Iranian nuclear agreement was negotiated, signed and implemented under the administration of President Obama, Trump had no legal obligation to remain a party to the accord.

To avoid a similar situation in a post-Trump era, the Trump administration has indicated that any North Korean denuclearization agreement will more than likely be enshrined in the form of a formal treaty requiring Senate ratification. If limited to just the United States and North Korea, such a process would be straightforward, but the Trump administration has indicated that it expects the IAEA to play a role in implementing a denuclearization agreement. However, the IAEA operates solely under the mandate given to it by the NPT; North Korea withdrew from the NPT in 2003. Any IAEA involvement in a North Korean denuclearization agreement would require Pyongyang to rejoin the NPT. Moreover, this involvement would create a similar situation as existed with the Iran nuclear agreement, in which the IAEA was called upon to implement safeguard inspections legally mandated under the NPT, and any unique inspection activity outside of the safeguards program as provided for in any agreement. This fact, in and of itself, would complicate the implementation of any mixed on-site inspection verification regime. It probably also would require a United Nations Security Council resolution authorizing this expanded mandate.

Even if the issue of IAEA involvement in a North Korean denuclearization agreement can be resolved to the satisfaction of all parties, there would still exist the possibility of non-nuclear inspection verification activities, at a minimum involving ballistic missiles, that would need to be undertaken to ensure North Korean compliance. This brings up the issue of additional state parties to any negotiated agreement. Both South Korea and Japan have a vested interest in the successful implementation of such an accord, as does China and, to a lesser extent, Russia. It is not known to what extent, if any, North Korea will permit inspectors from the United States, Japan and South Korea the kind of intrusive presence on its soil, let alone some of its most sensitive facilities, required for a meaningful verification process. Likewise, the extent to which the Trump administration would be willing to allow verification inspections to be carried out by non-American inspectors is unknown. The reality is that there will need to be a special on-site inspection activity created and properly mandated that incorporates personnel from all involved and interested parties.

It is possible to break a North Korean denuclearization agreement into two parts, with the first defining the four corners of what denuclearization entails, the second defining what verification measures would be implemented to oversee compliance with such an agreement. This would allow the United States and North Korea to sign an agreement that meets the technical and political requirements of denuclearization without burdening it with the minutia of verification. But in the end, the reality remains that a North Korean denuclearization agreement represents an extremely complex undertaking that will not be resolved in a single meeting, or even a dozen. To succeed, it will have to involve several other nations besides the U.S. and North Korea and international organizations in addition to the IAEA, including the possibility of new multinational on-site inspection activity.

Due to this anticipated complexity, many experts believe a North Korean denuclearization agreement is beyond the capability of the Trump administration, especially considering the extent to which the arms control bureaucracy has been allowed to dissipate through attrition and neglect. Others, including me, believe that the very fact that Trump is not encumbered by a bureaucracy programmed to be pessimistic and obstructionist when it comes to groundbreaking initiatives such as North Korean denuclearization gives these negotiations a fighting chance to succeed. At the end of the day, however, the ball is in Trump’s court. His credibility has been severely damaged by his precipitous decision to withdraw from the Iranian nuclear accord, both in terms of his ability and willingness to abide by the terms of a negotiated agreement and his hard-line stance concerning  “anywhere, anytime” on-site inspections involving Iran, which has set potentially deal-breaking conditions for North Korea. But the mere fact that Trump is meeting with Kim is proof positive that this unconventional president, for whom there are apparently no limits or boundaries, may in fact have the moxie to pull off such an unprecedented undertaking.

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Poll Shows Deep Divide Between Israeli, U.S. Jews

JERUSALEM—An opinion poll published Sunday shows deep divisions between Israelis and American Jews, particularly in relation to President Donald Trump, highlighting the growing rift between the world’s two largest Jewish communities.

The survey of the American Jewish Committee showed 77 percent of Israelis approved of the president’s handling of U.S.-Israel relations, while only 34 percent of American Jews did. Fifty-seven percent of U.S. Jews disapproved, while only 10 percent of Israelis did.

The polarizing Trump recently recognized Jerusalem as Israel’s capital and relocated the American Embassy there, upending decades of U.S. foreign policy and an international consensus that the city’s fate should be decided through peace negotiations. The Palestinians, who claim east Jerusalem as their future capital, were outraged by the move and cut all contacts with the U.S. in response.

Eighty-five percent of Israelis supported the embassy move, while only 46 percent of American Jews did.

The AJC surveyed 1,000 Israelis and Americans and had a margin of error of 3.1 and 3.9 percent, respectively.

The survey was released ahead of the opening of the AJC Global Forum in Jerusalem, which Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will address later Sunday.

Netanyahu has forged a close bond with Trump, and their hard-line policies toward the Palestinians have strong support in Israel and among its Republican backers in the U.S. But most American Jews are Democrats who are highly critical of Trump and Netanyahu. Experts have been warning for years that the two communities are drifting in opposite directions politically, undermining the kinship between the two groups, which make up the vast majority of Jews in the world.

The poll showed 59 percent of Americans favoring the establishment of a Palestinian state alongside Israel but only 44 percent of Israelis supporting the idea.

The communities share similar views on the importance of good ties between the “extended family.” But they differ greatly on matters of religion and state, particularly on the ultra-Orthodox monopoly over religious affairs in Israel. The vast majority of American Jews identify as either Reform or Conservative, the more liberal streams of Judaism that have a very small foothold in Israel.

On one of the most contentious issues, regarding a mixed-gender prayer area next to Jerusalem’s Western Wall, 73 percent of American Jews express support, compared to just 42 percent of Israelis.

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Assad: West Is Fueling Syria War, Hoping to Topple Him

BEIRUT—Syrian President Bashar Assad said in an interview published Sunday that the West is fueling the devastating war in his country, now in its eighth year, with the aim of toppling him.

Assad told the Mail on Sunday that Western nations have lied about chemical attacks in Syria and supported terrorist groups there, while Russia has supported his government against the foreign “invasion.”

Assad reiterated his long-held position that the uprising against his rule was part of a conspiracy to remove a leader that did not go along with Western policies in the region. Syria is allied with Iran and Russia, and has had turbulent relations with the West. Syria is technically at war with Israel, which occupies the Syrian Golan Heights, but a cease-fire has largely held since the 1970s.

“The whole approach toward Syria in the West is, ‘we have to change this government, we have to demonize this president, because they don’t suit our policies anymore.’” Assad said. They tell lies, they talk about chemical weapons, they talk about the bad president killing the good people, freedom, peaceful demonstration.”

Syria’s conflict began in 2011 with peaceful protests against the Assad family’s decades-long rule. The government’s violent response to the protests, and the eventual rise of an armed insurgency, tipped the country into a civil war that has claimed nearly half a million lives.

Since then, Western nations and independent experts have accused the government of carrying out several chemical weapons attacks, most recently in April, in an attack near Damascus that reportedly killed dozens of people and prompted Western airstrikes. The government has denied ever using chemical weapons.

Assad also dismissed reports that Israel has conducted recent airstrikes in Syria with tacit Russian cooperation. Russia has provided crucial military support to Assad’s forces, waging an air campaign since 2015 that turned the tide of the war in Assad’s favor. Iran and Lebanon’s Hezbollah group have also provided extensive military support.

“Russia never coordinated with anyone against Syria, either politically or militarily,” Assad said. “How could they help the Syrian Army advancing and at the same time work with our enemies in order to destroy our army?”

Israel carried out a wave of airstrikes against Iranian forces in Syria last month. The lack of any Russian response, despite the heavy Russian presence in the skies over Syria, suggested that Moscow might have been notified ahead of time.

Assad said he has remained in office through more than seven years of war because he has “public support.”

“We are fighting the terrorists, and those terrorists are supported by the British government, the French government, the Americans and their puppets whether in Europe or in our region,” he said.

“We are fighting them, and we have public support in Syria to fight those terrorists. That’s why we are advancing. We cannot make these advances just because we have Russian and Iranian support.”

On Sunday, airstrikes killed at least nine people in the town of Taftanaz and another two people in nearby towns in the northern Idlib province, according to the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights. The Observatory and an activist-run media center in Taftanaz said a local pediatric hospital was struck, putting it out of order.

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