US airlines and aerospace manufacturers insist they have no use for tariff protections, warning that the proposed Trump administration levies could eat into the healthy trade surplus the sector has enjoyed for more than 70 years.At the request of President Donald Trump, Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick’s department launched an investigation on May 1 to determine whether to impose tariffs of between 10 and 20 percent on civil aircraft and parts, including engines.The US industry those tariffs were crafted to protect swiftly let the administration know it was not interested.”Imposing broad tariff or non-tariff trade barriers on the imports of civil aviation technology would risk reversing decades of industrial progress and harm the domestic supply chain,” the Aerospace Industries Association (AIA) said in a letter addressed to Lutnick and obtained by AFP.The interested parties were given until June 3 to communicate their positions.The very next day, Lutnick announced that Washington aimed to “set the standard for aircraft part tariffs” by the end of this month.”The key is to protect that industry,” he said, adding: “We will use these tariffs for the betterment of American industry.”But AIA and the Airlines for America (A4A) trade association voiced fear that far from helping, the tariffs would end up harming US manufacturers.- No fix needed -“Unlike other industries, the civil aviation manufacturing industry prioritizes domestic production of high-value components and final assembly,” AIA pointed out.According to the organization, US aerospace and defense exports reached $135.9 billion in 2023, including $113.9 billion for civil aviation alone.This allowed the sector to generate a trade surplus of $74.5 billion and to invest $34.5 billion in research and development, it said.The sector employs more than 2.2 million people in the United States across more than 100,000 companies, which in 2023 produced goods worth nearly $545 billion.In its response to Lutnick, the A4A highlighted how beneficial the international Agreement on Trade in Commercial Aviation (ATCA) had been by helping to eliminate tariffs and trade barriers over nearly half a century.”The US civil aviation industry is the success story that President Trump is looking for as it leads civil aerospace globally,” it insisted.A full 84 percent of production was already American, it said, stressing that Washington “does not need to fix the 16 percent” remaining.”The current trade framework has enhanced our economic and national security and is a critical component to maintaining our national security moving forward,” it said.For manufacturers, the potential tariffs would act like sand jamming a well-oiled machine that has been running smoothly for decades, experts warned.They would also throw off balance an ultra-sensitive supply chain still recovering from the Covid-19 pandemic.- ‘Competitive disadvantage’ -“To avoid the situation getting worse, we advocate to keep aerospace outside of trade wars,” Willie Walsh, head of the International Air Transport Association (IATA), told the organization’s general assembly last week.AIA meanwhile stressed that “aircraft and parts are already in high demand and have a limited supply.””Integrating new suppliers and expanding capacity is complex, timely, and costly,” it warned, pointing out that finding suppliers capable of meeting rigorous safety certifications could “take up to 10 years.”Delta Air Lines also argued for sticking with the status quo, cautioning that the proposed tariffs “would hinder Delta’s ability to maintain its current trajectory.””If component parts incur tariffs upon entering the United States, Delta will be at a competitive disadvantage to foreign competitors,” it said.”The action would also impose an unexpected tax on Delta’s purchases of aircraft contracted years in advance.”Delta chief Ed Bastian insisted in late April that the airline “will not be paying tariffs on any aircraft deliveries we take,” adding that it was “working very closely with (European group) Airbus” to minimize the impact.Delta pointed out in its letter to Lutnick that it currently had 100 aircraft on order from Boeing, and that it was demanding that its Airbus A220s be produced primarily in Mobile, Alabama.But if the tariffs are imposed, it warned, “Delta would likely be forced to cancel existing contracts and reconsider contracts under negotiation.” 

For many just a tasty delicacy, the oyster may actually be the hero the world needs to fight environmental degradation — and volunteers like Kimberly Price are battling to repopulate the surprisingly powerful species.The 53-year-old is an “oyster gardener” who fosters thousands of the mollusks at her waterside home until they are old enough to be planted in the Chesapeake Bay near the US capital Washington, where they clean the water and can even offset climate change.Far removed from the menus of seafood restaurants, oysters also have a supremely practical use as prolific water filters — with an adult able to process up to 50 gallons (190 liters) each day. This produces a healthier habitat, boosting plant and animal life, which experts say can also help waterways capture more planet-warming carbon dioxide. But today, just one percent of the native oyster population found in the bay before the 1880s remains, due to pollution, disease and overharvesting — leaving a mammoth task for environmentalists.Volunteers like Price are crucial to these efforts led by the Chesapeake Bay Foundation (CBF).For around nine months, they keep infant oysters in cages at their docks to give them the best chance of reaching adulthood. Then they put them to work at helping preserve the planet.”We humans destroy everything, right? So this is like, let’s fix our problems: how do we try and correct this?” Price, a housing consultant, told AFP.At her Maryland home, where ospreys flew overhead and tiny fish swam below, she pulled up a mesh cage marked “Not for sale or human consumption” suspended by rope in the water.Inside on large, old oyster shells — many recycled from restaurants — were half a dozen smaller live oysters each about the size of a knuckle.When Price got them last summer, they were no bigger than pinpricks that the CBF had received as oyster larvae from a specialist hatchery before bonding them to shells in setting tanks.Price’s role has involved scrubbing her eight cages and rinsing them with fresh water every two weeks to remove organisms that can restrict oxygen and hinder feeding.When AFP visited in late May, she was giving them a final clean before joining other volunteers returning the oysters to the CBF to be planted on sanctuary reefs in the bay, where fishing of the mollusks is banned.- ‘We can get there’ -It’s part of an ambitious goal that the nonprofit and its partners set in 2018 to add 10 billion new oysters to the bay — America’s largest estuary — by the end of 2025.Around 6.7 billion have been planted so far, CBF oyster expert Kellie Fiala said at the group’s headquarters, adding that the population is “trending in a positive direction.””Thinking about how many oysters used to be in the bay, we still have a ways to go,” she said, but insisted that “working together, we can get there.”A key challenge is a lack of substrate in the bay — the hard riverbed material that oysters need to grow on — because for many years, shells were removed to be used in building driveways and gardens.”Folks then just didn’t understand the importance of putting that shell back so it can be a home for new oysters,” Fiala said.To address this, the organization is encouraging volunteers to make “reef balls” — igloo-style concrete blocks that can serve as artificial underwater habitats.This initiative, like oyster gardening, encourages community participation ranging from schoolchildren to retirees.Some of those volunteers, including Price, arrived at the CBF’s office next to the bay to drop off their buckets of homegrown oysters ready for planting. Each got a rough tally of how many they had brought based on the average number of babies on a handful of shells. For Price, it was what she celebrated as a “very good” total of around 7,500.Her oysters were loaded with others onto a small, single-engine boat that the captain, 61-year-old Dan Johannes, steered towards a sanctuary reef in a tidal tributary of the bay.There, two interns began dumping the 20 buckets overboard, with the oysters splashing into the water.The planting process took no longer than a minute — 75,000 oysters, raised for almost a year — returning to the bay.

Federal agents clashed with angry protestors in the Los Angeles area for a second day Saturday, shooting flash-bang grenades into the crowd and shutting part of a freeway amid raids on undocumented migrants, reports said.The standoff took place in the suburb of Paramount, where demonstrators had gathered near a Home Depot that was being used as a staging area by federal immigration officials, the Fox 11 news outlet reported.They were met by federal agents in riot gear and gas masks, who lobbed flash-bang grenades and tear gas at the crowd, according to news reports and social media posts.The immigration raids are part of US President Donald Trump’s ongoing crackdown on undocumented immigrants. The Republican was elected to a second term largely on a promise to crack down hard on the entry and presence of undocumented migrants — who he likened to “monsters” and “animals.”Following the latest clashes in Los Angeles, authorities vowed to prosecute offenders and warned of an escalating security presence.”We are making Los Angeles safer. Mayor (Karen) Bass should be thanking us,” Tom Homan, Trump’s point man on border security, said on Fox News. “We are going to bring the National Guard in tonight.”FBI Deputy Director Dan Bongino said multiple arrests had been made following Friday’s clashes.”You bring chaos, and we’ll bring handcuffs. Law and order will prevail,” he said on X.On Saturday, amid chants for Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents to get out, some protestors waved Mexican flags while others set a US flag on fire, the Los Angeles Times said. Cement blocks and overturned shopping carts served as crude roadblocks.A crowd swarmed a US Marshals Service bus exiting a nearby freeway, with authorities later closing on and off ramps to keep protesters from taking over the highway.The tense standoff came a day after masked and armed immigration agents carried out high-profile workplace raids in separate parts of Los Angeles, attracting angry crowds and setting off hours-long standoffs.”An insurrection against the laws and sovereignty of the United States,” White House deputy chief of staff and anti-immigration hardliner Stephen Miller said on X, sharing a video of protesters marching Friday outside Los Angeles’s federal detention center.Los Angeles, the second-most populous city in the United States, is one of the most diverse metropolises in the country. The suburb of Paramount, home to about 50,000 people, is 82 percent Hispanic or Latino, according to US Census data.