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US President Donald Trump agreed Tuesday to reduce threatened tariffs on the Philippines, but only by one percentage point, after what he termed a successful meeting with his counterpart Ferdinand Marcos.Welcoming Marcos to the White House, Trump called him a “very tough negotiator” and said: “We’re very close to finishing a trade deal — a big trade deal, actually.”In a social media post shortly afterward, Trump said that while the Philippines would open up completely to US goods, he would still impose a 19 percent tariff on products from the Southeast Asian country, a major exporter of high-tech items and apparel.”It was a beautiful visit, and we concluded our Trade Deal, whereby The Philippines is going OPEN MARKET with the United States, and ZERO Tariffs,” Trump wrote on his Truth Social platform.The Philippines was among two dozen economies confronted by Trump with letters this month warning of 20 percent tariffs on all goods coming into the United States as of August 1.The 19 percent rate is still above the 17 percent threatened by Trump in April, when he threatened sweeping global tariffs.Speaking at a press briefing Wednesday in Manila, Marcos’s press secretary Claire Castro said the Philippine president had confirmed Trump’s zero tariffs statement but only for “certain markets,” without elaborating.She also downplayed the potential effects of a tariff regime, noting that just 16 percent of the country’s exports go to the United States, with about two-thirds being electronic components not subject to the levies.”To put it plainly, it has an impact on the country, but not that much,” she told reporters.Speaking to reporters following the meeting, Marcos described the tariff situation as a “living thing” that could potentially be revisited as global markets adjusted.The trade rift comes despite increasingly close defense relations between the United States and the Philippines, a former US colony and treaty-bound ally that has seen high tensions with China.The United States deployed ground-launched missiles in the Philippines last year, and has also eyed ammunition manufacturing there, despite the closure in 1992 of the US naval base at Subic Bay due to heavy public pressure.”All of what we consider part of the modernization of the Philippine military is really a response to the circumstances that surround the situation in the South China Sea,” Marcos said next to Trump.”We are essentially concerned with the defense of our territory and the exercise of our sovereign rights,” said Marcos.”Our strongest, closest, most reliable ally has always been the United States.”- Trump eyes China visit -China and the Philippines have engaged in a series of confrontations in the contested waters of the South China Sea, which Beijing claims almost entirely, despite an international ruling that the assertion has no legal basis.Trump has frequently questioned allies in Europe over their military spending, but voiced fewer doubts about the Philippines. Both Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and Secretary of State Marco Rubio in meetings with Marcos on Monday vowed to honor the 1951 Mutual Defense Treaty with the Southeast Asian nation.The Trump administration has identified China as the top US adversary but the president has also boasted of his relationship with Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping.Speaking alongside Marcos, Trump said he would “probably” visit China at Xi’s invitation “in the not-too-distant future.”He said of Marcos: “I don’t mind if he gets along with China very well, because we’re getting along with China very well.”Trump added the Philippines had been “maybe tilting toward China” and “we untilted it very, very quickly.””I just don’t think that would have been good for you,” Trump said.He credited himself with the shift, although the turn towards Washington began after the 2022 election of Marcos, before Trump returned to power.Marcos’s predecessor Rodrigo Duterte had flirted with closer relations with China and bristled at US criticism over human rights under Joe Biden and Barack Obama.

The United States is looking to send asylum seekers to the sparsely populated volcanic isles of Palau, the small South Pacific nation said Wednesday. Scattered about 800 kilometres (500 miles) east of the Philippines, tropical Palau has long been one of the United States’ closest allies in the Pacific. Palau President Surangel Whipps Jr last week received a request from Washington to accept “third-country nationals seeking asylum in the United States”, his office said in a statement. Whipps’ office told AFP on Wednesday the proposal was still under consideration by the nation’s powerful Council of Chiefs, an advisory body of traditional leaders. “A meeting was held last week. So far no decision has come out of that meeting,” a spokesman said. US President Donald Trump campaigned on a promise to expel millions of undocumented migrants, saying the country had been “inundated” by unwanted arrivals. He signed an executive order in January — titled “Protecting the American People Against Invasion” — that suspended admissions for countless refugees seeking haven in the United States. Key details of the proposed deal between Palau and the United States were not immediately clear, such as how many asylum seekers it would cover, or what Palau may get in return. “Based on the most recent draft agreement, Palau would have full discretion to decide whether or not to accept any individuals, and all actions would be consistent with our constitution and laws,” the Palau president’s office said in a statement.US Ambassador Joel Ehrendreich was present at a meeting of senior officials to discuss the request, according to photos published last week by the Palau president’s office. The United States has reportedly considered dispatching asylum seekers to the likes of El Salvador, Libya and Rwanda.With some 20,000 people spread across hundreds of volcanic isles and coral atolls, Palau is by population one of the smallest countries in the world. – A tricky ask -The Pacific microstate could find it difficult to deny Washington’s request. Palau gained independence in 1994 but allows the US military to use its territory under a longstanding “Compact of Free Association” agreement. In return, the United States gives Palau hundreds of millions of dollars in budgetary support and assumes responsibility for its national defence. The United States Embassy in Palau did not respond to an AFP request for comment. Since coming to power in 2021, Whipps has overseen the expansion of US military interests in Palau. This has included the ongoing construction of a long-range US radar outpost, a crucial early warning system as China ramps up military manuevers in the Taiwan Strait.Palau is one of the few remaining countries to recognise Taiwan’s claim to statehood. 

US President Donald Trump announced Tuesday a “massive” trade deal with Japan, cutting a threatened 25-percent tariff to 15 percent ahead of an August 1 deadline.Trump has vowed to hit dozens of countries with punitive tariffs if they don’t strike a deal with the United States by next month.So far, Trump has only announced pacts with Japan, Britain, Vietnam, the Philippines and Indonesia, while talks continue with other trade partners. “We just completed a massive Deal with Japan, perhaps the largest Deal ever made,” Trump said on his Truth Social platform. Trump said that under the deal, “Japan will invest, at my direction, $550 Billion Dollars into the United States, which will receive 90% of the Profits.”He did not provide further details on the unusual investment plan, but said the deal “will create Hundreds of Thousands of Jobs.”Japanese imports into the United States were already subject to a 10-percent tariff, which would have risen to 25 percent on August 1 without a deal.Duties of 25 percent on Japanese autos — an industry accounting for eight percent of Japanese jobs — were also already in place, as well as 50 percent on steel and aluminum.Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba said on Wednesday in Tokyo that the autos levy was cut to 15 percent.”We are the first (country) in the world to reduce tariffs on automobiles and auto parts, with no limits on volume,” he told reporters.”We think it is a great achievement that we were able to get the largest cut (in tariffs) among countries which have trade surpluses with the US,” he said.This sent Japanese auto stocks soaring on Wednesday, including Toyota which rocketed more than 12 percent.US-bound shipments of Japanese cars tumbled 26.7 percent in June, stoking fears that Japan could fall into a technical recession.Last year vehicles accounted for around 28 percent of Japan’s 21.3 trillion yen ($142 billion) of exports to the world’s biggest economy.To Trump’s annoyance, US-made cars sell poorly in Japan, with only hundreds sold annually for the likes of General Motors, compared to millions of Toyotas bought by US motorists.The US president also wanted Japan to increase imports of rice, the price of which has soared in recent months in the Asian giant, and of US oil and gas.- Rice imports? -But Trump said Tuesday that Japan has agreed to “open their Country to Trade including Cars and Trucks, Rice and certain other Agricultural Products, and other things.”Rice imports are a sensitive issue in Japan, and Ishiba’s government — which lost its upper house majority in elections on Sunday — had previously ruled out any concessions.Ishiba, whose future is uncertain following the election, said on Wednesday that the deal does not sacrifice Japan’s agricultural sector.Trump has been under pressure to wrap up trade pacts after promising a flurry of deals ahead of his August 1 tariff deadline.Earlier on Tuesday, he announced a deal had been reached with the Philippines which would see the country face 19 percent tariffs on its exports.The White House also laid out details of a deal with Indonesia, which would see it ease critical mineral export restrictions and also face a 19 percent tariff, down from a threatened 32 percent.Indonesian goods deemed to have been transshipped to avoid higher duties elsewhere, however, will be tariffed at 40 percent, a US official told reporters Tuesday.After an escalatory tit-for-tat with China, the two major economies agreed to a temporary lowering of tariffs, with another round of negotiations expected next week in Stockholm.Since returning to the White House in January, Trump has imposed a sweeping 10 percent tariff on allies and competitors alike, alongside steeper levels on steel, aluminum and autos.Legal challenges to Trump’s non-sectoral tariffs are ongoing.

Acrobatics, fortune tellers, opulent gowns and palace intrigue: the New York debut of the Versailles Royal Opera Orchestra was a performance befitting the era it recalls.Monday’s immersive show “Versailles in Printemps: The Affair of the Poisons” centered on France’s 17th-century period of excess and seediness that its creator, Andrew Ousley, told AFP has parallels to the present day.At the evening staged in Manhattan’s new Printemps luxury emporium, guests and performers alike donned velvet waistcoats, silky corsets, feathered headdresses and powdered makeup.Core to the performance’s tale was the discovery of arsenic, Ousley said — the first “untraceable, untasteable poison.””Everybody was just poisoning everybody.”And at the web’s center? A midwife and fortune teller named La Voisin, he said, a “shadowy-like person who basically would peddle poison, peddle solutions, peddle snake oil.””She was the nexus,” Ousley continued, in a scheme that “extended up to Louis XIV, his favorite mistresses” — inner circles rife with backstabbing and murder plots.The poisoning scandal resulted in a tribunal that resulted in dozens of death sentences — until the king called it off when it “got a little too close to home,” Ousley said with a smile.”To me, it speaks to the present moment — that this rot can fester underneath luxury and wealth when it’s divorced from empathy, from humanity.”Along with a program of classical music, the performance included elaborately costumed dancers, including one who tip-toed atop a line of wine bottles in sparkling platform heels.The drag opera artist Creatine Price was the celebrant of the evening’s so-called “Black Mass,” and told AFP that the night was “a beautiful way to sort of incorporate the ridiculousness, the campness, the farce of Versailles with a modern edge.”Drag is “resistance,” she said, adding that her act is “the essence of speaking truth to power, because it really flies in the face of everything in the opera that is standard, whether it’s about gender or voice type.”- Period instruments -The Versailles Royal Opera Orchestra formed in 2019, and its first stateside tour is underway: the series of shows kicked off at Festival Napa Valley in California before heading to New York.On Wednesday it will play another, more traditional show at L’Alliance New York, a French cultural center in Manhattan.The orchestra aims to champion repertoire primarily from the 17th and 18th centuries, and plays on period instruments.”Playing a historical instrument really gives me a feeling of being in contact with the era in which the music was composed,” said Alexandre Fauroux, who plays the natural horn, a predecessor to the French horn distinguished by its lack of valves.Ousley runs the organization Death of Classical, an arts non-profit that puts on classical shows in unexpected places, including the catacombs of Brooklyn’s Green-Wood Cemetery and crypts in Manhattan.Monday’s spectacle included over-the-top performance, but Ousley emphasized that the evening was ultimately a celebration of classical artists.”These are players who play with such energy, to me it’s more like a rock band than an orchestra,” he said. And the mission of putting on such shows is about something bigger, Ousley said: “How do you fight against the darkness that seems to be winning in the world?””When you can sit and feel, with a group of strangers, something that you know you feel together — that’s why I work, because of that shared connection, experience and transcendence.”

Is “drill, baby, drill” compatible with “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness”?That’s the question a federal judge in Montana will weigh this September, as a group of young Americans sues the Trump administration — arguing its aggressive fossil fuel agenda is not only accelerating climate change but violating their constitutional rights.Courts worldwide are emerging as tools for driving climate action against political inertia, with the International Court of Justice set to deliver a landmark ruling Wednesday.”It’s very intimidating to think about my future,” lead plaintiff Eva Lighthiser told AFP during a recent protest outside Congress, where she and other youth plaintiffs were joined by Democratic lawmakers.”The climate is very unreliable, it’s destabilized, and it’s going to get worse — and that is a lot to reconcile with as somebody who’s just entering adulthood,” said the 19-year-old from Livingston, Montana.Their case, Lighthiser v. Trump, is among the most high-profile in a new wave of US climate litigation. It hinges on the Fifth Amendment’s Due Process Clause, which prohibits the government from depriving people of fundamental rights without due process of law.Twenty-two young plaintiffs — including several minors — are represented by the nonprofit Our Children’s Trust. They are aiming to build on two recent state-level wins.In 2023, a Montana judge sided with youth plaintiffs who argued the state’s failure to consider climate impacts when issuing oil and gas permits violated their right to a clean environment. A year later in Hawaii, young activists reached a settlement to accelerate decarbonization of the transport sector.- Wildfires, floods, anxiety -Now, they’re targeting President Donald Trump’s second-term executive orders, which declared a “National Energy Emergency.” Trump directed agencies to “unleash” fossil fuel production while stalling clean energy projects. The suit also alleges the administration unlawfully suppressed public access to federal climate science.Mat Dos Santos, general counsel for Our Children’s Trust, told AFP the conservative-dominated Supreme Court has shown willingness to hear “right to life” cases. “We’re trying to make sure that the right to life really extends to living children,” they said, “and that it means you have the right to enjoy your planetary existence.”In an unusual move, 19 state attorneys general led by Montana have filed to intervene on behalf of the Trump administration — a sign of how seriously the case is being taken, said Dos Santos.”Growing up in rural Montana, there’s a lot of emphasis on our natural surroundings,” said Lighthiser. Smoke-choked skies, relentless floods, and her family’s climate-forced relocation have shaped her short life. She plans to study environmental science and says she struggles with anxiety and depression — common among the plaintiffs AFP interviewed.Joseph Lee, a 19-year-old student at UC San Diego, said the threat of climate disaster has made him question whether he should start a family. Raised near an oil refinery in California, he suffered severe asthma as a child. His family briefly moved to North Carolina to escape the pollution, only to face worsening flash floods.Patrick Parenteau, an emeritus environmental law professor at Vermont Law School, said the case draws on the same constitutional logic as rulings on interracial marriage, desegregation, and — until recently — abortion rights.But while he supports it in principle, he doubts it will succeed.- Long shot -Judge Dana Christensen, who will hear the case September 16–17, has issued environmentally friendly rulings before. But even if he sides with the plaintiffs, the case is likely to be appealed all the way to the Supreme Court.”I think the plaintiffs understand that’s an uphill battle, certainly with the Supreme Court we have,” Parenteau said. “But the point is, they need to try.”Other scholars are less sympathetic. Jonathan Adler, a law professor at William & Mary, dismisses such efforts as more geared toward public opinion than legal victory.Lighthiser v. Trump is “based on a very expansive and unmoored theory of what the power of federal courts is,” Adler told AFP, calling it ungrounded in legal doctrine.He said more viable strategies include suing agencies over specific regulations or filing tort claims against polluters — not sweeping constitutional challenges.”Climate change is a serious problem, and we should be doing more about it,” Adler said.”But the sorts of legal strategies in court that are most viable aren’t the sorts of things that are tailored for attention.”

Republicans in the US House of Representatives sought Tuesday to rename the opera house in Washington’s John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts after First Lady Melania Trump.The Republican-led House Appropriations Committee voted to advance language that would condition funding for Washington’s premier cultural institution on the name change as it debated the 2026 budget.Idaho congressman Mike Simpson, who introduced an amendment to call the venue the “First Lady Melania Trump Opera House,” said it was an “excellent way to recognize her support and commitment to promoting the arts.”The move marked the latest front in President Donald Trump’s hostile takeover of the Kennedy Center, after he fired board members in February and appointed himself chairman, and replaced its longtime president with ally Richard Grenell.Trump, who accused the institution of being too “woke,” also picked White House chief of staff Susie Wiles, deputy chief of staff Dan Scavino and Second Lady Usha Vance to serve as trustees.The president was met with cheers and boos at the center in June as he attended an opening night performance of hit musical “Les Miserables.”Republicans have been keen to flatter Trump and help the president cement his legacy in his second term, including by introducing legislation to rename the capital region’s Dulles International Airport after him.There have also been efforts in Congress to replace Benjamin Franklin with Trump on the $100 bill, to carve Trump’s likeness on the iconic Mount Rushmore, to name a national holiday after him and to reimagine Washington’s Metro train service as the Trump Train.The Kennedy Center change was added to legislation principally providing 2026 funding for the Department of the Interior and the Environmental Protection Agency.But the 2,364-seat theater — the second-largest at the Kennedy Center complex — would only get its new designation if the change was approved by both chambers of Congress.Republicans hold 53 seats in the Senate and spending bills require 60 votes to pass, meaning Democrats may be able to strip the name change out of the text before any final vote.

The editor-in-chief of the United States’ National Public Radio (NPR) announced her resignation on Tuesday, soon after the Republican-controlled Congress voted to cut millions in funding for the public broadcaster.In an email sent to employees on Tuesday, which was seen by AFP, NPR President and CEO Katherine Maher said Edith Chapin had informed her of her intention to leave before the funding cuts were formally made.Backed by US President Donald Trump, who regularly accuses media that is critical of him of being biased, Congress last week approved $1.1 billion in cuts to funds allocated for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB).The CPB provides a minority share of the budgets for NPR and the Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) network of television stations.The funding cuts would impact about 1,500 local radio and television stations across the country, from New York to Alaska, over two years.”This isn’t an easy note to write,” Chapin said in a note included in Maher’s email to all NPR staff. “Two years with two big executive jobs has been a comprehensive assignment.”She added that she would “reset after a few months of a career break.”Maher praised Chapin’s “enormous contribution” to the company, and said details of the transition would be worked out in due course. Chapin said she would remain in her job “for a while.”The editor-in-chief’s departure comes as Trump has sought to slash public funding for news organizations at home and abroad, seeking to shut down outlets including Voice of America, Radio Free Asia and Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty.In a statement last week, rights group Reporters Without Borders said Trump’s administration was “increasingly hostile towards the press, both mimicking and inspiring authoritarian and quasi-authoritarian regimes around the world.”Trump regularly accuses news media that criticizes him, including NPR, of having a “liberal” bias.

A body has been found in the wreckage of one of the huge fires that tore through Los Angeles in January, officials announced Tuesday, taking the death toll from the tragedy to 31.The human remains were discovered more than six months after huge blazes ravaged America’s second-largest city for three weeks in January.The two fires destroyed thousands of structures, devastating the affluent Pacific Palisades neighborhood of Los Angeles, as well as Malibu and Altadena in the wider county.”The County of Los Angeles Department of Medical Examiner (DME) Special Operations Response Team (SORT) responded yesterday… in Altadena to investigate possible human remains found there,” a statement from the county said.”SORT investigated and determined the remains were human. The death toll related to the wildfires is now 31.”The victim has not yet been identified.Investigations into the causes of the two fires were still underway, with power lines coming under the microscope.While rebuilding has begun in parts of the disaster zones, especially in the Pacific Palisades area, large swaths of the fire’s footprint remain devastated.

President Donald Trump sought Tuesday to distract from the growing furor over his administration’s handling of the Jeffrey Epstein sex scandal by pushing extraordinary claims that Barack Obama tried to mount a coup.The accusations, delivered in the Oval Office, followed a surprise announcement that Trump’s Department of Justice would question an imprisoned, key former assistant to Epstein.Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche said in a statement on X that disgraced British socialite Ghislaine Maxwell, serving a 20-year sentence for her role in Epstein’s alleged pedophile scheme, would be queried for new information.”No lead is off-limits,” Blanche said.However, the show of transparency appeared to be part of a concerted effort by the White House and Trump’s allies to quell speculation about the convicted sex offender, who was long rumored to be a pedophile pimp to the powerful and who committed suicide in his prison cell in 2019.While meeting with the Philippines’ president in the White House, Trump dismissed the Epstein case as “a witch hunt.””The witch hunt that you should be talking about is, they caught President Obama, absolutely cold,” he said, launching into a meandering series of unsubstantiated accusations around Obama trying to “steal” the 2016 election, when Trump defeated Hillary Clinton.”Obama was leading a coup,” Trump said.An Obama spokesman called the claim “outrageous.”The coup accusation centers on claims that fly in the face of multiple high-level official probes by the US government. However, it resonates with Trump’s far-right base — in part thanks to blanket coverage by the popular Fox News network.Trump’s attacks on Obama are “part of a larger strategy of distraction, but they also serve another function: to cast the president as a victim of Democratic treachery,” said Todd Belt, at GW University’s Graduate School of Political Management.Obama’s spokesman echoed this, saying Trump engaged in a “ridiculous and weak attempt at distraction.”In another ploy to bury the Epstein controversy, Speaker Mike Johnson, a key Trump Republican loyalist, said he would shut down the House of Representatives until September.This was to avoid what he called “political games” over attempts by mostly Democrats to force votes on exposing more about the Epstein case.- Entangled in conspiracy theory -Epstein was awaiting trial on trafficking charges when he was found hanged in his New York cell.Authorities declared it a suicide but the death super-charged fears, especially on the far-right, that a “deep state” cover-up is in place to prevent the names of Epstein’s clients from being made known.Trump’s attempts to stop Epstein speculation clash with the fact that his own supporters are the ones who have most pushed conspiracy theories — and believed that Trump would resolve the mysteries.They were outraged when Trump’s FBI and Justice Department said on July 7 that the death was confirmed a suicide and that Epstein never blackmailed prominent figures or even had a client list.Trump tried numerous measures to placate his base, including ordering Attorney General Pam Bondi to try to obtain release of grand jury testimony in Epstein’s aborted New York case.But the issue flamed up again last week when The Wall Street Journal reported that it had seen a birthday greeting penned in 2003 by Trump to Epstein on his 50th birthday.The letter reportedly featured a hand-drawn naked woman, with Trump’s signature forming her pubic hair, and reference to their shared “wonderful secret.”Trump insists he did not send the letter and has filed a lawsuit against the Journal.Trump has never been accused of wrongdoing but was close friends with Epstein for years and was photographed attending parties with him.Among the other celebrities with connections to Epstein was Britain’s Prince Andrew, who settled a US civil case in February 2022 brought by Virginia Giuffre, who claimed he sexually assaulted her when she was 17.Giuffre committed suicide at her home in Australia in April.Maxwell is the only former Epstein associate who has been convicted. She is appealing her sentence before the Supreme Court.David Oscar Markus, Maxwell’s lawyer, confirmed on X that he was in discussions about her meeting with government representatives.”We are grateful to President Trump for his commitment to uncovering the truth in this case,” Markus added.

Global police organisation Interpol has lifted a red wanted notice requesting the arrest of Paul Watson, an anti-whaling activist and founder of the Sea Shepherd NGO, one of his lawyers told AFP on Tuesday.Interpol had issued the notice against Watson, known for radical tactics including confrontations with whaling ships at sea, at the request of Japan, but has now decided the measure was “disproportionate”, lawyer William Julie said.A spokesperson for Interpol confirmed to AFP that the Commission for the Control of Interpol’s Files (CCF) had deleted the red notice.Watson, a 74-year-old Canadian-American, was arrested and detained in Greenland in July, 2024 on a 2012 Japanese warrant, which accused him of causing damage to a whaling ship and injuring a whaler.  He was released in December after Denmark refused the Japanese extradition request over the 2010 clash with whalers. On December 20, he returned to France, where his children attend school, following a high-profile campaign in his support.”The decision to delete Mr Watson’s red notice was made by the CCF — an independent body tasked to ensure that the processing of personal data by Interpol is in compliance with its constitution and rules,” the Interpol spokesperson said.”This is not a judgement on the merits of the case, or the events that occurred in 2010, but a decision based on Interpol’s rules on the processing of data,” the spokesperson added.”The CCF decision was made in light of new facts, including the refusal by the Kingdom of Denmark to extradite Mr Watson. This is in line with normal procedures.” In a statement, Julie said that the CCF considered that the red notice “did not meet Interpol’s standards, citing the disproportionate nature of the charges, Mr. Watson’s supposed only indirect involvement (which is contested), the considerable passage of time since the alleged facts, Denmark’s refusal to extradite him, and the fact that several other countries declined to act on Japan’s arrest or extradition requests.”He also said that the Commission pointed to the existence of “political elements” around the case.”Regarding potential motivations, the CCF remarked that the disproportionate nature of the red notice ‘tends to highlight the strategic character of the case and its symbolic importance beyond its intrinsic criminal characteristics or pure law-enforcement interest’.”The Commission suggested this may indicate the presence of political elements supporting the case –- a point it makes subtly but significantly,” Jolie said in the statement.gd-mla-jh-as/bc