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U.S. allows more seasonal workers as Trump pushes ‘hire American’

President Donald Trump looks at Sikorsky helicopters miniature models. "Your drivers are very good," Trump said to a representative of Ping, the Arizona-based maker of golf clubs, noting that he had golfed with British pro golfer Lee Westwood, who is a fan. He discussed sales of Sikorsky helicopters - "I have three of them!" he said, lifted horseshoes made with Nucor Corp steel, and strolled past vacuum-sealed Omaha steaks.

By Doina Chiacu and David Shepardson

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The U.S. government cleared the way on Monday for thousands more foreign workers to enter the country under temporary seasonal visas, just as President Donald Trump declared this “Made In America” week and pledged to stand up for U.S. workers.

Advocates of stricter limits on immigration criticized the additional visas, saying American workers should get job openings.

Trump, a former New York real estate magnate who has relied on seasonal workers at his hotels and resorts, campaigned on promises to restore American jobs. On Monday, he showcased “Made in America” products at the White House and made an impassioned defense of America First policies.

“We’re going to stand up for our companies and maybe most importantly for our workers,” the Republican president said. “Clearly it’s time for a new policy, one defined by two simple rules: We will buy American. And we will hire American.”

Federal officials said there were not enough qualified and willing American workers available to perform certain types of temporary nonagricultural work.

As a result, the government will allow 15,000 additional visas for temporary seasonal workers, meant to help American businesses in danger of suffering irreparable harm because of a shortage of such labor, the Department of Homeland Security said in a statement.

“As a demonstration of the administration’s commitment to supporting American businesses, DHS is providing this one-time increase to the congressionally set annual cap,” Secretary of Homeland Security John Kelly said in a statement.

Many seasonal businesses such as resorts, landscaping companies and seafood harvesters and processors had sought permission to temporarily hire more immigrants.

Congress originally set the cap at 66,000 workers for the fiscal year ending Sept. 30. In May, lawmakers gave Kelly authority to approve up to an additional 70,000 temporary visas and pleaded with him to use his authority to issue as many of them as he thought appropriate.

Roy Beck, president of NumbersUSA, a group that supports immigration controls, said in a statement the decision “threatens to reverse the trend of reports emerging around the country of employers working harder and raising pay to successfully recruit more unemployed Americans for lower-skilled jobs.”

Beck said it was “yet another example of the administration and Congress failing to keep the Trump campaign promise of putting American workers first.”

‘MINIMAL RELIEF GRANTED’

Trump campaigned on an “America First” platform of favoring Americans for hiring. Trump’s golf resorts in Florida have used the visas, however, to hire temporary guest workers (http://reut.rs/1R4pKma).

The clothing line of the president’s older daughter and adviser, Ivanka Trump, uses foreign factories employing low-wage workers in countries such as Bangladesh, Indonesia and China, a recent Washington Post report showed.

A group of U.S. companies that use the visas, called the “the H-2B Workforce Coalition,” praised the “minimal relief granted.”

It said: “From landscapers in Colorado to innkeepers in Maine to seafood processors along the Gulf Coast to carnivals nationwide, we hope the visa expansion will help some businesses avoid substantial financial loss, and in some cases, prevent early business closures during their peak season.”

A report on Monday by the Economic Policy Institute, a liberal think tank, found, however, there was little evidence of worker shortages in H-2B jobs at the national level.

“Expanding the H-2B program without reforming it to improve protections and increase wages for migrant workers will essentially allow unscrupulous employers to carve out an even larger rights-free zone in the low-wage labor market,” said Daniel Costa, director of immigration law and policy research at the institute.

Kelly has acknowledged that many temporary workers “are victimized when they come up here, in terms of what they’re paid.”

DHS said the government had created a tip line to report any abuse of the visas or employer violations.

(Reporting by Doina Chiacu and David Shepardson in Washington; Additional reporting by Mica Rosenberg in New York; Editing by Marguerita Choy and Peter Cooney)

Trump asks Supreme Court to block travel ban ruling

FILE PHOTO: Tom Bossert, Homeland Security Advisor to President Trump during a news briefing at the White House in Washington, D.C., U.S., May 11, 2017. REUTERS/Kevin Lamarque

By Lawrence Hurley

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The U.S. Justice Department on Friday asked the Supreme Court to block a judge’s ruling that prevented President Donald Trump’s travel ban from being applied to grandparents of U.S. citizens and refugees already being processed by resettlement agencies.

In a court filing, the administration asked the justices to overturn Thursday’s decision by a U.S. district judge in Hawaii, which limited the scope of the administration’s temporary ban on refugees and travelers from six Muslim-majority countries.

The latest round in the fight over Trump’s March 6 executive order, which he says is needed for national security reasons, came after the Supreme Court intervened last month to partially revive the two bans, which were blocked by lower courts.

The Supreme Court said then that the ban could take effect, but that people with a “bona fide relationship” to a U.S. person or entity could not be barred.

The administration had narrowly interpreted that language, saying the ban would apply to grandparents and other family members, prompting the state of Hawaii to ask Hawaii-based U.S. District Judge Derrick Watson to expand the definition of who could be admitted. He ruled for the state late on Thursday.

In the court filing, the Justice Department said the judge’s ruling “empties the (Supreme) Court’s decision of meaning, as it encompasses not just “close” family members but virtually all family members.

The conservative-leaning Supreme Court is not currently in session but the justices can handle emergency requests. The administration’s application could be directed either to Justice Anthony Kennedy, who has responsibility for emergency requests from western states, or to the nine justices as a whole. If the court as a whole is asked to weigh in, five votes are needed to grant such a request.

“The truth here is that the government’s interpretation of the Supreme Court’s stay order defies common sense,” said Omar Jadwat, a lawyer with the American Civil Liberties Union involved in challenging the ban. “That’s what the district court correctly found and the attorney general’s misleading attacks on its decision can’t change that fact.”

In his decision, Watson harshly criticized the government’s definition of close family relations as “the antithesis of common sense.”

Watson also ruled that the assurance by a resettlement agency to provide basic services to a newly arrived refugee constitutes an adequate connection to the United States because it is a sufficiently formal and documented agreement that triggers responsibilities and compensation.

In the court filing, the Justice Department said Watson’s ruling on refugees would make the Supreme Court’s decision on that part of the executive order “effectively meaningless.”

The ruling, if left in place, means refugees can continue to be resettled in the United States, beyond a cap of 50,000 set by the executive order. That limit was reached this week.

The Supreme Court’s decision last month revived parts of Trump’s March 6 executive order banning travelers from Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen for 90 days, as well as refugees for 120 days. The court also agreed to hear oral arguments in the fall over whether the ban violates the U.S. Constitution.

(Reporting by Lawrence Hurley; Additional reporting by Ayesha Rascoe, Yeganeh Torbati and Dan Levine; Editing by Jonathan Oatis and Bill Trott)

Iran blames Trump for instability, rejects ‘rogue’ label

Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei delivers a speech during a ceremony marking the death anniversary of the founder of the Islamic Republic Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, in Tehran, Iran, June 4, 2017. TIMA via REUTERS

DUBAI (Reuters) – Iran on Saturday blamed what it called Donald Trump’s “arbitrary and conflicting policies” for global security threats, rejecting the U.S. president’s description of Tehran as a rogue state.

Tensions between Iran and the United States have heightened since the election of Trump, who has often singled out Tehran as a key backer of militant groups.

“(Trump) ought to seek the reason for subversion and rebellion in his own arbitrary and conflicting policies and actions, as well as those of his arrogant, aggressive and occupying allies in the region,” said foreign ministry spokesman Bahram Qassemi, quoted by Iran’s state news agency IRNA.

President Trump said on Thursday that new threats were emerging from “rogue regimes like North Korea, Iran and Syria and the governments that finance and support them”.

Senior Iranian officials have blamed U.S-allied Saudi Arabia, Iran’s Sunni Muslim regional rival, for instability and attacks in the Middle East, including last month’s assaults that killed 18 people in Tehran.

Saudi Arabia has denied involvement in the attacks which were claimed by Islamic state.

While Trump has kept up his criticism of Tehran, a senior U.S. official said on Thursday that the president was “very likely” to state that Iran is adhering to its nuclear agreement with world powers although he continues to have reservations about it.

(Reporting by Dubai newsroom; Editing by Stephen Powell)

U.S. judge narrows travel ban in defeat for Trump

By Dan Levine and Mica Rosenberg

(Reuters) – President Donald Trump’s temporary ban on travelers from six Muslim-majority countries cannot stop grandparents and other relatives of United States citizens from entering the country, a U.S. judge said on Thursday.

The ruling by U.S. District Judge Derrick Watson in Honolulu also opens the door for more refugees and deals Trump a fresh courtroom defeat in a long back-and-forth over an executive order that has gone all the way up to the U.S. Supreme Court.

The state of Hawaii had asked Watson to narrowly interpret a Supreme Court ruling that revived parts of Trump’s March 6 executive order banning travelers from Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen for 90 days, as well as refugees for 120 days.

The Supreme Court last month said the ban could take effect, but that anyone from the six countries with a “bona fide relationship” to a U.S. person or entity could not be barred.

The Trump administration then interpreted that opinion to allow spouses, parents, children, fiancés and siblings into the country, but barred grandparents and other family members, in a measure Trump called necessary to prevent attacks.

Watson harshly criticized the government’s definition of close family relations as “the antithesis of common sense” in a ruling that changes the way the ban can now be implemented.

“Common sense, for instance, dictates that close family members be defined to include grandparents. Indeed, grandparents are the epitome of close family members,” he wrote.

A Justice Department spokeswoman declined to comment.

Trump’s order is a pretext for illegal discrimination, Hawaii Attorney General Douglas Chin said in a statement.

“Family members have been separated and real people have suffered enough,” Chin said.

Chin had asked Watson for an injunction allowing grandparents and other family members to travel to the United States. Hawaii and refugee groups also had argued that resettlement agencies have a “bona fide” relationship with the refugees they help, sometimes over the course of years.

The Justice Department said its rules were properly grounded in immigration law.

Watson said the assurance by a resettlement agency to provide basic services to a newly arrived refugee constitutes an adequate connection to the U.S. because it is a sufficiently formal and documented agreement that triggers responsibilities and compensation.

“‘Bona fide’ does not get any more ‘bona fide’ than that,” Watson said.

Melanie Nezer, vice president of global refugee advocacy group HIAS, said the ruling should mean that refugees can continue to be resettled in the United States, beyond a cap of 50,000 set by the executive order. That limit was reached this week.

“We are thrilled that thousands of people will be reunited with their family members,” said Becca Heller, director of the International Refugee Assistance Project.

More than 24,000 additional refugees should be allowed to travel to the U.S. under Watson’s order, she estimated.

Watson did not grant everything the state of Hawaii sought, however. He rejected a request to categorically exempt all Iraqis refugee applicants who believe they are at risk due to their work for the U.S. government since March, 2003, as interpreters and translators, for instance.

Watson also refused a blanket exemption for those eligible to apply to a refugee program aimed at protecting certain children at risk in El Salvador, Honduras, and Guatemala.

The roll-out of the narrowed version of the ban was more subdued than in January, when Trump first signed a more expansive version of his order. That sparked protests and chaos at airports around the country and the world.

(Reporting by Dan Levine in San Francisco and Mica Rosenberg in New York; Additional reporting by Andrew Chung in New York; Editing by Clarence Fernandez)

U.S. judge unlikely to remove block on Trump sanctuary city order

U.S. President Donald Trump salutes on the South Lawn of the White House upon his return to Washington, U.S., from the G20 Summit in Hamburg, July 8, 2017. REUTERS/Yuri Gripas

By Dan Levine

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) – A U.S. judge on Wednesday said he was “very much inclined” to maintain a court order that blocks President Donald Trump’s administration from carrying out a policy designed to threaten federal funds to so-called sanctuary cities.

At a hearing in San Francisco federal court, U.S. District Judge William Orrick III said a recent memo from the Justice Department that appeared to narrow the scope of Trump’s executive order on sanctuary cities did not remove the need for an injunction.

Trump issued the order in January directing that funding be slashed to all jurisdictions that refuse to comply with a statute that requires local governments to share information with immigration authorities.

Sanctuary cities generally offer safe harbor to illegal immigrants and often do not use municipal funds or resources to enforce of federal immigration laws. Dozens of local governments and cities, including New York, Los Angeles and Chicago, have joined the growing “sanctuary” movement.

The Trump administration contends that local authorities endanger public safety when they decline to hand over for deportation illegal immigrants arrested for crimes.

The Republican president’s moves to crack down on immigration have galvanized legal advocacy groups, along with Democratic city and state governments, to oppose them in court.

After Trump issued the sanctuary cities executive order earlier this year, Santa Clara County – which includes the city of San Jose and several smaller Silicon Valley communities – sued, saying it was unconstitutional. San Francisco filed a similar lawsuit.

In a ruling in April, Orrick said Trump’s order targeted broad categories of federal funding for sanctuary governments and that plaintiffs challenging the order were likely to succeed in proving it unconstitutional.

Attorney General Jeff Sessions then issued a memo which formally endorsed a narrower interpretation of Trump’s order, saying that the only funds the government intended to withhold were certain grants tied to law enforcement programs.

In court on Wednesday, Deputy Assistant Attorney General Brett Shumate said the Sessions memo meant less than a million dollars were now at risk for Santa Clara County and San Francisco, so the injunction was no longer needed.

But Orrick said an injunction was still necessary because Trump could always order Sessions to issue new, broader guidance.

“The attorney general still has the ability to change that memo,” Orrick said.

The judge said he would also likely reject a Justice Department request to dismiss other claims by Santa Clara and San Francisco.

(Reporting by Dan Levine; Editing by Cynthia Osterman)

Trump’s FBI pick vows independence, says Russia probe no ‘witch hunt’

Christopher Wray testifies before a Senate Judiciary Committee confirmation hearing on his nomination to be the next FBI director on Capitol Hill in Washington, U.S., July 12, 2017. REUTERS/Carlos Barria

By Julia Edwards Ainsley

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – President Donald Trump’s pick to head the FBI, Christopher Wray, on Wednesday said he would refuse to pledge loyalty to Trump, rejected his description of the probe into Russian election meddling as a “witch hunt,” and vowed to quit if told by the president to do something unlawful.

Wray, nominated by Trump on June 7 to replace the fired James Comey as Federal Bureau of Investigation director, firmly sought to establish independence from the Republican president and even said it would be “highly unlikely” that he would agree to meet him in a one-on-one situation.

Wray appeared at his U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee confirmation hearing amid an uproar in Washington over 2016 emails released on Tuesday involving the president’s son, Donald Trump Jr. The emails showed the president’s son agreeing last year to meet a woman he was told was a Russian government lawyer who might have damaging information about Democratic White House rival Hillary Clinton as part of Moscow’s official support for his father.

Wray deflected specific questions from Republican Senator Lindsey Graham about the president’s son’s emails, but said, “Any threats or effort to interfere with our election from any nation-state or any non-state actor is the kind of thing the FBI would want to know.”

Trump’s son did not notify the FBI and wrote that “I love it” of the Russian’s offer of information about Clinton.

Wray, who appeared on target to win confirmation, also said he had no reason to doubt the U.S. intelligence community’s finding that Russia interfered with the election to help Trump get elected in part by hacking and releasing emails damaging to Clinton.

In the aftermath of Comey’s firing, the Justice Department named Robert Mueller, himself a former FBI director, to serve as special counsel looking into alleged Russian interference in the 2016 presidential race to help Trump get elected and potential collusion between Moscow and Trump associates.

Trump fired Comey on May 9 and later cited the “Russia thing” as his reason.

Trump often has called the Russia probe a “witch hunt.” The Russia matter has dogged Trump’s first six months in office.

“I do not consider Director Mueller to be on a witch hunt,” Wray told Republican Graham.

Wray and Comey served together in the Justice Department under Republican former President George W. Bush, and both worked on the government’s case in the Enron Corp fraud scandal in the early to mid-2000s.

Wray said he was “very committed” to supporting Mueller in the special counsel investigation, calling him “the consummate straight shooter and somebody I have enormous respect for.”

Dianne Feinstein asked Wray to tell the committee “if you learn about any machinations to tamper with” Mueller’s probe.

“Understood,” Wray responded.

NO LOYALTY OATH

Wray said he spoke with no one at the White House about Comey’s firing. He said no one at the White House had demanded that he pledge his loyalty to Trump, as Comey said the president demanded of him, and said he would not give such an assurance if asked.

“My loyalty is to the Constitution, to the rule of law and to the mission of the FBI. And no one asked me for any kind of loyalty oath at any point during this process, and I sure as heck didn’t offer one,” Wray said.

Comey previously testified to the same committee that Trump pressed him in a one-on-one session to drop the FBI investigation into former national security advisor Michael Flynn’s ties to Russia and said he felt he was fired in a bid by the president to undercut the Russia probe.

Democratic Senator Patrick Leahy asked Wray, “If the president asks you to do something unlawful or unethical, what do you say?”

“First, I would try to talk him out of it. And if that failed, I would resign,” Wray said.

Asked by Democratic Senator Dick Durbin if he would ever meet in the Oval Office with the president with no one else present, Wray said, “I think it would be highly unlikely.”

Wray is a former U.S. Justice Department lawyer who has prosecuted and defended white-collar crime cases and represented New Jersey Governor Chris Christie in a political scandal.

The allegation involving Trump pressing Comey over the Flynn probe raised questions about whether Trump’s behavior amounted to obstruction of justice, a potential issue in any potential future effort in Congress to impeach the Republican president and remove him from office.

Wray repeatedly vowed independence.

“There’s only one right way to do this job, and that is with strict independence, by the book, playing it straight, faithful to the Constitution, faithful to our laws, and faithful to the best practices of the institution, without fear, without favoritism and certainly without regard to any partisan political influence,” Wray said.

(Reporting by Julia Edwards Ainsley; Editing by Will Dunham)

Trump Jr.’s Russia emails could trigger probe under election law

Donald Trump hugs his son Donald Trump Jr. at a campaign rally in St. Clairsville, Ohio June 28, 2016. REUTERS/Aaron Josefczyk

By Jan Wolfe

NEW YORK (Reuters) – Donald Trump Jr.’s meeting with a woman he was told was a Russian government lawyer who had incriminating information about Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton that could help his father’s presidential campaign could lead investigators to probe whether he violated U.S. election law, experts said.

Trump Jr. met the woman, lawyer Natalia Veselnitskaya, on June 9, 2016, after an email exchange with an intermediary.

The emails, tweeted by Trump Jr. on Tuesday, could provide material for Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s probe into possible collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia during the 2016 presidential election.

In one of the emails dated June 3, 2016, Trump Jr. wrote: “If it’s what you say I love it.” He released the tweets after the New York Times said it planned to write about their contents and sought his comment.

Trump Jr. said in his tweets that nothing came of the meeting. Veselnitskaya told NBC News early on Tuesday she was not affiliated with the Russian government and had passed no information.

“In retrospect, I probably would have done things a little differently,” Trump Jr. said in an interview on Fox News. “For me, this was opposition research.”

Collusion itself is not an actual crime under the U.S. criminal code, so prosecutors would look to see if Trump Jr.’s conduct ran afoul of a specific law, legal experts said.

Moscow has denied interference in the U.S. election, and President Donald Trump has said his campaign did not collude with Russia.

Alan Futerfas, Trump Jr.’s lawyer, did not respond to a request for comment. A spokesman for Mueller declined to comment.

FEDERAL ELECTION CAMPAIGN ACT

One law that might come into play is the Federal Election Campaign Act, which makes it illegal for a foreign national to contribute to a U.S. political campaign. The campaign is also prohibited from soliciting such contributions.

A contribution does not have to be monetary in nature, according to Paul S. Ryan, an attorney with watchdog group Common Cause. He said incriminating information about Clinton could be considered a contribution under the act.

Ryan said Trump Jr.’s “enthusiastic response” to the offer for information and particularly his proposal in his email to have a follow-up call the next week constituted “solicitation.”

“That to me is an indication, a concession by Donald Trump Jr. that he wants and is requesting this information,” Ryan said.

Joshua Douglas, a professor at the University of Kentucky College of Law, said Trump Jr.’s emails made it “more plausible” that there could be a criminal case against him.

James Gardner, an election law expert at the University of Buffalo Law School, said the election law was intended to target donations of cash or goods and services.

He said he did not believe Trump Jr. would have violated the law if he solicited damaging information about Clinton.

A federal law known as the general conspiracy statute that makes it illegal to conspire to commit a crime against or defraud the United States could also come into play if, for example, Trump Jr. tried to help Russians hack into U.S. computer networks. There was no indication that Trump Jr. did such a thing.

Andrew Wright, a professor at Savannah Law School who was

associate counsel in the White House Counsel’s Office under former Democratic President Barack Obama, said he thought Trump Jr.’s agreeing to meet with someone to discuss an illegal act would be enough to trigger a conspiracy charge.

“It’s a very powerful tool,” he said.

(Additional reporting by Lindsey Kortyka)

Trump’s election panel puts hold on voter data request

FILE PHOTO - A member of the ACLU observes a polling station during voting in the 2016 presidential election at Desert Pines High School in Las Vegas, Nevada, U.S. on November 8, 2016. REUTERS/David Becker/File Photo

By Julia Jacobs and Bernie Woodall

(Reuters) – U.S. President Donald Trump’s commission to investigate possible election fraud on Monday put a freeze on its effort to collect sensitive voter data from states in the face of growing legal challenges.

In an email, the panel’s designated officer, Andrew Kossack, asked state elections officers to “hold on submitting any data,” the commission said in court filings.

Several state elections officials confirmed receiving a letter from the panel stating that it would provide further instructions after a federal judge had ruled on a complaint filed by a watchdog group, the Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC), which is seeking a temporary restraining order.

Earlier on Monday, the American Civil Liberties Union sued the Presidential Advisory Commission on Election Integrity, alleging violations of federal law requiring transparent government.

The bipartisan panel, led by Vice President Mike Pence and Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach, asked the 50 U.S. states for a host of voter data, including birth dates and the last four digits of voters’ Social Security numbers.

Most U.S. states have rejected full compliance, which many called unnecessary and a violation of privacy.

“This has been a misadventure from the get-go,” Massachusetts Secretary of State William Galvin, who had refused to give the commission any data, said by phone.

In Wisconsin, elections officials halted plans to inform the commission how it could purchase for $12,500 its public voter data, not including Social Security numbers or birth dates.

“We’re just putting everything on hold,” said Reid Magney, spokesman for the Wisconsin Elections Commission.

Arkansas, however, had already sent in a limited batch of publicly available data, according to the office of Secretary of State Mark Martin,

In a court document, the government said it would not download the information from Arkansas and would instead delete it.

Representatives for the White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The commission last week said it would meet on July 19 in Washington near the White House.

On Monday, critics cheered the move and expressed hope the commission would permanently abandon efforts to collect voter data.

“The commission has effectively conceded,” EPIC President Marc Rotenberg said by phone.

State officials from both parties and election experts widely agree that voter fraud is rare. Civil rights groups called the commission a voter suppression tactic by Trump.

The Republican president created the panel in May following his claim, without evidence, that millions of people voted illegally in the 2016 election.

(Reporting by Julia Jacobs in Chicago, Bernie Woodall in Fort Lauderdale, Florida and Susan Heavey in Washington; Writing by Letitia Stein; Editing by Jonathan Oatis)

China says ‘China responsibility theory’ on North Korea has to stop

The intercontinental ballistic missile Hwasong-14 is seen in this undated photo released by North Korea's Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) in Pyongyang July 5, 2017. KCNA/via REUTERS

BEIJING (Reuters) – China hit back on Tuesday in unusually strong terms at repeated calls from the United States to put more pressure on North Korea, urging a halt to what it called the “China responsibility theory”, and saying all parties needed to pull their weight.

U.S President Trump took a more conciliatory tone at a meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping on Saturday, but he has expressed some impatience that China, with its close economic and diplomatic ties to Pyongyang, is not doing enough to rein in North Korea.

That feeling has become particularly acute since Pyongyang launched an intercontinental ballistic missile that some experts believe could have the range to reach Alaska, and parts of the U.S. West Coast.

Asked about calls from the United States, Japan and others for China to put more pressure on North Korea, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Geng Shuang said it was not China ratcheting up tension and the key to a resolution did not lie with Beijing.

“Recently, certain people, talking about the Korean peninsula nuclear issue, have been exaggerating and giving prominence to the so-called ‘China responsibility theory,'” Geng told a daily news briefing, without naming any parties.

“I think this either shows lack of a full, correct knowledge of the issue, or there are ulterior motives for it, trying to shift responsibility,” he added.

China has been making unremitting efforts and has played a constructive role, but all parties have to meet each other half way, Geng said.

“Asking others to do work, but doing nothing themselves is not OK,” he added. “Being stabbed in the back is really not OK.”

While China has been angered by North Korea’s repeated nuclear and missile tests, it also blames the United States and South Korea for worsening tension with their military exercises.

China has been upset with the U.S. deployment of an advanced anti-missile system in South Korea too, which it says threatens its own security and will do nothing to ease tensions.

Additionally, Beijing has complained about Washington putting unilateral sanctions on Chinese companies and individuals for their dealings with North Korea.

Geng questioned how China’s efforts could bear fruit if, while it tried to put out the flames, others added oil to the fire, and if, while it enforced U.N. resolutions, others harmed its interests.

Everyone needed to accept their responsibilities to get the North Korea issue back on the correct track of a peaceful resolution through talks, he added.

“The ‘China responsibility theory’ on the peninsula nuclear issue can stop,” Geng said.

(Reporting by Ben Blanchard; Editing by Clarence Fernandez)

At G20 summit, Trump promises $639 million in food, humanitarian aid

U.S. President Donald Trump attends a working session at the G-20 summit in Hamburg, northern Germany, Saturday, July 8, 2017.REUTERS/Markus Schreiber, Pool

HAMBURG (Reuters) – U.S. President Donald Trump on Saturday promised $639 million in funding for humanitarian programs, including $331 million to help feed starving people in four famine-hit countries – Somalia, South Sudan, Nigeria and Yemen.

Trump’s pledge came during a working session of the G20 summit of world leaders in Hamburg, providing a “godsend” to the U.N. World Food Programme, the group’s executive director, David Beasley, told Reuters on the sidelines of the meeting.

“We’re facing the worst humanitarian crisis since World War Two,” said Beasley, a Republican and former South Carolina governor who was nominated by Trump to head the world’s largest humanitarian agency fighting hunger worldwide.

He said the additional funding was about a third of what the agency estimated was required this year to deal with urgent food needs in the four countries facing famine and in other areas.

The WFP estimates that 109 million people around the world will need food assistance this year, up from 80 million last year, with 10 of the 13 worst affected zones stemming from wars and “man-made” crises, Beasley said.

“We estimated that if we didn’t receive the funding we needed immediately that 400,000 to 600,000 children would be dying in the next four months,” he said.

Trump’s announcement came after his administration proposed sharp cuts in funding for the U.S. State Department and other humanitarian missions as part of his “America First” policy.

Beasley said the agency had worked hard with the White House and the U.S. government to secure the funding, but Trump would insist that other countries contributed more as well.

A WPF spokesman said Germany recently pledged an additional 200 million euros for food relief.

The United States has long been the largest donor to the WFP.

(Reporting by Andrea Shalal; editing by John Stonestreet)

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