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Trump asks U.S. Congress to prohibit late-term abortion

U.S. President Donald Trump gestures during his State of the Union address to a joint session of Congress on Capitol Hill in Washington, U.S., February 5, 2019. REUTERS/Jim Young

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. President Donald Trump called for curbs on late-term abortion in his State of the Union address on Tuesday, citing controversies over the issue in New York and Virginia.

Using emotive language, Trump waded into what has long been a divisive issue in American politics, even though the procedure was legalized in a Supreme Court ruling more than 40 years ago.

“To defend the dignity of every person, I am asking the Congress to pass legislation to prohibit the late-term abortion of children who can feel pain in the mother’s womb,” Trump said.

“Let us work together to build a culture that cherishes innocent life. Let us reaffirm a fundamental truth: all children – born and unborn – are made in the holy image of God,” he said.

The issue of whether a fetus feels pain has been raised frequently in recent years by abortion opponents pushing for more restrictions in state legislatures. Medical opinion on the issue is not conclusive.

With the confirmation last year of Trump’s pick for the Supreme Court, Justice Brett Kavanaugh, conservatives now have a 5-4 edge on the nation’s highest court, raising fears among abortion rights supporters that the 1973 Roe v Wade ruling could be weakened or overturned.

Currently, laws governing late-term abortions vary state by state.

Trump criticized a New York law enacted last month that provides strong abortion rights protections, including late-term abortions when the mother’s health is endangered.

In his speech, he said lawmakers in the state “cheered with delight” at the law “that would allow a baby to be ripped from the mother’s womb moments before birth.”

The Republican president also seized on a controversy surrounding Virginia Governor Ralph Northam, repeating Republicans’ accusations that Northam, a Democrat, advocated infanticide when he defended a bill that would have lifted restrictions on later-term abortions.

Northam has said his comments were misinterpreted. “Extrapolating otherwise is bad faith,” his spokeswoman, Ofirah Yheskel, said last week.

The embattled Virginia governor is facing a separate controversy over a racist photo in his 1984 medical school yearbook, but has resisted calls to resign.

(Reporting by Makini Brice and Doina Chiacu; Editing by Sonya Hepinstall)

With eye on Afghanistan talks, Trump vows to stop ‘endless wars’

FILE PHOTO: U.S. troops patrol at an Afghan National Army (ANA) Base in Logar province, Afghanistan August 7, 2018. REUTERS/Omar Sobhani/File Photo

By Patricia Zengerle

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – President Donald Trump told Americans on Tuesday his administration had accelerated talks for a political settlement in Afghanistan and would be able to reduce U.S. troops there as negotiations advance to end America’s longest war.

U.S. President Donald Trump delivers his second State of the Union address to a joint session of the U.S. Congress in the House Chamber of the U.S. Capitol on Capitol Hill in Washington, U.S. February 5, 2019. REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst

“Great nations do not fight endless wars,” Trump said in his annual State of the Union address to Congress, in which he also said U.S. troops had nearly defeated Islamic State militants in Syria and it was time to bring them home.

After 17 years of war in Afghanistan, Trump praised “the unmatched valor” of U.S. forces.

“Thanks to their bravery, we are now able to pursue a possible political solution to this long and bloody conflict,” Trump said.

He said his administration was holding constructive talks with a number of groups, including Taliban militants.

“As we make progress in these negotiations, we will be able to reduce our troop presence and focus on counter-terrorism. And we will indeed focus on counter-terrorism,” Trump said.

Trump offered no specifics about when he would bring home the 14,000 U.S. troops now in Afghanistan.

U.S.-led forces in 2001 toppled the hardline Taliban for harboring the al Qaeda militants responsible for the Sept. 11 attacks.

“We do not know whether we will achieve an agreement – but we do know that after two decades of war, the hour has come to at least try for peace,” Trump said.

‘END MILITARY PRESENCE’

The Taliban, responding to Trump’s speech, rejected any suggestion of a lingering U.S. focus on counter-terrorism after troops are drawn down, reiterating their long-held demand that all foreign troops get out.

“At the first step, we want all the foreign forces to leave and end the military presence in our country,” Sohail Shahin, a spokesman for a Taliban office in Qatar, said by telephone.

“But after ending their military presence, their non-military teams can come and … take part in the reconstruction and development process.”

In December, a U.S. official said Trump was planning to withdraw more than 5,000 U.S. troops in Afghanistan, triggering worries about whether a smaller force would be able to fulfill missions underway and stabilize the country.

When he campaigned for president in 2016, Trump said he wanted to focus more on domestic issues than foreign conflicts.

However, Trump’s sudden announcement in December that he would withdraw U.S. forces from Syria alarmed allies and many current and former U.S. officials, who worry that Islamic State militants remain a threat.

After the speech, Democratic Representative Eliot Engel, chairman of the House of Representatives Foreign Affairs Committee, said Trump’s Syria plans did not seem well thought out and could put U.S. allies like the Kurds and Israel at risk, while empowering Iran.

“We’ll probably come back at a future date, with much more danger to our troops,” Engel told Reuters.

Earlier on Tuesday, General Joseph Votel, head of the military’s Central Command, warned that Islamic State would pose an enduring threat.

In his address, Trump said Islamic State controlled more than 20,000 square miles of territory in Iraq and Syria. “Today, we have liberated virtually all of that territory from the grip of these bloodthirsty monsters,” he said.

(Reporting by Patricia Zengerle, additional reporting by Abdul Qadir Sediqi in KABUL; Editing by Mary Milliken, Sonya Hepinstall and Nick Macfie)

Shares surge to 2-month high, dollar climbs ahead of Trump speech

FILE PHOTO - Visitors look at an electronic stock quotation board at the Tokyo Stock Exchange (TSE) in Tokyo, Japan, October 1, 2018. REUTERS/Toru Hanai

By Lewis Krauskopf

NEW YORK (Reuters) – World stocks raced to a fresh two-month high on Tuesday to keep up their fast start to 2019 while the U.S. dollar strengthened for a fourth straight session as investors awaited President Trump’s annual State of the Union speech later in the day.

With European shares posting strong gains and Wall Street opening solidly higher, MSCI’s gauge of stocks across the globe gained 0.60 percent, rising for a sixth straight session as it hit a two-month high.

Trump was due to give his address at 2100 ET (0200 GMT), with investors awaiting indications of progress in U.S.-China trade talks and watching for signs of tensions with Democrats following a 35-day partial federal government shutdown.

The Federal Reserve’s dovish recent statement on interest rate policy, along with optimism over U.S.-China tensions, has fueled recent risk appetite, even as estimates for U.S. corporate earnings have been falling.

“Despite the State of the Union tonight, investors seem increasingly certain that we are going to avoid any escalation of the trade tensions with China and avoid another government shutdown,” said Jeffrey Kleintop, chief global investment strategist at Charles Schwab in Boston.

“Investors are viewing policy considerations offsetting falling earnings expectations,” Kleintop said.

On Wall Street, the Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 168.25 points, or 0.67 percent, to 25,407.62, the S&P 500 gained 11.94 points, or 0.44 percent, to 2,736.81 and the Nasdaq Composite added 55.71 points, or 0.76 percent, to 7,403.24.

Shares of Esta Lauder Cos and Ralph Lauren reacted favorably to the companies’ respective quarterly reports.

Fourth-quarter earnings for companies on the benchmark S&P 500 index were on track to have climbed 15.4 percent, but profit in the first quarter is now expected to rise by only 0.5 percent, according to IBES data from Refinitiv.

The pan-European STOXX 600 index rose 1.33 percent, as BP shares jumped after its earnings report.

The dollar index, which measures the greenback against a basket of currencies, rose 0.22 percent, up for a fourth straight session, with the euro down 0.24 percent to $1.1408.

Continued recovery in investors’ appetite for risk-taking exerted pressure on safe-haven currencies, dragging the Swiss franc to an 11-week low against the dollar.

U.S. Treasury yields fell as investors started to price in the Fed’s dovish interest rate outlook amid an uncertain global economic outlook.

“Yields are consolidating around levels that are more consistent with the new position at the Fed which is … it is effectively on hold at least in the next six months,” said John Herrmann, rates strategist at MUFG Securities in New York.

Benchmark U.S. 10-year notes last rose 7/32 in price to yield 2.6983 percent, from 2.724 percent late Monday.

U.S. crude fell 0.24 percent to $54.43 per barrel and Brent was last at $62.60, up 0.14 percent on the day.

(Additional reporting by Gertrude Chavez-Dreyfuss and Saqib Iqbal Ahmed in New York, Marc Jones in London; Editing by Bernadette Baum)

Trump delays State of the Union Address until shutdown ends

Kera Myers, the wife of a member of the U.S. Coast Guard working without pay during the government shutdown, picks up produce, eggs, milk, bread and other supplies being distributed by Gather food pantry at the U.S. Coast Guard Portsmouth Harbor base in New Castle, New Hampshire, U.S., January 23, 2019. REUTERS/Brian Snyder

By Richard Cowan and John Whitesides

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. President Donald Trump said in a late night Tweet on Wednesday that he would delay a State of the Union address until the government shutdown was over, responding to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s move to obstruct his plans for the speech.

Earlier in the day, Democratic leaders in the House of Representatives floated the idea of ending the partial government shutdown by giving Trump most or all of the money he seeks for security along the Mexican border but for items other than the wall he wants.

As a shutdown that has left 800,000 federal workers without pay hit its 33rd day, Pelosi effectively disinvited Trump from delivering the annual State of the Union address in the House chamber until the government is fully opened.

The Republican president responded to the Democrat speaker with a tweet.

“This is her prerogative – I will do the Address when the Shutdown is over. I am not looking for an alternative venue for the SOTU Address because there is no venue that can compete with the history, tradition and importance of the House Chamber,” the president said in the tweet.

“I look forward to giving a great State of the Union Address in the near future!”

Other leaders in the Democratic-controlled House said they were drafting a funding offer they will likely make to Trump in a letter.

Representative James Clyburn, the No. 3 House Democrat, said Democrats could fulfill Trump’s request for $5.7 billion for border security with technological tools such as drones, X-rays and sensors, as well as more border patrol agents.

Representative Steny Hoyer, the No. 2 House Democrat, said Democrats also would discuss “substantial sums of additional money” for border security as part of a possible deal. He did not say if it would amount to the $5.7 billion sought by Trump.

The president triggered the shutdown last month by demanding money for the wall, opposed by Democrats, as part of any legislation to fund about a quarter of the government. Clyburn’s offer would be a significant monetary increase over bills previously passed by Democrats, which included only about $1.3 billion for this year in additional border security, with none for a wall.

“Using the figure the president put on the table, if his $5.7 billion is about border security then we see ourselves fulfilling that request, only doing it with what I like to call using a smart wall,” Clyburn told reporters.

Republican Representative Tom Cole, a member of the House Appropriations Committee, told reporters the Democratic proposal could help.

“Any movement, any discussion is helpful,” Cole said. “We’ve got to get past this wall-or-no-wall debate.”

The battle over border security and government funding spilled over into a parallel dispute over the president’s State of the Union address. Trump sent a letter to Pelosi on Wednesday saying he looked forward to delivering it as scheduled next Tuesday in the House chamber. Pelosi previously had asked Trump to consider postponing it because security could not be guaranteed during the shutdown.

But Pelosi told Trump on Wednesday the House would not consider a measure authorizing his address until the shutdown ends. “Again, I look forward to welcoming you to the House on a mutually agreeable date for this address when government has been opened,” Pelosi said to Trump in a letter.

In a sign Trump may be bracing for a long shutdown, a senior administration official said agencies without funding had been asked to give the White House a list of programs that could be hurt “within the coming weeks” if the funding lapse continues.

SENATE PLANS VOTES

The U.S. Senate, controlled by Trump’s fellow Republicans, planned votes for Thursday on competing proposals that face steep odds to end the shutdown.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell plans a vote on a Democratic proposal that would fund the government for three weeks but does not include the $5.7 billion in partial funding for a wall on the U.S.-Mexico border.

Its prospects appeared grim. The House has passed several similar bills but Trump has rejected legislation that does not include the wall funding. McConnell previously said he would not consider a bill that Trump did not support.

McConnell also planned to hold a vote on legislation that would include wall funding and a temporary extension of protections for “Dreamers,” people brought illegally to the United States as children, an offer Trump made on Saturday. Trump’s 2017 plan to rescind protections against deportation for hundreds of thousands of “Dreamers” has been blocked by the courts.

Democrats have dismissed the offer, saying they would not negotiate on border security before reopening the government, and that they would not trade a temporary extension of the immigrants’ protections in return for a permanent border wall they have called ineffective, costly and immoral.

Barclays economists said on Wednesday they reduced their outlook on U.S. economic growth in the first quarter to an annualized rate of 2.5 percent from an earlier projection of 3 percent as a result of the shutdown.

Furloughed federal workers are struggling to make ends meet during the longest government shutdown in U.S. history. Many have turned to unemployment assistance, food banks and other support, or have sought new jobs.

(Reporting by Richard Cowan and John Whitesides; Additional reporting by Yasmeen Abutaleb, Roberta Rampton, Eric Beech, Susan Heavey, Doina Chiacu and Rich McKay; Writing by John Whitesides; Editing by Will Dunham, Peter Cooney & Simon Cameron-Moore)

Daring Pelosi, Trump says he ‘looks forward’ to addressing Congress

FILE PHOTO: U.S. President Donald Trump delivers remarks on border security and the partial shutdown of the U.S. government from the Diplomatic Room at the White House in Washington, U.S., Jan. 19, 2019. REUTERS/Yuri Gripas/File Photo

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – President Donald Trump said on Wednesday he looks forward to delivering a State of the Union address before the U.S. Congress as scheduled on Jan. 29 in the chamber of the House of Representatives despite House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s request that he delay it due to the government shutdown.

“It would be so very sad for our Country if the State of the Union were not delivered on time, on schedule, and very importantly, on location!” Trump wrote, according to a copy of the letter to Pelosi released by the White House.

Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) speaks during a press briefing on the 27th day of a partial government shutdown on Capitol Hill in Washington, U.S., January 17, 2019. REUTERS/Joshua Roberts

Pelosi on Jan. 16 asked Trump to consider postponing the address, which is traditionally delivered in the House chamber, because part of the U.S. government is shut down. She had cited concerns about security for the event with some personnel furloughed during a month-long shutdown.

Trump, replying to Pelosi Wednesday, brushed aside the security concerns.

He said the Department of Homeland Security and the U.S. Secret Service had told him there would be “absolutely no problem” with the security for the speech, which is traditionally attended by both houses of Congress, most of the president’s Cabinet, the Joint Chiefs of Staff and justices of the Supreme Court.

office.

“Therefore, I will be honoring your invitation, and fulfilling my Constitutional duty, to deliver important information to the people and Congress of the United States of America regarding the State of our Union,” Trump wrote to Pelosi. “I look forward to seeing you on the evening of January 29th in the Chamber of the House of Representatives.”

There was no immediate reaction to the letter from Pelosi’s office.

Democratic U.S. Representative Jimmy Panetta, asked about Trump’s letter, told MSNBC: “This is just dialing up the rhetoric.”

Panetta said the final decision was up to Pelosi, saying “at this point, I don’t think it’s going to happen if we’re still shut down.”

(Reporting by Susan Heavey and Susan Cornwell; Editing by Kevin Drawbaugh and Jeffrey Benkoe)

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