#AWANIinternational with @fayekwan_
1. A look back at Trump's 100 days
2. U.S.: Trump says 'good chance' of China trade deal
#AWANIinternational #AWANINews
1. A look back at Trump's 100 days
2. U.S.: Trump says 'good chance' of China trade deal
#AWANIinternational #AWANINews
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00:00Good evening, you're watching Awani International with me, Fei Kuan.
00:12Here are our top stories tonight.
00:14Trump's first 100 days and what lies ahead.
00:17And Trump says there's a good chance of a China trade deal.
00:21More on this coming up.
00:30We're starting off today's show with a look back on US President Donald Trump's first 100 days in office for his second term.
00:41Now, one of the defining moves so far has been his reciprocal tariffs.
00:45That's triggered a full-blown trade war with China, with both sides slapping tariffs of over 100% on each other's goods.
00:52Now, you can see the impact here.
00:54The S&P 500 was down 8.3% from the day Trump returned to the White House.
01:01And it continued on a decline, together with global markets in Europe and Asia as well.
01:07And it plunged right here in April when he announced his tariffs.
01:11There was, of course, a brief rebound when he introduced a 90-day pause.
01:16But the volatility hasn't let up.
01:18And according to the U.S. Commerce Department, the economy shrank 0.3% in the first quarter of the year.
01:25That's the first contraction in three years.
01:28Now, as a result of all of this, polling in the run-up to Trump's 100 days shows him posting historically low approval ratings.
01:35In this graph here, we see his ratings have been sliding in the last three months or so.
01:41Factors, of course, include his handling of negotiations to end the Russia-Ukraine war,
01:48as well as the controversial leaked signal chat involving his administration.
01:53It's even being reported that his approval has dropped to the lowest level for any U.S. president at this stage in office in the last 80 years.
02:02Still, he continues to maintain strong support from his core voter base.
02:06Now, earlier, I spoke to Associate Professor Saeed Khan from Wayne State University about this.
02:11Let's take a listen.
02:15So, we know that, of course, about 43% of the country voted for Trump.
02:20And we find that the numbers, although slightly less than that right now as far as approval,
02:25really, I think, reflect the fact that his support from his voters is really unshakable.
02:32It remains to be seen if some of those sectors are going to change their minds,
02:36especially farmers and others for whom tariffs that are imposed overseas are perhaps going to have a crippling effect.
02:45But I would say that the tariff issue correlates to his approval rating perhaps mostly because of the chaos.
02:51One day he calls for tariffs, and then he increases them, and then he scales back from them.
02:57And so, that kind of volatility may work well for the stock market.
03:02But again, we find that for those who are small business investors, some of their life savings even have been severely impacted by this.
03:11And it doesn't really bode well for a sense of confidence, a sense of stability, and a sense of security when there is a president that is this erratic.
03:19Hyman, again, if one listens to his supporters as they're interviewed, they firmly believe that he is going to bring back manufacturing.
03:28It will improve the economy.
03:30They're saying, as with the cases of tariffs, that it's going to just take time, and they do not expect a short-term visibility of anything.
03:40He's going to be out of office in four years.
03:42He doesn't carry really any moral hazard to any of this.
03:46It is highly likely that what he has promised will not come to fruition.
03:53Another feature of Trump's first 100 days in office has been, of course, his heavy reliance on executive action.
04:00Figures here on this slide show that he has signed a staggering 141 executive orders, including 36 in just his first week.
04:09Now, this marks an unprecedented use of presidential authority in modern U.S. history that's far suppressing his predecessors, including Joe Biden, Barack Obama, and George W. Bush.
04:20Now, I also spoke to Associate Professor Saikhan about what this could signal for the next 100 days and what to expect heading into the midterms.
04:29Let's hear more.
04:30I would argue that perhaps the more telling focal point for us to see now is what seems to be the continuing deterioration of American commitments to the rule of law, whether that is on the international stage or whether that is even on the domestic stage.
04:51If the United States is not willing to even uphold the international system of law that it helped create and enforce, sometimes with force, then that is going to create one of two possibilities which are not mutually exclusive.
05:08One is a sense of deep consternation and anxiety about what will the world order look like without the United States supporting it.
05:18And the other is it's going to create a sense of opportunity that with the United States now retracting from that role, who else might step up, if anybody?
05:28Or are we moving into a situation where it may look like for at least a while, a kind of Wild West, where the wheeling and dealing that occurs is going to be more of a function of big power geopolitics and the imbalance when it comes to smaller countries, much as we saw perhaps in the 19th century and even before that?
05:52That wraps up our coverage on Trump's first 100 days. Stay tuned for more international news after the break.
06:22Welcome back. The U.S. and Ukraine have signed a deal heavily promoted by U.S. President Donald Trump.
06:31This deal will give the U.S. preferential access to new Ukrainian minerals and fund investment in Ukraine's reconstruction.
06:40U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Besant and Ukrainian First Deputy Prime Minister Yulia Sviridenko were shown signing the agreement in photos posted on Sviridenko's Facebook page.
06:51She also wrote on X that the Accord provides for Washington to contribute to the fund.
06:56The two countries signed the Accord in Washington after months of sometimes-fraud negotiations with uncertainty persisting until the last moment with word of an 11th-hour snag.
07:07U.S. President Donald Trump says there's a good chance of his administration reaching a trade deal with China in a NewsNation town hall.
07:25However, just hours earlier, his own trade envoy, Jameson Greer, acknowledged that no tariff discussions between Washington and Beijing were underway.
07:37We were ripped off by China, but we were ripped off by everybody, but really by China.
07:41They were the king of ripping off the United States.
07:44Now, they're not doing any business here because I don't want them to do business.
07:48So I set a high tariff. I don't want them to do business.
07:51Now, will we make a deal? There's a very good chance we're going to make a deal, but we're going to make it on our tariff.
07:56Trump's comments came shortly after Greer confirmed no official negotiations with China were taking place.
08:03In a separate interview with Fox News, Greer said that Washington sought a fair trade relationship with the world's second-largest economy.
08:11While potential trade deals are in the works with India, South Korea and Japan, U.S. President Donald Trump says he is in no rush to finalize these deals,
08:23claiming that the U.S. is already benefiting from the tariffs currently in place.
08:28Well, we have potential deals with them, yeah, but I'm in, okay, I'll tell you this, I'm in less of a hurry than you are.
08:35We are sitting on the catbird seat. They want us. We don't need them.
08:41President Trump claimed the U.S. is in a strong position, with over 100 countries eager to make trade deals.
08:48He acknowledged the political risk of his approach, noting it could cost Republicans control of the House in the midterms, but said he would stay the course.
08:56His remarks came amid the Commerce Department's reports of the U.S. economy shrinking by 0.3% annual rate during the first quarter, the first plunge in the past three years.
09:08Trump blamed former President Joe Biden for the market decline, asked for a little bit of time for recovery and claimed his tariff strategy was already working as American companies move operations back to the U.S.
09:21Chinese representatives at a WTO meeting refuted U.S. accusations of overcapacity, the act of producing far more certain goods than the global market needs.
09:34Other than that, they condemned the U.S. for violating World Trade Organization or WTO trade rules.
09:41At the WTO's Committee on Subsidies and Countervailing Measures meeting, Chinese representatives said there is no universally accepted standard or method for assessing overcapacity, and supply-demand imbalance is the norm.
09:58The U.S. and other WTO members contradict market economy principles and the logic of globalization by hyping up overcapacity and making it an excuse to create anxiety, to smear and suppress China.
10:11Chinese representatives also pointed out that the U.S. reciprocal tariffs disrupt global trade and hurt the interests of developing countries.
10:20At the same time, China acts as a stabilizer for international trade growth and consistently stands with developing members.
10:26China's representatives also said that the U.S. actions deviate from market economy principles, severely disrupt the normal order of international trade and investment,
10:36and called on WTO members to strengthen cooperation, oppose U.S. unilateral bullying practices, and jointly safeguard the rules-based multilateral trading system.
10:46The U.S. Senate has failed to pass a Democratic resolution to end President Donald Trump's sweeping global tariffs on Wednesday.
10:57The resolution drew a 49-49 tie, falling short of the majority needed to overturn Trump's decision.
11:04In a rare rebuke from within his own party, three Republican senators joined Democrats and Independents to back the resolution against Trump's tariff policy.
11:17However, Senate Majority Leader John Thune then quickly shut any opposition, calling in Vice President J.D. Vance to break the tie and block the measure from future consideration.
11:27The resolution was introduced by Democratic Senator Ron Wyden and co-sponsored by Republican Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky, an outspoken critic of Trump's tariff policy.
11:38The resolution was widely viewed as a symbolic gesture, since as it stood little chance of advancing in the Republican-led House and would ultimately face a veto from Trump.
11:49In other news, the head of Europe's Airbus is calling for a return to tariff-free trade in the aerospace sector.
12:01He joins a growing chorus of U.S. industry leaders urging relief from an escalating tariff war.
12:09CEO Guillaume Forry warned the dispute could lead to only losers, though current tariffs have had limited direct impact on supply chains so far.
12:17In Washington, an aviation coalition is pressing lawmakers and the White House to lift tariffs and instead enforce the 1979 treaty brokered by the World Trade Organization.
12:29The CEOs of several companies, including Boeing and GE Aerospace, have directly raised the issue with U.S. President Donald Trump, who has said tariffs will boost American jobs.
12:40European officials say aerospace sectors in the U.S. and European Union are each other's biggest customers, even though they are home to bitter rivals Airbus and Boeing.
12:50That report wraps up Awani International.
12:57Stay tuned for our reports on the rivalries, strategies and the shifts behind the power affairs driving the new global order.
13:06Visit international.astraawani.com for more and be sure to follow our social media accounts at Power Affairs.
13:13That's all for now. I'm Faye Kwan. Thank you for watching and good night.
13:20I'm Faye Kwan.