31/05/2025

SATURDAY | MAY 31, 2025

9

Trump tariffs stay in place for now after court ruling o President welcomes latest twist

China to resume Japanese seafood imports TOKYO: China has agreed on procedures to resume imports of Japanese seafood products, marking a step towards ending a two-year ban. Officials from Japan’s Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries and China’s Customs reached the agreement during a meeting in Beijing on Wednesday, the ministry said. China’s General Administration of Customs said that the two countries made “substantial progress” following another round of talks on the trade of Japanese aquatic products. The agreement comes as both governments work to ease tensions stemming from the 2023 release of treated wastewater from the crippled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant. It “marks one important milestone”, Japan’s Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshimasa Hayashi told a news conference. “We will continue calling for the resumption of Japan’s exports of its beef to China and the lifting of import restrictions on agricultural and marine products from 10 prefectures,” including Fukushima and Tokyo, Hayashi added. Those prefectures were not included in the agreement. Under the agreed measures, Japan will register fishery processing facilities with Chinese authorities, and exports will include inspection certificates confirming the absence of radioactive substances. The Nikkei newspaper reported that China is expected to formally announce the resumption of seafood imports from Japanese prefectures outside the Fukushima region in the near future. China imposed the ban after Tokyo began releasing the treated Fukushima wastewater. – Reuters Push to amend South Korean constitution SEOUL: South Korea’s left-wing presidential frontrunner Lee Jae myung proposed yesterday to amend the constitution to make it more difficult to impose martial law, aiming to prevent political crises like the one that erupted last year. As candidates entered their final stretch before the snap presidential election on June 3, Lee and his Democratic Party urged South Koreans to come out to vote to end the political turmoil that has gripped the country since ousted conservative leader Yoon Suk Yeol’s short-lived martial law declaration in December. “Our national prestige has fallen, but it (martial law) happens. We have to make that impossible systematically,” Lee told a live-streaming talkshow on YouTube. “Overcoming the insurrection (crisis) is no-brainer. Without it, our country will collapse,” Lee said. Lee said he would seek to revise the constitution to strengthen martial law requirements by not allowing leaders to implement martial law without getting parliament’s approval within 24 hours. Lee also said a special prosecutor should investigate the Dec 3 martial law incident to make sure those responsible were punished, although he called for leniency for those in the military who were reluctant to follow orders. Kim Moon-soo, Lee’s rival candidate from the People Power Party, said he would stop “legislative dictatorship” by Lee’s Democratic Party that holds a majority in parliament. – Reuters

A separate ruling by a federal district judge in the US capital found some Trump levies unlawful as well, giving the administration 14 days to appeal. Kevin Hassett, director of the National Economic Council, told Fox Business that “hiccups” sparked by the decisions of “activist judges” would not affect talks with trading partners, adding that three deals were close to finalisation. Trump’s trade advisor Peter Navarro told reporters after the appellate stay that the administration had earlier received “plenty of phone calls from countries” who said they would continue to “negotiate in good faith”. Trump’s import levies are aimed partly at punishing economies that sell more to the United States than they buy. The president has argued that trade deficits and the threat posed by drug smuggling constituted a “national emergency” that justified the widespread tariffs – a notion the Court of International Trade ruled against.

with others that Trump imposed on Canada, Mexico and China separately using emergency powers. However, it left intact 25% duties on imported cars, steel and aluminum. Beijing, which was hit by additional 145% tariffs before they were temporarily reduced to make space for negotiations, reacted to the trade court decision by saying Washington should scrap the levies. “China urges the United States to heed the rational voices from the international community and domestic stakeholders and fully cancel the wrongful unilateral tariff measures,” said Commerce Ministry spokeswoman He Yongqian. The trade court was ruling in two separate cases, brought by businesses and a coalition of state governments, arguing that the president had violated Congress’s power of the purse. The judges said the cases rested on whether the International Emergency Economic Powers Act of 1977 delegates such powers to the president “in the form of authority to impose unlimited tariffs on goods from nearly every country in the world”. The judges stated that any interpretation of the Act that “delegates unlimited tariff authority is unconstitutional”. – AFP

WASHINGTON: President Donald Trump celebrated a temporary reprieve for his aggressive tariff strategy on Thursday, with an appeals court preserving his sweeping import duties on China and other trading partners – for now. The short-term relief will allow the appeals process to proceed after the US Court of International Trade barred most of the tariffs announced since Trump took office, ruling on Wednesday that he had overstepped his authority. Welcoming the latest twist in his legal skirmishes over his trade policies, Trump lashed out at the Manhattan-based trade court, calling it “horrible” and saying its blockade should be “quickly and decisively” reversed for good. US

Washington and Beijing agreed this month to pause reciprocal tariffs for 90 days, a surprise de escalation in their bitter trade war following talks between top officials in Geneva. Trump has moved to reconfigure US trade ties with the world since returning to the presidency in January, using levies to force foreign governments to the negotiating table. However, the stop-start tariff rollout on both allies and adversaries has roiled markets and snarled supply chains. The White House had been given 10 days to halt affected tariffs before Thursday’s decision from the appeals court. The administration called the block “blatantly wrong”, expressing confidence that the decision would be overturned on appeal.

US Trade Secretary Scott Bessent said trade talks were “a bit stalled” and suggested Trump get involved with Xi Jinping to iron out tariffs. “I think that given the magnitude of the talks, given the complexity, that this is going to require both leaders to weigh in with each other,” Bessent told Fox News after the ruling from the US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, known as an administrative stay. Second group of jailed HK ‘democrats’ freed White House spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt said the judges “brazenly abused their judicial power to usurp the authority of President Trump”. Leavitt said the Supreme Court “must put an end” to the tariff challenge, while stressing that Trump had other legal means to impose levies. Trump unveiled sweeping duties on nearly all trading partners in April at a baseline 10%, plus steeper levies on dozens of economies including China and the European Union that have since been paused. The US trade court’s ruling quashed those blanket duties, along

HONG KONG: Four people jailed in the landmark Hong Kong national security trial of “47 democrats” accused of conspiracy to commit subversion were freed yesterday after more than four years behind bars, the second group to be released in a month. Among those freed was long-time activist Jimmy Sham, who also led one of Hong Kong’s largest pro-democracy groups, the Civil Human Rights Front, which disbanded in 2021. “Let me spend some time with my family,” Sham said after arriving at his home in the Kowloon district of Jordan. “I don’t know how to plan ahead because, to me, it feels like today is my first day of understanding the world again. So, as for what I can do or should do in the future, or where is the red line, I feel like I need to explore and figure it out all over again.” CHRF was one of the largest pro democracy groups in the former British colony and helped to organise million strong marches during pro-democracy protests in 2019 that turned violent at times and had a major impact on business and tourism. The others who were released were Kinda Li, Roy Tam and Henry Wong. At the end of April, former pro democracy lawmakers Claudia Mo, Kwok Ka-ki, Jeremy Tam and Gary Fan were released from three separate prisons across Hong Kong around dawn. Since the 2019 protests, which disrupted Hong Kong for most of that year, China has cracked down on the democratic opposition as well as liberal

Sham arriving at his residence yesterday. – REUTERSPIC

engaging in potentially disruptive acts had they been elected. Some Western governments including the US called the trial politically motivated and had demanded the democrats be freed. Hong Kong and Beijing say all are equal under the national security laws and the democrats received a fair trial. – Reuters

convicted following a marathon trial, and given sentences of as long as 10 years. Only two were acquitted. The democrats were found guilty of organising an unofficial “primary election” in 2020 to select their candidates for a legislative election that was later postponed. Prosecutors accused the activists of plotting to paralyse the government by

civil society and media outlets under sweeping national security laws that were imposed in 2020. The 47 pro-democracy campaigners were arrested and charged in early 2021 with conspiracy to commit subversion under a Beijing-imposed national law which carries sentences of up to life in prison. Forty-five of the defendants were