【153-155】US-China Trade Dispute Worries Investors
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*【153】 AS IT IS
Recording of Children Crying Adds to Anger over US Policy
Akemi Vargas, 8, cries as she talks about being separated from her father during a family separation protest in Phoenix, Arizona, June 18, 2018.
An audio recording was published Monday that appears to capture the voices of young children crying out for the parents at a U.S. immigration detention center.
The audio file was first published by the nonprofit news group ProPublica.
The recording added to the growing disapproval of the Trump administration’s policy of separating immigration children from their parents at the U.S.-Mexico border.
One child, in Spanish, can be heard shouting, “Papa! Papa!” Some are crying too hard to speak. One young Salvadoran girl is heard asking several times if she can call her aunt to ask her to come get her.
Human rights lawyer Jennifer Harbury said she received the tape from a whistleblower. She told ProPublica it was recorded in the last week. She did not give details about where exactly it was recorded.
Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen said she had not heard the audio. But she told reporters that children taken by the government are treated humanely. She said the children are well cared for. She also claimed that Congress needs to change the law so that families can stay together.
President Donald Trump’s Republican party controls both chambers of Congress. The family border policies were set by his administration.
The audio surfaced as politicians and activists have come in recent days to visit immigration detention centers. Their visits to the U.S.-Mexico border are meant to increase pressure on the Trump administration to end the practice of separating families.
Representative Ben Ray Lujan is a Democrat from New Mexico. He visited a center near the Texas city of Brownsville. He described the place as a former hospital that had been turned into living areas for children. Rooms are divided by age group. There is even a small room especially for babies, he said.
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Texas’ Rio Grande Valley is the busiest area for people trying to enter the country. Border Patrol officials say separating adults from children is a way to dissuade others from trying to come to the United States illegally.
Manuel Padilla, the area’s Border Patrol chief, said, “When you exempt a group of people from the law...that creates a draw.”
House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi is a Democrat from California. She spoke to reporters during a visit to detention centers near her state’s border with Mexico. She said family separation is a “heartbreaking...issue that could be changed in a moment by the president of the United States.”
Senator Ted Cruz, a Republican from Texas, announced Monday that he was introducing emergency legislation meant to keep immigrant families together.
“All Americans are rightly horrified by the images we are seeing on the news, children in tears pulled away from their mothers and fathers,” Cruz said. “This must stop.”
On Monday, Trump strongly defended his administration’s policy.
“The United States will not be a migrant camp and it will not be a refugee holding facility,” Trump said. “Not on my watch.”
I’m Ashley Thompson.
The Associated Press reported this story. Ashley Thompson adapted it for Learning English. Hai Do was the editor.
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Words in This Story
whistle-blower - n. a person who tells police, reporters, etc., about something (such as a crime) that has been kept secret
humane - adj. kind or gentle to people or animals
exempt - v. to say that (someone or something) does not have to do something that others are required to do
draw - n. someone or something that causes a lot of people to come to a place
challenge - v. to say or show that (something) may not be true, correct, or legal
conscience - n. the part of the mind that makes you aware of your actions as being either morally right or wrong
horrified - adj. greatly upset and shocked
*【154】 AS IT IS
US-China Trade Dispute Worries Investors
Trader Steven Kaplan works on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange, Tuesday, June 19, 2018. U.S. stock markets are opening sharply lower Tuesday as tensions over trade between the U.S. and China increase. (AP Photo/Richard Drew)
The latest United States and China trade dispute has worried investors and affected stock prices and the indexes that measure them.
Among Asian countries, China’s Shanghai stock index fell nearly 3.8 percent while Hong Kong’s Hang Seng index lost nearly 2.8 percent.
On Tuesday, the U.S. Dow Jones Industrial Average opened more than one percent lower.
U.S. President Donald Trump said Monday that he had asked the U.S. trade representative to identify Chinese products that would face a new 10 percent tariff. The president said the new tariffs would affect $200 billion dollars in goods.
The president said the tariffs were in reaction to China’s decision to place similar import taxes on $50 billion in U.S. goods. The move was a response to Trump’s decision to add a 25 percent tariff on $50 billion worth of Chinese goods last week.
China’s commerce ministry strongly criticized the latest move saying it does not follow “the consensus reached by both sides” during negotiations. The two sides have been involved in negotiations with China offering to buy $70 billion dollars in U.S. goods.
Trump has blamed the trade imbalance between the two countries for the loss of American jobs. China’s trade surplus with the U.S. last year was about $375 billion. Trump said he hopes to cut the trade deficit with the increased tariffs.
The treatment of intellectual property remains a disputed issue between negotiators from both sides.
U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo spoke to a business group in Detroit, Michigan on Monday. He criticized China’s trade policies as “predatory.” He said China was taking intellectual property at a level never before seen.
Pompeo said he raised the issue with Chinese President Xi Jinping. He said he told Xi that the current system is “not fair competition.”
Trump’s former economic adviser, Gary Cohn, has warned that a continuing trade dispute could result in higher inflation and personal debt.
However, business expert Derek Scissors of the American Enterprise Institute says the U.S. could gain from the dispute. He notes that the U.S. imports more from China than China imports from the U.S.
I’m Mario Ritter.
Mario Ritter adapted this story for VOA Learning English based on VOA, Reuters and AP news reports. Hai Do was the editor.
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Words in This Story
tariff - n. taxes on imported or exported goods or services
consensus –n. agreement by all involved
intellectual property –n. property such as inventions, research and media that carry rights for the owner to use, sell or gain from the property
predatory –adj. wrongly or harmfully using others
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*【155】 AS IT IS
2017 Sets a New Record for Refugees
Syrian children ride a bicycle with their father at the main market at the Al-Zaatari refugee camp in Mafraq, Jordan, June 1, 2017.
The United Nations refugee agency reported Tuesday that nearly 69 million people were displaced last year.
Each of the last five years has set a record. This year’s number tops all of them.
The U.N. estimates that about 44,000 people become refugees every day. They are fleeing war, violence, and other attacks. Some have fled or been removed from their countries many times.
The top U.N. official for refugees, Filippo Grandi, said crises in South Sudan, Congo and Myanmar raised the number of refugees in 2017.
Grandi also said that some people believe rich countries are having a refugee crisis. He said that is not true. He said U.N. data show that 85 percent of refugees are from developing countries. Many of those areas are “desperately poor,” he said.
The country that has the highest number of refugees is Turkey. Most refugees there come from Syria.
The United States received the most new individual applications for asylum last year. Germany received the second-most.
Jan Egeland leads the Norwegian Refugee Council. He said countries are not working together to take responsibility for refugees. “Rich countries are building walls against families fleeing war, at the same time as less money is available for aid to people in conflict areas,” he said.
Egeland also urged countries to be more like Uganda, a country he described as “generous” toward refugees. It receives refugees and protects them, he said.
World Refugee Day is Wednesday, June 20.
I'm Kelly Jean Kelly.
The Associated Press reported this story. Kelly Jean Kelly adapted it for VOA Learning English. Ashley Thompson was the editor.
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Words in This Story
desperately - adv. very severe or strong
application - n. a formal and usually written request for something
generous - adj. freely giving or sharing money and other valuable things
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