US President Donald Trump’s administration this week is to begin laying groundwork for a trade deal between the US and the UK that would take effect after Britain leaves the EU, a White House aide said.
British Prime Minister Theresa May last week said that she would move to cleanly separate her country’s economy from Europe’s and enact immigration controls before negotiating new trade deals with the continent and other countries, an approach deemed a “hard Brexit.”
Trump officials believe their talks with the British government encouraged May to be more aggressive in exiting the union.
Two of Trump’s senior advisers, Steve Bannon and the president’s son-in-law Jared Kushner, met with UK Secretary of Foreign Affairs Boris Johnson in New York on Jan. 8. The three are preparing for the future pact, the aide said, requesting anonymity because the discussions are not public.
Bannon, US National Security Adviser Michael Flynn and other administration officials have also met with British defense and intelligence leaders, the aide said.
The British embassy in Washington had no immediate comment.
May and Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto will make visits to the US this month to meet with Trump, White House officials said.
May is to meet with Trump on Friday, White House Deputy Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee said on Saturday.
Pena Nieto is to meet with Trump on Tuesday next week, White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer said.
Neither provided further details on the meetings.
Trade, immigration and Trump’s campaign promise to build a wall on the southern US border loom large in the president’s relations with Mexico.
Brexit, the campaign against Islamic State terrorism, the Syrian civil war and sanctions against Russia are key issues in relations between the Trump administration and the UK.
Among the rows of vibrators, rubber torsos and leather harnesses at a Chinese sex toys exhibition in Shanghai this weekend, the beginnings of an artificial intelligence (AI)-driven shift in the industry quietly pulsed. China manufactures about 70 percent of the world’s sex toys, most of it the “hardware” on display at the fair — whether that be technicolor tentacled dildos or hyper-realistic personalized silicone dolls. Yet smart toys have been rising in popularity for some time. Many major European and US brands already offer tech-enhanced products that can enable long-distance love, monitor well-being and even bring people one step closer to
Malaysia’s leader yesterday announced plans to build a massive semiconductor design park, aiming to boost the Southeast Asian nation’s role in the global chip industry. A prominent player in the semiconductor industry for decades, Malaysia accounts for an estimated 13 percent of global back-end manufacturing, according to German tech giant Bosch. Now it wants to go beyond production and emerge as a chip design powerhouse too, Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim said. “I am pleased to announce the largest IC (integrated circuit) Design Park in Southeast Asia, that will house world-class anchor tenants and collaborate with global companies such as Arm [Holdings PLC],”
TRANSFORMATION: Taiwan is now home to the largest Google hardware research and development center outside of the US, thanks to the nation’s economic policies President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) yesterday attended an event marking the opening of Google’s second hardware research and development (R&D) office in Taiwan, which was held at New Taipei City’s Banciao District (板橋). This signals Taiwan’s transformation into the world’s largest Google hardware research and development center outside of the US, validating the nation’s economic policy in the past eight years, she said. The “five plus two” innovative industries policy, “six core strategic industries” initiative and infrastructure projects have grown the national industry and established resilient supply chains that withstood the COVID-19 pandemic, Tsai said. Taiwan has improved investment conditions of the domestic economy
Sales in the retail, and food and beverage sectors last month continued to rise, increasing 0.7 percent and 13.6 percent respectively from a year earlier, setting record highs for the month of March, the Ministry of Economic Affairs said yesterday. Sales in the wholesale sector also grew last month by 4.6 annually, mainly due to the business opportunities for emerging applications related to artificial intelligence (AI) and high-performance computing technologies, the ministry said in a report. The ministry forecast that retail, and food and beverage sales this month would retain their growth momentum as the former would benefit from Tomb Sweeping Day