US President Donald Trump on Saturday vowed to defeat the “radical left” in an Independence Day speech at the White House, condemning efforts to remove or rethink monuments to historical figures as attempts to destroy the US.
Trump claimed without evidence that 99 percent of COVID-19 cases in the US were “totally harmless.”
However, many US states marked a record number of new cases. In Texas alone, 7,890 people were hospitalized after 238 new admissions in 24 hours.
Photo: AFP
While criticism mounted over his handling of the pandemic, Trump said China must be “held accountable” for failing to contain the disease.
Peaceful protesters called for racial equality just steps from where Trump spoke in Washington, marching down blocked-off streets around the White House, Black Lives Matter Plaza and the Lincoln Memorial.
Millions of Americans have been demonstrating against police brutality and racial inequality since the May 25 killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis, Minnesota.
In addition to achieving police reforms in some cities, some protesters have removed Confederate statues and other symbols of the US’ legacy of slavery.
“There have always been those who seek to lie about the past in order to gain power in the present, those that are lying about our history, those who want us to be ashamed of who we are,” Trump said on Saturday. “Their goal is demolition.”
Former US vice president Joe Biden, Trump’s Democratic rival in the November election, wrote a Fourth of July op-ed piece that struck a contrasting note with the Republican president and accused him of finding every day “new ways to tarnish and dismantle our democracy.”
In a separate letter to donors, Biden said: “We have a chance now to give the marginalized, the demonized, the isolated, the oppressed, a full share of the American dream.”
Trump in his speech also said the US would have a vaccine or therapeutic solution to the virus “long before” the end of this year.
On Thursday, a top US health official said that he was optimistic that the Trump administration’s vaccine-acceleration program “Operation Warp Speed” will generate a safe and effective vaccine by year-end.
Saturday’s speech at the White House was capped off by fighter jet air shows and a fireworks display over the National Mall.
Washington Mayor Muriel Bowser had tried to dissuade the Trump administration from holding the event, because it went against health officials’ guidance during the pandemic.
Apart from fireworks spectators, advocates of different stripes also appeared willing to disregard the health warnings.
Roar of the Deplorables, a biker group, said via social media that they planned to gather in Washington to stand in protest against what they call “the anti-Trump regime” and to celebrate the nation’s birthday.
A Ministry of Foreign Affairs official yesterday said that a delegation that visited China for an APEC meeting did not receive any kind of treatment that downgraded Taiwan’s sovereignty. Department of International Organizations Director-General Jonathan Sun (孫儉元) said that he and a group of ministry officials visited Shenzhen, China, to attend the APEC Informal Senior Officials’ Meeting last month. The trip went “smoothly and safely” for all Taiwanese delegates, as the Chinese side arranged the trip in accordance with long-standing practices, Sun said at the ministry’s weekly briefing. The Taiwanese group did not encounter any political suppression, he said. Sun made the remarks when
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BROAD AGREEMENT: The two are nearing a trade deal to reduce Taiwan’s tariff to 15% and a commitment for TSMC to build five more fabs, a ‘New York Times’ report said Taiwan and the US have reached a broad consensus on a trade deal, the Executive Yuan’s Office of Trade Negotiations said yesterday, after a report said that Washington is set to reduce Taiwan’s tariff rate to 15 percent. The New York Times on Monday reported that the two nations are nearing a trade deal to reduce Taiwan’s tariff rate to 15 percent and commit Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) to building at least five more facilities in the US. “The agreement, which has been under negotiation for months, is being legally scrubbed and could be announced this month,” the paper said,
Japan and the Philippines yesterday signed a defense pact that would allow the tax-free provision of ammunition, fuel, food and other necessities when their forces stage joint training to boost deterrence against China’s growing aggression in the region and to bolster their preparation for natural disasters. Japan has faced increasing political, trade and security tensions with China, which was angered by Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi’s remark that a Chinese attack on Taiwan would be a survival-threatening situation for Japan, triggering a military response. Japan and the Philippines have also had separate territorial conflicts with Beijing in the East and South China
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