frankly i have no idea how to classify it as it actually took me way more time than i cared to i'm in. other news tonight canadian prime minister justin trudeau is in washington to discuss nafta as liberal groups meet on capitol hill protesting the trade deal and both the president and california's governor declared a state of emergency as wildfires in the state caused hundreds to go missing and b. one bombers conduct drills on the korean peninsula as the u.s.s. theodore roosevelt leaves port in heads to the western pacific. reporting tonight from washington d.c. this is the news on r.t. america.

good evening friends we start tonight with canadian prime minister justin trudeau who is in washington this afternoon to meet with president about the proposed changes to nafta the fourth round of negotiations on the twenty three year old agreement between the united states mexico and canada are now underway the president said nafta would be one of the topics at the forefront of discussion with the prime minister trudeau today we'll see what happens we have a tough negotiation and it's something that you will know in the not too distant future but we are going to be discussing nafta and we'll be discussing defense because we have a great i mean this is a truly great and original allies and the mutual defense is very important. and i guess we'll also be discussing mutual offense which people don't mention too often but often it's just part of the fence so. so we have many things to talk about but

nafta will certainly be a big factor today meanwhile democratic leaders from the house convene the outside of the capitol building urging president trump to replace the i as the provision within the bill manila chan was there this morning that is joining us this evening with all the details there are a number of things that they really got to iron out there this i.c.'s is just one of them and it's a very big deal nearly a dozen democratic members of the house gathered outside of the steps of the capitol building this morning ready to present nearly half a million petition signatures along with thirty five organizations to urge the president to end the i.s.t.'s now the i asked d.s. that's the investor state dispute settlement clause in nafta that allows multinational corporations a special right to go through a secretive tribunals process that allows big businesses to sue foreign governments for passing any type of legislation that may hurt their particular business now the simplest example of this was framed best by congressman keith ellison this morning

. tobacco company philip morris sued europe why the euro why their government from requiring health warnings to be put on cigarette packages cigarettes cause cancer you're going to government said you know in order to protect public health we've got to put some warnings on what if you're philip morris do some of them. and while the obama administration was thinking the praises of nafta still many on the left railed against it back then and now surprisingly thing i to i with president trump this is a corporate power grab which is allowed corporations to take their jobs overseas outsource them overseas and does it put this adjudication in the hands of the countries. where these things need to be deliberated rather than outside of a country and over the twenty six thousand campaign cycle dems were divided on

nafta though seen as a dabbler democrats thought to expand on this the t.p. p t tip those against these types of trade agreements giving voice to labor unions and the like are now finding themselves ironically in the line with populist interest and seeking to work with president trump. i will tell you that i told you for i got elected that i would work with him on nafta. group met with the trade representative last week i've had ongoing conversations with different members of the ministration who i think didn't know if i was real that i would work with them on nafta i'm responsibility is to deliver for the working men and women in my district if they're going to do something that's going to help from my responsibility is to deliver on that promise i want to see him deliver on his promise and i'm not seeing there right now. all right and so there were several members of the house there this morning all sharing stories as to how nafta has her

constituents in their respective home states i think many of them surprised to see themselves agreeing with the president on such an important accord i think with bipartisan support like this we might see now turn out to be the trumpet ministrations first real big when it. thanks manila for more on this we go to melinda st louis international campaigns director for public citizens global trade watch melinda nice to have you with us tonight. what hope do you hold out for a better agreement well i think we as the progressives have been calling for twenty three years for a for a different nafta and i think that what we have seen is some divisions within the administration on some issues on this i.s.t.'s provision there is some potential for we have heard floated some rumors that they may be rolling back some of these things but there is also there are strong corporate elements within the administration that are pushing back i would think the trudeau and the canadians

would more either well they shouldn't want it because canada actually has paid over two hundred million dollars in these. claims to big corporations over their environmental laws and their health laws and yet unfortunately so far we have seen them say they're pushing back this was really the provision that killed the transpacific partnership there isn't it absolutely so what's the deal breaker here are there other things in after that could really hurt things oh there absolutely are i mean what we need to see for replacing nafta is a whole list of elements including raising the wages and environmental and labor conditions in all three countries so that we don't see this continued race to the bottom where where us jobs are outsourced where people in mexico are forced to work for property wages without the opportunity to form a union and we just see and companies are able to dump toxins there and so what we've seen is this race to the bottom which has meant more than a million certified jobs the last two nafta from the united states and precarious

employment and other kind of seems to you know the canadians are they do business in thirty five american states they're the number one customer in thirty five states it would seem to me that doing a deal with them is not hard it's mexico. isn't it i mean they're the ones that really have the cheap labor the canadians don't well what's interesting is that actually the canadians are putting forth some proposals on labor that would challenge our right to work state says well i've because they see us as also dumping labor lower lower wages and and where labor is well and so and mexico we do need to figure out how we can raise up the living standards in mexico and and the labor unions in mexico agree with us and we've been had joint demands for a long time because we don't see this as mexicans versus the u.s. but it is it's the large corporations outsourcing our jobs and undermining the employment melinda st louis good luck to you good day on the hill for workers no

question about it thank you american steel workers have been living with bad trade deals for years the trump administration called on the commerce department to investigate the illegal dumping of steel and aluminum as a national security issue china and south korea are the biggest cheaters with no indian site in the meantime american jobs are being lost the deadline for the investigative report was july first and to this date there has been no report the trumpet ministration has recently taken the position nothing will be done until they get tax reform the president of the international steelworkers leo gerard joins us tonight lou nice to have good to be with you it all right the hourglass has turned where is this report look at i think that the report is ready. from what all we hear that the report is ready on both steel and aluminum it's a matter of getting it released and clearly one of the obstacles is the republican congress who don't want this released until they deal with taxes but before that is

they didn't want to release until they dealt with health care well health care is dead now they want to deal with taxes and let me tell you since the president signed that executive order on steel on april the nineteenth imports of unfairly traded steel from countries like china and south korea have gone up twenty five percent almost that means that during that time we've had plant closures while we wait for this report to come out and we're pretty sure it's already completed and we're pretty sure it points out that china south korea vietnam malaysia indonesia are all cheaters well i mean the president has said ministration has to know this are they silent on this issue. silence is not a strong enough word there seem to be paralyzed on this issue the fact of the matter is the day that the executive order was signed in the oval office all of the major c.e.o.'s of the steel companies were there and the president promised to have this done be said quickly by again the june well june has come and gone and it's important that he live up to his promise because well this isn't being implemented

cheap and fairly traded dump steel and aluminum and tire and glass and paper are coming into the american market with no remedies so now this is connected to a tax deal if they don't get tax reform if they won't do it now what they're saying is that they've got to get tax reform first they're not saying they're not going to do it but they're saying to get tax reform first if tax reform goes the way of health care we're talking about almost another year if we keep having these imports that are unfairly traded dumped into this market it's going to cost more and more american jobs and this just isn't right so how many jobs are we talking about have been lost in this industry since trump has been in office and he made a bunch of promises on the campaign trail when when this last downturn in steel hits because it's cyclical that. the unfair traders dump in we file charges they move out they do it again anything they keep depressing the amount of steel that's produced in this country at the height we had forty nine thousand workers laid off

we're now down to about nineteen thousand workers were laid off but that's because some of the middle east i've lost their jobs you were in lorain you saw the investment that u.s. deal made in the rain it was now one of the best bite mills in north america they can't sell their paper and that's because south korea built a brand new mill and they target the american market so if we sold our piper a daughter for ninety cents if we sell for ninety five and so the administration has to jump in we want us to start to self initiate cases where we're getting up to thirty two past mainstream media does not pay attention to the quality of workers you have to talk about their production compared to the dumpers look at it's it's disgusting that the mainstream media is silent and steelworker and one of our steel mills in lorain ohio we can make steel at a little over a man our protection in russia has twenty man hours per ton in china it's one thousand man hours per ton during the last fifteen years we had five high level discussions with china but reducing their domestic capacity every time they

promised to reduce capacity they went from four hundred million tonnes to last year one point two billion tons five hundred million tons of domestic global overcapacity that's being dumped not just in our market mostly in our market but also in places like germany and france and belgium and england and so they're depressed in global steel prices so even if the companies can produce they can't make the cost of capital and they're starving themselves and china is having a good time doing it we've got to realize china in our friend and is trump your friend. i mean can he be trusted so four years or more doesn't sound very good here's the difficulty during the campaign candidate trump promised industrial workers he would take these actions stop unfair trade stop currency manipulation make sure that raises were were ages were rising and right now none of that is happening in industrial workers are feeling betrayed they're feeling let down when i go out into the lorain ohio or other places people are saying leo this looks like the same old same old ok leo gerard president international steelworkers great to

have it will be with you and i so much. more than twenty two fires are raging across northern and southern parts of california governor jerry brown has declared a state of emergency in nine counties president trump issued a major disaster declaration fema will now provide federal assistance to the golden state artie's natasha suites is in los angeles tonight with us with the latest atocha. good evening ed between these twenty two fires more than one hundred seventy thousand acres have burned since sunday and twenty one people have died and six hundred seventy people are missing in northern california near the famous wine country and fire officials say that three thousand structures have burned and they don't see any relief in sight for many of the blazes now the top's fire has burned twenty eight thousand acres with no containment level cited in napa and sonoma county is the atlas fire is listed at twenty six thousand acres with three percent containment and in yuba county the cascade fire is at eleven thousand six hundred

eighty five acres at only twenty percent contained and while two of napa's wineries have been destroyed a kenwood resident came home to his miniature van europe after a quick evacuation. streams were fine sunday night we were walking through red glow. coming out of the north. just minutes to actually get out of. the house with our kids we called our neighbors will hurry up. which is the man they were. and as of tuesday evening as some seventy five thousand customers were without power now some of those lines were actually cut to prevent first responders from becoming injured and roughly three thousand two hundred evacuees are in shelters all throughout napa a twenty eight different shelters and as you mentioned governor jerry brown has declared an emergency in one counties and while some of the biggest fires are burning up north some four hundred miles away an emergency has also been declared

in orange county the canyon to fire is now eight thousand acres at forty five percent containment and at least thirty six structures have been damaged or destroyed and the happiest place on earth a disneyland was covered in hazy plumes of smoke as well as neighborhoods near the pacific coast and many residents were face to face with the flames before evacuating and crews from all parts of california and nevada are helping to provide relief efforts and back up north sonoma county has now instilled a hotline for families who are missing their loved ones as once again six hundred seventy people are missing right now all right thank you natasha the crisis in puerto rico is causing fear of a nationwide drug shortage pharmaceuticals and medical devices are the island's leading exports officials say damage caused by hurricane maria has already disrupted production of widely used intravenous solutions r.g.s.

rena portnoy has the details tonight baxter international of a company manufacturing sailing bags in puerto rico says multiple production days were lost in the wake of hurricane maria production of the bags are crucial for medical treatment because the solutions they contain are used to rehydrate patients and to dilute medications from antibiotics and painkillers to cancer drugs according to reports several prominent hospitals across across the country are scrambling to find alternative supplies change the way they've minister drugs and devise backup plans to make the fluids themselves now baxter's. spokesman says limited production of i.v. fluids is occurring at its puerto rico facilities in the meantime the company's working to leverage its global manufacturing footprint to support alternative production until operations are restored on the u.s. territory now according to reports puerto rico has become one of the world's biggest centers for pharmaceutical manufacturing more than four dozen f.d.a. approved drug making facilities are on the u.s.

territory including ones owned by pfizer merrick eli lilly johnson and johnson among many others the plants produce treatments for cancer and hiv as well as immunosuppressants for patients with organ transplants the blood thinner. and the cholesterol drug lipitor are reportedly among the top selling medications manufactured in puerto rico maria. u.s.s. theodore roosevelt departed its home port san diego to the western pacific last week the aircraft carrier will deploy to assist the seventh and fifth navy fleets according to the pacific command the south korean media believes the roosevelt will deploy to the korean peninsula in a move to increase pressure on kim jong un the u.s.s. ronald reagan is already operating in the korean and japanese want japan japanese waters meanwhile on tuesday the u.s. air force b. one bombers took part in missile launch drills off the coast of south korea the

bombers were accompanied by jet fighters from the south korean air force for more on this of the latest in the korean peninsula let's go to jack rice former cia officer jack nice to have you with us tonight what do you think all of this signals there must be some intel there that shows some signs of weakness that there may be a real soft underbelly to north korea and we may be able to militarily overcome them i'm just shooting in the dark on that but what else would it be. well i think the real issue right now it is to try to establish that the americans work closely with the south koreans and with the japanese if you look at a lot of what they're working on right now they're working in tandem to try to establish that this is a very close relationship that cannot be split to pieces the problem with the north koreans is they have massive numbers of conventional weapons that have been distributed across the d.m.z. let alone the number of nukes and at this point all intelligence officials are

saying one simple thing you can't take out everything and the fear is if you get twenty percent that gives them eighty and you can go down the mathematical list here that's the fear right now how good do you think our intel is on just how capable they are and what the response from north korea might be if we do engage i think it's marginally good i don't think it's necessarily fantastic a lot of the old intelligence we had involves the conventional forces the real problem is keeping up with the movement of the nukes the nukes are not stable pieces they're not simply locked into one specific spot they can be moved around the other concern that they have right now i mean in the west the americans is this the north korean special forces they would beall ability to infiltrate into seoul and elsewhere and the havoc that they could create in that region and it's hard to track them they're very good at what they do they're very tough and the west knows that so that's us concern as well well everyone talks about diplomacy but nobody talks about a real solution. what would be

a solution how i mean this guy is not going to give up his nuclear capability so what's the endgame here no one talks about solutions or possible end game it's all military talk and threatening and rhetoric back and forth what do you see. ed you're so right on this one i mean we can turn around and pound our chests and talk about this issue but threatening kim jong un with death is not going to resolve anything kim jong un is not going to give up his nuclear weapons he will fight to the absolute end i mean a perfect example is why would you negotiate with the west when right now president trump is talking about blowing the iran deal apart if you find as you're exposing iran the north koreans are saying why would i negotiate with the americans right now that is one simple example of many and so what this has to be about is about stability and convincing kim jong un that he is safe that he is not going to be killed by the west and he doesn't believe the west he doesn't believe the americans

he doesn't believe the south koreans and he doesn't believe the japanese and i think really believes the chinese i think one of the telling signs today is a sound bite that we had in this broadcast earlier tonight where the president said that he was going to talk to the canadian prime minister trudeau about military when was the last time the united states and canada got together you know the iraq war and whatnot but it was almost as if you know what i'm talking to this guy about some backup some help making sure he's in the fight what did you make of that. yeah i saw the same thing and i was thinking that very same issue it's about the going on the offensive and that's trying to convince the rest of the world to stand with the americans i think it is important the americans can't go alone in these various operations around the world this has to be collective and you've got to go to all of the players involved and pull them into the room if it's just you you're the only one carrying the water and that just does not work in this situation you can't go one on one with the north koreans it's about everybody else in the room

everybody else has to be involved chairs right away jack rice always a pleasure great to have you with us tonight thank you the president has gone from feuding with the g.o.p. back to feuding with the media president trump spat with n.b.c. started a week ago when reports circulated secretary of state rex tillerson had called the president and the president responded calling n.b.c. fake news. thank you. very honored miners coming to his fake news it was a totally phony story thank you very much it was made up made up by n.b.c. it is amazing thank you thank you total confidence and. i have total confidence thank you very much indeed for today while meeting with prime minister trudeau the president again responded saying reports he called for a an increase in nuclear weapons was absurd. you. know i never discussed increasing it i want it in perfect shape that was just fake

news by n.b.c. which gives a lot of fake news lately no i never discuss i think somebody said i want ten times the nuclear weapons that we have right now right now we have so many nuclear weapons i want them in perfect condition perfect shape that's the only thing i've ever discussed general mattis put out a statement or is putting out a statement saying that that was fake news that it was just mentioned that way and it's frankly disgusting the way the press is able to write whatever they want to write for more. this we go to our political panel for the saving mitch caesar former florida democratic party chair and conservative commentator rory reilly topping great to have both of you with us tonight all right roy let me start with you why all these fights on so many fronts what's happening with the president as you see it as i see it i think that the president oftentimes uses distractions which is not always the best tactic for some of the issues that he's trying to accomplish such as tax reform health care he i think in the past has been able to

control the narrative of the media when he was a private citizen in corporate america and he's less able to control the message now that he's in the public sphere as president in the political world and i think that frustrates him what do you think mitch. why i actually agree with the previous speaker the problem here is people are forgetting that with a remark was supposedly made about the president being a moron is the exact meeting supposedly came out it was the same meeting and theoretically in response to the amping up of all the nukes that he made the comment we have to remember with this president that he deals in an alternate reality which means when he doesn't agree with something he just says what everyone wants i agree totally with the distraction we have anything about the scandals lately because he makes news by saying something crazy or denying something the problem is with this it reminds me i'm old enough to remember of watergate and

president nixon's enemies list which he tried to do with the media at that time with the washington post trying to stop them from getting specific renewal of a t.v. license right here in miami for one of their own stations it calling it smacks of that the f.c.c. is he said she cracked down on them they have no jurisdiction here obviously didn't know that this is a president who just likes to fight well he does like to fight and now rory he's saying that he has no problems with rex tillerson but they've got a good relationship you believe that your thoughts. i actually do believe that i think that rex tillerson has good credibility amongst his peers both in the corporate world and the political world and more importantly than that in addition to rex tillerson thing that this was not an issue secretary mabus came out and said that this wasn't an issue and even though trump has struck struggled at times with the credibility of some of his remarks he tends to go back and forth on things i think both secretary tillerson and secretary mabus are both considered to be very

credible so i take their word for it ok tillerson is credible no one is covering it or talking about this what if tillerson really does think the president's a moron i mean that's a good place for america to be is that marriage i mean how do you go to work every day you know one that or believing that or thinking that but how do you reverse that i would not want to be pilloried saying he's been the least. he's been the secretary the least portfolio in effect around the world of any with secretary of state in recent history he was an international business leader and now we sitting is personally undercut by his own boss bad enough privately i think he's a competent guy i don't think he has the ability to do anything and knowing nothing i just can't believe he last more than past the first of the worry let's talk taxes does that really have a chance does his plan have a chance that he make headway today in pennsylvania. well i like to remain

cautiously optimistic for tax reform i do agree with trump that our current tax code is outdated and it's cumbersome with that being said i don't think that he made a significant amount of headway with his speech in pennsylvania today because as we saw with health care he's alienated the smallman some members of the small majority of republicans that he has in the senate that he needs on his side this feud he's having with bob corker certainly isn't helping with that he needs every vote he can get and also he said in the past that he's open to working with democrats on this i think again what we saw from health care is that he needs to work with democrats on this particularly as he continues to pick fights with some members of his own party and in the speech today he said that many democrats were being obstructionist so i think that it's going to be an impediment to him getting something done are a really really topping and also image caesar great to have both of you with us tonight thanks for the discussion and that is our news the sebring follow me on twitter and use what they have like me on the facebook page we got it dot com you

can see our t. america on direct t.v. channel three twenty one or if you watch thanks for watching we'll see you back here tomorrow and. i think the average viewer just after watching a couple of segments understands that we're telling stories there are critics can't tell and you know why because their advertisers won't let them. in order to create change you have to be honest you have to tell the truth parties able to do that every story is built on going after the back story to what's really happening out there to the american public what's fair. when a corporation makes

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