Global stocks sank Wednesday after US President Donald Trump said he was not satisfied with talks that are aimed at averting a trade war with China. Equities were also dented by poor eurozone economic data, and as Trump cast doubt on a planned summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un. “Trump (is) continuing to drive uncertainty over global trade,” said analyst Joshua Mahony at trading firm IG. “European markets are following their Asian counterparts lower, as a pessimistic tone from Trump is compounded by downbeat economic data,” he added. Markets had surged Monday after US Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin and Chinese Vice Premier Liu He said they had agreed to pull back from imposing threatened tariffs on billions of dollars of goods, and continue talks on a variety of trade issues. However, Trump has declared that he was “not satisfied” with the status of the talks, fuelling worries that the world’s top two economies could still slug out an economically pain
A former White House staff Monday said President Donald Trump called some African countries ‘shithole’.
Omarosa Manigault-Newman, a former director of communications for the Office of Public Liaison in the White House under Trump, confirmed that he made the disparaging remarks after visiting Nigerian president Muhammadu Buhari said the comment was not part of the discussion he had with Trump.
“President @MBuhari FYI he said it,” she said in a tweet addressed to Buhari who is the US for bilateral talks on an invitation by his American counterpart.
“I am not sure about the validity or whether that allegation against the President was true or not, so the best thing to do for me is to keep quiet,” Buhari said during a joint press conference with Trump at the Rose Garden at the White House.
Buhari’s comment was in spite of Nigeria describing the offensive remark as “deeply hurtful, offensive and unacceptable” in January.
Trump came under fire early in the year after he reportedly called some African countries ‘shithole’ at a private White House meeting on January 12. But he denied making the comment and labelled his accusers as fake news peddlers.
“We didn’t discuss it, because the president knows me, and he knows where I’m coming from and I appreciate that. We did not discuss it,” Trump said.
He, however, insisted that there are “some countries that are in very bad shape and very tough places to live in.”
Omarosa, a reality TV star turned political pundit left Trump administration on January 20 after it was revealed that she held a bridal shower in the White House.
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