Aurelia Butler

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau returns to Ottawa on Friday after failing to convince President Joe Biden to scrap proposed electric-vehicle tax credits that would favor U.S.-based manufacturers, but said he would keep seeking a solution.Democrats in the U.S. House of Representatives worked into the night to pass Biden’s $1.75 trillion domestic investment bill that includes the tax credits that Canada fears will undercut its own efforts to produce electric cars. The bill then will go to the Senate.”The Americans are very aware of Canada’s position on this, and our concerns around it, and quite frankly, the threats it poses to over 50 years of integrated automaking in our two countries,” Trudeau told reporters late on Thursday after meeting Biden at the White House.”There are a number of ways to look at solving this,” Trudeau said without elaborating, adding that Canada would continue to push to “find solutions”.The House of Representatives is voting on a social spending and climate bill that includes a tax credit from 2027 for U.S.- made electric vehicles that Canadian manufacturers say will cost jobs and undermine the deeply integrated North American auto industry. Canada’s industrial heartland of Ontario is geographically close to U.S. automakers in Michigan and Ohio. The tax credit issue was the first Trudeau brought up in his meeting with Biden on Thursday, a government source said, and Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland on Wednesday warned the issue risks becoming the dominant bilateral issue between the two countries. Canada says the tax credit would violate rules under the USMCA (United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement). The White House insisted on Thursday that it does not. Canada has said it would retaliate if the tax credits are passed. Trudeau – who was in Washington to attend the first meeting between the leaders of the U.S., Canada and Mexico in five years – said he discussed other contentious issues with Biden, such as his ‘Buy American’ provisions and Michigan’s push to shut down Enbridge (NYSE:ENB) Inc’s Line 5 oil pipeline, but found no solutions.There was “no definitive win for Canada,” said the Canadian Chamber of Commerce, and the Conservative Party opposition said the failure showed “Canada’s relationship with the United States has declined under Mr. Trudeau”.Trudeau had a rocky relationship with former President Donald Trump, who once called him “dishonest and weak”, and he hailed Biden’s election.But Biden canceled an oil pipeline from Canada to the U.S. that Trudeau supported on his first day in office, and Washington has announced plans to double duties on imports of Canadian lumber and requested a dispute panel on Canada’s dairy import quotas. More

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The U.S. Transportation Department said Friday it was awarding nearly $1 billion in infrastructure grants as the Biden administration prepares to dramatically boost funding on the nation’s roads, bridges, rail, transit and other projects.The grants under the Rebuilding American Infrastructure with Sustainability and Equity (RAISE) program are going to 90 projects in 47 states, the District of Columbia and Guam, to rebuild roads and add rail lines — but also create new green space, new trails, bike lanes and safer streets for pedestrians.Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg said the department had received a “a ten-to-one ratio of requests to available dollars” for the grants.Seattle will receive $20 million to reconstruct a 1.1-mile road segment and will also add a bike lane. Washington County, Oregon will receive $12.2 million for a 15-mile trail.Charlotte, North Carolina will receive $15 million to construct a new multimodal transit center and New Orleans is getting $18.5 million to improve transit fare collection. Manchester, New Hampshire will receive $25 million to reconnect the city’s South Millyard district to surrounding neighborhoods and downtown.Atlanta will receive a $900,000 planning grant to advance a project to “cap” the I-75/I-85 Downtown Connector highway, which would create 14 acres of green space and reconnect neighborhoods separated from downtown by the highway.Republican Representative Garret Graves said the Biden administration was funding green space rather than focusing on eliminating congestion. “This is supposed to be a transportation program. We sit in traffic and they get ‘green space.'”Under the $1 trillion infrastructure bill signed into law by President Joe Biden, the Transportation Department will receive $660 billion over five years, including $210.5 billion to be awarded in competitive grants. Of that $71 billion is for new grant programs.Department officials are crossing the country to tout infrastructure spending. Buttigieg is in Phoenix to discuss the bill’s impact on transit and airport funding, while Deputy Secretary Polly Trottenberg is Pennsylvania and other department officials are in California. More

Salameh said on Wednesday that he had ordered an audit of his investments, after increased scrutiny in the media and several judicial probes.The cabinet’s tweets quoted Salameh as saying there was no relation between this move and a separate forensic audit of the central bank itself. International management consultancy Alvarez & Marsal began the audit of the bank in October, a condition for Lebanon to secure foreign aid amid its financial meltdown.”The forensic audit is moving ahead. What I did was a personal initiative from me … to refute all we hear and read, all the rumours,” Salameh was quoted in the tweets as saying, adding that he will hand over his report to judicial authorities abroad as well.Salameh, governor for nearly three decades, has faced increased scrutiny of his tenure since the financial system collapsed two years ago, plunging Lebanon into what the World Bank has called one of world history’s sharpest depressions.He is being investigated by authorities in at least three European countries, including a Swiss inquiry over alleged money laundering at the central bank involving $300 million in gains by a company owned by his brother. He denies wrongdoing. More

Biden will receive his annual physical at Walter Reed Medical Center in Bethesda, Maryland, she said, adding more details would be released later.He is scheduled to return to the White House later on Friday to continue with his presidential duties, including the ceremonial pardoning of a turkey ahead of next week’s U.S. Thanksgiving holiday, before later leaving for his home state of Delaware for the weekend. At 78, Biden, who turns 79 on Saturday, is the oldest person to take office as president in U.S. history. Although there has been speculation about whether he will run for re-election in 2024, he has said he expects to seek a second term alongside Vice President Kamala Harris. More

ABUJA (Reuters) – The U.S. will do things differently in helping Africa build its infrastructure needs, Secretary of State Anthony Blinken said in a policy speech on Friday, adding that too often, international infrastructure deals were opaque and coercive.Africa, which needs billions of dollars a year to develop roads, railways, dams and power, has over the last decade received most of its funding from China, which generally does not tie the money to political or human rights-related conditions.In a U.S.-Africa policy speech in Nigeria’s capital Abuja, Blinken said infrastructure needs were holding back growth and opportunity in too many places.”By meeting those needs, we can improve people’s lives, strengthen economies, and protect the planet at the same time,” Blinken said.”Too often, international infrastructure deals are opaque, coercive. They burden countries with unmanageable debt. They’re environmentally destructive. They don’t always benefit the people who actually live there. We will do things differently.”On Thursday, Blinken said Washington’s involvement in infrastructure in Africa was not about China, but intended to improve the standard of infrastructure without countries becoming burdened by debt.The Biden administration has been criticised by some as being inattentive to Africa, a common complaint about U.S. foreign policy but one that rings louder now at a time China has deepened its political and economic roots on the continent.Olugbenga Agboola, CEO of Africa-focused payments giant Flutterwave, saw Blinken’s visit as important.”For us, seeing more US deepening their partnership with Nigeria is great,” he said.A key priority of Biden’s administration has been to revitalise its alliances worldwide after four years of a unilateralist approach under former president Donald Trump.Blinken warned that authoritarianism was on the rise around the world and even the United States was struggling with threats to its democracy.”Technology is being used to silence dissent and prosecute citizens. And democracies must answer the call to fight back against disinformation,” he said.Blinken’s trip to Africa comes at a time when several crises are engulfing the continent, most recently the war in northern Ethiopia and the military coup in Sudan. More