WASHINGTON: Sweeping tariffs set to be imposed by President Donald Trump next month may cast a pall over his top diplomat’s first official trip to Asia this week — just as the US seeks to boost relations with Indo-Pacific nations to counter China’s growing influence in the region.
Trump on Monday sent notice to several countries about higher tariffs if they don’t make trade deals with the US, including to a number of Asian countries. The move came just a day before Secretary of State Marco Rubio planned to depart for a Southeast Asian regional security conference in Malaysia.
Top diplomats and senior officials from at least eight countries that Trump has targeted for the new tariffs, which would go into effect on Aug. 1, will be represented at the annual Association of Southeast Asian Nations Regional Forum in Kuala Lumpur that Rubio will attend on Thursday and Friday.
State Department officials say tariffs and trade will not be Rubio’s focus during the meetings, which the Trump administration hopes will prioritize maritime safety and security in the South China Sea, where China has become increasingly aggressive toward its small neighbors, as well as combating transnational crime.
However, Rubio may be hard-pressed to avoid the tariff issue that has vexed some of America’s closest allies and partners in Asia, including Japan and South Korea, which Trump says would face 25 percent tariffs absent a deal. Neither of those countries is a member of ASEAN but both will be represented at the meetings in Kuala Lumpur.
Rubio’s “talking points on the China threat will not resonate with officials whose industries are being battered by 30-40 percent tariffs,” said Danny Russel, vice president of the Asia Society Policy Institute and a former assistant secretary of state for East Asia and the Pacific during the Obama administration.
“In fact, when Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim last week said ASEAN will approach challenges ‘as a united bloc’ — he wasn’t talking about Chinese coercion, but about US tariffs,” Russel said.
Among ASEAN states, Trump has so far announced up to 40 percent tariffs on at least six of the 10 members of the bloc, including the meeting host Malaysia, which would face a 25 percent tariff mainly on electronics and electrical product imports to the United States.
Southeast Asian countries not yet targeted by the US include Brunei, the Philippines, Singapore and Vietnam, which recently agreed to a trade deal with Trump. The Trump administration has courted most Southeast Asian nations in a bid to blunt or at least temper China’s push to dominate the region.
In Kuala Lumpur, Rubio also will likely come face-to-face with the foreign ministers of two of America’s biggest adversaries: China and Russia. US officials could not say if meetings with either are planned for the short time — about 36 hours — that Rubio will be in Malaysia.
Russel noted that Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi is a veteran of such gatherings and “fluent in ASEAN principles and conventions,” while Rubio “is a rookie trying to sell an ‘America First’ message to a deeply skeptical audience.”
Issues with both countries remain substantial, particularly over Ukraine.
Trump on Tuesday expressed his exasperation with Russian President Vladimir Putin, saying, “I’m not happy with him, I can tell you that much right now” as Moscow ramps up attacks in Ukraine amid the American leader’s push for a peace deal.
Trump also announced that the US would resume providing Ukraine with defensive weapons after the Pentagon announced a surprise pause in some deliveries last week.
US officials continue to accuse China of resupplying and revamping Russia’s military industrial sector, allowing it to produce additional weapons with which it can attack Ukraine.
Trump’s tariffs may cast a pall over Rubio’s first official trip to Asia
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Trump’s tariffs may cast a pall over Rubio’s first official trip to Asia
- State Department officials say tariffs and trade will not be Rubio’s focus during the meetings
- However, Rubio may be hard pressed to avoid the tariff issue that has vexed some of America’s closest allies and partners in Asia
Mystery of CIA’s lost nuclear device haunts Himalayan villagers 60 years on
- Plutonium-fueled spy system was meant to monitor China’s nuclear activity after 1964 atomic tests
- Porter who took part in Nanda Devi mission warned family of ‘danger buried in snow’
NEW DELHI: Porters who helped American intelligence officers carry a nuclear spy system up the precarious slopes of Nanda Devi, India’s second-highest peak, returned home with stories that sent shockwaves through nearby villages, leaving many in fear that still holds six decades later.
A CIA team, working with India’s Intelligence Bureau, planned to install the device in the remote part of the Himalayas to monitor China, but a blizzard forced them to abandon the system before reaching the summit.
When they returned, the device was gone.
The spy system contained a large quantity of highly radioactive plutonium-238 — roughly a third of the amount used in the atomic bomb dropped by the US on the Japanese city of Nagasaki in the closing stages of the Second World War.
“The workers and porters who went with the CIA team in 1965 would tell the story of the nuclear device, and the villagers have been living in fear ever since,” said Narendra Rana from the Lata village near Nanda Devi’s peak.
His father, Dhan Singh Rana, was one of the porters who carried the device during the CIA’s mission in 1965.
“He told me there was a danger buried in the snow,” Rana said. “The villagers fear that as long as the device is buried in the snow, they are safe, but if it bursts, it will contaminate the air and water, and no one will be safe after that.”
During the Sino-Indian tensions in the 1960s, India cooperated with the US in surveillance after China conducted its first nuclear tests in 1964. The Nanda Devi mission was part of this cooperation and was classified for years. It only came under public scrutiny in 1978, when the story was broken by Outsider magazine.
The article caused an uproar in India, with lawmakers demanding the location of the nuclear device be revealed and calling for political accountability. The same year, then Prime Minister Morarji Desai set up a committee to assess whether nuclear material in the area near Nanda Devi could pollute the Ganges River, which originates there.
The Ganges is one of the world’s most crucial freshwater sources, with about 655 million people in India, Nepal, and Bangladesh depending on it for their essential needs.
The committee, chaired by prominent scientists, submitted its report a few months later, dismissing any cause for concerns, and establishing that even in the worst-case scenario of the device’s rupture, the river’s water would not be contaminated.
But for the villagers, the fear that the shell containing radioactive plutonium could break apart never goes away, and peace may only come once it is found.
Many believe the device, trapped within the glacier’s shifting ice, may have moved downhill over time.
Rana’s father told him that the device felt hot when it was carried, and he believed it might have melted its way into the glacier, remaining buried deep inside.
An imposing mass of rock and ice, Nanda Devi at 7,816 m is the second-highest mountain in India after Kangchenjunga.
When a glacier near the mountain burst in 2021, claiming over 200 lives, scientists explained that the disaster was due to global warming, but in nearby villages the incident was initially blamed on a nuclear explosion.
“They feared the device had burst. Those rescuing people were afraid they might die from radiation,” Rana said. “If any noise is heard, if any smoke appears in the sky, we start fearing a leak from the nuclear device.”
The latent fear surfaces whenever natural disasters strike or media coverage puts the missing device back in the spotlight. Most recently, a New York Times article on the CIA mission’s 60th anniversary reignited the unease.
“The apprehensions are genuine. After 1965, Americans came twice to search for the device. The villagers accompanied them, but it could not be found, which remains a concern for the local community,” said Atul Soti, an environmentalist in Joshimath, Uttarakhand, about 50 km from Nanda Devi.
“People are worried. They have repeatedly sought answers from the government, but no clear response has been provided so far. Periodically, the villagers voice their concerns, and they need a definitive government statement on this issue.”
Despite repeated queries whenever media attention arises, Indian officials have not released detailed updates since the Desai-appointed committee submitted its findings.
“The government should issue a white paper to address people’s concerns. The white paper will make it clear about the status of the device, and whether leakage from the device could pollute the Ganges River,” Soti told Arab News.
“The government should be clear. If the government is not reacting, then it further reinforces the fear.”
