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Scores of foreign nationals, recruited by the FBI as witnesses and informants, disappeared between 2015 and 2017 in the United States, according to a new audit. 

The Justice Department’s inspector general said in an audit released Wednesday that in many cases, the Federal Bureau of Investigation failed to report the missing foreigners to immigration authorities. 

The audit looked at the Justice Department’s use of immigration programs that allow law enforcement agencies such as the FBI and the Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) to sponsor foreign nationals for temporary stay in the United States. 

David Gomez, a retired FBI special agent, said foreign individuals sponsored by the FBI are primarily criminal informants or national security assets. 

“Most are probably undocumented aliens of some sort, or people brought in from overseas to perform some special criminal, counterterrorism, or counterintelligence mission,” Gomez said. 

Missing not reported

The audit found that the FBI and DEA did not always keep close tabs on their foreign recruits and, in some instances, failed to alert the Department of Homeland Security when they went missing.   

“We are concerned that the monitoring policies and practices currently executed by the DOJ components that sponsor foreign nationals do not adequately mitigate the risks associated with bringing individuals into the United States who may have criminal backgrounds or involvement in disreputable activities, or who may be associated with such individuals,” the report said. 

A total of 61 FBI-sponsored foreign nationals “absconded” from the bureau’s control, the audit found. While the bureau reported 39 missing individuals to the Department of Homeland Security, it failed to do so in 22 other cases until after the department had begun inquiring. One DEA-sponsored individual was also found to have absconded. 

The total number included “deliberate” absconsions by individuals who purposely evade law enforcement, as well as “benign” cases where people change their places of residence without informing their sponsoring agency. The report did not provide a breakdown of the two categories, nor did it reveal the nationalities or whereabouts of the absconding individuals. 

Legal limbo

Records show nearly 5,500 foreign nationals were sponsored by law enforcement agencies between 2015 and 2017. In about one-fifth of the cases, the audit found that immigration sponsorships and visas had expired, leaving them in legal limbo. 

The inspector general said both the FBI and DEA have accepted its recommendations, including taking actions to help the Department of Homeland Security in locating absconding individuals. 

Absconding is not limited to law enforcement. In recent years, hundreds of foreign military trainees visiting the United States have gone missing. In 2017, the inspector general for Afghanistan reconstruction reported that between 2005 and 2017, 320 foreign trainees, nearly half of them from Afghanistan, went missing in the United States. 

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The wife of a U.S. representative pleaded guilty on Thursday to federal charges alleging misuse of $250,000 in campaign funds and agreed to cooperate with prosecutors who are also bringing charges against her husband.

The move by Margaret Hunter, wife of Republican U.S. Representative Duncan Hunter, came after she and her husband entered not guilty pleas in August 2018 that they spent campaign funds on items ranging from a holiday in Italy to Minnie Mouse ear headbands at Disneyland.

“I have accepted full responsibility for my conduct. I am deeply remorseful, and I apologize. I am saddened for the hurt I have caused my family and others,” Margaret Hunter’s attorneys Tom McNamara and Logan Smith said in a statement on her behalf.

The plea agreement recommends a five-year prison sentence, five years probation and a fine of up to $250,000, according to U.S. Attorney’s office. No sentencing date has been set.
Duncan Hunter said in a statement on Thursday that the Department of Justice “went after her to get to me for political reasons.”

“As Margaret’s case concludes, she should be left alone. I am the Congressman, this is my campaign and any further attention on this issue should be directed solely to me,” he said.
A San Diego grand jury indicted the Hunters for allegedly using campaign accounts to pay for their children’s private school tuition, lavish travel including restaurant meals that frequently cost hundreds of dollars.

The indictment alleges the Hunters lied about how the money was spent, with the couple saying it went to charity or campaign events when prosecutors said it was really used for groceries, restaurant meals and clothing.

Duncan Hunter, whose father, Duncan Hunter Sr., also served in Congress, represents conservative portions of San Diego and Riverside counties in a seat that is generally considered safe for Republicans.

Margaret Hunter pledged to provide testimony to a grand jury investigating the campaign violations and “and tell everything she knows,” according to the plea agreement filed in court.
Hunter, a supporter of President Donald Trump, easily won re-election last November despite being indicted for corruption.

He is scheduled to go on trial in September.

Hunter appeared to blame his wife for the violations in an interview with Fox News last year, saying he gave Margaret power of attorney when he was deployed to Iraq as a marine in 2003, and that she oversaw his campaign finances.

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A South Carolina jury sentenced a man to death on Thursday after convicting him of murdering his five young children at their mobile home in 2014 before driving their decomposing bodies through several states and dumping them in Alabama.

The jurors voted unanimously to give Timothy Jones the death penalty. The same jury last week found him guilty of the murders of Merah, 8; Elias, 7; Nahtahn, 6; Gabriel, 2; and Abigail, 1.

Jurors considered whether to give Jones the death penalty or life in prison without possibility of parole. Jones, 37, a divorced former software engineer, did not testify at the trial in Lexington, South Carolina.

In closing arguments on Thursday, prosecutor Rick Hubbard said the murders of children under age 11 warranted the death penalty.

“Let the punishment fit the crime,” Hubbard told jurors. “He is a mass murderer.”

Casey Secor, the defense attorney, reminded jurors that Jones’ mother was institutionalized with schizophrenia, a sometimes inherited mental illness.

“How much more death does the Jones family have to endure?” defense attorney Casey Secor said. “The death penalty is never required in any case.”

During the week-long penalty phase of the trial, the jury saw graphic photos of police evidence and heard emotional testimony from the children’s school teachers and relatives.

Jones’ father, Timothy Jones Sr., pleaded for his son’s life and took his shirt off in court to show his back covered with tattooed images of his slain grandchildren.

Jones’ ex-wife Amber Kyzer testified that she hoped for mercy for Jones even as condemned what he had done.

“He did not show my children mercy by any means. But my kids loved him,” Kyzer said. “Nothing justifies what you’ve done,” she told Jones.

Jones was arrested in Mississippi in September 2014 and led police to the children’s bodies, wrapped in garbage bags, in Alabama. He confessed to police that his middle son, Nathan, died after Jones punished him and that he later strangled the other four children.

Jones said in a 2014 phone call from prison played in court that he “snapped” when he killed Nathan, 6, because the child was crying for his mother. Jones said a “gremlin voice” told him  to kill the rest of the children, a psychiatrist testified during the guilt phase of the trial.

A prosecutor said Jones was a selfish, evil man who abused his children and murdered them out of rage and fear of being caught.

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A major military exercise involving maritime forces from 18 countries is underway in the Baltic Sea through June 21.  It’s the 47th annual Baltic Operations, known as BALTOPS.  Leading the way is the newly re-established U.S. Navy 2nd Fleet, made operational last month to protect the North Atlantic and the Arctic.  Before the exercises began, the fleet gave VOA Pentagon Correspondent Carla Babb exclusive access to its headquarters in Norfolk, Va.

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The United States is open to dialogue to resolve trade differences with India by allowing Americans companies more access to Indian markets, U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said on Wednesday ahead of a visit to New Delhi later this month.

Pompeo’s remarks at the U.S.-India Business Council refer to a decision by U.S. President Donald Trump to end preferential trade treatment for India from June 5 over the trade barriers.

“We remain open to dialogue, and we hope that our friends in India will drop their trade barriers and trust in the competitiveness” of their own companies, Pompeo said ahead of his June 24-30 travels to India, Sri Lanka, Japan and South Korea.

“We’ll also push for the free flow of data across borders” not just to help American companies — but to protect data and ensure consumer privacy.

He added: “And speaking of privacy, we are eager to help India establish secure communications networks — including 5G networks.”

The privileges come under the General System of Preferences, or GSP, which had been allowing preferential duty-free imports of up to $5.6 billion a year into the United States from the South Asian nations. India is the biggest beneficiary of the GSP program.

Washington has been particularly annoyed by India’s tightening of regulations that have undermined major U.S. companies but favored domestic entities in the past year. In particular, tighter e-commerce rules that came in earlier this year hurt Amazon.com and Walmart, which last year bought Indian online retailer Flipkart for $16 billion.

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Democratic presidential hopeful Beto O’Rourke Wednesday outlined his proposal to improve gay rights in the United States and to reverse what he called “discriminatory policies” under President Donald Trump.

“LGBTQ+ Americans have made incredible progress over the past decade, thanks in large part to the tireless efforts of activists and advocates, but too many LGBTQ+ people still lack protection under many states’ laws and the current administration is encouraging rather than stamping out discrimination,” O’Rourke, a former U.S. representative, said in a statement announcing the proposals.

Coinciding with June’s designation as Gay Pride Month, O’Rourke joined other Democratic presidential candidates this month in calling for more federal action to protect gay rights.

Anniversary of Pulse shooting

His announcement came on the third anniversary of the mass shooting at Pulse, a gay nightclub in Orlando, when an Islamic State-inspired gunman killed 49 people.

In 2015, the U.S. Supreme Court legalized gay marriage, a monumental decision that altered the national legal status of gay couples across the country. Democrats have called for additional protections, including laws to prevent discrimination based on sexual orientation.

O’Rourke is one of more than 20 Democrats running for president, who have near universal agreement on gay rights protections.

His three-part proposal included a series of executive orders to reverse Trump policies: canceling the ban on transgender troops, reversing a policy that allowed federally funded adoption agencies to reject gay parents and ending current policies that greatly restrict gay men from donating blood. He also called for measures to protect transgender women from violence.

Among other examples, he promised to allow migrants seeking asylum to qualify as a “vulnerable population” if they are gay.

Second, he would work with Congress to pass legislation to end discrimination, including employment, housing and access to public services.

Finally, he would work to help improve gay rights abroad.

His administration would establish an office within the State Department dedicated to gay rights and would seek a new international treaty to enshrine gay rights.

O’Rourke joined an annual two-mile jog known as the Pride Run in New York City Wednesday morning.

Other candidates mark anniversary

Other Democratic candidates also marked the Pulse anniversary. In an email to supporters, Pete Buttigieg, the mayor of South Bend, Indiana, who is gay, listed the victims’ names and called for stricter gun limits and hate crime laws.

Elizabeth Warren, the Massachusetts senator, also used the occasion to call for “commonsense gun reform” and stronger protections for LGBTQ Americans in an email to backers.
 

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Lee Juhyun contributed to this report.

After U.S. President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un met last June in Singapore for the first time, Trump declared on his way home “there is no longer a nuclear threat from North Korea.”

“I have solved that problem,” a triumphant Trump said three days after his summit with Kim.

But on Wednesday’s one-year anniversary of the Singapore meeting, a nuclear deal seems more elusive than ever, with working-level talks stalled and public disagreements emerging among U.S. officials over how to respond to North Korea’s provocations.

Trump remains publicly optimistic about his relationship with Kim. On Tuesday, Trump said he received another “beautiful letter” from the North Korean leader. He did not elaborate on the letter’s contents other than to say it was “very warm,” “very nice,” and “very personal.”

But there is little evidence Trump’s personal relationship will convince Kim to abandon his nuclear weapons, which he has long viewed as crucial to preserving his rule.

“I think it’s exactly where we were a year ago,” said Darcie Draudt, a North Korea researcher and visiting scholar at Seoul’s Yonsei University. “It’s the actual day-to-day interactions, the on-the-ground, mid-level exchanges that are really going to do the work. And we really haven’t seen that.”

Talks stalled

The two sides haven’t held working-level talks in months and North Korea hasn’t responded to multiple requests to restart the negotiations, according to U.S. officials.

North Korea has also stopped cooperating on major inter-Korean projects, such as a joint North-South effort to recover the remains of soldiers who died in the 1950s Korean War.

Amid the stalemate, Washington and Pyongyang are again teetering on the edge of a period of hostility. North Korea last month restarted ballistic missile tests for the first time in almost a year and a half.

“Its nuclear and ballistic missile programs not only are left intact, they are also advancing and growing, since they were never bound to an agreement,” said Soo Kim, a policy analyst at the RAND Corporation and a former CIA analyst.

Fundamental disagreements?

In Singapore, Trump and Kim agreed to work “toward the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula.” U.S. officials later acknowledged Washington and Pyongyang do not share a common understanding of the word “denuclearization.”

A February summit between Kim and Trump in Hanoi, Vietnam had been expected to at least lay out a path forward. But instead, the meeting underscored the breadth of disagreements between the two sides, with Trump leaving early and declaring Kim “not ready” to make a deal.

Trump has insisted Kim abandon his entire nuclear weapons program before the United States relaxes sanctions against the North. Kim wants an incremental approach that would see the U.S. ease sanctions gradually in exchange for limited steps to dismantle his nuclear program.

Cracks in US strategy

The Trump administration’s strategy toward North Korea is increasingly marked by inconsistencies, if not outright contradictions.

Not only have U.S. officials given conflicting statements about whether they are open to a step-by-step denuclearization process, Trump at times openly disagrees with his top advisors over Korea policy.

After North Korea conducted several short-range missile and other weapons tests in early May, White House National Security Advisor John Bolton pointed out the launches violate United Nations Security Council resolutions.

“My people think it could have been a violation,” Trump acknowledged, adding: “I view it differently. I view it as a man — perhaps he wants to get attention, and perhaps not. Who knows? It doesn’t matter.”

At various points over the last month, Trump has seemed to suggest the North Korean launches never happened. At other moments, Trump has said the tests were unimportant because the short-range missiles were not capable of hitting the United States.

The launches are a potential embarrassment for Trump, who has long pointed to a lack of North Korean missile and nuclear tests as evidence his talks with Kim are succeeding.

Stalemate to continue?

Trump regularly says he is in no rush to reach a deal with North Korea, insisting that Kim understands it is in his interest to give up his nuclear weapons.

But, North Korean officials continue to say the exact opposite, warning they will not give up their weapons unilaterally and setting an end-of-the-year ultimatum for the United States to change its approach.

“The arrogant and unilateral U.S. policy will never work on the DPRK, which values sovereignty,” the official Korean Central News Agency said Tuesday, using an acronym for North Korea’s official name.

The agreement signed by Kim and Trump in Singapore “is in danger of being a blank sheet of paper because the U.S. is turning a blind eye to its implementation,” KCNA said.

“There is a limit to the DPRK’s patience…now is the time for the U.S. to withdraw its hostile policy concerning the DPRK,” it continued.

But it is in neither side’s interest to dramatically escalate tensions, said Khang Vu, U.S. East Asia policy researcher and contributor to the Australia-based Lowy Institute think tank.

“Kim Jong Un understands that he can potentially benefit from sanctions relief and inter-Korean trade as long as he carries on with the denuclearization process, even through a vague commitment,” Vu said.

Meanwhile, Trump may feel constrained by the upcoming 2020 presidential election season.

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West Virginia was once a thriving coal-producing state.  But as mines started closing, miners — and many others in the coal industry — found themselves without jobs.

James Scyphers was one of those affected.  Today, the former coal miner is thrilled to be working above ground.

From coal to gold

On this perfect summer day on a rural farm near Beckley, West Virginia, he tends to a busy hive of bees. Dressed in a pair of old jean overalls and a beekeeping veil to protect his head, he carefully lifts a frame from the hive and inspects it to make sure his bees are doing well.

​​The Vietnam veteran worked in construction, and was a coal miner for 16 years, but he traded in his hard hat for a veil.

“It takes a special breed to be in a coal mine,” he says. “A lot of times underground, you’re working in water and dark conditions …and at times it’s miserable. This is not miserable. This is a real enjoyable job.”

Scyphers loves being outdoors, and has come to respect, and appreciate, honeybees. “I have learned that they’re the most fascinating insect and I learn more about them every day. I have not had a better job in my 40-some years of working.”

The work is also benefiting him financially.

He lives on Social Security and a small minor’s pension, so beekeeping, he says, has provided a nice boost in income.

ABC’s of beekeeping

Scyphers found his job through the Appalachian Beekeeping Collective, a nonprofit program that teaches displaced workers — and other low-income West Virginians looking to earn extra income — how to become beekeepers.

After completing a free, five-week program, aspiring beekeepers are given bees, hives and all the necessary supplies to get them started. Mentors work with them one-on-one throughout the beekeeping season, and help them harvest the honey for cash when the season ends.

​​Mark Lilly has been keeping bees in West Virginia for more than 20 years. He is both mentor and educator with the collective, and says the initiative was created to address the dramatic drop in employment in the region.

“In my previous job, I traveled a lot of these areas, so for the past 30 years, I’ve watched them slowly die,” he says. “So you see the people now have, like hopelessness, and I think we’re the starting point, maybe, to bring some hope to some of these communities.”

“So if we can teach a family to maybe generate $3,000 to $5,000 of additional income [a year], if you’re only making $30,000, that’s a huge, huge improvement in your lifestyle,” he adds.

Getting a buzz on…

But it’s the one-on-one mentoring that’s the best part of the program for veteran Mike Davis, who gets a visit from Lilly every month. “We go through the bees and even though we went through the class, actually being in the boxes with the bees, handling them, seeing what it is that we’re talking about, you can visualize the concept so much easier.”

And there are other benefits, he adds. “It gives you something to look forward to on a daily basis, you’re anticipating the growth of your hive … The bees are not only calming, it’s like, they’re friends; similar to dogs that other people have, I have that same affection for my bees.”

Then there’s the honey that comes from those bees.

Liquid gold

“This area of southern West Virginia is the largest forage in the world,” he explains. “We don’t have pesticides, insecticides, because we don’t have commercial farming. So we have the trees, we have a lot of water, the conditions are great for the bees.”

And that translates into great tasting honey. Since West Virginia is home to some of the most diverse species of plants in the world, it creates tremendous nectar sources for the bees.

“The honey that these bees make, it tastes different than anywhere else,” says Cheryl Flanagan, who left the corporate world to live in West Virginia. “I’ve lived all over the states, and this honey has a smokier, richer, really deep flavor to it. And it’s the best honey I’ve ever tasted.”

Flanagan loves her new hobby.

“Two months ago I knew nothing about bees. Today, I am learning hand-in-hand with the master beekeeper, and I am amazed at how absolutely different than what I thought bees were like.”

Worried at first her bees would sting, Flanagan soon discovered that the industrious insects were just not that into her. “They have a whole community, it’s very sophisticated, they know what they’re supposed to do as soon as they’re hatched … It’s just amazing to me to be a part of that, and the more I learn, the more I want to know.” 

Protecting natural treasures

And that is the main objective of the program, says Terri Giles, Vice President of Government Relations for Appalachian Headwaters, which oversees the beekeeping collective.

The non-profit organization has several programs in place for creating long-term jobs for West Virginians while helping restore the state’s damaged ecosystems.

 She feels deeply protective of the honeybees.

From bulldozers to bees

The Appalachian region has been an “extraction” site for the country and for the world, Giles explains. “Unfortunately, in the past, they came here and extracted salt, they extracted timber; they extracted coal, now they’re extracting natural gas. So always throughout this region, this band of wealth from extraction has always benefited someone else.”

Until now.

“So we have another source of income in this central Appalachia, and that is the nectar of the hardwood forests that surround us,” she explains. “No one can take that away. We can sell our honey outside of the state and the money comes back into the pockets of the people in Appalachia, helping the region.”

Band of gold

Beekeeping is a local tradition. The Appalachian Beekeeping Collective hopes that its program will help more West Virginians connect to their roots, and come to appreciate the honeybees for the unique product they produce and the economic opportunities they provide.

Giles believes West Virginia honey will eventually become an agricultural staple.

“I look here and I see what used to be a thriving railroad community, even in the ‘70s when I was growing up, has turned into a community with not a lot of options. This beekeeping collective that we are sponsoring is giving people options, but better yet, it’s giving people hope for the future.”

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Vietnam has imposed anti-dumping tariffs on certain goods from China that were getting around tariffs levied by the United States in its trade dispute with Beijing.

The Southeast Asian country’s Ministry of Industry and Trade decided after a 5-month review to levy a temporary anti-dumping tax of 2.46% to 35.58% on several Chinese-origin aluminum products, effective June 5.

Vietnam had emerged as one of the top beneficiaries last year of the Sino-U.S. trade dispute because tariff-weary shippers based in China were tapping the country as an alternative, low-tariff place to manufacture exports headed to the United States. 

But some manufacturers were just relabeling products made in China as “Made-in-Vietnam” for trans-shipment to the United States. 

Vietnam’s anti-dumping tariffs are “an efficient response from the Vietnamese side with regards to the U.S. Department of Commerce’s anti-circumvention tariffs to be placed on aluminum extrusion exported from Vietnam,” Hanoi-based financial market analysis firm SSI Research said in a note Monday.

The note calls the tariffs “a very bold move for Vietnam to enact” as “a country that has emerged as the region’s largest beneficiary nation of the (Sino-U.S.) trade war.”

Avoiding tariffs in China

Chinese exports of semi-finished aluminum parts  doubled in 2018, as the Sino-U.S. trade dispute broke out, to 62,000 tons, SSI Research found. Of that load, a “significant quantity is believed to be shipped from China to avoid anti-dumping and countervailing tariffs,” the note said.

“Some U.S. imports were detected supposedly coming from Vietnam, but were found to be actually Chinese products, which were thereby trying to avoid anti-dumping duties that were applied to Chinese products in the U.S.,” said Rajiv Biswas, Asia-Pacific chief economist at the market research firm IHS Markit.

Other Asian countries, Indonesia and Malaysia for example, have imposed their own tariffs on Chinese steel imports. Chinese exporters can sell for less than domestic peers in those markets – which are trying to develop their own steel or aluminum industries – because of a supply surplus and massive production scales.

Vietnam is absorbing an outsized share of the China spillover because of a shared land border and relatively low manufacturing costs, said Song Seng Wun, an economist in the private banking unit of CIMB in Singapore. Manufacturing drives the Vietnamese economy, helping it grow at 6%-7% a year.

Favor with Washington

The spike in imports from China had hurt Vietnam’s own aluminum industry and put it at risk of more scrutiny by the government of U.S. President Donald Trump, economists believe. The Vietnamese anti-dumping tariffs in place for 120 days will help protect Vietnam’s so far stable relations with the Trump Administration as they help stop U.S.-bound trans-shipments from China without paying tariffs. 

“I do see the Vietnamese trying to be tough on trans-shipments,” said Frederick Burke, partner with the international law firm Baker McKenzie in Ho Chi Minh City. 

“As far as the Vietnamese are concerned, it’s just criminal, just taking advantage of their position, smuggling in and smuggling out,” he said. “It’s ruining their reputation and they get no benefit out of it.”

Chinese aluminum extrusions, a term for semi-finished parts, are subject to anti-dumping duties on top of the 10% tariff that the United States levies on countries worldwide. Manufacturers in Vietnam buy extrusions from China to make doors, walls and other parts of structures.

Although Trump’s government has largely targeted China over trade, the U.S. Treasury labeled Vietnam a possible currency “manipulator” last month. Vietnam, like China, also runs a trade surplus with the United States, the same condition that sparked the Sino-U.S. spat that’s now in its second year with the prospect of escalation later this month.

“We certainly can see that the sweeping power of President Trump can (be) fairly extensive, so I think at this point there’s less inclination by the Vietnamese to upset the Americans than the Chinese,” Song said.

After a series of public “consultations,” the Ministry of Industry and Trade will decide before year’s end whether to extend the tariffs, SSI Research says.

If Vietnam did not impose its own tariffs, Washington would most likely investigate specific companies suspected of exporting Chinese aluminum from Vietnam and “order customs officers to pay closer attention to goods with certificates of origin from Vietnam,” said Maxfield Brown, senior associate with the business consultancy Dezan Shira & Associates in Ho Chi Minh City. 

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A Chinese woman charged with illegally entering President Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort will be allowed to act as her own attorney.

Federal Judge Roy Altman granted Yujing Zhang’s request Tuesday to fire her public defenders and represent herself.

Altman found Zhang competent and intelligent, but strongly tried to talk her out of her decision. She insisted, however. She asked that the hearing in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, be conducted in English but struggled at times understanding the judge. For example, she didn’t know “counsel” is a synonym for lawyer. Altman ordered that she be provided with law books and the evidence against her. He told her to study.

The 33-year-old Zhang has pleaded not guilty to charges of trespassing March 30 at Mar-a-Lago and lying to Secret Service agents.

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The federal government is appealing a court injunction against a Trump administration action that prohibits family planning organizations from referring pregnant women to abortion clinics.

Last month, the administration changed a public health law known as Title X, which from 1970 until now had required health care providers to make information about abortion available to low-income individuals at little or no cost.

The Baltimore Daily Record reported Monday that Maryland Judge Richard Bennett became the fourth judge to try to block the U.S. Health Department from enforcing the changes. Bennett filed an injunction at the end of May. The injunction states that the Title X changes violate the terms of President Barack Obama’s health care law.

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U.S. President Donald Trump held up a piece of paper along the lawn at the White House Tuesday, saying it was his new immigration deal with Mexico that contains mystery provisions, even as Mexico says it has no idea what he is talking about.

“I’m going to let Mexico do the announcement at the right time,” Trump told reporters on a sun-splashed day in Washington. “I just give you my word. In here’s the agreement.”

Asked if Mexico had agreed to become a safe third country to house migrants seeking asylum in the United States, Trump said, “I’m not going to say one way or the other.”

Earlier on Twitter, Trump said, “Biggest part of deal with Mexico has not yet been revealed!” 

But on Monday, Mexican Foreign Secretary Marcelo Ebrard held up a paper and pointed to the previously announced details, including Mexico’s deployment of 6,000 troops to its border with Guatemala to thwart the surge of Central American migrants heading to the United States.

“There is no other thing beyond what I have just explained,” Ebrard said.

He said that if migration is not slowed, the two countries would discuss other options.

Trump had threatened to impose a 5% tariff on Mexican products arriving in the U.S. starting this week, but backed off when Mexico pledged to ramp up efforts to block migrants from Honduras, El Salvador and Guatemala heading north to the U.S.

“Tariffs are a great negotiating tool, a great revenue producers and, most importantly, a powerful way to get companies to come to the U.S.A. and to get companies that have left us for other lands to come back home,” Trump tweeted. 

Maria, Dagan, Steve, Stuart V – When you are the big “piggy bank” that other countries have been ripping off for years (to a level that is not to be believed), Tariffs are a great negotiating tool, a great revenue producers and, most importantly, a powerful way to get……

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 11, 2019

…Companies to come to the U.S.A and to get companies that have left us for other lands to come back home. We stupidly lost 30% of our auto business to Mexico. If the Tariffs went on at the higher level, they would all come back, and pass. But very happy with the deal I made,…

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 11, 2019

“We stupidly lost 30% of our auto business to Mexico,” he said. “If the Tariffs went on at the higher level, they would all come back, and pass. But very happy with the deal I made, if Mexico produces (which I think they will).”

….If Mexico produces (which I think they will). Biggest part of deal with Mexico has not yet been revealed! China is similar, except they devalue currency and subsidize companies to lessen effect of 25% Tariff. So far, little effect to consumer. Companies will relocate to U.S.

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 11, 2019

Trump has provided little clarity about any undisclosed portions of the agreement with Mexico.

“It’s just another aspect of what we’ve done,” Trump said during a brief event Monday on the White House South Lawn.

Asked by VOA why — if there was such an agreement — Mexico is denying it, Trump replied: “I don’t think they’ll be denying it very long. It’s all done.”

It could be related to plans for a regionwide asylum agreement if enforcement measures agreed to last week between Washington and Mexico City do not halt a surge of migrants from Central America to the United States.

“We trust that the measures we have proposed will be successful,” Ebrard said. “But if they’re not, we’re going to have to participate in this kind of discussion.”

He said further talks would only come after seeing how well the current agreement performs over the course of 45 days, and stressed the need to prove the worth of measures, such as investing in development in Central American countries so that people do not feel the need to leave their homelands to escape poverty and violence.

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