duties

Reporting from Washington — For weeks this fall, an ebullient President Trump traveled relentlessly to hold raise-the-rafters campaign rallies — sometimes three a day — in states where his presence was likely to help Republicans on the ballot.

But his mood apparently has changed as he has taken measure of the electoral backlash that voters delivered Nov. 6. With the certainty that the incoming Democratic House majority will go after his tax returns and investigate his actions, and the likelihood of additional indictments by special counsel Robert S. Mueller III, Trump has retreated into a cocoon of bitterness and resentment, according to multiple administration sources.

Behind the scenes, they say, the president has lashed out at several aides, from junior press assistants to senior officials. “He’s furious,” said one administration official. “Most staffers are trying to avoid him.”

The official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, painted a picture of a brooding president “trying to decide who to blame” for Republicans’ election losses, even as he publicly and implausibly continues to claim victory.

White House Chief of Staff John F. Kelly and Kirstjen Nielsen, secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, who are close allies, “seem to be on their way out,” the official said, noting recent leaks on the subject. The official cautioned, however, that personnel decisions are never final until Trump himself tweets out the news — often just after the former reality TV star who’s famous for saying “You’re fired!” has directed Kelly to so inform the individual.

And, according to a source outside the White House who has spoken recently with the president, last week’s Wall Street Journal report confirming Trump’s central role during the 2016 campaign in quietly arranging payoffs for two women alleging affairs with him seemed to put him in an even worse mood.

Publicly, Trump has been increasingly absent in recent days — except on Twitter. He has canceled travel plans and dispatched Cabinet officials and aides to events in his place — including sending Vice President Mike Pence to Asia for the annual summits there in November that past presidents nearly always attended.

Jordan’s King Abdullah II was in Washington on Tuesday and met with Secretary of State Michael R. Pompeo, but not the president.

Also Tuesday, Defense Secretary James N. Mattis announced plans to travel on Wednesday near the U.S.-Mexico border to visit with troops Trump ordered there last month in what is ostensibly a mission to defend against a caravan of Central American migrants moving through Mexico and still hundreds of miles from the United States.

Trump had reportedly considered making that trip himself, but has decided against it. Nor has he spoken of the caravan since the midterm elections, after making it a central issue in his last weeks of campaigning.

Unusually early on Monday, the White House called a “lid” at 10:03 a.m. EST, informing reporters that the president would not have any scheduled activities or public appearances for the rest of the day. Although it was Veterans Day, Trump bucked tradition and opted not to make the two-mile trip to Arlington National Cemetery in northern Virginia to lay a wreath at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, as presidents since at least John F. Kennedy have done to mark the solemn holiday.

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Trump’s only public appearance Tuesday was at a short White House ceremony marking the start of the Hindu holiday Diwali at which he made brief comments and left without responding to shouted questions.

He had just returned Sunday night from a two-day trip to France to attend ceremonies marking the centennial of the armistice that ended World War I. That trip was overshadowed, in part, by Trump’s decision not to attend a wreath-laying at the Aisne-Marne American Cemetery, the burial place for 2,289 soldiers 60 miles northeast of Paris, due to rain.

Kelly, a former Marine Corps general, and Marine Gen. Joseph F. Dunford Jr., chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, did attend to honor the American service members interred there. Trump stayed in the U.S. ambassador’s residence in Paris, making no public appearances.

Other heads of state also managed to make it to World War I cemeteries in the area for tributes to their nations’ war dead on Saturday.

Trump and Russia’s President Vladimir Putin were the only world leaders to skip a procession of world leaders to another commemoration, on Sunday, at the Arc de Triomphe. About 80 heads of state walked in unison — under umbrellas in the pouring rain — down Paris’ grand Champs-Elysees boulevard. Trump arrived later by motorcade, a decision aides claimed was made for security reasons.

Nicholas Burns, the former U.S. ambassador to NATO under George W. Bush, said the weekend events, commemorating the 100th anniversary of the end of a war in which 120,000 Americans were killed, were ripe for soaring words and symbolic gestures, which Trump failed to provide.

“Not only did he barely show up, he didn’t say anything that would help Americans understand the scale of the loss, or the importance of avoiding another great war,” Burns said. “He seemed physically and emotionally apart. It’s such a striking difference between the enthusiasm he showed during the campaign and then going to Paris and sulking in his hotel room.”

He added, “The country deserves more energy from the president.”

Trump took heavy flak on social media, especially for his no-show at the military cemetery.

“President @realDonaldTrump a no-show because of raindrops?” tweeted former Secretary of State John F. Kerry, a Navy veteran. “Those veterans the president didn’t bother to honor fought in the rain, in the mud, in the snow – & many died in trenches for the cause of freedom. Rain didn’t stop them & it shouldn’t have stopped an American president.”

Nicholas Soames, a member of Britain’s Parliament and grandson of Winston Churchill, tweeted, “They died with their face to the foe and that pathetic inadequate @realDonaldTrump couldn’t even defy the weather to pay his respects to The Fallen.”

Trump, clearly feeling on the defensive days later, tried to explain himself on Tuesday, in a tweet.

“By the way, when the helicopter couldn’t fly to the first cemetery in France because of almost zero visibility, I suggested driving,” he wrote. “Secret Service said NO, too far from airport & big Paris shutdown. Speech next day at American Cemetary [sic] in pouring rain! Little reported-Fake News!”

In that tweet, Trump falsely described the weather at the Sunday visit to another U.S. cemetery. Rather than “pouring rain,” photos showed him standing without a hat or an umbrella under overcast skies when he delivered remarks, though he did grasp an umbrella at one point while paying tribute at one soldier’s grave.

Just as Trump was returning to Washington on Sunday evening, Pence was heading to Asia in the president’s place, and at his first stop greeted Japan’s Prime Minister Shinzo Abe.

Trump’s absence, experts said, is notable, and a glaring affront to many Asian leaders.

“It matters more in Asia than other regions because ‘face’ is so important,” said Matthew P. Goodman, a senior vice president at the Center for Strategic and International Studies and a former White House coordinator for Asia-Pacific strategy during the Obama and George W. Bush administrations. “Your willingness to go out there is a sign you’re committed and not going is a sign you’re not.”

Putin is attending the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit, looking to expand his country’s influence in Asia. Prime Minister Narendra Modi of India and President Moon Jae-in of South Korea are also attending regional summits. And China’s President Xi Jinping and Premier Li Keqiang are simultaneously attending meetings across the region looking to broaden their country’s influence in the South China Sea and expand multilateral trade agreements.

Although Trump is set to meet with Xi at the Group of 20 summit of wealthy countries this month in Buenos Aires, his absence from the major Indo-Pacific meetings for a second straight year will “have some consequences for our position and our interests in the region,” Goodman continued. “Other countries are going to move ahead without us.”

What makes Trump’s perceived snub to the Asian powers more significant is that it comes on the heels of his brief European trip, which showcased his growing isolation from transatlantic allies. French President Emmanuel Macron rebuked Trump in a speech, stating that “nationalism is a betrayal of patriotism” as the U.S. president looked on sullenly.

Trump’s relations with Latin America, already strained, are little better after the White House last week announced that he was reneging for a second time on a commitment to visit Colombia. He had planned to go there later this month on his way back from the G-20 meetings.

In April, he’d sent Pence in his place to the Summit of the Americas in Peru, citing a need to remain in Washington to monitor the U.S. response to a chemical weapons attack in Syria. He’d planned to visit Bogota on the same trip.

This time around, there appeared to be no extenuating circumstances preventing a visit.

In a statement, the White House simply said, “President Trump’s schedule will not allow him to travel to Colombia later this month.”

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@EliStokols

Published on
05/07/2025 – 14:10 GMT+2

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China’s imposition of anti-dumping duties on European Cognac is “unfair” and “unjustified”, a European Commission spokesperson said on Friday, underscoring a downtick in relations ahead of an EU-China summit scheduled for the end of July.

“China’s measures are unfair, we believe they are unjustified, we believe they are inconsistent with the applicable international rule and are thus unfounded,” Commission spokesperson Olof Gill said on Friday.

The Asian giant has announced anti-dumping duties of up to 34,9% over EU brandy for a period of five years starting from 5 July 2025, sparing some of the largest EU Cognac producers which had made minimum price commitments, such as Remy Cointreau, Pernod Ricard and LVMH’s Hennessy.

The Chinese launched an investigation into brandy last year in retaliation for tariffs imposed by the EU on Chinese electric vehicles. It was followed by the announcement of several other investigations into EU pork and dairy products, which have not yet been closed.

Anti-dumping duties were also imposed in May on some EU industrial plastics.

Gill added that the duties on EU brandy were “part of a worrying pattern of China abusing trade defence instruments, starting and conducting investigations on the basis of questionable allegations and insufficient evidence, all this within a short period of time.”

This blow to EU brandy comes as some media report that China has cancelled the second day of the EU-China summit scheduled for 24 and 25 July.

The Commission’s chief spokesperson Paula Pinho refused to confirm the cancellation, arguing that the summit’s agenda “has not been agreed yet” by the EU and China.

Points of contention are increasing between the two, despite hopes for a diplomatic reset born of the jeopardy both sides face in the face of  an ongoing tariff dispute with the US.

The South China Morning Post reported on Friday that Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi told EU’s top diplomat Kaja Kallas it did not want to see a Russian loss in Ukraine because it feared the US would then shift its whole focus to Beijing.

After Gavin Newsom was elected lieutenant governor, he repeatedly made clear his frustration with the job and its lack of responsibilities. The official portfolio for the office is thin, including sitting on boards that oversee the state’s higher education system and public lands, leading an economic council and serving as acting governor when California’s chief executive is out of state or otherwise unavailable.

Newsom, now the front-runner in the governor’s race, missed scores of meetings held by the University of California Board of Regents, the California State University Board of Trustees and the California State Lands Commission, according to a Times review of attendance records.

He attended 54% of UC Regents meeting days, 34% for Cal State and 57% for state lands, according to a Times review of attendance records between 2011 and 2018. The Times included in the tally days when Newsom was present for only part of the day, and excluded days when Newsom had no committee meetings or other official business to attend.

Membership of the three panels is the most prominent duty of a lieutenant governor, a post considered to be largely ceremonial.

“There’s no denying that the official responsibilities of the lieutenant governor are more modest than some other constitutional offices — the English call it an ‘heir and a spare,’” said former California Gov. Gray Davis, who was lieutenant governor before being elected to lead the state. “But 43 states have a lieutenant governor whose primary function is to step in if something happens to the governor.”

Newsom’s opponents have criticized him for failing to fully participate in the three panels, which set policy on tuition, athletics programs and expansion for much of the state’s higher-education system, and manage issues including oil drilling and access to some of California’s publicly owned lands.

“Californians are working harder than ever before just to stay in the middle class. It appears Gavin Newsom is hardly working — or at least not working for the people who pay his salary,” said Luis Vizcaino, a spokesman for former Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa.

Newsom defended his record, saying it paralleled that of other elected officials on the panels.

“I’ve tried not to be the quote-unquote politician on the board. I tried to avoid being the guy who shows up just to give the press release. I tried to be constructive and I tried to be engaged,” he said in an interview. “Every tough vote, we were there — the ones that matter, the close votes.”

Observers of the UC and Cal State panels agreed that the elected officials on the boards had spottier attendance than appointees. The State Lands Commission comprises three members, so when one is absent, he or she typically sends an alternate to voice concerns and vote on the member’s behalf. Attendance on the panels has previously been raised as a campaign issue — Republican Dan Lungren poked Davis about his absences during a 1998 gubernatorial debate.

Newsom’s Democratic rivals in the race — state Treasurer John Chiang, former state schools chief Delaine Eastin and Villaraigosa — held various roles on the same three boards during prior terms in elected office. Chiang served on the State Lands Commission when he was controller, and Villaraigosa and Eastin sat on the UC and Cal State boards while serving as Assembly speaker and state superintendent of public instruction, respectively.

They also failed to attend many meetings.

Chiang attended 46% of Lands Commission meeting days between 2007 and 2014 when he was state controller. Villaraigosa and Eastin each attended less than 10% of the Cal State meetings during their time on that board. Though they both routinely skipped UC meetings, the full picture of their attendance is unclear due to a lack of available records documenting their time on the boards in the 1990s.

But their jobs at the time were more demanding than the role of lieutenant governor. The speaker must be in Sacramento during the legislative session, and the state schools chief oversees curriculum, testing and finances for the 6.3 million students in the state’s schools. As controller, Chiang was California’s chief bookkeeper, administering the state’s payroll and serving on more than 70 boards and commissions.

Newsom’s responsibilities as lieutenant governor are much more limited in scope, a point he has frequently drawn attention to.

Before he ran for lieutenant governor in 2010, he derided the role as having “no real authority and no real portfolio.”

After he was elected, he drafted legislation to put the office of lieutenant governor on the gubernatorial ticket — similar to how a president and vice president are elected together — but couldn’t find a legislator to carry the bill. If elected governor, Newsom said he hopes to revisit the proposal.

Two years into the job, during a break in filming his Current TV show, Newsom was asked by friend and hotelier Chip Conley how frequently he went to Sacramento.

“Like one day a week, tops,” Newsom said. “There’s no reason.… It’s just so dull.”

A few months later, as a Times reporter trailed Newsom in the Capitol, he stopped when a woman asked him to pose for a picture with her son. The boy asked him what a lieutenant governor does.

“I ask myself that every day,” Newsom replied.

He has repeatedly joked about the post over the years, including in an interview with The Times during his 2014 reelection campaign when he paraphrased a line from then-Secretary of State John F. Kerry, himself a former lieutenant governor: “Wake up every morning, pick up the paper, read the obituaries, and if the governor’s name doesn’t appear in there, go back to sleep.”

Garry South, a former advisor to Newsom who is not publicly backing a candidate in the governor’s race, recalled urging him to knock it off.

“I did convey to him on a couple of occasions … that I didn’t think it was a good idea to tell voters they had elected you to a worthless position,” South said. “To his credit, I think he’s done much less of that in the last few years.”

Newsom said that the transition from mayor of San Francisco — when he worked on issues including same-sex marriage, universal healthcare and homelessness — to lieutenant governor was difficult.

“In honesty, I totally get it. I’m not even going to be defensive about it. There was absolutely early frustration. That’s all it represented years and years ago,” he said, noting that his time in Sacramento has been much slower than his life as mayor, a change he described as a “major cultural transition.” “It’s a different pace. That was reflected in those lazy comments of mine [that] I by definition regret because we wouldn’t be having this conversation. But it expressed a sentiment at the time.”

Newsom said he grew into his job and realized he could use his bully pulpit to promote issues he cared about, including successful 2016 ballot measures to legalize recreational marijuana and implement stricter gun controls.

Still, Newsom’s statements about his job have provided plenty of fodder for his rivals.

“If he was so bored, why did he refuse to show up for his job on the UC Board of Regents, or on the CSU Board of Trustees or at the State Lands Commission? Where was Gavin when he was supposed to be working on behalf of all the Californians who actually show up for their jobs?” said Fabien Levy, a spokesman for Chiang. “California needs a serious leader, not someone who’s in it just for show.”

But parties with business before the panels and fellow members said Newsom has been active and attentive when present.

“He has been engaged and thoughtful, and particularly interested in the financial structures and financial stability and financial accountability,” said Shane White, chairman of UC’s Academic Senate and a dentistry professor at UCLA.

A fellow UC regent, who asked to remain anonymous to speak freely about Newsom’s tenure on the board, agreed.

“He’s been substantially more engaged than the vast majority of elected officials who have served on the board,” said the regent, who is unaligned in the race. “He does his homework.”

Former Assembly Speaker John A. Pérez, a Villaraigosa backer who sits on the UC Regents board, said Newsom’s attendance is not that different from other elected officials who sit on the panel.

“If you want to hit him for attendance, it’s a valid hit. If you want to hit him for only being involved in the most high-profile issues, it’s a valid hit. But it’s not inconsistent with other ex officio board members,” Pérez said, adding that he personally liked Newsom and the two men frequently voted on controversial issues the same way. “The difference is he made such a big deal about [how] the office doesn’t do anything, and then he doesn’t go to the things it does.”

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