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President Donald Trump was supposed to make a decision by Nov. 14 on whether to take action against imports of automobiles and auto parts from the EU.

But with the deadline passed, questions are now being raised over whether he can continue using Section 232 of the Trade Expansion Act of 1962 to take any future tariff action. The previously little-used provision allows the president to impose trade restrictions if imports are considered a threat to national security.

An investigation under Section 301 of the Trade Act of 1974 would be potentially more sweeping and would subject numerous European industries, subsidies and other programs to scrutiny. The move would also effectively terminate the national security investigation.

Section 301, which also has been little used by previous administrations, allows the president to impose trade restrictions if an investigation finds that a country is engaged in a practice that is unjustifiable and burdens or restricts U.S. commerce.

Trump used the Section 301 provision to justify wave-after-wave of tariffs on China after an investigation by the U.S. Trade Representatives Office found that Beijing's policies on technology transfer and intellectual property burden or restrict U.S. commerce.

Those briefed on the latest matter said it wasn't clear which EU trade policies that the administration would target in any inquiry, and whether autos are still the main target of Trump's potential actions.

Trump has consistently complained that the EU imposes a 10 percent tariff on vehicles while the U.S. only has a 2.5 percent import duty on passenger cars. Hes also argued that the current transatlantic trade relationship is unfair because the United States has a $151 billion trade deficit in goods with the EU.

Many countries charge us extraordinarily high tariffs or create impossible trade barriers. Impossible, Trump said last week in an economic policy speech in New York. And Ill be honest: European Union very, very difficult. The barriers they have up are terrible. Terrible. In many ways, worse than China.

The U.S. Trade Representative's Office, which would be responsible for launching a new Section 301 investigation, did not respond to an inquiry on the potential action. The Commerce Department, which is in charge of Section 232 investigations, referred questions to USTR and the White House.

Already, Trump has faced enormous pressure for trying to use national security justification to pursue tariffs on allies.

Trump invoked such a provision to justify duties on steel and aluminum imports that began last year. The law was invoked again to investigate the national security risk posed by imports of automobiles.

Canada, Mexico, South Korea and Japan were able to escape steel and aluminum duties after negotiating trade deals with the U.S., but EU auto imports have remained in the administrations cross hairs.

Section 232 gives the president a 180-day time limit to negotiate agreements to address any national security concerns, if he decides to punt on imposing tariffs, but it doesnt require an announcement, said Gary Hufbauer, a senior fellow with the Peterson Institute for International Economics.

U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer submitted a report to the president last week providing Trump an update on the European negotiations, but a decision was never made.

A recent court ruling has raised questions about whether Trump's failure to make a decision by the deadline nullifies his use of the law to threaten auto tariffs.

The U.S. Court of International Trade ruled last week that Trump violated a separate Section 232 deadline when he tried to double steel duties on Turkey in August 2018 after a 90-day deadline.

Trump has since reduced the steel tariffs on Turkey back to their original level of 25 percent but the ruling provides the first instance of a court pushing back on the presidents use of the law.

The presidents expansive view of his power under section 232 is mistaken, and at odds with the language of the statute, its legislative history, and its purpose, the court wrote in a Nov. 15 opinion.

Critics of Trumps use of the statute have held up the ruling as a clear indication that the window for tariffs has closed.

As a recent U.S. trade court opinion stated, the presidents authority to impose national security tariffs or other import restrictions under Section 232 is not indefinite, Sen. Pat Toomey (R-Pa.) said. With the 180-day deadline having passed, the window for new national security taxes on imported automobiles has closed.

Legal experts say the ruling also puts firmer ground under future challenges to any action Trump might take now on auto tariffs against the EU.

I strongly believe if the president were to impose tariffs now, there would unequivocally be legal challenges, said Jennifer Hillman, a Georgetown University law professor who previously served as a WTO judge and general counsel at USTR.

They could be at substantial risk of losing that one, she added.

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Exclusive: Trump weighs new trade investigation to justify tariffs on EU - Politico

The Europol headquarters in The Hague, Netherlands, as seen in 2016. Europol announced Monday that over 26,000 items related to terrorist propaganda were removed from the internet. Mike Corder/AP hide caption

The Europol headquarters in The Hague, Netherlands, as seen in 2016. Europol announced Monday that over 26,000 items related to terrorist propaganda were removed from the internet.

In a major blow to terrorist radicalization efforts, European law enforcement agencies have stripped Islamic State propaganda from popular online services such as Google and Twitter.

Over 26,000 items, which included videos, publications, social media accounts and communication channels, were flagged by authorities as being terrorist propaganda. Europol, the European Union's law enforcement agency, sent those items to several online service providers for removal.

"For the time being, for as far as we know, IS is not present on the internet anymore and we will see how fast, if ever, they will regain service," Belgian Federal Prosecutor Eric Van Der Sypt said at a press conference Monday.

Authorities said that services such as Google, Twitter, Instagram and Telegram cooperated with the European-wide efforts to disrupt terrorist activities. Telegram, an online messaging platform used by about 200 million users, contained the most offending material, which resulted in a "significant portion of key actors within the IS network" being removed from the service.

As part of the operation, an individual suspected of distributing terrorist propaganda was arrested in the Canary Islands by Spanish police. Head of Counter Terrorism of the Spanish Guardia Civil Alberto Rodrguez Vzquez said the individual self-radicalized himself and others.

"His role in the dissemination is in the process of being established, but evidence points to the indoctrination of other individuals in his place of residence, where he exerted a sort of religious authority," Rodrguez said.

These latest actions are part of an ongoing effort by E.U. member states to disrupt the communication networks of terrorist organizations.

In April 2018, law enforcement agencies of the E.U., Canada and the United States seized servers and data from the IS, forcing it to rely heavily on online social media and messaging services.

"This shift to online service providers allowed Europol and investigators in Member States to focus their work on the social media networks used by the IS media operatives, resulting in the actions day of November 2019," Europol said in a statement.

According to the BBC, a pro-IS media group said the takedown campaign may drive sympathizers underground where it is harder for authorities to monitor terrorist activity.

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Islamic State 'Not Present On The Internet Anymore' Following European Operation - NPR

Prime Minister Boris Johnson's plan to "get Brexit done" by the end of 2020 risks creating "the biggest crisis of Brexit to date," the United Kingdom's former ambassador to the European Union has warned.

Johnson has insisted that he will not extend the Brexit transition period beyond its current end date of December 2020, meaning UK and EU negotiators will have less than 12 months to secure a brand new free trade deal.

The transition period is designed to give businesses and people time to prepare for life outside of the EU. During that time, the UK will continue to follow EU trading rules.

Failure to secure a deal will mean that Britain will drop out onto costly World Trade Organisation Rules at the end of the transition period, which the government's own analysis suggests would cause significant damage to the economy.

Rogers, who resigned as the UK's most senior representative to the EU in 2017, said Johnson's "get Brexit done" approach meant a fresh crisis in 2020 was "virtually inevitable," as there won't be enough time to negotiate a new trade deal.

"It all points to a repetition of exactly the syndrome we have suffered for the last three [years]," Rogers said in a lecture at Glasgow University on Monday evening.

"And a repetition of myopia on which ultimately lands us with a poor and deteriorating relationship on multiple things that really matter, economically and strategically."

He described Johnson's plan as "diplomatic amateurism dressed up domestically as boldness and decisiveness."

Rogers said the prime minister's insistence that he will not extend the transition period despite the risk of severe economic consequences would leave him boxed in when trade talks with the EU get underway.

"In practice, this prime minister is, for all his talk of getting Brexit done, now basically replicating the strategy errors of 2016 and 2017, which brought his predecessor [Theresa May] down," Rogers said.

The former civil servant said the prime minister will likely make "a lot of concessions" in trade talks because a short timetable will give Brussels even more leverage in negotiations.

He said: "Because we are under time pressure and known to be desperate to 'escape vassalage' by the end of 202... the EU side just sees a huge open goal opportunity and repeats its playbook from the Article 50 process."

If the UK leaves the EU on January 31, it'll have just eleven months to negotiate a new trade deal.

However, both sides will also need to ratify the agreement. On the EU side, this means getting it through the European Council, European Parliament, and national and regional parliaments across the EU27 member states.

The EU's negotiations with both the Ukraine and South Korea each took nearly a decade. Its recent negotiation with Canada took nearly eight years, and was briefly held up by a regional parliament in Wallonia, Belgium.

IvanRogers, Britain's former Permanent Representative of the United Kingdom to the European Union, leaves the The Houses of Parliament after giving evidence to a parliamentary sub-committee, in London, Britain February 1, 2017. REUTERS/Neil Hall

Rogers has been a vocal critic of the UK government's handling of Brexit since quitting his position.

Earlier this year, he told Business Insider that there might eventually be a public inquiry into how politicians handled Britain's exit from the EU.

He also rubbished talk of a "clean break" Brexit, and said the UK would be in negotiations for years.

"We are going to be negotiating on everything from aviation to farming for evermore with our biggest neighbour. We cannot live in glorious isolation," he said at a talk earlier this year.

"Talk to the Swiss and to the Norwegians they live in a permanent state of negotiation with the EU."

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Boris Johnson's 'amateurism' risks the 'biggest crisis of Brexit' yet, says the UK's former chief EU diplomat - Business Insider

Ireland is wooing Indian companies that have plans of going global, especially if they are targeting the European Union, to set up operations in the country. With the UK exiting the European Union, Indian companies can use Ireland to tap into the larger European market, according to Brendan Ward, Irelands Ambassador in India.

Not every Indian company would wish to leave the United Kingdom after Brexit. Many of them were established specifically for the British market. But those that have European interests and that are looking at the wider European market, then a location in Ireland might very well make sense. A lot of them are looking at that at the moment. We are in contact with those who we think might benefit from having a presence in Ireland, Ambassador Ward, who assumed office in August, told BusinessLine here.

The Ambassador and his economic team met some Chennai-based companies last week, explaining to them the benefits of establishing a base in Ireland. Around 100 Indian companies already have operations in Ireland, according to Ward.

There is a substantial Indian population 35,000-40,000 in Ireland, accounting for almost 1 per cent of the countrys population. It means that there is a critical mass to allow community events, cultural and social events...slightly better Indian restaurants than we have had in the past, says Ward.

Some of the sectors that are important in Ireland are agriculture and food, pharmaceuticals, ICT, life sciences, financial services, future mobility and technologies such as artificial intelligence. These sectors are important to the Indian economy too and hence there are possibilities of synergies and for exchanges through research initiatives, according to him.

On his meeting with Chennai-based companies, Ward said most of them were quite positively disposed. What we focussed on in the meetings was in advising them of the advantages and how they could benefit if they were going to globalise, if they are looking to have a footprint in Europe, if they are interested in research cooperation, he said.

There are Irish Government agencies, with offices in Mumbai, that can assist Indian companies in setting up operations in the country.

Ireland, Ward said, offers a few advantages which many other European States dont, such as a competitive tax system and a very clear and simple one. Also, somewhat easier labour laws than many other European Union States. Of course, we have high standards for the protection of workers, but some of the measures in other European Union member States make for a very inflexible labour market. We do promote flexibility and a business-friendly atmosphere.

There are over 5,000 Indian students studying in universities and colleges in Ireland. This year, around 2,000 Indian students have gone to study in Ireland and the number is increasing every year.

The education system in Ireland is similar to that in Britain. Ireland, according to the Ambassador, offers students the opportunity of working for two years after they graduate; they can do part-time work even as a student to pay a part of their education expenses.

Besides, there are a lot of research collaborations between Indian companies and Irish universities.

Bilateral trade between Ireland and India was growing at a healthy rate. In 2018, overall trade in goods was about $1 billion, with the balance in Indias favour. However, trade in services was around $3 billion, heavily weighed in Irelands favour. This, the Ambassador said, was not a matter of concern for either of the countries.

Ward said Ireland could do a lot more to attract India film producers looking for exotic locales to choose the country for their films.

This, in turn, would push up tourism from India. Ireland had a fairly vibrant film industry. There was a lot of cooperation in post-production work, especially in special effects, between Indian film producers and Irish companies.

On the long-drawn discussions over a free trade agreement between the EU and India, the Ambassador said the positions of the EU and India were still far apart and work was going on to bridge those gaps, with agriculture being one of the major sticking points. He hoped that there would be significant progress in the discussions before the EU-India summit slated for next year.

We would like to see significant progress on the FTA and use the summit as an opportunity to give it a boost. But the current state of negotiations doesnt indicate that is likely, he added.

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Post Brexit, India can use Ireland as window to EU: Envoy - BusinessLine

Over the past year or so, the European Union has committed a string of strategic blunders in the Western Balkans that have destroyed whatever little influence and credibility it still had.

In June last year, Macedonia agreed to add the qualifier "North" to its name in a bid to end Greece's blockage of membership negotiations with the EU.

But having done what no other country in recent memory has done change its name in order not to offend a more powerful neighbour North Macedonia soon found a new, unexpected obstacle on its EU path: France's president, Emmanuel Macron. France led putting the brakes on opening membership talks in October 2018, despite the Prespa Agreement with Greece.

At a contentious summit of EU leaders in Brussels last month, an ill-tempered Macron strong-armed the EU into yet again postponing the opening of membership talks with North Macedonia and Albania.

This time, he insisted that no membership talks should begin before the EU has reformed the way the talks are conducted, and that no new member should be allowed to join before the EU had undergone a (still amorphous) deep internal reform.

To many in the Balkans, it looked like the EU was slamming the door in their face.

Since then, it has become obvious just how much first-mover advantage matters. Paris is, by default, now steering the EU's overall policy agenda toward the Western Balkans. This seems to be the opening volley and test bed for Macron's goal of recalibrating the entire EU agenda.

And despite early hopes that his election would usher in a reverse wave of progressive policy in the EU, Macron is demonstrating that political liberalism and elite accountability are not central pillars of his EU reform agenda.

France finally presented its ideas about how to reform the accession process in a thin briefing paper in mid-November.

The vacuous ideas outlined in the paper rearranging the current 35 policy chapters into which accession talks are divided into seven stages make it clear that France has no serious proposals to make. The fact that the paper was presented just days before EU ministers were supposed to discuss enlargement, and that as a consequence there was no time for meaningful preparation for that discussion, further underscored the shallowness of the French position.

It became evident that Macron's concern was not with the EU's enlargement policy but with something rather different. Suspicions that this was about seizing a leadership role for France in a post-Brexit EU, with Germany paralysed politically, seemed to be confirmed.

The French brief, as well as various other ill-thought-through ideas making the rounds following France's veto, did not present any fresh insights as to why the accession process in the Western Balkans has failed to be transformative as it was during earlier rounds in central and eastern Europe notwithstanding the fact that since their accession, Hungary and Poland have themselves reversed much of their democratic evolution.

The two-month window within which the largely supine Europe ministers tasked the European Commission to develop a revised enlargement policy, as per Macron's proposal, demonstrated the lack of seriousness and analysis.

We have been vocal for many years about the ways in which the EU's current approach has emboldened and enriched incumbent elites, weakened and alienated civil society, deepened economic inequality and failed to entrench democratic values, institutions, and practices in the region.

Our organisation has also offered practical as well as more philosophical ways in which the enlargement process should or could be reconstituted, notably by relying far less on incumbent elites and instead mobilising existing popular constituencies for reform.

But ditching the current enlargement policy and framework without understanding why it is not working is policy vandalism, not reform.

The full panoply of EU-led Western policies in the Balkans needs critical review before there is a reboot. Such a review must centrally involve independent actors, not just local elites and the EU's bureaucracy.

The lack of depth of analysis and reflection for a policy shift of the magnitude proposed is astounding. It also reverses the meaningful (but still insufficient) strides made toward an honest policy in the European Commission's "new strategy" toward the Western Balkans, unveiled less than two years ago.

The French policy amounts to prescription with only cursory symptomatic diagnostics. The prescription offered amounts to hospice care.

First, the French proposal as were many earlier unofficial proposals is overwhelmingly focused on economics. Flip-flopping between a political and economic focus has long been the EU's response to failing policies in the Balkans, while ignoring the reasons for such failures: all rooted in a lack of insistence on political accountability and direct civic engagement based on EU foundational values.

But this is particularly remarkable following the EU's belated recognition of state capture being a widespread phenomenon among candidate and aspirant countries.

These countries' politics have always revolved around dominating the economic sphere, formal and informal. Tellingly, the terms "state capture" and "corruption" are absent from the French proposal.

Perhaps most importantly, the proposal makes no mention of liberal values, freedoms, democracy, or political accountability. Advocates of these foundational concepts in the Western Balkans will find themselves on even shakier ground should the French proposal or a derivative thereof be adopted as the EU's policy.

The EU has long since largely accepted and often reinforced the dominance of a for-profit, illiberal political class, who are still allegedly "partners" in reform. Therefore, the proposal's lament of a lack of transformation rings hollow. When did the EU ever make transformation its overarching priority?

Increased transfusions of money are offered as social sedatives, easing the pain of exclusion for the foreseeable future from the EU.

The linking of increased "concrete benefits" with their stated goal to "prevent migratory movements" is revelatory of the mindset with which Macron's team developed this vision. What is desired is nothing less than a 'cordon sanitaire'. The policy might be summarised as 'containment with benefits' for the political elites of the Western Balkans.

Further, the relegation of foreign affairs to the sixth stage or circle is stunningly incongruent with the geopolitical angst long evident in Paris and other EU capitals.

It contradicts the current (weak) policy of "gradual alignment," implying that the EU should indulge the deeper rooting of illiberal actors in the political economies of the region. It also, cynically, might be viewed as consigning these countries to the permanent periphery, given the depth that Russia, China, Turkey, and the Gulf States may have woven themselves into the region after the first five stages.

Sadly, many in the region and concerned with it seem intent on finding a bright side in France's vision, out of desperation. But there is none.

Should these policies be adopted, citizens of these countries will be right to view the EU and other foreign actors in the same vein self-seeking parts of the problem, rather than part of the solution and align nonviolently against them all accordingly.

Should some EU member states cringe at such a prospect, as they should, they missed a good opportunity to speak up. They have precious little time left to do so.

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Macron's Balkan cordon sanitaire will backfire on EU - EUobserver