SEOUL (Reuters) – South Korea’s trade minister Kim Hyun-chong said on Friday the United States may demand that Seoul guarantees it will step up arms purchases and imports of U.S. shale gas if the two countries renegotiate a free trade agreement. The comments, made at the parliament, came as Seoul indicted last week that it

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – White House chief of staff John Kelly slapped down rumors that he was about to resign or be fired and said on Thursday his push to bring more order to the West Wing does not extend to controlling President Donald Trump or his social media habits. In a rare appearance before reporters,

NEW YORK/WASHINGTON (Reuters) – A Democratic U.S. congressman is asking the Energy Department’s watchdog to investigate Energy Secretary Rick Perry’s travel on chartered aircraft, the congressman said at a hearing on Capitol Hill on Thursday. U.S. Representative Frank Pallone said Perry’s trips on chartered planes need scrutiny in light of the “extreme” budget cuts the

(Reuters) – U.S. President Donald Trump’s expected plan to let Americans buy insurance across state lines could violate federal law governing employee benefit plans and will almost certainly be challenged in court, several legal experts said. Trump said on Tuesday he would likely sign an executive order this week allowing people to cross state lines

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The U.S. federal government is working on a long-term plan to help Puerto Rico rebuild after Hurricane Maria tore up the island territory’s power grid and other infrastructure three weeks ago, an administration official said on Wednesday. The U.S. House of Representatives is set to vote on Thursday on a disaster relief

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The Trump administration is nearing completion of new “Buy American” rules to make it easier to sell U.S.-made military drones overseas and compete against fast-growing Chinese and Israeli rivals, senior U.S. officials said. While President Donald Trump’s aides work on relaxing domestic regulations on drone sales to select allies, Washington will also

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Contentious new U.S. demands are set to hit NAFTA negotiating tables on Wednesday, threatening to push modernization talks toward collapse as Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau again tries to remind U.S. President Donald Trump of the trade pact’s merits. Trudeau will meet with Trump and trade-focused U.S. lawmakers on the North American

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – NFL team owners will consider requiring football players to stand for the U.S. national anthem after President Donald Trump on Tuesday suggested using tax laws to penalize the league for players who kneel in protest of racial injustice. Trump, a Republican, escalated his feud with the National Football League in a Twitter

ANKARA (Reuters) – President Tayyip Erdogan blamed the U.S. ambassador to Turkey on Tuesday for a diplomatic crisis between the two countries and said Ankara no longer considered him Washington’s envoy. In a blunt and personal attack on outgoing ambassador John Bass, Erdogan suggested Bass acted unilaterally in suspending visa services in Turkey after the

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – While Democrats and immigration advocates recoiled at hard-line immigration proposals unveiled this week by the White House, they see a chance to force Republicans’ hand on legislation to help young “Dreamers” brought to the country illegally as children. Their focus? A spending bill that Congress will need to pass in December in

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – A public feud between U.S. President Donald Trump and Senate Republican maverick Bob Corker could narrow the path for tax reform in the U.S. Senate, where a Republican go-it-alone effort is already showing signs of disunity. Days after the Republican-controlled Congress took two important steps toward advancing tax legislation, a Trump-Corker shouting

ANKARA (Reuters) – Turkey urged the United States on Monday to review its suspension of visa services after the arrest of a U.S. consulate employee sharply escalated tensions between the two NATO allies and drove Turkey’s currency and stocks lower. Relations between Ankara and Washington have long been plagued by disputes over U.S. support for

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. Vice President Mike Pence walked out of a National Football League game on Sunday after some players knelt during the national anthem, a form of demonstration that began last year in silent protest against police violence toward racial minorities. Pence was attending a game in his home state of Indiana between

ANKARA (Reuters) – The U.S. mission in Turkey and subsequently Turkish mission in Washington mutually reduced visa services after a U.S. mission employee was detained in Turkey last week, saying they needed to reassess each other’s commitment to the security of their personnel. Last week, a U.S. consulate employee in Istanbul was arrested on charges

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. President Donald Trump said on Saturday he would be open to cutting a one-year or two-year deal with Democratic rivals as a way to kick-start reform of the nation’s healthcare system, a key campaign pledge made by Trump and the Republican Party. Republicans fell short several times this year in their

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. President Donald Trump said on Saturday he had a good relationship with Secretary of State Rex Tillerson but that Tillerson could be tougher. Trump, who made the comment to reporters at the White House, did not elaborate. NBC reported this week that in a session with Trump’s national security team and

WASHINGTON/NEW YORK (Reuters) – President Donald Trump’s administration on Friday undermined requirements under the Obamacare law that employers provide insurance to cover women’s birth control, keeping a campaign pledge that pleased his conservative Christian supporters. New rules from the Department of Health and Human Services will let businesses or non-profit organizations lodge religious or moral

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The U.S. Treasury on Friday unveiled a blueprint for sweeping reforms of the U.S. capital markets as it looks to implement Republican President Donald Trump’s agenda to promote economic growth by slashing red tape. The report recommends a raft of measures to encourage companies to seek public listings, to promote company access

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s watchdog is expanding a review of administrator Scott Pruitt’s frequent travels to his home state Oklahoma to include more recent trips taken on military and charter flights, according to a memo seen on Friday. The Office of Inspector General had been investigating the “frequency, cost and extent”

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – President Donald Trump declined on Friday to explain what he meant when he described a gathering of military leaders as “the calm before the storm,” but the White House said he was not just being mischievous when he made the remark. Pressed about what he meant by Thursday’s comment, the U.S. leader

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Disagreement among U.S. congressional Republicans is already swirling around a tax cut plan unveiled days ago by President Donald Trump, with disputes over proposals to repeal a deduction for state and local tax payments and repeal the tax on inheritances. The discord showed the difficulty of overhauling the complex U.S. tax code,

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – After discussing Iran and North Korea with U.S. military leaders on Thursday, President Donald Trump posed for a photo with them before dinner and declared the moment “the calm before the storm.” “You guys know what this represents?” Trump said after journalists gathered in the White House state dining room to photograph

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Congressional Republicans moved to hasten an overhaul of the U.S. tax code on Thursday, while Federal Reserve officials warned in rare public remarks that President Donald Trump’s tax plan could lead to inflation and unsustainable federal debt. In a procedural step forward, the Republican-controlled U.S. House of Representatives approved by a 219-206

NEW YORK (Reuters) – U.S. Energy Secretary Rick Perry took a chartered jet to Ohio last week, according to an airport management company, the day before fellow Cabinet member Tom Price resigned over his use of private charter flights for government business. Perry took the private plane from Hazleton Regional Airport in Pennsylvania to the

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said on Wednesday he had never considered resigning and was committed to President Donald Trump’s agenda, but failed to address whether he had referred to the president as a “moron,” as NBC reported. The State Department later denied he had even used the word, an issue

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The head of a private investment firm came one step closer to leading the Federal Reserve’s regulatory efforts Wednesday, a key post as President Donald Trump endeavors to trim regulations to boost economic growth. The U.S. Senate voted 62-33 to limit debate on Randal Quarles’ nomination to join the Fed’s Board of

Clyde, Ohio (Reuters) – In the middle of Whirlpool Corp’s bustling washer factory in northern Ohio there is an empty patch of concrete floor – a reminder of a $60 million expansion plan the appliance maker says fell victim to unfair foreign competition. “We cleared that out to hold more plastic molding machines,” says Daniel

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The U.S. Justice Department said on Tuesday it tapped Robert Patterson, a career investigator, to temporarily lead the Drug Enforcement Administration, after the drug office’s previous acting chief stepped down. Patterson, considered the highest-ranking special career agent at the DEA, has been serving as the agency’s principal deputy administrator since November 2016.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Supreme Court justices clashed on Tuesday over whether courts should curb the long-standing U.S. political practice of drawing electoral maps to entrench one party in power, with conservative Anthony Kennedy likely to cast the deciding vote. The nine justices heard an hour of arguments in the major voting rights case out of

NEW YORK (Reuters) – Americans are increasingly confident in the news media and less so in President Donald Trump’s administration after a tumultuous year in U.S. politics that tested the public’s trust in both institutions, according to a Reuters/Ipsos opinion poll released on Tuesday. The poll of more than 14,300 people found that the percentage