Day: September 2, 2019

An environmental spat between France and Brazil, rolling in questions about integrity, colonialism and Bic pens, shows signs of deepening with calls by dozens of French lawmakers and environmental groups to slap trade sanctions on Brazilian beef and soybeans. 

In a petition published Sunday in France’s weekly Le Journal du Dimanche, the group also called on the European Union to suspend a recently agreed Mercosur trade deal with South America and take broader steps barring products issued from deforestation and other environmentally harmful activities from entering the European market.

“What is lacking is political will” in France and elsewhere in Europe in ensuring green commerce, wrote the group of signatories, who included members of French President Emmanuel Macron’s La Republique en Marche (LREM) party.

While opposition to trade pacts is nothing new, the backlash to Mercosur comes at a time when other trade spats, including between the U.S. and China and Japan and South Korea, are also making headlines. And, some analysts say, it reflects growing alarm of ordinary Europeans about the social and environmental impacts of trade deals that is resonating among their leaders. 

“Europeans are very concerned about climate and human rights, and the Bolsonaro administration’s policies are going in all the wrong directions,” said Uri Dadush, senior fellow at Brussels-based economic think-tank Bruegel, referring to Brazilian leader Jair Bolsonaro. “That’s a different dimension from the trade agreement, but the two are becoming linked.” 

G-7 and wildfires

The citizen pushback adds kindling to a diplomatic dispute that ignited last month when G-7 host Macron added Amazon wildfires to the summit’s agenda, claiming their environmental impact was of global concern. The move, along with Macron’s threat to block the Mercosur trade deal over Amazon inaction, spiraled into trans-Atlantic barbs, ranging from Bolsonaro’s accusations of colonialism and an apparent slur targeting Macron’s wife, to claims the Brazilian leader lied over climate change promises. 

More recently, Bolsonaro — who conditioned accepting some $20 million in G-7 aid to fight Amazon fires to Macron’s apologizing for calling him rude — announced he would stop using French Bics, although the pens sold in Brazil are manufactured locally.

Beyond the mud slinging, however, environmentalists hope the wildfires will nudge European leaders into a bigger rethink of Mercosur. 

“We saw Europe was inclined to sign the treaty,” said Adelie Favrel, forest specialist for NGO France Nature Environnement, one of the signatories of the Amazon petition. “If deforestation had not become center stage, with the media talking about it, these environmental concerns might not have been raised.”

She and others are demanding France enforce a two-year-old law requiring companies to mitigate the environmental and human rights consequences of their actions — such as importing soybeans that may contribute to the Amazon’s deforestation — and that EU countries adopt similar legislation. 

A separate French petition to boycott companies supporting Bolsonaro’s government has recently collected nearly 2,000 signatories. More broadly, a number of U.S. and European countries have paused or reconsidered financial deals with Brazil over the Amazon fires, Britain’s Guardian newspaper reports. 

Mercosur trade agreement 

Still Europe is divided over linking the Mercosur pact to Amazon action. Along with France, Luxembourg and Ireland have similarly threatened to block it. But powerhouse Germany counts among other EU members opposed to such a move. 

“We’re not going to attack the climate challenge by refusing to do trade,” European Trade Commissioner Cecilia Malmstrom told Le Monde newspaper. 

Macron initially gave a thumbs up to the Mercosur trade agreement signed in June between the EU and four South American nations after years of talks. But the good will vanished with the Amazon fires, as the French leader accused Bolsonaro of “lying” over climate change promises made just weeks before.

The French president has earned kudos overseas for spearheading a green agenda, including his iconic “Make the Planet Great Again” twist to the Trump administration’s America-first agenda. But at home, critics claim Macron has failed to match rhetoric with deeds. His popular environment minister Nicolas Hulot quit a year ago, citing lack of progress on climate and other green goals. 

“Macron’s talked a lot about being an environmental champion, but we haven’t seen any action,” said environmentalist Favrel. “If the EU ultimately signs Mercosur without any concrete changes, it will be the same as what’s happened in France.” 

Dadush of Bruegel thinks Mercosur faces challenges for other reasons. Other powerful interest groups, including European farmers, are against the deal. Brazil has threatened to pull out of Mercosur if Argentina’s opposition wins next month’s presidential elections.  

“The agreement overall is under significant risk,” he said, “and the fires in the Amazon do not help at all.” 

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The Lebanon-Israel border was mostly calm with U.N. peacekeepers patrolling the border Monday, a day after the Lebanese militant Hezbollah group fired a barrage of anti-tank missiles into Israel in response to earlier attacks, triggering Israeli artillery fire.

The missile attack into Israel on Sunday did not inflict any casualties on the Israeli side. It came after Hezbollah vowed to retaliate for an Israeli airstrike that killed two Hezbollah operatives in Syria and an Israeli drone strike on the group’s stronghold south of Beirut in late August.  

No one was hurt by the Israeli artillery fire, which lasted about two hours and hit fields near the border village of Maroun el-Ras and the nearby village of Yaroun.

“The message is clear. If you launch an aggression, then all your border, soldiers and deep inside [Israel] will be part of our retaliation,” Hezbollah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah said in a speech Monday night.

He said that in the future the group could strike anywhere along the border, and would shoot down any Israeli drones that enter Lebanese airspace.

Hezbollah has for years limited its cross-border attacks to an area known as Chebaa Farms, which Israel captured from Syria in 1967 and which Lebanon claims. 
 
In 2006, a Hezbollah attack on Israel that targeted an area outside Chebaa Farms ended up triggering a monthlong war that killed hundreds of people. Despite their deep hostility, the two sides have largely refrained from direct fighting for the past 13 years.

Israel withdrew from southern Lebanon in 2000, ending an 18-year occupation.

In Maroun el-Ras, residents inspected their tobacco and olive fields early Monday, some of which were burned by the Israeli fire. 
 
Shortly before noon, a foot patrol of U.N. peacekeepers was seen near the border fence, searching the sides of a road with metal detectors apparently to make sure there were no unexploded shells. A U.N. helicopter flew overhead while an armored personnel carrier followed the peacekeepers. 
 
Ahmad Alawiyeh, a 45-year-old merchant, was in the village with his son and daughter standing in an area overlooking his plot of land close to the fence. His field didn’t sustain much damage as he hadn’t planted tobacco or olive trees like the two adjacent, burnt plots. 
 
“This is a victory and pride for us,” he said, referring to Hezbollah’s attack on Israel. Alawiyeh has been living between his hometown and Beirut since the Israeli withdrawal from southern Lebanon.

On the Israeli side of the border, civilian cars were seen from a distance driving through a village. 
 

On Sunday, Israel’s military chief, Lt. Gen. Aviv Kohavi, met with the commander of the U.N. peacekeeping force, Maj. Gen. Stefano Del Col. 
 
“We will not accept neither attacks on our civilians or soldiers,” Kohavi said, adding that the Lebanese government and the U.N. peacekeepers “must bring Iran and Hezbollah’s precision guided missile manufacturing project to its end.”

The Israeli army believes that Iran and Hezbollah are racing to establish missile-production factories in Lebanon — a claim that Hezbollah denies.

Israel’s foreign minister, Israel Katz, said that he spoke to his German counterpart, Heiko Maas, and asked him to relay a message to Beirut. Katz’s office said he made clear that Israel has no desire to escalate the situation, but that Israel is prepared to respond intensely to any attack, and would hold Lebanon responsible.

“If you don’t block Hezbollah’s activity against Israel, all of Lebanon will be hit and severely harmed,” Katz said.

Maroun el-Ras witnessed some of the most intense battles between Israeli troops and Hezbollah fighters during the 34-day war they fought in 2006.

Lebanese Prime Minister Saad Hariri on Sunday talked with U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and also an adviser to French President Emmanuel Macron, urging the international community to calm the situation.

Israel considers Iran to be its greatest enemy, and Iran-backed Hezbollah to be its most immediate military threat. Hezbollah has a battle-tested army that has been fighting alongside the forces of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad in Syria’s civil war, and it is believed to possess an arsenal of some 130,000 missiles and rockets.

Throughout the Syrian war, Israel has acknowledged carrying out scores of airstrikes in Syria aimed at preventing alleged Iranian arms transfers to Hezbollah. But in recent weeks, Israel is believed to have widened its campaign and struck Iranian or Hezbollah targets in Iraq and Lebanon as well.

…

Nigeria’s multiple security problems have created a crisis that requires urgent attention and could lead to instability in other African countries if it is not addressed, a United Nations rapporteur said Monday.

Security forces in Africa’s most populous country are trying to tackle a decade-long Islamist insurgency in the northeast, banditry in the northwest and bloody clashes between nomadic herdsmen and farming communities over dwindling arable land in central states.

Agnes Callamard, the U.N. special rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions, said Nigeria was a “pressure cooker of internal conflict.”

“The overall situation I have found is one of extreme concern,” she told a news conference in the capital, Abuja, where she presented her preliminary findings following a 12-day visit to the country.

Callamard said the police and military had shown an excessive use of lethal force across the West African country which, combined with a lack of effective investigations and meaningful prosecution, caused a lack of accountability.

She said the country required changes in the judiciary, police and military to stop people resorting to violence in the absence of justice.

“The lack of accountability is on such a scale that pretending this is nothing short of a crisis will be a major mistake. If ignored, its ripple effect will spread in the sub-region given the country’s important role in the continent,” she said.

Spokesman for the ministries of justice, military and police did not respond to a Reuters request for comment on Callamard’s findings.

MIlitant groups

The Islamist insurgency waged by Boko Haram began in northeast Nigeria in 2009 but has spread to parts of neighboring Cameroon, Chad and Niger where members of the group and militants allied to Islamic State carry out attacks.

The rapporteur also condemned what she said was the “arbitrary deprivation of life” and the excessive use of lethal force in the case of processions held by banned Shi’ite Muslim group the Islamic Movement in Nigeria.

Callamard said the move to ban the group appeared be based on what the authorities thought IMN could become rather than its actions. She said she had not been presented with any evidence to suggest the group was weaponized and posed a threat to the country.

…

Joyce Sasser was born in 1970 with no bones in her thumbs. Her doctors blamed thalidomide, a drug used to treat pregnant women experiencing morning sickness, until it was found to cause congenital abnormalities. 

Sasser said her mother swore up and down she’d never taken thalidomide; the two risks she felt she’d taken were much, much milder. “She said ‘if two aspirin or half a glass of champagne could have done it, I am responsible, but I didn’t take thalidomide,’” Sasser said.  

Sasser says despite that denial, doctors continued to believe their theory and implemented treatments accordingly – including one that permanently stunted her arms.

It wasn’t until Sasser was 20 and pregnant with her first daughter that doctors found the real reason for her abnormalities: Diamond-Blackfan anemia, a congenital issue in which the bone marrow fails to make enough red blood cells. As her mother had insisted for years, it had nothing to do with thalidomide.

Sasser’s mom’s experience – and the medical decisions she allowed, despite her protestations that the doctors had it wrong – are still all too common, even a half-century later. Sasser has learned over time how to manage the multiple medical difficulties that come with her condition, and, informed by her mother’s experience, she has learned to speak her mind about her medical treatment.

Empathy gap

Doctors hold a revered position in American culture. But studies are showing that excellence of care often can depend on how much a doctor empathizes with his patient, and the medical field in the U.S. is still overwhelmingly dominated by white men.

A 2008 study of nearly 1,000 patients in an urban emergency room found that women waited an average of 16 minutes longer than men to get medication when reporting abdominal pain. They were also less likely to receive it. 

A study published in 2000 by The New England Journal of Medicine found that because women’s cardiac symptoms differ sharply from men’s, women are seven times more likely than men to be misdiagnosed and discharged from the hospital during a heart attack.

“I was in the ER with stereotypical heart attack symptoms,” wrote Nicki Coast Schneider, who participates in a Facebook group for female heart attack survivors. “The ER doctor was in disbelief and brushed me off, but took my troponin (protein used in diagnosis of heart attack) level anyway. It came back elevated, he ordered another test. That one came back higher. He said the machine must be damaged so he tested his own troponin level. His came back normal. I was immediately admitted.”

Schneider said the doctor later admitted he might have sent her home if the emergency room had been busier. As it was, she said, he ended up thanking her for the lesson.  

“He was young and I assume right out of med school,” she said.

According to a 2014 online survey of more than 2,400 U.S. women with a variety of chronic pain conditions, nearly half had been told that the pain was all in their heads. A full 91% felt that the health-care system discriminates against female patients. 

 A diagnosis of depression or anxiety can further damage credibility. 

Martha Blodgett is a heart attack survivor. She is also on medication for bipolar disease. “As soon as doctors find out I’m bi-polar, I’m written off,” she said. “I actually had a neurologist walk out on me without saying a word.”

“They don’t listen,” said Lori McElhaney, whose doctor prescribed her antidepressants for a year, despite a diagnosis of hypothyroidism — a problem that requires an entirely different type of medication. McElhaney recently changed doctors. Her new doctor, a woman, “did more for me in one visit than he [her former doctor] did in over a year,” she said.

Hypochondria stereotype

Medical journalist Maya Dusenberg, whose book “Doing Harm: The Truth About How Bad Medicine and Lazy Science Leave Women Dismissed, Misdiagnosed, and Sick” outlines the ways sexism in medicine is destructive to women’s health, said doctors sometimes take women less seriously than men, adhering to a centuries-old stereotype of women as more apt to complain.

Looking at studies comparing treatment of men to treatment of women, Dusenberg said, “I didn’t understand why so many women were being treated as hypochondriacs when I didn’t know any women who were hypochondriacs.” 

She also describes how diseases that are common to women often get less research funding than diseases that affect men – no surprise, given that most decision-makers in medical schools are men. As a result, she says, maladies seen as “women’s diseases” don’t get as much academic attention.

Another author, Abby Norman, wrote “Ask Me About My Uterus: A Quest to Make Doctors Believe in Women’s Pain” of her struggle to get diagnosed and treated for endometriosis – a disease that almost exclusively affects women. Norman’s struggle was particularly rife with difficulties, as her severe problems set in during college and she did not have a supportive family to help her get treatment.

As her struggle to manage her illness continues, Norman is deeply aware of the complexities of securing and providing unbiased care. 

Noting that not just women, but also people of color, children, and the elderly are often forced to settle for subpar medical care because of a doctor’s unconscious bias, Norman speaks of “layers of privilege” that influence how a patient is treated.

Of her own medical struggle, she told VOA, “there were certainly people in my peer group who would have had better access [to care], whether it be because they had family members that could support them or . . . were just in a better financial situation. 

But then there also were people around me who had far, far less access, either because of their race, or their gender identity, or . . . any number of things.”

A study done at the University of Tennessee-Chattanooga in 2007 found that doctors tend to underestimate pain in patients they do not identify closely with – which, in an industry dominated by white men, translates to women, people of color, and children and the elderly. Strikingly, the study found that physicians were twice as likely to underestimate pain in black patients compared to all other ethnicities combined. 

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control says black women are twice as likely to have strokes as white women, and are much less likely to survive them. Patient advocates say the lack of empathy that causes doctors to underestimate pain levels can also result in lower-quality care, allowing for more strokes and fewer good outcomes.

Liz Zubritsky, a science writer based in Virginia, says her mother once had to return to a Massachusetts emergency room three times in one night while trying to get care for her own mother (Zubritsky’s grandmother), who had flu-like symptoms and was running a fever of 37 degrees Celcius (100 degrees Fahrenheit) – low by standard levels, but high for Zubritsky’s grandmother. Doctors sent the women home twice, saying the fever was not high enough to warrant admission.  Zubritsky says it was not until a male relative, an oral surgeon, called to intervene, that Zubritsky’s grandmother was allowed a bed at the hospital. 

What was frustrating, Zubritsky said, is that “she felt like she was being dismissed as making too much out of something that was pretty minor . . . . The doctor was not willing to take my mother’s word for it that it was very unusual for her to have a fever of 100 degrees.” 

Persistence pays

While writers like Norman and Dusenberg are anxious not to paint medical providers as evil or uncaring, the faults in the medical care system have made it clear that getting good care sometimes takes extra work.  

Sasser says: “Be your own advocate.” Having survived several types of cancer and other medical conditions related to her Diamond-Blackfan anemia, Sasser has a notebook in which she compiles all information related to her treatment, so she can save time during appointments by showing doctors the appropriate records. 

Zubritsky says she once researched and compiled a Venn diagram (a series of interlocking shapes) of her father’s medications to prove to a doctor that his discomfort was likely caused by a drug interaction.  

Norman did her own medical research to convince a doctor her appendix was inflamed, a condition he had missed. The resulting operation relieved her of years of pain.

Dusenberg says when seeking medical help, be persistent – even if a doctor tells you it’s all in your head. “Don’t be afraid to seek out a second opinion, or as many as it takes,” she says. “Trust that you know something’s wrong. You know what’s normal for your body.”

Lastly, it’s helpful to take a friend or relative along to the doctor – for moral support, asking questions, taking notes, or even just verifying the patient’s experience. Dusenberg notes that it can be helpful to tell a doctor what the illness is preventing the patient from doing, not just how it makes them feel. 

Dusenberg also notes that while one can get better medical care by being a more assertive patient, the solution to the problem is not for every patient to become a super-patient or resign themselves to subpar care. 

“So much of what we’re doing is asking individual women to compensate for the failings of the system,” she said. “We shouldn’t rely on that individual self-advocacy. The system should be better for everybody.”

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The center of Hurricane Dorian is making its way across Grand Bahama Island with a life-threatening storm surge, drenching rains and what forecasters called “catastrophic” winds.

Dorian presents extra danger to the island because of its slow speed, moving westward at only 9 kilometers per hour early Monday.  

The U.S. National Hurricane Center said the storm could drop 30 to 60 centimeters of rain across the northwestern Bahamas, with 75 centimeters in isolated areas.

Bahamas Prime Minister Hubert Minnis said Sunday was “the worst day of my life” as the storm pummeled the islands with top sustained winds of 295 kilometers per hour.

“Many had not heeded the warning. Many have remained behind and still there are individuals within the West End area who still refuse to leave,” he said at a Nassau news conference. “I can only say to them that I hope this is not the last time they will hear my voice.”

Officials in states along the southeastern U.S. coast have issued their own warnings and ordered people to evacuate the most vulnerable areas.  Evacuation orders go into effect Monday in Florida, Georgia and South Carolina.

“Hurricane Dorian is the strongest storm to ever threaten the state of Florida on the East Coast,” said Florida Division of Emergency Management Director Jared Moskowitz. “No matter what path this storm takes, our state will be impacted. We will continue to work around the clock to prepare.”

The NHC expects the storm to take a turn to the northeast in the coming days, but how much it turns and how quickly will determine the extent of Dorian’s effects.  For now, forecasters have put hurricane warnings in place for about half of Florida’s coast with the storm expected to bring hurricane conditions there by late Monday through Tuesday.

U.S. President Donald Trump canceled a trip to Poland to stay home to monitor the storm. He visited Federal Emergency Management Agency headquarters Sunday, urging everyone in “Hurricane Dorian’s path to heed all warnings and evacuation orders from local authorities.”

Forecasters predict Dorian will affect much of the Atlantic Coast throughout the week, from Georgia, the Carolinas, and Virginia. Areas as far north as the tip of New Jersey could experience heavy rain and tropical force winds by Friday.

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Former state Sen. Bill Larkin, a World War II veteran who served as a state lawmaker in New York for four decades, died Saturday. He was 91. 

His family announced the death Sunday, calling Larkin a “dedicated public servant, soldier and statesman.” 

Larkin represented a stretch of the Hudson Valley as an assemblyman from 1979 to 1990 and then as a state senator until his retirement last year. 

A Republican, he was known for forging bipartisan friendships in Albany and advancing veterans’ causes and health care for infants.   

“He lived a storied and authentically American life,” Dutchess County Executive Marc Molinaro said in a statement. 

 William J. “Bill” Larkin Jr. was born in Troy, New York, and was raised by his aunt and uncle. He thought he was 18 when, while still in high school, he enlisted in the Army in 1944.  

It wasn’t until years later that he discovered he was born in 1928, not 1926, as he had always believed.

“I wasn’t upset,” Larkin recalled last year. “I was in the armed forces. I met with people who cared about our country, and I was very proud.”

Larkin served in the Pacific during WWII, where he saw combat in the Philippines, and also later fought in the Korean War, where he had to be evacuated in early 1951 after suffering severe frostbite to his feet. 

 After retiring from the Army as a lieutenant colonel in 1967, Larkin entered politics by getting elected supervisor of the town of New Windsor, near West Point. He was first elected to the state Assembly in 1978. 

Larkin is survived by his wife, eight children, 17 grandchildren and two great-grandchildren.  

…

Wall Street stock futures weakened in early trade on Monday, setting a dour tone for Asian markets after tit-for-tat tariffs between the United States and China took effect, reinforcing investors’ gloomy expectations for global growth prospects.

The E-mini futures for U.S. S&P500 ESc1 fell as much as 1.06% in early trade and last stood down 0.68% at 2,905 while Chicago-traded Nikkei futures NIYcm1 suggest Japan’s Nikkei .N225 is on course to fall 0.7%.

MSCI’s broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan .MIAPJ0000PUS, which lost 4.7% last month, is likely to stay under pressure.

The United States slapped 15% tariffs on a variety of Chinese goods on Sunday – including footwear, smart watches and flat-panel televisions – while China imposed new duties on U.S. crude, the latest escalation in a bruising trade war.

In EscalatingTrade war, US Consumers May See Higher Prices

In China, authorities began charging higher duties on American imports at midday Sunday

A variety of studies suggest the tariffs will cost U.S. households up to $1,000 a year and the latest round will hit a significant number of U.S. consumer goods.

In retaliation, China started to impose additional tariffs on some of the U.S. goods on a $75 billion target list. Beijing did not specify the value of the goods that face higher tariffs from Sunday.

Many market players say the market’s reaction was likely exaggerated by algorithm-driven players’ flows in thin trading conditions at start of Asian trade on Monday.

Liquidity could be even more limited than usual because of a U.S. market holiday on Monday.

“(The market move) goes to show you how many data mining algos are involved with equity linked compared to forex-linked. Was anyone surprised by these tariffs that took effect yesterday?” said Takeo Kamai, head of execution at CLSA in Tokyo.

Trade War Sowing Seeds of Doubt With US Farmers

The typical routines of life on a family farm carry a heavier burden these days for Pam Johnson.

“First thing I do is make a pot of coffee,” she told VOA in an interview in one of the cavernous sheds that contain her green and yellow John Deere farming equipment. Once she has that coffee, she “(goes) to the computer and look at what grain prices have done overnight and usually do a gut clutch, because they’ve been going down. They’re at five-month lows.”

Driven there in part by retaliatory tariffs imposed by one of the largest importers of U.S.

Despite the volatility, the moves lower reflect investors’ underlying worries about increasing costs of Sino-U.S. trade war on the global economy.

An official survey published on Saturday showed factory activity in China shrank in August for the fourth month in a row, further evidence of hit to the world’s second-largest economy from trade war.

Tension is also running high in Hong Kong, with police and protesters clashing in some of the most intense violence since unrest erupted more than three months ago over concerns Beijing is undermining democratic freedoms in the territory.

Thousands of protesters blocked roads and public transport links to Hong Kong airport and police made several arrests after demonstrators smashed CCTV cameras and lamps with metal poles and dismantled station turnstiles.

China, eager to quell the unrest before the 70th anniversary of the founding of the People’s Republic of China on Oct. 1, has accused foreign powers, particularly the United States and Britain, of fomenting the unrest.

Oil prices also fell in early Monday trade.

Brent crude LCOc1 futures fell 0.68% to $58.85 a barrel while U.S. West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude CLc1 lost 0.54% to $54.80 per barrel.

The currency market was calmer for now, with the dollar down slightly against the yen at 106.12 yen JPY=, down 0.13% from late U.S. levels.

The euro stood almost flat at $1.09905 EUR=, not far from two-year low of $1.0963 hit in U.S. trade on Friday.

…

The United States and China on Sunday put in place their latest tariff increases on each other’s goods, potentially raising prices Americans pay for some clothes, shoes, sporting goods and other consumer items before the holiday shopping season.

President Donald Trump said U.S.-China trade talks were still on for September. “We’ll see what happens,” he told reporters as he returned to the White House from the Camp David presidential retreat. “But we can’t allow China to rip us off anymore as a country.”

The 15% U.S. taxes apply to about $112 billion of Chinese imports. All told, more than two-thirds of the consumer goods the United States imports from China now face higher taxes. The administration had largely avoided hitting consumer items in its earlier rounds of tariff increases.

But with prices of many retail goods now likely to rise, the Trump administration’s move threatens the U.S. economy’s main driver: consumer spending. As businesses pull back on investment spending and exports slow in the face of weak global growth, American shoppers have been a key bright spot for the economy.

“We have got a great economy,” said Sen. Pat Toomey, R-Pa. “But I do think that the uncertainty caused by volatile tariff situation and this developing trade war could jeopardize that strength, and that growth, and that is I think that’s a legitimate concern,” he told ABC’s “This Week.”

As a result of Trump’s higher tariffs, many U.S. companies have warned that they will be forced to pass on to their customers the higher prices they will pay on Chinese imports. Some businesses, though, may decide in the end to absorb the higher costs rather than raise prices for their customers.

In China, authorities began charging higher duties on American imports at midday Sunday, according to employees who answered the phone at customs offices in Beijing and the southern port of Guangzhou. They declined to give their names.

Tariffs of 10% and 5% apply to items ranging from frozen sweet corn and pork liver to marble and bicycle tires, the government announced earlier.

After Sunday’s move, 87% of textiles and clothing the United States buys from China and 52% of shoes will be subject to import taxes.

On Dec. 15, the Trump administration is scheduled to impose a second round of 15% tariffs — this time on roughly $160 billion of imports. If those duties take effect, virtually all goods imported from China will be covered.

The Chinese government has released a list of American imports targeted for penalties on Dec. 15 if the U.S. tariff hikes take effect. In total, Beijing says Sunday’s penalties and the planned December increases will apply to $75 billion of American goods.

Washington and Beijing are locked in a war over U.S. complaints that China steals U.S. trade secrets and unfairly subsidizes its own companies in its drive to develop global competitors in such high-tech industries as artificial intelligence and electric cars.

“I give the president credit for challenging China on some of its really egregious behavior” on intellectual property and technology transfers, for example, Toomey said. He said he hopes that’s what Trump’s focus is, “not just the fact that Chinese clothing and shoes are popular among consumers. That’s not the problem.”

If China changes its behavior “in a meaningful way in that area … then we will have ended up in a better place. That’s what I’m hoping for. But let’s be honest. In the meantime, we’re doing damage. It’s a double-edged sword,” he said.

To try to force Beijing to reform its trade practices, the Trump administration has imposed import taxes on billions of dollars’ worth of Chinese imports, and China has retaliated with tariffs on U.S. exports.

“It’s a good thing taking on China. Unfortunately, he’s done it the wrong way,” said AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka said on “Fox News Sunday.”

“To take on China there has to be a multilateral approach. One country can’t take on China to try to dry up its overcapacity because they just send it through to you in other ways,” he said.

Trump has insisted that China itself pays the tariffs. But in fact, economic research has concluded that the costs of the duties fall on U.S. businesses and consumers. Trump had indirectly acknowledged the tariffs’ impact by delaying some of the duties until Dec. 15, after holiday goods are already on store shelves.

A study by J.P. Morgan found that Trump’s tariffs will cost the average U.S. household $1,000 a year. That study was done before Trump raised the Sept. 1 and Dec. 15 tariffs to 15% from 10%.

The president has also announced that existing 25% tariffs on a separate group of $250 billion of Chinese imports will increase to 30% on Oct. 1.

That cost could weaken an already slowing U.S. economy. Though consumer spending grew last quarter at its fastest pace in five years, the overall economy expanded at just a modest 2% annual rate, down from a 3.1% rate in the first three months of the year.

The economy is widely expected to slow further in the months ahead as income growth slows, businesses delay expansions and higher prices from tariffs depress consumer spending. Companies have already reduced investment spending, and exports have dropped against a backdrop of slower global growth.

Americans have already turned more pessimistic. The University of Michigan’s consumer sentiment index, released Friday, fell by the most since December 2012.

“The data indicate that the erosion of consumer confidence due to tariff policies is now well underway,” said Richard Curtin, who oversees the index.

Some retailers may eat the cost of the tariffs. Target confirmed to The Associated Press that it warned suppliers that it won’t accept cost increases arising from the China tariffs. But many smaller retailers won’t have the bargaining power to make such demands and will pass the costs to customers.

Philip Levy, chief economist at the San Francisco freight company Flexport who was an adviser in President George W. Bush administration, said it’s hard to say for sure when the latest tariffs may hit U.S. customers in the form of higher prices.

But, he added, “If you had to pick a time to do it, this is the worst possible time” because it’s when the bulk of holiday goods are brought into the country.

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