Yxxx,2016-12-03,A,001,Bs-4C,E2
CMYK
VOL. CLXVI . . . No. 57,435
SATURDAY, DECEMBER 3, 2016
© 2016 The New York Times Company
Obama’s Gift
TRUMP MUDDIES
To Successor: CHINA RELATIONS
The Economy
WITH TAIWAN CALL
Jobless Rate Falls, but
Many Feel Passed By A BREACH OF PROTOCOL
By PATRICIA COHEN
CHRISTIAN BERG FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES
In Cu Chi, Vietnam, Woodworth Wooden Industries builds sofas, recliners and other furniture, mostly for sale in the United States.
A G.O.P. Plan Tough Talk on Global Trade Hits Close to Home
said Susan Helper, an economist
On Health Act:
the Weatherhead School of
China Has a Role in at
Management at Case Western ReRescind Slowly
Factories in the U.S. serve University in Cleveland.
This article is by Peter S. Goodman, Neil Gough, Sui-Lee Wee and
Jack Ewing.
This article is by Robert Pear, Jennifer Steinhauer and Thomas Kaplan.
WASHINGTON — Republicans
in Congress plan to move almost
immediately next month to repeal
the Affordable Care Act, as President-elect Donald J. Trump promised. But they also are likely to delay the effective date so that they
have several years to phase out
President Obama’s signature
achievement.
This emerging “repeal and delay” strategy, which Speaker Paul
D. Ryan discussed this week with
Vice President-elect Mike Pence,
underscores a growing recognition that replacing the health care
law will be technically complicated and could be politically explosive.
Since the law was signed by Mr.
Obama in March 2010, 20 million
uninsured people have gained
coverage, and the law has become
deeply embedded in the nation’s
health care system, accepted with
varying degrees of enthusiasm by
consumers, doctors, hospitals, insurance companies and state and
local governments.
Unwinding it could be as difficult for Republicans as it was for
Democrats to pass it in the first
Continued on Page A14
HOLLAND, Mich. — While
much of the American political
class has been consumed with recriminations over the wrenching
loss of manufacturing jobs, Chuck
Reid has been quietly adding
them.
His company, First Class Seating, makes recliner seats for movie theaters here at a factory on the
shores of Lake Michigan. Since he
bought the business three years
ago, its work force has grown to 40
from 15.
But those jobs will be in jeopardy if President-elect Donald J.
Trump follows through on his
combative promises to punish
countries he deems guilty of unfair trade.
Mr. Trump secured the White
House in part by vowing to bring
manufacturing jobs back to American shores. The president-elect
has fixed on China as a symbol of
nefarious trade practices while
threatening to slap 45 percent punitive tariffs on Chinese imports.
But many existing American
manufacturing jobs depend heavily on access to a broad array of
goods drawn from a global supply
chain — fabrics, chemicals, electronics and other parts. Many of
them come from China. At Mr.
Reid’s factory, imports account for
roughly two-thirds of the cost of
making a recliner chair.
and Worldwide
In short, Mr. Trump’s signature
trade promise, one ostensibly
aimed at protecting American
jobs, may well deliver the reverse:
It risks making successful American manufacturers more vulnerable by raising their costs. It would
unleash havoc on the global supply chain, prompting some multinationals to leave the United
States and shift manufacturing to
countries where they can be assured of buying components at
the lowest prices.
“If you do this tomorrow, you
would have a lot of disruption,”
“The stuff that China now makes
and the way they make it, it’s not
trivial to replicate that.”
Mr. Reid takes pride in using
American products. His designers
here in Michigan dreamed up his
sleek recliner. Local hands construct the frames using Americanmade steel, then affix molded
foam from a factory in nearby
Grand Rapids. They staple upholstery to hunks of wood harvested
by timber operations in Wisconsin. They do all this inside a former heating and cooling equipment factory that shut down a
decade ago when the work shifted
to Mexico.
But the fabric for Mr. Reid’s
Continued on Page A12
Departing occupants of the
White House rarely hand off an
improving economy to a successor from the opposing party.
When Barack Obama was waiting in the wings after the 2008
presidential election, for example,
the economy was in a severe
downward spiral: Employers reported cutting 533,000 jobs that
November, the biggest monthly
loss in a generation.
But according to the government’s report on Friday, Donald J.
Trump can expect to inherit an
economy that is still on the upswing. An additional 178,000 people were added to payrolls last
month, bringing the total increase
in private sector jobs to 15.6 million since early 2010. The unemployment rate fell to 4.6 percent
from 4.9 percent the previous
month. Wage growth, though
slower, is still running ahead of inflation, and while the loss of manufacturing jobs clouds the outlook
for some, consumers are expressing the highest levels of confidence in nearly a decade.
The Federal Reserve is optimistic enough about the economy’s underlying strength that it is
now set to raise the benchmark interest rate when it meets later this
month.
The jobless rate for November,
the lowest since August 2007, “is a
testimony to how strong employment growth has been,” said Jim
O’Sullivan, chief United States
economist at High Frequency
Economics.
Jason Furman, now chairman
of President Obama’s Council of
Economic Advisers, remembers
the transition eight years ago,
when he was crammed into his office with a circle of top officials as
the latest jobs numbers from the
Labor Department landed.
“It was an utterly terrifying
time, the likes of which none of us
Continued on Page A15
Who’s Taping Whom? As Graft
Roils Brazil, Paranoia Reigns
Beijing Scoffs at ‘Petty
Action’ — Diplomats
Raise Concerns
By MARK LANDLER
and DAVID E. SANGER
WASHINGTON — Presidentelect Donald J. Trump spoke by
telephone with Taiwan’s president
on Friday, a striking break with
nearly four decades of diplomatic
practice that could precipitate a
major rift with China even before
Mr. Trump takes office.
Mr. Trump’s office said he had
spoken with the Taiwanese president, Tsai Ing-wen, “who offered
her congratulations.” He is believed to be the first president or
president-elect who has spoken to
a Taiwanese leader since at least
1979, when the United States severed diplomatic ties with Taiwan
as part of its recognition of the
People’s Republic of China.
In the statement, Mr. Trump’s
office said the two leaders had
noted “the close economic, political, and security ties” between
Taiwan and the United States. Mr.
Trump, it said, “also congratulated President Tsai on becoming
President of Taiwan earlier this
year.”
Mr. Trump’s motives in taking
the call, which lasted more than 10
minutes, were not clear. In a Twitter message late Friday, he said
Ms. Tsai “CALLED ME.”
But diplomats with ties to Taiwan said it was highly unlikely
that the Taiwanese leader would
have made the call without arranging it in advance. Taiwan’s
Central News Agency hailed it as
“historic.”
On Saturday, China’s foreign
minister, Wang Yi, in his government’s first official reaction,
played down the call.
Stressing the good relationship
between the United States and
China, Mr. Wang said, “I also believe this will not change the One
China policy upheld by the American government for many years.”
Mr. Wang, speaking to reporters in Beijing, reiterated that Taiwan was part of China. “Upholding the One China policy is the
base rock and an important political foundation for a healthy development of China-U.S. relations.
Of course, we hope this will not be
interrupted in any way.”
Mr. Wang characterized the call
as initiated by the Taiwanese government. “We believe it’s a petty
action by the Taiwan side.”
The president-elect has shown
little heed for the nuances of international diplomacy, holding a series of unscripted phone calls to
foreign leaders that have roiled
sensitive relationships with Britain, India and Pakistan. On Thursday, the White House urged Mr.
Trump to use experts from the
Continued on Page A16
By SIMON ROMERO
RIO DE JANEIRO — Michel
Temer, the fledgling president of
Brazil, is furious.
One of his own cabinet ministers secretly recorded their conversation, accusing Mr. Temer of
pressuring him to help an ally in a
property deal. Now Mr. Temer’s
enemies are seizing on the scandal to call for his impeachment —
just months after he became president through the impeachment of
his predecessor.
“A minister recording the president of the republic is appalling,” a
grim-faced Mr. Temer, 75, said at a
news conference this week. “Absolute indignation.”
Brazil’s leaders have been engaged in open political warfare for
more than a year, culminating in
the impeachment of Brazil’s first
female president, Dilma Rousseff,
and the triumph of Mr. Temer’s
party only a few months ago.
But far from settling the matter,
the maelstrom of Brazilian politics
is entering yet another tumultuous phase: paranoia.
Much of the increasing nervousness in the capital, Brasília,
stems from a sweeping corruption
investigation that, despite the
change in administrations, has refused to go away.
Politicians are so anxious that
only hours after Mr. Temer declared three days of official
mourning for a shocking disaster
— the crash of a plane carrying a
Brazilian soccer team that was on
its way to play in the final of an international tournament — Brazilian lawmakers held a marathon
session until 4 a.m. on Wednesday.
Their focus: gutting the authority
of prosecutors and judges who are
Continued on Page A3
CABINET The nomination of Gen.
TODD HEISLER/THE NEW YORK TIMES
Schoolyard Game, Now With a Scorecard
A Japanese team practiced in Central Park on Thursday in preparation for the Double Dutch
Holiday Classic tournament this weekend at the Apollo Theater in Harlem. Page A18.
James N. Mattis signals a tougher
Middle East stance. PAGE A14
LEGAL CHALLENGES Trump back-
ers are trying to stop recount
efforts in three states. PAGE A15
Colleges and Campus Papers Square Off Over Sexual Assaults
By STEPHANIE SAUL
The confidential informant had
an explosive tip for the University
of Kentucky’s campus newspaper: An associate professor of entomology had been accused of
groping students, and the college,
after an investigation, had permitted him to leave quietly.
On the trail of a hot story, the paper, The Kentucky Kernel, requested files from the university.
Officials turned over some documents, but they contained few details.
Months later, though, in August,
a 122-page dossier about the accusations was leaked to the newspaper, which reported the specifics,
including one woman’s claim that
the professor had grabbed her
buttocks, crotch and breast during
an off-campus conference in 2013.
Now The Kernel is being sued
by the university in a continuing
battle over whether records in the
case should be disclosed. And it is
just one of several disputes between universities and student
newspapers, which are pushing
administrations to become more
transparent about sexual assault,
a defining issue on campuses
around the country.
With cuts at traditional news organizations, student journalists
see their role as increasingly important in shedding light on the
subject and are becoming more
dogged in ferreting out informa-
Continued on Page A17
THIS WEEKEND
NATIONAL A10-17
BUSINESS DAY B1-7
Confusion in the Court
Beauty and Experience
A Charleston jury wavered over a deadlock in the case of an ex-police officer
who killed an unarmed man. PAGE A10
The Ms. Senior America pageant and
others like it celebrate women of a
certain age — “between 60 and death,”
as one contestant put it.
PAGE B1
NEW YORK A18-19
INTERNATIONAL A4-9
Gambian Vote’s Stunning Turn
Gambia’s eccentric president, in power
for 22 years, conceded to Adama Barrow,
above, setting off celebrations. PAGE A4
Backing Down on Syria
Egypt and Turkey, once vocal opponents of Bashar al-Assad’s government,
have softened their positions. PAGE A6
Making Room for Tour Buses
When holiday lights go up in Dyker
Heights, tourists roll in. To clear space,
residents face a parking ban. PAGE A19
OBITUARIES B7-8
Creator of Gen. Tso’s Chicken
Peng Chang-kuei, a Taiwanese chef who
invented the famed dish, was 98. PAGE B8
SPORTSSATURDAY B9-15
ARTS C1-5
Champion Leaves on Top
Yale Looks Back, Differently
Five days after winning the Formula
One title, Nico Rosberg announced he
was retiring from auto racing. PAGE B11
A controversy over a building named
for an architect of Southern secession
has resulted in a university policy that
separates history and honor.
PAGE C1
Baseball’s Not Dead Yet
Major League Baseball, often derided
as passé, is actually a thriving $10 billion-a-year business.
PAGE B9
EDITORIAL, OP-ED A20-21
Gail Collins
PAGE A21
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