U.S., Canada and Mexico just reached a sweeping new NAFTA deal (Source washingtonpost.com)

President Trump got his wish for a significantly revised North American trade deal. After more than a year of intense negotiations, the United States, Canada and Mexico reached an agreement to update the North American Free Trade Agreement, the 1994 pact that governs more than $1.2 trillion worth of trade among the three nations.

The new deal won’t go into effect right away. Most of the key provisions don’t start until 2020 because leaders from the three countries have to sign it and then Congress and the legislatures in Canada and Mexico have to approve it, a process that is expected to take months.

Goodbye NAFTA. The new deal will be known as the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement, or USMCA. Trump, who had long disdained NAFTA, had suggested that he might call it the “USMC,” in honor of the U.S. Marine Corps, but in the end, USMCA won out.

The goal of the new deal is to have more cars and truck parts made in North America. Starting in 2020, to qualify for zero tariffs, a car or truck must have 75 percent of its components manufactured in Canada, Mexico or the United States, a substantial boost from the current 62.5 percent requirement.

U.S. Warns It Could ‘Take Out’ New Russian Missiles(Source Time) The U.S. warned that it could resort to strikes against a new class of Russian missile unless Moscow complies with its international commitments to arms reduction.

NATO defense ministers meeting at Alliance headquarters in Brussels from Wednesday will discuss their concerns that Russia is building a medium-range ballistic missile in violation of the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty, U.S. Ambassador Kay Bailey Hutchison said.

Russia has over “several years” refused to accept U.S. evidence of breaches, so “we need to look for other ways to bring Russia to the table on the issues,” Hutchison told reporters on Tuesday. “The countermeasures would be to take out the missiles that are in development by Russia in violation of the treaty.”

The U.S. ambassador made an “absolutely irresponsible statement,” the Interfax news service cited an unidentified Russian Foreign Ministry official as saying. “It shows that in the present administration there are people in very important positions who don’t understand where they are and what is required of them.”

The North Atlantic Treaty Organization issued a statement in December underscoring the so-called INF Treaty’s “crucial” role in ensuring security for 30 years by “‘removing an entire class of U.S. and Russian weapons” — ground-launched intermediate-range missiles — and calling on Russia to address “serious concerns” about a missile system identified by NATO members.

“Now this treaty is in danger because of Russian actions,” NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg told a parallel briefing in Brussels on Tuesday. He cited development of a new ground-launched cruise missile known as 9M729, whose existence Russia only recently acknowledged “after years of denials.”

Stoltenberg called on Russia to urgently address concerns that the new system may be in violation of the INF treaty in a substantial and transparent manner, saying that “Russia has not provided any credible answers on this new missile.” Hutchison said that “numerous occasions” had been recorded of Russian breaches, and called on Moscow to stop the violations. Russia is “on notice,” she said.

If Russia continues down the path to where they are capable of delivering, “at that point we would then be looking at a capability to take out a missile that could hit any of our countries in Europe and hit America in Alaska,” Hutchison said. The U.S. is “not moving in that direction right now,” she said. Rather, the message to Russia is that “we know they have violated the treaty and we are beginning the research capabilities that are allowed by the treaty to deter a medium-range ballistic missile.”

A New Move Toward a European Army (Source thetrumpet.com) European Commission President Jean Claude Junker gave his annual state of the union address on Wednesday. “If Europe were to unite all the political, economic and military might of its nations, its role in the world could be strengthened,” he said.

“Whenever Europe speaks as one we can impose our positions on others,” he continued.

The European Commission announced practical moves to do this. The European Union already has plans to create a border force that is 10,000 strong. Already its border force can be deployed in almost any European country, even without the host nation’s permission.

Currently, the guards are loaned by different nations. The new force will belong solely to the EU. It was set to come into force in 2027. But according to the EU’s new plans, it will come into force in 2020. It will also be allowed to deploy outside Europe’s borders. And it will be armed.

This is a major step for Europe. It’s still short of an EU army, but the EU is steadily moving toward that with small steps.

You can read more about the EU’s push this way in our article “Why the Trumpet Watches Europe’s Push Toward A Unified Military.” Revelation 17 forecast 10 nations that share their strength and power with a bigger, overall empire. That passage also talks about its economic power. Which is why Herbert W. Armstrong, as early as 1945, said that European nations would work together economically first, and then move toward a military alliance. We’ve seen the economic already, and now military is moving forward.

Meanwhile, the Catholic Church abuse scandal hit Germany this week. Spiegel published results from a report leaked from the German Catholic Bishops’ Conference. It found that around 3,700 children had been abused by 1,700 priests. More than half of the children abused were under 13. Once again, if priests were caught, they were just moved around.

The report once again proves this is not just a problem in the United States. Reports of massive abuse have come from all over the world: the U.S., Spain, Ireland and Australia, just to name a few. This week, the pope called for a meeting of the heads of all the bishop conferences all around world, to take place in February. And Cardinal Wuerl, one of the top cardinals in the U.S., released a letter very strongly indicating he’s about to travel to Rome and resign.

This is an important story to watch. There is a major scandal within this church being exposed. But also the same prophecies that forecast a military power in Europe say that that power will be led by the Catholic Church. That will require a big change from Pope Francis, in many ways. This scandal could help bring that about.