Italy’s Meloni Opens Africa Summit To Unveil Plan To Boost Development And Curb Migration

Italian Premier Giorgia Meloni, top center, poses with African leaders and dignitaries at the Senate for the start of an Italy-Africa summit, in Rome, Monday, Jan. 29, 2024. (Roberto Monaldo/LaPresse via AP)

BY NICOLE WINFIELD

ROME (AP) — Italian Premier Giorgia Meloni opened a summit of African leaders on Monday aimed at illustrating Italy’s big development plan for the continent that her government hopes will stem migration flows, diversify sources of energy and forge a new relationship between Europe and Africa.

But the plan got a lukewarm and cautious reception initially, with African Union Commission Chairman Moussa Faki Mahamat telling the summit that African countries would have liked to have been consulted before Italy rolled out its plan.

“We need to pass from words to deeds,” Faki, the former prime minister of Chad, told the summit. “We cannot be happy with promises that are never maintained.”

Two dozen African leaders, top European Union and United Nations officials and representatives from international lending institutions were in Rome for the summit, the first major event of Italy’s Group of Seven presidency.

Italy, which for decades has been ground zero in Europe’s migration debate, has been promoting its development plan as a way to create security and economic conditions that will create jobs in Africa and discourage its young people from making dangerous migrations across the Mediterranean Sea.





In her opening, Meloni outlined a series of pilot projects in individual countries that she said would enable Africa to become a major exporter of energy to Europe, to help wean it off its dependence on Russian energy following Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine.

“We want to free up African energy to guarantee younger generations a right which to date has been denied,” Meloni told the summit in an opening address. “Because here in Europe we talk a lot about the right to emigrate, but we rarely talk about guaranteeing the right to not be forced to emigrate.”

Meloni, Italy’s first hard-right leader since the end of World War II, has made curbing migration a priority of her government. But her first year in power saw a big jump in the numbers of people who arrived on Italy’s shores, with some 160,000 last year.

The government’s plan, named after Enrico Mattei, founder of state-controlled oil and gas giant Eni, seeks to expand cooperation with Africa beyond energy but in a non-predatory way. The plan involves pilot projects in areas such as education, health care, water, sanitation, agriculture and infrastructure.

“It’s a cooperation of equals, far from any predatory temptation but also far from the charitable posture with Africa that rarely is reconciled with its extraordinary potential for development,” Meloni told the leaders.

Italy, which under fascism was a colonial power in North Africa, has previously hosted ministerial-level African meetings. But Monday’s summit — held at the Italian Senate to demonstrate the commitment of all Italian public institutions to the project — marks the first time it’s under the head of state or government level.

The summit includes presentations by Italian ministers detailing various aspects of the plan. A gala dinner hosted by Italian President Sergio Mattarella was held on Sunday night.

As the summit got underway, Italian green and opposition lawmakers planned a counter-conference at Italy’s lower chamber of parliament to criticize the Mattei Plan as a neocolonial “empty box” that seeks to again exploit Africa’s natural resources.

Alongside the Mattei Plan, Meloni’s government has forged controversial deals with individual countries to try to mitigate the migration burden on Italy. An EU-backed deal with Tunisia aims to curb departures through economic development projects and legal migration opportunities, while a bilateral deal with Albania calls for the creation of centers in Albania to process asylum applications for Italy-bound migrants rescued at sea.
___

Follow AP’s coverage of migration issues at https://apnews.com/hub/migration

African Union; The Dream Vs. Reality

BY THOMAS C. MOUNTAIN

The predecessor of today’s African Union, the Organization for African Unity, OAU, was launched in 1963 with the glorious goal of uniting Africans to help liberate the continent from colonialism. Unfortunately, despite the dreams of Kwame Nkrumah, Sekou Ture and others, reality quickly showed its face and the dream turned out to be a fantasy.

Why do I say this? Because the OAU was founded in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia where the US-backed compradore Emperor Haile Sellasie regime was actively engaged in a counter-insurgency war against the Eritrean Liberation Front fighting for independence from…Ethiopia! To put it simply Addis Ababa, Ethiopia was the headquarters of the OAU which was formed for the purpose of ending colonialism in Africa all the while Ethiopia was killing Eritreans in an attempt preserve its control of its Eritrean colony.

Yet this hasn’t stopped all to many Africans and blacks in the west from continuing to propagate the line that the OAU, and the African Union that took its place were and are anti colonialist by every year celebrating African Liberation Day on the anniversary of the founding of the OAU.

Being that Eritrea is the only country in Africa that won its independence on the battlefield by defeating the Ethiopian ruler Haile Mengistu Mariam in 1991 and subsequently running Mengistu the butcher out of Ethiopia on the wings of a US military jet it is important to take a deeper look at Eritrea and its history of problems with the OAU and todays AU.

One of the best places to look at the corruption and bootlicking role of the AU is when it guaranteed the Algiers Peace Agreement between Eritrea and the Tigray Peoples Liberation Front (TPLF) regime in 2002. This took place after the TPLF regime had launched a war in 1998 in what was ultimately a failed attempt to re-colonize Eritrea. Despite major US help, both with funding, arms and intelligence in support of the TPLF, the western backed TPLF invasion of Eritrea was defeated by the Eritrean Defense Forces in 2000 at the battle of Tsorona.

After the defeat of the TPLF invasion followed by two years of negotiations a “final and binding” peace agreement between Eritrea and the TPLF was signed in Algiers on Dec. 12, 2002. The AU, alongside the EU, UN and the USA all promised in writing to enforce another “final and binding” agreement with UN sanctions if either party violated the deal. Part of the deal was to enforce a border demarcation between Eritrea and the TPLF, to be carried out by a supposedly neutral party overseen by the UN because the “border dispute” allegedly being the reason for Ethiopia launching its invasion of Eritrea in the first place.

Like what the world has witnessed in Ukraine regarding the war against the Russian people of the Donbas by the CIA coup government installed in Ukraine in 2008 the western powers had no intent in honoring the Minsk Agreement they “guaranteed”?

It turns out the AU really had no intention of enforcing the deal with the TPLF, following meekly in the footsteps of its masters in the west. What could the AU do, bite the hand that feeds it for the EU is the majority funder of the AU. And could the AU seeks sanctions against Ethiopia where it made it’s home from its birth and which it had help glorify with blatant falsifications of history claiming Ethiopia had never been colonized?

The AU literally never lifted a finger to see the deal implemented and allowed the TPLF to continue to violate the deal until November 2020 when Eritrean fighters, at the request of the new Ethiopian PM Abiy Ahmed intervened in Ethiopia after the CIA instigated coup attempt by the TPLF in 2020. While destroying the backbone of the TPLF terrorist army Eritrea liberated the town of Badme and its surrounds, which had been awarded to Eritrea by the “final and binding” border demarcation deal later signed, again, with a promise of enforcement by the AU, EU, UN and the USA.

Today is should be clear for all to see that the purpose of the “final and binding” peace deal between Eritrea and the TPLF regime was not to bring peace to the Horn of Africa, just the opposite, rather to help the TPLF regime to lick its wound suffered in its defeat by Eritrea and consolidate its rule in Ethiopia while continuing to be the US policeman on the beat in the critically strategic Horn of Africa.

And where is the AU in all of this? I guess you could say its silence proven golden for it has received billions of dollars from the EU and USA over the past twenty years for loyally keeping its mouth shut about the crimes committed by the TPLF.

Today, the AU leads delegations of African leaders to sit down with the criminals in the US government to talk about whats best for Africa? How the US is blackmailing Zambia and DRCongo into giving the US all of their cobalt and copper? How the US will not restore free trade access to the US with Ethiopia unless the CIA is given control over the supposed “investigation” into crimes committed in the war in Tigray from 2020-2022. If what the CIA through its mouth pieces in the western media has been saying is anything to go by, a whole cesspool of lies will be spewed about fabricated crimes by Eritrea and Ethiopia in Tigray. And the AU remains party to all of this, the judas goat leading the African sheep to slaughter in Washington DC.

There was a great dream involving the founding of the OAU but that dream quickly ran into the brick wall of reality and was still born at birth, never to actually do anything concrete to help bring about real independence from Africa’ former western colonial masters as well as the Ethiopian home-grown imperialists colonizing Eritrea. Actually the opposite, the AU did what it could to help prevent Eritrea from achieving its independence from Ethiopia and beginning its historic leadership of Africa.

When it comes to the African Union its not about the dream, its all about the reality of a compromised, corrupt, subservient organization.

READ ORIGINAL STORY HERE

Security And Food Crises Expected To Dominate African Union Summit

A woman receives a bag of food from the government during the distribution of food items by the government to cushion the high cost of living in Abuja, Nigeria, September 20, 2022. REUTERS/Afolabi Sotunde

BY GIULIA PARAVICINI

NAIROBI, KENYA (REUTERS) - Deepening security and food crises are likely to dominate the agenda when heads of state convene in Ethiopia's capital Addis Ababa this weekend, Feb. 17-19, for the annual African Union (AU) summit.

Armed conflict from West Africa's Sahel to the Horn of Africa in the east and the impacts of droughts and floods have driven ever more Africans from their homes, with the number of displaced people south of the Sahara Desert rising more than 15% over the past year, according to United Nations figures. The U.N. estimates 44 million people were displaced in 2022 up from 38.3 million people at the end of 2021.

AU Peace and Security Commissioner Bankole Adeoye is expected to try to rally support for a proposal for new financing of security operations from the United States, African Union members and the European Union, two diplomats told Reuters, speaking on condition of anonymity.

Financing has been a perennial challenge for AU initiatives like its peacekeeping mission in Somalia. In 2020, the AU postponed plans to start financing security operations from a new fund until 2023 because it had received less than half of the targeted $400 million.

Heads of state will also be briefed on fighting in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo and the security situations in Mali, Burkina Faso, Guinea, and Sudan, which all experienced military takeovers in 2021 and 2022, the two diplomats said.

Bankole and a spokesperson for the Peace and Security Council did not respond to requests for comment.

Another major subject of discussion is expected to be worsening hunger in several regions, which has been driven by armed conflict and extreme weather that scientists have linked to fossil fuel-driven climate change.

Somalia is on the verge of famine after five failed rainy seasons, with hundreds of thousands of people suffering catastrophic food shortages.

In addition to leaders from the 55 AU members states, U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres and European Council President Charles Michel will attend the summit.

African leaders will advocate for permanent seats for the continent on the U.N. Security Council and among the G20 group of large economies, according to a draft of the summit's conclusions.

They will also adopt a series of protocols aimed at accelerating full implementation of Africa’s new free trade area, under which trading officially began in 2021.

UK Looks To Fast-Growing Africa For Post-Brexit Trade Relations

Image: UK Govt.

BY JILL LAWLESS, CARA ANNA

LONDON (THE ASSOCIATED PRESS) — British Prime Minister Boris Johnson and Prince Harry touted the U.K. as an ideal business partner for Africa on Monday as their country prepares for post-Brexit dealings with the world.

But Britain faces tough challenges as it seeks to assert itself on a continent with several of the world’s fastest-growing economies, and one whose youthful 1.2 billion population is set to double by 2050.

Far fewer of Africa’s 54 heads of state or government were attending the first U.K.-Africa Investment Summit than the dozens who attended the first Russia-Africa summit last year or the gatherings China regularly holds.

The U.K.’s department for international trade says two-way trade with Africa in the year ending in the second quarter of 2019 was $46 billion. Meanwhile, Africa’s two-way trade with China, the continent’s top trading partner, was $208 billion in 2019.

Johnson told attendees the conference “is long overdue.” He acknowledged that British officials and companies need to work to convince African nations to do business with the U.K.

“We have no divine right to that business,” he said. “This is a competitive world. You have may suitors” — especially China and Russia.

Britain is due to leave the European Union on Jan. 31, and Johnson said the U.K. would become “a global free trading nation” after Brexit. He pledged that the post-Brexit immigration system would “put people before passports,” acknowledging a common frustration across Africa.

While other global powers including Gulf nations and India have been increasing their diplomatic and economic presence in Africa, some observers have wondered about the interest of Britain, a former colonizer.

When Theresa May visited Kenya in 2018, even Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta noted it was the first visit to East Africa’s economic hub by a British prime minister in more than three decades.

Johnson stressed that he had visited about a dozen African countries when he was British foreign secretary between 2017 and 2019. He said “billions of pounds worth of deals” would be sealed at Monday’s summit, including major clean-energy projects.

Prince Harry, who has longstanding ties to Africa and is involved with conservation and youth charities on the continent, also attended the conference to boost Britain’s cause, despite the swirling drama over his decision to break from official royal duties.

Britain said 16 African leaders were attending Monday’s summit in London, including the leaders of Nigeria, Congo, Kenya, Egypt, Ghana, Senegal, Malawi, Mozambique, Ivory Coast, Uganda and Rwanda.

“The wealth of Africa is undisputed,” said Ghana’s president, Nana Akufo-Addo, noting that one in four people in the world in 2050 will be African.

Leaders stressed the need to tackle growing inequality and the continent’s dire need for better infrastructure, especially as millions of people migrate to booming cities.

Aside from the sluggishness of its top two economies, South Africa and Nigeria, Africa is showing economic momentum as the recently launched African Continental Free Trade Area gathers steam.

Last year, economic growth slowed in all geographic areas except Africa, the United Nations reported last week in its annual World Economic Situation and Prospects 2020.

The U.N. said gross domestic product growth in Africa is projected to reach 3.2% in 2020 and 3.5% in 2021. And 25 African countries are projected to achieve economic growth of at least 5% this year.

Britain should take a wider investment approach to Africa’s growing middle class and increasingly sophisticated consumers, the Overseas Development Institute reported this month. It said more than 80% of Britain’s investment in Africa is focused on mining and financial services, and 30% of investment in the continent goes to a single country, South Africa.

We Are In A Race With Time To Unlock Africa’s Full Potential! Says AFDB president

African Development Bank (AfDB) president, Akinwumi Adesina says his life is only useful to the extent that it helps to lift millions of people out of poverty. Image via PML Daily

BY NELSON MANDELA

SEOUL (PML DAILY) – Sunhak Peace Prize Laureate Akinwumi Adesina has pledged to do more to advance Africa’s fight against hunger, poverty and youth underemployment. The President of the African Development Bank and co-Laureate Waris Dirie, a global champion against Female Genital Mutilation, shared the prestigious US $1million dollar prize at an award ceremony held on 9 February in Seoul, South Korea.

According to Adesina, “We are in a race with time to unlock the full potential of Africa.” Known globally for his dogged determination to reduce global poverty, Adesina declared “My life is only useful to the extent that it helps to lift millions of people out of poverty.”

Adesina immediately announced he was donating his $500,000 share of the prize to fighting hunger in Africa.

“There is tremendous suffering going on in the world. While progress is being made, we are not winning the war on global hunger. There cannot be peace in a world that is hungry. Hunger persists in regions and places going through conflicts, wars, and fragility. Those who suffer the most are women and children,” Adesina said during the award ceremony.

Waris Dirie, has played a leading role in drawling global attention to the fight and against Female Genital Mutilation (FGM), and the need for legislation to ban the practice.

Dirie said, “Female Genital Mutilation scars victims physically, emotionally, and mentally.”

The World Health Organisation estimates that more than 200 million girls and women alive today have been cut in 30 countries in Africa, the Middle East and Asia where FGM is carried out on young girls between infancy and the age 15.

Adesina who believes a peaceful world will be a food-secure world pointed out that only 1% of the world’s richest own 50% of global wealth.

“Nothing is more important than ensuring that we feed the world and eliminate hunger and malnutrition. Hunger is an indictment on the human race. Any economy that claims growth without feeding its people is a failed economy. Nobody has to go hungry, white, and black, pink, orange or any colour you can think.”

The President of the African Development Bank told participants including global leaders:

“There must be accountability to the poor. We must reduce global income inequality. We need wealth, yes, but we need wealth for everyone not just a few. Today, the poor are stuck and only end up eating crumbs, if any at all, that fall from the tables of the rich. This sense of exclusion and lack of equity or fairness often drives conflicts. We have an opportunity to reverse the situation through sustainable agriculture as a business, and not as an aid program.”

More than 1,000 influencers from over the world including current and former heads of state and government, private sector leaders, investors, and development expertsPrize anded the SunHak Peace Prizeand the Peace Summit of Global Leaders.

Each year, the SunHak Peace Prize honours an individual or organisation making significant contributions to global peace and the welfare of mankind.

(AFRICAN UNION): AU Commission Elections Are Increasingly Becoming A Farce

By Mehari Taddele Maru

The East African (Nairobi)

The fourth African Union Commission elections are scheduled to be conducted during the July 2016 Summit of African Union Heads of State in Kigali.

Four years ago, the nomination and eventual election of South Africa's Dr Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma was marred by controversy. This was due to a violation by South Africa of the old unwritten rule that the AU chairperson's post should only be available to candidates from smaller countries.

The manner in which the election campaign was run also did not endear South Africa to other AU member states.Yet, the 2012 race for the position of chairperson drew the most attention and remains the most tightly contested in the history of the AU.

Undisputedly, on the positive side, Dr Dlamini-Zuma's election as the first chairwomen of the Commission signified substantial progress in the AU.

Another enduring advantage of the 2012 election was that it aroused considerable interest and stimulated debate about the Commission and the AU in general.

It was hoped that the 2012 competition had set a higher standard for future elections at the AU, including in terms of profile, gender, and the number of nominations and candidates. It was also hoped that winning posts at the Commission would increasingly become more competitive and that incumbency would not imply a guarantee for re-election.

However, with the current low number of nominations, these hopes are yet to be realised.

Diminishing competitiveness, fewer nominations

Twelve years ago, in the first elections in 2003, there were 73 candidates for the post of commissioners. In contrast, in 2008 the number of candidates declined by almost half to 45, and in 2012 this number declined even further to twenty-nine.

Now, for the 2016 election, we only have 32 candidates (after three disqualifications and one late withdrawal). Another crucial concern about the current nominations is the sharp decline in the pedigree and profiles of the various candidates, particularly the chairperson.

For example, Professor Alpha Konare, the first chair of the Commission from 2003-2008, was a former head of state of Mali. Since then there have been two former ministers (Dr Jean Ping of Gabon, and Dr Dlamini-Zuma of South Africa) chairing the Commission.

Too few nominations to shortlist

Outwardly, the 2012 election looked very competitive. Strictly speaking, however, the 2012 election was far from competitive because the election for the post of chairperson occurred by default, not by design.

In fact, a closer look at the number and manner of nominations for the position of chairperson and deputy, and the profiles of the various candidates, showed that nominations had deteriorated in terms of numbers and competence.

For example, in 2012, North Africa, which was entitled to two posts on the Commission, nominated only two candidates, thereby rendering the nomination and the election uncompetitive. Similarly, the incumbent deputy chairperson ran alone without a challenger and thereby transformed the election for this high post into a vote of confidence.

Regression in nominations and female candidature

Another regressive aspect of the current nominations is the fact that the number of female candidates has declined from 60 per cent participation in 2012 to 38 per cent participation in 2016.

For instance, six candidates for the positions of deputy chairperson and economic affairs are males, while candidates for one of the posts are all females.

Given that the rules of the AU require half the members of the Commission to be females, 15 candidates are currently competing for five posts, while 25 male candidates are vying for the remaining five posts. On a positive note, as reflected by the current nominations, two of the three candidates for chairperson are females.

So, is this decline in the number of candidates and their less impressive profiles indicative of a systemic failure of the AU? Is this decline symptomatic of the low standing bestowed on the AU by its fundamental constituent units -- the member states? What is the cause of these failures and what can be done to address them?

Member states are the main causes of the decline in the numbers and profiles of the various candidatures. Member states are also responsible for the overall lack of strategic direction in the elections of the various AU organs. But more essentially, the retrogressive elections of the Commission, and of the other organs, will continue to undermine meritocracy and the performance, legitimacy and popularity of the AU in Africa and beyond.

It is impossible to exaggerate the importance of the elections to the AU Commission. While member states are the body parts of the AU, the Commission is the engine on which the Union depends not only for its effective functioning, but also for its ability to achieve its objectives as set out in the Constitutive Act of the AU.

The leadership and management of the Commission is therefore a key factor for the success of the AU, both at the continental and global levels.

In turn, without getting the basics and fundamentals correct, the foundation for the AU remains shaky and not conducive to achieving the huge mission of a peaceful, prosperous and integrated Africa.

The basics and fundamentals of the elections to the AU are nominations at the national level, squarely the responsibility of member states.

With the necessary political determination from African leaders, and actual reform in the nomination process at national levels, the AU could easily reverse the current retrogression and restore progressive elections that prove exemplary for its member states. More crucially, such elections would enable the AU to excel in discharging its duties.

But the first step for this reform would be to postpone the Commission elections to January 2017, and reopen the nomination process again with necessary reform in the national level nomination process.

Dr Mehari Taddele Maru is an expert in international law, and currently a member of the AU High Level Advisory Group

African Leaders To Court: Drop Cases Against Top Africans

Sudan's President Omar al-Bashir arrives for the Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD) summit, held on the eve of the heads of state meeting of the African Union summit, in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia 

ADDIS ABABA, ETHIOPIA (AP) — The International Criminal Court should drop or suspend charges against Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir and Kenyan Deputy President William Ruto until African concerns about the court and proposals to change its founding treaty are considered, African leaders say.

The demand came in a report Saturday on previous decisions made by African Union leaders. The African Union has accused the ICC of disproportionately targeting Africans. The court has indicted only Africans so far, although half of the eight cases it is prosecuting were referred to it by African governments themselves.

Ruto and radio journalist Joshua Sang have been charged with crimes against humanity for their alleged role in orchestrating Kenya's 2007-08 postelection violence. Their trial is underway at the ICC. More than 1,000 people died and 600,000 others were forced to flee their homes amid violence sparked by a flawed presidential election.

Similar charges against Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta were dropped in December after the prosecution said it did not have enough evidence against him. Kenyatta and Ruto were on opposing sides of the postelection violence but joined forces to win the presidency in the March 2013 polls.

The ICC has issued an arrest warrant for Bashir for failing to respond to summons to answer to charges of genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity for the violence in Darfur. Bashir remains at large and refuses to recognize the court's authority. He has traveled freely to some African countries that are parties to the statute that created the ICC but they have refused to arrest him as required.

The AU has been heavily criticized by rights groups for calling for a halt to ICC cases against African leaders, with rights groups saying the African Union encourages impunity. Last year, the AU passed a resolution not to allow a sitting head of state or deputy to be prosecuted at the ICC.

African Leaders Summit: Obama Seeks Executive Ways To Limit Tax Inversions

President Barack Obama speaks at the US Africa Business Forum during the US Africa Leaders Summit, in Washington, Tuesday, Aug. 5, 2014. Aiming to sidestep a logjam in Congress, the Obama administration is looking for steps it could take on its own to prevent American companies from reincorporating overseas to shirk U.S. taxes, officials said.

WASHINGTON (AP) — Aiming to sidestep a logjam in Congress, the Obama administration is looking for steps it could take on its own to prevent American companies from reincorporating overseas to shirk U.S. taxes, officials said Tuesday.

President Barack Obama has denounced so-called tax inversions as unpatriotic and has urged Congress to stop them, in an election-year push that Democrats hope will appeal to middle-class voters who feel corporate America isn't paying its fair share. But Republicans and Democrats disagree about the best solution, rendering congressional action this year unlikely.

Tinkering with inversions without going through Congress would open up Obama to charges he's unilaterally rewriting the tax code, just as House Republicans are already suing Obama for allegedly exceeding his authorities. Last month, Treasury Secretary Jacob Lew said the administration had determined it didn't have the authority to address inversions administratively. "If we did, we would be doing more," Lew said.

In a departure from that line of thinking, the Treasury Department said that while only legislation can fully fix the problem, the Obama administration was searching for ways to provide a partial fix, warning that corporate inversions are actively eroding the U.S. tax base.

"Treasury is reviewing a broad range of authorities for possible administrative actions that could limit the ability of companies to engage in inversions, as well as approaches that could meaningfully reduce the tax benefits after inversions take place," the department said in a statement.

In an inversion, a U.S. business merges with or is acquired by a foreign company in a country with a lower tax rate, allowing the company to lower its tax bill. Frequently the companies maintain their U.S. headquarters and operations, and the U.S. entity often maintains control of the company. Obama argues that amounts to companies attempting to choose which tax laws they want to follow — a luxury not granted to individual taxpayers.

"They're basically renouncing their citizenship and declaring that they're based somewhere else, just to avoid paying their fair share," Obama said recently. Both parties generally agree that inversions are problematic, but they disagree on the causes and the solutions. While some Democrats push to make it harder for U.S. firms to reincorporate overseas, Republicans argue that Congress should lower the corporate tax rate so that businesses won't feel the need to leave the U.S.

At 35 percent, the United States has the highest corporate income tax rate in the industrialized world. The U.S. also taxes income that's earned overseas but brought back to the U.S. Obama has said he supports a legislative overhaul that would close loopholes but also lower the corporate tax rate. Congress hasn't been able to agree on such a broad revamp of the tax code. With that reality in mind, Obama has called for lawmakers to move narrowly to close the inversion loophole, but that, too, appears an elusive goal.

Yet it's unclear whether Obama can do much on his own. Administration officials did not offer details about what possibilities were under consideration. But Senate Democrats have pointed to a paper published last week by Stephen Shay, Harvard Law School professor who was a Treasury official earlier in Obama's presidency. Writing in the trade publication Tax Notes, Shay argued that the Treasury could weaken the benefits that entice companies to pursue inversions.

As an example, after a company reincorporates overseas, it typically shifts large amounts of debt from the foreign company to the U.S. subsidiary, which can then deduct that debt when it files taxes. Shay said Lew could use regulations to start treating that debt as equity, which can't be deducted.

"It would be an important first step toward treating companies that renounce America the same way we treat people who renounce America — as freeloaders who get cut off from other benefits," said Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., one of three Senate Democrats who sent a letter Tuesday to Obama urging him to take immediate executive action on inversions.

But Thomas Lys, who teaches corporate restructuring at Northwestern University's Kellogg School of Management, said it wasn't clear that Obama has the legal authority to deter inversions. "It's a stretch of current regulations," he said.

Obama's move to curb inversions comes three months before the midterm elections, in which Democrats are seeking to portray themselves as aggressive advocates for the middle class while Republicans are accusing Obama of presidential overreach.

A spokesman for House Speaker John Boehner urged Obama on Tuesday to work with Congress on adding inversions rather than acting on his own, while the U.S. Chamber of Commerce warned that Obama's actions could potentially make the situation worse.

"Congressional Republicans often don't want to be in a position of angering the corporate interests that are so beneficial to their political campaigns," said White House spokesman Josh Earnest. Tax inversions began attracting attention earlier this year when the drug company Pfizer attempted unsuccessfully to take over AstraZeneca, a British company. Nearly 50 U.S.-based companies have merged with or acquired foreign businesses over the past decade in inversions, the Congressional Research Service said.

Reach Josh Lederman on Twitter at http://twitter.com/joshledermanAP