Trump signs orders extending coronavirus relief after talks with Congress break down

US President Donald Trump has signed executive orders partly restoring enhanced unemployment payments to the tens of millions of Americans who lost jobs during the coronavirus pandemic, as the country marked a grim milestone of 5 million cases.

Negotiations between his Republican party and opposition Democrats had earlier failed, and they could not agree on a new stimulus package.

"We've had it and we're going to save American jobs and provide relief to the American workers," Trump said, at a press conference in his golf club in Bedminster, New Jersey on Saturday.

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With double digit unemployment, massive disruption to businesses from social distancing rules, and stubbornly high rates of coronavirus infection, many Americans have been relying on relief measures approved earlier by Congress, but which mostly expired in July.

Trump said his decision to circumvent Congress with executive orders would mean relief money getting "rapidly distributed."

Trump said the orders would provide an extra $400 per week in unemployment payments, less than the $600 per week passed earlier in the crisis. Some of the measures were likely to face legal challenges, as the US Constitution gives Congress authority over federal spending.

"This is the money they need, this is the money they want, this gives them an incentive to go back to work," the Republican president said of the lower payments. He said 25% of it would be paid by states, whose budgets have been hard hit by the crisis.

Republicans have argued that higher payments were a disincentive for unemployed Americans to try to return to work, though economists, including Federal Reserve officials, disputed that assertion.
Trump`s move to take relief measures out of the hands of Congress drew immediate criticism from some Democrats.

Trump also said he was suspending collection of payroll taxes, which pay for Social Security and other federal programs, an idea that he has repeatedly raised but has been rejected by both parties in Congress. He said the suspension would apply to people making less than $100,000 per year.

His orders would also stop evictions from rental housing that has federal financial backing and extend zero percent interest on federally financed student loans.

Democrats pushed for a massive new $3 trillion stimulus package aimed at propping up the economy, repairing the tattered postal system in time for the presidential election, and giving the unemployed an extra $600 a week.

Democrats later announced they could drop the price tag but refused the Republicans' offer of a $1 trillion package.

Trump, who is down in the polls against Democrat Joe Biden, faces broad criticism over his handling of the health and economic responses to the coronavirus pandemic.

He initially played down the disease's threat and has drawn criticism for inconsistent messages on public health steps such as social distancing and masks.

(with inputs from agencies)