[naviga:h3]2 business councils at White House end[/naviga:h3]

NEW YORK — With corporate chieftains fleeing, President Donald Trump abruptly abolished two of his White House business councils Wednesday — the latest fallout from his combative comments on racially charged violence in Charlottesville, Va.

Trump announced the action via tweet, although only after one of the panels had already agreed to disband earlier in the day.

A growing number of business leaders on the councils had openly criticized his remarks laying blame for the violence at a white supremacists rally on “both sides.”

“Rather than putting pressure on the businesspeople of the Manufacturing Council & Strategy & Policy Forum, I am ending both. Thank you all!” Trump tweeted from New York.

[naviga:h3]Talks to renegotiate NAFTA begin[/naviga:h3]

WASHINGTON — The United States won't settle for cosmetic changes to the North American Free Trade Agreement, the top U.S. trade negotiator said, as negotiations to rework terms of the pact began.

President Donald Trump has called the 23-year-old trade pact the “worst” in history and vowed to fix it — or withdraw from it.

On the first of five days of talks, U.S. Trade Rep. Robert Lighthizer said Wednesday that Trump “is not interested in a mere tweaking of a few provisions and an updating of a few chapters. We believe NAFTA has fundamentally failed many, many Americans and needs major improvement.”

NAFTA did away with most barriers, including tariffs, on trade between the U.S., Canada and Mexico.

The Trump administration and other NAFTA critics say the agreement encouraged manufacturers to move south of the border to take advantage of lower-wage Mexican labor.

[naviga:h3]Housing starts drop to 3-month low[/naviga:h3]

WASHINGTON — Homebuilders pulled back sharply on construction of apartment complexes in July, causing housing starts to tumble to a three-month low.

The Commerce Department said Wednesday that housing starts fell 4.8 percent in July to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 1.16 million. Groundbreakings for multi-family buildings such as apartments slumped 17.1 percent, while single-family house construction slipped 0.5 percent.

Home construction has increased 2.4 percent year-to-date, but the gains have done little to offset the dwindling number of homes listed for sale.

The shortage of properties for sale has pushed prices up at a faster pace than income growth, making home ownership less affordable for many would-be buyers.

Stephen Stanley, chief economist at Amherst Pierpont Securities, said that because of the lack of homes on the market “builders are attempting to meet that need but are hamstrung to a degree by shortages of skilled workers” and land restrictions.

Housing starts dropped in the Northeast, Midwest and West but rose modestly in the South.

Building permits, an indicator of future construction, decreased 4.1 percent to 1.22 million.