Biden administration

Subterms

    More stories

    • 200 Shares189 Views

      in US Politics

      Biden is turning away from free trade – and that’s a great thing | Robert Reich

      by

      President Joe Biden is making a break with decades of free-trade deals and embarking on an industrial policy designed to revive American manufacturing.This has caused consternation among free-traders, including some of my former colleagues from the Clinton and Obama administrations.For example, Larry Summers, the former treasury secretary, last month called the president’s thinking “increasingly dangerous” and expressed concern about what he termed “manufacturing-centered economic nationalism that is increasingly being put forth as a general principle to guide policy”.Well, this veteran of the Clinton administration – me – is delighted by what Biden is doing.Clinton and Obama thought globalization inevitable and bought into the textbook view that trade benefits all parties. “Globalization is not something we can hold off or turn off,” Clinton explained in 2000. “It is the economic equivalent of a force of nature, like wind or water.”But “globalization” is not a force of nature. How it works and whom it benefits or harms depends on specific, negotiated rules about which assets will be protected and which will not.In most trade deals, the assets of US corporations (including intellectual property) have been protected. If another nation adopts strict climate regulations that reduce the value of US energy assets in that country, the country must compensate the US firms. Wall Street has been granted free rein to move financial assets into and out of our trading partners.But the jobs and wages of US workers have not been protected. Why shouldn’t US corporations that profit from trade be required to compensate US workers for job losses due to trade?The age-old economic doctrine of “comparative advantage” assumes that more trade is good for all nations because each trading partner specializes in what it does best. But what if a country’s comparative advantage comes in allowing its workers to labor under dangerous or exploitative conditions?Why shouldn’t the US’s trading partners be required to have the same level of worker safety as that of the United States or give their own workers the same rights to organize unions?Globalization doesn’t answer these sorts of questions. Instead, the rules that emerge from trade negotiations reflect domestic politics and power.The Clinton administration lobbied hard for the North American Free Trade Agreement (Nafta). In the end, Congress ratified it, with more Republican than Democratic votes. Additional trade agreements followed, along with the creation of the World Trade Organization (WTO) and the opening of trade relations with China, which joined the WTO in 2001.Trade rose from 19% of the US economy in 1989 to 31% in 2011, according to the World Bank. By 2021, following the pandemic and Trump’s trade war with China, trade’s share of the US economy had drifted down to 25%.These trade deals have benefited corporations, big investors, executives, Wall Street traders and other professionals.The pharmaceutical industry has gotten extended drug patents in Mexico, China and elsewhere. Wall Street banks and investment firms have made sure they can move capital into and out of these countries despite local banking laws. US oil companies can seek compensation if a country adopts new environmental standards that hurt their bottom lines.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionThe stock market has responded favorably to free trade policies. In 1993, when Clinton took office, the Dow Jones industrial average peaked at 3,799 points. By the time he left office in 2001, it had topped 11,000.Middle- and working-class Americans have benefited from these deals as consumers – gaining access to lower-priced goods from China, Mexico and other countries where wages are lower than those in the US.But the trade deals also have caused millions of US jobs to be lost, and the wages of millions of Americans to stagnate or decline.Between 2000 and 2017, a total of 5.5m manufacturing jobs vanished. Automation accounted for about half of the loss, and imports, mostly from China, the other half.You can trace a direct line from these trade deals and the subsequent job losses to the rise of Donald Trump in 2016.Economists have estimated that, if the US had imported half of what China exported to us during these years, four key states – Michigan, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania and North Carolina – would have swung Democratic, delivering the presidency to Hillary Clinton.Whether globalization is good or bad depends on who gets most of its benefits and who pays most of its costs. For too long, US workers have paid disproportionately.The Biden administration is changing this. I say, it’s about time.
      Robert Reich, a former US secretary of labor, is a professor of public policy at the University of California, Berkeley, and the author of Saving Capitalism: For the Many, Not the Few and The Common Good. His newest book, The System: Who Rigged It, How We Fix It, is out now. He is a Guardian US columnist. His newsletter is at robertreich.substack.com. More

    • 163 Shares159 Views

      in US Politics

      ‘It’s a beast’: landmark US climate law is too complex, environmental groups say

      by

      When President Joe Biden passed the Inflation Reduction Act a year ago, Adrien Salazar was skeptical.The landmark climate bill includes $60bn for environmental justice investments – money he had fought for, as policy director for the leading US climate advocacy coalition Grassroots Global Justice Alliance (GGJA).But after much discussion, the grassroots group realized they did not have the resources to chase after IRA funding. It would have to hire new staff and develop a specific program to apply for grants to access those funds. The coalition is stretched thin as is: organizing local and state campaigns, leading community engagement, and planning youth programming. GGJA decided it would not apply to funding opportunities at all.“It is not within our capacity to try to build a program that helps our members access federal funding. We just don’t have the capacity to do that,” Salazar said. Many employees lack the time or knowhow to take on grant opportunities.“We’re a national organization. How can we imagine a small organization that’s doing neighborhood, grassroots-level door-knocking to have the capacity to also navigate the federal bureaucracy?”Indeed, many of the small, community-based organizations that would benefit from funding the most are facing hurdles to competing for these investments.Together, their experiences tell a story that echoes other environmental justice experts’ concerns about the IRA – that the monumental spending package won’t assist the communities that need the money the most.Last year, advocates speaking to the Guardian criticized the bill for its many concessions to the fossil fuel industry: “This new bill is genocide, there is no other way to put it,” said Siqiñiq Maupin, co-founder of the Indigenous-led environmental justice group Sovereign Iñupiat for a Living Arctic. Salazar felt similarly: how could he trust the federal government to allocate those billions of dollars to communities of color when it still fails to protect them from polluters?Now, a second major criticism has emerged: some groups simply don’t have the time or resources to navigate the complicated bureaucratic process of applying for funding.A year after the law’s passing, various grant deadlines for funding have already come and gone, representing key opportunities many groups may have missed.Applying for funding opportunities – which is no guarantee of success – requires local community groups that are often run by volunteers to prepare an enormous amount of documentation.Lakiesha Lloyd, an organizer who lives and works in Charleston, West Virginia, is still educating herself on how the application process works. She sees the historic climate bill as a lifeline for her predominantly Black community on the West Side where concrete highways crisscross the neighborhood and poor air quality reigns.“We’ve never seen this kind of investment toward climate in our nation’s history,” said Lloyd, who works as a climate justice organizer for the national veterans rights group, Common Defense.Still, she has a lot to learn until she can tap in herself. Instead, she’s relying on a peer partner to help navigate the federal grant-making process.Morgan King, a climate campaign coordinator in West Virginia who has worked with Lloyd, said applying for grants is often easier said than done.“It’s not something that someone can just sit down alone and write within a several-hour time gap,” she said. “The grant application, especially for federal grants, is a beast and requires basically to set aside a week or two of time just focused on it.”This year, King worked with several non-profits to prepare an application for a public health-focused grant program.They had hoped to develop a pilot program on Charleston’s West Side to provide indoor air monitors to income-eligible households. With this data, local advocates could educate community members and engage them in citizen science while also building a case for electrifying homes that currently run on gas.Ultimately, the groups working with King weren’t able to develop an application that felt competitive before the grant deadline hit.“I think had we had a grant writer or more time, we could’ve gotten it there,” King said.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionIn light of these challenges, some critics of the IRA have said their concerns about the spending bill have only deepened.Maria Lopez-Nuñez, a member of the White House environmental justice advisory council, remains wary of whether the money set aside for environmental justice priorities will outweigh the damage done by the legislation’s further investment in fossil fuels.“On one hand, there’s incredible amounts of money out there for communities to actually deal with the issues at hand,” said Lopez-Nuñez. “On the other hand, there are even larger investments in climate scams that are going to hit communities fast and hard,” she added, referring to IRA money set aside for carbon capture and sequestration, as well as hydrogen projects.With more funding, these types environmental harms are exactly the kinds of problems locals groups would be more effective at combating – if only they could access such grants. The federal government has taken notice of this irony and proposed a solution.In April, the Environmental Protection Agency announced the formation of over a dozen regional hubs – better known as TCTACs (pronounced like the mint) – that will aid local community groups attempting to access IRA money.“We know that so many communities across the nation have the solutions to the environmental challenges they face,” said the EPA administrator, Michael Regan, in a statement. “Unfortunately, many have lacked access or faced barriers when it comes to the crucial federal resources needed to deliver these solutions.”In the New York and New Jersey region, for instance, the EPA is funding the national advocacy group We-Act for Environmental Justice, which plans to hire a specialist in government funds and offer grant-writing training and workshops.“Across the federal government, there is no central place you can go to [learn] about the funding opportunities that are available,” said Dana Johnson, senior director of strategy and federal policy for We-Act.Although these hubs are meant to offer more specialized, regional assistance to groups, there are still some concerns as to whether they will be successful owing to the demands that will be made of them; the hub that covers the south-eastern US includes a mammoth territory of eight states.“It’s too soon to know if the IRA will be in any way successful, but it is very clear that the problems that were baked into it are very real and impacting people now,” said Tamara Toles O’Laughlin, a national climate strategist and founder of Climate Critical, an organization working to undo the harm and trauma many climate advocates carry.For Lloyd, the work of unlocking funding sources will continue with or without additional support from the federal government.Since March, she’s been working with King to meet with West Side neighbors and inform them about the IRA – and most importantly, dream with them about the types of projects they want to see emerge from the law’s investments. Together, they have come up with ideas for LED street lights, renewable energy development, green spaces and a farm-to-market grocery store.She’s looking forward to grants opening up and connecting with the technical assistance centers to figure out how to access them. Lloyd remains an optimist. “Optimism is really all we have sometimes,” she said. More

    • 213 Shares169 Views

      in US Politics

      The Camp David summit signals a new cold war – this time with China | Observer editorial

      by

      If it sounds like a new cold war and looks like a new cold war, then it probably is a new cold war. For what other interpretation is to be placed on US president Joe Biden’s latest ramping up of diplomatic, economic and military pressure on China?Western officials tend to avoid the term, recalling as it does decades of hair-trigger confrontation with the former Soviet Union. They talk instead about enhanced security and defence cooperation and the importance of a free and open Indo-Pacific region. But such bland generalisations belie the fact that Biden is now pushing back hard at a repressive, authoritarian regime in Beijing that he and many Americans believe is determined to overthrow the international democratic, geopolitical and legal order safeguarded by the US. Last week’s groundbreaking Camp David summit hosted by Biden for Japan’s prime minister, Fumio Kishida, and South Korea’s president, Yoon Suk Yeol, perfectly fitted this agenda. It produced a series of measures aimed squarely at China and its “dangerous and aggressive behaviour”.They include a trilateral mechanism to deal with perceived security threats; expanded military exercises; and increased ballistic missile cooperation – despite the risk that China could retaliate in like fashion or use economic sanctions, as in the past, to punish export-dependent Tokyo and Seoul.For Japan, the Camp David agreement marks another significant stage in its journey away from postwar pacifism towards becoming a fully fledged, fully armed member of the US-led western democratic alliance. It will add to Tokyo’s sense of growing confrontation with China.For South Korea, the trilateral pact may come to be seen as the moment it finally moved on from the bitter feud with Japan over the latter’s 20th-century colonisation of the peninsula. Credit is due to Yoon, who has taken to describing Tokyo as a “partner” with shared values and interests.Biden’s success in bringing old enemies together is a notable achievement, too. He is hoping to pull off a similar feat with Israel and Saudi Arabia. The contrast with Donald Trump’s fatuous attempts to woo Kim Jong-un, North Korea’s nuclear-armed dictator, is striking.Improved three-way cooperation in facing down the threat posed by Pyongyang may be another benefit of Camp David. Defying UN sanctions, Kim has stepped up his intimidatory missile “tests” this year. China, disappointingly, has done little to stop him. Beijing’s ally, Russia’s Vladimir Putin, is positively encouraging him.While US officials are careful how they frame the new agreement, China is in no doubt it is aimed directly at itself. It follows Biden’s upgrading of the so-called Quad, which groups the US, India, Japan and Australia; the creation of Aukus, a security pact with Australia and the UK; and a raised US naval and air force profile in the Philippines, South China Sea and around Taiwan. In another message to Beijing, Biden will visit India next month.The numerous, ill-judged actions of President Xi Jinping’s regime have brought much of this down on its own head. Nevertheless, Beijing blames the west whose nefarious aim, it says, is containment designed to stifle China’s development. State media described Camp David as the launch of a “mini Nato” that will threaten regional security and exacerbate tensions.US officials reject the analogy. But the claim brings us back to the question of a new cold war. China evidently believes one has already begun. Is this really what Biden, the UK and regional allies want? If that is the case, they should have the courage to say so in terms – and explain what they plan to do if it turns “hot”. More

    • 250 Shares149 Views

      in Elections

      US hails ‘new era’ of Asia Pacific relations as Biden hosts historic summit with Japan and South Korea – live

      by

      From 40m agoJoe Biden will welcome his South Korean counterpart, Yoon Suk Yeol, and Japanese prime minister, Fumio Kishida, to Camp David for the first-ever trilateral summit with the three countries amid a recent thaw in ties between Japan and Korea.The US has promised to usher in a “new era” in relations with its most important allies in Asia, as the region struggles to address the threat posed by an increasingly assertive China and a nuclear-armed North Korea.Washington’s ties with Tokyo and Seoul are “stronger than they have been at any point in modern memory”, national security adviser Jake Sullivan said at a Friday briefing, as he confirmed the US will announce “significant steps to enhance trilateral security cooperation” including new collaborations on missile defence and technology when the three leaders meet for their first standalone summit.The leaders are also expected to detail plans to invest in technology for a three-way crisis hotline and offer an update on the progress the countries have made in sharing early-warning data on missile launches.Kishida, before departing Tokyo for Washington on Thursday, called the summit a “historic occasion to bolster trilateral strategic cooperation based on our stronger-than-ever bilateral relations with the United States and South Korea”.US officials are confident that its two main allies in the region, Japan and South Korea, share Washington’s view on most global issues, although a joint statement is expected to stop short of directly referring to China to reflect South Korean reservations about openly criticising Beijing.“Japan and South Korea are core allies – not just in the region, but around the world,” the US secretary of state, Antony Blinken, said this week, adding that Biden’s summit would “mark what we believe is a new era in trilateral cooperation”.Blinken said he expected a continued focus on North Korea “given the endless provocation it’s taken” but added that the meeting would address a “much more expansive agenda”.China has denounced the summit, saying it “opposes relevant countries forming various cliques and their practices of exacerbating confrontation and jeopardising other countries’ strategic security.”Foreign ministry spokesperson Wang Wenbin said this week:
      We hope the countries concerned will go with the trend of the times and do something conducive to regional peace, stability and prosperity.
      A standalone summit bringing together the leaders of Japan and South Korea would have been almost unthinkable just over a year ago, when the north-east Asian neighbours were embroiled in disputes over their bitter wartime legacy.Bilateral ties were at a low point before the South Korean president, Yoon Suk Yeol, took office in May 2022, due to compensation claims by Koreans over Japan’s use of forced labour during its 1910-1945 colonial rule of the Korean peninsula, and the longstanding controversy over Korean women who were coerced into working in Japanese military brothels.Yoon, a conservative, and the Japanese prime minister, Fumio Kishida, appear to have resolved the forced labour dispute and established a warm relationship that has included a joint visit to a memorial to Korean victims of the Hiroshima atomic bombing when the city hosted the G7 summit in May.This week, Yoon described Japan as a “partner” with shared values and interests, as his county marked the 78th anniversary of its liberation from 35 years of Japanese colonial rule.The thaw in ties has been greeted with relief in Washington as it attempts to present a united regional front against Chinese military activity near Taiwan and North Korea’s development of more powerful weapons of mass destruction in defiance of UN-led sanctions.“Suffice it to say, this is a big deal,” National security adviser Jake Sullivan told reporters on Friday shortly before the formal start of the daylong summit.
      It is a historic event, and it sets the conditions for a more peaceful and prosperous Indo-Pacific, and a stronger and more secure United States of America.
      Friday’s summit will be the first time Joe Biden has used Camp David to host international leaders.Joe Biden will welcome his South Korean counterpart, Yoon Suk Yeol, and Japanese prime minister, Fumio Kishida, to Camp David for the first-ever trilateral summit with the three countries amid a recent thaw in ties between Japan and Korea.The US has promised to usher in a “new era” in relations with its most important allies in Asia, as the region struggles to address the threat posed by an increasingly assertive China and a nuclear-armed North Korea.Washington’s ties with Tokyo and Seoul are “stronger than they have been at any point in modern memory”, national security adviser Jake Sullivan said at a Friday briefing, as he confirmed the US will announce “significant steps to enhance trilateral security cooperation” including new collaborations on missile defence and technology when the three leaders meet for their first standalone summit.The leaders are also expected to detail plans to invest in technology for a three-way crisis hotline and offer an update on the progress the countries have made in sharing early-warning data on missile launches.Kishida, before departing Tokyo for Washington on Thursday, called the summit a “historic occasion to bolster trilateral strategic cooperation based on our stronger-than-ever bilateral relations with the United States and South Korea”.The US justice department is seeking 33 years in prison for Enrique Tarrio, the former Proud Boys leader convicted of seditious conspiracy in one of the most serious cases to emerge from the attack on the US Capitol to block the transfer of presidential power in the hopes of keeping Donald Trump in the White House after he lost the 2020 election, according to court documents.The sentence, if imposed, would be by far the longest punishment that has been handed down in the massive prosecution of the riot on 6 January 2021. The Oath Keepers founder Stewart Rhodes, who was convicted of seditious conspiracy in a separate case, has received the longest sentence to date – 18 years.Tarrio, who was not at the Capitol riot itself, was a top target of what has become the largest justice department investigation in American history. He led the neo-fascist group – known for street fights with leftwing activists – when Trump infamously told the Proud Boys to “stand back and stand by” during his first election debate with Democrat Joe Biden.During the months-long trial, prosecutors argued that the Proud Boys viewed themselves as foot soldiers fighting for Trump as the Republican spread lies that Democrats stole the election from him, and were prepared to go to war to keep their preferred leader in power.“They unleashed a force on the Capitol that was calculated to exert their political will on elected officials by force and to undo the results of a democratic election,” prosecutors wrote in their filing on Thursday.
      The foot soldiers of the right aimed to keep their leader in power. They failed. They are not heroes; they are criminals.
      A judge declared Donald Trump had filed a “frivolous” appeal from his decision not to dismiss the first of writer E Jean Carroll’s two defamation lawsuits against him.US district judge Lewis Kaplan criticized the former president’s “delay” tactics, writing in a 17-page ruling:
      This case was largely stalled for years due in large part to Mr Trump’s repeated efforts to delay, which are chronicled in the Court’s prior decisions.
      Donald Trump said he had canceled a press conference scheduled for next week in which he claimed he would release a report containing new “evidence” of fraud in the state of Georgia during the 2020 presidential election.The former president, who was charged in Georgia last week with conspiring to overturn the state’s 2020 election results, said on Thursday that his lawyers would prefer putting his allegations in court filings instead.Trump, posting on his social media platform, Truth Social, wrote:
      Rather than releasing the Report on the Rigged & Stolen Georgia 2020 Presidential Election on Monday, my lawyers would prefer putting this, I believe, Irrefutable & Overwhelming evidence of Election Fraud & Irregularities in formal Legal Filings.
      Trump had claimed on Tuesday that he would publish a 100-page report at the event, which was due to be held on Monday in Bedminister, New Jersey, that would exonerate him.No compelling evidence of wide-scale fraud has emerged in the two-and-a-half years since the election in Georgia or elsewhere, despite Trump’s baseless claims.Twice impeached and now indicted in four cases: Donald Trump faces serious criminal charges in New York, Florida, Washington and Georgia over a hush-money scheme during the 2016 election, his alleged mishandling of classified documents and his efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 election.As Trump prepares for those cases to go to trial, the former president is also confronting a verdict that found him liable for sexual abuse and defamation of the writer E Jean Carroll. A New York jury awarded Carroll, who accused Trump of assaulting her in 1996, $5m in damages.Here is where each case against Trump stands:Lawyers for Donald Trump asked the judge overseeing his federal election interference trial to push back the start date to April 2026, nearly 18 months after the next presidential election.The lawyers filed the request to US district court judge Tanya Chutkan, after Trump was indicted earlier this month on charges that he conspired to defraud the United States, conspired to obstruct an official proceeding, obstructed an official proceeding and engaged in a conspiracy against rights.Federal prosecutors in the office of special counsel Jack Smith had proposed to schedule the trial for the start of January 2024, saying there was a significant public interest in expediting the prosecution.“A January 2 trial date would vindicate the public’s strong interest in a speedy trial,” prosecutors wrote.
      It is difficult to imagine a public interest stronger than the one in this case in which the defendant – the former president of the United States – is charged with three criminal conspiracies.
      In their court filing on Thursday, Trump’s attorneys argued a years-long delay was necessary due to the “massive” amount of information they will have to review and because of scheduling conflicts with the other criminal cases Trump is facing.
      If we were to print and stack 11.5 million pages of documents, with no gap between pages, at 200 pages per inch, the result would be a tower of paper stretching nearly 5,000 feet into the sky. That is taller than the Washington Monument, stacked on top of itself eight times, with nearly a million pages to spare.
      Good morning, US politics blog readers. Lawyers for former president Donald Trump asked the judge presiding over his federal 2020 election interference case to schedule his trial for April 2026 – more than two and a half years from now.In a 16-page filing on Thursday, the lawyers argued that putting Trump on trial this coming January – as federal prosecutors have requested – would mark a “rush to trial” that would violate his constitutional rights and be “flatly impossible” given the extraordinary volume of discovery evidence they will have to sort through. Trump’s lawyers wrote:
      The government’s objective is clear: to deny President Trump and his counsel a fair ability to prepare for trial.
      Special counsel Jack Smith is expected to oppose the April 2026 start date, which would put the trial long after the 2024 presidential election, in which Trump is the current frontrunner for the Republican nomination. US district court judge Tanya Chutkan has said she wants to set a trial date at her next scheduled hearing on 28 August.Meanwhile, Joe Biden will welcome his South Korean counterpart, Yoon Suk Yeol, and Japanese prime minister, Fumio Kishida, to Camp David today for the first-ever trilateral summit with the three countries, as the US hopes to cement ties with its two most important allies in Asia amid an increasingly assertive China and a nuclear-armed North Korea.Washington’s ties with Tokyo and Seoul are “stronger than they have been at any point in modern memory”, national security adviser Jake Sullivan said at a Friday briefing, as he confirmed the US will announce “significant steps to enhance trilateral security cooperation” including new collaborations on missile defence and technology when the three leaders meet for their first standalone summit.Here’s what else we’re watching today:
      11am: Joe Biden will welcome the South Korean president, Yoon Suk Yeol, and Japan’s prime minister, Fumio Kishida, to Camp David for a trilateral summit.
      3pm: Biden, Yoon and Kishida will hold a joint press conference.
      6pm: Biden will leave Camp David for Andrews, where he will fly to Reno
      The House and Senate are out. More

    • 213 Shares99 Views

      in US Politics

      With Donald Trump the Republican talisman again, should America’s allies plan for the worst? | Bruce Wolpe

      by

      The question from the Finnish journalist to President Biden at last month’s US-Nordic leaders’ summit in Helsinki was direct: “What actions will you take to assure Finland that the US will remain a reliable Nato partner for decades to come?”Biden replied: “I absolutely guarantee it. There is no question. There’s overwhelming support from the American people,” before adding the caveat: “You know, no one can guarantee the future, but this is the best bet anyone could make … As sure as anything can possibly be said about American foreign policy, we will stay connected to Nato – connected to Nato, beginning, middle and end.”In an interview a few weeks earlier, Richard Haass, who recently stepped down as president of the Council on Foreign Relations, said that the most serious threat to the security of the world right now was the United States. “It’s us,” he told Peter Baker of the New York Times. “I should have a nickel for every non-American, every foreign leader who said to me, ‘I don’t know what’s the norm and what’s the exception any more. Is the Biden administration a return to the America I took for granted and Trump will be a historical blip? Or is Biden the exception and Trump and Trumpism are the new America?’”These issues are beginning to hit home in Australia and with other US allies. Many are already seeing in 2024 a reprise of the successive shocks of 2016 – the Brexit vote in June as a precursor to the upheaval heralded by Trump’s election in November – and what ensued during Trump’s four years in office. We know from the litany of explosive books, from veteran journalist Bob Woodward to Trump’s former national security adviser John Bolton and so many others in between, what Trump is capable of – and that he would approach a second term with vengeance uppermost in his mind against those who crossed him or stood in his way. Today, leaders of the world’s democracies at least have the benefit of over-the-horizon political radar of what may be coming, given the long lead time of Trump’s all-so-visible and unrelenting campaign to regain power.With respect to my country, Australia, the deep engagement with the US began on the western front in the first world war. Australia has supported American troops in numerous wars the US has waged since then. The Anzus treaty is in its 71st year and “a hundred years of mateship” has been richly celebrated. It is safe to say that Australia’s alliance with the US is the least troubled of any bilateral relationship the US has with other countries, including Israel, Canada and the UK. Australia is an integral part of the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue (the Quad) with India, Japan and the US. The Aukus agreement brings the US together with the UK and Australia in a strategic partnership to promote stability and security in the Asia Pacific region.But what happens to this web of ties if Trump returns to the presidency? Trumpism has four pillars that he wields as swords. America first, to ensure that US interests are always paramount in any foreign policy and military decision taken. Isolationism, where the default position is to end American commitments overseas and to bring US forces home. Protectionism, expressed through trade and tariff wars with the goal of securing trade surpluses for the US with all its trading partners, from China to Canada to Mexico to Europe and back across all of Asia. And nativism, to build walls on America’s southern border and close its doors to migrants seeking the American dream.In a second term, he will pursue these policies even harder. Trump learned immense lessons from his first four years about who, in the US and around the world, frustrated his policy objectives and how they could be crushed and punished to help him win more victories in his second term. What happens if Trump cripples, perhaps even works deliberately to destroy, Nato and the UN, begins a trade war with the EU, executes accommodations with Putin and Russia over Ukraine, surrenders Taiwan to China and withdraws troops and naval forces from the Asia Pacific region?At this granular level, each leader of a state around the globe allied with the US faces the daunting issue of how to manage all this incoming from Trump should he return to the Oval Office. How can you best deal with a hostile partner? How do those western countries allied with the US today realign their policies to ensure their security tomorrow?But these questions also reveal a deeper issue with respect to the ties that bind so many democracies around the world with the US. For example, can Australia – should Australia – continue its alliance with the US if the US in 2025 may no longer be the United States that has existed for nearly 250 years?Australia’s alliance is with a country that stands for freedom; democracy; liberty; human and civil rights; and the rule of law. What happens if the struggle for democracy and the soul of America fails in 2025? What if President Trump declares martial law, if the military is deployed to cities across the country to put down protests and restore law and order? What if Trump disobeys court orders, including from the supreme court, to cease and desist his executive actions? What if he ignores laws passed by Congress, orders the detention and imprisonment of his political enemies, has journalists arrested and jailed, and shuts down certain media outlets? What if he interferes with elections held in states across the country and for Congress?If Trump dismantles American democracy, America will no longer be populated by united states. It will be bitterly divided. There will be immense unrest. The country will no longer be the United States.Trump redux therefore poses an existential question: how could Australia remain allied with a country that has discarded the fundamental values of democracy that have bound these two nations together? How can Australia be allied with a country that is drifting towards autocracy?And it’s not just Australia. Every country strategically tied to the US will need to contemplate the consequences of Trump’s campaign for the presidency.It is time to face up to this question. It is better for America’s allies to be proactive in 2024 in planning for such a catastrophic upheaval in global politics than to be reactive in 2025.As long as Trump is within reach of the presidency, this question is a clear and present danger to every democratic country that today stands proudly with the US.
      Bruce Wolpe is a senior fellow at the United States Studies Centre at the University of Sydney. He is author of Trump’s Australia (Allen & Unwin, 2023) More

    • 175 Shares179 Views

      in US Politics

      Green investment boom and electric car sales: six key things about Biden’s climate bill

      by

      The US’ first serious legislative attempt to tackle the climate crisis, the Inflation Reduction Act, is hitting its first anniversary both lauded for turbocharging a seismic shift to clean energy while also weathering serious attack from Republicans.Joe Biden hailed the bill, which despite its name is at heart a major shove towards a future dominated by renewable energy and electric vehicles, as “one of the most significant laws in our history” when signing it on 16 August last year.And the White House is trying to use the first year marker to extol it as a pivotal moment in tackling the climate emergency.“It’s the largest investment in clean energy in American history, and I would argue in world history, to tackle the climate crisis,” John Podesta, Biden’s chief clean energy advisor, told the Guardian. “With any legislation it takes time to get traction, but this is performing above expectations.”Podesta said there has been an “enormous response” in take-up for the tax credits that festoon the $369bn bill, directed at zero-carbon energy projects such as solar, wind and nuclear, grants for bring renewables manufacturing to the US and consumer incentives to purchase electric cars, heat pumps and electric stoves.Here are the key points to know about the impact of the act so far as it approaches its anniversary on August 16:1A boom in clean energy investmentThere has been around $278bn in new clean energy investments, creating more than 170,000 jobs, across the US in the first year of the Inflation Reduction Act, according to an estimate by the advocacy group Climate Power. The White House claims that there will be twice as much wind, solar and battery storage deployment over the next seven years than if the bill was never enacted, with companies already spending twice as much on new manufacturing facilities as they were pre-IRA.“It’s been more impactful than I or other observers would’ve thought,” said James Stock, a climate economist at Harvard University.Stock said that while the Inflation Reduction Act won’t by itself eliminate planet-heating emissions in the US, it is the “first substantive step” towards doing so and should help propagate the next generation of hoped-for clean fuels, such as hydrogen, in its 10-year lifespan. “As the tax credits are uncapped, too, we will see a lot more invested than we expected,” he said. “We could easily see $800bn to $1.2tn.”2More people are buying electric vehiclesThe Inflation Reduction Act includes rebates of up to $7,500 for buying an electric vehicle, and this incentive appears to be paying off – EV sales are set to top 1m in the US for the first time this year. Moreover, over half of US drivers are considering an EV for their next purchase, polling has shown.This transition isn’t without its hurdles, however – there has been a shortage of key parts in the EV supply chain, many models still remain prohibitively expensive and unions have been unhappy at the lack of worker protections for many of the new plants that are popping up. Climate advocates, meanwhile, have questioned why similarly strong support hasn’t been given to public transit or e-bikes to help get people out of cars altogether.3It will slash US emissions, but not by enoughThe US is the world’s second largest emitter of greenhouse gases and the Inflation Reduction Act is widely forecast to slash these emissions, by as much as 48% by 2035, from 2005 levels, according to one analysis.These forecasts have a relatively wide range of estimates due to uncertainties such as economic growth but even in the most optimistic scenario the US will require further measures if it is to get to net zero emissions by 2050, as scientists have said is imperative if the world is to avoid catastrophic climate impacts.“Even though we passed the IRA you ain’t seen nothing yet,” said Chuck Schumer, the Democratic Senate leader, in promising a fresh climate bill recently. But given the riven nature of US politics, the prospects of such legislation is remote in the near term.A more likely way to bridge the emissions gap will be a raft of regulatory actions by the Environmental Protection Agency, such as new standards to cut pollution from cars, trucks and power plants, as well as progress by individual states. “We basically need everything to go right,” said John Larsen, a partner at Rhodium group, an energy analysis organization4The IRA has so far escaped Republican cuts – but Biden is fighting to get creditThe legislation was a breakthrough moment following decades of obfuscation and delay by Congress despite increasingly frantic warnings by climate scientists over global heating, with the bill itself borne from months of torturous, comprise-laden negotiations with Joe Manchin, the coal baron senator from West Virginia who held a swing vote for its passage.But the legislation has already faced the threat of repeal from Republicans, who universally voted against it, with the GOP’s first bill after gaining control of the House of Representatives this year gutting key elements of the Inflation Reduction Act. This is despite the majority of clean energy investments flowing to Republican-led districts.Biden has also faced the ire of climate progressives for somewhat undercutting his landmark moment with an aggressive giveaway of oil and gas drilling leases on public land, including the controversial Willow oil project in Alaska, and for incentivizing the use of technologies such as carbon capture that have been criticized as an unproven distraction at a time when the world is baking under record heatwaves.“Biden has an atrocious track record on fossil fuels, and that needs to change,” said Jean Su, an attorney and climate campaigner at the Center for Biological Diversity who called on Biden to declare a climate emergency. There needs to be a “sea-change in this administration’s approach” on the climate crisis, according to Jeff Merkley, a Democratic senator. “No more green lighting fossil gas projects. No more stalling on a climate emergency. Now is the time for us to live up to the full promise of the Inflation Reduction Act.”Polling shows the majority of American voters disapprove of Biden’s handling of the climate crisis and only three in 10 have heard that much about the Inflation Reduction Act at all. Such perceptions will need to be turned around if the US president is to help secure the legacy of the bill in next year’s election.“We are going at a record clip to try to address this climate crisis,” said White House adviser Podesta. “I know people want us to hurry up and I wish we could produce a net zero economy immediately but this is a global transition that’s never occurred in human history. We need to get this job done.”The IRA act has not pleased leaders in the EU who have attacked it for being “protectionist” though some have argued they should instead be investing along similar lines.Clean energy investment has gone to red statesNo Republican voted for the Inflation Reduction Act but most of the investment that has been triggered by the bill has been funneled into projects in GOP-held Congressional districts. An emerging ‘battery belt’ is forming in the US south, with battery and electric vehicle plants popping up in states such as Georgia, Tennessee and Texas.“The IRA has been absolutely critical for us in terms of giving market certainties to go bold and big in our investment,” said a spokeswoman for QCells, a solar manufacturer that has embarked upon a major expansion in Georgia.5Renewables are booming – but there’s a transmission bottleneckIf the future wasn’t renewables before the IRA, it certainly is now – more than 80% of new electricity capacity this year will come from wind, solar and battery storage, according to federal government forecasts. The framers of the legislation hoped it will create a sort of virtuous circle whereby more renewable capacity will push down the cost of already cheap clean energy sources, seeding yet further renewable deployment.Solar panels may be dotting California and wind turbines sprouting off the east coast, but without the unglamorous build-out of transmission lines much of the benefits of the Inflation Reduction Act may be lost.Not only is there a lack of physical poles and wires to shift clean energy from one part of the country to another, many clean energy projects are facing interminable waits, lasting several years, to be connected to the grid at all. There is more than 1,250 gigawatts of solar and wind capacity actively seeking grid connection, which is about equal to the entire existing US power plant fleet.“Something’s going to have to change to get this deployment online,” said Larsen. “Beyond that it will be about building stuff at scale, very, very quickly.” More

    • 125 Shares99 Views

      in US Politics

      White House asks Congress for additional $24bn in Ukraine aid

      by

      The White House is asking Congress for an additional $24bn in Ukraine aid “and other international needs” such as countering China, including $13.1bn for defense, senior administration officials revealed on Thursday.The US has so far given Ukraine more than $113bn in aid since Russia invaded in February 2021, making it Ukraine’s biggest funder in its defense against Russia.The extra funds would push total supplemental funding allocated by the US defense department for Ukraine to around $60bn to date, comprised of $43.9bn for security assistance and $18.4bn for military, intelligence, and other defense support, an administration official told the Guardian. Within the latest request for supplemental funds to Ukraine, the US is asking for $200m to counter the Russian mercenary Wagner group in African countries.Kevin McCarthy, the Republican speaker of the House, has previously expressed he would not back supplemental funding to Ukraine that would push defense spending above the total negotiated in the deal to avert a national default. That deal capped national security spending for the fiscal year ending 30 September 2024 at $886bn.“We don’t know how much longer this war is going to go on, or how much more assistance we might need to support Ukraine,” a senior administration official said on a call with reporters on Thursday. “We won’t be bashful about going back to Congress beyond the first quarter of next year if we feel like we need to do that.”Republicans have been divided over Ukraine aid, with some vehemently opposing additional support while others say spending is not enough. Republican presidential candidates in 2024 Donald Trump and Ron DeSantis, the Republican governor of Florida, have been among the loudest detractors of increasing defense spending on Ukraine.In a letter to McCarthy, Shalanda Young, director of the US Office of Management and Budget – which administers the federal budget – wrote that the supplemental funds are necessary to support Ukraine and other vulnerable groups impacted by the war.“As the impacts of Russia’s war reverberate around the globe, the United States is committed to maintaining strong global opposition to Russia’s illegal war. At the same time, it is essential that we offer a credible alternative to the People’s Republic of China’s (PRC) coercive and unstable lending and infrastructure projects for developing countries around the world,” Young wrote.Young also pushed Congress to swifty authorize funding to uphold agreements with three Pacific Island nations, the Federated States of Micronesia, the Republic of the Marshall Islands, and the Republic of Palau, which allow the US military access to key bases near China in the Pacific Ocean in exchange for aid and other benefits.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionThe request, which totals around $40bn, also asks Congress to appropriate $12bn for disaster relief and about $4bn for managing the Southwest border, including combating the trade of illicit drugs, namely fentanyl. It allocates $60m to support pay increases for wildland firefighters as the US has seen a jump in extreme weather events. More

    • 113 Shares169 Views

      in US Politics

      Supreme court reinstates Biden’s ‘ghost gun’ restrictions for now

      by

      The US supreme court on Tuesday granted a request by President Joe Biden’s administration to reinstate – at least for now – a federal regulation aimed at reining in privately made firearms called “ghost guns” that are difficult for law enforcement to trace.The justices put on hold a 5 July decision by US district judge Reed O’Connor in Fort Worth, Texas, that had blocked the 2022 rule nationwide pending the administration’s appeal. O’Connor found that the administration exceeded its authority under a 1968 federal law called the Gun Control Act in implementing the rule relating to ghost guns, firearms that are privately assembled and lack the usual serial numbers required by the federal government.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionMore details soon… More