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      ‘Bidenomics’ is working – which means Biden and the Democrats may win too | Robert Reich

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      Until recently, I assumed that Joe Biden would get a second term despite worries about his age because most Americans find Trump so loathsome.But I’ve underestimated Bidenomics. It’s turning out to be the most successful set of economic policies the United States has witnessed in a half-century.It may not only give Joe another term but also give Democrats control over both houses of Congress. It may even put the nation on the path to widely shared prosperity for a generation.New economic data last week showed that inflation cooled to 3% in June, down from over 9% last year, and close to the Fed’s goal of 2%.And as inflation has subsided, real wages – that is, what paychecks will buy – have finally risen.Meanwhile, economic growth has accelerated. Consumer spending is solid. Consumers expect the economy to continue to do well.Inflation is coming down without a crash landing, in large part because the Fed’s rate increases – designed to slow the economy, stop wage growth and cause higher unemployment – are being offset by Bidenomics’ massive public investments in infrastructure, semiconductors, wind and solar energy, and manufacturing.This isn’t all. The Biden administration has added three other critical ingredients: the threat (and, in some cases, reality) of tough antitrust enforcement, a pro-labor National Labor Relations Board, and strict limits on Chinese imports.Taken together, these policies are beginning to alter the structure of the American economy in favor of the bottom 90%.In recent decades, the Fed has been in charge of evening out the business cycle, but no one has taken charge of altering the structure of the economy so that the poor and working middle class get a larger share of the gains.This restructuring has been difficult to achieve for the simple reason that the monied interests don’t want it.In Republican circles, the monied interests have preached the snake oil of supply-side economics, which legitimized giant tax cuts going mostly to the rich and large corporations.Those tax cuts – under Reagan, George W Bush and Trump – exploded the federal debt, fueled giant profits in the biggest firms and financial institutions, and stoked a surge in billionaire wealth but did literally nothing for average working people. Nothing trickled down.In Democratic circles, the monied interests have used neoliberalism – which has called for deregulation, privatization, free trade and the domination of finance over the economy.This orthodoxy pervaded the Clinton and Obama administrations. (I won’t bore you with my war stories, but trust me.)The result was similar to that of supply-side economics: wealth surged to the top, but average working people remained stuck in the mud.In contrast to both supply-side economics and neoliberalism, the Biden administration is focused on altering the structure of the economy.Over the past year, manufacturing construction in hi-tech electronics, which the administration has subsidized through Chips and the Inflation Reduction Act, has quadrupled.Tens of billions in infrastructure spending has been funneled to the states for road, water system and internet upgrades.More clean-energy manufacturing facilities have been announced in the last year than in the previous seven combined.Biden understands that these investments must translate into high-paying jobs, which often require unions.“When I think climate, I think jobs … union workers are the best workers in the world,” he said in a recent speech on what he has called Bidenomics.The monied interests don’t want unions, of course. The narrow congressional majority that got these bills passed rolled back some of the labor conditions that originally accompanied the tax credits and grants.Moreover, much of the funding is pouring into so-called “right-to-work” states that make it exceedingly difficult to unionize.But a buoyant economy strengthens the hand of workers, making it easier to unionize – which helps explain the ubiquitous labor action this summer.Voters may not yet understand Bidenomics, but it’s probably not necessary that they do in order for Biden and the Democrats to benefit.If Bidenomics continues to alter the structure of the economy in ways that help the vast majority, voters will give Biden another term and reward Democrats with both houses of Congress.And if Bidenomics is successful, it will make the American economy both stronger and fairer in years to come.I’m betting on it.
      Robert Reich, a former US secretary of labor, is 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 new 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

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      Big business lobbies against heat protections for workers as US boils

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      Big-business lobbyists, including big agricultural and construction groups, are pushing to water down or stymie efforts at the federal and state levels to implement workplace heat protection standards.This summer, millions in the US have been exposed to some of the hottest days on record, inciting renewed urgency for federal protections from heat exposure for US workers. The Biden administration has proposed federal heat protections for workers. But those rules face stiff opposition and could take several years to be finalized under current rule-making processes and laws. They could even be scrapped depending on the outcome of 2024’s election.Business groups and lobbyists have aggressively opposed efforts at state and federal levels to enact heat protection standards for workers, claiming employers already practice what a standard would mandate, expressing concerns about the burden on employers, and claiming the efforts take a “wrong approach”.Between 2011 to 2021, 436 workers died from heat exposure according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, but that is most likely an undercount because heat-related deaths are often attributed to other accidents or health conditions.At present, no federal law protects workers specifically from extreme heat. Farm workers and advocacy groups are also pushing to include heat protections for farm workers in the 2023 farm bill currently being considered by Congress. But with Republicans in control of Congress, such a measure is unlikely to pass.In September 2021, the Biden administration announced the launch of a rule-making effort at the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (Osha) to develop heat exposure standards to protect outdoor and indoor workers.The powerful American Farm Bureau Federation has objected to the proposal. “Considering the variances in agricultural work and climate, AFBF questions whether the department can develop additional heat illness regulations without imposing new, onerous burdens on farmers and ranchers that will lead to economic losses,” it said in its comments on the rule.The group has a long history of denying science around the climate crisis and has teamed up with fossil fuel interests in fights over climate policies.The Construction Industry Safety Coalition (CISC) said while it “appreciates Osha’s rule-making in this area”, its members have “significant concerns with any regulatory approach that imposes complicated requirements on contractors and requirements that are triggered by threshold temperatures that are common in wide swaths of the country for much of the year”.The National Demolition Association, a construction business group, said in its opposition “issues of heat exposure and the means to address it on the variety of construction worksites across the country are extremely complex”. The proposed rule “essentially dictates how and what should be included in an Osha standard for heat exposure, [and] does not account for the complexities of the issue”.A handful of states, California, Colorado, Washington, Oregon and Minnesota, have issued their own heat exposure standards. Oregon is the only state also to protect indoor workers from heat exposure. Business groups have responded with lawsuits in Oregon and industry groups have already questioned the feasibility of a federal heat illness standard.Meanwhile, the Texas governor, Greg Abbott, has rescinded city ordinances that mandated heat protections for workers. The move was applauded by business groups.Last week Biden announced new measures to tackle the heat crisis, including hazard alerts for workplaces such as farms and construction sites. Experts described the announcement as positive but modest. In the meantime, his efforts to implement federal heat protections are making slow progress.The Osha rule-making process comprises seven stages. On average it takes Osha over seven years to develop and issue safety and health standards, according to a report by the Government Accountability Office. And it can take significantly longer. An Osha standard on silica exposure finalized in 2016 took 45 years to implement. The agency estimated it would have prevented 1,600 new cases of silicosis annually and saved more than 600 lives a year.“It’s going to be many, many years before we see a final standard, because there’s so many steps the agency has to go through, and they have to collect so much data and so much information more than other agencies when they do something similar,” said Debbie Berkowitz, who served as chief of staff and senior policy adviser at Osha during the Obama administration.“It’s not rocket science to protect workers from heat. Many employers do it but many employers don’t. It’s not that expensive,” Berkowitz said. “But it’s good to have a standard, a standard will really save lives.”Berkowitz said that protection standards for workers should include water, rest breaks, access to shade, acclimatization for workers exposed to excessive heat on the job, and training for workers and managers on heat protections and the symptoms of heat illnesses. While at Osha, she noted, several investigations into heat-related worker deaths involved workers who had just started working in intense heat on the job. For example, in July 2022, 24-year-old Kaylen Gehrke died on the job from heat stroke in Louisiana on her first day conducting archaeological surveys outdoors while the area was under a heat advisory warning.“The workers most impacted are the ones who bring us our food, build our buildings, it seems to me a no-brainer to give Osha the authority to move quickly to require these basics, that employers require water, that they educate workers on the early symptoms of heat stress that if not attended to can lead to fatalities quickly,” Berkowitz added. “I think most farm workers and other workers that go and toil in the sun every day deserve our gratitude and our thanks and deserve this protection.”At least two Florida farm workers have died this year due to heat exposure, 29-year-old Efraín López García died on 5 July and another unnamed farm worker died in Parkland in January on their first day on the job. The state legislature declined to consider a bill to enact heat exposure protections for workers, though the protections would not have been enforceable. Miami-Dade county recently introduced a bill in the county commission to enact heat standards locally.Dr Nezahualcoyotl Xiuhtecutli, general coordinator of the Farmworker Association of Florida, explained farm workers are even more susceptible to heat exposure due to the piece rate system, where workers are paid based upon the number of units of crops they pick.“The piece rate system makes it even more difficult because they feel pressure to work harder and pick more so they can actually increase their salary, but this disincentivizes them from taking breaks and paying attention to their body because they’re thinking about how it’s going to affect their income,” said Xiuhtecutli.He expressed disappointment that the Florida legislature didn’t consider a bill to implement heat protections for workers and argued the onus shouldn’t be on workers themselves to protect themselves from excessive heat.“These deaths are preventable,” he said. “We have guidelines for how to prevent them. Neglecting to take care of them just really speaks volumes about our priorities as a society and as a state, because we can’t even take care of the lives of our most vulnerable workers.”With recent extreme heatwaves, anticipation of a new normal of record-setting temperatures due to the climate crisis, and ongoing reported cases of workers dying on the job due to heat exposure, worker advocacy groups, unions and elected officials are increasing pressure for heat exposure standards to be implemented at local, state and federal level.On 25 July, Congressman Greg Casar of Texas began a thirst strike at the US Capitol with the labor activist Dolores Huerta, calling on Osha to implement federal heat standards to protect workers, including water breaks. Some 112 members of Congress signed a letter on 24 July calling on Osha to implement heat protection standards for workers, basing standards on a proposed congressional bill, the Asuncion Valdivia Heat Illness and Fatalities Prevention Act, named after a farm worker who died from heat exposure in 2004.The bill was reintroduced to Congress on 26 July. Congress has previously passed legislation ordering Osha to expedite safety standards, such as the Needlestick Safety and Prevention Act passed in 2020 that mandated Osha update worker safety standards on blood-borne pathogens.“It’s a commonsense piece of legislation that will require employers to provide workers with what are quite frankly, humane work conditions in the face of extreme heat,” said Dr Rachel Licker, a principal climate scientist at the Union of Concerned Scientists and co-author of a 2021 report on the threat climate change poses to workers. “We know that there’s already extreme heat happening around the world at levels that are dangerous for outdoor workers and the story is just going to get worse as the world warms because of climate change and emissions from fossil fuels, so it’s clearer than ever that we need to be better prepared because workers are getting injured and dying on the job because of this hazard.”In a statement, Osha’s assistant secretary, Doug Parker, said that as the agency is working on issuing a final rule on heat illness prevention, it is ramping up enforcement compliance efforts and outreach efforts.“Many workers are at increased risk, sometimes because of the jobs they do, but also because of factors like the color of their skin, their ethnicity, or the fact that English is not their first language,” said Parker. “Every worker is entitled to a safe and healthy workplace, and we will continue to use all the tools in our toolbox to ensure all workers have the health and safety protections they need and deserve in every workplace.” More

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      Federal judge blocks Biden administration’s restrictive asylum rule

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      A federal judge on Tuesday blocked a rule that allows immigration authorities to deny asylum to migrants who arrive at the US-Mexico border without first applying online or seeking protection in a country they passed through.But the judge delayed his ruling from taking effect immediately to give the Joe Biden White House time to appeal.The order from judge Jon Tigar of California’s northern federal district takes away a key enforcement tool set in place by the Biden administration as coronavirus-based restrictions on asylum expired in May. The new rule imposes severe limitations on migrants seeking asylum but includes room for exceptions and does not apply to children traveling alone.In an order that will not take effect for two weeks, Tigar wrote “the rule … cannot remain in place”, in part because it improperly presumes people who enter the country between legal border crossings are ineligible for asylum.The justice department said it would seek to prevent the judge’s ruling from taking effect and maintained the rule was lawful.Immigrant rights groups that sued over the the rule applauded the judge’s decision.“The promise of America is to serve as a beacon of freedom and hope, and the administration can and should do better to fulfill this promise, rather than perpetuate cruel and ineffective policies that betray it,” American Civil Liberties Union attorney Katrina Eiland, who argued the case, said in a statement.The administration had argued that protection systems in other countries that migrants travel through have improved. But Tigar said it was not feasible for some migrants to seek protection in a transit country and noted the violence that many face in Mexico in particular.He also wrote that the rule was illegal because it presumes that people are ineligible for asylum if they enter the country between legal border crossings. But, Tigar wrote, Congress expressly said that should not affect whether someone is eligible for asylum.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionBiden’s staff has said the asylum rule is a key part of its strategy to balance strict border enforcement while ensuring several avenues for migrants to pursue valid asylum claims. According to Customs and Border Protection, total encounters along the southern border have gone down recently. More

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      ‘Missing witness’ who accuses Biden of China corruption charged with being China agent

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      A US thinktank chief who accuses Joe Biden of China-linked corruption involving his son, Hunter Biden, and who has been presented by Republicans as a “missing” witness against the president, was charged with China-linked offenses including failing to register as a foreign agent, arms trafficking and violations of sanctions on Iran.Gal Luft, 57 and a dual US-Israeli citizen, is co-director of the Institute for the Analysis of Global Security (IAGS), based in Maryland, near Washington.An indictment handed down in November was unsealed on Monday with Luft described as a fugitive, having skipped bail in Cyprus in April while awaiting extradition.Announcing the charges, Damian Williams, US attorney for the southern district of New York, said Luft “engaged in multiple, serious criminal schemes.“He subverted foreign agent registration laws in the United States to seek to promote Chinese policies by acting through a former high-ranking US government official; he acted as a broker in deals for dangerous weapons and Iranian oil; and he told multiple lies about his crimes to law enforcement.”News of the charges seemed guaranteed to infuriate Republicans in Congress seeking to use Hunter Biden’s troubled personal life and business dealings in attacks on his father, potentially including attempts to bring about impeachment proceedings.Last Friday, James Comer of Kentucky, chair of the House oversight committee, told the rightwing network Newsmax Luft was “a credible witness that the FBI flew all the way to Brussels to interview and sent several agents to interview”.Earlier, in a video published by the New York Post, Luft denied wrongdoing. He was arrested, he claimed, to stop him testifying to Comer’s committee about alleged China-linked corruption involving the Bidens.“I’m not a Republican,” Luft said. “I’m not a Democrat. I have no political motive or agenda … I did it out of deep concern that if the Bidens were to come to power, the country would be facing the same traumatic Russia collusion scandal [the investigation of Russian election interference and links between Donald Trump and Moscow] only this time with China.”Saying he “warned the [US] government about potential risk to the integrity of the 2020 elections”, Luft added: “Ask yourself, who is the real criminal in this story?”He skipped bail, he said, “because I did not believe I will receive a fair trial in a New York court”.In New York, prosecutors allege Luft “agree[d] to covertly recruit and pay, on behalf of principals based in China, a former high-ranking US government official … including in 2016 while the former official was an adviser to the then-president-elect [Trump], to publicly support certain policies with respect to China”.The former official and an alleged Chinese co-conspirator were not named.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionLuft is also alleged to have “conspired … to broker illicit arms transactions with, among others, certain Chinese individuals and entities”; to have conspired with a Chinese energy company “to broker deals for Iranian oil – which he directed an associate to refer to as ‘Brazilian’ oil in an effort to … evade sanctions”; and to have made “multiple false statements” to law enforcement.The SDNY listed maximum jail sentences for the charges against Luft, ranging from five years for conspiracy to violate the Foreign Agents Registration Act to 20 years for arms trafficking offenses and sanctions violations.Noting Luft’s “fugitive” status, the SDNY asked people with information about his whereabouts to contact the FBI or the nearest US embassy or consulate.In a statement, IAGS said: “Gal is a man of total integrity and honesty. We are confident in his innocence.”Tim Miller, a Republican operative turned “Never Trumper”, said: “So the guy who was supposedly gonna blow the whistle on Biden taking payments from foreigners was actually paying off Trump admin officials himself on behalf of China!! Could this be more on the nose?” More

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      US Marines without leader for first time in 150 years as Republican blocks nomination

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      The commandant of the US Marine Corps, Gen David Berger, stepped down on Monday, leaving the military branch without a confirmed leader for the first time in more than 150 years.The vacancy comes as one Republican senator, Tommy Tuberville of Alabama, has staged a months-long blockade of Pentagon nominations to protest against the department’s abortion policies.Berger’s assistant commandant and potential successor, Gen Eric Smith, has stepped in as the acting leader of the marines while his nomination remains stalled in the Senate. Smith became the marines’ first acting commandant since 1859, when Archibald Henderson died in office.Smith’s nomination is one of more than 200 high-level Pentagon nominations that have already been affected by Tuberville’s blockade. In February, Tuberville launched his campaign of obstruction in response to the Pentagon’s new policy, enacted after the reversal of Roe v Wade, to cover travel costs for service members or service members’ spouses who have to leave their state to access abortion care.The Senate generally confirms non-controversial nominees like Smith by unanimous consent, but any single senator’s objection forces a floor vote. The laborious process of approving hundreds of stalled nominations via floor vote would probably take months, sparking criticism among Democrats that Tuberville’s antics may jeopardize military readiness.“What the senator is doing by holding these nominations, it’s a threat to our national security. Period. That’s what he’s doing,” the White House press secretary, Karine Jean-Pierre, said last month. “These are important nominations that we need, that the American people need to keep our country safe.”Tuberville has rejected such criticism, writing in a Washington Post op-ed last month: “My hold is not affecting readiness. Acting officials are in each one of the positions that are due for a promotion. The hold affects only those at the very top – generals and flag officers. The people who actually fight are not affected at all.”Tuberville shows no sign of abandoning his blockade, and the standoff could soon affect the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, the highest-ranking US military officer, as Gen Mark Milley, retires in September. More

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      Can Biden solve his supreme court problem? – podcast

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      In recent weeks the US supreme court ended affirmative action, ruled in favour of a web designer who does not want to serve gay clients and blocked Joe Biden’s student debt forgiveness plan.
      Michael Safi speaks with Sam Levine, a voting rights reporter with Guardian US, to learn the stories behind these decisions, and what president Biden can do about them

      How to listen to podcasts: everything you need to know More

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      Cluster bombs to Ukraine will damage US moral leadership, Democrat says

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      The decision to provide cluster munitions to Ukraine risks costing the US its “moral leadership” in world affairs, the influential California Democratic congresswoman Barbara Lee said.“We know what takes place in terms of cluster bombs being very dangerous to civilians,” Lee said. “They don’t always immediately explode. Children can step on them. That’s a line we should not cross.”In 2001, Lee was the only member of Congress to vote against the war in Afghanistan. She is running to replace the retiring Dianne Feinstein in the Senate next year.Speaking to CNN’s State of the Union, she added: “I think [Joe Biden] has been doing a good job managing … [Russian president Vladimir] Putin’s aggressive war against Ukraine, but I think that this should not happen. [Biden] had to ask for a waiver under the Foreign Assistance Act just to do it because we have been preventing the use of cluster bombs since I believe 2010.”Biden also spoke to CNN, an interview released as he traveled to the UK, then to the Nato summit in Lithuania.His host, Fareed Zakaria, said: “These are weapons that a hundred nations ban, including some of our closest Nato allies. When there was news that the Russians might be using it, admittedly against civilians, your then press secretary said this might … constitute war crimes. What made you change your mind?”Biden said: “Two things … and it was a very difficult decision on my part. And I discussed this with our allies, discussed this with our friends up on [Capitol] Hill. And we’re in a situation where Ukraine continues to be brutally attacked across the board by … these cluster munitions that have dud rates that are … very high, that are a danger to civilians, number one.”“Dud rates” refers to cluster munition “bomblets” that do not explode when fired or dropped but can do so later.Biden continued: “Number two, the Ukrainians are running out of ammunition … And so what I finally did, [I] took the recommendation of the defense department to … provide them with something that has a very low dud rate. … I think it’s one in 50, which is the least likely to be blowing [up] and it’s not used in civilian areas. They’re trying to … stop those tanks from rolling.”Biden said: “It took me a while to be convinced to do it. But the main thing is, they either have the weapons to stop the Russians now from … stopping the Ukrainian offensive … or they don’t. And I think they needed them.”Lee was asked if the US was at risk in “engaging in war crimes”.“What I think is that we would risk losing our moral leadership,” she said. “Because when you look at the fact that over 120 countries have signed the Convention on Cluster Munitions, saying they should never be used, they should never be used.“And in fact, many of us have urged the administration to sign on to this convention. And so I’m hoping that the administration would reconsider this because these are very dangerous bombs … and this is a line that I don’t believe we should cross.”Another influential Democrat, Tim Kaine, from Virginia and a member of the Senate armed services committee, also questioned Biden’s decision.“It could give a green light to other nations to do something different as well,” Kaine told Fox News Sunday, adding that he “appreciates the Biden administration has grappled with the risks”.A House Republican, Michael McCaul of Texas, chair of the foreign affairs committee, said he did not “see anything wrong” with supplying cluster bombs.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionSpeaking to CNN, McCaul said: “Russia is dropping, with impunity, cluster bombs in Ukraine … all the Ukrainians and [President Volodymyr] Zelenskiy are asking for is to give them the same weapons the Russians have to use in their own country, against Russians who are in their own country … they do not want these to be used in Russia.”McCaul criticized Biden, saying: “As you look at the counter-offensive, it’s been slowed tremendously because this administration has been so slow to get the weapons.”John Kirby, the national security council spokesperson, told ABC’s This Week: “We are very mindful of the concerns about … unexploded ordnance being picked up by civilians or children and being hurt … and we’re going to focus on Ukraine with de-mining efforts. In fact, we’re doing it right now and we will when war conditions permit.”Ukraine’s push for membership of Nato is another divisive issue.“I don’t think it’s ready for membership in Nato,” Biden said. “I don’t think there is unanimity in Nato about whether or not to bring Ukraine into the family now, in the middle of a war … we’re determined to [defend] every inch of territory that is Nato territory. It’s a commitment we’ve all made, no matter what.“If the war is going on, then we’re all … at war with Russia, if that were the case. So, I think we have to lay out a rational path for … Ukraine to be able to qualify to get into Nato.”Kirby said Ukraine needed to make reforms “necessary for any Nato ally to become a member … political reforms, economic reforms, good governance. Those kinds of things.”Zelenskiy also spoke to ABC. If there was no unity on an invitation for Ukraine to join Nato, he said, “Ukraine should get clear security guarantees while it is not in Nato and that is a very important point.”Adding that Ukraine “would like to have all the decisions to be made during this summit”, he said: “It’s obvious that I’ll be there and I’ll be doing whatever I can in order to, so to speak, expedite that solution. … I don’t want to go to Vilnius for fun if the decision has been made beforehand.” More

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      Biden says sending cluster bombs to Ukraine was ‘difficult decision’ – live

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      From 3h agoKahl says there are two primary reasons behind the decision to include cluster munitions in this latest weapons aid package to Ukraine.One is the “urgency of the moment”, he says. Ukraine is in the midst of its counteroffensive which has been difficult because the Russians had six months to dig into defensive belts in the east and the south.
      We want to make sure that the Ukrainians have sufficient artillery to keep them in the fight in the context of the current counter offensive, and because things are going a little slower than some had hoped.
      Here is the video of Pentagon official Colin Kahl speaking earlier today on the Biden administration’s decision to sent cluster bombs to Ukraine:Kahl told reporters that the “urgency of the moment” demanded it, but also said: “We want to make sure that the Ukrainians have sufficient artillery to keep them in the fight in the context of the current counteroffensive, and because things are going a little slower than some had hoped.”Democratic presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr has joined the growing list of lawmakers and human rights groups condemning the Biden administration for its decision to send cluster munitions to Ukraine.
      “Cluster bombs are munitions so horrific for civilians that more than a hundred nations have signed an international treaty banning them. Now the Biden administration is preparing to send them to Ukraine,” Kennedy Jr tweeted on Friday.
      Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskiy has hailed the new US defense package which includes cluster munitions.In a tweet on Friday, Zelenskiy said:
      “A timely, broad and much-needed defense aid package from the United States. We are grateful to the American people and President Joseph Biden @POTUS for decisive steps that bring Ukraine closer to victory over the enemy, and democracy to victory over dictatorship.
      The expansion of Ukraine’s defense capabilities will provide new tools for the de-occupation of our land and bringing peace closer.”
      In an interview with CNN host Fareed Zakaria on Friday, president Joe Biden said that his decision to provide Ukraine with cluster munitions was a “difficult decision.”
      “It was a very difficult decision on my part. And by the way, I discussed this with our allies, I discussed this with our friends up on the Hill,” Biden said, adding, “The Ukrainians are running out of ammunition.”
      “This is a war relating to munitions. And they’re running out of that ammunition, and we’re low on it and so, what I finally did, I took the recommendation of the Defense Department to – not permanently – but to allow for this transition period, while we get more 155 weapons, these shells, for the Ukrainians.”
      Despite over 100 countries having outlawed the munitions under the Convention on Cluster Munitions, the US and Ukraine are not signatories.
      “They’re trying to get through those trenches and stop those tanks from rolling. But it was not an easy decision,” Biden said, adding, “We’re not signatories to that agreement, but it took me a while to be convinced to do it.”
      “But the main thing is they either have the weapons to stop the Russians now – keep them from stopping the Ukrainian offensive through these areas – or they don’t. And I think they needed them.”
      Here is an animation on how cluster bombs work:As the Guardian’s Léonie Chao-Fung reports in her explainer piece on the weapon, “Cluster bombs, like landmines, pose a risk to civilians long after their use. Unexploded ordinance from cluster bombs can kill and maim people years or even decades after the munitions were fired.”For the full explainer, click here:Minnesota’s Democratic representative Ilhan Omar has issued a condemnation of the Biden administration’s decision to send cluster bombs to Ukraine, saying, “Instead of dealing cluster munitions, we should be doing everything in our power to end their use.”The statement continued:
      “Cluster munitions are illegal under international law. A total of 123 countries have ratified the convention to ban their use under all circumstances—including nearly all our allies.
      “It’s not hard to understand why. Because cluster bombs scatter multiple small bombs over a large area, they kill civilians both during an attack and after. I was recently in Vietnam where I heard firsthand how innocent civilians continue to be killed by US cluster munitions a full fifty years after the conflict ended. Tens of thousands of explosives are found every year there.
      “We have to be clear: if the US is going to be a leader on international human rights, we must not participate in human rights abuses. We can support the people of Ukraine in their freedom struggle, while also opposing violations of international law. (In fact, the innocent victims of the cluster munitions will almost exclusively be Ukrainian civilians).”
      Here’s a recap of today’s developments:
      The US will send cluster munitions to Ukraine as part of a new $800 military aid package, the Pentagon has confirmed. The package will include Dual-Purpose Improved Conventional Munitions (DPICMs), also known as cluster munitions, armored vehicles and air defense missiles. Ukraine has been asking for cluster munitions for months, but US officials have been hesitant as the weapons can kill indiscriminately over a wide area, threatening civilians.
      The White House said it had postponed the decision over whether to send the controversial weapons “for as long as we could” because of the risk of civilian harm from unexploded ordnance. National security adviser Jake Sullivan told reporters that American cluster munitions had a “dud” rate of below 2.5%, which he described as far below Russia’s cluster munition dud rate.
      Human rights groups have condemned Joe Biden’s approval to send cluster munitions to Ukraine. At least 149 civilians were killed or injured worldwide by the weapon in 2021, according to the Cluster Munition Monitor. Biden also faced a backlash from within his own Democratic party.
      Ukraine’s counteroffensive is “slower than we hoped”, the US undersecretary of defense for policy, Colin H Kahl, said. He said one of the primary reasons behind the decision to send cluster munitions was because of the “urgency of the moment”, adding that the weapons would be delivered “in a timeframe that is relevant for the counteroffensive”.
      The US added 209,000 new jobs in June as hiring slowed amid signs that the economy is cooling. The rise was the weakest gain since December 2020, but the increase was also the 30th consecutive month of jobs gains, and the unemployment rate ticked down to the historically low rate of 3.6%.
      Treasury secretary Janet Yellen has arrived in Beijing on a four-day trip that aims to tame spiralling tensions between the world’s two largest economies, particularly over trade and the hi-tech chip industry. She will meet senior Chinese officials including the premier, Li Qiang, and former vice-premier and economics tsar Liu He, who is seen as close to China’s president, Xi Jinping, in her first day of talks on Friday.
      The team led by special counsel Jack Smith has indicated a continued interest in a chaotic meeting that took place in the Oval Office in the final days of the Trump administration, according to a CNN report. Investigators have reportedly questioned several witnesses before the grand jury and during interviews about the meeting, which took place about six weeks after Donald Trump lost the 2020 election.
      James Comer, chair of the house oversight committee, requested a Secret Service briefing after cocaine was found at the White House over the weekend. In a letter to Secret Service director, Kimberly Cheatle, the Kentucky Republican said his committee is “investigating the details surrounding the discovery of cocaine in the White House”.
      Florida governor Ron DeSantis said he plans to participate in the first Republican presidential debate in August, whether or not Donald Trump attends. “I’ll be there, regardless,” DeSantis said. Trump, who continues to be frontrunner in the GOP race, has not officially said whether he will skip the debate.
      The Biden administration’s approval of the transfer of cluster munitions to Ukraine has sparked concern from human rights groups and some congressional lawmakers over the weapon’s ability to harm civilians, especially children, long after their use.At least 38 human rights organizations have publicly opposed the transfer of cluster munitions to Ukraine, according to the Hill.Sarah Yager, the Washington director at Human Rights Watch, said cluster bombs were already “all over” Ukraine and it is “not a good enough excuse for the United States to be sending more”. She added:
      Legislators, policymakers and the Biden administration will probably think twice when the pictures start coming back of children who have been harmed by American-made cluster munitions.
      Eric Eikenberry, the government relations director at Win Without War, said the adminstration’s argument that cluster munitions could help Ukraine advance and stop the Russian bombings was “speculative”.He dismissed “the idea that these are going to be a huge boon, the counteroffensive is going to jet forward and we’re going to save lives in the aggregate because these are going to be the wonder weapons that flip the battlefield in our favor and takes Russian artillery out of commission.”Here’s a clip of Joe Biden’s national security adviser, Jake Sullivan, who laid out the case for providing cluster munitions to Ukraine ahead of the Pentagon’s announcement.Kahl says it is too early to judge how the Ukrainian counter offensive is going “because we are at the beginning of the middle”.The counteroffensive is “slower than we had hoped” but the Ukrainians have a lot of combat power left, Kahl says.He says the majority of the Ukrainian combat power “has not been brought to bear”.
      What you’re seeing across the east and the south is the Ukrainians deliberately probing for weak spots.
      The real test will be when they identify weak spots or create weak spots and generate a breach, how rapidly they’re able to exploit that with the combat power that they have in reserve, and how rapidly the Russians will be able to respond.
      He says he believes the Ukrainians are doing their best but that the Russians “were more successful in digging in more deeply that perhaps was fully appreciated”.Kahl does not specify how many rounds of cluster munitions that will be transferred to Ukraine.He says the US has “hundreds of thousands that are available at this dud rate”, and that it believes that it has the ability to flow them into Ukraine to “keep them in the current fight” and to “build this bridge”. Providing cluster munitions to Ukraine “gives them an extra arrow in their quiver”, Kahl says.He says it is important for the Ukrainians to have a mix of capabilities, and that there is no one silver bullet.On the subject of a timeline, he says he is going to be “a little circumspect” for operational security reasons, and that the US has been “pretty cautious about talking about specific timelines”. He adds:
      The one thing I will say is they will deliver in a timeframe that is relevant for the counter offensive.
      Secondly, Kahl says the US has substantially increased the production of 155m rounds, and that allies have also invested in their defense industrial base.But the reality is that “we’re going to need to build a bridge to the point at which that capacity is sufficient, on a month to month basis, to keep the Ukrainians in the artillery fight”, he says.He says he is “as concerned about the humanitarian circumstance” as anybody” but that the “worst thing for civilians and Ukraine is for Russia to win the war”.Kahl says there are two primary reasons behind the decision to include cluster munitions in this latest weapons aid package to Ukraine.One is the “urgency of the moment”, he says. Ukraine is in the midst of its counteroffensive which has been difficult because the Russians had six months to dig into defensive belts in the east and the south.
      We want to make sure that the Ukrainians have sufficient artillery to keep them in the fight in the context of the current counter offensive, and because things are going a little slower than some had hoped.
      The Ukrainian government has assured the US of the “responsible use” of DPICM, including that it will not use the rounds in civilian-populated urban environments, Kahl says.Ukraine has also committed to post-conflict mining “to mitigate any potential harm to civilians”, he says.He says Washington will work with Kyiv to “minimize the risks associated with the decision” to supply cluster munitions.Kahl says Russian forces have been using cluster munitions “indiscriminately” since the start of its war in Ukraine. By contrast, Ukraine is seeking DPICM rounds “in order to defend its own sovereign territory”.The US will be sending Ukraine its “most modern” dual-purpose improved conventional munition (DPICM) cluster munitions with “dud” rates to be under 2.35%, Kahl says.He compares that to the cluster munitions used by Russia across Ukraine, which he says has dud rates of between 30% and 40%.The undersecretary of defense for policy, Colin H Kahl, is speaking at a press briefing at the Pentagon.The US will send a new weapons aid package worth about $800m, that will include 155m artillery rounds, including Dual-Purpose Improved Conventional Munitions, and 105mm artillery rounds.Also included in the new package are additional munitions for Patriot air defence systems and ammunition for High Mobility Artillery Rocket systems, additional Stryker armoured personnel carriers, precision aerial munitions, demolition munitions and systems for obstacle clearing and various spare parts and operational sustainment equipment. More