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      in US Politics

      Majority of Europeans fear Biden unable to fix 'broken' US

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      A majority of Europeans believe America’s political system is broken, that China will be the world’s leading power within a decade, and that Joe Biden will be unable to halt his country’s decline on the world stage, according to a report.
      While many welcomed Biden’s victory in November’s US election, more Europeans than not feel that after four years of Donald Trump the US cannot be trusted, according to the study by the European Council on Foreign Relations.
      “Europeans like Biden, but they don’t think America will come back as a global leader,” said the thinktank’s director, Mark Leonard. “When George W Bush was president, they were divided about how America should use its power. With Biden entering the White House, they are divided about whether America has power at all.”
      The survey of 15,000 people in 11 European countries, conducted at the end of last year, found that the shift in European sentiment towards the US in the wake of the Trump presidency had led to a corresponding unwillingness to support Washington in potential international disputes.
      At least half of respondents in all 11 countries surveyed felt, for example, that their government should remain neutral in any conflict between the US and China, while no more than 40% in any country said they would back Washington against Russia.
      “It’s clear that the tumultuous Trump presidency has left an indelible imprint on Europe’s attitude towards the US,” said Ivan Krastev, chair of the Centre for Liberal Strategies, an NGO in Sofia, and an ECFR board member. “The majority of Europeans are now sceptical about the capacity of the US to shape the world. It makes many, rightly or wrongly, want to opt for a more independent role for the EU in the world.”
      In their report, Leonard and Krastev note that while more than 60% of those polled believed the US was “broken”, most evaluated the EU and their own countries’ systems much more positively – an opportunity, they argue, to harness the collective power of the bloc for the benefit and protection of its citizens.
      The survey found that 51% of those polled did not agree with the statement that under Biden the US was likely to resolve its internal divisions and seek to address international issues such as climate change, peace in the Middle East, relations with China or European security.
      Amid a widespread sense of growing Chinese superiority, 79% of those polled in Spain, 72% in Portugal, 72% in Italy and 63% in France said they thought China would overtake the US as the world’s leading superpower within the next decade.
      Just over 32% of all respondents – and a startling 53% of respondents in Germany – felt that after voting for Trump, Americans could not be trusted. Only in Hungary and Poland did significantly more people disagree with that view than agree.
      Just 10% of those polled saw the US as a “reliable” security partner that would always protect Europe, while at least 60% in every country polled said they doubted their country could depend on US support in the event of a crisis.
      The authors say the geopolitical consequences of this shift are significant: two-thirds of those surveyed said it was now important that Europe look after its own defence, including 72% in Portugal, 71% in Sweden, 70% in France and 69% in Poland.
      At least half of respondents in every country surveyed said they would prefer their government to be neutral in a conflict between the US and China. Across the 11 states surveyed, only 23% of respondents thought their country should take Washington’s side against Russia, with 59% preferring to remain neutral.
      Between 38% and 48% of respondents in seven countries thought the EU should adopt a tougher international stance on issues such as trade, taxation and regulation, while most countries considered Germany was now a more important country to “have a good relationship” with than the US.
      The poll also revealed that in nine of the 11 countries – Denmark, France, Germany, Hungary, Italy, the Netherlands, Poland, Spain and Sweden – where the same question was asked in previous years, the average share of people saying the EU’s political system worked very or fairly well had risen from 46% to 48%.
      It found that people who believed their own national political system was working, which was more often the case in northern than in southern Europe, were more likely to say the EU was a success.
      The report identified four “tribes” that went a long way to grouping respondents’ positions, depending on whether they felt the EU, US or China were rising or declining. The biggest tribe, “In Europe we trust”, comprised 35% of respondents, while only 9% belonged to “In America we trust”. More

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      in Elections

      How Biden era could kickstart coordinated approach to Russia

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      Joe Biden’s accession to the US presidency has spawned a huge body of literature about his intentions towards China, but in his four years out of office Biden has in fact made Russia his primary focus in combatting authoritarianism. Now, just days from coming into office, the arrest of the Russian dissident Alexei Navalny has suddenly presented him with a test case, which may also lead to friction with two of his closest allies: Germany and the UK.Germany under Angela Merkel has always resisted a full confrontation with Russia, and has fought hard to keep the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline from Russia to Germany going, saying it is a commercial not a political issue.But Merkel has met Navalny, who was nursed back to health in the German capital after his poisoning and has been described as “the Berlin patient” by Vladimir Putin, and her government may now feel a personal obligation, beyond rhetoric, to help him. The Putin entourage is already heavily sanctioned by the EU as a result if their repression in Belarus as well as Navalny’s poisoning, so her options for showing disapproval through further individual sanctions is limited. And the Nord Stream 2 project will not be far from Merkel’s thoughts.In the case of the UK, British prime ministers have been rhetorically strong about Russia, but are open to the charge that the rhetoric does not extend to clamping down on the lawyers, accountants and army of estate agents that enable the Russian kleptocracy to invest their corruptly-obtained wealth in London. Chatham House, the sober minded thinktank, is, for instance, hosting an event on Tuesday promoted as follows: “The most startling findings of the ‘Russia’ report from parliament’s intelligence and security committee were not about the extent of Moscow’s malign influence in the UK, but about how unwilling the British government had been to take steps to detect and counter it.“The report identified gaping holes in both awareness of the problem, and legislation to deal with it. A formulaic response from the government promised that at least some of these holes have been plugged”. Six months on, how many holes in measures such as ”unexplained wealth orders”, have been filled?But perhaps by coincidence matters are coming to a head. Since 2019, the threat of US sanctions has left the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline about 94% complete. If finished, the 764-mile (1,230km) pipeline will terminate in Lubmin, a coastal village in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, and more than double Germany’s imports of Russian natural gas.On Friday, Germany’s federal maritime authority approved extending the project’s operational time frame because of “unforeseen delays outside German waters”.Since US sanctions would target private companies involved in the project, the state government of Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania has gone to the lengths of establishing a public foundation that could take over the potentially sanctionable activity. Germany believes the US would not have the nerve to sanction a public body, even though this foundation is largely Russian funded.Nicholas Burns the former US assistant secretary of state suggested to the German business newspaper Handelsblatt this week that if Germany suspended construction of the pipeline the US could lift sanctions.Equally, the UK as host of the G7 summit in June looks as if it is going to revive the anti-corruption drive David Cameron started the last time Britain held the event.The west has been hampered in the past four years by the fatal ambiguity of US policy towards Russia. The State Department had been willing to confront Russia, but Donald Trump remained inexplicably averse to doing anything but indulge Putin.Biden has appointed an experienced team with a deep knowledge of Russia including: William Burns, director of the CIA; Victoria Nuland, deputy secretary of state for political affairs; Andrea Kendall-Taylor, senior director for Russia and Central Asia in the future NSC; Kathleen Hicks, first female deputy head of the Pentagon; and Shanthi Kalathil, coordinator for human rights and democracy. Collectively they will try to give Germany clearer signals on US policy to Russia, and both how to combat democratic backsliding in Europe and Russian meddling. The huge cyber-attack on Washington institutions, attributed to Russia’s foreign intelligence, lies heavily on the minds of Congress.Biden has promised that he will make the promotion of democracy his guiding foreign policy principle, including a summit to attack the weapons of the authoritarians. Many have questioned the wisdom of the US presenting itself as the standard bearer of liberal values given its state of crisis.But the attack on the Capitol in Washington has only made his allies more convinced of this agenda, and its relevance to America. So the frontline of the “battlefield” where the new US administration and Russia will confront each other is likely to be extended to the post-Soviet space and will include at least Ukraine, Belarus and Georgia. For all the talk of the rise of China and the implications of the “Asian century” on America, it is the threat posed by the old cold war enemy that for now at least may most exercise the transatlantic alliance. More

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      in US Politics

      Unscrupulous and aggressive, Pompeo plans to be the next Trump – but smarter

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      While all eyes are on Donald Trump and his Capitol Hill mob, a would-be heir and successor is running riot all by himself, storming citadels, wagging the flag and breaking china. No, it’s not Donald Jr, or Ivanka, or Ted Cruz, and certainly not poor, conflicted Mike Pence.Mike Pompeo may not strike many people as presidential material. But Trump lowered the bar. Make no mistake. America’s snarly, bully-boy secretary of state is focusing not on Joe Biden’s inauguration this week but on how to beat him or any other Democrat in 2024.Pompeo, the man who would be king, is playing political hunger games – and, looking ahead, he aims to win.In a display of extraordinary chutzpah, Pompeo has spent the time since Trump lost the election setting booby traps and laying diplomatic minefields in global conflict zones. Partly he aims to secure his own and Trump’s “legacy”. Partly it’s to screw Biden. But mostly it’s about winning the White House.Pompeo has upended established policies, adopted ultra-hardline positions, and claimed imaginary successes to advance his personal standing with the Trump rump. In fact, he’s trying to out-Trump Trump. Like him, he’s unscrupulous and aggressive, but here’s the difference: he’s not stupid.That potentially makes the former Kansas Tea party congressman and CIA chief more dangerous to the Biden presidency, and the progressive cause, than a disgraced Trump may ever be. He showed his political savvy by steering clear of the impeachment fracas. Instead, Pompeo is busy setting future agendas.Speaking in Washington last Tuesday, for example, he declared – without new evidence but drawing from a dust-heap of recycled, unproven claims – that “al-Qaida has a new home base: it is the Islamic Republic of Iran”.The American right has been trying to make the Iran connection ever since Dick Cheney falsely fingered Saddam Hussein for 9/11. But Pompeo does not get hung up on facts. He prefers assertions, tweets and slogans. Thus, he claimed, “they [Iran and al-Qaida] are partners in terrorism, partners in hate… This axis poses a grave threat to the security of nations and to the American homeland”.There’s no doubting where Pompeo and his re-purposed axis of evil are headed with this sort of talk. “We ignore this Iran-al-Qaida nexus at our peril,” he said. “We must confront it. Indeed, we must defeat it.” Message to Biden: when dealing with Iran, make war, not peace – or be accused of coddling terrorists.Raw bellicosity plays well on the right, especially with Christian Zionists and evangelical born-againers, of whom Pompeo is ostentatiously proud to be one. Such voters now seek a less toxic Republican standard-bearer. His new designation of Yemen’s Tehran-supported Houthis as terrorists is yet more grist to this mill, regardless of the civilian suffering he admits it will cause.Pompeo also arbitrarily returned Cuba to the US list of terrorist sponsors last week. Cuba accused him, reasonably enough, of “political opportunism” to obstruct improved relations under Biden. Pompeo is notably less vocal about Havana’s ally, Venezuela, where he and John Bolton risked Bay of Pigs II with failed regime change plots.Pompeo loves baiting China, the new “evil empire”, no matter that “Wuhan virus” insults, sanctions, and sabre-rattling are plainly counter-productive. He gratuitously goaded Beijing again last week by strengthening contacts with Taiwan. Decades of delicate east Asian diplomatic balancing flew out the window.This last-gasp diplomatic blitzkrieg does not fatally tie Biden’s hands but coupled with past policy blunders, it makes sensible policymaking more difficult. In truth, the Pompeo-Trump legacy is best defined in negatives: not achieving North Korean disarmament, wrecking the Iran nuclear deal, quitting the Paris climate accord, alienating allies, undermining the UN. In this sense, Biden just needs to act positive.Pompeo’s last big push for a trademark achievement – persuading Saudi Arabia to join Gulf states in cutting highly-questionable “peace deals” with Israel – ran into the sand. The Trump administration leaves office with the Middle East in greater disarray than when it arrived, whether it’s Palestine, Syria, Lebanon, Iraq, Libya, or the western Sahara.Unabashed, Pompeo is zealously re-writing this record of failure as a fake narrative of success. “If Pompeo’s efforts [to promote his legacy] look comical… if they are a bloated mess of obsequious praise for Trump, empty sloganeering, and half-truths, well, they are also a fair reflection of the man himself,” wrote analyst Jeffrey Lewis.As he not so stealthily lays the groundwork for a 2024 run, Pompeo has controversially exploited his position to deliver partisan speeches, hold exclusive dinners for wealthy backers, woo Christian groups, tour key domestic battlefields such as Iowa, get chummy with authoritarian foreign leaders – and tailor US foreign policy to his hawkishly regressive views.His politicised machinations have not gone unnoticed. Pompeo’s professional conduct has been investigated by his own state department. He was accused of lying about the Ukraine phone call that got Trump impeached the first time. For a while, he abetted Trump’s election denialism with talk of a “second term”.“Selfishness at the expense of the national interest isn’t the mark of an honourable diplomat or a patriot,” a New York Times editorial scathingly remarked on Friday.Many abroad are wary. After Pompeo, anxious to get out of Dodge during last week’s Trump showdown, invited himself to Brussels, he was roundly snubbed. EU politicians who have smarted at past insults, served up one of their own. They did not have time for him. The trip was cancelled.Many in Europe hope finally to have seen the back of him. Fat chance. If he gets his way, Pompeo will be the next Trump. It’s an alarming prospect for America and the world. More

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      in US Politics

      Pompeo scraps Europe trip after EU leader calls Trump 'political pyromaniac'

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      US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has cancelled a trip to Europe at the last minute after European officials were publicly critical of Donald Trump’s role in last week’s storming of the Capitol.The official reason for the cancellation of the trip, originally to Brussels and Luxembourg, was the need to coordinate with a transition team from the incoming Biden administration, but it comes after the unprecedented attack on American democracy that stunned many world leaders and US allies.The Luxembourg leg of the trip was called off on Monday after its foreign minister Jean Asselborn called Trump “criminal” for inciting the attack.Asselborn described the outgoing US president to RTL radio as a “political pyromaniac who must be brought before a court”.Reuters and Fox News both quoted diplomatic sources as saying it was Luxembourg that had called off the meeting, a devastating snub from a tiny country for a secretary of state that continually claims to have restored “swagger” to the state department.Pompeo was also due to meet the Belgian deputy prime minister and foreign minister, Sophie Wilmes, who tweeted while the assault in Washington was underway, “These images are shocking, also because they hurt our democratic ideals.”“They show the extent of President-elect Biden’s task, which will be to unite American society around a common project. We trust him to do that.”Jens Stoltenberg, the Nato secretary general, who was due to have a dinner with Pompeo had described the scenes in Washington as “shocking” and said: “The outcome of this democratic election must be respected.” A Nato spokesperson confirmed that Pompeo had cancelled on Tuesday, giving as a reason the need to focus on the transition.Reuters reported that EU officials had declined to meet Pompeo on his last foreign trip, but a EU spokesperson denied there had been any plan or request for meetings with EU leaders.The state department, in a statement, attributed the cancellation to transition work before President-elect Joe Biden takes office on 20 January, even if until recently Pompeo had been reluctant to unequivocally recognise Biden’s win. Also on Tuesday, the US Ambassador to the United Nations Kelly Craft cancelled a planned visit to Taiwan. The state department declined further comment on European officials’ rejection of meetings with Pompeo.The cold shoulder was a contrast with Pompeo’s previous visits to Brussels, which is home to Nato and EU headquarters, over the past three years, where he has given key-note speeches on US policy and met the EU’s chief executive, even as Europe balked at Trump’s foreign policy. More

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      in US Politics

      Pompeo lifts US-Taiwan restrictions in move likely to anger China

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      Secretary of state Mike Pompeo on Saturday said he was lifting restrictions on contacts between US officials and their Taiwanese counterparts, a move likely to anger China and increase tensions between Beijing and Washington in the waning days of Donald Trump’s presidency.China claims democratic and separately ruled Taiwan as its own territory, and regularly describes Taiwan as the most sensitive issue in its ties with the US.While the US, like most countries, has no official relations with Taiwan, the Trump administration has ramped up support, with arms sales and laws to help Taiwan deal with pressure from China.In a statement, Pompeo said that for several decades the US state department had created complex internal restrictions on interactions with Taiwanese counterparts by American diplomats, service members and other officials.“The United States government took these actions unilaterally, in an attempt to appease the Communist regime in Beijing,” Pompeo said. “Today I am announcing that I am lifting all of these self-imposed restrictions.”The US ambassador to the United Nations, Kelly Craft, will visit Taiwan next week for meetings with senior Taiwanese leaders, prompting China to warn on Thursday that the Trump administration was playing with fire.Chinese fighter jets approached the island in August and September during the last two visits: by US health secretary Alex Azar and under secretary of state Keith Krach.The US is Taiwan’s strongest international backer and arms supplier, and is obliged to help provide it with the means to defend itself under the 1979 Taiwan Relations Act.“Today’s statement recognizes that the US-Taiwan relationship need not, and should not, be shackled by self-imposed restrictions of our permanent bureaucracy,” Pompeo said. More

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      in Elections

      Trump fed our worst instincts. His global legacy is toxic and immoral

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      How much damage did Donald Trump do around the world, can it be repaired, and did he accomplish anything of lasting significance? Assessing the international legacy of the 45th US president is not so much a conventional survey of achievement and failure. It’s more like tracking the rampages of a cantankerous rogue elephant that leaves a trail of random destruction and shattered shibboleths in its wake. Last week’s wild pardoning spree is a case in point.First, the big picture. Trump’s confrontational manner, combined with his “America First” agenda, seriously undermined transatlantic relations and US global leadership. Joe Biden promises to set this right, but it will not be easy. France’s Emmanuel Macron exploited US introspection to advance ideas of European autonomy and integration. Leaders in the UK, Hungary and Poland cynically flattered Trump for their own political purposes.Trump’s ill-disguised hostility left deep scars in Germany, the most important European ally. This apparent phobia, fed by Berlin’s large trade surplus and relatively low defence spending, had a misogynistic tinge. He was, on occasion, unbelievably rude to chancellor Angela Merkel. A recent Pew poll found only 34% of Germans think US relations are in good shape.“Transatlantic relations worsened exponentially under Trump because of his open disdain for the European Union, his often belligerent interactions with EU leaders, and his vocal support for Brexit,” new analysis by the International Institute for Strategic Studies says. Yet divergences were already evident pre-Trump, it notes. George W Bush’s Iraq war was deeply unpopular in Europe. Barack Obama’s “pivot to Asia” made old friends feel unloved.All that said, Nato not only survived Trump’s constant criticisms; in some respects, its original purpose – deterring Russia – was reinforced by deployments of additional US forces in eastern Europe and the Baltic republics. Trump’s demand that European allies spend more on defence was not unreasonable, although his bullying brought only limited change.His lies eroded trust in democracy and the rule of law, at home and abroadTrump’s habit of thinking transactionally, not strategically, had a disastrous impact in Asia and elsewhere. He treated loyal allies Japan and South Korea with disdain – especially over misconceived talks with North Korea. He indulged rabble-rousers such as Rodrigo Duterte, the Philippines president, antagonised Pakistan, yet still failed to significantly enhance ties with India.The fierce mutual animosity currently poisoning US-China relations is Trump’s most troublesome geopolitical legacy. Before 2017, there was still an outside chance that the old and new superpowers could find ways to get along. That’s gone. China is now viewed by Americans of all stripes as the No 1 threat. Beijing’s aggressive leadership is much at fault. But Trump’s trade and tech wars, Taiwan brinkmanship and “Wuhan virus” rhetoric made everything worse.Biden has bought into the China fight, which looks set to continue. At the same time, he must repair the harm caused by Trump’s inexplicably deferential attitude towards Vladimir Putin in Russia – the backdrop to the Mueller inquiry and his impeachment. This puzzle has yet to be solved. It surfaced again last week when Trump downplayed Russia’s latest cyber attack.In appraising Trump’s foreign policy record, supporters point to his brokering of new ties between Israel and Arab regimes – including the grandly named Abraham Accords. If these deals lead to a broader, just settlement of the Palestine-Israel conflict, claims of “historic” success may ultimately be justified. To date, Trump’s main contribution has been to help entrench Benjamin Netanyahu, a hard-right prime minister opposed by a majority of Israel’s voters, who is on trial for alleged corruption.In conflict zones around the world, Trump’s America was largely absent without leave. He vowed to end “forever wars”. But in Afghanistan his peace efforts camouflaged a dishonourable scramble for the exit. He betrayed Kurdish allies in Syria, falsely claimed to have beaten Isis, and ceded the battlefield to Bashar al-Assad, Russia and Turkey. By wrecking the Iran nuclear deal, he made a dangerous problem infinitely worse.Trump fans such as Fred Fleitz, writing for Fox News, conjure a mirror image of these shameful derelictions. Trump “restored American leadership on the world stage, put the interests of the American people ahead of the dictates of globalist foreign policy elites, and kept our nation out of unnecessary wars”, Fleitz wrote. Biden, he predicted, “will surrender US sovereignty to the United Nations and Europe” and allow Russia and China to “walk all over the US”.It’s difficult to make sense of such seemingly distorted views. But that, in a nutshell, is the great, bifurcating conundrum bequeathed by the Trump era. Trump was a catastrophe for the climate crisis and the environment, for the Covid emergency, for racial and gender equality, for the global fight against poverty and hunger, and for the UN and multilateralism in general. In a connected world, he cut the cord.Trump encouraged authoritarian “strongman” leaders such as Turkey’s Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and Egypt’s dictator Abdel Fatah al-Sisi, and hooligans such as Brazil’s Jair Bolsonaro. He coddled autocrats such as Saudi Arabia’s Mohammed bin Salman and Russia’s Putin. Worse, his lies eroded trust in democracy and the rule of law, at home and abroad. Yet even as, properly and electorally vanquished, he slowly departs, he continues to antagonise and divide – and to be lionised by the right.Maybe it’s not that hard to see why. Trump’s personal brand of viciousness appealed to every worst human instinct, justified every vile prejudice, excused every mean and unkind thought. His is a blind ignorance that resonates with those who will not or cannot see. Falsehood is always easier than truth. For these reasons, Trump’s global legacy is Trumpism. It will live on – toxic, immoral, ubiquitous and ever-threatening. More

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      in US Politics

      Environmental groups hail Covid relief bill – but more needs to be done

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      Joe Biden’s pledge to make the climate emergency a top priority of his administration from day one has received a major boost from the $900bn Covid-19 relief bill that cleared Congress this week and now awaits Donald Trump’s signature.
      The president has demanded changes but nonetheless the package has been hailed by environmental groups as an important move towards re-engaging the US with international efforts to tackle the climate crisis and move towards a clean energy future.
      “The bill contains some truly historic provisions that represent the most significant climate legislation passed by Congress in over a decade,” said Sam Ricketts, co-founder of Evergreen Action.
      The Sierra Club, an environmental group which operates in all 50 states, expressed a sigh of relief that Republican intransigence, led by the president and Mitch McConnell in the Senate, had finally been overcome. Kirin Kennedy, the group’s deputy legislative director, expressed confidence that the bill would contribute towards “addressing major sources of pollution, growing clean energy, and making progress across government agencies to advance climate action”.
      But she added that the Biden administration had a lot of work still to do to, in the president-elect’s phrase, “build back better”. Kennedy said that meant “investing in clean, renewable energy that can power communities, not saddling them with false solutions or pollution for decades to come”.
      Set against the time-critical nature of the climate crisis and the need for immediate action to curb pollution and switch to renewable energies, the relief bill falls short both in the scale and ambition of its commitments.
      “Is this enough to meet the urgency of the moment? The short answer is plainly no – the package is smaller than we’ve called for and certainly smaller than the science demands,” Ricketts said.
      But contained in the bill are a number of provisions that represent a clear advance in the US stance on the climate crisis, at the end of four years of Trump administration attacks on environmental protections.
      By the far the most significant of those advances is the commitment to phase out hydrofluorocarbons, HFCs, which are widely used as coolants in air conditioners, fridges and cars.
      Under the terms of the relief bill, most HFC use would end by 2035. The overall global impact of such a firm gesture by the US could lead to 0.5C of avoided warming this century.
      Ricketts said that the move was not only important in its own right in the climate fight, but it also made a statement that the US was prepared to work with world partners. That was all the more poignant coming just a month after Trump took the US formally out of the Paris climate agreement.
      “This is a timely way of showing that we can still play on the international stage and meet our commitments,” he said.
      Among other measures in the bill that have received praise from environmental groups are extensions to tax credits for renewable energy technologies. Offshore wind could enjoy a particular boost with the incentives lasting five years.
      “This is an industry that is just starting to drive down the runway for take-off in the US,” Ricketts said. “There’s an enormous potential, especially in the north east, and the five-year tax incentive is critical.”
      A further area of significant reform is the pot of $35bn provided for research and development in a range of innovations designed to confront the climate crisis. They include the creation of more efficient batteries, carbon capture, and advanced nuclear reactor technology.
      Katherine Egland, environment and climate justice chair for the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People national board of directors, said that for African American and other low-income communities the relief bill would impact lives. She lives in Gulfport, Mississippi, on the coast of the Gulf of Mexico, and this year has experienced firsthand the confluence of the coronavirus pandemic, the climate crisis and racial injustice.
      “We have been confronted by a syndemic in 2020,” she told the Guardian. “We have had to cope with the disproportionate impacts of Covid and climate, during an unprecedented storm season and a year rife with racial unrest.”
      Egland said congressional action was welcome “after four years of climate denial. It is a positive step in the right direction”.
      But she said that the country would need to do much more to meet the scale of the crisis: “There is no vaccine to inoculate us against climate change.” More

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      in US Politics

      Trump vetoes huge US defense spending bill but Congress set to override

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      Donald Trump vetoed a $740bn bill setting policy for the Department of Defense on Wednesday, despite its strong support in Congress, raising the possibility that the measure will fail to become law for the first time in 60 years.Although Trump’s previous eight vetoes were all upheld thanks to support from Republicans in Congress, advisers said this one looked likely to be overridden, just weeks before Trump leaves office on 20 January.Trump said he vetoed the annual National Defense Authorization Act, or NDAA, because it “fails to include critical national security measures, includes provisions that fail to respect our veterans and our military’s history, and contradicts efforts by my administration to put America first in our national security and foreign policy actions”.A key measure in the NDAA to which Trump objects is the move to rename US military bases currently named for leaders of the Confederacy, which seceded from the union over slavery, leading to the civil war of 1861 to 1865.Pressure to rename the bases grew this year amid nationwide protests over the killing by Minneapolis police of George Floyd, an African American man on whose neck an officer knelt for almost nine minutes.Trump also threatened a veto if the bill did not repeal part of a 1996 telecoms law which prevents online companies from being sued in relation to third-party content.If Section 230 is not “completely terminated”, Trump tweeted earlier this month, “I will be forced to unequivocally VETO the Bill when sent to the very beautiful Resolute desk.”In a message to the House of Representatives, on Wednesday, Trump also called the bill “a ‘gift’ to China and Russia”.Both the Republican Senate and Democratic House passed the 2021 NDAA with margins larger than the two-thirds majorities needed to override a veto. That means that Trump would have to persuade dozens of Republicans to throw out nearly a year’s work on the 4,500-page bill and start over.Top advisers urged Trump not to carry out his veto threat, citing the slim chance of stopping the bill. Many of Trump’s staunchest supporters, including Senate armed services committee chairman Jim Inhofe, said they would vote to override.“It’s simple, what this bill does,” Inhofe said when the measure passed the Senate. “It makes our country more secure, and it supports our troops who defend it.”Advisers said Trump had little to gain from a veto and it could hurt his party’s ability to hang on to two US Senate seats in Georgia in 5 January runoff votes.The Senate backed the bill 84-13, with the no votes coming from some of the most conservative Republicans and most liberal Democrats. The Democratic-led House backed the NDAA by 335-78, with some “no” votes also coming from liberal Democrats less likely to back a Trump veto.The NDAA determines everything from how many ships are bought to soldiers’ pay to how to address geopolitical threats. The measure vetoed by Trump was a compromise, combining separate measures already passed in the House and Senate.Lawmakers take pride in the bill having become law every year since 1961, saying it reflects their support for the military. Trump’s veto, if upheld, would delay a 3% pay raise for active-duty troops. More