Is Vice President Kamala Harris starting to do President Biden’s job for him?
That’s the question Fox News host Sean Hannity asked while reviewing a report on Harris taking on foreign policy responsibilities, like solo meetings with foreign leaders.
According to Politico, Harris is trying to carve out a specialty in in foreign policy. She also participated in the first bilateral meeting of the new administration between Canada and the United States. Biden reportedly didn’t do the same as vice president in the Obama administration.
“According to a new shocking Politico report, Vice President Harris is quickly being prepped to take the foreign policy reins from the Biden administration,” Hannity said.
DOZENS OF HOUSE DEMOCRATS WANT BIDEN TO GIVE UP SOLE AUTHORITY TO LAUNCH NUCLEAR CODES
“Biden is now reportedly encouraging his vice president to engage directly with world leaders — that would be his job — and by the way, even develop her own rapport with U.S. allies. Harris has also been meeting weekly with Secretary of State Anthony Blinken. So the question tonight is, why?”
Hannity added: “If Joe Biden is not up to the task, well, we know that he rarely appears in public, we know that he takes very few questions. We know he hasn’t even scheduled a joint session of Congress for the State of the Union address.”
He also pointed to reporting that House Democrats requested Biden given up his sole authority to launch nuclear weapons.
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“We can all see with our own eyes that Joe is frail, he is weak, and yes, he’s struggling cognitively,” Hannity said.
“Even a few dozen Democrats now are trying to take away the nuclear codes from Joe Biden so it’s not in the hands of just him, one person … and his vice president now holding one on one calls with other world leaders. So what’s really going on here? Who’s in charge? And by the way, should we be concerned?”
The Biden administration is facing growing criticism for failing to lift US sanctions imposed last year on war crimes prosecutors at the international criminal court, at the same time Israel is lobbying to keep the punitive measures in place.
The sanctions, targeting officials in the ICC prosecutors and their families were imposed by the Trump administration in September in retaliation for launching investigations into the Afghan and the Israeli-Palestinian conflicts.
Days after Joe Biden was inaugurated, the state department said that, though the new administration did not agree with the decision to launch those investigations, “the sanctions will be thoroughly reviewed as we determine our next steps”.
Over a month later, there has been no move to lift the sanctions, and a state department spokesperson said this week they had no further comment. The failure to take action has provoked unease among US allies in Europe and elsewhere, who are staunch supporters of the ICC.
According to Axios reporting confirmed by the Guardian, Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu lobbied Biden on 17 February, in their first phone call since the new president was inaugurated, to keep the sanctions in place. An official familiar with the conversation confirmed the report.
In December, the ICC prosecutor declared there were grounds to open an investigation in the West Bank and Gaza, and a panel of judges earlier this month agreed that the prosecutor had jurisdiction.
Like the US, Israel is not a signatory to the Rome treaty establishing the ICC, but Afghanistan and the Palestinian Authority are.
The Israeli embassy in Washington did not respond to a request for comment.
The Trump administration did not just sanction ICC officials involved in the investigation of alleged war crimes by the US and its allies, it also imposed visa restrictions on the families of those officials. It also claimed it would launch a counter-investigation into the ICC for alleged corruption, though it is unclear whether such an investigation was ever launched.
The justice department did not respond to an inquiry on the status of the investigation.
Legal sources said the continuing threat of sanctions has had the effect of seriously hindering investigations into atrocities by all sides in Afghanistan, the West Bank and Gaza, because lawyers and institutions have been reticent in cooperating with the ICC out of fear of bringing US sanctions on themselves.
Earlier this month, more than 70 human rights organisations, faith-based groups and academic institutions made an appeal for the lifting of sanctions they described as “an unprecedented attack on the court’s mandate to deliver justice and the rule of law globally, an abuse of the US government’s financial powers, and a betrayal of the US legacy in establishing institutions of international justice”.
Diplomats and experts predicted that the Biden administration would eventually lift the sanctions, but was seeking a way to do so without seeming to endorse the ICC investigations in Afghanistan and the Palestinian territories.
“The US relationship with the ICC is in a much more complicated place than it was when the Obama administration took over,” said David Bosco, author of a book on the ICC, called Rough Justice.
“The ICC now has an investigation underway in Afghanistan that includes scrutiny of US personnel and of course the judges just made clear that the prosecutor can investigate in Palestine.”
Bosco added: “In this environment, figuring out how the US should approach the court is really tricky, and I think the administration has decided they need to assess all approaches before pulling off the sanctions.”
Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi speaks at a news conference after restoring diplomatic ties with Kiribati on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly in New York, U.S. September 27, 2019.
Mark Kauzlarich | Reuters
BEIJING — China’s Foreign Minister Wang Yi on Monday called on the new U.S. administration to stop the “suppression” of Chinese technology companies, as he laid out conditions for U.S.-China cooperation going forward.
Citing national security concerns, former U.S. President Donald Trump sanctioned dozens of Chinese companies in the last three years.
Chinese telecommunications giant Huawei is one of the most prominent companies that suffered from those orders, falling from the number one smartphone vendor globally to sixth place last year as a result of the sanctions.
China would like the U.S. to remove tariffs and sanctions on companies, and “abandon irrational suppression of China’s technological progress, so as to create necessary conditions for China-U.S. cooperation,” Wang said, according to an official English translation shared by the foreign ministry.
Wang also called for the U.S. to support international Chinese students and remove restrictions on cultural groups and media outlets in America. He was speaking at a forum in Beijing with the theme “Bringing China-U.S. Relations Back to the Right Track.”
Tensions between the two countries accelerated under the Trump administration, which sought to use levies and blacklists to address longstanding business complaints about China’s lack of intellectual property protection, requirements for forced technology transfer and dominance of the state in markets.
While it remains unclear what exact action U.S. President Joe Biden might take, he has maintained a firm tone since taking office about a month ago.
Biden told European allies in a speech Friday that “we must prepare for long-term strategic competition with China.”
Last week, Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said Trump-era tariffs would remain in place and that any changes would depend on China’s adherence to trade deal commitments.
Policy red lines, and areas for cooperation
Biden is expected to put greater emphasis on human rights-related issues such as Hong Kong, Xinjiang and Tibet.
Wang reiterated Monday that those regions are part of China’s “internal affairs” and that relations with the U.S. can only improve if Beijing’s position is respected.
Chinese Ambassador to the U.S., Cui Tiankai, also said Monday that Beijing and Washington must define the boundaries of their foreign policy, noting that China’s red line issues include Taiwan, Xinjiang and Tibet, according to Reuters.
Leaders of both countries remain open to cooperation in some areas, such as reducing carbon emissions.
Wang said the two nations can work together on tackling the coronavirus pandemic and supporting global economic recovery, and emphasized that Beijing remains supportive of American businesses in China.
Analysis released last week from the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, together with onsulting firm Rhodium Group, found that if the U.S. sells half its direct investment in China, American investors would lose $25 billion a year in capital gains. The report called for targeted, rather than sweeping, policy measures against China.
In 2017, Khanna, a progressive Democrat from California, introduced a measure that came to be known as the Yemen War Powers resolution. It was intended to curtail US military support for the Saudi-led campaign in Yemen, which has created a humanitarian crisis in the country. At the time, there was very little support on Capitol Hill. Now, the policy appears to have been embraced by the White House.
In an interview with CNN, Khanna called the move “a profound and historic shift” that marks a new chapter in the US relationship with Saudi Arabia.
“We’re being explicit and bold and open to the Saudis saying, ‘no, this is not a war we support,'” the congressman said. “Now I think that President Biden has made a clear statement that relationship is no longer what it once was.”
Sen. Chris Murphy, a Democrat from Connecticut who has been outspoken in calling for an end to American military intervention in Yemen, said in an interview that he believes the move will strengthen US national security, particularly if it makes the region less volatile as a result.
“The battle space has created openings for Al-Qaeda and ISIS to grow. It’s been a mistake from the beginning for the US to be involved in this war and I’m glad that our participation is finally coming to an end,” he said.
The move is an early global consequence of Biden taking over from former President Donald Trump, who vetoed the Yemen War Powers resolution in 2019 after it passed Congress with bipartisan support.
Yemen has been embroiled in a years-long civil war that has pitted a coalition backed by Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates against the Iran-backed Houthi rebels, a Shia political and military organization from the north of Yemen. The conflict has cost thousands of civilian lives.
Democrats are optimistic the Biden administration will prioritize diplomatic and humanitarian efforts to bring an end to the conflict and point to the fact that career diplomat Timothy Lenderking has been appointed as special envoy for Yemen as a promising sign. But questions remain over exactly what the US will do next and how the administration will implement the policy change, and lawmakers on both sides of the aisle are promising oversight.
In his first major foreign policy speech as President earlier this month, Biden announced an end to “all American support for offensive operations in the war in Yemen, including relevant arm sales,” though he also said the US will “continue to help and support Saudi Arabia defend its sovereignty and its territorial integrity.”
“The details matter,” Khanna said, when it comes to the Yemen policy change, noting that one of his concerns is that the Saudis will claim future attacks are defensive and not offensive in an effort to find a loophole. The term offensive strikes should refer to “any strikes into Yemen,” he said.
How Congress can exercise oversight over Yemen policy
Sen. Mike Lee, a Utah Republican who co-sponsored the Yemen War Powers resolution in the Senate, said in an interview that he is “thrilled” by the policy announcement, but added that if Congress needs to provide a check on the executive branch over the conflict in the future, lawmakers could always push again to pass a new version of the resolution.
“I’m really looking forward to the Biden administration providing some of these additional details to Congress on exactly what support they would consider to be defensive in nature that might remain in place,” Lee said. “What do they mean by that? I look forward to learning more about that.”
CNN reported in 2019 that the US at the time was the biggest supplier of arms to both Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, and its support has been crucial to the Saudi coalition’s war in Yemen. The flood of US weaponry has fueled a conflict that has killed tens of thousands — among them children on school buses and families fleeing violence — and pushed millions more to the brink of famine.
“I plan to be pretty vigilant to make sure we don’t end up selling weapons to the Saudis that are going to get used through a back door in the Yemen conflict,” said Murphy, who was also a co-sponsor of the Yemen War Powers resolution.
The senator said, “I hope that Congress won’t have to intervene here, but I brought resolutions to the floor under the last Democratic administration to object to arms sales. My hope is that there won’t be any sales of munitions noticed to Congress to Saudi Arabia, because those are clearly offensive weapons that are being used in Yemen. But if there are, I’ll be consistent. I’m not going to apply one standard to the Trump administration and a different one to the Biden administration.”
Democratic Rep. Mark Pocan of Wisconsin, a co-sponsor of the Yemen Resolution in the House, told CNN that Congress can play an oversight role to ensure swift action.
“It may be Democratic control with a Democratic President, but we have to make sure we’re continuing to make sure there’s really a timeline and there are actions that follow up to what the President said so that we can end the suffering in Yemen,” Pocan said, pointing to the oversight authorities of House and Senate committees as one way to hold the administration accountable.
Khanna plans to closely monitor how the new US policy is implemented and will continue to push for America to help the Yemenis recover from the damage inflicted upon them.
“We can’t go into places, break them, and then just abandon them. We have a moral responsibility to help rebuild civilian life and society in Yemen given the role we played in supporting the Saudi campaign. The Saudis have the biggest responsibility, by far, but we have a moral responsibility as well,” he said.
How the debate over the Yemen conflict — and war powers — changed
Even though the Yemen War Powers resolution was vetoed by Trump, lawmakers say the fact that it passed Congress nevertheless sent a powerful signal and, to some extent, paved the way for the new policy change on the conflict from the current administration.
“Absolutely, I think congressional action sent a strong message to anyone who listened. Clearly Donald Trump didn’t. Joe Biden did,” Pocan said.
Supporters of the Yemen resolution have argued that US military involvement in the Yemen conflict is unconstitutional because Congress did not explicitly authorize it. In their effort to pull the US from hostilities, they invoked the War Powers Resolution, a 1973 law aimed at reining in a president’s authority to engage the US in military action without congressional approval. Under the Constitution, the President acts as commander-in-chief of the Army and Navy, but Congress has the power to declare war.
Lee believes that passage of the resolution helped show that there is a growing bipartisan coalition on Capitol Hill that supports safeguarding the legislative branch’s constitutional role in authorizing war. The Utah Republican hopes that, in turn, may already be bringing about a shift in the way the US approaches war.
“We’ve gotten into too many wars in too many parts of the world and one of the things that’s facilitated that has been the fact that we’ve drifted away from the Constitution’s Article I focus on the need for Congress to declare war,” Lee said. “It’s not a partisan political issue. We don’t care whether it’s a Republican or a Democrat in the White House, if they’re taking us to war without authorization from Congress, that’s a problem.”
Khanna feels encouraged by what he views as an emerging “left-right consensus” that is skeptical of American foreign military interventions. “In terms of a recognition that military interventionism has been harmful to American strategic interests, I think that is something that has really grown in the United States Congress,” he said.
The congressman said that when he started pushing for a vote on the Yemen War Powers resolution, “it was an uphill fight” and that the murder of Saudi journalist and dissident Jamal Khashoggi, an event that sparked bipartisan outrage, proved to be a “turning point.”
The CIA concluded the Saudi Crown Prince personally ordered the killing, despite the Saudi government’s denials that the de facto ruler was involved, and in the wake of the brutal killing, both chambers of Congress passed the Yemen resolution.
When Biden was elected President, Khanna was hopeful he would take action to pull US support for the Saudi-led offensive. But he didn’t know how soon that might happen. So he reached out to senior administration officials on the national security team to press the case and strategized with Vermont Independent Sen. Bernie Sanders, who had pushed for the resolution in the Senate.
“Senator Sanders and I talked, ‘do we need to re-introduce the War Powers resolution?’ We were concerned with how quickly they were going to act and how decisively they were going to act. And they knew that we were contemplating re-introducing that,” he said.
Ultimately, Khanna said that wasn’t necessary since Biden moved quickly to announce the policy change.
“It was a really meaningful moment to see it actually happening,” he said.
CNN’s Jennifer Hansler, Ted Barrett, Jeremy Herb, Nima Elbagir contributed to this report.
Welcome to POLITICO’s 2021 Transition Playbook,your guide to the first 100 days of the Biden administration
President JOE BIDEN has said his administration is “not a third Obama term.”
Many of the people he’s brought on for his first term, however, are from Obama’s two.
That is especially true on the foreign policy front, where veterans of the Obama administration are the ones now trying to construct a “Biden doctrine.”
At least 16 of the top political appointees on Biden’s National Security Council served in the Obama administration, several of them on the NSC itself. The top ranks of the State Department are also stocked with many Obama administration veterans including Secretary of State TONY BLINKEN; WENDY SHERMAN, Biden’s deputy secretary nominee; and BRIAN McKEON, a longtime Biden aide who’s been nominated as deputy secretary for management and resources.
The Biden team and Biden himself have argued that the administration will necessarily be different this time around because the world is very different in 2021 than it was in 2009 or even in 2017, when Obama left office. But there are some parallels, too — with a rising China, conflicts in Yemen and Afghanistan, Iran and North Korea’s nuclear ambitions, and even Myanmar is back under military rule.
“We realize that restoration is not in the cards,” said a senior administration official. “It’s not feasible. It’s not wise. We know the world has changed in profound ways since 2009.”
The administration official added: that “We believe knowledge and know-how and expertise are a good thing, but also people who aren’t tethered to old ideas or who aren’t ideological or doctrinaire.”
Privately, many Obama era officials acknowledge there were past failures on the same fronts that they are confronting now. The Biden administration now gives some of them a rare chance of a do-over.
In other words, the pivot to Asia lives.
Some administration officials argue that many of the returning Obama veterans were actually Biden people before they were Obama people — or at least they’re half and half.
Blinken was Obama’s deputy secretary of State, but he also worked for Biden in the Senate and was Biden’s first national security adviser when he became vice president.
National security adviser JAKE SULLIVAN replaced Blinken asBiden’s national security adviser in 2013, principal deputynational security adviser JON FINER served in Obama’s State Department but before that worked as a speechwriter to Biden. Homeland Security Adviser ELIZABETH SHERWOOD-RANDALL first worked for Biden in the late-80’s as a Senate aide and went on to serve in the Obama administration.
Despite most of Biden’s top foreign policy hands having worked in the Obama administration, there are a few fresh faces.
SHANTHI KALATHIL, the NSC’s coordinator for democracy and human rights, never served in the Obama administration. Others are former career intelligence or foreign service officers or have been detailed to the NSC from other federal agencies.
A White House official said no one should be surprised that a big chunk of the NSC’s staff are Obama veterans, given how many people served in the administration and how recently Obama left office.
“It’s not news that lots of capable Democrats would have spent some time in an agency under [Obama] him at some point,” the official said.
PROGRAMMING NOTE: Transition Playbook will not publish on Monday, Feb. 15 because we love our presidents (except GROVER CLEVELAND — we hate that guy) and you should too. We know you’ll miss us, but we’ll be back on our normal schedule on Tuesday, Feb. 16.
Do you work in the Biden administration? Are you on the White House senior staff’s morning call? Are you COLIN KAHL? We want to hear from you — and we’ll keep you anonymous: [email protected]. You can also reach Alex and Theo individually if you prefer.
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In the Oval Office, where he met with New York Gov. ANDREW CUOMO, Arkansas Gov. ASA HUTCHINSON, New Mexico Gov. MICHELLE LUJAN GRISHAM, Maryland Gov. LARRY HOGAN, Atlanta Mayor KEISHA LANCE BOTTOMS, New Orleans Mayor LATOYA CANTRELL, Detroit Mayor MIKE DUGGAN, Miami Mayor FRANCIS SUAREZ and JEFF WILLIAMS, the mayor of Arlington, Texas, to discuss the pandemic.
With Biden in the Oval Office.
With the Center for Presidential Transition
The Senate confirmed DENIS McDONOUGH on Monday as the 11th secretary of Veterans Affairs. Which of his predecessors led the department the longest: JESSE BROWN, ERIC SHINSEKI, EDWARD DERWINSKI or ANTHONY PRINCIPI?
(Answer is at the bottom.)
BIDEN’S FOSSIL FUEL FINANCE BAN PUTS SPOTLIGHT ON CHINA —Last month, Biden paused U.S. funding for oversea fossil fuel projects, a move that could push poorer countries to rely on Beijing instead, ZACK COLMAN reports. The president’s action withholds money from international institutions, like the World Bank, that help poor nations build fossil fuel power plants.
The remaining articles and infographics in this section are exclusively available to POLITICO Pro subscribers. Pro is a smart, personalized policy intelligence platform from POLITICO. If you are interested in learning more about how POLITICO Pro can support your team through the 2020 transition and beyond, visit this webpage.
FIRST IN TRANSITION PLAYBOOK — DANIEL LIPPMAN reports that LAURA BOOTH has started as senior deputy associate counsel for the Office of Presidential Personnel at the White House, according to her updated LinkedIn profile. She most recently was associate counsel for the Biden campaign and is also an alum of Latham and Watkins.
LinkedIn also revealed that SHANNON RICCHETTI is now deputy associate director of the office of the Social Secretary at the White House. She most recently was a research assistant for the transition and is also an alum of the Aspen Institute. Ricchetti is the daughter of White House counselor STEVE RICCHETTI.
A White House spokesman declined to comment.
SCRAPPING ‘REMAIN IN MEXICO’ —Starting next Friday, the Department of Homeland Security will begin the first phase of a program to allow some migrants seeking asylum to enter the U.S., SABRINA RODRIGUEZ reports. Under the Trump administration, those migrants had been forced to stay in Mexico while their asylum cases were processed.
Homeland Security Secretary ALEJANDRO MAYORKAS cautioned that the policy did not mean the border would be open to all migrants, and said that “changes will take time” — the latest warning from Biden administration officials to migrants discouraging them from trying to cross the border.
LAYING OFF THE GOVS: The Biden administration is treading lightly with governors who are relaxing coronavirus restrictions, RACHEL ROUBEIN, BRIANNA EHLEY and SARAH OWERMOHLE report — even as top federal health officials urge the public to keep wearing masks and social distancing to limit the spread of highly contagious virus variants.
“It is not an intentional diss.”
— White House press secretary JEN PSAKI in response to a reporter’s question about why Biden hadn’t called Israeli Prime Minister BENJAMIN NETANYAHU since taking office. “I can assure you he will be speaking with the prime minister soon and he’s looking forward to doing that,” she said.
Honduras’ president, implicated in drug trafficking, wants to win over Biden (The Washington Post)
Biden donors aren’t happy he hasn’t started naming ambassadors yet (The Daily Beast)
Biden will have another opening to fill on the D.C. Circuit Court (The Washington Post)
We reported recently that MERRICK GARLAND, Biden’s pick for attorney general, is a huge Harry Potter fan, but it appears he’s also an avid watcher of the celebrated HBO TV show The Wire.
In a 2013 D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals ruling, the panel reaffirmed the conviction of ELOHIM CROSS, who appealed the conviction for conspiring to distribute heroin. Garland mentioned the show in the ruling, writing that one conversation between Cross and another man “could well have been written for The Wire.”
Did the Hamsterdam story arc not change your views on drug criminalization at all, Merrick?
Eric Shinseki, President BARACK OBAMA’s first Veterans Affairs secretary, led the department for 1,987 days. He resigned in 2014 during the scandal over long wait times at VA hospitals.
The move reverses an eleventh hour decision by the Trump administration that faced backlash from bipartisan politicians and humanitarian organizations. The latter group warned that the designation could imperil their ability to deliver crucial assistance to the people of Yemen, approximately 80% of whom depend on it.
Blinken said in his statement that the decision to remove the group’s FTO designation as well as its Specially Designated Global Terrorist Designation was driven by those concerns, calling it “a recognition of the dire humanitarian situation in Yemen.”
“We have listened to warnings from the United Nations, humanitarian groups, and bipartisan members of Congress, among others, that the designations could have a devastating impact on Yemenis’ access to basic commodities like food and fuel,” he said Friday. “The revocations are intended to ensure that relevant US policies do not impede assistance to those already suffering what has been called the world’s worst humanitarian crisis. By focusing on alleviating the humanitarian situation in Yemen, we hope the Yemeni parties can also focus on engaging in dialogue.”
Blinken’s announcement comes after the Houthis mounted a number of attacks on civilian targets in Saudi Arabia, which were condemned by the State Department this week.
The top US diplomat noted in his statement that Houthi leaders Abdul Malik al-Houthi, Abd al-Khaliq Badr al-Din al-Houthi, and Abdullah Yahya al-Hakim remain under sanction.
“The United States remains clear-eyed about Ansarallah’s malign actions, and aggression, including taking control of large areas of Yemen by force, attacking US partners in the Gulf, kidnapping and torturing citizens of the United States and many of our allies, diverting humanitarian aid, brutally repressing Yemenis in areas they control, and the deadly attack on December 30, 2020 in Aden against the cabinet of the legitimate government of Yemen,” he said, using another name for the Houthis.
Yemen has been embroiled in a years-long civil war that has pitted a coalition backed by Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates against the Iran-backed Houthi rebels, a Shia political and military organization from the north of Yemen. The conflict has cost thousands of civilian lives and plunged the country into a humanitarian crisis.
President Joe Biden announced last week that the US will end its support for Saudi-backed offensive operations in the war in Yemen, but made clear that it would continue to support the Kingdom. Blinken echoed this sentiment in his statement Friday. The Biden administration’s special envoy for Yemen, Timothy Lenderking, was in Riyadh this week for meetings with Saudi and Yemeni officials as well as UN Special Envoy Martin Griffiths.
“The United States will redouble its efforts, alongside the United Nations and others, to end the war itself. We reaffirm our strong belief that there is no military solution to this conflict,” Blinken said Friday. “We urge all parties to work towards a lasting political solution, which is the only means to durably end the humanitarian crisis afflicting the people of Yemen.”
But Mr. Biden also made clear that while he was seeking to force the Saudis to face up to the huge human toll of their intervention in Yemen, he was not leaving them alone to deal with a hostile Iran. He said he would continue sales of defensive weapons to Saudi Arabia that were designed to protect against missiles, drones and cyberattacks from Tehran.
“We’re going to continue to support and help Saudi Arabia defend its sovereignty and its territorial integrity and its people,” the president said. He said nothing about the possibilities of imposing sanctions on the crown prince for his involvement in the Khashoggi killing, though Mr. Biden’s director of national intelligence, Avril D. Haines, has said she plans to declassify intelligence about the killing.
In another reversal of Trump-era policy, Mr. Biden also announced he was “stopping any planned troop withdrawals from Germany,” halting Mr. Trump’s order to redeploy 12,000 troops stationed in Germany.
National security experts from both parties had called that order shortsighted, saying it was rooted in Mr. Trump’s dislike of Chancellor Angela Merkel and his determination to force NATO nations to pay more for their own defenses, no matter what the strategic costs to the United States.
The New Washington
But strategically, it is Mr. Biden’s warning to Moscow that may, over the long run, say more about the redirection of American foreign policy than the decision to limit Saudi Arabia’s ability to prosecute a regional war. He is the first president since the fall of the Soviet Union who has decided against trying a “reset” with Russia, instead announcing what amounts to a new strategy of deterrence, if not containment.
Mr. Biden hardened his vow to respond to Russian efforts to disrupt American democracy and to the SolarWinds hacking, a vast intrusion into American government and private networks whose dimensions are still a mystery. He said that in a call with Mr. Putin last week, he told the Russian leader “in a manner very different from my predecessor, that the days of the United States rolling over in the face of Russia’s aggressive actions — interfering with our elections, cyberattacks, poisoning its citizens — are over.”
Mr. Biden called on Moscow to release the imprisoned dissident Aleksei A. Navalny, adding, “We will not hesitate to raise the cost on Russia.” But he did not specify how he would accomplish that, and his options may be limited. While the president hinted at a response “in kind” to the cyberattack, that could set off a round of escalation that has many American officials concerned.
China overtook the U.S. as the world’s top destination for new foreign direct investment last year, as the Covid-19 pandemic amplifies an eastward shift in the center of gravity of the global economy.
New investments by overseas businesses into the U.S., which for decades held the No. 1 spot, fell 49% in 2020, according to U.N. figures released Sunday, as the country struggled to curb the spread of the new coronavirus and economic output slumped.
China, long ranked No. 2, saw direct investments by foreign companies climb 4%, the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development said. Beijing used strict lockdowns to largely contain Covid-19 after the disease first emerged in a central Chinese city, and China’s gross domestic product grew even as most other major economies contracted last year.
The 2020 investment numbers underline China’s move toward the center of a global economy long dominated by the U.S.—a shift accelerated during the pandemic as China has cemented its position as the world’s factory floor and expanded its share of global trade.
While China attracted more new inflows last year, the total stock of foreign investment in the U.S. remains much larger, reflecting the decades it has spent as the most attractive location for foreign businesses looking to expand outside their home markets.
President Joe Biden stressed North American cooperation on the coronavirus pandemic, climate change and immigration in his first telephone calls with Mexican and Canadian leaders.
In phone calls Friday with Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, Biden promised to strengthen regional cooperation, according to reports.
In the call with Trudeau, the first foreign leader to speak with the new president, the two leaders “discussed collaboration on vaccines and acknowledged that the two countries’ efforts are strengthened by existing exchanges of medical personnel and the flow of critical medical supplies,” according to Canadian reports.
Although Trudeau hailed Biden’s presidency as a “new era” for relations between the countries, he complained that Biden had scrapped an oil pipeline linking the two countries on his first day in office. According to a White House statement, Biden acknowledged “Trudeau’s disappointment regarding the decision to rescind the permit for the Keystone XL pipeline.”
In the conversation with Lopez Obrador, the Mexican president addressed the contribution of Mexican migrants in the US and said the best way to manage migration was to create economic development in impoverished regions from which migrants set off, according to a statement from Mexico’s foreign ministry.
Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau speaks on the phone with President Joe Biden on Jan. 22, 2021.Adam Scotti/Prime Minister’s Office/Handout via Reuters
The call comes at a time of tension over the US federal investigation into former Mexican defense minister Salvador Cienfuegos, which was dropped in November. US prosecutors had claimed that Cienfuegos was the head of the H-2 drug cartel.
