United States | News & Politics

WASHINGTON, Jan 13 (Reuters) - Outgoing President Joe Biden sought to burnish his foreign policy record on Monday and said U.S. adversaries are weaker than when he took office four years ago despite global crises that remain unresolved.

A week before handing over to President-elect Donald Trump, Biden in a rare State Department speech touted his administration's backing for Ukraine against Russia's 2022 invasion and for Israel's wars in the Middle East.

Biden said the United States was "winning the worldwide competition" and would not be surpassed economically by China as had been predicted, while Russia and Iran have been weakened by wars without direct U.S. involvement.

"Compared to four years ago, America is stronger, our alliances are stronger, our adversaries and competitors are weaker," Biden said. "We have not gone to war to make these things happen."

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/24259376

He did so by blocking Japan’s Nippon Steel’s proposed $14.9 billion purchase of the once-iconic, now-declining U.S. Steel. The ostensible rationale was “national security.” As Biden put it in a statement Friday morning, “It is my solemn responsibility as president to ensure that, now and long into the future, America has a strong domestically owned and operated steel industry.” He added, “And it is a fulfillment of that responsibility to block foreign ownership of this vital American company.”

If only. Blocking the deal is just going to hurt the U.S. steel industry, and everyone in the industry, including the workers themselves, knows it. The real reason Biden stopped Nippon Steel from buying U.S. Steel was politics—a combination of placating his union allies and a misguided belief that U.S. Steel must remain in American hands at all costs. The irony is that this economic nationalism and union nostalgia could kill 3,000 union jobs and push U.S. Steel out of Pittsburgh.

During the election, the proposed takeover of U.S. Steel by a Japanese company became a heated issue in Pennsylvania. While Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris cited national security concerns, Donald Trump said in a Truth Social post that the tariffs he planned to place on imported steel would revive the industry. The far more likely result, however, is that Pennsylvania steelworkers will soon be out of work, as U.S. Steel had vowed to move to non-union Arkansas if its deal with Nippon Steel were turned down.

“If there’s no company, what good are tariffs?” said Andy Macey, a mechanical repairman at U.S. Steel’s Clairton Works. Macey, 70, was a steelworker in the 1980s when U.S. Steel, unable to compete with cheap foreign imports—much of it from Japan—began shutting down factories. “When I walked out of that steel mill with my coworkers, we had tears in our eyes,” he said, remembering the daily food and unemployment lines. Macey said that a locker buddy committed suicide the night he was laid off. He pushed for the Nippon deal because he didn’t want younger steelworkers to suffer the same fate.

Nippon Steel promised to invest $2.7 billion in U.S. Steel’s aging union facilities, including $1 billion in the Mon Valley. The Japanese even sweetened the pot with a $5,000 bonus for workers if the deal passed.

Local union leaders from two of the three Mon Valley plants supported Nippon, with Jason Zugai, vice president of USW Local 2227, saying that 95 percent of the union members at his Irvin Works support the deal. U.S. Steel’s corporate executives, elected officials, and hundreds of workers rallied to show their support in late November. That same month, Japanese prime minister Shigeru Ishiba warned in a letter to Biden that blocking the deal would “cast a shadow on the achievements you have accumulated over the past four years,” weakening an alliance critical to countering China.

Shortly before Christmas, the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States, which is part of the executive branch and includes representatives from a number of cabinet departments, found itself unable to come to a unanimous decision about whether or not the Nippon Steel deal should be stopped. According to the Financial Times, the three most important committee members—the Treasury Department (which leads the committee), the State Department, and the Pentagon—found no security risks. In other words, in kowtowing to a union leader who has been a long-time political ally, Biden ignored the wishes of an important ally, Japan; members of his own cabinet; and the union workers themselves. He is also hurting the country, which would be far better served if Nippon Steel reinvigorated U.S. Steel, something it is uniquely positioned to do.

A final irony: On the same day Biden blocked the Nippon Steel deal on “national security” grounds, the U.S. approved the sale of $3.6 billion worth of air-to-air missiles to Japan.

Archive Link: https://archive.is/Y7EWf

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Scientists are urging members of Congress to use their legislative power to defend science, fact-based policymaking and bedrock science-based policies that protect the public health and well-being of all people.

Today, in the face of the incoming president's agenda, the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS) sent a petition signed by 25,219 scientists, experts and science supporters to every member of Congress asking them to stand up against attempts to politicize, eliminate or diminish scientific roles, agencies and federal research.

I predict that the DNA sample will be orange in color.

Convicted of 34 felony counts in his hush money case, Donald Trump could have faced severe consequences. Each of the felony counts of falsifying business records was punishable by up to four years in prison and fines of up to $5,000. Yet U.S. District Judge Juan Merchan took a remarkably light approach in sentencing Friday, issuing Trump an “unconditional discharge” — meaning no jail time, no fines, and effectively no punishment except that he retains his felony conviction.

For many in the criminal justice reform and abolitionist space, his feather-light sentence further highlights the widespread inequities and failures of a criminal legal system where hundreds of thousands of Americans remain behind bars without ever even being convicted, let alone of a felony.

Despite the nonexistent penalties (aside from limits on his ownership of firearms and a requirement that he provide a DNA sample for a New York state database), Trump continued to rail against his prosecution. He called it “a very terrible experience” that was politically motivated, echoing his previous claims that he was facing a “two-tiered justice system.”

In the same city across a thin stretch of river, Ann Mathews, managing director of the Bronx Defenders, a public defenders nonprofit serving low-income Bronx residents, agrees that this case highlights the two tiers of justice. Just not in the way Trump means.

“This never happens for our clients,” said Mathews. “We felt the outrage. And then I think, wow, imagine the people we represent.”