Americans
China Objects to US Proposal for APEC Trade and Investment Policies -source.
According to a source informed on the discussions on Wednesday, China is opposing a proposal from the United States calling on members of the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation to include sustainability and inclusion in their trade and investment policies.
The source stated that discussions on the matter were ongoing at the APEC meeting in San Francisco to develop language that all 21 group members could support.
Dubbed the “San Francisco Principles for Integrating Inclusivity and Sustainability into Trade and Investment Policy” by the Biden administration, U.S. Trade Representative Katherine Tai expressed hope that the idea may still be approved at a plenary conference focusing on trade.
“All economies but one have supported the U.S.-led effort, so it is unclear if APEC will fulfill that mandate,” Tai stated. However, I believe economies will soon complete the San Francisco Principles.”
The Biden administration is pushing the idea that APEC economies expand opportunities for more people, especially underprivileged populations, and integrate clean energy and carbon emissions reduction goals into their development, growth, and trade policies. A few specifics of the U.S. proposal were made available.
Separately, Tai is attempting to negotiate with the European Union a green steel agreement that would penalize Chinese steelmakers due to their more significant carbon emissions.
China’s protests at the APEC meeting have come to light as Chinese President Xi Jinping and U.S. President Joe Biden convened south of San Francisco for high-level discussions to reduce tensions between the two giants over artificial intelligence, drug trafficking, and military conflicts.
America
Elon Musk promises to wear a symbol of Gaza hostages.
During his trip to Israel, Elon Musk, who had been criticized for an anti-Jewish remark on his social networking platform X, was presented with a symbolic dog tag by the father of an Israeli who had been held captive by Hamas in Gaza. Musk committed the dog tag until all of the pages were released.
“Our hearts are hostage in Gaza,” read the metal tag that Musk got from Malki Shem-Tov, the father of Omer Shem-Tov, who is now being held as a hostage. The office of Israeli President Isaac Herzog released the footage of Musk’s visit on Monday.
The bracelet was wrapped around Musk’s neck. In the latter hours of Monday, he posted a message on X that said, “I will wear it every day until your loved ones are released.”
The dog tags, which are widely distributed across Israel, are a reminder of the cross-border death spree that Hamas carried out on October 7, during which 240 individuals were hauled back to Gaza.
On November 15, Musk expressed his agreement with a post that made a false allegation that Jewish people were inciting hatred against white people. He stated that the poster who mentioned the “Great Replacement” conspiracy theory was using “the actual truth” in their statement.
Immediately after the post, significant corporations in the United States, such as Walt Disney (DIS.N), Warner Bros. Discovery (WBD.O), and Comcast (CMCSA.O), the parent company of NBCUniversal, decided to cease their ads on X, which was once known as Twitter.
An “abhorrent promotion of antisemitic and racist hate” that “runs against our core values as Americans” was what the White House of the United States of America referred to as Musk’s actions.
Musk has indicated that he is opposed to antisemitism and anything that “promotes hate and conflict.” He has also stated that X would not promote hate speech.
America
Biden will invoke Cold War-era law to boost medical supplies.
According to the White House, Vice President Joe Biden will utilize a policy from the Cold War era to encourage more investment in the domestic manufacture of medications and medical supplies that the President has considered critical for the nation’s defense.
This declaration is part of several that the Biden administration will release Monday to support industry supply chains and reverse many years of historically high inflation.
The Defense Production Act, passed during the Cold War, gave the Department of Health and Human Services the authority to use those powers to enable spending on “essential medicines,” according to a White House statement.
In addition, one can invest in “medical countermeasures,” which are supplies that can diagnose, prevent, or treat disorders connected to chemical, biological, radiological, or nuclear threats.
Biden, a Democrat seeking re-election in 2024, is keen to demonstrate to the people of the United States that he is combating inflation and addressing broader issues over the condition of the economy in the United States. On Monday, he will preside over the inaugural gathering of a newly established White House Council on Supply Chain Resilience.
On a conference call with reporters, Lael Brainard, the chairman of Vice President Biden’s National Economic Council, stated that while the stress on supply chains had decreased from the record highs reached during the COVID-19 epidemic, more work was still needed.
America
Biden, Trump unpopularity buoys third party hopes for 2024 US election.
Many Americans are anxious for younger and less polarizing candidates for the presidential contest 2024 since it appears like they will have to choose between Democratic candidate Joe Biden and Republican candidate Donald Trump.
A sizeable and possibly significant market for third-party candidates, which have not been seen since the 1990s, serves as a sharp reminder that the two main parties are likely to nominate extraordinarily unpopular individuals. These candidates include Donald Trump and Joe Biden.
Their prospective rematch in the 2020 election comes at a time when the nation is struggling with economic worry, a solid political division, a contentious Israeli attack on Gaza supported by the United States, and broad calls for a new generation of leadership in the United States.
According to a recent survey conducted by Gallup, over 63% of people living in the United States now agree with the statement that both the Republican and Democratic parties do “such a poor job” of representing the people of the United States that “a third major party is needed.” That is seven percentage points more than a year ago and the most since Gallup began polling on the topic in 2003.
Despite widespread worries over Biden’s age and Trump’s streak of federal and state criminal prosecutions, both Biden and Trump are predicted to emerge as the candidates of their respective parties in 2024, even thofacingpponents.
Even though they have occasionally played outsized roles as spoilers by drawing votes away from major party candidates, third-party candidates have never been victorious in a contemporary presidential election in the United States.
In 1992, billionaire businessman Ross Perot won 19% of the vote, which is generally considered to have been the deciding factor in whether or not Democrat Bill Clinton or Republican George H.W. Bush would have been in the White House.
Ralph Nader, a political activist, received less than three percent of the vote in the 2000 presidential election. Still, he stole enough votes from Democratic nominee Al Gore in Florida to give George W. Bush the victory in the state and, with it, the White House.
According to a new survey conducted by Reuters and Ipsos, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., an anti-vaccine conspiracy theorist and scion of the Democratic dynasty who launched an independent presidential effort in October, might garner 20% of the vote in a three-way race against Joe Biden and Donald Trump. Kennedy Jr. announced his campaign for president as an independent in October.
In support of Kennedy’s candidacy is the “American Values 2024” SuperPac, which has amassed more than $17 million in contributions from a diverse group of wealthy backers, one of whom formerly supported Trump’s campaign.
On Tuesday, American Values 2024 sponsored an event in downtown Manhattan geared toward black and Latino voters. The event drew a crowd of around 40 individuals, including some attendees who could not identify Kennedy’s basic principles but stated that they respected his disruptive potential.
Since Barack Obama took office, we’ve been looking for a dissident. After that, we felt Bernie Sanders was a rebel, but initially, we thought he was a rebel. At that time, we believed that Trump was a renegade. Attendee Larry Sharpe, a previous Libertarian candidate for the office of New York governor who was present at the event, stated, “Now,, we know, of course, RFK is a rebel.”
Both parties have voiced concerns about a possible Kennedy candidacy. Democrats are concerned that his well-known surname and pro-environment and anti-corporate ideas would strike a chord with some of their supporters. Republicans are concerned that his rhetoric against vaccines and his popularity on conservative platforms might cause them to lose some of their support.
In a three-way contest, results from polls conducted by Reuters/Ipsos and others have shown that support for Kennedy comes about equally from Republicans and Democrats. On the other hand, Democrats are not making any assumptions about anything.
In general, we believe anything that drives a wedge among members of the anti-Trump alliance is a step in the wrong direction. According to Matt Bennett, a co-founder of the Democratic organization Third Way, located in the center-left of the political spectrum, “any option that you offer voters who simply can’t vote for Trump, other than Joe Biden, is problematic.”
Kennedy shouldn’t be viewed as a threat to just Biden or just Trump, according to Tony Lyons, cofounder of American Values 2024, who spoke with Reuters. Lyons remarked at the event in Manhattan, “He’s a danger to a corrupt two party system that isn’t doing things to help the people in this room,” referring to Trump.
The spokesperson for the Trump campaign, Steven Cheung, stated, “Polls show President Trump absolutely crushing Joe Biden even with other candidates present, both nationally and in battleground states.”
Because they were concerned that an outsider running might give the election to Trump, the Biden campaign chose not to respond.
Biden and Trump are soliciting considerably more money, even through third-party choices. During the most recent quarter, the president and his friends brought in $71 million, while Trump brought in $45.5 million.
Even though they do not yet have a candidate in place, the third-party political organization No Labels has already raised sixty million dollars for the election in 2024 and has qualified on the ballot in eleven states, including the swing states of Arizona, Nevada, and North Carolina.
“We’ve been trying to get the pulse of the electorate for the last two years, and it keeps telling the same story: people want better choices,” said Ryan Clancy, chief strategist with No Labels. This bipartisan group is mounting its first presidential bid after a few years of lending support to moderates in Congress. “We’ve been trying to get the pulse of the electorate for the last two years, and it keeps telling the same story, which is that people want better choices,” Clancy said.
The organization has been attempting to get the participation of former Republican Governor Larry Hogan of Maryland and current United States Senator Joe Manchin, a conservative Democrat from West Virginia who just declared that he will not be re-elected to the Senate.
On Wednesday, Manchin responded to NBC News’s question on whether or not he is contemplating a run for the White House by saying, “I will do anything I can to help my country.”
Clancy stated that No Labels intends to have a nominating convention in April and will choose a presidential ticket if it seems likely that a rematch between Biden and Trump will occur and if the party feels its candidates have a chance of winning.
It is generally agreed that other third-party candidates pose less of a danger. Cornel West, a black social activist and philosopher, also runs for office as an independent candidate. He has high expectations that his style of in-your-face progressive politics will influence the 2024 discussion.
Jill Stein has announced that she will once again run for president as a candidate for the Green Party. It is anticipated that neither West nor Stein will garner a significant portion of the vote, and they will have difficulty appearing on state ballots.
During a recent interview with ProPublica, Joe Biden was questioned on his former Democratic colleague Joe Lieberman’s efforts with the organization No Labels to locate and support a moderate candidate running for a third-party position. Biden pointed out that it is within Lieberman’s democratic rights to do so, but he added, “Now, it’s going to help the other guy, and he knows (that).”