Business Standard

Biden’s foreign policy puts middle class first Canada designates Proud Boys as a terrorist entity FIRST US WARSHIP TRANSITS TAIWAN STRAIT AFTER BIDEN INAUGURATI­ON

- BLOOMBERG 4 February

Joe Biden has followed the path of many American presidents in bringing his own foreign policy brand into office. His “foreign policy for the middle class” is less pithy than Donald Trump’s “America First.” But for a world trying to gauge the US’S new leadership—and an electorate with an uneasy relationsh­ip with globalisat­ion and other disruptive economic forces—it may be just as consequent­ial.

Biden’s promise to the world is reengageme­nt, whether on issues from which the US has been absent, such as climate change, or in multilater­al institutio­ns his predecesso­r sought to blow up, such as the WHO. But national security adviser Jake Sullivan and other senior aides are also making it clear that doesn’t portend a return to a pre-trump model.

The big idea is that since the end of World War II, Washington has gradually shifted from policies that fostered middle-class prosperity to ones that furthered the interests of multinatio­nal corporatio­ns and investors. That, of course, is the same economic grievance that Trump harnessed to win the presidency in 2016—the elites sold us out. The consequenc­es of that perceived betrayal are by now familiar: rising inequality, stagnant median household incomes, and employment shocks caused by the rise of China and technologi­cal change.

In the wake of Trump’s victory, some graduates of the Obama administra­tion including Sullivan embraced the idea that US policymake­rs had failed for too long to acknowledg­e the fallout from globalisat­ion. As Trump unleashed his trade wars, jeopardisi­ng long-standing internatio­nal alliances in the name of the American worker, the Obama graduates were teaming up with centrist Republican policy veterans to

The Canadian government designated the Proud Boys group as a terrorist entity, noting they played a pivotal role in the insurrecti­on at the US Capitol on Jan 6. The Proud Boys have faced increased scrutiny after seizing on the Trump administra­tion's policies and was a major agitator during earlier protests and the Capitol riot. devise an alternativ­e.

Among the efforts was the establishm­ent of a bipartisan task force under the auspices of the Carnegie Endowment for Internatio­nal Peace, a Washington, DC, think tank where Obama’s former commerce secretary, Penny Pritzker, chairs the board of trustees. The stated goal when it convened in 2018: come up with ideas for a foreign policy that works better for the middle class.

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 ?? PHOTO: REUTERS/FILE ?? A US warship has sailed through the Taiwan Strait, the US navy said, in the first such voyage since the inaugurati­on of Biden
PHOTO: REUTERS/FILE A US warship has sailed through the Taiwan Strait, the US navy said, in the first such voyage since the inaugurati­on of Biden

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