After his fourth indictment, bringing his total count of felony charges to 91, former President Donald J. Trump last week posted a video online accusing President Biden and his family of being criminals. “The Biden crime family,” he claimed, had received millions of dollars from foreign countries. “I believe we have a compromised president,” Mr. Trump said, adding: “He’s a Manchurian candidate. That’s why Crooked Joe is letting other countries walk all over the United States.” For Mr. Trump, outrage is a selective commodity when it comes to presidential families…
Tag: Trump, Donald J
U.S. Seals Security Pact With Japan and South Korea as Threats Loom
The new three-way security pact sealed by President Biden and the leaders of Japan and South Korea at Camp David on Friday was forged with threats by China and North Korea in mind. But there was one other possible factor driving the diplomatic breakthrough: Donald J. Trump. While the former president’s name appeared nowhere in the “Camp David Principles” that the leaders issued at the presidential retreat, one of the subtexts was the possibility that he could return to power in next year’s election and disrupt ties with America’s two…
China Has Had a Spy Base in Cuba for Years, U.S. Official Says
A Chinese spy base in Cuba that could intercept electronic signals from nearby U.S. military and commercial buildings has been up and running since or before 2019, when the Chinese base was upgraded, according to a Biden administration official. The official, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive intelligence, said the spy base was an issue that the Biden administration had inherited from former President Donald J. Trump. After Mr. Biden took office, his administration was briefed about the base in Cuba as well as plans China was…
Europeans Now See Russia as an Adversary, but Not China, Poll Says
When Chancellor Olaf Scholz of Germany and President Emmanuel Macron of France recently made separate but friendly visits to China, it sparked considerable dismay among their fellow leaders in Europe and Washington. Especially given Beijing’s “no-limits partnership” with Russia, the efforts to treat China as what Mr. Macron called “a strategic and global partner,” rather than as a rival, were met with sometimes caustic criticism. Yet, an extensive opinion poll released on Wednesday, shows that Europeans tend to agree with them. Even as Beijing moves closer to Moscow, and despite…
Pulling the Plug on TikTok Will Be Harder Than It Looks
In the summer of 2020, in full re-election mode and looking for new ways to punish China, President Donald J. Trump threatened to cut off TikTok from the phones of millions of Americans unless its parent company agreed to sell all of its U.S. operations to American owners. The effort collapsed. Now, more than two years later, after lengthy studies of how Chinese authorities could use the app for everything from surveillance to information operations, the Biden administration is attempting a strikingly similar move. It is better organized, vetted by…
TikTok Could Be a Hard Sell to Potential Buyers
TikTok has what many Silicon Valley companies lust after: A culture-making machine beloved by 100 million Americans and deep-pocketed advertisers. That doesn’t mean they will line up to buy it. TikTok said on Wednesday that the Biden administration was pushing the company’s Chinese owners to sell the app or face a possible ban. But there are probably few companies, in the tech industry or elsewhere, willing or able to buy it, analysts and experts say. At a price of $50 billion or more — the value some analysts said TikTok…
What to Know About the Covid Lab Leak Theory
Benjamin Mueller contributed reporting. The Daily is made by Lisa Tobin, Rachel Quester, Lynsea Garrison, Clare Toeniskoetter, Paige Cowett, Michael Simon Johnson, Brad Fisher, Chris Wood, Jessica Cheung, Stella Tan, Alexandra Leigh Young, Lisa Chow, Eric Krupke, Marc Georges, Luke Vander Ploeg, M.J. Davis Lin, Dan Powell, Dave Shaw, Sydney Harper, Robert Jimison, Mike Benoist, Liz O. Baylen, Asthaa Chaturvedi, Rachelle Bonja, Diana Nguyen, Marion Lozano, Corey Schreppel, Anita Badejo, Rob Szypko, Elisheba Ittoop, Chelsea Daniel, Mooj Zadie, Patricia Willens, Rowan Niemisto, Jody Becker, Rikki Novetsky, John Ketchum, Nina Feldman,…
Why Is TikTok Being Banned?
In January, a Republican senator, Josh Hawley of Missouri, introduced a bill to ban TikTok for all Americans after pushing for a measure, which passed in December as part of a spending package, that banned TikTok on all devices issued by the federal government. A separate bipartisan bill, introduced in December, also sought to ban TikTok and target any similar social media companies from countries like Russia and Iran. What is the Biden administration doing? It’s been largely quiet, though the White House pointed to an ongoing review just this…
Where Did Covid Originate? Here’s What We Know and Don’t Know
WASHINGTON — The Energy Department’s conclusion, with “low confidence,” that an accidental laboratory leak in China most likely caused the coronavirus pandemic has renewed questions about what sparked the worst public health crisis in a century — and whether the virus at the heart of it was somehow connected to scientific research. Scientists and spy agencies have tried assiduously to answer that question, but conclusive evidence is hard to come by. The nation’s intelligence agencies are split, and none of them changed their conclusions after seeing the Energy Department’s findings, officials…
U.S. Aims to Curb Investment in China Amid Security Concerns
Others say that China has access to plenty of other sources of funding worldwide, and that cutting off access would prevent U.S. companies from benefiting from Chinese innovations. “Getting the details right on outbound investment screening is easier said than done,” said Rory Murphy, the vice president of government affairs for the U.S.-China Business Council. “These are technical and complicated sectors, and the details are critical.” He added that his group wanted to “help policymakers thread the needle of achieving their national security objectives while not going too broad and…