Tag: United States Politics and Government

Nikki Haley Is Focused on New Hampshire — and Moving Up in the Republican Primary

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Nikki Haley, the former South Carolina governor and United Nations ambassador, five months into her first run for president, acknowledges the position she is in. Though she was the first Republican to announce a challenge to former President Donald J. Trump, she hasn’t spent a dime on television ads, is polling well behind Mr. Trump and Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida and has struggled at times to make a case for her campaign. But in an interview on Friday, at a picnic table outside a Veterans of Foreign Wars post…

John Kerry to Visit China to Restart Climate Negotiations

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WASHINGTON — John Kerry, President Biden’s special envoy for climate change, said on Thursday he would travel to China next week to restart global warming negotiations between the world’s two largest polluters. Mr. Kerry’s trip will mark the first climate discussions between the United States and China since August, when Beijing cut off talks in anger after Nancy Pelosi, who was House speaker at the time, visited Taiwan. The talks come as the highest global temperatures ever recorded, driven by the burning of fossil fuels as well as the climate…

Yellen Faces a Diplomatic Test in Her High-Stakes Visit to China

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At her confirmation hearing in early 2021, Treasury Secretary Janet L. Yellen struck a tough tone on China, describing it as America’s most important strategic competitor and pledging to confront its “abusive, unfair and illegal practices” that she said were harming businesses and workers in the United States. Since then, Ms. Yellen has emerged as a voice of moderation in the Biden administration, embracing the mantle of economic pragmatism as the world economy copes with inflation and sluggish growth. The Treasury secretary has expressed objections to China’s record on human…

Intelligence Agencies Remain Divided Over Covid Lab Leak Theory

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Intelligence agencies do not believe the case of three workers from a laboratory in Wuhan, China, who became ill in 2019 can help shed light on whether the Covid-19 pandemic originated from an accidental lab leak, according to a report made public Friday. The Office of the Director of National Intelligence released a long-awaited declassified report, which included spy agencies’ findings on the so-called lab leak theory, but the material is unlikely to satisfy many people who have been wrestling with the unanswered questions on the origins of the Covid…

Congress Spotlights Forced Labor Concerns With Chinese Shopping Sites Shein and Temu

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Lawmakers are flagging what they say are likely significant violations of U.S. law by Temu, a popular Chinese shopping platform, accusing it of providing an unchecked channel that allows goods made with forced labor to flow into the United States. In a report released Thursday, the House Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party said Temu, a rapidly growing site that sells electronics, makeup, toys and clothing, had failed “to maintain even the facade of a meaningful compliance program” for its supply chains and was likely shipping products made with…

Biden Says Xi Was Not Informed About Spy Balloon

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This was not the first time Mr. Biden has made off-the-cuff remarks about foreign policy during an evening fund-raiser. At another such event in New York in October, he warned donors that the world was closer to nuclear destruction than at any time since John F. Kennedy faced off against Nikita S. Khrushchev over Soviet missiles in Cuba in 1962. “We have not faced the prospect of Armageddon since Kennedy and the Cuban Missile Crisis,” Mr. Biden said then, prompting a nervous reaction. In California on Tuesday, Mr. Biden was…

Why Daniel Ellsberg Tried to Get Prosecuted Near His Life’s End

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In the last years of his long and remarkable life, Daniel Ellsberg, the disenchanted military analyst who famously leaked the so-called Pentagon Papers in 1971, wanted to be prosecuted. And he hoped I would help pave the way. The charge he coveted was mishandling national security secrets under the Espionage Act, and his plan was to give me another classified document he had taken decades ago that he had held onto without authorization all this time. He wanted to mount a defense in a way that would offer the Supreme…

Republicans Attack Blinken for China Trip, Threatening Subpoena

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The News Leading congressional Republicans excoriated Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken on Friday for traveling to China this weekend, accusing him of undermining national security by attempting to normalize diplomatic relations with Beijing as they press for a more hard-line approach. Representative Michael McCaul, Republican of Texas and the chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee, threatened to subpoena Mr. Blinken if he failed to produce documents by Friday evening detailing the list of retaliatory actions the U.S. government has considered against China, and when they were applied. “The Biden…

Yellen Says Bid to Decouple From China Would Be ‘Disastrous’

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Treasury Secretary Janet L. Yellen said on Tuesday that it would be a mistake for the United States to try to “decouple” from China and called for deepening economic ties between the world’s two largest economies. The comments came as the Biden administration has been seeking to improve relations with China, which faced a setback this year when a Chinese surveillance balloon was found flying across the United States. Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken is planning to travel to Beijing next week, and Ms. Yellen hopes to make a…

China to Build Station That Could Spy on U.S. from Cuba, Officials Say

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China is planning to build a facility in Cuba that U.S. officials are concerned could be capable of spying on the United States by intercepting electronic signals from nearby U.S. military and commercial facilities, according to three U.S. officials familiar with the agreement. Beijing has built listening outposts elsewhere and has a military presence in Cuba, but an eavesdropping station could give China a foothold about 100 miles from the Florida coastline, from which it could potentially conduct surveillance operations against the United States. The proximity of the planned facility…