Tag: United States Politics and Government

Trump’s Tariffs Hurt U.S. Jobs but Swayed American Voters, Study Says

Media Library

The sweeping tariffs that former President Donald J. Trump imposed on China and other American trading partners were simultaneously a political success and an economic failure, a new study suggests. That’s because the levies won over voters for the Republican Party even though they did not bring back jobs. The nonpartisan working paper examines monthly data on U.S. employment by industry to find that the tariffs that Mr. Trump placed on foreign metals, washing machines and an array of goods from China starting in 2018 neither raised nor lowered the…

Flush With Investment, New U.S. Factories Face a Familiar Challenge

Media Library

The Biden administration has begun pumping more than $2 trillion into U.S. factories and infrastructure, investing huge sums to try to strengthen American industry and fight climate change. But the effort is facing a familiar threat: a surge of low-priced products from China. That is drawing the attention of President Biden and his aides, who are considering new protectionist measures to make sure American industry can compete against Beijing. As U.S. factories spin up to produce electric vehicles, semiconductors and solar panels, China is flooding the market with similar goods,…

The Next Front in the U.S.-China Battle Over Chips

Media Library

NASA has chosen the technology to help it land future spacecraft on unmapped planets. Meta uses the technology for artificial intelligence. Chinese engineers have turned to it to encrypt data. And it could represent the next front in the semiconductor trade war between the United States and China. The technology is RISC-V, pronounced “risk five.” It evolved from a university computer lab in California to a foundation for myriad chips that handle computing chores. RISC-V essentially provides a kind of common language for designing processors that are found in devices…

From Lebanon to the Red Sea, a Broader Conflict With Iran Looms

Media Library

President Biden and his top national security aides believed last summer that the chances of conflict with Iran and its proxies were well contained. After secret talks, they had just concluded a deal that led to the release of five imprisoned Americans in return for $6 billion in frozen Iranian funds and some Iranian prisoners. The militants that Tehran finances and arms — Hamas in the Palestinian territories, Hezbollah in Lebanon and the Houthis in Yemen — seemed relatively quiet. Iran even slowed enrichment of uranium at its underground nuclear…

Should Trump Be on the Ballot? And Other 2024 Sticky Wickets

Media Library

Listen to and follow ‘Matter of Opinion’Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Amazon Music Is Donald Trump an insurrectionist who should be barred from the ballot? On this episode of “Matter of Opinion,” the hosts discuss who should get to decide if the former president can try to return to the White House. Plus, the hosts lay out what other stories are on their 2024 political bingo cards. (A full transcript of the episode will be available midday on the Times website.) Mentioned in this episode: Thoughts? Email us at matterofopinion@nytimes.com.…

Trump Received Millions From Foreign Governments as President, Report Finds

Media Library

Donald J. Trump’s businesses received at least $7.8 million from 20 foreign governments during his presidency, according to new documents released by House Democrats on Thursday that show how much he received from overseas transactions while he was in the White House, most of it from China. The transactions, detailed in a 156-page report called “White House For Sale” that was produced by Democrats on the House Oversight Committee, offer concrete evidence that the former president engaged in the kind of conduct that House Republicans have labored, so far unsuccessfully,…

Lawmakers Call for Raising Tariffs and Severing Economic Ties With China

Media Library

Bipartisan lawmakers on Tuesday called for severing more of America’s economic and financial ties with China, including revoking the low tariff rates that the United States granted Beijing after it joined the World Trade Organization more than two decades ago. The House Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party released a wide-ranging set of recommendations for resetting America’s economic relationship with China. The report, which was signed by both House Democrats and Republicans, argued that China had carried out a “multidecade campaign of economic aggression” that had undercut American firms,…

Lawmakers Press Biden Administration for Tougher Curbs on China Tech

Media Library

Republican lawmakers are faulting the Biden administration’s enforcement of restrictions on China’s access to American technology, saying that the administration is still allowing semiconductors and other American innovation to flow to Beijing that could ultimately aid China in a military conflict. In a report released on Thursday, the House Foreign Affairs Committee said the administration had failed to enforce export controls that limit sales of advanced technology to China. The federal government has been steadily ramping up limits on sales to China of advanced chips and chip-making equipment over the…

U.S. Debates How Much to Sever Electric Car Industry’s Ties to China

Media Library

The Biden administration has been trying to jump-start the domestic supply chain for electric vehicles so cleaner cars can be made in the United States. But the experience of one Texas company, whose plans to help make an all-American electric vehicle were upended by China, highlights the stakes involved as the administration finalizes rules governing the industry. Huntsman Corporation started construction two years ago on a $50 million plant in Texas to make ethylene carbonate, a chemical that is used in electric vehicle batteries. It would have been the only…

Hunter Biden Offers to Testify in House Inquiry, but Only in Public

Media Library

Hunter Biden, the president’s son, who is the subject of an investigation by House Republicans into his family, told Congress on Tuesday that he was willing to testify — but only publicly so that Republicans cannot twist or selectively leak what he says. In a letter to Congress, Abbe D. Lowell, Mr. Biden’s lawyer, criticized the Republican inquiry as a “partisan crusade,” and said he has watched as Representative James R. Comer, Republican of Kentucky and the chairman of the House Oversight Committee, has used “closed-door sessions to manipulate, even…