Republicans’ ideas for cutting the US budget could undermine manufacturing and help China dominate the world economy, US President Joe Biden said on Tuesday.
Speaking at a semiconductor maker in North Carolina to highlight his own policies, Biden is trying to shape public sentiment as he faces off with US House of Representatives Speaker Kevin McCarthy about whether the federal government should increase its borrowing capacity.
McCarthy sent a letter saying that negotiations should start about possible spending cuts in return for the debt limit increase.
Photo: Bloomberg
Biden has said that Republicans need to put forth their own budget plan before negotiations start.
Without an agreement, the federal government could default on its financial obligations.
Republican demands on the budget would only empower China, the country’s key geopolitical rival, Biden said.
“It would mean ceding the future of innovation and technology to China,” Biden said.
“I’ve got news for you and for MAGA Republicans in Congress: Not on my watch,” he said, referring to the “Make America Great Again” slogan of former US president Donald Trump. “We’re not going to let them undo all the progress we made.”
Biden’s trip to Wolfspeed follows the Durham-based company announcing plans in September last year to build a US$5 billion manufacturing facility in Chatham County that is expected to create 1,800 new jobs.
Separately, Biden was to open the Summit for Democracy in Washington with a pledge for the US to spend US$690 million bolstering democracy programs around the globe.
The administration said it wants to use the two-day summit, which was to begin yesterday, to zero in on making “technology work for and not against democracy,” a senior administration official said.
The new funding would focus on programs that support free and independent media, combat corruption, bolster human rights, advance technology that improves democracy, and support free and fair elections, said the official, who previewed the summit on the condition of anonymity.
The administration has also come to an agreement with 10 other nations on guiding principles for how the governments should use surveillance technology, the official added.
The Ministry of Transportation and Communications yesterday inaugurated the Danjiang Bridge across the Tamsui River in New Taipei City, saying that the structure would be an architectural icon and traffic artery for Taiwan. Feted as a major engineering achievement, the Danjiang Bridge is 920m long, 211m tall at the top of its pylon, and is the longest single-pylon asymmetric cable-stayed bridge in the world, the government’s Web site for the structure said. It was designed by late Iraqi-British architect Zaha Hadid. The structure, with a maximum deck of 70m, accommodates road and light rail traffic, and affords a 200m navigation channel for boats,
PRECISION STRIKES: The most significant reason to deploy HIMARS to outlying islands is to establish a ‘dead zone’ that the PLA would not dare enter, a source said A High Mobility Artillery Rocket System (HIMARS) would be deployed to Penghu County and Dongyin Island (東引) in Lienchiang County (Matsu) to force the Chinese military to retreat at least 100km from the coastline, a military source said yesterday. Taiwan has been procuring HIMARS and Army Tactical Missile Systems (ATACMS) from the US in batches. Once all batches have been delivered, Taiwan would possess 111 HIMARS units and 504 ATACMS, which have a range of 300km. Considering that “offense is the best defense,” the military plans to forward-deploy the systems to outlying islands such as Penghu and Dongyin so that
WHAT WAS ALL THAT FOR? Jaw Shaw-kong said that Cheng Li-wen had pushed for more drastic cuts and attacked him, just for the outcome to be nearly identical to his bill The legislature yesterday passed a supplementary budget bill to fund the purchase of separate packages of US military equipment, with the combined amount of spending capped at NT$780 billion (US$24.8 billion). The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) used their legislative majority to pass the bill, which runs until 2033 and has two main funding provisions. One was for NT$300 billion of arms sales already approved by the US for Taiwan on Dec. 17 last year, the other was for NT$480 billion for another arms package expected to be announced by Washington. The bill, which fell short of the NT$1.25
‘CLEAR MESSAGE’: The bill would set up an interagency ‘tiger team’ to review sanctions tools and other economic options to help deter any Chinese aggression toward Taiwan US Representative Young Kim has introduced a bill to deter Chinese aggression against Taiwan, calling for an interagency “tiger team” to preplan coordinated sanctions and economic measures in response to possible Chinese military or political action against Taiwan. “[Chinese President] Xi Jinping [習近平] has directed the People’s Liberation Army to be ready to invade Taiwan by 2027. China has a plan. America should have one too,” Kim said in a news release on Thursday last week. She introduced the “Deter PRC [People’s Republic of China] aggression against Taiwan act” to “ensure the US has a coordinated sanctions strategy ready should
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