April 18 2024
Alloyed forces
1 Biden calls for tariffs on Chinese steel and aluminum
2 House Speaker proceeds with military aid bills, risks job
3 US to award Samsung billions for new chip factory
4 China-Russia alliance long term threat
4/18/1775 Revere and Dawes warn of British attack
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1 Biden calls for tariffs on Chinese steel and aluminum
President Biden on Wednesday called for major increases to some tariffs on steel and aluminum products from China, speaking to members of a national steelworkers union in Pittsburgh as he vies with former President Donald J. Trump for votes in Northern industrial states. “These are strategic and targeted actions that are going to protect American workers and ensure fair competition,” Mr. Biden told a crowd of about 100 union members at the United Steelworkers, which endorsed him last month. “Meanwhile, my predecessor and the MAGA Republicans want across-the-board tariffs on all imports, from all countries, that could badly hurt American consumers.” The Biden administration has argued that a flood of low-cost exports from China is undermining American-made products — jeopardizing Mr. Biden’s push to expand U.S. manufacturing, a central focus of his economic agenda.
The most important thing to know about President Biden’s request for fresh tariffs on Chinese steel and aluminum is that they will make almost no difference.
The reason it doesn’t matter much is that, last year, just 2 percent of steel imported to the United States and about 3.5 percent of imported aluminum came from China, according to the Global Steel Trade Monitor and the Global Aluminum Trade Monitor of the U.S. International Trade Administration.
2 House Speaker proceeds with military aid bills, risks job
House Speaker Mike Johnson said Wednesday he would plunge ahead with a high-stakes vote to move long-stalled funding for Ukraine, Israel and other overseas allies, elbowing aside criticism from his conservative flank. The move sets up an unpredictable weekend showdown that could determine both the fate of the foreign-aid package—which appears closer than ever to actually becoming law—and Johnson’s political career after navigating months of bitter infighting in the Republican conference. Democrats were expected to line up firmly behind the aid effort, with President Biden issuing a strong endorsement. But many GOP lawmakers, angered by the lack of border provisions and critical of more aid for Ukraine, planned to oppose the measure, a familiar conundrum for House Republican leaders.
Johnson indicated he expected to need Democratic votes to pass the rule tied to the legislation, a once-routine procedural step that has repeatedly been blocked by GOP holdouts in this Congress. He said he wasn’t seeking Democratic protection to keep his job.
Johnson’s plan comprises four bills—one each for Israel, Ukraine and Taiwan and a fourth bill containing many Republican priorities, including a ban or forced sale of TikTok in the U.S. Leaders posted the text of three of the four bills on Wednesday afternoon, laying out a $95 billion aid package that largely matches the price tag and contours of a measure that passed the Democratic-controlled Senate earlier this year.
A final vote on the House bill is expected Saturday evening.
3 US to award Samsung billions for new chip factory
Following its plan to award Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. $6.6 billion in grants and as much as $5 billion in loans to build factories in Arizona, the Biden administration is poised next week to award Samsung another grant of more than $6 billion to expand chip production in Texas. All is part of President Biden’s push to boost the US semiconductor industry with the 2022 Chips and Science Act. As a reminder, the program set aside $39 billion in direct grants — plus loans and guarantees worth $75 billion — to persuade semiconductor companies to build factories in America after decades of shifting production abroad. Intel has already inked a preliminary agreement for nearly $20 billion in grants and loans. The Commerce Department has also handed three awards to companies that manufacture older-generation chips and is expected to announce a multibillion dollar package for Micron Technology Inc. in coming weeks. Companies have announced more than $200 billion in US investments since Biden took office, with the biggest clusters emerging in Arizona, Texas and New York.
News Items, Matt Murray
4 China-Russia alliance a long term threat
Just a decade ago, most U.S. and European officials were dismissive about the durability of the emerging partnership between China and Russia. The thinking in Western capitals was that the Kremlin’s ostentatious rapprochement with China since 2014 was doomed to fail because ties between the two Eurasian giants would always be undercut by the growing power asymmetry in China’s favor, the lingering mistrust between the two neighbors over a number of historical disputes, and the cultural distance between the two societies and between their elites. No matter how hard Russian President Vladimir Putin might try to woo the Chinese leadership, the argument went, China would always value its ties to the United States and to U.S. allies over its symbolic relations with Russia, while Moscow would fear a rising Beijing and seek a counterbalance in the West. Even as China and Russia have grown significantly closer, officials in Washington have remained dismissive. “They have a marriage of convenience,” U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken told U.S. senators in March 2023 during Chinese leader Xi Jinping’s state visit to Moscow. “I am not sure if it is conviction. Russia is very much the junior partner in this relationship.” And yet that skepticism fails to reckon with an important and grim reality: China and Russia are more firmly aligned now than at any time since the 1950s. The tightening of this alignment between Russia and China is one of the most important geopolitical outcomes of Putin’s war against Ukraine. The conscious efforts of Xi and Putin drive much of this reorientation, but it is also the byproduct of the deepening schism between the West and both countries. Western officials cannot wish this axis away, hoping in vain that the Kremlin bridles at its vassalage to Zhongnanhai or making futile attempts to drive a wedge between the two powers. Instead, the West should be prepared for an extended period of simultaneous confrontation with two immense nuclear-armed powers.
4/18/1775 Revere and Dawes warn of British attack
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