Joe biden

Saturday

Edward Howell

The increasing cruelty of the North Korean regime

On a humid summer’s day in Singapore three years ago today, Donald Trump became the first incumbent US president to meet with his North Korean counterpart. For all of the summit’s theatre, Kim Jong-un’s pledge to ‘work toward complete denuclearisation of the Korean peninsula’ seems unlikely to be realised. Three years on, and the country shows little intention of either abandoning its nuclear ambitions or reforming Pyongyang. Instead, the regime has tightened its control over society, not least ideologically, after the failure of the Supreme Leader’s five-year economic plan. In 2018, the leadership assured North Koreans that the country had achieved its primary geopolitical aim of becoming a ‘fully-fledged nuclear

Thursday

James Forsyth

Is Biden coming around to Boris?

Today’s US-UK diplomacy didn’t get off to the best start, with the Times breaking the remarkable news about a US demarche — or diplomatic rebuke — to the UK government to complain about its approach to the Northern Ireland protocol. But the day has ended in a better place for the UK government. The US-UK joint statement contains a section on Northern Ireland that is far more nuanced than the demarche. It talks about the ‘delicate balance’ of the Good Friday Agreement, which is something that the UK has been trying to stress in its discussions with the EU — arguing that unionists’ objections to the protocol in its current

Lee Cohen

Biden proves that Trump was a true British ally

Now that Joe Biden has landed in the UK, many Brits may be realising what a stalwart friend they had in Trump. Within minutes of arriving on UK shores, Biden was denouncing Britannia, Boris, Brexit — you name it. Far from hailing the UK, America’s most cherished ally, BIden was showing Britain a bullying disdain that should be reserved only for China or Iran. It is difficult to conceive of two stranger bedfellows than the golden-tongued Old Etonian and the awkward, plain-spoken ‘blue collar’ Joe Biden. But rhetoric, style and acuity aside, the two heads of government face divergent motivations when it comes to policy — these are likely to challenge the British-American partnership. Last

Freddy Gray Freddy Gray

Boris, Biden and the orange elephant in the room

Donald who? As Boris Johnson meets Joe Biden in Cornwall this week, the Prime Minister will hope that the President doesn’t dwell on his efforts to woo the last occupant of the Oval Office. Boris’s dalliance with Donald Trump is a bit like his affair with Jennifer Arcuri — an embarrassing fling with a rotund, brash American conspiracy theorist, something he’d rather the world forgot. He’s moved on and so should we. Boris wouldn’t, for instance, want Biden to be reminded of the time in November 2017 when, as foreign secretary, he went on Fox News to say of Trump: ‘What you’ve got to realise is that the American President

Wednesday

Ross Clark

Will the G7 tax deal survive?

What are the chances of the G7’s agreement on a minimum rate of corporation tax actually coming into effect? While it was presented as a done deal last weekend, things are not going too well. Firstly, the G20 will have to agree — which is far from guaranteed given that smaller countries have less to gain from the proposal than the US. It is a tax designed to help countries with a large number of multinational companies who currently operate through subsidiaries in countries with lower corporation tax rates. While no G20 country currently has a rate below the agreed 15 per cent, (and the biggest loser, Ireland, with its 12.5 per cent

Saturday

Ross Clark

Joe Biden’s long road to recovery

In the middle of last year the US economy was something of a marvel: an economy which was creating jobs at an unprecedented rate, as other economies around the world remained in the deep freeze. Having shed jobs by the million in March, by May it looked as if the jobs market would be back to its pre-Covid position in months. But what has happened? Bureau of Labor figures published today show that once again, job creation for the month of May came in lower than expectations — with an extra 559,000 people on non-farm payrolls. It was better than April, when 278,000 new jobs were created — which was

Friday

Matthew Lynn

Merkel is right to reject Biden’s vaccine patent plan

She handed the vaccine procurement process over to the European Union. She didn’t invest much in new production. And she allowed an American multinational to take control of a brilliant discovery by a small German biotech company. Angela Merkel, the out-going German Chancellor, has not had much success battling the Covid-19 crisis, and her handling of vaccines has been a catastrophe from start to finish. But she has finally got one thing right: she is defending the patents that protect the pharmaceutical industry. In the last week, president Biden has signalled that the United States is ready to back suspending patents on Covid vaccines. The president of the EU commission, Ursula

Terence Kealey

In defence of Biden’s Covid-19 patent waiver

For a man who is regularly derided by Republicans, president Joe Biden has racked up a fine number of achievements. He made his latest on 5 May, when he threw his support behind waiving the Covid-19 patents, overturning decades of American protection of its industries’ intellectual property rights. His words packed a punch: the Frankfurt-listed shares in BioNTech promptly lost 14 per cent, while Moderna and Novavax closed three to six per cent down in New York. The U.S. pharmaceutical industry was quick to denounce the measure, as Jeremy Levin, chair of the biotech trade association Bio, asserted that ‘securing vaccines rapidly will not be the result.’ But, in fact, that’s

Thursday

Lionel Shriver

The true cost of make-believe money

I like Bill Maher. He’s a rare practising left-wing comic who’s actually funny. But last week, his routine on cryptocurrency hit eerie harmonics. ‘I fully understand that our financial system isn’t perfect, but at least it’s real,’ he began. By contrast, crypto is ‘just Easter bunny cartoon cash. I’ve read articles about it. I’ve had it explained to me. I still don’t get it, and neither do you’. Bitcoin is ‘made up out of thin air’ and is comparable with ‘Monopoly money’. As for conventional legal tender: ‘We knew money had to originate from and be generated by something real, somewhere. Cryptocurrency says, “No, it doesn’t” … Or as another analyst put

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

In defence of dandelions

Dandelions are one of the cheeriest wild flowers. They are loved by children for their ‘clock’ seed heads, are entirely edible for humans and are a source of food for many insects and birds. And yet many gardeners go to great lengths to get rid of them. This year’s daffodils may have faded, but dandelions — their similarly coloured wild replacements — are in full swing, and it’s a vintage year for them. Road verges, meadows and lawns are covered in thousands of gold polka dots, with each plant bearing half a dozen blooms. They make a boring green sward far more interesting, and are — to my mind at

Monday

Jake Wallis Simons

Israel is not to blame for shelved Palestinian elections

Last week, the irony that stalks the Middle East found a new expression: while Israel has been playing out an almost comical surfeit of democracy, staging four elections in two years, the Palestinian Authority, which has refused to give voters a say since 2006, has shelved another election. Mahmoud Abbas, 85, is currently enjoying the 16th year of his supposedly four-year term as Palestinian president. (Would it be too cheap a shot to wonder how the world would react if Netanyahu behaved like that?) When he announced that a poll would finally be held this month, seasoned observers laid bets that it would never happen. After all, having been trounced

Sunday

Dalibor Rohac

Europe should be wary of Biden’s cuddly capitalism

Judging by the European press’ reaction to his address to Congress this week, US president Joe Biden’s domestic agenda is popular outside of the United States as well.  ‘In the choice between going big and going bipartisan, big is winning, remaking America with government at the centre,’ the Guardian writes approvingly. Biden embarks on ‘a historic battle against inequality,’ a Le Monde headline announces. ‘America’s democracy can no longer endure the growing gap in income and education, so Biden has to fight for the middle,’ the Süddeutsche Zeitung piles on. Notwithstanding the president’s unassuming demeanour, there can be no question about the his ambitions. After the sizeable Covid-19 relief package, worth

Owen Matthews

Putin and Biden need one another

Does Joe Biden think that Putin is a killer? asked ABC host George Stephanopoulos. ‘Mmm-hmm, I do,’ answered the President. Once, that would have been fighting talk. Today? Biden can insult Putin with impunity because he believes that Russia is, quite simply, no longer important or dangerous. Once a deadly serious enemy whose rivalry threatened to destroy life on the planet, Russia’s diminished status means that, these days, there’s little left to the grand old conflict except mere mudslinging. ‘We no longer think in Cold War terms, for several reasons. One, no one is our equal. No one is close,’ Biden told Ukrainian lawmakers in Kiev in 2014. ‘Other than

Friday

Kate Andrews

One hundred days in, is Biden getting a vaccine boost?

Boris Johnson is set for a vaccine boost next week when local election results start rolling in. As James Forsyth explains in this week’s magazine, the vaccine rollout is forefront in voters’ minds, with seven out of ten now inoculated or even fully jabbed up. For all the chaos raging around Johnson, with accusations from his former allies and long-term opponents coming in thick and fast, the PM looks set to retain his support where it matters: at the polling station.  Can the same be said for Joe Biden? Across the pond, America is experiencing an equally successful vaccine rollout, as both the US and the UK hover around the top

Thursday

Roger Kimball

Is Joe Biden trying to make America poor again?

John Maynard Keynes is alleged to have said ‘When the facts change, I change my mind — what do you do, sir?’ I am no fan of Keynes generally, but there is something to be said for that pithy ‘second-thoughts’ comment. It pains me to admit it, but the president’s address to the joint session of Congress put me in mind of Keynes’s observation. After all, was it not a rousing address? Even long-time critics acknowledged it. One described it as ‘a perfect blend of strength and empathy’. I have to agree. That same commentator wrote that ‘Tonight, I was moved and inspired. Tonight, I have hope and faith in

Tuesday

Andrew Willshire

Joe Biden’s skewed climate change priorities

It’s not hard to see why politicians like Joe Biden and Boris Johnson want to talk about climate change.  First of all, it looks good to the electorate. Caring about the planet (or at least being seen to care about the planet) is one of the things that marks you out as ‘a good person’. It also allows leaders to compare themselves to other leaders and take pride in being more hardline than others. It tends to result in massive government-sponsored infrastructure programmes, requiring the Prime Minister and various cabinet ministers to keep their hi-vis jackets and hard hats within easy reach. Most importantly of all, the results won’t be

Thursday

Katy Balls

Can Boris Johnson’s green makeover woo red wall voters?

COP26, the United Nations Climate Change Conference due to be held in Glasgow, isn’t until November, but work is already underway in Downing Street to put the government’s green agenda front and centre. After confirming earlier this week that the government will seek to cut carbon emissions by 78 per cent by 2035, Boris Johnson has this afternoon spoken at Joe Biden’s Leader’s Summit on Climate.  The Prime Minister praised the US president’s commitment to cut greenhouse gases by 50 per cent from 2005 levels by 2030 as a ‘game changing announcement’. He also said it is ‘vital for all of us to show that this is not all about some expensive politically correct,

Monday

Mary Dejevsky

What the withdrawal from Afghanistan says about the UK

When the Secretary General of Nato announced last week that all alliance troops were to be withdrawn from Afghanistan, it was made to look like a nice, clean, enunciation of a joint decision. The end date was set for 11 September, 2021 – 20 years after the terrorist attacks on New York and Washington – and it was in line with the oft-repeated alliance maxim: we went in together; we will come out together. Except that, on closer examination, it was all rather messier. This was partly because the withdrawal from Afghanistan had actually been Trump’s policy, so here was Joe Biden, the anti-Trump, co-opting a policy from his predecessor

Thursday

Daniel McCarthy

Joe Biden’s party is over

Washington, DC The Democratic party is dying. That may be hard to believe since Democrats control both houses of Congress and won the last presidential election with a record 81 million votes. But the exiguous margins of their hold on the House and Senate, with fewer than 51 per cent of the seats in either chamber, tell another story, as does the desperation of their struggle to abolish the filibuster and federalise election law. Those policy aims are of a piece with dreams of ‘packing’ the Supreme Court with left-liberal justices — and packing the Senate too, by turning tiny Democratic bastions into new states. The left wing of the

Gabriel Gavin Gabriel Gavin

Biden and Putin sue for uneasy peace

In 2001, US President George W. Bush stared into Vladimir Putin’s eyes and said he saw his soul. Joe Biden, on the other hand, famously claimed to have told the Russian leader, ‘I’m looking into your eyes, and I don’t think you have a soul.’ Now the new incumbent of the Oval Office might have a second chance to check again in the flesh. On Tuesday, Biden held a rare and, by all accounts cordial, telephone call with his counterpart in Moscow to discuss the increasingly tense situation on the border with Ukraine. For months, Kiev’s forces in the Donbass region have clashed with troops loyal to two Russian-backed breakaway