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Trade Policies

5 Reasons Why Biden’s Investments in the Electric Vehicle Industry May Have Saved America’s Future Economy

May 24, 2024

President Joe Biden’s strategic investments in the electric vehicle (EV) industry are more than an environmental initiative; they are a critical move to secure America’s economic future. These investments are driving job creation, fostering technological innovation, enhancing environmental sustainability, modernizing infrastructure, and ensuring global competitiveness. As the world shifts towards cleaner, more advanced transportation, Biden’s policies position the United States as a leader in this transformative era.

Preventing a cobalt crisis in Congo

March 11, 2024

Rebels in eastern Congo and the Congolese army have been fighting since the 1990s. The fighting escalated in 2022 as Rwanda-backed rebels, known as M23, invaded and took over several villages. The violence escalated further last summer when M23 moved closer to the area near Goma, one of the largest cities in the region. A war between Congo and Rwanda would not only be a humanitarian disaster, but it would upend the administration’s efforts to get into the cobalt market — a key component for electric vehicle batteries. Congo is home to about 70 percent of the world’s cobalt reserves, and China, one of Washington’s biggest trade competitors, is its main producer and is supporting M23 with drones.

Leveraging Public Streets CCTV and AI Technologies to Enhance Public Safety and Reduce Law Enforcement Costs | Crime in America

Tech firms face new international restrictions on data and privacy

March 11, 2024

The rapid growth of e-commerce in recent decades has been accompanied by an increase in digital trade barriers. Those include requirements for companies to store their data in the country where it is collected or to hand over their source code to a joint venture partner in order to do business in a particular market. Until now, the United States has been a leading voice on the international stage pushing back against such provisions, which it argued not only hurt big tech companies but small and medium-size companies that increasingly rely on the internet to do business.

Biden moves to bring microchip production home

March 11, 2024

The Covid pandemic sharpened bipartisan fears in Washington about U.S. reliance on microchips produced overseas — primarily in China or Taiwan. As factories shut down in Asia and supply chains snarled, U.S. automakers and other manufacturers were unable to get the chips they needed, idling their plants and spiking prices for cars and other goods. That led the Biden administration and lawmakers from both parties to consider policies to bring production of the most advanced microchips back to the U.S.

sexy girl | Alex Azabache | https://unsplash.com/@alexazabache

Giving smaller food producers a boost

March 11, 2024

Soaring food prices and supply chain crunches for meat and other staples during the Covid-19 pandemic drew attention to the highly consolidated agriculture sector, in which key sectors like meatpacking are dominated by a handful of “Big Ag” behemoths. Biden entered office promising to crack down on food monopolies and support small and midsize U.S. farmers, whose numbers have cratered in recent decades.

Countering China with a new alliance between Japan and South Korea

February 11, 2024

South Korea and Japan have a mutual antipathy that goes back decades, linked to Japan’s brutal colonial rule of Korea from 1910-1945 as well as long-simmering territorial disputes in the East China Sea. That has fueled such acrimony in South Korea that until relatively recently public opinion polls in the country have rated Japanese leaders only slightly more popular than North Korea’s.