Washington:

Anyone expecting Joe Biden to step aside from the US presidential race without a fight had not fully considered the life story of a proud but often stubborn man.

From playground punch-ups to terrible tragedies and multiple White House bids, Biden has long seen his life as a series of comebacks against impossible odds.

And as a Democratic revolt over his debate debacle against Donald Trump appears to sputter for now, the 81-year-old seems determined to win the fight of his political life.

Unless a major shift occurs, it will likely fall to US voters to decide whether Biden stages another turnup for the books — or whether hubris condemns him and his party to a historic defeat by Trump.

Biden has repeatedly returned to the image of himself as an underdog since the debate, repeating his family’s mantra that “when you get knocked down, you get back up.”

“What we’ve seen the last 10 to 12 days is certainly fundamental to the Joe Biden story,” his spokeswoman Karine Jean-Pierre said from the White House podium on Tuesday.

“He is someone that is certainly counted out many, many times in his career. People tend to knock him down, and you hear him say he gets back up.

“This is the story of him standing up for himself, standing up for millions of Americans.”

‘Punch the guy’ 

That outlook was formed by a hardscrabble childhood in the American rust-belt, as part of a close-knit Irish Catholic family known for its intense pride.

His mother Jean told the young Joey and his siblings every day that “nobody was better than a Biden,” Ben Cramer wrote in his book “What It Takes,” about the 1988 US election campaign.

He was also known for never backing down.

“Most guys who got into a fight, they’d square off… Joey didn’t do that,” Cramer wrote. “He decided to fight… BANGO — he’d punch the guy in the face.”

One affliction Biden famously had to battle was a childhood stutter.

Repeatedly humiliated at school, the young Biden ended up teaching himself how to speak smoothly by sheer determination, repeating phrases again and again into the mirror.

But Biden’s biggest test was yet to come.

In 1972, he was only 29 and had just been elected senator for Delaware when his wife Neilia and their one-year-old daughter Naomi were killed in a car crash, while their young sons Beau and Hunter were left badly injured.

Tragedy struck again in 2015 when Beau died of brain cancer aged 46.

Biden also had to deal with the agony of Hunter’s severe drug addiction and legal problems.

“Sometimes I marvel at Joe’s strength. His life has been marked by cruel losses,” First Lady Jill Biden, whom Biden married in 1977, said in her memoir “Where the Light Enters.”

‘Psychological prison’ 

With his family close around him, Biden has also ridden out a series of political humiliations.

In 1988 he was forced to abandon his first presidential bid following a plagiarism scandal.

His next bid in 2008 ended in heavy defeat in the Democratic primaries, before Barack Obama picked him as his running mate.

Yet in the current crisis over Biden’s age and health, the very things that have previously brought Biden strength could also bring about his downfall.

It’s common knowledge that he will only really listen to family members and a few aides he’s known for decades, but as he ages that bubble has become increasingly insular.

His long-standing belief that he’s been underestimated and mocked by the media means he’s even less likely to listen to outside voices.

Moreover, Biden’s lifelong image as someone who always bounces back means he may not be able to envisage a graceful exit this time around.

Franklin Foer, author of a book on the early Biden presidency, wrote recently in The Atlantic magazine that “humiliation — and its transcendence — is Biden’s origin story.”

“Right now it is his psychological prison, a mental habit that might doom American democracy.”

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)

Minnesota Governor Tim Walz speaks to the press with New York Governor Kathy Hochul and Maryland Governor Wes Moore after attending a meeting with U.S. President Joe Biden and other Democratic governors at the White House in Washington, U.S., July 3, 2024.
| Photo Credit: Reuters

The Democratic governors of New York, Minnesota and Maryland on Wednesday said they would support U.S. President Joe Biden’s reelection bid after a candid discussion with him about his weak performance in last week’s debate.

“The president has always had our backs. We’re going to have his back as well,” Maryland Governor Wes Moore told reporters after a meeting with Mr. Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris at the White House that included 24 Democratic governors and the mayor of Washington, D.C., some joining online.

Mr. Moore said the governors were frank in relaying negative feedback from constituents about Mr. Biden’s poor performance during the debate with Republican rival Donald Trump. He said there was clearly work to do before the Nov. 5 election, but Biden had made it clear he would stay in the race.

“The president… he’s our nominee. The president is our party leader,” Mr. Moore said. There has been growing talk among Democrats in recent days that 81-year-old Biden should drop out of the race.

New York Governor Kathy Hochul said she felt confident after the meeting and all the governors pledged their support to Mr. Biden. The president is “in it to win it,” she said.

Minnesota Governor Tim Walz, the chair of the Democratic Governors Association, said Mr. Biden’s debate performance on Thursday was bad but he felt Mr. Biden was fit for office.

“Obviously we, like many Americans, are a little worried. We’re worried because the threat of a Trump presidency is not theoretical,” Mr. Walz said, adding that the previous Trump presidency was marked by “chaos, destruction.”

Nearly a dozen of the State leaders attended the meeting in person, but only three spoke with reporters afterwards.

California Governor Gavin Newsom, who participated in person, posted his reaction on social platform X: “I heard three words from the President tonight — he’s all in. And so am I.”

Mr. Biden’s campaign said the president reiterated his determination “to defeat the existential threat of Donald Trump at the ballot box in November” and discussed the importance of electing Democrats up and down the ballot.

“All participants reiterated their shared commitment to do everything possible to make sure President Biden and Vice President Harris beat Donald Trump in November,” it said.

President Joe Biden’s simple act of sitting down while commemorating the 80th anniversary of D-Day in Normandy, France, gained more attention than the ceremony itself in some circles as social media users shared a shortened version of the clip to falsely claim he was reaching for a nonexistent chair.

The clip was the first of at least three out-of-context or trimmed videos shared widely over less than two weeks in June to fuel a narrative that Mr. Biden is mentally and physically unfit for office.

It’s long been standard practice in politics to spin real moments to make an opponent look bad. Yet the recent spate of misleading videos — which amassed millions of views and were picked up by right-leaning outlets around the world — shows how the reach of social media and real concerns about Mr. Biden’s age has made the tactic especially powerful in 2024.

Experts say voters can expect to see both Republicans and Democrats weaponising unflattering, out-of-context moments to label each other’s presidential candidates as weak, confused or senile — especially considering their ages of 81 and 78. Indeed, edited and misrepresented clips have also circulated about former President Donald Trump.

“Any misinformation that seems to reinforce or resonate perceptions or dominant narratives, whether they’re accurate or not, is very effective,” said Erik Nisbet, a professor at Northwestern University who studies media, public opinion and public policy in democracy and elections.

At the G7 summit in Italy, where Mr. Biden headed after Normandy, a clip of the President watching a skydiving demonstration was cropped to make it appear as though he wandered off for no reason. A wider view of the video shows he was greeting paratroopers who had just landed. And at a Los Angeles fundraiser last weekend, a pause by Mr. Biden as he left the stage amid cheers was used to say the President froze, while Mr. Biden’s campaign said he was only stopping to take in the applause.

The clips have been especially effective at activating concerns about Mr. Biden’s competency, according to Mr. Nisbet, because he is the oldest sitting president the U.S. has ever had, and he moves with more difficulty than he once did.

Dr. Kevin O’Connor, Mr. Biden’s physician, wrote in a February memo after the President’s annual physical that he “continues to be fit for duty” and that his stiff gait is the result of arthritic changes in his spine. He said that Mr. Biden has reported additional hip pain and started using a new device for his sleep apnea, but that he showed no signs of stroke, multiple sclerosis, Parkinson’s or other similar conditions.

After the fundraiser clip spread online, Biden campaign spokesperson James Singer blasted such negative characterisations as a tactic from those who “are so scared of losing to Joe Biden, they’ll make anything up” to distract voters from Mr. Trump’s misdeeds.

White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre in a press briefing called the videos “cheap fakes”, a term for videos edited using cheap video editing software rather than artificial intelligence.

Mr. Trump’s campaign has doubled down on the clips and circulated a meme that defined a “cheap fake” as “any unedited video of Joe Biden’s cognitive decline that the Biden administration does not want the public to see.”

Also Read | Trump turns 78, spotlighting age as central issue in 2024 race

Experts say these attacks can be iterative, with social media influencers and campaigns piling on one another.

“The attention economy within conservative media helps perpetuate these cycles of circulation and these sorts of misinformation and campaign messaging,” said A.J. Bauer, an assistant professor at the University of Alabama who studies conservative news.

For example, the Republican National Committee posted a cropped version of the video of Mr. Biden at the G7 summit in Italy shortly after it happened, captioning the post, “What is Biden doing?” The RNC’s post was then shared by right-leaning media outlets — among them, Sinclair Broadcast Group syndicated stations and the New York Post, which embedded the RNC’s post in its story.

This clip was also picked up by publications abroad, including the tabloid The Sun in the U.K. and the newspaper Corriere della Sera in Italy. A pro-Trump super PAC highlighted the latter coverage on social media as proof that “the world is laughing at us.” Joshua Tucker, a politics professor and co-director of the Center for Social Media and Politics at New York University, said that Republicans will likely run aggressively on concerns about Mr. Biden’s age, but they should expect Democrats to strike back at Mr. Trump, who is only a few years younger.

“Given some of Trump’s behaviour of late, the RNC is playing with fire a little bit here,” Mr. Tucker said.

Mr. Biden’s campaign has begun reciprocating with attacks on Mr. Trump through its rapid response account on the social media platform X. On Thursday, it posted a montage of clips it claimed showed Mr. Trump “getting confused, lost, wandering off, and waving to nobody.” The out-of-context post followed other left-wing efforts to use videos to paint Mr. Trump as confused, senile or attention seeking.

For example, social media users earlier this month used an image of Mr. Trump holding Donald Trump Jr.’s hand at a rally last fall in Hialeah, Florida, as alleged proof that the former president needed to be escorted offstage. The original video captured the moment in full context, showing the father and son only briefly clasped hands in a greeting as Mr. Trump departed without help.

The fact that these images and videos have only simple edits or are misrepresented, rather than manipulated with editing software or artificial intelligence, gives them even more power in a moment when Americans are concerned about high-tech fakes, experts said.

“It’s persuasive because it’s not fabricated,” Mr. Nisbet said. “It’s simply distorted visual cues to create a false impression about what happened.” At the debate next week — the first this cycle between the two leading candidates for president — both Mr. Trump and Mr. Biden will face pressure to show they remain healthy, sharp and fit to be president.

Both men have made public verbal gaffes, flubbing names, dates or facts. Health experts caution that such mix-ups can be common and exacerbated by stress. They also point out some cognitive ageing is normal, including delay in memory retrieval. And Mr. Biden has fought a stutter since childhood, a challenge that critics have seized on to attack and ridicule him.

Experts agree that most voters are unlikely to switch candidates based on misleading videos, but they said such misinformation could further entrench people in their beliefs or dampen their enthusiasm to participate in the political process.

“This election will not be about persuasion,” said Mr. Nisbet. “It’s about mobilising — the Democrats mobilising Democratic and Democratic-leaning voters, Mr. Trump and Republicans doing the same. And it’s going to be a close election.”

Washington:

The controversial US effort to boost Gaza aid deliveries by building a temporary pier has faced repeated problems, with bad weather damaging the structure and causing other interruptions to the arrival of desperately needed assistance.

More than 4,100 metric tons (nine million pounds) of aid has been delivered via the $230 million pier project so far, but it has only been operational for limited periods, falling short of President Joe Biden’s pledge that it would enable a “massive increase” in assistance reaching Gaza “every day.”

The coastal territory has been devastated by more than eight months of Israeli operations against Palestinian militant group Hamas, uprooting Gaza’s population and leaving them in dire need of aid.

“The Gaza pier regretfully amounted to an extremely expensive distraction from what is truly needed, and what is also legally required,” said Michelle Strucke, director of the Center for Strategic and International Studies Humanitarian Agenda.

That is “safe and unimpeded humanitarian access for humanitarian organizations to provide aid for a population in Gaza that is suffering historic levels of deprivation,” she said.

US forces have also dropped aid by air, but that plus deliveries via the pier “were never meant to substitute for scaled, sustainable access to land crossings that provided safe access by humanitarian workers to provide aid,” Strucke said.

“Pursuing them took away decision makers’ time, energy, and more than $200 million US taxpayer dollars.”

 Damaged pier, beached vessels 

Biden announced during his State of the Union address in March that the US military would establish the pier and American troops began constructing it the following month, initially working offshore.

But in a sign of issues to come, high seas and winds required construction to be relocated to the Israeli port of Ashdod.

The pier was completed in early May, but weather conditions meant it was unsafe to immediately move it into place, and it was not attached to the Gaza coast until the middle of the month.

High seas caused four US Army vessels supporting the mission to break free of their moorings on May 25, beaching two of them, and the pier was damaged by bad weather three days later, requiring sections to be repaired and rebuilt at Ashdod.

It was reattached to the coast on June 7, but aid deliveries were soon paused for two days due to bad weather conditions.

The pier then had to be removed from the shore and moved to Ashdod on June 14 to protect it from high seas. It was returned to Gaza this week and aid deliveries have now resumed.

Raphael Cohen, a senior political scientist at the RAND Corporation research group, said the “pier effort has yet to produce the results that the Biden administration hoped.”

“Aside from the weather issues, it’s been quite expensive and has not fixed the operational challenges of getting aid into Gaza,” he said.

Suspended aid distribution 

Cohen said that despite the issues with the pier, it does provide another entry point for aid and allows assistance to be brought in even when land crossings are closed — a persistent problem that has worsened the dire humanitarian situation in Gaza.

And he said the effort may also help improve future deployments of the military’s temporary pier capability, which was last used operationally more than a decade ago in Haiti.

In addition to weather, the project is facing a major challenge in terms of the distribution of aid that arrives via the pier, which the UN World Food Programme decided to halt while it assesses the security situation — an evaluation that is still ongoing.

That announcement came after Israel conducted a nearby operation earlier this month that freed four hostages but which health officials in Hamas-ruled Gaza said killed more than 270 people.

The UN has said it welcomes all efforts to bring in aid, but that land routes are the most important routes for the arrival of assistance.

Strucke emphasized that “what Gazans need is not the appearance of aid — they need actual aid to reach them.”

Washington “should be very careful not to support actions that may look good on paper to increase routes to provide assistance, but do not result in aid actually reaching Palestinians in need at scale,” she said.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)

Former President Donald Trump met on April 18 in New York with Polish President Andrzej Duda, the latest in a series of meetings with foreign leaders as Europe braces for the possibility of a second Trump term.

The presumptive Republican nominee hosted Mr. Duda at Trump Tower, where the two discussed the war in Ukraine and Mr. Duda’s push to boost NATO members’ defence spending, according to a readout from Mr. Trump’s campaign. Mr. Duda, who has long expressed admiration for Mr. Trump, is also a staunch supporter of Ukraine and has encouraged Washington to provide more aid to Kyiv amid Russian’s ongoing invasion. That funding has been held up by Mr. Trump allies in Congress.

As he arrived, Mr. Trump praised the Polish president, saying, “He’s done a fantastic job and he’s my friend. We had four great years together,” Mr. Trump added. “We’re behind Poland all the way.” Mr. Duda is the latest foreign leader to meet with Mr. Trump in the weeks since he locked up the Republican nomination. U.S. allies across the world were caught off guard by Mr. Trump’s surprise 2016 win, forcing them to scramble to build relationships with a President who often attacked longstanding treaties and alliances they valued. Setting up meetings with him during the 2024 campaign suggests they don’t want to be behind again.

Even as he goes on trial for one of the four criminal indictments against him, Mr. Trump and Democratic President Joe Biden are locked in a rematch that most observers expect will be exceedingly close in November.

“Former President Barack Obama did a lengthy international tour”

While some in Poland worried the visit might damage the country’s relationship with Mr. Biden, Sen. Chris Murphy, D-Conn., a Biden ally and a major voice in his party on foreign affairs, said such meetings make sense.

“The polls are close,” he said. “If I were a foreign leader — and there’s a precedent attached to meeting with candidates who are nominated or on the path to being nominated — I’d probably do it too.” Mr. Murphy noted that former President Barack Obama did a lengthy international tour and met with foreign leaders when he first ran for the White House. So did Mitt Romney, the former Massachusetts Governor, who challenged Obama in 2012 and whose trip included a stop in Poland’s capital, Warsaw.

Mr. Duda’s visit comes a week after Mr. Trump met with British Foreign Secretary David Cameron, another NATO member and key proponent of supporting Ukraine, at the former President’s Florida estate.

And last month, Mr. Trump hosted Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, an autocrat who has maintained the closest relationship with Russia among European Union countries. Mr. Orban shared a montage of footage of the visit on his Instagram feed, with included an image of him and his staff meeting with Mr. Trump and the former President’s aides in a scene that looked like an official bilateral meeting.

Mr. Trump also met briefly in February with Javier Milei, the fiery, right-wing populist President of Argentina who ran a campaign inspired by Mr. Trump, complete with red “Make Argentina Great Again” hats. Milei gave Mr. Trump an excited hug backstage at the annual Conservative Political Action Conference outside Washington, according to video posted by a Trump campaign aide.

Biden administration officials have been careful not to weigh in publicly on foreign leaders’ meetings with Mr. Trump, acknowledging he has a real chance of winning the race.

While some officials have privately expressed frustration with such meetings, they are mindful that any criticism would open the U.S. to charges of hypocrisy because senior American officials, including Secretary of State Antony Blinken, meet frequently with foreign opposition figures at various forums in the United States and abroad.

Security and policy officials monitor the travel plans of foreign officials visiting the U.S., but generally don’t have a say in where they go or with whom they meet, according to an administration official who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss protocol.

Mr. Trump has been back in his hometown this week for the start of his criminal hush money trial, which has dramatically limited his ability to travel and campaign. While in town, aides have been planning a series of events that began on Tuesday evening when Mr. Trump, after court adjourned, stopped by a Harlem bodega where a man was killed to rail against crime and blast the district attorney who made him the first former president in U.S. history to stand criminal trial.

Mr. Duda describes friendly relationship with Donald Trump

Mr. Duda, a right-wing populist who once proposed naming a military base in his country “Fort Trump,” described the dinner on Wednesday as a private get-together between friends at Mr. Trump’s former residence while he is in town for meetings at the United Nations.

“I have been invited by Mr. Donald Trump to his private apartment,” Mr. Duda told reporters, saying it was “a normal practice when one country has good relations with another country” to want those relations to be as strong as “possible with the representatives of various sides of the political stage.” He described a friendly relationship with Mr. Trump built over years of working together.

“We know each other as people. Like two, I can say in some way, friends,” said Mr. Duda, whose term ends in 2025.

Mr. Duda’s visit comes as House Republicans wrangle over a $95 billion foreign aid bill that would provide new funding to Ukraine, including money for the U.S. military to replace depleting weapon supplies.

Many Trump allies in the House are fiercely opposed to aiding Ukraine, even as the country warns that it is struggling amid a fresh Russian offensive. Mr. Trump has said he might be open to aid in the form of a loan.

Like Mr. Cameron, Mr. Duda’s efforts to push the U.S. to approve additional aid put him in common cause with Mr. Biden, who has struggled for six months to unlock additional funding.

One area where Mr. Trump and Mr. Duda agree when it comes to the conflict is a desire to push NATO members to increase their defense spending. Mr. Duda has called on fellow members of the alliance to raise their spending to 3% of gross domestic product as Russia continues its invasion of Ukraine. That would represent a significant increase from the current commitment of 2% by 2024.

Mr. Trump, in a stunning break from U.S. precedent, has long been critical of the Western alliance and has threatened not to defend member nations that do not hit that spending goal. That threat strikes at the heart of the alliance’s Article 5, which states that any attack against one NATO member will be considered an attack against all.

In February, Mr. Trump went even further, recounting that he’d once told leaders that he would “encourage” Russia to “do whatever the hell they want” to members that are — in his words — “delinquent.” Mr. Trump’s campaign said the two discussed the NATO proposal during the meeting, which lasted two-and-a-half hours.

“I have never talked with President Donald Trump about my proposal of raising the spending on defense of NATO countries from 2% to 3% of GDP, but I think that his approach to it will be positive,” Mr. Duda had said before they met.

The two also discussed Israel and the Middle East, Mr. Trump’s 2017 trip to Warsaw, “and many other topics having to do with getting to world peace,” the campaign said in its readout, which described the men as “great friends.”

The visit was met with mixed reaction in Poland, where fears of Russia run high and Mr. Duda’s friendly relationship with Mr. Trump has been a source of controversy.

Poland’s centrist Prime Minister Donald Tusk, a political opponent of Mr. Duda, was critical of the dinner but expressed hope that Mr. Duda would use it as an opportunity “to raise the issue of clearly siding with the Western world, democracy and Europe in this Ukrainian-Russian conflict.” Mr. Duda, for his part, said he wasn’t worried since Presidents regularly meet with various politicians during foreign trips. “This is regular practice,” he said. “There is nothing extraordinary here.”

A view of the screen showing the result of a vote on a resolution regarding the Israeli military campaign in Gaza,
during the 55th session of the Human Rights Council, at the European headquarters of the United Nations in Geneva, Switzerland, on April 5, 2024.
| Photo Credit: AP

The United Nations’ (UN) top human rights body called on countries to stop selling or shipping weapons to Israel in a resolution passed on April 5 that aims to help prevent rights violations against Palestinians amid Israel’s blistering military campaign in Gaza.

The 47-member-country Human Rights Council voted 28-6 in favour of the resolution, with 13 abstentions.

The sweeping measure, which takes aim at an array of Israeli actions such as impeding access to water and limiting shipments of humanitarian aid into Palestinian areas, also calls on UN-backed independent investigators to report on shipments of weapons, munitions and “dual use” items — for both civilian and military purposes — that could be used by Israel against Palestinians. It is not binding.

Western countries were divided, with the U.S., Germany and others opposing the resolution, several abstaining and some European countries voting in favour. Israel — at times joined by the United States — has regularly and roundly criticised the council for its alleged anti-Israel bias.

The council has approved far more resolutions against Israel for its actions toward Palestinians over the years than against any other country.

The council is wrapping up its first session of the year, which began on February 26, with action on more than 40 resolutions on subjects as diverse as the rights of the child; the environment and human rights; genocide prevention; and rights situations in countries like Sudan, Belarus and North Korea.

The resolution comes amid a growing focus on weapons shipments to Israel — notably by its strongest backer, the United States — as Israel continues its military campaign in Gaza that has led to the killings of nearly 33,000 Palestinians that began in response to the attacks in Israel by armed militants on October 7.

In a sign of Washington’s growing impatience with Israel’s handling of the military campaign, U.S. President Joe Biden issued a stark warning to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on April 4 that future the U.S. support for Israel’s Gaza war depends on the swift implementation of new steps to protect civilians and aid workers.

That was the first time that Mr. Biden has threatened to rethink his backing if Israel doesn’t change its tactics and allow more humanitarian aid into Gaza.

A man in Texas has legally changed his name to ‘Literally Anybody Else’ and launched a campaign for US president. A teacher and Army veteran in North Richland Hills, Texas, the 35-year-old man formerly named Dustin Ebey, changed his name to ‘Literally Anybody Else’ and is running for president under that name, Guardian reported. 

After a judge signed off on the name change, he got a new driver’s license and then filed the necessary paperwork to run.

”This isn’t about me, ‘Literally Anybody Else,’ more so as it is an idea. We can do better out of 300 million people for president,” he told Dallas ABC affiliate WFAA.

”There really should be some outlet for people like me who are just so fed up with this constant power grab between the two parties that just has no benefit to the common person. It’s not necessarily about me as a person, but it’s about literally anybody else as an idea,” he added.

He said he wanted to change his name because he was unsatisfied with this year’s presidential candidates, Joe Biden and Donald Trump. 

Mr Ebey has already filed with the Federal Election Commission. He emphasized he is ”not delusional” and understands garnering enough signatures to appear on ballots will be very challenging. 

Under Texas law, an application to be listed on the ballot as an independent candidate needs to be submitted with a petition, which requires 113,151 signatures from registered voters who did not vote in the presidential primary of either party in Texas.

”This will be very hard to do, but it’s not impossible. I hope to have Donald Trump, Joe Biden, and then Literally Anybody Else right underneath,” he said.

His website says: ”Literally Anybody Else isn’t a person, it’s a rallying cry. For too long have Americans been victims of its political parties putting party loyalty over governance. Together let’s send the message to Washington and say, ‘You will represent or be replaced’. America should not be stuck choosing between the ”King of Debt” (his self-declaration) and an 81-year-old.”

Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi held wide-ranging talks with U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken, on October 27.
| Photo Credit: AP

President Joe Biden has emphasised that the United States and China need to manage competition in the relationship responsibly and maintain open lines of communication as he met Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi ahead of a potential meeting with President Xi Jinping next month to reset bilateral ties.

President Biden met Wang at the White House on October 27 after the top Chinese diplomat held wide-ranging talks with U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken and National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan. Wang’s visit is expected to lay the groundwork for a potential meeting between Mr. Biden and Chinese President Xi at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) Summit in San Francisco in mid-November.

“The President emphasised that both the United States and China need to manage competition in the relationship responsibly and maintain open lines of communication. He underscored that the United States and China must work together to address global challenges,” the White House said in a readout of the meeting between Mr. Biden and Wang.

Mr. Sullivan and Wang had candid, constructive, and substantive discussions on key issues in the U.S.-China bilateral relationship, the Israel-Hamas conflict, Russia’s war against Ukraine, and cross-Strait issues, among other topics, said the National Security Council in a readout of the meeting.

During the meeting, Mr. Sullivan discussed concerns over China’s dangerous and unlawful actions in the South China Sea. He raised the importance of peace and stability across the Taiwan Strait.

Also read: View From India | Dispute in the South China Sea

China views Taiwan as a rebel province that must be reunified with the mainland, even by force. China has been conducting provocative military exercises around the self-ruled island.

“The two sides reaffirmed their desire to maintain this strategic channel of communication and to pursue additional high-level diplomacy, including working together towards a meeting between President Biden and President Xi Jinping in San Francisco in November,” said the readout.

State Department Spokesperson Matthew Miller said Mr. Blinken and Wang discussed a range of bilateral, regional, and global issues, including addressing areas of difference as well as exploring areas of cooperation.

“The Secretary reiterated that the United States will continue to stand up for our interests and values and those of our allies and partners,” he said.

The relationship between the world’s two largest economies began to deteriorate during the Trump administration. In 2018, former President Donald Trump signed an executive memorandum that would impose retaliatory tariffs on up to $60 billion in Chinese imports.

The U.S. and China have one of the world’s most important and complex bilateral relationships. Since 1949, the countries have experienced periods of both tension and cooperation over issues including trade, climate change, the South China Sea, Taiwan and the COVID-19 pandemic.

The Biden administration has sought to re-establish normal diplomatic ties with China after an incredibly fraught period, most notably over the Chinese surveillance balloon incident in February.

U.S. President Joe Biden. File
| Photo Credit: Reuters

President Joe Biden said on October 20 he thought Hamas was motivated to attack Israel in part by a desire to stop that country from normalising relations with Saudi Arabia.

“One of the reasons … why Hamas moved on Israel, is because they knew I was about to sit down with the Saudis,” Mr. Biden said at a campaign fundraiser. The U.S. President indicated that he thinks Hamas militants launched a deadly assault on October 7 because, “Guess what? The Saudis wanted to recognise Israel” and were near being able to formally do so.

Israel-Hamas war, Day 15 LIVE updates | Biden says Hamas attacked Israel to stop historic agreement with Saudi Arabia

Jerusalem and Riyadh had been steadily inching closer to normalisation, with Mr. Biden working to help bring the two countries together, announcing plans in September at the Group of 20 summit in India to partner on a shipping corridor.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu met with Mr. Biden on the sidelines of the U.N. General Assembly in September and told him, “I think that under your leadership, Mr. President, we can forge a historic peace between Israel and Saudi Arabia.”

The Saudis had been insisting on protections and expanded rights for Palestinian interests as part of any broader agreement with Israel. An agreement would have been a feat of diplomacy that could have enabled broader recognition of Israel by other Arab and Muslim-majority nations that have largely opposed Israel since its creation 75 years ago in territory where Palestinians have long resided.

But talks were interrupted after Hamas militants stormed from the blockaded Gaza Strip where Palestinians live into nearby Israeli towns.

The October 7 attack coincided with a major Jewish holiday. It led to retaliatory airstrikes by Israel that have left the world on edge with the U.S. trying to keep the war from widening, as 1,400 Israelis and 4,137 Palestinians have been killed. Hamas also captured more than 200 people as hostages after the initial assault.

The normalisation push began under former President Donald Trump’s administration and was branded as the Abraham Accords. It is an ambitious effort to reshape the region and boost Israel’s standing in historic ways. But critics have warned that it skips past Palestinian demands for statehood.

What are Israel’s options after the Hamas attack? | Analysis

Secretary of State Antony Blinken said soon after the Hamas attacks that the militant group’s leadership may have been driven in part by a desire to scuttle the United States’ efforts at the sealing of diplomatic relations between Israel and Saudi Arabia.

Such a pact between Jerusalem and Riyadh would be a legacy-defining achievement for Joe Biden, Mr. Netanyahu and Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.

Washington:

President Joe Biden on Saturday blamed “a small group of extreme Republicans” for a budget impasse that has placed the US government a week away from a shutdown, urging the lawmakers to resolve the issue.

Speaking at a Congressional Black Caucus awards dinner, Biden said he and top House Republican Kevin McCarthy had previously agreed on government spending levels.

“Now a small group of extreme Republicans don’t want to live up to the deal so now everyone in America could be forced to pay the price,” he said.

US lawmakers have until midnight on September 30 to reach an agreement on a spending bill, before funding for government services is due to dry up.

“Funding the government is one of the most basic responsibilities of Congress. It’s time for Republicans to start doing the job America elected them to do. Let’s get this done,” Biden added.

A government shutdown would put the finances of hundreds of thousands of workers at federal parks, museums, and other sites at risk, but it could also carry significant political costs for Biden, who is running for re-election.

The White House wants any budget bill passed by lawmakers to include $24 billion in military and humanitarian aid for Kyiv.

While such a plan is supported by Democrats and Republicans in the Senate, it is radically opposed by some members of the House.

The budget vote in Congress regularly turns into a standoff between the two parties, with each camp using the prospect of a shutdown to obtain concessions from the other — until a solution is found at the last minute.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)