Containing China and the fight against opioids: what Biden promised the Americans US President

Joe Biden delivered his annual speech to Congress. Why is the main thing for America now is police reform, the return of leadership in the production of microcircuits and party unity,

On Wednesday (early morning Moscow time) , US President Joe Biden delivered his annual State of the Union address to the nation. He delivered his speech to Congress at the beginning of his third year as HEAD of state and was the 46th president's first big speech since the Democratic Party, to which he belongs, lost control of the lower house of parliament.

Police reform and gun control

The murder of 29-year-old African American Tyre Nichols by police officers in early January forced Biden to elaborate on the actions of law enforcement agencies (the parents of the deceased were in the hall). The President reiterated his call for police reform and the need to improve the skills of its staff.

“Give law enforcement the real training they need, demand higher standards from them, help them succeed in keeping us safe,” he said. Biden stressed that most police officers are decent people, but cases like Nichols happen all too often. According to him, the police should be held accountable for this. He addressed members of Congress, declaring that they could not turn their backs on the problem. “Let's do what our hearts say we need to do. Let's unite and finish the work on police reform,” he said.

Even at the stage of the election campaign, Biden spoke about the need for reform of the police service. He introduced a large-scale bill, which became known as the "George Floyd Law" (in May 2020, African-American George Floyd died due to the actions of the police, which gave rise to the Black lives matter movement), but in the two years of his presidency, Biden did not manage to pass it through congress. Both times the bill got stuck in the Senate, which was first controlled by the Republicans and then by the Democrats. As a result, Biden signed an executive order in May 2022 that requires a review of the policy on the use of force by the police and obliges the creation of a register of law enforcement misconduct. In his address on February 8, Biden mentioned that he banned the use of chokeholds during arrest (it was because of this that Floyd died),

Also, the American leader called on congressmen to restore the ban on the sale of semi-automatic assault weapons in order to solve the problem of shootings in the country. The ban on the sale of weapons of this type was introduced in the United States in 1994 for a period of ten years and has not been extended. In the summer of 2022, the House of Representatives voted to introduce it, but the initiative stalled in the Senate. “Ban weapons once and for all,” Biden said, noting that he was the one who initiated the ban in 1994 and that the number of mass shootings in the country has declined in the ten years the ban has been in place.

Photo: Kate Munsch / ReutersKate Munsch/Reuters

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In January 2023 alone, two cases of mass executions took place in the United States: on January 21, 11 people died in California, and on January 23, two schoolchildren died in Iowa.

The fight against fentanyl

“Fentanyl kills over 70,000 Americans a year. Let's take action to stop the production, sale and trafficking of fentanyl by installing more drug detection machines, screening cargo, and stopping pills and powders at the border," Biden urged congressmen. He also suggested working with courier companies such as Fed Ex to increase the number of drug checks on parcels and provide for stronger penalties for fentanyl trafficking.

According to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, from July 2021 to July 2022, more than 107 thousand people died in the United States from drug overdoses. Two-thirds of the deaths were caused by fentanyl, which is a strong synthetic opioid. Five years ago, the death rate from fentanyl was half that.

One of the themes of US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken's postponed visit to CHINA at the last moment was to be a joint fight against the production and trafficking of fentanyl. Its production in China has been tightly controlled since 2019, but other countries, in particular Mexico, buy raw materials for its manufacture mainly in China, after which the drug is smuggled into the United States.

The return of superiority in microelectronics

Another topic related to China was the production of microelectronics. “America produced almost 40% of the world's chips. But over the past decades, we have lost our advantage, we produce only 10%, ”said Joe Biden, recalling that the chips were invented in the United States. Now the leadership has passed to China.

During the pandemic, such a reduction turned into problems with the production of cars (each modern car requires up to 3 thousand chips), refrigerators and other equipment. The supply chain must start in the US, Biden insists. The CHIPS Act, passed in August last year, should remedy the situation. But even without this law, according to the US president, 800,000 jobs were created in the microelectronics industry, and with the law, their creation will go faster.

As an example, Biden cited Intel's chip factories under construction in Ohio. This project creates 10,000 jobs - 7,000 in construction, and then 3,000 in the factories themselves. It will be possible to earn up to $130,000 a year in factories, even without higher education, Biden said.

Support for Ukraine and containment of China

In his speech, Biden called the military conflict in Ukraine the "test of the century" for both America and the world. He stated that the United States was able to unite NATO and create a coalition to confront RUSSIA, and also assured Ukrainian Ambassador to the United States Oksana Makarova, who was present in Congress, that the United States “will be with you as long as it takes.”

Since the beginning of the military conflict, the United States has led support for Ukraine. During this time, they have allocated more than $27.1 billion in assistance to the country, imposed sanctions on Russia and helped the EU countries decide on the supply of tanks to Kiev. In the near future, another expansion of American restrictions against Russia is expected.

Military operation in Ukraine. Online Politics

In more detail, Biden dwelled on relations with China. He said he told Chinese leader Xi Jinping that he "seeks rivalry, not conflict." Biden stressed that he does not intend to apologize for wanting to make America strong and for investing in industries that China would like to dominate.

American sailors pick up the wreckage of a Chinese balloon (Photo: US Fleet Forces / US Navy / REUTERS)Fleet Forces / US Navy / Reuters)

The President announced the modernization of the US military "to deter aggression." “Today we are in the strongest position in decades to compete with China or anyone else in the world,” he stressed. Without speaking directly about the Chinese balloon incident, Biden said the US "made it clear last week that if China threatens our sovereignty, we will act to protect our country." “And we acted,” he added.

The Chinese Ambassador to France asked the United States to return the remains of the downed balloon Politics

The February 3 appearance of a Chinese balloon in the skies over the United States led to the postponement of the visit of Secretary of State Anthony Blinken to Beijing, and also provoked accusations from Republicans that the Biden administration was not tough enough on China.

Relations between Washington and Beijing deteriorated significantly after the 45th US President Donald Trump set a course to contain China in the economic, military and foreign policy fields. The Biden administration continued it; in addition, a military alliance was created with Great Britain and Australia - AUKUS, which Beijing considered an element of deterrence in the South China Sea. The issue of the independence of partially recognized Taiwan, which Beijing considers part of its territory, has also escalated.

Overcoming partisan divisions

The current message of the President of the United States is the first since the November congressional elections, which ended with the victory of the Republican Party in the lower house and the preservation of the majority of the Democratic Party in the upper house. Such a party relationship is called a divided Congress. Representatives of the Republican Party during Biden's speech actively reminded of the differences, shouting insulting words for the president from the place, The Hill notes. Republican Marjorie Taylor Green of Georgia yelled, "Liar!" when the president said some Republicans, instead of "making the rich pay," want to cut funding for the Medicare HEALTH insurance program for the poor. Biden, in response, said that he was ready to provide those who wish to confirm this with data.

Biden, according to The Guardian, came to Congress with an olive branch, mentioning that in two years of work he signed more than 300 laws that were passed with the support of both parties. “If we could work in the previous congress, there is no reason why we cannot work together in the new congress. The people have given a clear signal – fighting for the sake of fighting, power for the sake of power, conflict for the sake of conflict will not get us anywhere,” he said.

Party polarization has long been a fact of US political life, but more and more Republicans and Democrats view not only the opposition party, but also its members in a negative light, Pew Research notes in the latest study on this topic.

More representatives of each party describe supporters of the other as more narrow-minded, dishonest, immoral and unintelligent than other Americans, the company's survey found. If in 2016 about half of Republicans (47%) and just over a third of Democrats (35%) said that representatives of another party are much or slightly more immoral than other Americans, then in 2022, 72% of Republicans considered Democrats more immoral, and 63 % of Democrats said the same thing about Republicans.

A Reuters / Ipsos poll conducted at the end of January showed that in general, Biden's policies are approved by 40% of Americans (one of the lowest rates for his entire presidency), while in the Democratic Party the number of those who approve reaches 80%, and in the Republican - only 3%.