The Biden administration is steeling itself for potential Chinese government reprisals for U.S. transit stops by Taiwan’s Vice President Lai Ching-te as he travels to and from Paraguay’s presidential inauguration next month.
Taiwan’s Presidential Office confirmed on Monday that Lai will transit in the U.S. to and from the August 15 inauguration of Paraguayan President-elect Santiago Peña.
Beijing “should not use as a pretext any transit by Vice President Lai for brazen coercion or other provocative activities [and] should not be a pretext for interference in Taiwan's election either,” said a senior administration official Sunday, who spoke to reporters on condition of anonymity.
Lai’s profile is doubly problematic for Beijing because he is vying to replace outgoing President Tsai Ing-wen in the self-governing island’s January 2024 elections. He has reinforced his pro-Taiwan independence credentials by declaring in January that Taiwan “ is already an independent and sovereign nation.” And with an eye to a possible election victory — polling last month put Lai, the Democratic Progressive Party candidate, as the front-runner — he said last week that elected leaders of Taiwan should be welcomed to the White House.
Lai’s upcoming transit “ is routine given the distances involved” between Taiwan and Paraguay and will be “unofficial in keeping with our U.S. One-China policy,” said the official. “We've had 10 Vice Presidential transits in the last 20 years — all have occurred without incident,” the official said.
The Biden administration’s problem: Chinese officials have already warned of negative consequences of a possible transit stop by Lai. Any such visit “would further impact China-U.S. relations,” Minister Jing Quan at the Chinese Embassy in Washington told POLITICO last week. Taipei’s confirmation of Lai’s upcoming U.S. transit reaped anger in Beijing. "We firmly oppose any visit by Taiwan separatists to the U.S. in any name or under whatever pretext, and we firmly oppose the U.S.' conniving and supporting of Taiwan separatists and their separatism activities in any form," Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Mao Ning said on Monday.
Even worse: Lai’s U.S. transit plan announcement comes in the middle of Biden climate envoy John Kerry’s four-day trip to Beijing to try to restart bilateral climate cooperation that the Chinese government suspended in August 2022 in reprisal for then-Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s Taiwan visit.
Kerry is the third senior official to travel to Beijing in the past month, following in the footsteps of Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen. That outreach aims to generate goodwill necessary for a productive meeting between Biden and Chinese paramount leader Xi Jinping on the sidelines of the APEC meeting in San Francisco in November.
Biden’s Taiwan transit visit headaches won’t end with Lai’s Paraguay stopover. The presidential candidate for Taiwan’s opposition KMT or Kuomintang (Chinese Nationalist Party), Hou You-yi — currently mayor of New Taipei City — will visit the U.S. “sometime in the early fall,” the official said. “We don't see any reason for Beijing to make an issue over Mayor Hou’s visit or, frankly, Vice President Lai’s either — both will be keeping with past precedent.”
But past precedent suggests that that both Lai and Hou’s presence in the U.S. will be magnets for the attention of U.S. lawmakers seeking to publicly affirm their support for Taiwan and to criticize Beijing’s saber-rattling at the island. During Lai’s previous a transit stop in the U.S. in January 2022, he held video meetings from his Los Angeles hotel with at least 17 U.S. lawmakers. Beijing responded by lodging a “solemn representation” with the U.S. government that included a demand that the Biden administration “stop the erroneous acts of having official exchanges with Taiwan.”
Rep. Pramila Jayapal, chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, on Sunday said she did not mean to call Israel a "racist" state.
"Words do matter," said Jayapal (D-Wash.) in a statement, "and so it is important that I clarify my statement. I do not believe the idea of Israel as a nation is racist."
Jayapal was responding to criticism across the political spectrum about comments she made during a panel discussion at a Netroots Nation conference in Chicago on Saturday. "I want you to know that we have been fighting to make it clear that Israel is a racist state," she said after the panel was interrupted by protesters chanting "Free Palestine."
House Democratic leaders, including Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.), issued a joint statement rejecting Jayapal's Saturday remarks. “Israel is not a racist state. As House Democratic leaders, we strongly support Israel’s right to exist as a homeland for the Jewish people," they said, though they added: "Certainly, there are individual members of the current Israeli governing coalition with whom we strongly disagree."
Republicans also assailed Jayapal's remarks. "This is truly disgusting, especially coming from a member of Congress," tweeted Sen. Rick Scott (R-Fla.).
In her statement Sunday, Jayapal distinguished between criticism of Israel as a nation and criticism of Israel's current prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu.
"Netanyahu's extreme right-wing government has engaged in discriminatory and outright racist policies," Jayapal said.
She also explained her off-the-cuff remarks Saturday by saying she was "responding to the deep pain and hopelessness that exists for Palestinians and their diaspora communities" but added: "I in no way intended to deny the deep pain and hurt of Israelis and their Jewish diaspora community that still reels from the trauma of pogroms and persecution, the Holocaust, and continuing anti-semitism and hate violence that is rampant today."
Jayapal also said: "I offer my apologies to those who I have hurt with my words, and offer this clarification."
Israeli President Isaac Herzog is to address Congress on Wednesday. Herzog, who was elected to the largely ceremonial position in 2021, served as leader of Israel's opposition in the Knesset, its parliament, from 2013 to 2018 during one of Netanyahu's earlier stints as prime minister. Some Democrats, including Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.), have said they will not attend.
NEW YORK — The head of the Teamsters said Sunday that he has asked the White House not to intervene if unionized UPS workers end up going on strike.
Negotiations between the delivery company and the union representing 340,000 of its workers have been at a standstill for more than a week with a July 31 deadline for a new contract approaching fast.
The union has threatened a strike if a deal is not reached by the time the collective bargaining agreement expires. Asked during a webcast with members Sunday on whether the White House could force a contract on the union, Teamsters President Sean O’Brien said he has asked the White House on numerous occasions to stay away.
“My neighborhood where I grew up in Boston, if two people had a disagreement and you had nothing to do with it — you just kept walking,” O’Brien said.
“We don’t need anybody getting involved in this fight,” he said.
The Teamsters represent more than half of the Atlanta-based company’s workforce in the largest private-sector contract in North America. If a strike does happen, it would be the first since a 15-day walkout by 185,000 workers crippled the company a quarter century ago.
Before contract talks broke down, both sides had reached tentative agreements on several issues, including installing air conditioning in more trucks and getting rid of a two-tier wage system for drivers who work weekends and earn less money. A sticking point in negotiations is wage increases for part-time workers, who make a minimum of $16.20 an hour, according to UPS.
Last week, UPS said it will temporarily begin training nonunion employees in the U.S. to step in should there be a strike.
Democratic primary challenger Marianne Williamson raised $920,000 in her latest quarterly disclosure — but her campaign is on the hook for a fair bit of money.
Williamson’s campaign reported about $270,000 in unpaid debts, according to financial reports filed Saturday. That was more than twice the $105,000 it reported in cash on hand.
The low fundraising haul comes after the author-turned-long-shot candidate told volunteers on a Zoom call this week that the campaign needed to increase its donations. Williamson said she couldn’t continue investing personal funds into the campaign. The latest disclosure shows that she’s now spent $220,000 on her presidential bid.
In an interview two days before the filing was released, campaign manager Carlos Cardona said that fundraising was a top priority for the campaign and that his goal was to double this quarter’s total for the next disclosure.
"I'll be working around the clock to make sure fundraising numbers look great for the next quarter and to make sure we can continue to work hard on this campaign,” Cardona told POLITICO.
In addition to the pressure to fundraise, the Williamson campaign is also fighting accusations from former staffers that her candidacy is a “grift” connected to the sale of her books. Williamson made her career as a best-selling author and has a new book, “The Mystic Jesus: The Mind of Love,” that is scheduled to be released this September.
The latest financial disclosure shows more than $800 spent on Barnes & Noble in 21 different transactions, though it does not specify what was purchased at the bookstore. One former employee who was granted anonymity to discuss internal campaign dynamics said that the campaign offered to send staffers copies of Williamson’s books, if they had not already read them, to help them better understand the candidate’s policies and perspective.The former employee shared a receipt with POLITICO for a purchase of Williamson’s books that matched the amount and approximate date of one of the Barnes & Noble transactions listed on the FEC report.
Cardona and the campaign press secretary Duran Brown did not respond to a request for comment about the Barnes & Noble expenses. Cardona was also not campaign manager during the second quarter (which is what is covered in the filing). He was promoted into the position June 30 — after two previous campaign managers departed in as many months.
Williamson's campaign has defended itself against accusations that she is boosting book sales through her presidential run.
“Was Andrew Yang trying to sell his book, you know, that he had last election? Was Joe Biden trying to sell his book? Was Barack Obama trying to sell his book? You know every candidate has a book,” Cardona told POLITICO ahead of the filing when asked about the grifting allegations and connection between Williamson’s candidacy and the new book.
