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**NOVEMBER 3, 2023**

On the Prospect website

Will Domestic Violence Perpetrators Get to Carry Guns?

A Supreme Court case being heard next week is the latest fallout from
the 'Bruen' ruling, which put practically all of the nation's gun
laws into question. BY ALAN BERLOW

A One-State Solution Could Work in Israel

But the end of South African apartheid demonstrates it would take an
Israeli commitment to peace that is nowhere in evidence. BY RYAN COOPER

Pharmageddon Protesters Fight for Dignity at Work

A three-day walkout is intended to highlight high stress and low pay at
chain pharmacies. BY RAMENDA CYRUS

Kuttner on TAP

****

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****

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**** Biden's Weird Nomination of Kurt
Campbell

The president's choice for deputy secretary of state is badly at odds
with Biden's own policies on trade.

Yesterday, 17 progressive groups sent a letter to President Biden
thanking him

for rejecting the efforts of Big Tech to use trade law to undermine
regulation of digital privacy, security, and anti-competitive
concentration. Biden's stance is consistent with his broad emphasis of
a trade policy that works for workers.

But the thank-you was premature. Biden has just announced one of his
worst-ever appointments, of Kurt Campbell to be deputy secretary of
state, a nomination that has long been rumored and leaked.

Campbell has been serving as the chief China and East Asia staffer on
the National Security Council. His views on "free trade" and the use of
trade policy as special-interest corporate backdoor legislation are
decidedly old-school-a throwback to the corporate trade policies of
the Clinton and Obama administrations that Biden has repudiated.

Campbell held the post of assistant secretary of state for East Asian
and Pacific Affairs in the Obama administration. He was a big promoter
of the late and little-lamented Trans-Pacific Partnership, which was
killed by its critics.

Campbell's many detractors have emphasized his conflicts of interest

during his four years out of government when he worked as CEO of The
Asia Group and de facto lobbyist mainly for businesses with interests in
East Asia and the need for a well-connected fixer. These concerns should
not be downplayed. However, as our former colleague Jonathan Guyer has
shown
,
this pattern is all too much the norm among Biden national-security
officials.

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Far more alarming are Campbell's outmoded but still dangerous views on
trade, which are at odds with Biden's own new view of trade and the
leadership of Biden's U.S. trade rep, Katherine Tai. One person who
cheered the appointment is Rahm Emanuel, another corporate Democrat with
an outmoded view of trade. Emanuel, now serving as ambassador to Japan,
effused in an interview with the

**Financial Times**
about
the Campbell appointment that Campbell was "one of the most energetic,
creative, and dynamic people" he had worked with.

One has to wonder where this out-of-sync nomination came from. It's
hard to believe that Campbell was chosen over the objections of either
National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan or Secretary of State Tony
Blinken. Sullivan's views on trade once closely paralleled those of
Campbell, but no longer. Even more surprisingly, Campbell's coziness
with Big Tech is badly at odds with White House senior staffer Bruce
Reed, who has been appointed to oversee policy on AI
.

One suspects the fingerprints of Big Tech lobbyists, their aggressive
chums in Congress such as Senate Finance Committee chair and tech ally
Ron Wyden, and the more corporate types in Biden's inner circle such
as former lobbyist Steve Ricchetti. A major player is the chair of the
National Economic Council, Lael Brainard, who also happens to be
Campbell's wife.

Still to come is a confirmation hearing. It won't be pretty. With
Biden besieged by the far right that controls the House, and under
pressure to deliver on his commitments in the Middle East, it would not
be easy for progressive Senate Democrats to vote down Campbell's
nomination. But it could come to that.

~ ROBERT KUTTNER

Follow Robert Kuttner on Twitter

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