Biden, Xi to Hold Bilateral Meeting on Sidelines of Peru Summit |
U.S. President Joe Biden and Chinese President Xi Jinping will have what is likely their last face-to-face meeting as heads of state on Saturday, the latest in a string of efforts to stabilize their countries’ relationship. They are in Lima for the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit. APEC was founded to encourage trade liberalization among Pacific countries, but this year’s event has already featured discussions on how to react to a potential rise in protectionism under President-Elect Donald Trump.
Biden is due to discuss issues such as climate action, global infrastructure, and counternarcotics work not only with Xi but also with the leaders of Japan and South Korea while in Peru. Yesterday, the top diplomats from the United States and Japan met and pledged to maintain their close alliance under new governments in each country. Biden will then travel on to Brazil for a visit to the Amazon Rainforest and to attend the Group of Twenty (G20) leader’s summit. (AP, Kyodo, Bloomberg)
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“The rest of the world won’t passively accept Chinese surpluses on [the current] scale,” the New York Times’ Paul Krugman writes. “So the trade war is coming; in some ways it has already started. What will Trump add to the story?”
“The best strategy [toward China] would borrow elements of both approaches, acknowledging that China is the primary long-term concern for U.S. national security strategy—’the pacing threat,’ in the U.S. Defense Department’s framing—but also a different kind of global actor than its rogue-state partners. Accordingly, Washington’s aim should be to make clear to Chinese President Xi Jinping how counterproductive and costly to Beijing’s interests these new relationships will turn out to be,” former Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs Stephen J. Hadley writes for Foreign Affairs.
CFR’s China Strategy Initiative goes deep on the questions at the heart of the U.S.-China relationship.
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Washington Finalizes $6.6 Billion CHIPS Act Grant to TSMC |
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC) is the second-largest recipient of grant money under the CHIPS and Science Act and is moving forward with plans for three plants in Arizona. The money is due to be disbursed in stages, but an unnamed U.S. official said that the contract leaves little room for the next U.S. administration to change it. (Nikkei)
CFR’s Michelle Kurilla gives the rundown on the CHIPS Act.
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Party of Sri Lanka’s Leftist President Sweeps Congressional Snap Elections |
The National People’s Power party won some 70 percent of legislative seats, the first time a single party has won a two-thirds majority under Sri Lanka’s proportional representation system. President Anura Kumara Dissanayake now has the support to roll out his planned reforms, including aims to alter the terms of Sri Lanka’s bailout deal with the International Monetary Fund. (Nikkei, NYT)
CFR expert Brad W. Setser argues why Sri Lanka’s current deal sets it up for future debt risk.
India: Smog levels reaching the “severe” category in New Delhi led Indian officials to order primary schools to shift to online classes until further notice. (Times of India)
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Middle East and North Africa |
Israel Strikes Targets in Syria, Lebanon |
Israeli strikes yesterday in and around the Syrian capital of Damascus killed at least fifteen people, Syrian state media reported. Israel said it was targeting the Islamic Jihad militant group. Later yesterday, Israeli strikes in Lebanon killed at least twelve rescue workers, health and rescue officials said. Efforts at mapping out an Israel-Hezbollah truce in Lebanon reportedly continue: the U.S. ambassador to Lebanon submitted a draft proposal yesterday to Lebanon’s parliament speaker, two unnamed senior Lebanese sources told Reuters. (AP, Reuters)
Algeria: The government plans to hike its defense spending by 16 percent to a record high $25 billion in 2025, citing unprecedented regional threats. The oil-rich country’s defense spending ranks only behind Saudi Arabia and Israel in the Middle East and North Africa, according to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute. (Bloomberg)
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In a special episode, CFR’s Robert McMahon and Carla Anne Robbins from The World Next Week sit down with Gabrielle Sierra of Why It Matters to discuss what the United States—and a closely watching world—should expect as President Trump takes office. |
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Study Finds Over Sixty-One Thousand Died in Sudan’s War |
Starvation, disease, and violent deaths combined have killed upwards of sixty-one thousand people in the Sudanese state of Khartoum alone over fourteen months of civil war, researchers from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine said in a preprint study. It has yet to be peer reviewed. The estimate exceeds what the United Nations has counted as deaths in the entire country during the conflict. (Reuters)
CFR’s Sabine Baumgartner and Mariel Ferragamo piece together Sudanese aid worker and refugee accounts of the unfolding crisis.
Senegal: Dakar will hold snap legislative elections this weekend. President Bassirou Diomaye Faye called the vote after struggling to win legislative support for his agenda. (Bloomberg) |
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Turkey, Qatar Sign Eight Bilateral Agreements |
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and Qatari Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani met in Ankara and agreed to deepen cooperation in defense, trade, media, and transportation. (Anadolu)
Brussels: European Union regulators fined social media firm Meta more than $840 million, saying Facebook’s favoring of its Marketplace platform violated fair competition rules. Meta said there was no evidence of harm to competition and it would appeal. (WSJ, FT)
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Argentina’s Milei Becomes First Foreign Leader to Meet With Trump Since Election |
President Javier Milei met with Trump on a trip to Florida where he also spoke at a conservative event. No readout was released of the meeting. Milei’s government, like Trump, has floated pulling out of the Paris climate agreement, and Buenos Aires withdrew its negotiators from the COP29 conference this week. (AP, NYT)
Bolivia: The government is in talks with buyers of carbon offset credits who would fund reforestation efforts in the country, its economy minister said. It seeks to sell $5 billion worth of such credits in an initial push. (Reuters)
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Trump Adds RFK, Burgum to List of Cabinet Nominees |
Trump said he would nominate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to lead the Department of Health and Human Services and North Dakota Governor Doug Burgum as Secretary of the Interior. Kennedy is a vocal vaccine skeptic, while Burgum is a longtime champion of the oil industry. (WSJ, WaPo)
CFR’s Trump tracker overviews his global health and climate change positions.
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Climate Diplomacy Heavyweights Say COP Process ‘No Longer Fit for Purpose’ |
An open letter from climate and multilateral leaders including former UN climate head Christiana Figueres and former UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon called for reforms to the UN climate negotiation process. Action at the talks needs to move from negotiation to implementation, they said. The letter came midway through a fractious conference in Baku. (Reuters) |
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