Politics

(Reuters) – U.S. House of Representatives Republicans will open an impeachment inquiry into Democratic President Joe Biden after months of investigations of his son Hunter Biden’s foreign business dealings, Speaker Kevin McCarthy said on Tuesday.

The inquiry is being cheered on by Donald Trump, who was twice impeached by the House – a historic first – when it was controlled by Democrats but acquitted by the Senate both times. Trump, the front-runner in the race for the Republican nomination to challenge Biden in next year’s U.S. presidential election, has been charged in four separate criminal cases this year.

The White House dismisses the move as unsupported by evidence.

WHAT IS AN IMPEACHMENT INQUIRY?

The U.S. Constitution empowers Congress to impeach federal officials including the president for treason, bribery and “other high crimes and misdemeanors.” A president can be removed from office if the House approves articles of impeachment by a simple majority and the Senate votes by a two-thirds majority to convict after holding a trial.

An impeachment inquiry is a formal step that can precede a House vote on whether to approve articles of impeachment and eventually a trial in the Senate.

The House in 2019 voted for an impeachment inquiry into Trump before his first impeachment charging him with abusing his power as president by pressuring Ukraine to investigate Hunter Biden’s business dealings. It did not hold a full impeachment inquiry before bringing impeachment charges in the final weeks of Trump’s presidency following the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol attack.

Senate Republicans both times provided sufficient votes to acquit Trump.

WHAT ARE THE ALLEGATIONS?

Republicans allege that Biden’s son Hunter has profited in business dealings with foreign entities by arranging access to then-Vice President Biden. They also allege that the president himself has profited.

Separately, they also say that the Justice Department interfered with investigations into Hunter Biden’s taxes. U.S. Special Counsel David Weiss, who is leading that investigation, denies that charge.

WHAT DO DEMOCRATS SAY?

The White House has denied the charges. Democrats say the congressional probes are baseless and politically motivated, arguing they are a distraction from the four criminal indictments against Trump.

“Republicans’ probe is a transparent effort to weaponize Congress to do Trump’s bidding,” Raskin said in a statement before McCarthy’s announcement.

White House spokesperson Ian Sams dismissed the move as “extreme politics at its worst.”

WHAT IS THE EVIDENCE?

Republicans have pointed to a U.S. government document in which an informant refers to the head of Burisma, a Ukrainian company for which Hunter Biden sat on the board of directors, saying: “it cost 5 (million) to pay one Biden, and 5 (million) to another Biden,” referring to alleged payments to two members of the Biden family.

Devon Archer, an associate of Hunter Biden, said in an interview with congressional investigators in July that he was not aware of any such payments.

The Burisma head said he did not have any contact with Joe Biden or his staff, and that Biden did not help him or the company while he was vice president, according to a transcript of an interview released by Jamie Raskin, the top Democrat on the House Oversight Committee.

Archer also told congressional investigators that Hunter Biden put his father on the phone with foreign investors or associates “maybe 20 times” over the course of about 10 years.

Archer said Hunter Biden sought to create “an illusion of access to his father,” but that those conversations did not involve any business dealings, and he was not aware of any wrongdoing by the elder Biden.

DOES THE HOUSE HAVE THE VOTES?

McCarthy was facing mounting pressure from hardline members of his party’s right flank. Representative Matt Gaetz had suggested McCarthy’s position as speaker was at risk if he did not support impeachment, while Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene had said she will not vote to fund the government without a vote on the impeachment inquiry.

McCarthy’s decision to launch one without first calling a vote avoided a test of his narrow 222-212 majority, not all of whom supported the move.

WHAT WILL THE SENATE DO?

Under the Constitution, after the House votes to impeach an official, the Senate holds a trial. Removal of the official requires a two-thirds majority of the Senate.

Dick Durbin, the No. 2 Senate Democrat and head of its Judiciary Committee, has said that if the House votes to impeach Biden, the Senate would have no choice but to take it up.

The Senate is unlikely to convict Biden, where his Democratic Party holds the majority and some Republicans have said they have no appetite for an impeachment trial.

No president has been removed from office by the Senate following an impeachment.

WHAT OTHER LEGAL TROUBLES DOES HUNTER BIDEN FACE?

Weiss has said prosecutors will seek to indict Hunter Biden on tax and gun charges by Sept. 29. Investigators have been probing him since 2019.

Hunter Biden’s lawyers had negotiated a plea deal that would have allowed him to plead guilty to not paying taxes on $1.5 million in income between 2017 and 2018 and entered into a separate deferred prosecution argument for illegally owning a firearm while using drugs, but the arrangement collapsed over the summer.

The criminal prosecution could mean Hunter Biden may face a trial while his father is campaigning for reelection.

(Reporting by Makini Brice; Editing by Scott Malone and Daniel Wallis)

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WASHINGTON (AP) — Lawyers for Donald Trump on Monday asked the federal judge presiding over his election subversion case in Washington to recuse herself, saying her past public statements about the former president and his connection to the Jan. 6, 2021, riot at the U.S. Capitol call into question whether she can be fair.

The recusal motion from Trump’s lawyers takes aim at U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan, a former assistant public defender who was nominated to the bench by President Barack Obama and has stood out as one of the toughest punishers of Jan. 6 defendants. The request is a long shot given the high threshold for recusal and because the decision on whether to recuse belongs to Chutkan, who is unlikely to see cause to step aside from the case.

Even so, the request that she give up the high-stakes trial marks the latest flashpoint in already delicate relations between the defense team and the judge, who has repeatedly cautioned against inflammatory public comments from Trump.

Chutkan ordered the prosecutor’s team to file any opposition to Trump’s recusal bid by Thursday.

Chutkan last month scheduled the trial for March 4, 2024, over the vigorous objections of defense lawyers who said that would not give them enough time to prepare. The case in Washington, charging Trump in a four-count indictment with plotting to overturn the results of the 2020 election, is one of four criminal cases confronting the former president as he seeks reelection to the White House.

Federal judges are supposed to step aside in cases where their “impartiality might reasonably be questioned.” Other bases for recusal include a personal bias against one of the parties. Trump’s lawyers say Chutkan’s comments in cases against Jan. 6 rioters show she has “already formed an opinion about President Trump’s guilt” and many of the allegations that underpin the indictment against him.

“Although Judge Chutkan may genuinely intend to give President Trump a fair trial — and may believe that she can do so — her public statements unavoidably taint these proceedings, regardless of outcome,” the defense team wrote. “The public will reasonably and understandably question whether Judge Chutkan arrived at all of her decisions in this matter impartially, or in fulfillment of her prior negative statements regarding President Trump.”

Chutkan has often handed down prison sentences in Jan. 6 cases that are harsher than Justice Department prosecutors recommended. The judge also previously ruled against Trump in a separate Jan. 6 case, refusing his request to block the release of documents to the U.S. House’s Jan. 6 committee by asserting executive privilege.

Trump’s lawyers quoted from remarks Chutkan made in a 2022 sentencing hearing for Christine Priola, a Jan. 6 defendant from Ohio who pleaded guilty to obstructing Congress’ certification of Joe Biden’s electoral victory — one of the same charges Trump is facing.

“The people who mobbed that Capitol were there in fealty, in loyalty, to one man — not to the Constitution, of which most of the people who come before me seem woefully ignorant; not to the ideals of this country, and not to the principles of democracy,” Chutkan said. “It’s a blind loyalty to one person who, by the way, remains free to this day.”

Trump’s attorneys said that comment suggests she believed at the time that Trump should be charged.

“Public statements of this sort create a perception of prejudgment incompatible with our justice system. In a case this widely watched, of such monumental significance, the public must have the utmost confidence that the Court will administer justice neutrally and dispassionately,” Trump’s attorneys wrote.

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By Jack Queen

(Reuters) – Former President Donald Trump is barred from returning to the White House, say some opponents who argue his role in the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol attack amounts to supporting an “insurrection” as defined by the 14th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.

Here’s a look at the legal theory and its long-shot chances of blocking the front-runner for the Republican presidential nomination from the November 2024 ballot.

HOW COULD TRUMP BE DISQUALIFIED?

Some legal experts say Trump’s Jan. 6 actions disqualify him for the presidency. They cite his fiery speech to supporters who then stormed the Capitol in a failed bid to stop Congress from certifying Democratic President Joe Biden’s election.

They cite Section 3 of the post-Civil War 14th Amendment, which bars government officials who have “engaged in insurrection or rebellion” from holding office.

Advocacy group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington filed a lawsuit in Colorado on Sept. 6 seeking to bar the state’s top election official from placing Trump on the ballot in the November 2024 election, citing Section 3.

More lawsuits against state election officials could follow, inviting a legal melee across all 50 states over a largely untested legal question with potentially broad implications for who is permitted to hold federal office.

HAS TRUMP BEEN CONVICTED OF INCITING INSURRECTION?

The House of Representatives in Trump’s second impeachment charged him with inciting an insurrection on Jan. 6, but Senate Republicans narrowly sustained enough votes to acquit him.

He is now awaiting trial on four criminal indictments, including two related to his efforts to overturn his 2020 defeat, which he falsely claims was the result of fraud.

Trump has not been charged with insurrection or rebellion.

Some legal experts say efforts to disqualify Trump could set a troubling precedent that would empower state election officials to unilaterally disqualify candidates based on their own interpretations of “insurrection or rebellion.”

Disqualifying candidates based on crimes they have not been convicted of, or even charged with, could run afoul of their rights to due process and equal protection, which are also enshrined in the 14th Amendment.

HOW WOULD DISQUALIFICATION WORK?

Section 3 has no clear enforcement mechanism. Some legal scholars say it would require an act of Congress to put it into effect. Others say state election officials are bound to apply it when considering candidates for the ballot and can be compelled to do so by court order.

Voters and groups representing them would need to persuade secretaries of state across the 50 states – many of them elected Republicans and Trump allies – to determine Trump is disqualified or to persuade judges to bar them from putting Trump on the ballot.

For the maneuver to succeed, its proponents would need to persuade officials in enough Republican-leaning states to block Trump from the ballot that he would be denied the 270 Electoral College votes needed for victory.

Those efforts would almost certainly draw legal challenges from Republicans.

HAS IT EVER BEEN DONE BEFORE?

Section 3 was used to disqualify numerous people from office following the 1861-1865 U.S. Civil War but has since been almost entirely dormant.

In September 2022, however, the same advocacy group that sued to keep Trump off the ballot in Colorado persuaded a New Mexico judge to remove a county commissioner from office over his participation in the Jan. 6 insurrection.

COULD IT WORK?

The effort faces long odds. It would require persuading or forcing election officials to keep Trump off the ballot in states governed by his Republican allies.

It could also invite a legal battle of epic proportions, which would ultimately be decided by a U.S. Supreme Court dominated by a 6-3 conservative majority including three Trump appointees.

HAS THE 14TH AMENDMENT BEEN IN THE NEWS LATELY?

During a showdown with House Republicans over the nation’s $31.4 trillion debt ceiling, Biden in May floated the idea of using Section 4 of the 14th Amendment to unilaterally raise the debt limit, but he never carried out that threat.

There were also legal questions about how successful that maneuver would have been.

(Reporting by Jack Queen; Editing by Scott Malone and Howard Goller)

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WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Former U.S. President Donald Trump filed a motion on Monday seeking to disqualify U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan from presiding over the criminal case charging him with trying to overturn his 2020 presidential election loss.

Trump said last month he planned to seek Chutkan’s recusal as well as a change of venue for the case.

(Reporting by Kanishka Singh in Washington; editing by Rami Ayyub)

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By David Morgan

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The U.S. House of Representatives returns this week for an expected political brawl over spending cuts and impeachment that could paralyze the Republican-controlled chamber, as Congress struggles to avoid a government shutdown.

The House and the Democratic-controlled Senate are due to be in session for about 12 days before funding expires on Sept. 30, leaving little time to agree on a package of 12 appropriations bills that can pass each chamber and win Democratic President Joe Biden’s signature.

The main bone of contention among House Republicans is a demand by roughly three-dozen members of the hardline House Freedom Caucus to cut spending for fiscal 2024 to $1.47 trillion — about $120 billion less than Biden and Republican House Speaker Kevin McCarthy agreed in May.

The White House and Senate leaders — including top Republican Mitch McConnell — have rejected that demand.

That dispute and other hardline demands, including opposition to Ukraine aid and calls for an impeachment inquiry against Biden, could imperil efforts to pass a short-term stopgap, known as a continuing resolution or “CR,” which would keep federal agencies afloat while lawmakers debate full-scale appropriations.

“Everything’s coming to a head after a long recess,” Republican Representative Kelly Armstrong told Reuters, referring to the six-week-long House summer break that ends Tuesday. “We’re a pretty diverse caucus, with a five-vote majority. So, threading the needle is something that’s really difficult to do.”

McCarthy’s eight-month-old speakership could be threatened if he seeks Democratic support to avoid a shutdown or fails to move forward with an impeachment inquiry that former President Donald Trump’s House allies are seeking despite a lack of votes.

Political brinkmanship over the debt ceiling has already prompted the Fitch rating agency to downgrade U.S. debt to AA+ from its top-notch AAA designation, partly because of repeated down-to-the-wire negotiations that threaten the government’s ability to pay its bills.

White House spokesperson Andrew Bates warned that failure to enact $24 billion in supplemental funding for Ukraine and $16 billion for disaster-stricken U.S. communities in states including Hawaii and Florida could put lives at risk, while delaying money to combat the deadly opioid fentanyl.

SOME PREFER SHUTDOWN

Hardline Republicans want offsets for spending on disaster relief and Ukraine aid included in any CR, as well as tighter immigration and border security policies.

“Without these spending cuts, we’re a ‘no’ vote. I say ‘we’ – me and a good many others,” Representative Ralph Norman, a Freedom Caucus member, said in an interview. “I’d rather shut the government down.”

That could mean trouble for McCarthy’s hopes of restarting action on spending legislation this week with an $886 billion defense appropriations bill.

The House, which Republicans control by a thin 222-212 majority, has passed only one appropriations bill so far.

The Senate plans to move forward on Monday with bipartisan bills. Senators of both parties hope floor action will give them the upper hand in negotiations with the House.

House hardliners vehemently reject a proposal to lump border security and Ukraine aid in a separate measure.

“We’re going to have to see some significant win for the American people,” Freedom Caucus Chairman Scott Perry told Reuters. “We’ve been abundantly clear, transparent and precise about how you get votes out of members in the Freedom Caucus.”

Hardliners, who forced McCarthy to endure 15 floor votes before he became speaker in January, shut down the House floor in June to protest his spending deal with Biden.

Their demands have irked more centrist Republicans.

With the Senate and White House in Democratic hands, Representative Don Bacon said House Republicans should accept the higher spending level set by the McCarthy-Biden agreement and adopt a relatively clean CR.

“There’s no reason to do a shutdown when you already have a bipartisan agreement,” Bacon told Reuters. “I know that 20 or 30 people don’t like it. But they don’t represent the whole House and they don’t represent the whole country.”

Firebrand Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene vowed not to support funding measures unless the House votes to begin an inquiry on unproven allegations that Biden was involved in his son Hunter’s overseas business dealings while vice president. Biden and the White House deny the claims.

Other Republicans reject the idea of tying an impeachment inquiry to the spending debate.

Democrats have dismissed impeachment talk as little more than an effort to distract from Trump’s extensive legal woes.

” … Until you have the votes, it seems kind of silly,” Democratic Senator John Fetterman told reporters.

(Reporting by David Morgan; additional reporting by Makini Brice, Jeff Mason, Richard Cowan and Moira Warburton; Editing by Scott Malone and Jonathan Oatis)

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It’s a political standoff that will be tested anew as the House returns this week from a long summer recess and McCarthy faces a collision course of difficult challenges — seeking to avoid a government shutdown, support Ukraine in the war and launch an impeachment inquiry into President Joe Biden.

“They’ve got some really heavy lifting ahead,” said the No. 2 Republican in the Senate, John Thune, of South Dakota.

McCarthy, of California, is going to “have his hands full trying to figure out how to navigate and execute,” he said.

Congress has been here before, as has McCarthy in his nearly two decades in office, but the stakes are ever higher, with Republicans powered by an increasingly conservative faction that is refusing to allow business as usual in Washington.

With former President Donald Trump’s backing, McCarthy’s right-flank pushed him into the speaker’s office at the start of the year only after he agreed to a long list of conservative demands — including the ability to call a quick vote to “vacate the chair” and remove him from office.

That threat of an abrupt ouster hovers over McCarthy’s every move, especially now.

To start, Congress faces a deadline to fund the government by the end of the month, or risk a potentially devastating federal shutdown. There’s just 11 working days for Congress to act once the House resumes Tuesday.

Facing a backlash from conservatives who want to slash government funding, McCarthy may be able to ease the way by turning to another conservative priority, launching a Biden impeachment inquiry over the business dealings of the president’s son, Hunter Biden.

For McCarthy, running the two tracks — a government funding process alongside an impeachment drive — is an unusual and politically fraught undertaking.

But starting a formal impeachment inquiry into Biden could help to appease Republican allies of Trump, who has emerged as the GOP frontrunner to confront Biden in the 2024 election for the White House.

“He’s being squeezed,” Brad Woodhouse, a veteran Democratic operative, said of McCarthy. Woodhouse is now a senior adviser to the Congressional Integrity Project, which is preparing to criticize Republicans over the Biden impeachment.

The White House has said Biden is not involved in his son’s business dealings.

But Trump’s allies among House Republicans are working furiously to unearth any links between Biden and his son’s business as they look to prove that Hunter Biden is trading on the family name for financial enrichment and work to erode public support for the president ahead of the presidential election.

Meanwhile, what should have been a fairly prescribed process to fund the government after McCarthy and Biden negotiated a more than $1 trillion deal earlier this summer over the debt limit appears to be falling apart. Even a stopgap measure to simply keep government funding at existing levels for a few months while Congress tries to finish the spending bills is a nonstarter for McCarthy’s conservative flank.

Conservatives powered by the House Freedom Caucus are insisting federal spending is rolled back to 2022 levels and they want to add other priorities to the legislation.

If not, they say they will oppose a temporary measure, called a continuing resolution, or CR, to keep government running.

“We must rein in the reckless inflationary spending, and the out-of-control federal bureaucracy it funds,” the Freedom Caucus wrote in a statement at the end of August.

With command of dozens of votes, the conservatives can deny McCarthy the support he needs to pass a Republican bill on its own. But relying on Democrats for votes would bring other problems for McCarthy if he is seen as disloyal to his ranks.

The conservatives want to beef up border security and address what Republicans deride as the “weaponization” of the Justice Department’s prosecutions, including of those charged in the Jan. 6, 2021 attack on the Capitol. They also want to end what they call the Pentagon’s “woke” policies as the Defense Department tries to provide diversity, equity and inclusion to service personnel.

Signaling the hard road ahead, Trump-ally Rep. Matt Gaetz, R-Fla., mockingly reposted one of McCarthy’s recent videos welcoming tourists at the Capitol.

“Kevin thinking this was the video we needed at this moment is depressingly revealing,” Gaetz said on social media.

“We need a SPEAKER not a GREETER.”

Congress also has a pending request from the White House to provide an additional $40 billion on three fronts — some $21 billion in military and humanitarian relief for Ukraine as it battles the Russian invasion; $12 billion to replenish federal disaster aids after floods, fires and other problems, including to curb the flow of deadly fentanyl at the southern U.S. border with Mexico.

McCarthy has vowed there won’t be any “blank check” for Ukraine as he works to appease skeptical Republicans who want to end U.S. involvement in overseas affairs, particularly involving Russia.

While the shutdown is the more pressing problem for McCarthy, the Biden impeachment inquiry is his bigger political gamble.

McCarthy has signaled an impeachment inquiry is coming. But there is “no date circled on the calendar,” said a person familiar with his thinking and granted anonymity to discuss it.

Watching from the Senate, which has been working to pass all 12 of the regular bills needed to fund government operations through committees ahead of floor votes starting next week, Republicans hope cooler heads in the House will prevail on all fronts.

Several Republicans have made no secret of their disinterest in impeachment proceedings against Biden.

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(Reuters) – Mark Meadows, a former aide to Donald Trump who was charged in Georgia with trying to overturn the former U.S. president’s 2020 election loss, has appealed a judge’s ruling denying his bid to move the case to federal court, a court filing showed on Monday.

(Reporting by Katharine Jackson and Rami Ayyub; Editing by Doina Chiacu)

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Americans are looking back on the horror and legacy of 9/11, gathering on Monday at memorials, firehouses, city halls and other locales to observe the 22nd anniversary of the deadliest terror attack on U.S. soil.

Commemorations stretch from the attack sites — at New York’s World Trade Center, the Pentagon and Shanksville, Pennsylvania — to Alaska and beyond.

President Joe Biden will observe the 22nd anniversary of the worst terrorist attack on U.S. soil at an Alaska military base with service members and their families, the White House announced.

Biden will not participate in any of the observances at 9/11 memorial sites in New York City, Virginia or Pennsylvania. Instead, the president will stop in Alaska for a Sept. 11 observance at Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson in Anchorage on his way back to Washington from Asia.

The commander in chief is currently in Vietnam wrapping up the Group of 20 summit.

Vice President Kamala Harris will participate in the annual observance at the National September 11 Memorial and Museum in lower Manhattan.

First lady Jill Biden will lay a wreath at the 9/11 memorial at the Pentagon.

Terrorists hijacked commercial airplanes on Sept. 11, 2001, and flew them into the Twin Towers in New York’s financial district and the Pentagon in Arlington, Virginia. A fourth plane crashed in a field in Shanksville, Pennsylvania, after passengers fought back.

Nearly 3,000 people were killed in the attacks. Biden was a U.S. senator at the time.

It will not be the first time that a president has not attended annual observances at any of the three sites.

In 2015, President Barack Obama participated in a moment of silence on the White House lawn before going to Fort Meade in Maryland to recognize the military’s work protecting the country.

In 2005, President George W. Bush marked the anniversary on the White House lawn.

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DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) — Donald Trump crossed paths with several Republican rivals Saturday as he attended Iowa’s in-state college football grudge match, one of the former president’s few visits so far to the state that holds the first nominating caucus next year.

Trump waded into one of the state’s largest sports crowds at Jack Trice Stadium in Ames, where Iowa State was hosting Iowa. Also at the game were Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and several lesser-known candidates.

With the race entering its traditional ramp-up after Labor Day, Trump has largely skipped holding town halls or participating in many of the state’s cherished campaign traditions, but has not paid a price so far. Trump remains far ahead of DeSantis and other rivals in Iowa and nationally.

Trump has made a habit of visiting Iowa on the same day as DeSantis, whom Trump treats as his main threat. Both were in and around the stadium before kickoff, reminiscent of the scene last month when Trump drew huge crowds to Iowa State Fair in Des Moines while DeSantis addressed smaller audiences and hit the midway rides with his family.

Trump stopped at a fraternity house before the game and came outside to greet cheering students. At one point, he stood in front of a table with a line of footballs arranged between red plastic cups. He picked up each of the balls and threw them into the crowd.

DeSantis met fans of both schools at tailgates and he was accompanied by Gov. Kim Reynolds, who has not endorsed a candidate but often has appeared with DeSantis and his wife, Casey. DeSantis said he would go to the game with Reynolds, an Iowa State graduate.

“I must say this is a little more civilized than the Florida-Georgia game,” he said.

Also appearing at tailgates were candidates Doug Burgum, the North Dakota governor, and Asa Hutchinson, a former Arkansas governor, who greeted each other.

DeSantis is increasingly focused on winning or placing high in Iowa and says he’s visited more than half of the state’s 99 counties already. Trump, meanwhile, has made only five visits to Iowa this year.

Instead of large-scale rallies, Trump is relying on state party events that offer large, friendly audiences at no cost to his campaign, while his political organization pays millions of dollars in legal expenses as he faces four criminal indictments. He was in neighboring South Dakota on Friday night appearing at a state party fundraiser with Gov. Kristi Noem, who endorsed him.

Trump’s campaign has also used digital outreach. Last week, Trump held a conference call with tens of thousands of Iowans. He has done some in-person events with voters. In June, he handed out Dairy Queen “Blizzards.”

Trump has foregone all but one such event in Iowa this year. The exception was the Iowa Republican Party Lincoln Dinner in July, a marquee event that helps to finance the caucus.

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NEW DELHI (AP) — President Joe Biden and his allies on Saturday announced plans to build a rail and shipping corridor linking India with the Middle East and Europe, an ambitious project aimed at fostering economic growth and political cooperation.

“This is a big deal,” said Biden. “This is a really big deal.”

The corridor, outlined at the annual Group of 20 summit of the world’s top economies, would help boost trade, deliver energy resources and improve digital connectivity. It would include India, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Jordan, Israel and the European Union, said Jake Sullivan, Biden’s national security adviser.

Sullivan said the network reflected Biden’s vision for “far reaching investments” that come from “effective American leadership” and a willingness to embrace other nations as partners. He said the enhanced infrastructure would boost economic growth, help bring countries in the Middle East together and establish that region as a hub for economic activity instead of as a “source of challenge, conflict or crisis” as it has been in recent history.

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and other leaders from around the world participated in the announcement.

“Enhancing connectivity with all regions has been a key priority for India,” said Modi, speaking through a translator. “We believe that connectivity is a means to not only increase mutual trade between different countries but also increase mutual trust.”

The rail and shipping corridor would help physically tie together a vast stretch of the globe, improving digital connectivity and enabling more trade among countries, including with energy products such as hydrogen. Although White House officials did not set a timeline for its completion, the corridor would provide a physical and ideological alternative to China’s own nation-spanning infrastructure program.

The White House gave no details on the project’s cost or financing, though Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman mentioned a figure of $20 billion during the announcement. It was unclear if that sum applied solely to the Saudi commitment.

After the announcement, Biden greeted the crown prince with a hearty handshake, a friendlier exchange than when they last met, in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, just over a year ago. At that time, Biden, who had harshly criticized Prince Mohammed over the kingdom’s human rights record, awkwardly greeted him with a fist bump, a moment roundly criticized by rights activists.

Von der Leyen described the project as a “green and digital bridge across continents and civilizations.” She added that it includes cables to transmit electricity and data.

She also announced a “Trans-African Corridor” connecting the Angolan port of Lobito with landlocked areas of the continent: the Kananga province in the Democratic Republic of Congo and the copper-mining regions of Zambia.

Speaking of the African project, Biden called it a “game changing regional investment” and said “both of these are huge, huge steps forward.”

Amos Hochstein, Biden’s coordinator for global infrastructure and energy security, laid out a rough timeline for the project over the next year.

In the next 60 days, working groups will put together a fuller plan and set timelines. The first phase will involve identifying the areas that need investment and where physical infrastructure can be connected between countries. Hochstein said the plans can be put into place over the next year so that the project can move onto setting up finances and construction.

Sullivan said the project started coming together after Biden visited Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, in July 2022, where he emphasized a need for greater regional economic integration.

In January, the White House started having conversations with regional partners about the concept. By spring, maps and written assessments of existing rail infrastructure in the Middle East were being drafted. Sullivan, and senior White House aides Hochstein and Brett McGurk, traveled to Saudi Arabia in May to meet with their Indian, Saudi and UAE counterparts.

All sides have worked since then to finalize details of the agreement announced Saturday.

The parties also brought Israel and Jordan into the project. Saudi Arabia and Israel do not have diplomatic relations, though the White House has been pushing them toward normalizing relations.

Sullivan said the transportation project is not seen as a “precursor” to a potential normalization deal but he characterized Israel’s inclusion as “significant.”

“The participants in this effort are focused on practical outcomes that deliver for their people,” Sullivan said. “And a corridor of this kind by dint of geography works best having Israel in as opposed to out and the countries participating prioritized that.”

Biden participated in both G20 sessions on Saturday. He highlighted plans to push for more investments to address climate change, such as his own domestic incentives to encourage the use of renewable energy. He also argued that Russia’s war in Ukraine is hurting many other nations, which have had to cope with greater food and energy costs as well as higher interest rate costs on their debt.

Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, who has been a regular presence at international summits, including last year’s G20 in Indonesia, since Russia invaded his country more than 18 months ago, was not invited by Modi’s government to this year’s gathering.

Zelenskyy has used the high-profile gatherings to argue for continued economic and military support for his country. India is one of the most prominent U.S. allies that has largely stayed on the sidelines of the war, and has even dramatically increased its purchases of Russian oil.

Jon Finer, the White House principal deputy national security adviser, said the administration pushed for Zelenskyy’s inclusion at the summit.

“Ultimately, it is not our decision,” Finer said. “But you can expect that the United States and our other partners who are working with Ukraine so closely … We’ll make that case quite forcefully in the context of these conversations.”

The summit communique, a joint statement agreed to by all participants, addressed the war, among other issues. It included language underlining the principle that states cannot use force to change borders, disavowed the use of nuclear weapons and called for a just peace based on the principles of the U.N. Charter. The communique also underscored that attacks on civilian infrastructure must end.

During the summit, Biden also discussed his request to Congress for additional funding for the World Bank that could generate more than $25 billion in new lending for economic development.

The White House more broadly is trying to strengthen the G20 as an international forum, while Chinese President Xi Jinping and Russian President Vladimir Putin decided not to attend.

Biden has said he was disappointed by Xi’s decision. Asked again about the Chinese leader’s absence, Biden said Saturday that the summit “is going well” though “it would be nice to have him here.”

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