Politics

By David Shepardson

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – A group of nine Republican senators on Tuesday urged the Biden administration to impose sanctions on Huawei Cloud and other Chinese cloud service providers, citing national security concerns, according to a letter seen by Reuters.

The previously unreported letter led by Senator Bill Hagerty to the Commerce, State and Treasury departments said Chinese cloud computing companies “are increasingly engaging with foreign entities – in some cases sanctioned foreign entities – that are directly challenging the national security and economic security interests of the United States and our allies and partners.”

Huawei Technologies and the agencies did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The senators said Huawei Cloud launched its “Sky Computing Constellation” in co-sponsorship with Changsha Tianyi Space Science and Technology Research Institute also known as “Spacety China” in 2021. They noted Spacety was “recently sanctioned by the Treasury Department for providing significant satellite imagery assistance to entities in the Russian Federation.”

In May 2019, the Commerce Department added Huawei to a trade blacklist over U.S. security concerns. The company denies that it poses a security risk.

“We urge you to use all available tools to engage in decisive action against these firms, through sanctions, export restrictions, and investment bans, and to further investigate PRC cloud computing service companies,” said the letter which was also signed by senators Thom Tillis, Marco Rubio, Steve Daines, Ted Cruz, Joni Ernst, Katie Britt, Kevin Cramer and Dan Sullivan.

The letter also asked the Biden administration officials to add Alibaba Cloud to the Commerce Department’s export control list, arguing its close ties to the Chinese military “renders it a clear ongoing national security threat” and that Treasury should add Alibaba Cloud to a list of companies involved in the Chinese military-industrial complex.

Alibaba Cloud, a subsidiary of Alibaba Group Holding Ltd, did not immediately comment. The letter said Alibaba opened two cloud data centers in Santa Clara, California, in 2015.

Reuters reported in January 2022 that the Biden administration was reviewing the cloud business of e-commerce giant Alibaba to determine whether it poses a risk to U.S. national security. The review focuses on how the company stores U.S. clients’ data, including personal information and intellectual property, and whether the Chinese government could gain access to it.

The letter said the Biden administration should consider further investigation or actions against China’s other cloud service providers including Baidu Cloud and Tencent Cloud which may impact U.S. national security.

The Trump administration issued a warning in August 2020 against Chinese cloud providers including Alibaba, “to prevent U.S. citizens’ most sensitive personal information and our businesses’ most valuable intellectual property … from being stored and processed on cloud-based systems accessible to our foreign adversaries.”

(Reporting by David Shepardson in Washington; Editing by Matthew Lewis)

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By Gram Slattery

ARLINGTON, Virginia (Reuters) -Former South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley said on Tuesday she was personally against abortion rights but bore no ill will for those who felt differently, in a rare foray by a Republican White House hopeful into one of the more sensitive issues of the 2024 U.S. election campaign.

In a roughly 20-minute speech, Haley described the debate around abortion as an issue for each state to decide.

While she would favor legislation restricting abortion rights at the federal level, she said that as a practical matter Republicans were unlikely to win the majorities needed in Congress to impose their agenda.

For the time being, she said, all Americans would need to work to establish a consensus on the issue.

“I believe in conversation. I believe in empathy. I believe in compassion, not anger,” said Haley, a former governor of South Carolina and the only female candidate in the Republican presidential race. “I don’t judge someone who is pro-choice any more than I want them to judge me for being pro-life.”

The issue is a thorny one for Republican candidates, and they have largely avoided talking about it in the early months of the 2024 campaign. When they have discussed it, they have struggled to commit to specific policies.

While a significant chunk of the party’s base is fervently opposed to the procedure, most Americans, including many Republicans, think it should be legal in most situations. In a Reuters/Ipsos poll this month, 43% of Republicans said they were less likely to vote for a politician who supports limiting access to abortion.

Haley and her staff have often portrayed her as uniquely positioned to talk about abortion and other issues that affect women, given that all other candidates in the Republican field are men. During the speech, Haley spoke of personal experiences, including her own difficulty conceiving.

REPUBLICANS AT ODDS OVER ABORTION

Off the campaign trail, some Republicans are criticizing the party’s handling of the issue.

Nancy Mace, a Republican in the U.S. House of Representatives from Haley’s home state of South Carolina, said in an interview with ABC on Sunday that Republicans would “lose huge” if they kept pushing restrictive abortion policies.

Haley, who as governor signed a ban on abortions after 19 weeks of gestation, did not offer any new policy proposals and largely avoided specifics altogether.

She did not bring up the topic of abortion medication, which became a hot topic after a federal judge limited the distribution of abortion pill mifepristone in April, a decision that the Supreme Court put on hold.

Haley’s comments were similar to those she made to a group of Republican women in Iowa earlier in April, when she called abortion a “personal decision” and urged Republicans to not “let this become a political football.”

Abortion has become a more salient issue for voters since the U.S. Supreme Court last year overturned the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision, which had granted constitutional protections for the procedure.

Democrats campaigned aggressively on the Supreme Court decision in the 2022 midterm congressional elections, using it to galvanize voters and curb Republicans’ hopes of winning both houses of Congress.

Among the other Republican presidential contenders, former President Donald Trump has been largely silent on abortion, though advisers have said he believes the matter should be resolved by the states.

Florida’s Republican Governor Ron DeSantis, who has yet to declare his candidacy but is widely expected to, signed a law this month to ban most abortions in Florida after six weeks of gestation. But he did not publicly mention the law for nearly aweek.

Senator Tim Scott, a Republican who recently launched a presidential exploratory committee, has said he would sign a federal law to ban abortion after 20 weeks of gestation, but has declined to take a stand of abortion pills.

Democrats have shown no such reticence to jump into the public debate over abortion. President Joe Biden, a Democrat who on Tuesday announced he would seek a second term in 2024, favors abortion rights.

Vice President Kamala Harris was due to speak at a “rally for reproductive freedom” in Washington, D.C., on Tuesday evening.

(Reporting by Gram Slattery; Editing by Ross Colvin and Howard Goller)

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By Steve Holland, Jarrett Renshaw and Heather Timmons

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -President Joe Biden launched his re-election bid on Tuesday with a promise to protect American liberties from “extremists” linked to former President Donald Trump, who he beat in 2020 and might face again in 2024.

Biden made his announcement in a video released by his new campaign team that opens with imagery from the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol by Trump’s supporters.

“When I ran for president four years ago, I said we’re in a battle for the soul of America, and we still are,” Biden said. “This is not a time to be complacent. That’s why I’m running for re-election.”

“Let’s finish this job. I know we can,” he said.

He described Republican platforms as threats to American freedoms, vowed to fight efforts to limit women’s healthcare, cut Social Security and ban books, and blasted “MAGA extremists.”

MAGA is the acronym for the “Make America Great Again” slogan of Trump, who is the early frontrunner in the Republican primary race. If he wins, he will face off against Biden again in the November 2024 election.

Biden, 80, must overcome Americans’ concerns about his age in order to win re-election, with 44% of Democrats saying he is too old to run, a Reuters/Ipsos poll completed on Monday found.

Trump, 76, also faces concerns about his age with 35% of Republicans saying he is too old.

The poll showed that a majority of registered voters don’t want either Biden or Trump to run again.

While Biden’s approval rating is relatively low, his aides are confident he can beat Trump again. The Reuters/Ipsos poll showed him with a lead of 43% to 38% over his Republican rival among registered voters.

In his campaign video, Biden squarely targeted Trump and his allies.

“Around the country, MAGA extremists are lining up to take on those bedrock freedoms, cutting Social Security that you paid for your entire life, while cutting taxes for the very wealthy, dictating what healthcare decisions women can make, banning books, and tell people who they can love, all while making it more difficult for you to be able to vote,” Biden said.

In the two years since he took over from Trump, Biden won Congress’ approval for billions of dollars in federal funds to tackle the COVID-19 pandemic and for new infrastructure, and oversaw the lowest levels of unemployment since 1969, although a 40-year inflation highs have marred his economic record.

Speaking to a meeting of North America’s Building Trades Unions on Tuesday, Biden said his economic plan was working but there is “more to do.” Biden listed his policy achievements and the crowd chanted “four more years!”

Biden’s age makes his re-election bid a historic and risky gamble for the Democratic Party, especially if he faces a much younger Republican candidate.

Democrats already face a tough election map to hold the Senate in 2024 and is the minority in the House of Representatives now.

Biden would be 86 by the end of a prospective second term, almost a decade higher than the average U.S. male’s life expectancy.

Doctors declared Biden, who does not drink alcohol and exercises five times a week, “fit for duty” after an examination in February. The White House says his record shows that he is mentally sharp enough for the rigors of the job.

Biden will be joined in his 2024 quest by his running mate, Vice President Kamala Harris, who is featured prominently in his campaign video.

TRUMP MATCHUP AGAIN?

In a statement about Biden’s candidacy, Trump criticized the president over his record on immigration, inflation, and the chaotic U.S. pullout from Afghanistan in 2021.

“American families are being decimated by the worst inflation in half a century. Banks are failing,” Trump said on his social media platform. “We have surrendered our energy independence, just like we surrendered in Afghanistan,” he said.

Marking a sharp contrast to Biden’s campaign announcement, Trump is on trial in a civil lawsuit this week over writer E. Jean Carroll’s accusation that he raped her in a department store dressing room in the mid-1990s.

The former president, who is not required to attend the trial, has denied raping Carroll.

Biden, running as an incumbent, is unlikely to face much competition from inside his party.

No senior Democrats have shown signs of challenging him and he has compiled a board of rising-star Democrats to advise his campaign, including governors J.B. Pritzker of Illinois and Josh Shapiro of Pennsylvania.

Potential and declared Republican presidential candidates have begun framing the 2024 election around cutting back government spending amid still-high inflation, restricting abortion, crime in Democratic-run cities and illegal immigration.

The two leading Republican contenders, Trump and Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, want to limit the access of transgender children to sports teams and gender-affirming medical care, and restrict how schools teach LGBTQ+ issues and America’s history of slavery and racial disparities.

NOT A 2020 RECAP

Biden ran a mostly virtual campaign to defeat Trump in the 2020 election as COVID raged, saying he sought to unify the country, rebuild the economy, and better control the virus.

With pandemic restrictions mostly over in the United States, the 2024 race is likely to be a much different, more physical affair.

After losing by 7 million votes to Biden in 2020, Trump refused to concede defeat, falsely claiming that there had been widespread electoral fraud.

His supporters stormed the U.S. Capitol building in Washington on Jan. 6, 2021, in support of his claims but they failed to halt certification by Congress of Biden’s win.

Biden’s campaign video suggests he plans to regularly remind voters of those events between now and the next election.

Other Biden themes may include strong U.S. support for Ukraine in its war against Russia and what the White House says are Republican plans to unravel federal healthcare.

(Reporting by Steve Holland and Jarrett Renshaw; additional reporting by Jeff Mason, Trevor Hunnicutt and Andrea Shalal; Editing by Alistair Bell and Chizu Nomiyama)

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By David Morgan and Katharine Jackson

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -A top Republican in the U.S. House of Representatives predicted on Tuesday his party will muster the votes needed to adopt a plan to slash spending and raise the government’s $31.4 trillion debt ceiling, despite signs of growing opposition within Republican ranks.

“This will pass. I’m telling you right now, it will pass the House floor,” Representative Tom Emmer, the No. 3 House Republican, told Reuters in an interview.

House Speaker Kevin McCarthy can afford to lose support from no more than four of his 222 Republican members, if he is to pass the bill, which would raise the borrowing limit by $1.5 trillion.

But at least that many appeared to be withholding support as lawmakers returned to Washington on Tuesday. Republican leaders say the legislation is not open to changes.

The proposal has little chance of passing the Democratic-controlled Senate, and the White House said Tuesday that President Joe Biden would veto it if it reached his desk.

Biden said Congress must raise the debt ceiling without conditions, as it did three times under Republican President Donald Trump, to avoid default.

“A default would be totally irresponsible,” Biden told a union gathering in Washington. “We’re not a deadbeat nation.”

Republicans hope a show of unity can force Biden to negotiate after a months-long standoff.

“For Republicans, this is literally a choice between getting this done and giving the ball to Kevin McCarthy, or if you don’t want to get it done, then you’re giving a blank check to Joe Biden,” Emmer said.

The House Rules Committee, a gatekeeper on legislation, will take up the bill on Tuesday afternoon. That could be followed by a House floor vote as early as Wednesday.

Washington and Wall Street are focused on the coming “X-date,” possibly just weeks away, when the U.S. Treasury would no longer be able to pay all its bills, triggering a default that would shake the global economy.

It could be difficult for Congress to raise the debt ceiling before then if House Republicans are unable to unite behind a proposal, analysts say.

“That’s the scenario that introduces the greatest amount of risk into the equation,” said Rohit Kumar, co-leader of PwC’s national tax office in Washington.

The last prolonged standoff over the debt limit, in 2011, led to a downgrade of the U.S. credit rating, which shook financial markets and raised borrowing costs.

Debt markets are already flashing warning signs as investors grow wary. Investors expect the Treasury Department to offer a new “X-date” forecast in the coming weeks.

HOW MANY ‘NO’ VOTES?

Manhattan Institute senior fellow Brian Riedl gives House Republicans a 50-50 chance of passing the legislation this week.

“The vast majority of Republicans are on board,” Riedl said. “But you have both moderate and conservative lawmakers trying to push it in competing directions.”

Some Republicans say it does not do enough to cut the deficit.

“At this moment, I’m a no,” Representative Nancy Mace told Reuters.

Others are pushing for tougher work requirements for social programs, or worry that proposed cuts to renewable-energy tax credits would hurt their home states.

(Reporting by David Morgan and Katharine Jackson; additional reporting by Steve Holland and Kanishka Singh; Editing by Scott Malone, Andy Sullivan, David Gregorio and Deepa Babington)

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By Joseph Ax

(Reuters) – Georgia prosecutors will reveal this summer whether former President Donald Trump will be charged with crimes related to interfering with the 2020 election, the Atlanta district attorney said on Monday, according to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.

Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis in letters sent to local law enforcement agencies said she would disclose charging decisions sometime during the Fulton County Superior Court’s summer term, which begins on July 11 and concludes on Sept. 1, the newspaper reported.

The letters, which the paper reported were sent to the Atlanta police chief, the county sheriff and the county emergency management director, were intended to give law enforcement enough time to prepare for possible violence. Willis warned that the announcement would likely “provoke a significant public reaction,” according to a copy of the letter posted online by the newspaper.

A spokesperson for Willis did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Willis told a court in January that charging decisions were “imminent,” shortly after a special grand jury finished a months-long investigation into whether Trump and his associates illegally attempted to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election, won by Joe Biden.

The special grand jury’s report, which includes recommendations on possible charges, has remained largely under seal pursuant to a judge’s order. The special grand jury was not empowered to issue indictments.

Trump’s lawyers filed a motion in March seeking to block prosecutors from using the grand jury’s findings. Willis’ office has been ordered to respond by next week.

Willis’ probe began soon after a recorded January 2021 phone call in which Trump asked Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, the state’s top election official, to “find” the votes to reverse Biden’s victory.

Trump, who is seeking the 2024 Republican presidential nomination, has denied wrongdoing and accused Willis, an elected Democrat, of targeting him for political gain.

Trump became the first former U.S. president to face criminal charges when New York prosecutors indicted him on March 30 for falsifying business records related to hush money payments made to a porn star who claimed to have had an affair with him.

He also faces other investigations, including a pair of U.S. Justice Department probes into his handling of classified materials after leaving the White House as well as his efforts to alter the 2020 election results.

(Reporting by Joseph Ax in Princeton, New Jersey; Editing by Matthew Lewis)

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(Reuters) – North Dakota Governor Doug Burgum on Monday signed into law a bill that would ban most abortions, creating an exception for rape and incest victims but only during the first six weeks of pregnancy.

The law, which makes it a felony for a doctor to perform an abortion, provides other exceptions including to save the life of the mother or in cases where her health is at serious risk. But rape and incest victims would have to carry their pregnancies to term unless “the probable gestational age of the unborn child is six weeks or less,” Senate Bill 2150 says.

The bill cleared both houses of the North Dakota legislature with veto-proof majorities and is the latest to pass in a Republican-led state since the U.S. Supreme Court last year overturned the federal right to an abortion, enabling states to impose restrictions.

At least 13 states have enacted abortion bans while North Dakota joins a number of other states to ban abortion after a certain period of gestation, ranging from six to 20 weeks.

Still more states have abortion restrictions that have been temporarily blocked by judges until underlying lawsuits are heard, including North Dakota, where the state Supreme Court blocked a previous abortion restriction. Meanwhile in many Democratic-led states there are abortion protections in place.

“This bill clarifies and refines existing state law which was triggered into effect by the (U.S. Supreme Court) Dobbs decision and reaffirms North Dakota as a pro-life state,” Burgum said in a statement, according to the Rapid City Journal.

The governor’s representatives did not immediately respond to a request from Reuters for comment.

(Reporting by Daniel Trotta)

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By Nandita Bose

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -President Joe Biden met three Tennessee lawmakers at the White House on Monday after they faced expulsion for participating in gun control protests at their statehouse, calling the decision to remove two of them “shocking” and “undemocratic.”

“You’re standing up for our kids, you’re standing up for our communities,” Biden told state Representatives Justin Pearson, Justin Jones and Gloria Johnson during an Oval Office meeting.

Jones and Pearson – two young Black legislators – were expelled earlier this month but were soon after returned to office by their localities in special votes. Johnson, who is white, narrowly survived an expulsion vote.

The Republicans who control the Tennessee legislature called for their expulsion because they had disrupted House proceedings, saying the three violated decorum rules by protesting on the House floor.

The three lawmakers joined children, parents and others protesting at the state Capitol days after a Nashville school shooting killed three 9-year-old children and three school staff members.

The lawmakers said they discussed with Biden red flag and safe storage laws, an assault weapons ban and strengthening background checks, among other possible gun control measures.

“There’s such incredible interest in getting something done, in action,” Johnson said.

The Tennessee lawmakers did not say what specific actions, if any, Biden discussed taking at the national level.

“We talked about how Tennessee can be a model for the nation,” Jones said. “This is not a moment it is a movement.”

White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said last week that Biden appreciated the three state representatives calling for stronger gun restrictions, particularly a ban on so-called assault weapons – an issue the president has continued to push for.

Vice President Kamala Harris also attended the meeting with Biden. Harris traveled to Nashville to meet the three lawmakers earlier this month and echoed their calls for change.

(Reporting by Nandita Bose in Washington; editing by Jonathan Oatis and Bill Berkrot)

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By Jeff Mason

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. President Joe Biden will veto congressional efforts to overturn his policy to waive solar tariffs on four Southeast Asian nations for two years, White House officials told Reuters on Monday.

In June, Biden waived tariffs on solar panels from Cambodia, Malaysia, Thailand and Vietnam in an effort to create a “bridge” while U.S. manufacturing ramped up.

Last week a U.S. House of Representatives committee voted in favor of restoring the tariffs on the solar panels from the four countries, reversing Biden’s suspension. That legislation is expected to come up for a full vote in the House.

The White House argues that Biden’s policy has worked and points to an increase in domestic solar production since Biden came into office.

“This legislation would sabotage U.S. energy security. It would undermine our momentum in creating a massive new domestic industry. It would sideline workers who are fired up to build these projects and operate them across the country,” Ali Zaidi, Biden’s national climate adviser, told Reuters.

“It’s not about slowing things down. It’s about fundamentally undermining our progress towards increased energy security and having the tools we need to attack the climate crisis,” he said.

The United States is on track to increase domestic solar panel manufacturing capacity 8-fold by the end of 2024, another official said.

Biden does not plan to issue an extension on the tariff waivers after the 2-year period has concluded because domestic manufacturing has taken off.

“Given the strong trends in the domestic solar industry, the President does not intend to extend the tariff suspension at the conclusion of the 24-month period in June 2024,” the White House said in a “Statement of Administration Policy” obtained by Reuters before its official release.

“If Congress were to pass this joint resolution, the President would veto it,” it said.

(Reporting by Jeff Mason; Editing by Chizu Nomiyama and Nick Zieminski)

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By Jeff Mason

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – President Joe Biden has selected Julie Chavez Rodriguez, a senior adviser at the White House and deputy campaign manager of his 2020 presidential campaign, to be his campaign manager for the 2024 election, according to a source familiar with the plan.

Rodriguez, who is director of the White House Office of Intergovernmental Affairs, has accepted the role, the source said.

Biden, a Democrat, has said he plans to run for re-election. He could make a formal announcement as early as Tuesday.

The president, 80, is gearing up for what could be a bruising campaign. His team has been eyeing Wilmington, Delaware, where Biden has a home, as the base for the campaign.

Biden had been considering at least three people for the campaign manager role, according to Democratic sources familiar with the deliberations.

The choice of Rodriguez may be a win of sorts for Vice President Kamala Harris, who has struggled to win over the Washington establishment during her tenure; Rodriguez was a senior aide on then-Senator Harris’s 2020 presidential campaign and had worked in her Senate office.

Biden is expected to keep his circle of close advisers at the White House even as he runs for re-election. His former campaign manager Jen O’Malley Dillon is now a White House deputy chief of staff.

(Reporting by Jeff Mason; editing by Diane Craft)

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By Jeff Mason

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -President Joe Biden’s team has picked Julie Chavez Rodriguez, a senior adviser at the White House and deputy campaign manager of his 2020 presidential campaign, to be his campaign manager for the 2024 election, according to a source familiar with the plan.

Rodriguez, who is director of the White House Office of Intergovernmental Affairs, has agreed to take the role, the source said.

The source later added that Biden has yet to make the offer to Rodriguez himself. Rodriguez was Biden’s senior advisers’ top choice for the role after they interviewed nearly a dozen people, the source said.

A second source said Rodriguez has been a major ally within the West Wing for Vice President Kamala Harris, who has struggled to win over the Washington establishment during her tenure. Rodriguez was a senior aide on then-Senator Harris’s 2020 presidential campaign and had worked in her Senate office.

Biden, a Democrat, has said he plans to run for re-election. He could make a formal announcement as early as Tuesday.

The president, 80, is gearing up for what could be a bruising campaign. His team has been eyeing Wilmington, Delaware, where Biden has a home, as the base for the campaign.

Biden is expected to keep his circle of close advisers at the White House even as he runs for re-election, making the campaign manager’s job, based outside of Washington, tricky.

His former campaign manager Jen O’Malley Dillon is now a White House deputy chief of staff, and other longtime senior advisers including Anita Dunn and Steve Ricchetti are expected to stay on at the White House.

(Reporting by Jeff Mason; editing by Diane Craft)

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