Last week President Biden traveled to South Korea and Japan to meet with allies and discuss strategy to deal with China. The centerpiece of the visit was a mini regional summit in Japan when the President was joined by the leaders of India and Australia. The Australians had just conducted an election and the new Prime Minister, Anthony Albanese, was quickly sworn in so that he could attend the meeting.
The leaders all agreed to try and re-establish a more formal trading partnership that slipped away when President Trump rejected the Transpacific Partnership (TPP) that had been negotiated during the Obama Administration. In these trade talks it may be hard to separate optics from policy, but the talks will be an important foreign policy and trade issue to follow in coming months.
The President also made a diplomatic gaffe, something that is not uncommon for President Biden, when he bluntly answered a reporter’s question on US/Taiwan relations stating that the US would fight to defend Taiwan if there was a Chinese invasion. In the past there had been a policy of ambiguity, and Administration officials had to do some quick cleanup that our policy of vagueness had not changed. The US/China relations remain one of the key global issues for the Administration and China’s carefully crafted statement on the war in Ukraine has added a new level of tension to the relationship.
Midterms
Georgia’s primary elections this past week showed both the central role former President Trump plays in the party, and a growing willingness to vote against the stated position of the former President.
The well-publicized rejection by Georgia Republican voters in the victories for Governor Brian Kemp and Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger was significant news. The former President had personally recruited challengers to run against both office holders. In Georgia, to claim victory and avoid a run-off, a candidate needs to get over 50% of the vote. Polling had showed that Governor Kemp was running well over 50%, but that the Raffensperger race was close. In the end, Kemp got a huge victory with 73% of the vote, while Raffensperger avoided a run-off, getting 52% of the vote.
While the press focused on these two races President Trump got his handpicked candidate for the US Senate, former football star Herschel Walker, across the goal line to challenge incumbent Senator Raphael Warnock. Walker wouldn’t have been a viable candidate without Trump’s support. He had never been active in politics and in fact he had to move from Texas to Georgia to run. Along with previous victories for candidates such as JC Vance in Ohio, and the strong run by Dr. Oz in Pennsylvania, it showed the power of the President’s endorsement that shouldn’t be overlooked as the primary season continues.
