Joe Biden’s business in-tray: The President-elect’s most pressing issues
President-elect Joe Biden will be entering the White House at a time when the US is facing stark crises on multiple fronts.
The US is seeing a third wave of Covid with almost 240,000 deaths recorded, the economy is in a deep recession and the US’ federal climate policy is in need of reform.
City A.M. takes a look at what will be in the former Vice President’s business in-tray as he enters 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue in January.
A new Covid stimulus package
The US Congress has been unable to agree to a new multi-trillion dollar Covid package to support workers and businesses, with Senate Republicans and Democrats jostling about the details of any new financial relief.
The Democrats have proposed packages in excess of $2 trillion, however many Republican fiscal hawks have baulked at the proposed price tag.
The government unleashed a first stimulus package in April worth $2 trillion.
Biden’s job may not be any easier as he will likely still have to deal with a divided Congress.
The Democrats have retained the House of Representatives, however the Republicans have thus far maintained their majority in the Senate.
However, this could still change as the two Senate races in Georgia will be re-contested in January, after neither candidate in either race got a clear majority.
A Biden Covid plan
The two-headed health and economic crisis that is Covid continues to rage across the US, with a record 132,000 cases recorded on Friday.
The country’s death toll is now up to 238,000.
Biden’s Covid plan includes making testing free and more widely available, expanding contact tracing, making masks mandatory nationwide and accelerating the development of potential treatments and vaccines.
Biden laid the foundations of his new Covid plan in his election speech this morning.
“On Monday, I will name a group of leading scientists and experts as transition advisers to help take the Biden-Harris Covid plan and convert it into an action blueprint that starts on 20 January, 2021,” he said.
“That plan will be built on a bedrock of science.”
Climate change policy
One of Biden’s first orders of business will be to re-enter the Paris Climate Accord, after Donald Trump withdrew the US from the global agreement.
The former Vice President has also vowed to spend hundreds of billions of dollars on large scale infrastructure projects and green energy investment.
However, once again this could be stifled if Congress remains divided.
A divided government would constrain the Biden administration’s ability to implement plans for large-scale fiscal stimulus and public investment, tax, healthcare and climate related legislation. We see an increased focus on sustainability under a divided government, but through regulatory actions, rather than via tax policy or spending on green infrastructure.
BlackRock Investment Institute
The UK’s hosting of the 2021 United Nations Climate Change Conference, known as COP26, could be a way for Boris Johnson to build bridges with the new administration.
Global trade
While Biden will likely end the US’ trade war with China, many pundits still think he will pursue a more protectionist agenda than previous Democrat Presidents and will certainly not kowtow to Xi Jinping.
The President-elect has projected a tough stance on China during the election campaign, saying the US must “pressure, isolate and punish China” for its role in letting Covid spread across the world, its treatment of Uyghur Muslims and for its increasing expansionism in the South China Sea.
Much of Biden’s economic policy platform was built around a “Made in America” push as a part of his successful bid to win back voters in the US’ Rust Belt.
Matthias Matthjis, research fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations think tank, told City A.M. last week: “I don’t think there’s going to be any big trade deals between the US and EU or between the UK and US in the next administration, it’s just not a priority.
“I think his priorities will be overwhelmingly domestic – coronavirus, the economy and race relations.”
US-UK relations under a Biden White House
There has been speculation in recent weeks that Number 10 is nervous about a Biden presidency as Johnson as seen among establishment Democrats a close ally to Trump.
Earlier this year, Biden warned the UK that there would be repercussions if the Belfast Good Friday Agreement was breached in the course of Brexit negotiations.
There may also be tension over comments in 2016 about Barack Obama, with Johnson saying the then President’s removal of a Winston Churchill bust from the Oval Office was a “symbol of the part-Kenyan president’s ancestral dislike of the British empire”.
One Democratic source told the Sunday Times that “there will be no special relationship with Boris Johnson”.
However, it must also be remembered that Biden has been renowned in the Senate for working across party lines and for being pragmatic.
The UK-US relationship is also entrenched through defence and security arrangements that go beyond any individual government.
Senator Chris Coons, a close Biden ally and a potential cabinet appointee, told the BBC today that the UK-US relationship is “significant and enduring” and dismissed claims Biden sees Johnson as “Britain Trump”.
“In my meetings with the Prime Minister he’s struck me as someone more agile, engaging, educated and forward looking than perhaps the caricature of him in the American press would have suggested,” he said.