All of the news can feel huge and overwhelming, especially if you're busy! My goal here is to try (key word, try) to give an "elevator speech" summary of each news topic, and to provide date citations for them, so you can go look through the site and find the relevant article (this isn't the case for some of the older entries though). To find the article corresponding to the date, search that date in either the main page (for the Topic Briefing), or search the date under the relevant (and usually linked) country header in the World Watch page.
Topic Briefing (+ US + Canada)
Go here for World News Briefing
(Need to start adding date references in the text, sorry!)
This section needs of TLC, sorry!
Strikes Briefing / Far Right Briefing / Voting Rights Briefing / Infrastructure Briefings / COVID-19 Briefing / Climate Change Briefing / Big Tech Briefings / Foreign Policy Briefings
Labor Today: Labor today looks quite optimistic - there is huge excitement for the so-called "Striketober" (ie Labor Notes, (29/10/21)), which has spilled into November, spearheaded by actions at Kaiser Permanente, Kellogg, and John Deere. But critical developments are occurring "behind the scenes" - the more rank-and-file oriented Teamsters United faction won elections in the International Brotherhood of Teamsters (19/11/21), a huge union in the logistics industry. At the corruption-riddled UAW, a referendum just passed which requires allowing open "one-person, one-vote" elections in the future (2/12/21), which is likely to open the way to more rank-and-file organization. Further, as Jacobin notes, the logistics sector, in particular the shipping sector, is booming - and this has set up the notably militant ILWU (the union representing ~15k west coast longshoremen) into a very strong negotiation position, as they effectively hold the entire economy hostage (7/12/21) (see Finanical Times analysis of the logistics crunch (14/10/21)).
Current Big Strikes and Labor News: Two notable strikes still ongoing are at St. Vincent hospital in Worcester, Maryland, the Warrior Met Coal strike in Alabama (with UMWA). Recently, workers with BCTGM at Nabisco struck across the nation, and scoring a winning contract. Shortly afterwards, workers (also with BCTGM) went on (and are on) strike at Kelloggs. Also, a massive IATSE strike (involving up to 60k film workers) is on the horizon, as the strike authorization was approved with around 96%, and 90% of eligible voters voting; likewise, thousands of workers at John Deere (10k+) and Kaiser Permanente Health (24k+) have authorized strikes (this means the union still has to call the strike).
The St. Vincent nurses are striking over short staffing. The response of Tenent (the company that owns the hospital)? Hire scabs and pay millions for strike breakers. With that money, they could have fulfilled the demands of the nurses, leading to healthier outcomes for patients and better living standards for nurses! The coal strikers are upset because a few years ago, the company was tanking. They asked the miners to take a cut to help get the company through hard times, and that they'll pay them back when things look good. Things have been looking good for awhile now, but the company hasn't kept their word. In response, the miners have gone on strike, for about four months now. The miners have now taken the strike/protest to Wall Street, protesting against Black Rock, the big baddie backing up Warrior Met Coal.
Meanwhile, workers with John Deere (organized with the UAW) voted for strike authorization, and now get to actually see details of their contract before voting on it! This seemingly banal detail belies simmering frustration with the UAW, which is plagued with scandal and worker frustration, notable here in that the UAW told workers NOT to go on strike, after a 96% strike authorization vote - they even restrict Facebook commenting for their members. Wow! GoD bLeSs tHe UAW. This past spring, UAW workers at Volvo repeatedly voted down contracts that UAW had proposed, giving skimpy details only days-to-hours before the vote (both Volvo and Deere workers have the same fundamental grievance - a two-tiered system that gives newer workers less benefits (ie pension, healthcare, wages, other benefits) - in neither case has the fundamental issue been strongly addressed thus far). This shifty behavior frustrated the h*ll out of those autoworkers, ending only in a shady election that barely passed a UAW-pushed tentative agreement in the beginning of July. Perhaps the John Deere workers were able to see their contract details as UAW leadership had this recent turmoil in mind. Also, UAW leadership members keep getting locked up on corruption scandals, and they actually have a referendum coming up on the issue of... if members should be able to vote on leadership. Dear God, I hope that gets through - the UAW is extremely depressing right now. The UAW was a proud pillar of the CIO and their rank-and-file-style action back in the 30s and 40s (ie the famous Flint sit down strike), and an ally to the Civil Rights movement under Reuthers. Now... this tragedy.
On a related note, Teamster elections are also coming up, with reformers having a solid shot of winning (the Teamsters passed a similar referendum a few years ago as the UAW is about to have - hence these elections! Prior to that, they were so corrupt, the AFL-CIO kicked them out. It's as if democracy helps stem the tides of ossified corruption!). The main context for the Teamster election is... organizing Amazon! Both factions in the election want to organize Amazon, but differ in their approach to such efforts, and union-organization in general (ie rank-and-file vs bureaucratic).
Voting Rights and Electoral Laws: There are three main prongs that the GOP is taking in their attempts to bias the elections for themselves, the minority party. The first is the standard fare voting suppression bills - screwing with absentee ballots, voter-ID laws, making voter registration difficult, etc. These are despicable, but won't have the most dramatic impact; this isn't to downplay the impact it can have (elections are often won on slim margins) or the injustice. The second kind is gerrymandering, and this is where things get scary. The GOP is capable of gerrymandering districts this year to secure a victory in the House of Representatives, and likely locking in their majority there for multiple election cycles. This is due to their sweeping success in state level elections, Democrat-controlled states being more likely to require non-partisan redistricting (good on its own, but helping the GOP overall), and the gutting of the Voting Rights Act which required largely-southern states to have their redistricting federally verified, to make sure the redistricting didn't happen along racist lines. Now that that is gone, the GOP can go to town with gerrymandering. Given the Democrat's slim majority in the House, a GOP takeover - if nothing is done about gerrymandering - is nearly guaranteed.
The third thing, as the Economist covers (3/7/21), is laws to take certification and oversight powers away from local officials and give it to state legislatures. This is ostensibly on the grounds of securing elections, but the actual intent and effect is the politicization of the election process. A GOP state legislature could deem a Democrat-controlled county as managing the election poorly, and take power away from them. This is the most insidious - and new - of the three. The only bulwark (bar federal legislation) at that point would be the courts to hold back GOP shenanigans, and the Supreme Court has shown itself a friend towards more Republican-leaning electoral politics.
What is to be done? The main threat is gerrymandering. This was challenged in the For the People Act, which was more-or-less killed by centrist Democrat waffling over the filibuster. Whatever it takes, gerrymandering has to be addressed. While the Supreme Court unfortunately ruled in 2019 that it could not strike down gerrymandering, it did say that Congress has the power to address it - there isn't much legally dubious about addressing gerrymandering, even our conservative SCOTUS said so. Further efforts to fight standard voting suppression are critical (and going beyond this, efforts to boost our typically dismal election turnouts are critical), but the main battle for the moment is gerrymandering, as well as efforts to politicize the election processes. Legislation to defeat gerrymandering has to happen before redistricting really gets going in Fall 2021 though, as it may be impossible to roll back redistricting maps if handfuls of congresspeople realize that rolling back gerrymanders will hurt their own electoral prospects.
Most alarming is the milquetoast Democrat that we will "out-organize" them, in spite of the suppression and gerrymandering. Even optimistically speaking, the last time things were gerrymandered for the GOP (2010), it took us eight years - 2018 - to win the House, and that was SOLELY because Trump was such an electrifying figure for the Democratic electorate. This time around, the Democrats have failed to deliver on minimum wage policy, failed to deliver anything for student debt relief, have failed (thus far, although may there will be something in the infrastructure package) to help labor, and perhaps most egregiously, have totally fell asleep at the wheel on the looming eviction crisis. How are you supposed to get millions of people to vote for you when they got evicted on your watch?? The Democrat procastination of "do nothing now, hope progressive's out-organize the GOP later" is going to backfire. The only silver lining is Trump will likely still be a large figure in the 2022 elections, which will aid Democrat organizing efforts, but he isn't the president - that alone won't cut it.
Infrastructure: Context Technically now a nation at peace, we just passed a historically large defense budget, over $30bn extra of what even Biden asked for, around $768bn right now, or $7.68tn, assuming the budget remains roughly the same. This bill was overwhelmingly approved, even though it includes provisions to supply the maniacal Saudi regime with more weapons for their meatgrinder war in Yemen. At the same time, while we face down decrepit infrastructure, people unable to find child care, a creaking grid, and an immanent climate catastrophe, with no immanent threats to mainland security, Republicans are balking at even the $1.75tn Build Back Better deal, and conservative Democrats are scratching their heads as well - $3.5tn? "Sorry America, we'd rather bomb other children than invest in ours." On top of that, Manchin has effectively killed the Build Back Better legislation... we'll see if the Dems can figure something out. Here is a quick note, and then a break down of the infrastructure process:
First, while like any good leftist I'm loathe to admit to "compromise", it's part of the beast of electoral politics - the trick is finding a way to compromise best, in a manner which achieves not just policy goals, but other goals as well - showing you can govern, giving snapshots of your governing style, etc. Yes, it sucks, yes, we spend too much on the military, yes, we NEED more investment elsewhere, etc etc - but we have to think a bit more strategically here, and do the best we can within our constraints. TAP editor David Dayen has a nice piece in NYT (26/10/21), echoed in Salon on (20/12/21), in which he argues that in the context of a limited BBB budget of ~$1.7tn, it would be smarter to cut many of the now-weak and byzantine programs (albeit noble ones - I'd deign to call this "the Obamacare paradox" - a well-intentioned program which becomes a bureaucratic nightmare), and focus on making a few programs VERY GOOD. This way Americans can see what Biden ostensibly believes - that government can work well. This is a necessary message to deliver, so BBB is not just about actual policy substance, it's about making a point, and making it well, so the Democrats can secure future mandates for similar pursuits. See cluster of articles (starting at the Salon article) in main page for 21 December 2021. However, cynical progressives would counter-argue that they'll keep moving the goal-post, and the current legislation is already an ultra-compromise. Hard to say, but that's where the debate is at on the progressive wing of things (for centrists, the debate is "poor people suck! Don't trust em"). Okay, now to the (messy) summary:
Infrastructure legislation is being passed in a Frankenstein manner. Basically, there are two infrastructure bills - the reconciliation bill (around $3.5 trillion right now) and the bipartisan bill (around $1.2 trillion total, but with $500 billion in new spending); the latter includes upkeep for basic infrastructure that has gone very bad, as well as investment in items such as rail and internet fiber. To get enough GOP members on board, the infrastructure bill has no feasible pay-fors. Nope, the GOP didn't even want to fund the IRS enough to enforce tax laws that are on the books! The likely go to? Private-public partnerships, which tend to uhhh, be terrible. Privatized water supply, anyone? This is a huge reason why progressives are challenging the passage of the bipartisan bill without the reconciliation.
In the reconciliation bill outlined by the Senate (this is the $3.5tn one), there is around $726 billion for investments in childcare, education, and basic healthcare, $107 billion for immigration and border security, $135 billion towards agriculture, climate research, child nutrition, a Civilian Climate Corps, environment (those wildifres!), $332 billion for projects related to housing, $198 billion towards domestic clean energy infrastructure, $67 for other climate initiatives, $37 billion for security issues such as cyber-security, $20 billion for Native American issues, $25 for small business help, and $18 billion for veterans.
Al Jazeera (5/11/21): What’s in Biden’s $1.75 trillion ‘Build Back Better’ package? - The legislation proposes sweeping changes for US housing, climate, healthcare, tax, education and other policies.
COVID-19: The main issue we face with COVID-19 is that because the vast vast majority of the world population is not vaccinated, then the virus will continue to spread, and as it spreads it will evolve. New variants of COVID-19 will emerge, with different qualities, and it is certainly possible that our current vaccines will not hold up against future variants. The Western capitalist response is to create booster shots for these new variants, which will protect us - the problem with this is it takes away production capacity for normal vaccines which the rest of the world needs, and so long as the rest of the world is not vaccinated, we will continue having the same problem - new variants emerging and spreading. Wait... do we need limited production capacity? Is there a way around that? Is there a way to decentralize production capacity?
One main issue here is that vaccine intellectual property (IP) is not opened up - even as massive government spending is what made these vaccines possible, and the total lack of risk in this enterprise (since governments were guaranteed to buy vaccines, and as most of the funding was provided by the government). What this would mean is that this vaccine manufacturing technology could be deployed abroad - this may take several months or even up to a year, but given that the timeline for global vaccination is a few YEARS, this would still be a great human investment, even with just COVID-19 in mind. Furthermore, this production capacity would provide a robust bulwark in the future. mRNA vaccines are amazing technology which allow us to quickly develop highly effective vaccines. In future pandemics, we can use a similar process to whip an effective vaccine out, and mass produce it at production facilities around the world, allowing for rapid global vaccination, putting an end to a pandemic before it evolves into something else, resulting in our current cat-and-mouse chase. This seems especially wise given that one of the main issues right now is production - we don't have enough plants to keep up with demand. It would take time to set up, but it would be worth it. This however would require a dramatic review of how we manage IP, and the moneyed interests aren't a fan.
Climate Change: Climate change is the most pressing and immanent crisis for humanity. (Entry from the "reckoning with global news" section of world news). As the climate changes, lands will dry up where there used to be rain, rain will pour where it used to not (or it will pour at the wrong time or wrong pattern), and storms and fires will wreak havoc. This is going to displace millions of people - at best. At worst, it collapse entire regional climates. For example, if the Gulf Stream collapses, this will dramatically cool Europe. For a ball park idea, Rome is known for its temperate "mediterranean" weather, whereas New York City is known for, well, getting a lot of snow. But NYC is actually a little SOUTH of Rome (in terms of latitude). A Gulf Stream collapse could bring an end to entire ways of... society? This is kind of catastrophic to think about the known unknowns (and wonder at the unknown unknowns) we are facing with climate change. If climate change is a "medium to worst case" scenario, regions like the US and Europe will face waves of displaced refugees (because they face drought and war... driven by these three factors), while their familiar climates, and thus food supply chains, begin to collapse and buckle. That is a truly nightmare scenario, and one that will play directly into the hands of xenophobic fascist autocrats.
Climate change is an unfathomably horrifying issue we face right now. Perhaps nuclear war is the only thing more terrifying in prospects. As basic resources like food and water dwindle, this problem will only get worse. And it is already impacting us now - it is a big reason driving the refugee (and terrorist) crisis in the Sahel (with migrants pushing to Europe), for example. We have a chance right now to blunt the impact of climate change, we need to do so.
WSJ reports that recent research shows glaciers melting extra-fast in the Himalayas, with potentially devastating consequences on agriculture in South Asia, a region with an enormous population (20/12/21). Meanwhile, Financial Times reports that California hit by torrential rainstorms after droughts and wildfires. Still, at least 28% of the state remains in a state of 'exceptional drought', and parts of the state have been in drought for all but 10 weeks of the year.
Big Tech News: This one is quite behind, but the big things to be aware of are the Facebook (now renamed Meta as of (29/10/21), amidst scandal) leaks, showing it knew the harm it was doing but didn't stop - big profits (3/10/21)! This amidst $9bn in profits in the 3 months up to the scandal (26/10/21). These leaks indicate internal research knew Facebook was incapable of regulating non-English language users (26/10/21), and missed weeks of warning signs about the Jan 6 attack (23/10/21), fuelling violence and hate on extremist pages (such as Muslim hate pages in India, or QAnon pages) (25/10/21). Its AI has had only minimal success in stopping this (18/10/21). In response, Facebook has cracked down on some advertising methods based on identity (10/11/21), and shutting down the facial recognition program (although not getting rid of the actual program) (3/11/21). The crux of all of this is hateful, angry, misinformed content is highly profitable for Facebook - hence ignoring all of the data about how bad it is (4/10/21, 30/8/21). This comes as Meta is buying up the metaverse (11/11/21).
Other Facebook/Meta news: Facebook maintains a secret blacklist of organizations (1/12/21), which disproportionately represents US foreign policy interestss (12/10/21). For Pegasus Leak, see briefing. The 9th US Circuit Court ruled that Facebook (now Meta) can sue NSO (behind the Pegasus software) for violations of their messaging app, WhatsApp. Apple is also suing (24/11/21). Besides this though, there are other cracks in WhatsApp's encryption (7/9/21, 8/9/21). Facebook has found a way to bypass the EU's GDPR privacy rules (14/10/21). It was reported on (11/10/21) that Facebook was permitting misinformation advertisement about the election. All of this amidst the background of a US government antitrust fight (19/8/21, 25/7/21, 18/7/21, 14/7/21, 28/6/21) and outrageously shutting down a misinformation study (5/8/21). They preferentially treat their highest profile users differently (22/10/21, 13/9/21). They're hiring former DOJ officials to strengthen their antitrust-defense team (31/3/21). Speaking of this, Google is sending anti-trust propaganda to small-business owners (9/11/21). Facebook sent flawed information to researchers (10/9/21). Allegations of quid-pro-quo between Zuckerburg and the FTC, with the former paying the latter around $5bn (23/9/21). All of this while big-tech is gobbling up smaller companies (20/9/21). Several states sued Google for their app store monopoly (7/7/21).
Congress is trying to pass legislation to regulate algorithms at Big Tech companies (9/11/21), which the EFF warns misses the point and will fail (11/11/21, 13/12/21). However, algorithm and content do work - Google taking down misinformation videos on December 8 from Youtube lead to a decline in misinfo on Facebook and Twitter (15/10/21). Speaking of Twitter, they've shut down a bunch of accounts which they say are phony accounts linked to the Chinese government trying to spread disinfo (ie about the Uighyr concentration camp situation) (3/12/21). Facebook is doing the same, except the issue is about US-China tensions over COVID (2/12/21). The LAPD is doing something similar, setting up fake accounts for surveillance, according to Facebook (19/11/21). Twitter finds that their algorithm biases towards rightwing voices (22/10/21).
Workers at Google and Amazon are asking the company to pull out of a tech deal with the Israeli military (12/10/21), part of a trend of big tech oppression against Palestinians (such as PayPal denying service to them (25/5/21, 12/10/21)). See Facebook suppressing content from a Palestinian perspective during the Hamas-Israel conflict this past Spring (8/10/21), content about protests in Colombia (1/6/21), dissidents in Turkey (24/2/21), and blacking out Australia in retaliation to regulatory efforts there (18/2/21); see Google/Youtube censoring Uighyr activists against Chinese oppression (26/6/21). The Rohyngya (people who the Myanmar military genocidally targeted, especially using Facebook) are suing Facebook for £150bn (6/12/21). Facebook is in particular hot water, as a whistle-blower has exposed two major things: (1) Facebook knows their services are damaging for youth (and particular teen girl, iirc) psychology due to the strong engagement with "perfect life content" (so to speak) (14/9/21), and (2) that Facebook promotes and looks-the-other-way on extremist content (such as in the United States (11/10/21, 8/10/21) or in nations like India, with the far-right RSS (9/10/21)); in nations like Myanmar (18/2/21), this has been like gasoline on the fire of violence (7/10/21). It does both of these because these because engagement is where the money is at (in terms of ads, as well as data to sell). The same week, Facebook (and its properties WhatsApp and Instagram) suffered two outages (5/10/21), exposing the fragility of a system dependent on one server owner (Facebook, Inc).
<And meanwhile reporting is coming out that shows Google's geofencing hand-overs to the police aren't the only thing to worry about - we also have to worry about search-based hand-overs (4/10/21)! Google is also challenging a multi-billion dollar fine in the European Union over charges they are abusing their dominant market position with respect to smartphone manufacturers. Youtube, a Google property, collaborated with Putin to block opposition content during the Russian election - and then they have the gall to say Free Speech is a 'core value' (27/9/21).
PayPal shuts down service for a big Tor supporter (2/6/21).
Apple has been tightening the screws on Epic, the latter who had sued Apple over App Store monopoly, and "won the battle and lost the war". Now Apple is trying to overturn even that small victory (23/9/21) (the court ruling (the "won the battle") allows app developers to, say, email their customers about alternative payment methods which Apple can't get a 30% cut of). The European Union is going to require all phones use USB-C - this really only impacts Apple at this point, who is still using the damn lightning port... (23/9/21)! Apple still remains a staunch foe of right to repair (21/9/21)... although . The AirTags are under fire for privacy issues still (15/12/21), and are making quiet reversals on their privacy promises (8/12/21), and hatched a $275bn deal with the Chinese govt to be able to keep doing business there (7/12/21). Apple also got in hot water over plans for surveilling content for CP content, but using a method which opens the door for any surveillance (3/9/21, 5/8/21).
Microsoft (of all people!) seems to possibly be opening up to right-to-repair, under pressure from their investors (7/10/21, 25/6/21). Microsoft's Azure (cloud service) has a password brute-forcing flaw which has no fix. In fact, Microsoft says its supposed to be like that (28/9/21)! Brilliant.
Twitch (an Amazon service) recently suffered a hack - now their source code has been exposed, and the income of Twitch streamers as well. Analysts are warning this could lead to cyber-security issues, as all the hackers in the world can go looking for vulnerabilities, and stand up against only whatever team Amazon puts on it. The obvious solution is to open-source Twitch (so the bugs can be worked out publically, rather than discovered after-the-fact of a zero-day hit), but then this would undermine the whole closed proprietary nonsense of capitalist Amazon! Screw your cybersecurity! Meanwhile AWS, which dominates internet server space, has suffered several failures (15/12/21, 7/12/21). A Google glitch does something similar (16/11/21). Amazon is amidst an interal organization about their byzantine and anti-worker labor system (25/10/21)... we'll see how that goes. Amazon is also being investigated for rigging search results in their favor (19/10/21, 13/10/21). Amazon in a legal fight with Starlink over satellite plans (1/9/21). The company threatens to become gargantuan over time (6/8/21). For example, it has an unseen but near total control of resources related to video streaming (9/7/21). This analysis follows their purchase of MGM (28/5/21). There is a strong revolving door between the govt and Amazon (ie 14/5/21) and Big Tech at large (8/7/21, 22/3/21), as well as US paying Amazon billions for space flight (25/5/21).
Both Apple and Microsoft earlier waged wars on right-to-repair laws (20/5/21), and have now both opened up to them. I feel like this is a strategy to mitigate regulatory powering, "giving an inch to avoid giving a mile", so to speak.
Telegram becoming a cesspool of anti-semitic content (13/10/21); they (along with others, such as Apple) have helped Putin suppress opposition voices (see briefing).
In terms of general surveillance, The European Union is leading the way, but approving a ban on facial recognition surveillance (6/10/21).
The Pentagon is asking a suite of Silicon Valley giants for a cloud service, including Amazon, Google, Microsoft, and Oracle (19/11/21) following cancellation of the controversial JEDI contract with Microsoft Azure (made under Trump, which was seen as chosen due to Trump's personal hatred of Bezos) (6/7/21); CISA is likewise partnering with these familiar faces (5/8/21). The NSA awarded a $10bn cloud contract to Amazon's AWS (12/8/21). These similar faces are also undermining California healthcare (7/5/21). Microsoft got a $22bn contract from the Pentagon for augmented reality headsets (1/4/21).
Netflix makes a purchase Roald Dahl catalog (22/9/21).
Google is underpaying swathes of its workers (15/9/21, 10/9/21). Google is facing antitrust cases abroad, such as in Turkey (18/9/21).
Spotify tracking reviewed on (7/8/21). Review of general urban surveillance on (24/6/21).
Foreign Policy: Nord Stream 2 (Germany, Russia, Europe), Haiti, Mexico, Cuba; Chna, AUKUS (Australia, UK, France, Europe), Asia, Saudi Arabia, Taiwan, India; Russia, Ukraine; Iraq, Syria, Egypt; Saudi Arabia
Our foreign policy right now is largely cleaning up the mess that Trump left, and also stumbling like an adled 78 year old man - although this notably comes as it appears Biden is winding down the drone campaign of Obama and Trump (16/12/21). We pulled out of Afghanistan (which was necessary), but seem to have bungled the operation, and killed an innocent humanitarian worker in retaliation against ISIS. Ughhh. Then we said "okay" to Nord Stream 2, a natural gas pipeline that Germany wants bad (and so does Russia). Europe is facing an energy crunch right now, and so that is supposed to make burning more fossil fuel sound... good? Wait didn't Germany have nuke plants? Oh yes, they are doing a green transition by transitioning from clean energy to fossil fuels, I forgot! Then Biden is treating immigrants like absolute shit, sending thousands of Haitians back to their country, which is swimming in absolute turmoil right now (yet for some reasons lunatics on the right are saying the Biden Admin has... an open border policy??? Is that just because he treats refugees ever-so slightly more human than Trump? "Open border policy" means not talking about refugees like they're dogs - just treating them like it!). To force Mexico to cooperate with this draconian nightmare for refugees, Biden has used COVID vaccines as leverage. Ughhh. Speaking of vaccines, Biden was a supporter of a vaccine IP waiver, but as soon as the going got tough (Merkel opposing it), he seemed to stop caring. So all words, no action, thanks! Then, rather than reverse Trump's reversal of Obama's opening up to Cuba, Biden is sticking with it! Wtf.
With respect to China, he has more-or-less continued Trump's trade war, although he has shown some small sign of detente, given the prisoner swap of Huawei's CFO for some Canadians (one who made a business off of... North Korea tourism. How do they find these people???) At the same time, Biden announced a deal with Australia and the United Kingdom, which will allow Australia nuclear submarines! This pissed off France, who wasn't told about the deal, and it resulted in their own submarine deal being canceled with Australia. This in turn has made the European Union a bit more suspicious of the United States. Wow, nice job! Through all of this, Biden does seem to have a more effective focus on the Far East. For example, PATRIOT missile defense systems were recently removed from Saudi Arabia, reportedly so they could be re-positioned in the Far East region. Given the whole Taiwan situation (with China flying planes into their airspace repeatedly), we'll see how Biden handles this through the term. For now, we keep sending boats through the Taiwanese straits I guess. The Biden administration is sustaining ties with the far-right Modi govt of India, even sending diplomats to meet with the fascist organization RSS. Great! Anything to "stop China", huh?
With respect to Russia, it's hard to tell. Biden applied some additional sanctions on Russian officials earlier in the year, which is great. He also seemed to have wagged his finger at Putin over the cyber-attack problem. That doesn't seem to have totally abated, although I haven't read any analysis on this issue as of yet. As mentioned, Biden supported Nord Stream 2, to the chagrin of Ukraine, who we consider an ally (and in the midst of a civil war with Russia-backed separatists), although joint exercises have been held this past spring.
Otherwise, it seems like business as usual. Troops are stationed in conflict zones still (although we aren't officially at war! It doesn't count if you don't call it "war"), including 2,500 soldiers in Iraq. We also keep drone bombing places like Syria and Somalia, and our special forces were in mid-training session when Guinea special forces couped the government there. Great! Also, he keeps sending hundreds of millions of dollars of aid to the Egyptian military, in spite of the ruling generals there constantly violating civil rights - even locking up Americans! Fuck American citizens, we have dictators to lavish funds with!
On Saudi Arabia, an interesting situation - Biden walks a tight rope, as he aims to fulfill campaign promises to make MBS (the leader of Saudi Arabia) a "pariah", yet not stoke MBS' wrath. Saudi Arabia is currently holding back oil supply (11/11/21), which is increasing global fuel prices, which in turn impacts inflation. The reason they are doing so is because Biden is trying to ostracize them for their war crimes in Yemen (for example, pulling out missile defense systems, three paragraphs prior). To try and attempt to placate MBS (and, he hopes, reduce fuel costs and thus inflation to an extent), Biden is trying to get through arms sales to Saudi Arabia for "defensive weapons". Progressive congresswoman Ilhan Omar has rightfully pushed back against this, and is trying to pass a legislation to block this effort. All of this suggests to me we need to pursue a reneweable energy economy (and I argue should be supplemented with nuclear energy for now) - renewable energy costs are not subject to market whims nor dictator's fancies. Pretty nice! Only thing to worry about is regional weather variability, but especially with a nuclear buttress, this need not be an immediate critical problem.
