The United States says it gave France only a few hours’ notice of defense deal that Paris called a ‘knife in the back.’ (Published 2021) (2024)

The United States says it gave France only a few hours’ notice of defense deal that Paris called a ‘knife in the back.’

But even as American officials scrambled to respond to the French anger, they dismissed the notion of a serious rift. Jen Psaki, the White House press secretary, told reporters that the United States informed the French before the president’s announcement but did not have an obligation to include the country in their arrangement with Australia and Britain.

“This is not the only global engagement or global cooperative partnership the United States has in the world,” she said. She added that the United States and France will continue to be partners in a number of other ways, noting that “the French are a member of the G-7.”

Still, the lack of consultation — and the last-minute revelation — has infuriated French officials in Washington, who on Thursday angrily canceled a gala at their Washington embassy to protest what they called a rash and sudden policy decision that resembled those of former President Donald J. Trump.

Asked what Mr. Biden thinks about being compared to Mr. Trump, Ms. Psaki shot back: “The president doesn’t think about it much.”

The gala was to commemorate the “240th Anniversary of the Battle of the Capes,” celebrating the French navy’s help in a 1781 battle during America’s fight for independence.

Philippe Étienne, the French ambassador to the United States and the host of the party, said on Thursday that he learned about the deal from news reports, followed by a call from Jake Sullivan, the national security adviser to Mr. Biden.

A senior American official said that the Biden administration had made efforts to inform the French government about the president’s announcement earlier Wednesday morning, but had been unable to schedule the discussions with their French counterparts before the news reports appeared online.

The indignation from Mr. Étienne and Mr. Le Drian reflected the fact that France had its own deal with Australia, concluded in 2016, for conventional, less technologically sophisticated submarines. That $66 billion deal is now defunct, but a harsh legal battle over the contract appears inevitable.

“A knife in the back,” Mr. Le Drian said of the Australian decision, noting that Australia was rejecting a deal for a strategic partnership that involved “a lot of technological transfers and a contract for a 50-year period.”

French officials in Washington accused top American officials of hiding information about the deal despite repeated attempts by French diplomats, who suspected that something was in the works, to learn more.

Mr. Étienne, one of France’s most experienced diplomats, acknowledged in an interview on Thursday that there had been discussions with the Australians over the rising price tag of the submarines that France was supposed to deliver to Australia — which were not nuclear-powered, even though France has its own fleet of nuclear-powered submarines.

In early summer, the French government had declined to sign documents committing to the next phase of the deal — apparently because of the pricing disputes. But Mr. Étienne said the deal was about more than just a defense contract.

“We have assets in this region,” he said of France, noting that it has conducted missions in the Pacific, and strategic plans to increase France’s presence. “We take it very seriously.” He added: “It was not only a commercial contract.” He called it “an essential part of our overall Indo-Pacific strategy.”

Ms. Psaki said French “leadership up and down the ranks will continue to be important partners to the United States,” and she suggested that the work of the two countries to seek security in the Pacific would not be compromised because of tensions around the submarine deal with Australia.

“We cooperate closely with France,” she said. “As the President said yesterday, we have a range of shared priorities in the Indo-Pacific, and that will certainly continue. We don’t see this, from our end, as a regional divide.”

Zolan Kanno-Youngs and David E. Sanger contributed reporting.

Biden speaks with Democratic leaders as key policy deadlines loom.

Mr. Biden and the lawmakers also discussed how to avert a lapse in government funding on Oct. 1 and raising the federal borrowing limit.

Democrats are coalescing around legislation that would continue funding the government and grant emergency funding to support Afghan refugees and disaster recovery efforts. Democrats are considering a stopgap bill that would extend federal funding through Dec. 3, though details remain in flux.

It also remains unclear whether party leaders will attach a provision that would keep the government from defaulting on its debt. But Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the minority leader, has warned that he and most Republicans would oppose raising the limit on the Treasury Department’s borrowing ability.

“Our view is this should be bipartisan as it has been in the past,” Ms. Psaki said.

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Thousands of Afghans on American military bases await resettlement.

Mr. Blinken said there was no deadline for getting people out of the country and that “in the end, we completed one of thebiggest airlifts in history, with 124,000 people evacuated to safety.”

While Afghan evacuees have escaped the Taliban, their lives remain in limbo, with restless children and little to do on the bases across the United States, including Fort McCoy in Wisconsin, where more than 12,700 people were being housed as of last week, and Fort Bliss in Texas, which has received more than 9,700.

“We will be here one month or more,” said Milad Darwesh, who arrived Saturday at Joint Base McGuire-Dix-Lakehurst in New Jersey after traveling for days to reach the United States. There are nearly 8,000 evacuees at the base.

Mr. Darwesh said he and his family narrowly escaped Kabul in a harrowing journey with the Taliban on their heels to the gates of the airport there. They spent four days in Doha, Qatar, along with thousands of other evacuees, with little water for drinking or washing. He and his family were then transported to an airplane hangar at a base in Italy before finally making it to Fort Dix.

“It’s nice here,” said Mr. Darwesh, a former military translator who has been waiting for two years to have his visa processed. “We now have our own room.”

Zainullah Zaki, who is traveling with his family, landed in Qatar on Aug. 18 and traveled on to Germany, where he has been told over and over again that he might be on a flight “in days.”

“Because of measles, all the flights are paused right now,” John Kirby, a Pentagon spokesman, said on Wednesday about those still on military installations overseas. “So nobody is going anywhere. But our goal has been to try and move them as quickly as possible. We know that these men and women and their families want to get on with their lives.”

Seven measles cases were discovered among Afghans at the domestic military bases. Very few evacuees have tested positive for the coronavirus, according to a Sept. 10 internal government update. Afghan nationals settling in the United States are required to have a series of vaccinations, which are being given at military bases in the United States and will soon be administered overseas as well.

Many evacuees have arrived at Dulles International Airport in Virginia, and hospitals in the state have complained to the federal government that they have been overwhelmed by Afghans in need of medical treatment. Health care providers have asked for financial assistance, and Virginia’s two senators, Mark R. Warner and Tim Kaine, both Democrats, sent a letter to Biden administration officials pushing for better coordination.

“Virginia ambulances and hospitals, already occupied with regular patient needs and dealing with the additional stress of Covid, have done superb work to partner with federal agencies managing this processing effort and make sure that emergency health needs of our Afghan partners are met,” Katie Stuntz, a spokeswoman for Mr. Kaine, said. “The health providers deserve reimbursem*nt for this work, and Senator Kaine is working with all stakeholders to make sure that happens.”

Refugee groups have scrambled for weeks to prepare for large numbers of Afghan refugees but so far have seen only a trickle of people ready to be resettled.

“In last few weeks, we served more than 100 people,” said Krish O’Mara Vignarajah, the chief executive of Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service, a resettlement agency that has affiliates in 22 states. “Some are coming with little more than a backpack. We know the importance of an orderly system that processes and prepares these new Afghan arrivals, helping them make informed decisions on where they ultimately want to resettle.”

Ned Price, a State Department spokesman, said on Wednesday that the administration was trying to move the evacuees off military bases “as quickly and efficiently as we can.”

“We would like to see them resettled in communities,” Mr. Price said. “So it is not in our interest, it’s not in their interest for them to reside on a U.S. military base or any other official installation for any longer than is necessary, and I think you’ll see that we’re able to administer these vital steps with a good deal of efficiency.”

U.S. military service members have been supporting Afghans at bases by raising funds and delivering items such as prenatal vitamins, nutritional supplements and clothing. Many nonprofits, including Armed Services YMCA and the Catholic Diocese of El Paso, have also been helping, but the distribution of supplies has been slow because of a dearth of personnel.

Miriam Jordan contributed reporting from Los Angeles, and Michael Crowley from Washington.

A House panel expands its inquiry into climate disinformation by oil giants.

The inquiry — modeled on the tobacco hearings of the 1990s, which paved the way for far tougher nicotine regulations — sets up a showdown between progressive Democrats and an industry that faces increasing scrutiny. A wave of lawsuits filed by cities and states across the country has accused oil and gas companies of engaging in decades-long, multimillion-dollar campaigns to downplay warnings from their own scientists about the effects of burning fossil fuels on the climate.

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An Afghan leader in the fight against the Taliban hires a Washington lobbyist.

Three lobbyists said they heard the Taliban are seeking representation on K Street as they seek international funding and legitimacy. It is unclear how such an arrangement could be structured to comply with sanctions expected to restrict the finances of the Taliban, which the United States considers a terrorist organization.

And a well-financed Afghan group that has been active in Washington, the Afghanistan-U.S. Democratic Peace and Prosperity Council, could become a vehicle for representing members of the country’s since-disbanded parliament who are discussing the possibility of forming a government in exile, according to a person familiar with the conversations.

Mr. Massoud, the 32-year-old son of a legendary mujahedeen commander who led the fight against repeated Soviet offensives in the 1980s, is leading the resistance to the Taliban from the same valley from which his father operated.

But the struggle faces long odds, with resistance fighters surrounded by the Taliban and armed with dwindling supplies and no visible outside support.

A representative for Mr. Massoud said that a primary motivation for his lobbying campaign was to stop any move by the United States and other governments to grant legitimacy to the Taliban — or anyone other than Mr. Massoud — as the rightful leader of Afghanistan.

Biden to host leaders to discuss climate change ahead of a U.N. summit.

Karen Harbert, president and chief executive of the American Gas Association, said in a statement that natural gas utilities in the United States are “all in” when it comes to addressing climate change, but did not comment directly on the methane challenge.

The meeting will be the second this year of the Major Economies Forum, which Mr. Biden revived after former President Donald J. Trump’s withdrawal from the forum and the Paris climate agreement. Mr. Biden rejoined the climate accord when he entered office.

The White House did not release a list of attendees, but the Major Economies Forum traditionally includes a mix of wealthy European nations and major emerging economies. It is not clear if officials from China, the largest emitter of greenhouse gases, will attend on Friday, but the country’s president, Xi Jinping, attended the first summit in April.

The discussions come less than six weeks before talks in Glasgow, where nations that promised in Paris to stave off the worst consequences of climate change will be expected to show what they’ve done and pledge even more ambitious goals.

The Biden administration has promised to cut emissions 50 to 52 percent below 2005 levels by 2030. Getting there though depends on passage of a $3.5 trillion budget bill that includes a policy to substantially cut fossil fuel pollution by the power sector. That legislation is facing an uphill battle in Congress.

China and India have not yet pledged deeper emissions cuts, and the Biden administration has been leaning on both countries to do so.

The United Nations’ top climate science body found this year that the world has already baked in a hotter future and that global warming is likely to rise around 1.5 degrees Celsius within the next two decades. Keeping temperatures below that threshold is critical to avoiding the worst consequences of climate change, and the window to enact strong policies is closing.

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Congress pushes for a path to citizenship for ‘documented Dreamers.’

Under the proposed legislation, at least 200,000 young adults who have lived in the United States for at least 10 years on a valid visa and have graduated from an institution of higher education would be eligible for permanent residence.

Mr. Patel, 25, a Canadian citizen, has lived in the United States for more than 16 years. His parents came to the United States on E-2 visas, a program that allows small business investors to reside in the United States, and opened a grocery store in Southern Illinois.

It was not until he was in high school that Mr. Patel realized that his dependent visa would expire when he turned 21, complicating his future. An E-2 visa is one that can be renewed endlessly, but it does not offer a pathway to citizenship.

“It’s such a little-known thing,” said Mr. Patel. “Most Americans don’t even know that it’s possible for someone, an immigrant child, to be brought here under a legal status but still not have a path to citizenship.”

The America’s Children Act is the first effort to create a path to citizenship for documented Dreamers that has broad bipartisan support in the House and Senate. The Senate bill is co-sponsored by three Democrats who sit on the Judiciary Committee and have jurisdiction over immigration legislation, including the chairman, Senator Dick Durban of Illinois. The Republican Senators Rand Paul of Kentucky and Susan Collins of Maine are also co-sponsors.

Democrats hope to pass broad immigration reform, including for documented Dreamers, through the $3.5 trillion social policy package, but it is unclear whether it will ultimately be included. Because Democrats are seeking to pass the bill through a unilateral maneuver known as budget reconciliation, the Senate parliamentarian, who is the chamber’s top rules enforcer, will ultimately rule on whether including an overhaul of immigration law in the economic package would violate a Senate rule dating back to the mid-1980s.

Representative Deborah Ross, Democrat of North Carolina, who led the effort to introduce stand-alone legislation to protect documented Dreamers and co-sponsored the House bill, said that she thought the case for including immigration reform in the legislation was clear. She cited the tens of billions of dollars in growth that experts have estimated that documented Dreamers alone would add to the economy if allowed to live in the United States.

Mr. Patel, a clinical pharmacist in Illinois, has been able to stay in the United States, first on a student visa and now on an employer-sponsored work visa. But many in his position are not able to find alternative visas and must leave the country. And Mr. Patel still must renew his current visa every three years. The process is challenging because the terms of a nonimmigrant visa require the applicant to demonstrate that they do not intend to settle permanently in the United States.

“In my case and that of many others, it’s almost impossible to do that when you’ve lived in America for basically your whole life,” Mr. Patel said.

He began Improve the Dream to create a supportive community for other families in his position, he said, many of whom were afraid to speak up for fear that they might lose what immigration status they had. The organization grew quickly, and ultimately helped draft the America’s Children Act.

“I have confidence that documented Dreamers won’t be ignored anymore,” Mr. Patel said. “This broad bipartisan support shows that this solution should be included in any efforts at immigration reform.”

A late surge in Latino voters helped Newsom keep his job.

But early precinct analysis suggests the level of support for Mr. Newsom was likely much higher among Latinos. In Orange County, an estimated 83 percent of Latino voters cast their ballots against the recall, while in San Diego County, that number was estimated at 79 percent, according to the Latino Policy and Politics Initiative.

“There’s nothing atypical here,” said Mike Madrid, a Republican consultant who has been critical of both parties’ Latino voter outreach in the past. “This was simple math, especially because it was driven by negative partisanship: You vote against Republicans if you hate Republicans — that is true for white voters and it has been true for us for longer.”

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The Fed will re-examine ethics rules after trades by two officials drew scrutiny.

“This review will assist in identifying ways to further tighten those rules and standards,” the representative added. “The board will make changes, as appropriate, and any changes will be added to the Reserve Bank Code of Conduct.”

The statement came about an hour after Senator Elizabeth Warren, a Massachusetts Democrat, announced that she had sent letters to the Fed’s 12 regional banks urging them to adopt tougher restrictions.

“The controversy over asset trading by high-level Fed personnel highlights why it is necessary to ban ownership and trading of individual stocks by senior officials who are supposed to serve the public interest,” Ms. Warren wrote in the letters.

Amid conflicting science on boosters, Biden’s plan for extra shots is in flux.

But the administration may have to change course again, depending on crucial meetings of expert advisory committees to both the F.D.A., which is responsible for authorizing vaccines, and the C.D.C., which typically has the final word on vaccination policies.

The F.D.A. committee will meet on Friday to discuss and vote on Pfizer-BioNTech’s application to offer boosters to people 16 and older. The C.D.C. panel is expected to meet next week. Agencies are not required to follow the panels’ recommendations, but they generally do so.

Depending on the experts’ response, the F.D.A. could decide to scale back an authorization. According to people familiar with the discussions, even if the agency approves the application as it stands, the C.D.C. might recommend boosters only for populations that are particularly at risk.

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The White House offers a call to Nicki Minaj to discuss vaccine safety.

Asked about the possibility of dialogue between Ms. Minaj and the White House, Jen Psaki, the White House press secretary, told reporters on Thursday that officials had proposed “a very early stage call” that amounted to an “offer to have a conversation” about the safety of the vaccine.

“If we believed that everybody who had skepticism about the vaccine wasn’t someone we should engage with or talk to, we wouldn’t have made the progress we’ve made,” Ms. Psaki said.

Ms. Psaki said she was unsure whether the call would take place.

On Monday, Ms. Minaj asserted that her cousin’s friend in Trinidad and Tobago “became impotent” after receiving the vaccine, a claim that nation’s minister of health, Terrence Deyalsingh, rejected.

“There has been no such reported either side effect or adverse event,” he said in a news conference online. “And what was sad about this is that it wasted our time yesterday, trying to track down, because we take all these claims seriously, whether it’s on social media or mainstream media.”