China s leaders are seething at U.S. efforts to cut off access to technology to make advanced computer chips. They appear to be struggling to figure out how to retaliate without
US Ambassador to Japan Rahm Emanuel said the US is in discussions with Japan, the Netherlands and South Korea over restricting semiconductor exports to China, and it needs all parties to agree on a deal, Bloomberg reported on Monday. That sounds more like another round of pressuring.
Congress is hell-bent on passing a massive expansion of the State Children's Health Insurance Program (S-CHIP). The program was originally designed to help children in low-income working families, but lawmakers would push eligibility for this form of public assistance higher into the upper reaches of the middle-income scale. President Bush, meanwhile, has pledged to hold the line against a massive spending increase that will displace the existing private health coverage for millions of families, add to current and future tax burdens, and transform over time a limited welfare program into the equivalent of another middle-class entitlement.
The US administration appears to be increasingly unhinged in its pressuring campaign to force China into taking sides on the Russia-Ukraine conflict, as US officials have been doubling down on their threat of