DM Monitoring
Washington: In his first joint address to the US Congress, President Joe Biden identified white supremacy as a domestic terror threat that America must remain vigilant against.
While discussing his decision to withdraw American troops from war-torn Afghanistan, Biden noted global terror networks have largely moved beyond the country and that white supremacists posed a bigger threat than foreign actors.
“We won’t ignore what our intelligence agencies have determined to be the most lethal terrorist threat to our homeland today: White supremacy is terrorism,” Biden said in the House chamber, which just three months ago was attacked by the supporters of former president Donald Trump in an effort to overthrow the outcome of the 2020 presidential election.
“White supremacy is terrorism, and we’re not going to ignore that either. My fellow Americans, look, we have to come together to heal the soul of this nation, the president said. In remarks, Biden acknowledged the January 6 attempted insurrection at the Capitol, saying it was an existential crisis that tested democracy.
“As we gather here tonight, the images of a violent mob assaulting this Capitol desecrating our democracy remain vivid in all our minds. Lives were put at risk many of your lives. Lives were lost. Extraordinary courage was summoned. The insurrection was an existential crisis a test of whether our democracy could survive. It did,” Biden said. But he underscored that “the struggle is far from over” and that “the question of whether our democracy will long endure is both ancient and urgent.”
Moreover, President Joe Biden took aim at China in his first speech to Congress on Wednesday, pledging to maintain a strong U.S. military presence in the Indo-Pacific and promising to boost technological development and trade. “China and other countries are closing in fast. We have to develop and dominate the products and technologies of the future,” Biden said.
And in a line that drew some of the strongest applause of the evening, he said, “There is simply no reason the blades for wind turbines can’t be built in Pittsburgh instead of Beijing.”
Biden has repeatedly identified competition with China as the greatest foreign policy challenge the country faces. He and his fellow Democrats as well as opposition Republicans have all moved toward a harder line on dealings with Beijing. “America will stand up to unfair trade practices that undercut American workers and American industries, like subsidies to state-owned enterprises and the theft of American technology and intellectual property,” Biden said.
He also said he told Chinese President Xi Jinping that the United States will maintain a strong military presence in the Indo, Pacific “just as we do for NATO in Europe, not to start conflict, but to prevent one.”
