 | BY GAVIN BADE | | | 
U.S. Trade Representative Katherine Tai testifies during a hearing on the proposed budget for fiscal year 2022 for the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative on Capitol Hill on April 28, 2021. | Sarah Silbiger/Getty Images | WITH FRIENDS LIKE THESE — Washington progressives are circling the wagons to defend one of their own — U.S. Trade Representative Katherine Tai. Tai, Biden’s top trade policy adviser, is among the most ideologically committed progressives in his entire cabinet and a staunch adherent to the administration’s “worker-centered” trade policy, which has aimed to reshape the rules of the global economy to benefit workers and small businesses, instead of large corporations. But Biden’s trade agenda has run aground in recent months, and now many of Tai’s crew are abandoning ship. Discontent with a stalled agenda and Tai’s leadership is contributing to a wave of departures at the trade representative’s office , including the agency’s former chief of staff and two of the three deputy U.S. trade representatives. Tai is “really tough on people,” said one official familiar with the moves, who pointed out that “other agencies aren’t having these kinds of departures.” Few would dispute that there’s unrest at USTR. But Tai’s allies say it stems not from her management style, which they say is no harsher than her predecessors. Instead, they say the critics simply aren’t on board with Tai’s “worker-centered” trade agenda, which hews closer to Donald Trump’s protectionism on subjects like tariffs than the free trade policies of past Democratic presidents. The state of affairs has brought long-standing disputes on trade among Democrats to the fore. “We think it’s bullshit,” one congressional staff member, who used to work with Tai when she was chief trade counsel for the House Ways and Means Committee, offered unprompted on Capitol Hill this week. The complaints, the staffer said, come from people who “can’t get with the program,” and are just a convenient excuse for people who don’t like the policy direction. Tai’s lawmaker allies tend to agree. “It’s pretty hard for [departing staff] to go out and say that their problem is based on policy, and a lot easier to claim that they are leaving for other reasons,” said Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) when the complaints first surfaced. “So I’m not buying it.” Tai’s defenders can’t deny that her agenda is stalled — particularly after the debacle in San Francisco that saw Biden’s team walk away from trade talks under the Indo-Pacific Economic Framework under pressure from Senate Democrats. But there, too, they find others to blame. It was the White House, and not Tai, that ultimately pulled the plug on those talks, her allies have claimed . The problem isn’t Tai, they say, but that she’s had to fight against free traders in her own agency and the West Wing as well. With friends like these… “At least my sense of it is she’s had to engage in arguments with others in the administration,” said Sen. Bob Casey (D-Pa.), a Tai ally who pushed the Biden White House to abandon the Indo-Pacific trade talks. “I don’t know if that has any impact on these issues … I just think I want to make sure that we do everything we can to support what she’s been trying to do.” She’ll need all the support she can get. The trade representative’s office is already down two of its three deputies, and President Biden’s pick to replace one of them — Clinton-era economic hand Nelson Cunningham — is already getting serious pushback from Tai’s progressive allies in the Senate, who worry he’s another fox in Tai’s henhouse. At its core, Biden’s Democratic critics in Congress say all the finger-pointing comes back to a simple, but inconvenient policy truth: that despite championing a “worker-centered” trade agenda, Biden’s team has been unable to match the labor and environmental rules of Trump’s signature trade deal: the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement that replaced NAFTA. While Democrats credit themselves with inserting those progressive provisions in the Trump-signed trade deal, the inability to replicate those policymaking deals under Biden has many of them terrified that Trump will get to their left on trade — just like in 2016. And with little policy progress likely to be made during an election year, there’s little left to do than pass the blame. “We built a new policy” with USMCA, said Senate Finance Chairman Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), who fought to get the labor provisions during congressional negotiations. “It’s like this crowd — and this [Cunningham] fellow — don’t understand that.” Welcome to POLITICO Nightly. Reach out with news, tips and ideas at nightly@politico.com . Or contact tonight’s author at gbade@politico.com or on X (formerly known as Twitter) at @GavinBade .
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| | A message from American Beverage: Not all plastic is the same. America’s beverage companies are carefully designing our plastic bottles to be 100% recyclable, including the caps. This means our bottles can be remade into new bottles, and that can reduce our use of new plastic. Learn more at EveryBottleBack.org. | | | | | — U.S. strikes militant positions in Iraq and Syria in response to deadly drone attack in Jordan: The U.S began conducting airstrikes on Iran-backed positions in Iraq and Syria today , according to four Defense Department officials, the first of what officials expect to be multiple rounds of retaliatory actions following the deaths of three U.S. soldiers in Jordan this week. President Joe Biden ordered the strikes in response to the deadly Iran-backed attack on U.S. forces at Tower 22, a small outpost in northeast Jordan, last Sunday, which the administration attributed to the umbrella group the Islamic Resistance in Iraq. — Fani Willis confirms relationship with fellow Trump prosecutor but denies impropriety: Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis acknowledged entering a personal relationship with a prosecutor who is helping lead her case against Donald Trump but said it had no bearing on her handling of the probe. Rather, she said, efforts by Trump and his co-defendants to disqualify her from the case due to the relationship were a “public relations strategy” meant to hamstring the probe. In a 176-page filing today, Willis disputed claims that her relationship with special prosecutor Nathan Wade posed a conflict of interest, and she denied that she was improperly enriched by the Trump case. Last month, one of Trump’s co-defendants alleged in court documents that Wade has used income he earned from the case to pay for lavish trips with Willis. — Air Force preps for mega overhaul with an eye toward China: The Air Force is putting the final touches on a major structural shakeup that would remake the force as part of the Pentagon’s push to keep up with China’s military buildup. Within the next few weeks, the service will announce it is consolidating some of its major three- and four-star commands, integrating fighter jets and bomber aircraft into single units, and beefing up its budget and planning shop, according to six people familiar with the plans.
IDENTIFY, INVESTIGATE, PROSECUTE, INCARCERATE
KEEP AMERICANS SAFE FROM DOMESTIC TERRORISTS
VIDEO ON LINK — Ryan Samsel, Jan. 6 defendant who instigated breach, convicted of multiple felonies: The Jan. 6 defendant widely seen as the instigator of the violent breach of Capitol grounds was convicted today of multiple felonies for his role in the attack , including the assault of Capitol Police Officer Caroline Edwards, who was briefly knocked unconscious by the force of his charge. Ryan Samsel and four codefendants, who arrived at the thinly guarded barricades surrounding Capitol grounds even before Donald Trump concluded an address to supporters down the street, were each convicted of participating in the “civil disorder” wrought by the mob and of assaulting one of several police officers who guarded that first line.
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The Orange Turd is too DUMB to comprehend the failures of the Federal Reserve and just BLABS!
FED FOE — Former President Donald Trump said today he would not reappoint Jerome Powell as Federal Reserve chair if he returns to the White House next year. In an interview with Fox Business, Trump called Powell “political” and suggested that he might lower interest rates to help Democrats electorally in the fall. “I think he’s going to do something to probably help the Democrats, you know, I think if he lowers interest rates,” Trump told host Maria Bartiromo. MAKE YOUR CASE — The blowout job growth in January adds fuel to President Joe Biden’s pitch to voters that the economy is solidly recovering under his watch, POLITICO reports. But it also probably shuts the door on an interest rate cut by the Federal Reserve next month, which many Wall Street investors and Democrats have been pressing for as inflation eases. The strong job market, coupled with the end of price spikes, counters the campaign message of former President Donald Trump and other Republicans that the economy is weakening, though many economists are still projecting slower growth this year.
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Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu attends the weekly cabinet meeting at the Kirya military base in Tel Aviv, Israel Sunday, Dec. 31, 2023. | Pool Photo by Abir Sultan | NOT OUT OF THE WOODS — There was a sigh of relief among Israel’s government last week, when the judges at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) stopped short of acceding to South Africa’s request to suspend Israel’s military campaign in Gaza. However, the provisional measures the court did issue — instructing Israel to take steps to prevent its troops from committing genocide, punish acts of genocidal incitement and improve the humanitarian situation — still present problems for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu . And it means Israel isn’t out of the ICJ woods just yet, reports POLITICO EU. Already geared to issue combative statements before the ruling, the argument from Israeli officials was that the judges in The Hague are in the pockets of their own countries. “The court can’t be relied on to follow purely the norms of justice,” Alan Baker, an expert in international law and a former Israeli ambassador to Canada, told the media. Meanwhile, Mitchell Barak, a former adviser to late Israeli President Shimon Peres, described the ICJ as a “kangaroo court.” “Who cares? Literally who cares what the ICJ says?” he blasted. And maybe so. Some scholarly studies have, indeed, found cause for concern with the court, arguing that ICJ judges display a pattern of bias. Nonetheless, the public bravado masked an underlying unease. Israel cares about the ICJ very much and was alarmed to be grouped with Russia, which received a court demand to suspend its military campaign against Ukraine in March 2022. And ahead of last week’s interim ruling, senior officials privately conceded to POLITICO EU they feared the court would place Israel in a difficult diplomatic spot.
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353,000 The number of jobs the U.S. economy added in January , significantly beating expectations in another sign of economic strength. The unemployment rate stayed at 3.7%, just above a half-century low, despite the highest interest rates in two decades. |
| | | STRAW MAN — Companies across the globe are starting to promise better, more sustainable housing insulation , made from one of the oldest and most basic sources: straw. The material — used for centuries but largely abandoned across much of the world in recent years — is making a comeback as people look for better ways to heat their homes. This has recently been made easier due to investment in large-scale straw processing facilities. Chris Baraniuk reports on the trend, including costs and future plans, for the BBC.
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On this date in 1943: The Battle of Stalingrad, a major battle in World War II, ends with Russian victory. In this early 1943 photo, captured German soldiers, their uniforms tattered from the battle, make their way in the bitter cold through the ruins of Stalingrad. | AP | Did someone forward this email to you? Sign up here .
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