Biden's late moves on China, Russia, AI may mostly boost Trump

Washington: With just days to go in his presidency, US President Joe Biden is releasing a flurry of new measures that challenge China's chip-making and shipbuilding and limit Russian oil, while a ceasefire in Gaza is said to be in reach after months of failed talks. The Biden administration is clearing the decks before Republican Donald Trump is inaugurated on Jan. 20, wrapping up probes and issuing new policy. In many cases, analysts and officials say, these moves will benefit the incoming Trump administration, giving it new negotiating tools against China, Russia and others. In less than a week, the Biden White House has sanctioned Russian oil producers and ships, restricted semiconductor chip exports, found Chinese shipbuilding practices unfair, ceded federal land for AI centers and cemented plans to effectively bar Chinese vehicles.

With his last-minute announcements, Biden is "trying to shape how history will remember him," said Robert Rowland, a University of Kansas professor who specializes in presidential rhetoric. In doing so, "he's giving Trump a lot of leverage," he said, adding that Biden may not be helping himself.

If Biden wanted to burnish his legacy, he "should have been doing these things a year ago. It’s too late now," Rowland added. Biden will deliver a farewell speech from the Oval Office Wednesday evening.

The Biden team is teeing up some nearly final measures that Trump could use to fulfill campaign promises that helped Republicans best Democrats in every battleground state in the US election, political strategists said.

The Biden administration's investigation into Chinese shipbuilding, for example, recently concluded that Beijing used financial support, forced technology transfers and intellectual property theft to unfairly disadvantage US shipbuilders, sources told Reuters.

Conducted under Section 301 of the US Trade Act, the probe's findings allow Biden to take credit for holding Beijing accountable, while creating a legal pathway for Trump to make good his promise of raising tariffs on China.

"In many ways, this is a test case for what we need to do domestically in terms of industrial policy to correct for decades of laissez-faire globalization," said one Democratic source following the probe. Republicans would be smart to use the probe to further their own plans, the source added.

PLUSES AND MINUSES

In some cases, Biden officials say they are deliberately advantaging Trump, including the new tough sanctions on Russian oil. But the longer-term impact may be more complicated.

The White House and the Trump transition team declined to comment on how Biden's final moves might boost Trump. On Monday, Biden national security adviser Jake Sullivan said the stepped-up sanctions would give Trump leverage to obtain a better deal for Ukraine in peace negotiations with Russia.

"The new team is setting up for a negotiation, and in a negotiation, you need leverage, and part of that leverage has to come from the kind of economic pressure that makes (Russian President Vladimir) Putin see he's going to continue to pay a significant price economically," he said.

Sullivan told reporters that Trump aides had been briefed on the strategy in advance, but they were not coordinated.

The timing also leaves Trump's administration to deal with any increase in gasoline prices at the pump. In the days since the sanctions were announced, oil prices have risen to four-month highs.

Sullivan told reporters that Biden's team decided that oil prices - which jumped to over $100 per barrel after Russia's invasion of Ukraine in 2022 before dropping to around $80 now - had subsided far enough to permit tougher action.

He said Biden did not believe the new sanctions would allow Treasury to "hit Putin's pocketbook without ... taking too big a whack out of the American people's pocketbook."

Top Biden officials say they have briefed the Trump team on issues ranging from Russian sanctions to controls on artificial intelligence technology, countering Chinese cyber-espionage and the Gaza hostage negotiations. Sullivan said on Monday that Biden had tasked him with working closely with Trump's team.

It has been part of a broader approach by Biden that prioritizes a smooth transition, despite Trump's continual scathing criticism of Biden even after his November election victory. Trump appointees and advisers continue to threaten to dismantle the federal workforce; Republicans say they could withhold federal aid from fire-stricken California, a Democratic stronghold.

The hope inside the White House, however, is to create "new options so that a new team and Congress can really hit the ground running," one Biden official said.