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The debt ceiling deal is a cruel agreement that imposes new work requirements on SNAP recipients and bureaucratic hurdles for those who still qualify. It will kick people off the rolls and inflict pain, seemingly randomly, with no regard for the human toll.

The new SNAP work requirements will inflict pain on poor people and accomplish nothing else. (John Moore / Getty Images)

A debt limit deal has been reached. The deal includes new rules for the food stamp program:

The bill imposes new work requirements for food stamps on adults ages 50 to 54 who don’t have children living in their home. Under current law, those work requirements only apply to people age 18 to 49. The age limit will be phased in over three years, beginning in fiscal year 2023.

The bill would also exempt veterans, the homeless and people who were children in foster care from food-stamp work requirements — a move White House officials say will offset the program’s new requirements, and leave roughly the same number of Americans eligible for nutrition assistance moving forward.

The rules being extended to ages fifty to fifty-four require individuals to complete, record, and report eighty hours of work in a month, either in the form of actual paid employment or by participating in an uncompensated “work program” organized by the government. The maximum monthly SNAP benefit for an individual is $281, which makes the eighty-hour work program route effectively the same as a job that pays $3.51 per hour. This is less than half the federal minimum wage of $7.25.

Indiscriminate Culling of the Rolls

Most of the discourse about this change has been centered on the philosophical debate about the justness of conditioning benefit receipt on labor market activation and on the empirical debate about what effect these kinds of requirements actually have on employment.

These are interesting debates, but they miss the more mundane administrative reality of these kinds of rule changes. More than anything else, what happens when you tighten the requirements like this is that existing benefit recipients fail to realize that the rules have changed and that they need to submit new forms in order to keep their benefits going. This results in them being disqualified from benefits even if they are actually meeting the new requirements.

So while, in theory, this sort of reform aims to distinguish the active SNAP beneficiaries from the inactive SNAP beneficiaries and threaten benefit cuts to the latter in order to get them to take up work or a work program, in reality, this reform just uses information-dissemination frictions and paperwork burdens to indiscriminately cull the SNAP rolls of both active and inactive beneficiaries.

This happened in 2018 when Arkansas tightened work rules for Medicaid receipt. After that change, only 20 percent of people affected by the new rules even filled out the relevant forms and only 6 percent reported enough work to meet the requirements.

It happened again this year when the COVID-era Medicaid eligibility rules were rolled back. This change was meant to not only kick people off the program who would be ineligible for Medicaid but for the COVID-era expansion of the program. In practice, the vast majority of those who have lost coverage during the rollback have done so for procedural reasons related to failure to fill out new forms.

Early data shows that many people lost coverage for procedural reasons, such as when Medicaid recipients did not return paperwork to verify their eligibility or could not be located. The large number of terminations on procedural grounds suggests that many people may be losing their coverage even though they are still qualified for it. Many of those who have been dropped have been children. . . .

Other states have also removed a large number of Medicaid recipients for procedural reasons. In Indiana, nearly 90 percent of the roughly 53,000 people who lost Medicaid in the first month of the state’s unwinding were booted on those grounds. In Florida, where nearly 250,000 people lost Medicaid coverage, procedural reasons were to blame for a vast majority.

If we actually had some administrative ability to apply these new SNAP rules to only zero out the incomes of inactive recipients, then the philosophical and empirical debates would be much more compelling. But the actual policy we are talking about is randomly kicking out a bunch of fifty- to fifty-four-year-old SNAP recipients regardless of whether they are actually active.

The Veteran Exemption Is Telling

To have a policy discourse, you need policy intellectuals of various political leanings to generate justifications for various policy choices. But justifications only work as justifications insofar as they connect to certain consensus values about what makes a policy good or bad.

This creates a strange situation for conservative policy intellectuals, because the welfare policy opinions of conservative voters and politicians are largely driven by resentments and punitive impulses that are not regarded as relevant to good policymaking. The role of conservative policy intellectuals thus becomes coming up with arguments that, though they don’t actually motivate conservative policymaking, nevertheless operate as justifications in a way that is legible to policy debates.

In the case of work requirements for SNAP, Medicaid, TANF, and similar programs, the real-life appeal is largely rooted in the desire to harm the kind of people who are imagined to fail the requirements: druggies, layabouts, and so on. Many think these kinds of people are scum and don’t want to see them receiving income.

But “fuck those people” doesn’t count as a justification within the norms of policy debate, and so conservative intellectuals are left trying to argue that these kinds of work requirements are actually good for the people who are subject to them. It nudges them out into work, which gives them meaning and community, and puts them in a position to advance in the labor market, which gives them more money.

This kind of stuff is entertaining to some extent, but the policymakers clearly do not think like this because, if they did, these rules wouldn’t always come with a laundry list of exemptions for sympathetic populations.

In this case, the SNAP work requirements are not going to be applied to veterans. This is obviously because veterans are a venerated group in our society. But if work requirements are good for the people who are subject to them, as conservative policy intellectuals claim, then they should especially be applied to venerated groups, like veterans, who we want good things for, right?

How Are These People Supposed to Live?

Unlike most developed countries, the United States does not have what is often called a “social assistance” benefit — i.e., a last-ditch benefit that catches people who are otherwise unable to piece together a bare-minimum income from the market or the welfare state. The closest we have to that is SNAP, but SNAP has so many eligibility restrictions, which are now getting worse, that it does not function as a social assistance benefit. SNAP’s $281 per month in food vouchers is also nowhere near a bare-minimum income.

Elsewhere, social assistance at least nominally answers the question of how certain kinds of people who fall through all the cracks of the ordinary income system are supposed to live. These are usually very stingy benefits with very strict means tests, but they at least exist and serve this important function as a last-ditch protection.

But what is our answer to how these kinds of people are supposed to live in the United States? It’s weird that we don’t even seem to ask the question, let alone make any real effort to answer it.

What do we want a fifty-two-year-old who does not have a job and gets cut off of food stamps to do exactly? Beg on the streets? Die? Do crime? Seriously, what’s the idea? Does anyone know? Does anyone care?

This past weekend, Amanda Hicks, a 26-year-old teacher in Florida, was tragically found dead alongside an adult male in a suspected murder-suicide.

On Saturday, at around 11:45 a.m., the police in Florida found the bodies of the couple after they were summoned to the Peacock Run apartments on Northwest East Torino Parkway, located in the 5500 blocks. A relative of the unnamed adult male requested a welfare check on the couple and encountered the tragic scene.

When officers arrived on the scene, they could hear an infant crying from inside the locked apartment. Thankfully, the baby was unharmed, found safe in its crib, and is now being cared for by a family member.

While officials have not yet released the adult male’s identity, it is suspected that he killed Hicks before taking his own life. Police have stated that no one else was involved and are not seeking any additional suspects.

As news of Amanda Hicks’s heartbreaking death quickly spread, those who knew her paid tribute to her radiant spirit and impact on her students’ lives.

As the Colleyville school district offers support and counseling for the students and staff, people must remember that domestic violence is a prevalent issue and that all those in an abusive relationship should ask for assistance.

While Amanda Hicks’ life ended too soon, her bright spirit, warm smile, and motherly love are worth remembering and honoring.

Twelve years have passed since the Arab Spring, and both Egypt and Tunisia are facing a stark economic crisis. Both are currently under the mercy of extremely unfavorable structural adjustment programs imposed by the International Monetary Fund, relying heavily on food imports, mired in debt, and facing historic inflation rates with unprecedented hikes in food […]

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The world will soon cross 1.5 degrees Celsius of global warming beyond preindustrial levels, meaning serious destabilization of the earth’s ecosystem. But we can still mitigate climate change’s worst effects with drastic government action.

In this aerial picture, a general view shows the flooded area caused by heavy rains across Italy’s northern Emilia Romagna region during a reconnaissance of the territory on May 26, 2023. (Antonio Masiello / Getty Images)

The hot, pissed off, oil-caked cat is now out of the bag.

We will likely cross 1.5 degrees Celsius (or 2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) of global warming beyond preindustrial levels in the next two to four years. This is the temperature at which scientists have warned, for quite some time, serious destabilization may occur. While global temperatures are usually measured as the longer-term trend line rather than a single year’s temperature, 1.5 degrees Celsius is a frightening threshold to cross.

Rather than feeling powerless, frustrated, and terrified at this moment, it’s vitally important we take a beat to remember one very important thing:

it’s not supposed to be like this.

Collectively, we’ve gotten very used to governments, media, and industry across the world rarely, if ever, solving problems. It seems in 2023 they exist primarily to make sure the financial markets remain robust and working people stay on mute.

And much how growing up with a gambling-addict dad makes a family normalize last-second missed free throws meaning no lights or food for a month, we have gotten comfortable with ridiculous levels of corruption and incompetence from our elite institutions.

Word salads, incremental gestures, outright BS, and most of all, pretending there is no problem, flood our day-in-day-out public discourse.

So just a reminder that no, you’re not crazy, there are really obvious things we should and could be doing.

Here are six actual steps that any semifunctioning government would be working on if it were not overrun by billions of dollars in dark and soft money:

1. Declare A Climate Emergency.

Duh.

We’re in a climate emergency, so declare it. And unleash executive powers, in the United States, that allow a government to start problem solving rather than whatever it’s doing right now.

Joe Biden’s failure to declare an emergency and give a landmark climate speech makes Neville Chamberlain look more decisive than the Rock in San Andreas. Shame on him, and shame on a press corps that rarely if ever asks him about it.

2. Climate-Proof Our Infrastructure.

We should cover every structure possible in solar, wind power, battery storage, and reflective paint to protect power grids, reduce carbon emissions, and mitigate extreme heat.

How would we pay for this?

Hmm. If only there was a nearly $800 billion annual budget out there for wars that aren’t happening.

Oh yeah! The Pentagon budget!

Use a chunk of it. Now. We’ve changed plowshares to swords, but now it’s time to change swords into solar arrays and wind farms. Our military has been without a clear mission for years. And the climate emergency is the mission of all missions.

3. Nationalize and Transform Fossil Fuel Companies Into Renewable Energy Companies.

We did it during the 2007 housing market collapse with banks that behaved horribly and collapsed. What the oil companies are doing not only endangers the world economy, it will totally destroy it.

If this sounds drastic, remember that during World War II, there were no factories making Panzer tanks for the Nazis in the United States or the UK, even though I’m sure it would have been good “for the markets.”

4. Invest in Carbon Removal Technology.

We should create a dozen multibillion-dollar research labs to scale up and perfect carbon removal.

We are already at half the carbon load of the Permian extinction, and we’ve done it in a small fraction of the time.

There’s no question we’re going to need to remove carbon from the atmosphere. And there are promising new technologies being developed that are only lacking funding and scale.

Is this the answer?

No. But it may help, and we have to try.

5. Ruggedize the Hell Out Of Everything.

Fires, floods, mega-droughts, tornadoes, food shortages, power outages, and dangerous heat events are shifting into a new gear across the globe.

Let’s get ready with cooling centers, new weather alert systems, sea walls, expanded firefighting capabilities, evacuation plans, etc.

This preparation will save countless lives.

6. Transform How We Cultivate Food and Meat to Reduce Methane Emissions.

The second biggest producer of greenhouse gases behind the burning of oil and gas?

Methane from the hundreds of millions of animals we cultivate for food on an industrial scale.

There are alternatives. Very tasty alternatives.

Transition farmers away from methane-producing animals and toward carbon-free proteins with huge subsidies and support from the government agencies offering engineering and infrastructure emergency support.

“But I like a good steak!”

So do I. But I like not having my house burn down just a hair more.

This is just my list and just a start. If you think it’s terrible, please, please make a better one.

If lots of people start talking about “the plan,” maybe Washington DC will stop looking at poll numbers and collecting checks at cocktail parties and work on one too.

Many will say, “You have to be realistic. Work with the system as it is.”

I would remind them we’ve been doing that for forty years. And the results couldn’t be any worse.

It’s time to challenge the system to do something really radical: actually start solving problems.

The newly upgraded Old City landmark offers a new flow, exquisite design and enjoyable exhibits for young and old.

By Judith Segaloff, JNS

Tucked inside the Jaffa Gate of Jerusalem’s Old City stands an edifice that personifies the resilience of Israel’s eternal capital.

The Tower of David has served as a Herodian fortress, a Crusaders’ palace, an Ottoman entrance gate, and now hosts the renewed and state-of-the-art Tower of David Jerusalem Museum.

The $50 million renewal and conservation of the museum, thanks to Dame Vivien Duffield through the Clore Israel Foundation, the Jerusalem Municipality and other philanthropic funding, has transformed a compound designed to keep intruders out to carefully plotted galleries filled with exhibits that explore and trace the history and the spirit of Jerusalem.

Turning the ancient structure into a modern and accessible museum was a formidable challenge for the architects and design team on the project. Using all the original architecture, except for one ceiling, they transformed the first-century fortress into a welcoming, comfortable, and handicapped-accessible modern museum with 215,000 square feet of galleries detailing Jerusalem’s 4,000-year significance to Judaism, Christianity and Islam.

After 10 years of planning, three years of construction and the installation of a mile of fiber optic cables, the museum, originally founded in 1989, is set to officially open on June 1, with an additional contemporary art gallery opening in November.

According to Caroline Shapiro, director of external affairs for the museum, the new flow that begins adjacent to the Jaffa Gate takes visitors through the museum in a way designed to showcase the city of Jerusalem. It still offers shady outdoor areas where tour guides gather their groups or where visitors can meet before beginning their exploration.

Curator Tal Kobo and her seven core team members combined actual artifacts culled from the site during excavations by teams of archeologists during the renovation with 3-D touch screens, mounted carefully to highlight the stone walls behind the glass.

Eilat Lieber, chief curator of the museum, understood the nature of the diverse audiences she had to reach, after her son took a school trip to the museum prior to its renovation and pronounced it “boring.” History, he said, is boring. She pondered how to make it relevant to our time—and to the many different communities that converge in Jerusalem.

“We decided to use an interactive process,” she explained. “We have the perfect location, and this building represents all the layers of history and of conflict,” she said. “We realized that the evidence of the past will tell the story in different ways and engage visitors to find what is meaningful to each different person. The Tower of David is one of the most beautiful and well-preserved fortresses in the world. The history of Jerusalem must be told through technology and beautiful design.”

With headsets and audio tours, her son came back on a class trip to experience the “new” museum. This time he didn’t say boring. “This,” he said, “is cool!”

The museum’s sleek new design

The technology team for the museum comprised more than 50 people in five separate studios.

The designers chose a clean, minimalistic look to contrast with the heavy stone structure and enhance the power of the site. Even the cracks between the stones were conserved. Grouting was replaced by limestone. Elevators and ramps were installed.

“The two elevators were six years of heated discussion with the antiquities commission,” recalls professor Tal Roih de Lange of Studio de Lange, one of the designers.

“The important design principle was to maintain context with the city,” he explained. “Each space is different in both architecture and context. “Communication cables, electric wires and even lighting fixtures were carefully hidden.”

But how do you light 215,000 square feet of castle without beams and ugly cables strung across the ancient ceilings?

The architects and designers met the challenge using “floating” cement floors with LED lighting in between the crevice between floor and wall. Heating and cooling emanates from under the floors as well. Small but powerful sconces inserted in the limestone cracks between the stones were used to augment the natural lighting of the vaulted ceilings. The glass displays light up as well, offering effective and dramatic interaction.

And don’t think the acoustics in a castle are optimal. According to Architect Yotam Cohen Sagi, they used 3D scans to conduct acoustic studies and tried three different materials until they were able to ensure that the sound traveled properly throughout the galleries.

3000 years of history in 3 minutes

“I have never been on so many site visits and to so many meetings for a project,” Sagi explained. “There were so many layers, and we used old fashioned methods of measuring and leveling—holding strings. And then, just when you think you know what you’re doing, you find ancient remains or artifacts and have to stop everything and call in the Israel Antiquities Authority,” he said.

Every window and skylight is visible. At one point the visitor looks through a display and a window beyond the exhibit highlights the modern city of Jerusalem. History connects with high-tech Jerusalem itself.

All the 3D models face in the actual direction of their orientation, transporting the visitor to their exact location within the space of the museum. As large as each space is, the exhibits are designed to keep visitors engaged, without fatigue from the constant content. The technology is designed to communicate various content in different ways. Transparent touch screens allow 360-degree close-ups of real artifacts located in nearby cases in one space. Another space lends itself to ceiling projections, and another to multimedia presentations.

The first gallery offers 3,000 years of history in three minutes—a multimedia presentation by Israeli cinematographer and Golden Globe winner Ari Folman. Through classic animation and video mapping, it traces the history and culture of Jerusalem.

A “Bunting Map” from the Middle Ages portrays Jerusalem as the center of the world, flanked by Europe, Asia and Africa; the city on the shores of eternity. As you progress through the gallery, it’s like being in a time tunnel, with a 40-foot-long interactive wall fueled by 12 computers.

As you progress through the Mamluks and Ottomans and finally find the interactive 3D globe, you are brought to almost the present time with a letter from Israel’s first president, David Ben-Gurion, to a young boy

If you enjoy maps, there are 14 interactive ones on offer, including an elevation map of Jerusalem, enhanced by special lighting and a 2.5 minute video that displays the entire city.

Don’t forget your audio guide (it’s in three languages). As you progress through the museum, it will tell you what you’re looking at, because at some point, it can become overwhelming. You will see a five-and-a-half-minute film by Jerusalem filmmaker Yair Moss, and Dale Chihuly glass exhibits adjacent to cannonballs from the Jerusalem revolt in days of yore.

Each religion is given its due. The Jewish room features the mosaic of Bet Alpha’s Binding of Isaac and a large model of the Second Temple, complete with artifacts from that period, including a coin press for Hasmonian coins and a first-century lily coin. A Yeshiva University-created 3D scan of the Arch of Titus has been colorized and animated, capping off the Jewish exhibit.

A Jordanian Madaba Map with crusader coins features the Tower of David on the coins, with some featuring the Crusader kings and queens who took up residence in this very castle.

Underneath the minaret, which served as a mosque at various times during the city’s history, there is a large model of the Temple Mount complex, featuring the Al Aqsa Mosque and a cutaway of the famed Dome of the Rock. For those of us who have never been near or inside it, it is illuminating to see the Foundation Stone and other features of the Mount.

“With all its layers and incarnations, the Tower of David has never been a ‘holy place,’ explains Tal Kobo. “But the artifacts and the history symbolize the yearning to come back to Jerusalem.”

For children who still think “history is boring,” in addition to all the displays and visuals, every room is equipped with fun interactive games and quizzes for children. For the older generation and for those with special needs, the museum is one of the most accessible attractions in Jerusalem.

“We had to get permission for everything,” explained Reut Kozak, accessibility coordinator for the museum. “From hanging signs to buildings and structuring the floors. The Mamluks didn’t make the doorways wide enough for wheelchairs,” she said.

All told, only 15% of the museum is not completely accessible, she added.

Famous for its light shows at night, the new museum will feature noise reduction headphones and relaxed performances for people on the autism spectrum or who have sensitivities to sound. An app uses Bluetooth to access hearing aids for the hearing impaired and customizes the sound for each ear, and there are audio descriptions for the sight impaired.

A sensory map provides a guide that details dark, light and the noisier rooms, and there is a special audio tour guide for sight impaired. There are visuals with sign language on the app for the hearing-impaired.

The only area not accessible to anyone who cannot navigate the final 50 steps is the Observation Deck, but the museum has created a Virtual Reality experience for those left behind that will help them enjoy the 360-degree panoramic view from their phone.

And, thanks to the new flow, when you come out of the Tower of David, through what used to be the original entrance, the Old City is at your feet, ready to be explored in real time.

The post A high-tech upgrade for the ancient Tower of David appeared first on World Israel News.

Tens of thousands of mourners gathered at the Ponovezh Yeshiva in Bnei Brak for the funeral of Rabbi Gershon Edelstein, spiritual leader of the ultra-Orthodox community in Israel.

The post WATCH: Tens of thousands gather in Bnei Brak to mourn passing of Rabbi Gershon Edelstein appeared first on World Israel News.

“The archives are in danger of being lost to time, which would be a tragedy.” Jews of Oporto, Portugal, looking to recruit support for project to preserve the historical records of the Inquisition in the Iberian Peninsula.

By World Israel News Staff

The Jewish Community of Oporto, which paid for the preservation and digitization of Portuguese Inquisition archives from the 16th Century is now seeking to sign an agreement to preserve the 17th-century archive and records, while at the same time calling on the international Jewish community to help in the preservation of later centuries.

Michael Rothwell, director of the Jewish Museum of Oporto and a member of the board of the local Jewish community, recalls that “The Portuguese Inquisition was in force between 1536 and 1831. (Historian) Cecil Roth said since the beginning of history, there has probably been no time when such a systematic and long persecution was perpetrated because of such an innocent practice.”

Under a protocol signed in 2019 between Torre do Tombo National Archive and the Jewish Community of Oporto, the Community undertook to pay for the preservation of 16th Century Inquisition cases. The protocol, assisted by then-Israeli Ambassador to Portugal, Raphael Gamzou, made it possible to recruit professional restoration personnel, and set in motion the restoration and digitization of 1,778 court cases against “Jewish infidels” in three centers, Lisbon, Évora and Coimbra, which also included cases from Oporto.

That same year, the Community and the Torre do Tombo National Archive agreed to sign successive protocols regarding the preservation of the Inquisition records of the 17th, 18th, and 19th centuries. Now that work on the 16th century is almost concluded, the Community would like to sign a protocol regarding 17th-century Inquisition cases and has called on the Jewish world to help contribute to the cost of the project for the latter centuries. The total value of the three century’s operation could reach as high as 3 million Euros.

Ashley Perry (Perez), President of Reconectar, an organization dedicated to helping the descendants of Spanish and Portuguese Jewish communities reconnect with their Jewish ancestry, welcomed the preservation efforts by the Oporto Jewish Community.

“The archives are in danger of being lost to time, which would be a tragedy, not just to our past but also the future as millions of people around the world are researching possible Jewish ancestry,” said Perry, whose ancestors fled Portugal in the early 16th Century.

“The preservation and digitization of Inquisition records is essential to preserve our global Jewish history, because Portuguese Jews, many of whom had been forcibly baptized and forced to flee, formed the historic Jewish communities in the U.S., the UK, the Netherlands, and elsewhere. These archives are Jewish history, and we dare not let them disappear.”

The documentation at the Torre do Tombo National Archive regarding the Court of the Holy Office of the Inquisition and its courts in Lisbon, Coimbra, Évora, Tomar, Oporto and Lamego, total a massive 1,600 meters in length. Ruth Calvão, President of the Center for Jewish Studies in Trás-os-Montes, says: “The deterioration of the archive items constitutes a real danger that the personal stories and testimonies about the historic injustices and atrocities they endured could disappear forever.”

The Inquisition’s documentation has become the most reliable historical source for the history of the Jewish community in Portugal. The Tribunal do Santo Ofício (Inquisition) was established in Portugal to try crimes against the Christian faith and put an end to heresies and apostasies.

Denial of the facts by the subject of the inquiry resulted in months or years in prison including excruciating torture until a new hearing was scheduled. The prisoner was forced to pay all the expenses of the imprisonment, the trial, and torture and, if convicted, all property was confiscated.

The post ‘Don’t let the legacy of the Inquisition be forgotten,’ Portuguese Jewish community says in plea to world Jewry appeared first on World Israel News.

China working to undermine the West with extensive political warfare operations, yet the US and UK have ‘no plans’ for countering Beijing’s efforts, sources say.

By Adam Kredo, The Washington Free Beacon

The United States and United Kingdom are struggling to counter China’s increasingly hostile political warfare operations, according to sources briefed on recent high-level meetings between officials from both countries.

During this month’s summit between British leaders and members of the House Select Committee on China, officials acknowledged that while both countries have strategies in place to handle a military confrontation with China, “we have no plan” to combat Chinese aggression off the battlefield, according to a source briefed on the contents of the private discussions.

The CCP’s political warfare operations were raised as a concern in several meetings during the transatlantic summit, a sign that both countries are struggling to beat back China’s growing global footprint. Officials from both countries expressed concerns about a burgeoning “international order with Chinese characteristics,” according to the source briefed on the meetings.

China has expanded its global influence operation in recent years in a bid to exert dominance over the international community.

Beijing has poured resources into a global campaign of economic coercion and worked to shape narratives and peddle propaganda through international institutions like the United Nations.

These efforts were on full display during the coronavirus pandemic, when China successfully prevented the World Health Organization from disclosing that the virus likely emerged from a Wuhan lab, as several U.S. intelligence reports have determined in recent months.

Rep. Mike Gallagher (R., Wis.), the China committee’s chairman who led the delegation to Britain, said he came away from the meetings concerned the British and American governments are not doing enough to detach their economies from China and fend off the CCP’s global spy operations. Both countries continue to rely heavily on Chinese supply chains, particularly in the technology sector, that are vulnerable to Communist Party coercion and spying.

“There is a sustained push we’re seeing right now from the Biden administration on this kind of what I call a ‘zombie engagement’ or detente, this sort of revival of economic engagement as a core pillar of our policy, of which I’m kind of skeptical,” Gallagher told the Free Beacon last week.

The United Kingdom is pursuing a similar policy, Gallagher said, and has recently walked back commitments to crackdown on CCP spy outposts like Confucius Institutes. The British government additionally watered down recent policy declarations regarding China’s malign economic behavior, and continues to foster economic ties to Beijing.

“I think that lack of clarity muddles our thinking and undermines our approach,” Gallagher said.

If the United States and China went to war, the communist government would likely shut down global supply chains, crippling the Western world’s economy. A congressional war simulation held in April confirmed this outcome, determining that a military conflict would leave the global economy in “absolute tatters,” the Free Beacon first reported.

Taiwan and the threat of a Chinese invasion also emerged as a top agenda item during the trip, with officials discussing strategies to deter a full-blown military siege of the contested island.

The AUKUS treaty—a trilateral security pact between the United States, United Kingdom, and Australia—was raised in nearly every meeting, which included sit-downs with Britain’s deputy national security adviser, its defense minister, and eight members of Parliament.

Government leaders want to leverage the treaty to increase military and technological cooperation between the Western governments in a bid to isolate China, according to the source briefed on the meetings. By expanding the AUKUS treaty, the three countries can use it as a vehicle to beat back Chinese influence operations.

“AUKUS presents an opportunity to turbo charge military and technological cooperation with our two closest allies,” Gallagher said.

The American delegation also held meetings with executives from Google’s DeepMind artificial intelligence project, which is headquartered in Cambridge. Gallagher said the project provides an opportunity to undercut China’s use of AI in its military projects.

“It puts us in a really good position to beat the Chinese Communist party in the AI race,” Gallagher said. “We heard from our counterparts in the U.K. that allowing China to dominate this tech would be an incredibly, incredibly bad idea.”

The post ‘We have no plan’: US, UK struggle to combat Chinese influence, officials say appeared first on World Israel News.