On today’s “This Week” (ABC News), co-anchor Martha Raddatz interviewed U.S. National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan, who—among his other comments—reiterated that China must play by the rules — green rules. “The United States is prepared to own and win the clean energy race for the future, which itself is going to create millions of jobs and enhance our national security,” Sullivan said. “But we are also going to hold other countries accountable, including, as President Biden has said many times, through making sure that there can’t be a race to the bottom. China will not be able to get away with polluting industries in their country and then exporting those goods to undercut American workers. We will not permit that to happen. So we have clear eyes about the way ahead but we fundamentally believe that it is in the best interest of the United States for us to be the clean energy superpower of the world, not China or anyone else.”
Raddatz declared that both Republicans and Democrats have accused the Biden administration of not doing enough to help India amid the new devastating rate of infections caused by the COVID-19 variant, and the possibility of lifting patents on vaccines. Sullivan commented that the U.S. is “proud of what we’ve done so far, which has included multiple planeloads — and we’re talking very large military plane loads of supplies, including oxygen, including diverting raw materials for vaccines, including therapeutics that can help save lives…. We are concerned about variants. We’re concerned about spread. We’re concerned about the loss of life and also all of the secondary effects that emerge as this pandemic rages out of control in India.” But not so concerned as to actually ship vaccines we’re not using.
In regard to lifting patents, he said, “We believe that the pharmaceutical companies should be supplying at-scale and at-cost to the entire world so that there is no barrier to everyone getting vaccinated. Our Ambassador Katherine Tai, our U.S. Trade Representative, is engaged in intensive consultations at the WTO to work through this issue.”
Regarding North Korea, Raddatz asked: “North Korea is warning the U.S. will face a grave situation because President Biden called the North a serious security threat. You have talked about being somewhere in the middle, between Trump and Obama. Neither of those plans worked with North Korea. Why does a middle ground seem possible?”
With an interesting slip of the tongue, Sullivan responded, “Our policy towards North Korea is not aimed at hostility. It’s aimed at solutions. It’s aimed at ultimately achieving the complete denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula. And we’re prepared to engage in diplomacy towards that ultimate objective, but work on practical measures that can help us make progress along the way towards that goal. And we believe that rather than all for all or nothing for nothing, a more calibrated, practical, measured approach stands the best chance of actually moving the ball down the field towards reducing the challenge posed by Iran’s — North Korea’s nuclear program.” https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/week-transcript-21-jake-sullivan-sen-john-barrasso/story?id=77442272
