CHICAGO: Jill Biden once said that she knew marrying Joe Biden – then a senator from Delaware — would mean “a life in the spotlight that I had never wanted.”
On Monday night, now very accustomed to that spotlight, the first lady will stand before the Democratic National Convention to do her part to highlight her husband’s 50 years of public service as his presidency begins to draw to a close.
Her words will mark the beginning of an end for her, too.
Before the president walks across the stage at the United Center to deliver the keynote speech on the convention’s opening night, the first lady will use her address to speak to his character and reiterate her support for Vice President Kamala Harris, according to a person familiar with the first lady’s remarks. The person spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss a speech not yet delivered.
Jill Biden will urge Americans to unite with “faith in each other, hope for a brighter future, and love for our country,” said the person, quoting from the first lady’s prepared remarks.
President Biden endorsed Harris shortly after he dropped out of the presidential race in July, and she has succeeded him as the Democratic Party’s nominee.
In the weeks before Biden decided to leave the race, the first lady had declared that she was “all in” on her husband’s reelection plan, even as Democrats began calling on him to drop out following his disastrous performance in a debate against Republican Donald Trump on June 27.
Biden himself had brushed aside those calls, repeatedly insisting that he was staying in the race. His wife, one of his fiercest supporters and defenders, backed him up.
“For all the talk out there about this race, Joe has made it clear that he’s all in,” the first lady told a crowd in Wilmington, North Carolina, on July 8. “That’s the decision that he’s made, and just as he has always supported my career, I am all in, too.”
Biden pulled the plug on his campaign on July 21.
The first night of the four-day Democratic convention was rearranged after Biden bowed out. Now it will honor his record of public service, including six terms as a US senator from Delaware, eight years as vice president and one four-year term as president.
Jill Biden was with her husband through it all and now both are figuring out what they want to accomplish in the time they have left in the White House.
During the remaining months of the administration, which ends in mid-January, aides say Jill Biden will continue work on her favored causes: supporting military families through her Joining Forces initiative, reducing cancer’s toll through the Biden Cancer Moonshot, advancing research into women’s health under an effort launched in November 2023, and increasing opportunities for education.
She is also expected to campaign for Harris this fall.
The first lady charted a new path for presidential spouses when she became the first to hold a paying job outside the White House. She is an English and writing professor at Northern Virginia Community College, where she has taught since 2009, and has been working on her lesson plans for the coming fall semester, aides said.
As first lady, Jill Biden traveled to over 40 states, over 200 towns and cities, and 19 countries, most recently leading a delegation to support Team USA at the Olympic Games in France.
She spent the first year of the administration traveling around the United States encouraging people to get vaccinated against COVID-19.
In 2022, she traveled to Ukraine after Russia’s military invasion to show US support for Ukrainians.
Jill Biden’s speech at convention honors President Biden and marks an end for the first lady, too
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Jill Biden’s speech at convention honors President Biden and marks an end for the first lady, too
Carney says Canada has no plans to pursue free trade agreement with China as Trump threatens tariffs
Carney says Canada has no plans to pursue free trade agreement with China as Trump threatens tariffs
TORONTO: Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney said Sunday his country has no intention of pursuing a free trade deal with China. He was responding to US President Donald Trump’s threat to impose a 100 percent tariff on goods imported from Canada if America’s northern neighbor went ahead with a trade deal with Beijing.
Carney said his recent agreement with China merely cuts tariffs on a few sectors that were recently hit with tariffs.
Trump claims otherwise, posting that “China is successfully and completely taking over the once Great Country of Canada. So sad to see it happen. I only hope they leave Ice Hockey alone! President DJT”
The prime minister said under the free trade agreement with the US and Mexico there are commitments not to pursue free trade agreements with nonmarket economies without prior notification.
“We have no intention of doing that with China or any other nonmarket economy,” Carney said. “What we have done with China is to rectify some issues that developed in the last couple of years.”
In 2024, Canada mirrored the United States by putting a 100 percent tariff on electric vehicles from Beijing and a 25 percent tariff on steel and aluminum. China had responded by imposing 100 percent import taxes on Canadian canola oil and meal and 25 percent on pork and seafood.
Breaking with the United States this month during a visit to China, Carney cut its 100 percent tariff on Chinese electric cars in return for lower tariffs on those Canadian products.
Carney has said there would be an initial annual cap of 49,000 vehicles on Chinese EV exports coming into Canada at a tariff rate of 6.1 percent, growing to about 70,000 over five years. He noted there was no cap before 2024. He also has said the initial cap on Chinese EV imports was about 3 percent of the 1.8 million vehicles sold in Canada annually and that, in exchange, China is expected to begin investing in the Canadian auto industry within three years.
Trump posted a video Sunday in which the chief executive of the Canadian Vehicle Manufacturers’ Association warns there will be no Canadian auto industry without US access, while noting the Canadian market alone is too small to justify large scale manufacturing from China.
“A MUST WATCH. Canada is systematically destroying itself. The China deal is a disaster for them. Will go down as one of the worst deals, of any kind, in history. All their businesses are moving to the USA. I want to see Canada SURVIVE AND THRIVE! President DJT,” Trump posted on social media.
Trump’s post on Saturday said that if Carney “thinks he is going to make Canada a ‘Drop Off Port’ for China to send goods and products into the United States, he is sorely mistaken.”
“We can’t let Canada become an opening that the Chinese pour their cheap goods into the U.S,” US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said on ABC’s “This Week.”
“We have a , but based off — based on that, which is going to be renegotiated this summer, and I’m not sure what Prime Minister Carney is doing here, other than trying to virtue-signal to his globalist friends at Davos.”
Trump’s threat came amid an escalating war of words with Carney as the Republican president’s push to acquire Greenland strained the NATO alliance.
Carney has emerged as a leader of a movement for countries to find ways to link up and counter the US under Trump. Speaking in Davos before Trump, Carney said, “Middle powers must act together because if you are not at the table, you are on the menu” and he warned about coercion by great powers — without mentioning Trump’s name. The prime minister received widespread praise and attention for his remarks, upstaging Trump at the World Economic Forum.
Trump’s push to acquire Greenland has come after he has repeatedly needled Canada over its sovereignty and suggested it also be absorbed into the United States as a 51st state. He posted an altered image on social media this week showing a map of the United States that included Canada, Venezuela, Greenland and Cuba as part of its territory.
