The Morning Dispatch: China Deploys Aircraft Near Taiwan

Happy Tuesday! If, yesterday afternoon, you briefly felt like the world was a happier, healthier, more empathetic place—it wasn’t just you. Facebook and Instagram were down for several hours.

Quick Hits: Today’s Top Stories

• United States Trade Representative Katherine Tai delivered a speech on Monday outlining a Biden administration approach to U.S.-China trade that is more a continuation of Trump-era policies than a departure. The United States, she said, will maintain existing tariffs on Chinese exports while pressing China to live up to the terms of the Trump administration’s January 2020 Phase One deal, which it has mostly thus far failed to do. The United States also plans to reopen the process through which American companies can apply for tariff exclusions, the White House said.

• Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell sent President Joe Biden a letter on Monday reiterating Republicans’ position that Democrats will have to raise the debt limit on their own before the mid-October deadline. “In 2003, 2004, and 2006, Mr. President, you joined Senate Democrats in opposing debt limit increases and made Republicans do it ourselves,” McConnell wrote. “Your view then is our view now.” Biden shot back on Monday, calling Republicans’ position “hypocritical, dangerous, and disgraceful” in remarks from the White House. “If you don’t want to help save the country, get out of the way so you don’t destroy it,” Biden said, calling on Republicans not to filibuster legislation already passed by the House that would raise the debt ceiling.

• Abiy Ahmed, Ethiopia’s prime minister since 2018, was sworn in for a second term on Monday after his Prosperity Party secured a landslide victory in parliamentary elections over the summer. Abiy remained defiant yesterday in the face of international pressure to tamp down the ethnic violence that has ravaged Ethiopia’s Tigray region, saying the past year has revealed who Ethiopia’s true friends are.