President Obama and President Hu Jintao of China have dinner in the White House on Jan. 18. (White House/Pete Souza)
—Austin Ramzy writes that despite the grand language of cooperation requisite in a state visit, domestic concerns are likely to push Hu and Obama inward in the near future:
While the two sides will put on a bright show of cooperation this week, it isn’t expected to last for long. Reports have emerged that Obama is considering the sale of another arms package to Taiwan for after Hu’s visit, when the impetus to make nice will vanish. More broadly, the President’s focus will likely shift to domestic concerns and pursuing re-election in 2012, while Hu will prepare for the upcoming leadership transition.
Our colleague Hannah Beech has more from Beijing.
–Peter Baker takes a long look at Obama’s new economic team and its goals in the Times Sunday magazine:
With Geithner as its anchor, a new economic team is being built around Bill Clinton-era figures like William Daley, Gene Sperling and Jack Lew, a group assembled to joust with Republicans instead of one another. Rather than responding to crises or putting into motion grand macroeconomic theories, they will focus on pushing the recovery into higher gear while at the same time figuring out how to reduce the deficit….
–Tim Kaine says he’s uninterested in running for Senate if Jim Webb retires.
–Jonathan Chait ruminates on Joe Lieberman’s path to electoral impotency.
–Jonathan Singer points out a party that holds the White House and the Senate has never lost the latter when it hung on to the former.
–AFL-CIO chief Richard Trumka pushes against nods to austerity; his speech this morning:
But here in Washington, we live in an Alice-in-Wonderland political climate. We have a jobs crisis that after three years is still raging, squeezing families, devastating our poorest communities and stunting the futures of young adults. Yet politicians of both parties tell us that we can – and should — do nothing.
…
Next week the President of the United States will give his State of the Union address. The labor movement is ready for a call to action, a call to invest in our future, to create jobs, to be the country we can and must be.
–The Financial Stability Oversight Council issues its report on how to implement the “Volcker Rule,” which would prohibit banks from trading with their own money. The regulations have yet to be written,
—American Muslims are uneasy over Peter King’s “radicalization” hearings.
–And Michael Steele talks cesarean betrayal and “O-bibble care” with Tim Mak.