- Friday, May 17, 2024
The poll-bound president also said that apart from China and India, those like Japan and Russia do not want immigrants, something that made the United States strong.
By: Shubham Ghosh
US PRESIDENT Joe Biden, who will seek his re-election in the country’s presidential election in November, on Wednesday (1) courted controversy by remarking “xenophobia” from China to Japan and India is hurting their growth, Reuters reported.
The octogenarian leader said this while arguing that migration has been good for the American economy.
“One of the reasons why our economy’s growing is because of you and many others. Why? Because we welcome immigrants,” Biden said at a fundraising event for his 2024 re-election campaign in Washington and marking the beginning of Asian American, Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander Heritage Month.
“Why is China stalling so badly economically, why is Japan having trouble, why is Russia, why is India, because they’re xenophobic. They don’t want immigrants. Immigrants are what makes us strong,” the president added.
In April, the International Monetary Fund made a forecast that each country would see its growth decelerate this year from the one year, ranging from 0.9 per cent in Japan to 6.8 per cent in India, one of the fastest-emerging economies in the world.
It also said that the US would grow at 2.7 per cent, slightly faster than its 2.5 per cent rate in 2023. Many economists have attributed the better-than-expected show partially to migrants expanding the nation’s labour force.
Irregular migration has emerged as a top concern for many voters in the US ahead of the November 5 presidential election. Biden, who has slammed his Republican opponent Donald Trump’s rhetoric as anti-immigrant, also pursued improving ties with countries such as India and Japan to counter China.
Trump, who lost to Biden in the 2020 polls, has throughout followed a hardline stance against curbing illegal immigration and restricting legal migration and would resume the same if elected to office this year. He has also blamed immigrants for the growing violence in the US.
Biden, on the other hand, has called for a more humane approach on issues of migrants. His administration has eased the crackdown that his predecessor had followed on migrants and introduced new “parole” policies that permit certain migrants to enter legally for humanitarian purposes.
The incumbent president, however, has not done well in pre-poll surveys. Research has shown that Biden is facing flak from voters over issues such as unemployment and immigration.
A poll from the AP-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research saw that over half of American adults feel that “Biden’s presidency has hurt the country on cost of living and immigration”.
