Joe Biden calls allies India and Japan ‘xenophobic’ and says that’s why their economies are stalling
Joe Biden has claimed Asian allies Japan and India’s “xenophobic” policies towards immigrants were causing their economies to stall.
“One of the reasons why our economy’s growing is because of you and many others. Why? Because we welcome immigrants,” Mr Biden said at a Washington fundraising event for his 2024 re-election campaign.
"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," he said, kickstarting the Asian American, Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander Heritage Month on Wednesday.
Mr Biden met Japanese prime minister Fumio Kishida in Washington last month where the two unveiled plans for military cooperation and projects ranging from missiles to moon landings and strengthening their alliance with an eye on countering China and Russia.
The meeting marked a significant boost to the bilateral relations between Washington and Tokyo, bringing the World War II enemies into the closest collaboration they have had since they became allies decades ago.
The latest remarks from the president against his key allies India and Japan in Asia come at a time when he is campaigning against Republican opponent Donald Trump’s anti-immigrant stance.
At the same time, Mr Biden is also working to court broad economic and political relations with both nations against rivals China and Russia globally.
Immigration is swiftly becoming a central issue in the November 2024 presidential campaign, which is widely expected to be a Biden-Trump rematch, and each man is seeking to use the border problems to his own political advantage. Mr Biden is batting for legal immigration to aid the American economy.
However, on the economic front, each country is set to see its growth decelerate in 2024 from the year prior, the International Monetary Fund said in its forecast last month.
The deceleration will range from 0.9 per cent in highly developed Japan to 6.8 per cent in emerging India.
At the same time, the US will grow at 2.7 per cent, slightly brisker than its 2.5 per cent rate last year. The better-than-expected performance has been partly credited to an expanding labour force which has seen a push from migrants, according to economists monitoring the post-pandemic trends.
In his bid to return to the White House, Mr Trump has attacked migrants in often-degrading terms, characterizing them as dangerous criminals who are “poisoning the blood” of America and frequently invoking falsehoods about migration.
Mr Trump has vowed to finish building a border wall and to launch the “largest domestic deportation operation in American history”.
