Darpan News Desk The Canadian Press, 02 Mar, 2022 11:45 AM
WASHINGTON, D.C. — Seven simple words from Joe Biden's state of the union speech have some in Canada breathing a little bit more easily this morning.
The U.S. president renewed his call for tax credits to lower the cost of electric vehicles, but made no mention of preferring American-made cars and trucks.
That is encouraging to some in the Canadian auto sector, considering the strident Buy American sentiment in other parts of Tuesday's hour-long speech.
Biden originally proposed a suite of incentives that prioritized EVs assembled in the U.S. with union labour — a plan that would kneecap Canadian automakers.
The federal government in Ottawa has been pressing the U.S. ever since to drop that condition, or provide an exemption for Canadian-made vehicles.
Still, no one is quite ready to exhale, insisting that they need to know more about the president's plan to know for sure if Canada is out of the woods.
His comments drew nationwide condemnation from human rights activists and the country’s opposition, which sought an apology. The controversial statements aired over the weekend came in an interview on Axios, a documentary news series on HBO.
Chancellor Angela Merkel says while Germany has low numbers of coronavirus infections, the “aggressive” delta variant could lead to a rise in new cases.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention director Rochelle Walensky says she expects the delta variant will become the dominant coronavirus strain in the United States. The delta variant, first detected in India, has become dominant in Britain.
The White House is expressing growing certainty that July 4th will serve as a breakthrough moment in the nation’s recovery. That's even though the U.S. is not expected to quite reach its goal of having 70% of adults vaccinated by the holiday.
A new analysis of blood samples from 24,000 Americans taken early last year is the latest and largest study to suggest that the new coronavirus popped up in the U.S. in December 2019 — weeks before cases were first recognized by health officials.
