Kamala Harris news - VP meets Trudeau, refugees in Poland as White House says Russian economy ‘crushed’

Good morning and welcome to The Independent’s rolling coverage foreign and domestic developments regarding the Biden administration.

President Joe Biden is in Washington, DC, today, while Vice President Kamala Harris is in Warsaw, Poland, on a trip in response to the developing situation in Europe following Russia’s unprovoked invasion of Ukraine.

Vice President Kamala Harris’ schedule for Thursday

At 10:15AM CEST, the Vice President will hold a bilateral meeting with the Prime Minister of Poland, Mateusz Morawiecki. There will be an expanded pool spray at the top of this meeting in the Cloak Room of the Chancellery of the Prime Minister of Poland.

At 11:10AM CEST, the Vice President will hold a bilateral meeting with the President of Poland, Andrzej Duda. There will be an expanded pool spray at the top of this meeting in Pompeian Hall at Belwelder Palace.

At 12:30PM CEST, the Vice President will participate in a press availability with President Andrzej Duda. This press availability is open to pre-credentialed media.

At 2:45PM CEST, the Vice President will participate in a roundtable with people displaced from Ukraine. There will be an expanded pool spray at the top of this roundtable at the American School of Warsaw.

At 5:00PM CEST, the Vice President will meet with staff from the US Embassies in Kyiv and Warsaw at the American School of Warsaw. This meeting will be closed press.

At 6:50PM CEST, the Vice President will hold a bilateral meeting with the Prime Minister of Canada, Justin Trudeau. There will be an expanded pool spray at the top of this meeting in Warsaw, Poland.

The Vice President will remain overnight in Warsaw, Poland.

President Joe Biden’s schedule for Thursday:

9:30AM In the morning, the President will receive the President’s Daily Brief. This meeting will be closed press.

10AM Then, the President will hold a phone call with President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan of Turkey to discuss the latest developments regarding Russia and Ukraine. This call from the Oval Office will be closed press.

1:40PM In the afternoon, the President will welcome His Excellency Iván Duque Márquez, President of the Republic of Colombia, to the White House to celebrate 200 years of positive diplomatic relations and consult on a range of regional and global issues of mutual interest. During their bilateral meeting, the leaders plan to reaffirm the bilateral relationship and discuss COVID-19 response and future pandemic preparedness, economic recovery, and regional responses to migration. This meeting in the Cabinet Room will have a pool spray at the top.

7:15PM In the evening, the President will deliver remarks to Democratic National Committee members at their Winter Meeting at the Washington Hilton. These remarks will be open to pre-credentialed media.

The Independent’s Eric Garcia provides some background on Vice President Kamala Harris’ new role leading the White House charge on the Ukraine crisis in Europe.

President Joe Biden has a solution for high inflation that seems counterintuitive: Bring factory jobs back to the US.

This challenges a decades-long argument that employers moved jobs abroad to lower their costs by relying on cheaper workers. The trend contributed to the loss of 6.8 million US manufacturing jobs since 2000, but it also translated into lower prices for consumers and put downward pressure on inflation in ways that kept broader economic growth going.

It was a trade-off that many corporate and political leaders were privately comfortable making.

Now, with inflation at a 40-year high, the president has begun to argue that globalization is stoking higher prices. That’s because proponents of outsourcing failed to consider the costs of increasingly frequent global supply chain disruptions.

Vice President Kamala Harris has called for an international war crimes investigation into Russia’s bombing of civilians in Ukraine.

Ms Harris was speaking on a visit to Poland on Thursday when she said Russian president Vladimir Putin should be held to account for his military invasion of Ukraine and weeks-long assault on civilians.

Specifically, the vice president lambasted the bombing of a maternity hospital in Mariupol.

“When it comes to crimes and international violations of norms and rules, we are also very clear that any intentional attack on innocent civilians is a violation,” she said.

Gino Spocchia and Eric Garcia have the latest.

The House overwhelmingly approved legislation Wednesday night that would ban Russian oil imports to the United States, an effort to put into law the restrictions announced by President Joe Biden in response to the escalating war in Ukraine.

Going further than Mr Biden’s import ban on Russian oil, the bill making its way through Congress would also encourage a review of Russia’s status in the World Trade Organization and signal US support for sanctions on Russian officials over human rights violations, as the US works to economically isolate the regime.

Russia’s isolation from the global financial systems has intensified with the Bank for International Settlements — considered the central bank of central banks — announcing it is suspending the Bank of Russia.

Goldman Sachs has also become the first major Wall Street Bank to shut up shop in Russia. The move comes after a slew of western companies — from fast food chains, streaming services, and luxury brands — closed down operations in the country.

Polish President Andrzej Duda and US Vice President Kamala Harris on Thursday both denied that the Pentagon’s rejection of a plan to use the United States as a middleman for transferring Soviet-made fighter jets to Ukraine has caused any conflict between the two Nato allies.

On Wednesday, the Defence Department rejected Poland’s proposal to deliver MiG-29 fighters — which Ukrainian pilots are currently trained to operate — to Ramstein Air Base in Germany, leaving them in the custody of the United States until Ukraine could send pilots to retrieve them or they could otherwise be brought into Ukraine.

Andrew Feinberg reports.