Biden Denigrates US Ally Japan as 'Xenophobic' While He's Supposed to Be Honoring Asian-Americans
President Joe Biden continues to make baffling blunders, botching a ceremony meant to honor Asian-Americans by claiming Japan was struggling because of xenophobia.
The Eastern country is seeing a stalled economy with a depreciated yen and decreased consumer spending, according to Deloitte.
Japan is taking steps to fix the strife, increasing wages in hopes of offsetting inflation, which allows people to return to their previous spending habits.
However, while the economic issues in the Land of the Rising Sun are complicated, in the eyes of Biden, the cause and fix are simple.
Xenophobia caused it, thus to fix it just begin mass importing foreigners like America has because that’s been going so great over here.
Now, Biden didn’t say it exactly like that, but it is exactly what it meant.
During a campaign fundraiser Wednesday night at the Mayflower Hotel in Washington, the president claimed that the American economy was growing “because we welcome immigrants,” according to the White House transcript.
“Think about it. Why is China stalling so bad economically?” he said. “Why is Japan having trouble? Why is India? … Because they’re xenophobic. They don’t want immigrants.”
Considering the fundraiser was meant to mark the start of Asian American, Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander Heritage Month, according to NBC News, attacking three Asian countries for being xenophobic was an odd choice for Biden.
The Japanese Embassy issued a mild rebuke of the president on Friday.
“It is unfortunate that some of the comments were not based on an accurate understanding of Japan’s policies,” the embassy said in a statement to Politico. “We have raised this point to the U.S. government and explained Japan’s positions and policies once again.”
Japan experts also were scratching their heads in unison.
“It’s not something diplomatic to say about one of America’s closest allies, especially because America has its own problems with xenophobia that Japanese are seeing on the news all the time,” Jeffery Hall, a Japanese studies lecturer at Kanda University of International Studies in Chiba, Japan, told NBC News.
“So it just strikes me as something that was unnecessary to say in this context,” Hall said.
“It will sound like America is once again talking down to the Japanese and that’s not really an effective way of getting Japan to fix various problems with its society that even Japanese people would agree are problems,” he said.
Even aside from the idiocy of attacking Asian countries when he’s meant to be honoring them, Biden’s claim was dubious.
As Politico noted back in 2016 and is still true today, influxes of immigrants drive down wages for other Americans.
Ironically, the groups hurt the most are minority groups such as black and Hispanic Americans — the same groups the Democrats always claim to be helping.
So not only did Biden talk down to an American ally when he was supposed to be celebrating its people, but he wasn’t even right about it.
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