Satellite Photo Shows US Aircraft Carrier at China's Doorstep
Regarding the Nimitz's deployment in the South China Sea, the U.S. Seventh Fleet-which maintains U.S. naval presence in the Western Pacific Ocean-previously told Newsweek that the nuclear-powered ship "provides presence and combat-ready forces to the theater."
Newsweek has also reached out to the Chinese Defense Ministry for comment by email.
The U.S. Navy has the largest aircraft-carrier fleet in the world, with 11 vessels in service. They are regularly deployed overseas to demonstrate America's "unwavering commitment" to a free and open Indo-Pacific region, where China is challenging U.S. naval dominance.
Tensions persist in the South China Sea as China's sovereignty claims-based on what it calls "historic rights"-overlap with those of neighboring nations, including the Philippines, a U.S. defense treaty ally, leading to standoffs and clashes at sea between the two sides.
Open-source intelligence researcher @MT_Anderson said on X (formerly Twitter) that the Nimitz and its two escorting destroyers were spotted underway in the southern part of the South China Sea, about 310 miles west of Brunei on Tuesday, based on a satellite image.
In a press release, the U.S. Navy confirmed that the aircraft carrier remained in the South China Sea, where it held a change-of-command ceremony for its carrier strike group on Wednesday.
Commissioned in 1975, the Nimitz is the oldest American aircraft carrier in active service. It departed from its home port-Naval Base Kitsap in Bremerton, Washington-in late March for a deployment in the Western Pacific Ocean, likely on its final mission before retirement.
Following its deployment in waters east of the Philippines, the Nimitz reached the South China Sea as early as May 3 and was seen underway west of Luzon in northern Philippines.
Besides the Nimitz, a second U.S. aircraft carrier, USS George Washington, is stationed in the Western Pacific Ocean. As of Friday, it remained at its Yokosuka home port in Japan, according to a local government website that tracks port visits by U.S. nuclear-powered warships.
The U.S. Navy said: "[Nimitz Carrier Strike Group] is operating in the U.S. [Seventh] Fleet area of operations. U.S. [Seventh] Fleet is the U.S. Navy's largest forward-deployed numbered fleet and routinely interacts and operates with allies and partners in preserving a free and open Indo-Pacific region."
Lin Jian, spokesperson for the Chinese Foreign Ministry, said: "The current situation in the South China Sea is generally stable. There isn't any problem with the freedom of navigation and overflight that countries enjoy in accordance with the law."
It remains to be seen whether the Nimitz will be redeployed from the Western Pacific Ocean to the Middle East, where two of its sister ships are currently stationed amid regional tensions.
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Los Angeles Times
3 minutes ago
- Los Angeles Times
Social Security turns 90 this week. Republicans are trying to keep it from reaching 100
Franklin Delano Roosevelt had a clear mind about the value of Social Security on Aug. 14, 1935, the day he signed it into law. 'The civilization of the past hundred years, with its startling industrial changes, has tended more and more to make life insecure,' he said in the Oval Office. 'We can never insure 100 per cent of the population against 100 per cent of the hazards and vicissitudes of life, but we have tried to frame a law which will give some measure of protection to the average citizen and to his family against ... poverty-ridden old age.' He called it a 'cornerstone in a structure which is being built but is by no means complete.' FDR envisioned further programs to bring relief to the needy and healthcare for all Americans. Some of that happened during the following nine decades, but the structure is still incomplete. And now, as Social Security observes the 90th anniversary of that day, the program faces a crisis. If there are doubts about whether Social Security will survive long enough to observe its centennial, those have less to do with its fiscal challenges, the solutions of which are certainly within the economic reach of the richest nation on Earth. They have more to do with partisan politics, specifically the culmination of a decades-long GOP project to dismantle the most successful, and the most popular, government assistance program in American history. From a distance, the raids on the program's customer service infrastructure and the security of its data mounted by Elon Musk's DOGE earlier this year looked somewhat random. Fueled by abject ignorance about how the program worked and what its data meant, DOGE set in place plans to cut the program's staff by 7,000, or 12 percent, and to close dozens of field offices serving Social Security applicants and beneficiaries. This at a time when the Social Security case load is higher than ever and staffing had already approached a 50-year low. This might have been billed as an effort to impose 'efficiency' on the system. But 'a more accurate description,' writes Monique Morrissey of the labor-oriented Economic Policy Institute, 'is sabotage.' That has been conservatives' long-term plan — make interactions with Social Security more involved, more difficult and more time-consuming in order to make it seem ever less relevant to average Americans' lives. Once that happened, the public would be softened up to accept a privatized retirement system. Get the inefficient government off the backs of the people, the idea goes, so Wall Street can saddle up. George W. Bush's privatization plan, indeed, was conceived and promoted by Wall Street bankers, who thirsted for access to the trillions of dollars passing through the system's hands. This was never much of a secret, but it simmered beneath the surface. But Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, speaking at a July 30 event sponsored by Breitbart News, said the quiet part out loud. Referring to a private savings account program enacted as part of the GOP budget reconciliation bill Trump signed July 4, Bessent said, 'In a way, it is a back door for privatizing Social Security.' The private accounts are to be jump-started with $1,000 deposits for children born this year through 2028, to be invested in stock index mutual funds; families can add up to $5,000 annually in after-tax income, with withdrawals beginning when the child reaches 18, though in some cases incurring a stiff penalty. I asked the Treasury Department for a clarification of Bessent's remark, but didn't receive a reply. Bessent, however, did try to walk the statement back via a post on X in which he stated that the Trump accounts are 'an additive benefit for future generations, which will supplement the sanctity of Social Security's guaranteed payments.' Sorry, Mr. Secretary, no sale. You're the one who talked about 'privatizing Social Security' at the Breitbart event. You're stuck with it. Plainly, an 'additive' benefit would have nothing to do with Social Security. How it would 'supplement the sanctity' of Social Security benefits isn't apparent from Bessent's statement, or the law. Still, we can parse out the implications based on the long history of conservative attacks on the program. In 1983, the libertarian Cato Journal published a paper by Stuart Butler and Peter Germanis, two policy analysts at the right-wing Heritage Foundation, titled 'Achieving a 'Leninist' Strategy—i.e., for privatizing Social Security. From Lenin they drew the idea of mobilizing the working class to undermine existing capitalist structures. Cato's 'Leninist' strategy paper explicitly advocated encouraging workers to opt out of Social Security by promising them a payroll tax reduction if they put the money in a private account. IRAs, the authors asserted, would acclimate Americans to entrusting their retirements to a privatized system. They advocated an increase in the maximum annual contribution and its tax deductibility. 'The public would gradually become more familiar with the private option,' they wrote. 'If that did happen, it would be far easier than it is now to adopt the private plan as their principal source of old-age insurance and retirement income.' In other words, it would provide a backdoor for privatizing Social Security. (Germanis has since emerged as a cogent critic of conservative economics. Butler served at Heritage until 2014 and is currently a scholar in residence at the Brookings Institution; he told me in March that he still believes in parallel systems of private retirement savings as we have today, but as 'add on' savings rather than a substitute for Social Security.) Cato, a think tank co-founded by Charles Koch, has never relinquished its quest to privatize Social Security; the notion still occupies pride of place on the institution's web page devoted to the program. In 2005, when I attended a two-day conference on the topic at Cato's Washington headquarters, Michael D. Tanner, then the chair of Cato's Social Security task force, explained that Cato wasn't concerned so much with the system's fiscal and economic issues as with its politics. Its goal, he stated frankly, was to unmake FDR's New Deal. 'This is about whether we redefine a relationship between individuals and government that we've had since 1935,' he told me. 'We say that what was done was wrong then, and it's wrong now. Our position is that people need to be responsible for their own lives.' Yet forcing dramatic change on a program so widely trusted and appreciated is a heavy lift. That's why Republicans have tried to downplay their intentions. Back in 2019, for instance, Sen. Joni Ernst (R-Iowa) talked about the need to hold discussions about Social Security's future 'behind closed doors.' Secrecy was essential, Ernst said, 'so we're not being scrutinized by this group or the other, and just have an open and honest conversation about what are some of the ideas that we have for maintaining Social Security in the future.' As I observed at the time, that was a giveaway: The only time politicians take actions behind closed doors is when they know the results will be massively unpopular. Raising taxes on the rich to pay for Social Security benefits? That discussion can be held in the open, because the option is decisively favored in opinion polls. Cut benefits? That needs to be done in secret, because Americans overwhelmingly oppose it. Curiously, Trump and his fellow Republicans seem to think that attacking Social Security is an electoral winner. Possibly they've lost sight of the program's importance to the average American. Among Social Security beneficiaries age 65 and older, 39% of men and 44% of women receive half their income or more from Social Security. In the same cohort, 12% of men and 15% of women rely on Social Security for 90% or more of their income. Notwithstanding that reality, Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick recently asserted that delays in sending out Social Security checks or bank deposits would be no big deal. 'Let's say Social Security didn't send out their checks this month,' Lutnick said. 'My mother-in-law, who's 94 — she wouldn't call and complain.... She'd think something got messed up, and she'll get it next month.' He claimed that only 'fraudsters' would complain. I had a different take. Mine was that even a 24-hour delay in benefit payments would have a cataclysmic fallout for the Republican Party. It would be front-page news coast to coast. There would be nowhere for them to hide. While bringing misery to millions of Americans, a delay — which would be unprecedented since the first checks went out in 1940 — would be a gift for Democrats, if they knew how to use it. Where will we go from here? The current administration has already done damage to this critically-important program. An acting commissioner Trump installed briefly interfered with the enrollment process for infants born in Maine—an important procedure to ensure that government benefits continue to flow to their families—because the state's governor had pushed back against Trump in public. In July, the newly-appointed Social Security commissioner, Frank Bisignano, allowed a false and flagrantly political email to go out to beneficiaries and to be posted on the program's website implying that the budget reconciliation bill relieved most seniors of federal income taxes on their benefits. It did nothing of the kind. To the extent that Social Security may face a fiscal reckoning in the next decade, the most effective fix is well-understood by those familiar with the program's structure. It's removing the income cap on the payroll tax, which tops out this year at $176,100 in wage income. Up to that point, wages are taxed at 12.4%, split evenly between workers and their employers. Above the ceiling, the tax is zero. Remove the cap, and make capital gains, dividends and interest income subject to the tax, and Social Security will remain fully solvent into the foreseeable future. Trump and his fellow Republicans don't seem to understand how most Americans view Social Security: as an 'entitlement,' not because they think they're getting something for nothing, but because they know they've paid for it all their working lives. As much as the system's foes would like it to go away, as long as the rest of us remain vigilant against efforts to 'redefine a relationship between individuals and government' established in 1935, we will be able to celebrate its 100th anniversary 10 years from now, in 2035.
Chicago Tribune
3 minutes ago
- Chicago Tribune
Letters: Rock Island must preserve its unique natural areas
Rock Island, Illinois, is a masterpiece of wild nature and human development ('Biodiversity vs. expansion: wetlands in the Quad Cities', Aug. 10). I went to school there for four years at Augustana College, and saw the mixture of bald eagle habitats, the arsenal on the river, and the study of underwater dunes in the Mississippi River by the Army Corps of Engineers. But Rock Island doesn't need to destroy more of its one-of-kind nature to build yet even more development. They are deep in poverty because of the casinos, which aren't good jobs. Rock Island is an epicenter of prized wilderness, with centuries of calculated and caring engineering along one of the world's longest rivers. Keep the marshes please and do something smart for once. Those eagles and herrings need you, Rock Island City Council.'Biodiversity vs. expansion: wetlands in the Quad Cities,' what a fantastic story for the Tribune to feature as its lead story on Sunday's front page. The wetlands area in question in Rock Island appears beautiful and is critical habitat for eagles and many other endangered species. Unfortunately, this story is a perfect example of 'the American way,' at least these days. Over and over in our country we see development take precedence over protection of incredible ecological environments. How do you weigh the protection of a significant bald eagle habitat versus building a gas station? It doesn't seem to be a difficult choice. But the article leads one to believe that the gas station will be winning out! Again, this nonsense brings to mind Joni Mitchell's wonderful lyrics when she sang 'they paved paradise, and put up a parking lot'.Former Wisconsin Senator Russ Feingold's op-ed highlighting the latest efforts by the current federal government to threaten the public lands of northeastern Minnesota is worthy of greater attention ('Messing with Boundary Waters is bad politics,' Aug. 9). I grew up there and both myself and my extended family continue to live there or visit it annually. It is everything Mr. Feingold says. Many of us in the upper Midwest have this as our touchstone to our local wilderness. Having grown up there, I well remember when the Boundary Waters Canoe Area was created legislatively in 1978, when I was 15. By that time, I had fished, camped and traveled those waters more times than I can remember with my father, mother, siblings and friends— enough to not need a map to get around those waters. Locals revered those lands, as they do still. They also need a way to make a living. In 1978, the ban on motors in the Boundary Waters was a very real concern for those who had fishing, lodging and other businesses dependent on boating access. Time and investment in promoting tourism, as well as creation of the Voyageurs National Park in 1975, have largely addressed those initial concerns on economic impact and the political push-back that came with those concerns. The area's greatest economic driver after the end of the lumbering trade in the early 20th century has been and continues to be iron ore mining. Mining is a notoriously boom-bust industry, and the long-term costs have to be carefully weighed against the short-term gains. I know mining is in the blood of those who live there still, but there are big environmental differences in mining iron ore to mining copper. Plus, do we really want to sell our sacred land's mineral rights to foreigners? In our current national governmental climate, where oversight and protection are all but forgotten in favor of economic privilege for the few, we need to pay attention to this Elizabeth Shakelford's August 8 column ('Gaza's starvation is America's shame,' Aug. 8) concerning the terrible suffering of Gazan residents and U.S. action, or lack thereof, would the allies have accepted an offer from Germany's Nazi government for a ceasefire and peace talks that would have left that government in power? How is Israel supposed to accept the continued existence of the Hamas 'government', a government sworn to Israel's destruction, when a cease fire would be an opportunity to rearm and dig tunnels? The conditions that the residents of Gaza are dealing with are beyond awful. It is clear that Shackelford has more empathy for the people of Gaza than does Hamas, which will stop at nothing, even the terrible suffering of its own people, to achieve its ends. To Hamas, if Hamas is not to be, then the residents of Gaza serve no purpose. How about letting the residents of Gaza vote in a free and fair election as to who they want to be governed by?In her column on August 8, Shackelford deserves special praise for pointing out the connection between America's support for Israel and the ongoing starvation of Gaza's civilian population. While reporting a fact that may not be universally known would merit praise in itself, Shackelford is not just reporting a fact: She's doing it at the risk of tarnishing, perhaps even ruining, her reputation. For American politicians and intellectuals alike, criticizing Israel's policies in Gaza and the West Bank or questioning America's support for Israel has become dangerous, all too often incurring charges of antisemitism. My hunch is that many who in private criticize Israel or America's support for Israel never say a word in public, cowed into silence by the sword of Damocles hanging over them — the omnipresent threat of charges of antisemitism. But, as Shackelford implies, one evil (hatred of Jews) cannot justify another — depraved indifference to the starvation of an entire population. No matter how much America supports Israel, no matter how just Israel's operations in Gaza may be, they cannot justify mass starvation.
The Hill
3 minutes ago
- The Hill
Trump's China deal on AI chips prompts significant security concerns
President Trump's reversal on previously blocked chip sales to China has sparked cries that the White House is selling out America's security concerns in a bid to raise revenue. Trump on Monday agreed to allow tech giants Nvidia and AMD to secure export licenses to sell their advanced artificial intelligence (AI) chips in China in exchange for a 15 percent cut of the profits. The White House said Tuesday that more such deals could be on the table. The unusual deal doesn't just raise legal questions. Experts say the U.S. should be wary of turning over American-made technology that could boost its adversary's AI capabilities, at a time when the two countries are fiercely competing for dominance. The security concerns appear to be a two-way street. China urged tech companies there to avoid any purchase of the chip, citing security issues. The move once again has Trump at odds with Congress's China hawks, who argue the administration is shortchanging America's national security interests to make a buck. Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi (Ill.), the top Democrat on the House Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party, in a statement said the most troubling part of the deal was a contradiction at the heart of the policy. 'The administration cannot simultaneously treat semiconductor exports as both a national security threat and a revenue opportunity,' he said. 'By putting a price on our security concerns, we signal to China and our allies that American national security principles are negotiable for the right fee.' The same panel's GOP chair, Rep. John Moolenaar (Mich.), said there are 'questions about the legal basis' for such a deal. 'Export controls are a frontline defense in protecting our national security, and we should not set a precedent that incentivizes the Government to grant licenses to sell China technology that will enhance its AI capabilities,' he said in a statement. Greenlighting the sales marks a reversal for the Trump administration, which in April initially imposed restrictions on Nvidia's H20 chip and AMD's MI308 chip, effectively blocking shipments to China. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick has argued China is only receiving Nvidia's 'fourth best' chip, but this has done little to assuage concerns. The administration has increasingly taken up the mantle, supported by the semiconductor industry, that the U.S. should focus on boosting the adoption of U.S. technology abroad rather than imposing more stringent export restrictions. The reasoning follows that the best way to win the AI race is to keep China dependent on American-made chips and prevent Huawei from gaining ground both inside and outside of China. Others contend this will simply boost Beijing's capabilities in a way that would be impossible without the U.S. technology. 'We've got to realize we're in an intellectual war, a technology war with China, and we're in an AI competition. Having Nvidia providing this technology to China is a mistake,' Rep. Don Bacon (R-Neb.) said during an appearance on 'The Hill' on NewsNation. 'China getting our chips is not a good deal.' National security experts say the risks are manifold. Not only do the sales boost China in what many see as a technological cold war, it also opens the door to the risk the communist government could use chips for military technology or other uses that directly threaten the U.S. Liza Tobin, who served as China director at the National Security Council under the first Trump and Biden administrations, said chip producers only have so much capacity, so shipping them to China shortchanges others. 'It's putting a priority on China's AI development at the expense of American or other countries' AI development,' she told The Hill. She also expressed concern over chips being used for 'malign purposes that potentially harm and kill American men and women in uniform.' 'These chips themselves are inherently dual use. It's not like these are just made for the military or have some limit on them to only be allowed for cat food apps. That's just not how it works.' Nvidia on Tuesday argued the sales will help the U.S. become a technology leader with little risk to either party. 'As both governments recognize, the H20 is not a military product or for government infrastructure,' the company said in a statement. 'China has ample supply of domestic chips to meet its needs. It won't and never has relied on American chips for government operations, just like the U.S. government would not rely on chips from China. Banning the sale of H20 in China would only harm U.S. economic and technology leadership with zero national security benefit.' Peter Harrell, a nonresident fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, said the export control licenses Trump is now negotiating with companies were expressly designed to weigh those types of national security risks. 'It's a very troubling precedent because historically when we've been looking at export control licenses, it's been strictly speaking a national security review,' Harrell said. 'Does the export of this widget threaten U.S. national security? Whereas now, there's also going to be this factor of, 'Well maybe it does threaten U.S. national security … but hey, we got some money from it.'' 'I think it would be quite negative for us if we get in the business of 'We're happy to arm our adversaries as long as they pay us a bit of money to do so.' I hope that's not where we are. I do worry that this could become a broader precedent.' White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said Tuesday that the administration would consider other similar arrangements in spite of legal concerns. 'Right now, it stands with these two companies. Perhaps it could expand in the future to other companies,' Leavitt said. 'I think it's a creative idea and solution. The legality of it, the mechanics of it is still being ironed out by the Department of Commerce.' 'This was another idea of the president and his brain trust on his trade team to try to get good deals for the American people and the American taxpayer,' she added. It's not clear such deals would be legal. Export taxes are barred by the Constitution, while fees for export licenses are prohibited under federal law. However, it's unclear whether the 15 percent cut from Nvidia and AMD's chip sales would count as a formal tax or fee, as well as whether anyone would bring such a challenge. Still, several raised concerns about the precedent set by the deal, noting there are many other American-made products China would be interested in purchasing that could be detrimental to U.S. interests. 'Are we now going to see the Commerce Department shaking down high-tech exporters generally for a 15 percent cut? Are we going to see the State Department, which regulates exports of defense weaponry, start shaking down defense exporters for a 15 percent cut?' Harrell asked. 'I have to assume that there would be some lines, maybe it is F-35s. Would he sell nuclear weapons? You have to think there are some lines that Trump wouldn't cross. But this is blowing past a bunch of past precedent, and I think suggests that whatever lines he does have that he would not be willing to cross are very, very different from the lines any previous president would have had.' Rep. Jake Auchincloss (D-Mass.) noted that Trump has also sought to bypass a law passed by Congress and signed by former President Biden that would block the popular app TikTok unless the China-based ByteDance sells the company. Born out of fears that Chinese law could require the app to hand over data on Americans, Trump has punted enforcement, signing three separate extensions. 'So now the US government is financially motivated to sell AI to China?' Auchincloss wrote on the social platform X. 'Makes me shudder to think what a TikTok deal might look like.' Tobin, however, said China is likely to set their sights on securing more advanced chips than the H20, including the Blackwell, which is still under development. Trump suggested Monday that he would consider making a deal on a reduced-capacity version of the Blackwell. Trump's dealmaking, Tobin said, will suggest to the Chinese that such things are now open to negotiation, a dynamic she warns the government is also using with Nvidia. China's warning not to immediately order Nvidia's chips serves a twofold purpose, she said, one that allows them to exert some control over the company while opening the door to demanding information about the chips that could aid in their replication. 'They know there are technical means that could potentially be weaponized,' she said, adding that while China has 'rational' security concerns, the move is also 'a pretext for squeezing out more from Nvidia' by a country that has previously required companies to share their intellectual property. 'The Chinese government has already been calling Nvidia in to explain whether its chips are secure, and that's a way to put Nvidia on notice and say, 'Hey, you better be behaving the way we want you to, or else we're going to make it very painful for you to stay in the China market.'' Nvidia has previously said it would not send 'any [graphics processing unit] designs to China to be modified to comply with export controls.' 'Our products are extraordinarily complex and take tens of thousands of engineering years to create, and by the time an NVIDIA product is available in the market, we are already far along in our design of the next one,' a spokesperson said Tuesday. Any Chinese advances may mean the deal may only be of short-term value to Nvidia, Tobin argued, but it's one she said the government should shield against. 'The role of government is to put the guardrails on so that private interests don't control our national security,' Tobin said.
