4 ★ FINANCIAL TIMES Friday 20 November 2020

INTERNATIONAL
global insight
Employment
washington

Virus deals further blow to US jobs Edward

New unemployment
claims increase for
first time in five weeks
Mamta Badkar — New York
The US saw 742,000 claims for first-
time unemployment benefits last week,
with the number of new applications
rising for the first time in five weeks as
the country reels from a record rise in
Florida and New Jersey recorded the
biggest declines.
Overall, 20.3m people are receiving
jobless benefits of some kind since the
crisis began in March, according to data
that are reported with a two-week lag.
The data suggest the US economic and
labour market recoveries are threat-
ened by the rise in infections. “The
back-up in claims this week is some-
what troubling, and likely indicative of
what we are going to see in the next few
Luce
ahead of the Thanksgiving holiday, ‘The back- Congress has failed to reach a deal for
which health officials have warned has a new stimulus package. Jay Powell,
up in claims
the potential to quicken the pandemic’s
already rapid spread.
While Covid-19 vaccines being devel-
is troubling,
Federal Reserve chair, has repeatedly
pressed for additional aid to bolster the
economy. The central bank has pledged
Biden takes gamble in
oped by Moderna and Pfizer-BioNTech
are expected to receive approval before
and likely
indicative
to keep rates close to zero, and Richard
Clarida, vice-chair, recently signalled
quest to re-embrace
the end of the year, economists have
warned it will take a while to reverse the
blow dealt to the labour market, busi-
of what we
possible changes to the Fed’s bond-buy-
ing programme as policymakers seek to
keep the recovery going.
global democracy
nesses and investment.
are going to While the unemployment rate has
Meanwhile the stress to the economy see in the more than halved since its coronavirus

coronavirus cases.
Weekly jobless claims increased by
31,000, alongside a rise of 23,863 in
claims for federal pandemic unemploy-
ment assistance (PUA), the labour
department said yesterday. Economists
had expected claims of 707,000 in the
week ending November 14, according to
a Thomson Reuters survey.
The report showed increases in
unemployment claims in Louisiana,
Texas and Massachusetts, while Illinois,
Middle East
weeks ahead,” said Thomas Simons,
economist at Jefferies.
The US is experiencing a surge in
coronavirus infections — 163,075 new
cases were reported on Wednesday, tak-
ing the total number of infections past
11.3m.
A number of cities and states have
introduced new restrictions on indoor
gatherings and economic activity in
response. New York City has closed pub-
lic schools in an effort to curb the spread
is set to be even more pronounced as the
PUA scheme, which expands eligibility,
and the pandemic emergency unem-
ployment compensation (PEUC), which
provides an extra 13 weeks’ insurance to
those who have exhausted their bene-
fits, will expire at the end of the year.
Yesterday’s report showed the
number receiving PEUC rose more than
233,000 to almost 4.38m at the end of
last month. That figure stood at about
1.4m at the end of summer.
W
next few crisis peak of 14.9 per cent in April, the
pace of job creation has slowed and the
weeks’ total number of jobs is more than 10m
below pre-pandemic levels.
“Nothing is more important than pro-
viding a bridge to better times for those
displaced from work by Covid-19,” said
Andrew Stettner, senior fellow at The
Century Foundation, a progressive
think-tank. “Failing to do so will
unleash untold hardship and ultimately
slow the economic recovery.”
hat better way to herald regime change in
America than for it to re-embrace global
democracy? That is Joe Biden’s plan. He
wants to host a global “summit for democ-
racy”, possibly within 100 days of his inau-
guration. It would be hard to think of a step that could bet-
ter drive home that Donald Trump is no longer running
the world’s superpower. If Mr Trump personifies the age of
global strongmen, all Mr Biden need do is host a party that
pointedly excludes them.
But his strategy entails serious risk at home and abroad.
Reincorporating the democracy creed into US foreign pol-
icy would distance him not only from Mr Trump, but also
from Barack Obama, his former boss. The last US presi-
dent to talk about spreading democracy was George W
Bush, whose 2003 Iraq war discredited the idea on both
left and right. Mr Obama won his party’s nomination

Pompeo West Bank visit stirs diplomatic dispute
Mehul Srivastava — Tel Aviv
Mike Pompeo visited a Jewish-owned
vineyard in the Israeli-occupied West
Bank yesterday, becoming the first US
secretary of state to visit the sprawling
settlements regarded as illegal by the
international community.
The visit to the Psagot winery — which
in February named a vintage after Mr
Pompeo in recognition of his reversal of
Washington’s historical objection to
Israeli settlements — was condemned
by the Palestinians. Protesters gathered
outside with balloons ahead of his visit.
Mr Pompeo’s two-and-a-half-years at
the helm of US diplomacy has seen a
departure from decades of policy
designed to discourage the expansion of
Jewish settlement in land on which Pal-
estinians hope to build a future state.
Donald Trump, the US president, and
Mr Pompeo, who is thought to be con-
sidering a 2024 run for the presidency,
have sought to bolster their Christian
evangelical base by indulging rightwing
Israeli positions.
Mr Trump’s close relationship with
Benjamin Netanyahu, Israeli prime
minister, has underscored the most pro-
Israeli US administration in decades.
Christian Zionists who vote Republican
subscribe to a prophecy that Jewish con-
trol of Judea and Samaria — the biblical
names for the occupied West Bank —
will hasten the Second Coming of Christ.
For Palestinians, yesterday’s visit was
a “final twist of Trump’s knife”, said a
person close to Mohammad Shtayyeh,
the prime minister, who has welcomed
the election of Joe Biden as a return to
the studied neutrality the US has hith-
erto sought to project in one of the most
intractable conflicts.
“We had hoped that the foot was
finally off our neck,” the senior Palestin-
ian official said. “Trump and his friends
want to kick us a final time before they
leave, maybe just for fun, maybe to get
more votes.”
Mr Pompeo said yesterday that the US
would designate as anti-Semitic
a global boycott movement
that seeks to stigmatise Israel
for settlement building.
“It’s just wonderful,” said
Mr Netanyahu. “The people
of the book have never had a
better friend.”
Given that US courts have
upheld boycotts as constitu-
Mike Pompeo, tional, the move is largely symbolic.
right, with The choice of Psagot for Mr Pompeo’s
Israeli foreign visit is strategic. Partially built on land
minister Gabi expropriated from Palestinian land-
Ashkenazi owners, Psagot lost a 2019 case at the
yesterday. European Court of Justice, which upheld
Below, Pompeo an EU policy of labelling products from
wine from Israeli settlements differently from
Psagot those made in Israel.
Patrick SemanskyAP
Four US senators, including Kelly
Loeffler of Georgia, have appealed to Mr
Trump to overturn a Clinton-era policy,
currently not being enforced, that could
allow settlement products sold in the US
to be labelled as “Made in Israel”.
White evangelicals make up a third of
the electorate in Georgia, which is re-
running a Senate race in January that
will decide the balance of power in the
US legislature.
Over the past four years, the
Trump administration has pushed
through a series of policies that have
infuriated the Palestinians. Mr
Trump moved the US embassy to
Jerusalem, recognised Israel’s
annexation of the Syrian Golan
Heights and cut all aid to Palestinian ref-
ugees. Israel normalised relations with
the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain
under a US-brokered deal that made no
mention of Palestinian sovereignty.
In preparation for Mr Biden’s presi-
dency and desperate for a shift in US
policy, Palestinians last week renewed a
US-backed security agreement with
Israel that was abandoned as relations
deteriorated.
“The Palestinians were trying to look
for a ladder down from this very high
tree that they climbed up to,” said Neri
Zilber, author of State With No Army,
Army With No State, a book on the secu-
rity agreement.
“What they were waiting for really, as
were many people all over the world,
was the US election and they were hop-
ing beyond hope that Joe Biden would be
elected.”
The fate of the Palestinian project has
often been prey to the vicissitudes of US
domestic politics. Barack Obama, dur-
ing a 2013 visit to the Holy Land, visited
the other side of the fence from the
Psagot winery, meeting Palestinian
leaders at a youth centre in the Arab
community of al-Bireh.
“We want to tell our fellow Ameri-
cans, that when you drink [Psagot’s]
wine, you are drinking the blood of the
Palestinian people,” said Abdel Jawad
Saleh, an American citizen who has
served as mayor of al-Bireh.
On the day of the US elections, Israel
destroyed an EU-supported Palestinian-
Bedouin village in the West Bank. Last
week, it announced published tenders
to build a new neighbourhood east of
the 1949 armistice line that ended the
1948 war. This would further separate
East Jerusalem from other Arab neigh-
bourhoods.
“Like many issues of building in the
areas within Jerusalem but outside of
the 1949 armistice line, there are a lot of
sensitivities,” said Lior Schillat, direc-
tor-general of the Jerusalem Institute
for Policy Research.
The deadline for the bids is two days
before Mr Biden’s inauguration as presi-
dent in January.
partly because he had opposed the Iraq invasion, in con-
trast to Hillary Clinton who voted for it. Mr Biden also
voted to authorise the Iraq war.
One of Mr Trump’s merits to the 2016 Republican base
was his contempt for the “forever wars” in Iraq and else-
where that he blamed on a Bush-riddled establishment.
Whatever else can be said about Mr Trump’s foreign pol-
icy, he did not start new wars (there are still 60 days to go).
When historians look back on America’s early 21st century
politics, my hunch is they will say Mr Bush did more harm
to global democracy than Mr Trump.
Either way, Mr Biden is making two bets. The first is that
the world will still see US democracy as a credible example
to follow. Twenty years
ago few would have
doubted it. Twice since,
One bet is that the
however, the US has elec­- world will still see
ted a president who won a
lower share of the popu-
US democracy
lar vote (in 2000 and as a credible
2016). It is striking that
none of the countries that
example to follow
have adopted demo­cracy
since the end of the cold war has chosen the US constitu-
tional model. Pupils the world over are now familiar with
the weakness of the US electoral college and Senate malap-
portionment. Mr Biden’s victory shows that America’s sys-
tem still works. But it will take more than that to restore
the world’s faith in it.
Mr Biden’s second bet is that a club of democracies could
work together effectively. One suggestion is that Mr Biden
convene a “D-10” (10 democracies) of the G7 economies
plus India, South Korea and Australia. Any club to which
India belongs usually fails to agree on the rules. Further,
Narendra Modi, its Hindu nationalist premier, is steadily
turning India into the world’s largest illiberal democracy.
And no Biden adviser would include Hungary’s Viktor Or­-
ban, the man who embraced the term illiberal democracy.
The real purpose of Mr Biden’s club would be to counter
China’s increasingly overt ideological rivalry with the west.
As China’s largest neighbour, India’s support will be critical
to America’s ability to succeed in the so-called new cold
war. To keep India on board, Mr Biden would have to
refrain from criticising Mr Modi’s efforts to downgrade its
Muslim minority to second-class status. From the start,
Mr Biden would thus be accused of double standards.
So what would be the point of his club? The idea works in
theory. As the world’s biggest autocracy, China’s closest
ties are with other brutal regimes, notably Myanmar, Paki-
stan, Venezuela, North Korea, Iran and Russia. Authoritar-
ians have had a good 21st century so far, prompting talk of
a worldwide “democratic recession”. In practice, it would
be hard to make it work. Mr Biden could set up a symbolic
club that meets once a year. Or he could be more hawkish
by offering benefits: market access, freedom from sanc-
tions etc, that he would deny to non-democracies.
The aim, as Ben Judah and Erik Brattberg write on web-
site Foreign Policy, would be to update the British quip
about the original purpose of Nato “to keep the Soviet
Union out, the Americans in and Germany down”. The goal
of Mr Biden’s club would be “to keep China in check, India
close and the US steady in the turbulent years to come”.
The framing is sharp. In practice, however, Mr Biden’s
priority should be to revive democracy in America.
edward.luce@ft.com

Legal Notices
US election

Democrats’ low-key star followed the data to ensure success

Courtney Weaver — Washington
In the chaotic days that followed the
November 3 US presidential election,
one person seemed unusually calm:
Jennifer O’Malley Dillon, the manager
of Joe Biden’s victorious campaign.
In the drawn-out period between elec-
tion day and November 7, when the race
was called for the Democrat, Ms O’Mal-
ley Dillon emerged from behind the
scenes to deliver a series of “election
protection” briefings in which she re­-
turned again to her north star: the data.
Armed with a PowerPoint slideshow
of statistics and graphs, she methodi-
cally explained that Mr Biden was on
track to win enough battleground states
to capture the White House.
In so doing, she pointedly declined to
engage with the bare-knuckle tactics of
Donald Trump’s campaign, which
alleged, without evidence, that Demo-
crats had perpetrated mass voter fraud
to steal the election. “We’re just plug-
ging along with our focus on making
sure the votes are counted,” she said.
It was typical of the low-key style pre-
ferred by Ms O’Malley Dillon, a long-
standing operator who has made history
as the first woman to run a victorious
Democratic presidential campaign.
“Jen is guided by the data and is one of
the few people who can see [the overall]
picture as well as a county by county
picture in how to target and mobilise
votes,” said Stephanie Cutter, who
worked with Ms O’Malley Dillon on
Barack Obama’s 2012 campaign. “She
had a strategy and she stuck with it.”
This week, Mr Biden announced that
Ms O’Malley Dillon would enter the
White House with him in January in the
role of deputy chief of staff.
Since his victory, she has been cred-
ited with keeping the campaign’s atten-
tion directed at the “blue wall” states of
Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin,
which flipped back to the Democrat
after voting for Mr Trump in 2016.
That focus meant the campaign did
not pour resources into long-shot states,
most notably Texas, even as prominent
Democrats insisted the Biden team was
letting a huge prize slip away. Polls had
suggested Mr Biden was in touching dis-
tance of clinching the reliably Republi-
can state, but Mr Trump ended up win-
ning comfortably.
When you’re running a campaign,
“everyone is a critic”, said Mary Anne
Marsh, a Democratic strategist. But
Jennifer O’Malley
Dillon: declined to
engage with the
bare-knuckle
tactics of Donald
Trump’s campaign
while others might have “capitulated”
to the pressure, Ms O’Malley Dillon
stood firm. “She kept the blinders on
and worked her plan . . . she executed
relentlessly and it worked.”
The low-key approach stands in con-
trast to some other recent campaign
man­agers. Kellyanne Conway, for in­-
stance, was a frequent fixture on cable
networks when she ran Mr Trump’s
2016 presidential bid, serving as much
as his public messenger as a hands-on
executive.
“In these campaigns when you’re in
charge, the media wants to make you
into a media figure,” said Steve Elmen-
dorf, a Democratic lobbyist and fund-
raiser and deputy campaign manger for
John Kerry’s 2004 presidential bid.
“[Ms O’Malley Dillon] seemed to be
very disciplined about how to use her
time to run [the campaign] and not
have the ego of, ‘Oh well, I should [be in
front of the press]’.”
The campaign was not without its
critics. Some said the lack of a physical
ground game, a decision taken because
of the pandemic, hurt Mr Biden; Repub-
licans attribute the fact that Mr Trump
outperformed his polls to their superior
door-knocking operation.
But Ms O’Malley Dillon never believ­-
ed those polls. As pundits and traders
priced in a blowout Biden victory, hers
was a voice of caution. “Here’s the hon-
est truth: those are inflated national
public polling numbers.” Once again, it
turned out that her data were right.