Events that took place last week in US Congress are bound to have consequences not just for America’s future, but likely also for the world (including Pakistan). It was supposed to be a simple vote to choose the Speaker of the House of Representatives (the chamber changed hands from Democrats to Republicans in the Nov. 2022 mid-term polls). But then it took Kevin McCarthy, the Republican candidate, 15 rounds of voting over 4 days to get through, as his own party’s far-right members repeatedly refused to back him.
The new speaker, Mr. McCarthy, has often projected himself as a moderate Republican from California. But his quest to win the leadership race ended up giving several meaty, deeply-partisan concessions to the ultra-conservative members on his party’s bench. In the process, electoral prospects for Donald Trump – who lost the 2020 presidential elections and saw many of his endorsed candidates lose in the 2022 mid-terms – have been revived, as the former president enjoys political control over hard-right members.
On the domestic front, the Biden presidency’s legislative agenda and spending priorities are now at risk from an extremely-obstructionist Republican-led House. Most worrisome is the prospect of default. A few months from now, the US is expected to hit its debt-issuance limit. Unless the debt ceiling is raised by the House, it may lead to the administration defaulting on its spending commitments, debt repayments, and social obligations. It will roil markets, much worse than the 2011 Debt Crisis that downgraded the US credit rating.
Beholden to the nihilist wing of his party, the new speaker will find it hard to find a middle ground on fiscal, economic, and social issues. Expect theatric congressional hearings on some of the most-contentious issues dividing America today. These include immigration (e.g. securing the Southern border), climate change (e.g. transition to clean energy), female empowerment (e.g. reproductive rights), and others. The hard-right has also vowed to investigate the Biden family for alleged financial corruption.
On foreign policy, the no-holds-barred kind of approach promised by some Republican members of the House is expected to take the Biden administration into some uncomfortable territory. For instance, there are already indications that the tens of billions of dollars in military support and financial assistance for Ukraine will come under greater scrutiny by Republicans, in the name of ‘America First’. If that aid is frozen, it will compromise Ukrainians’fighting capability, thus emboldening Russia and putting Putin First.
The new speaker made a special mention of holding hearings on investigating the Biden administration’s Afghanistan withdrawal and tracing the origins of Covid-19 in China. While the main objective of congressional hearings on the August 2021 Kabul debacle is to embarrass the Biden administration, those gatherings are likely to cast a negative spotlight on Pakistan’s historical role in supporting the Taliban. That does not bode well for the health of the US-Pak bilateral relations that were finally revived in 2022. As for Covid-related hearings, they will vitiate the already-tense US-China relationship over economic issues.
Considering that the next election cycle is a presidential one, it was expected that if Republicans regained control of the House in mid-terms, it wouldn't augur well for Biden’s re-election. But now, with a new Republican leader owing his speakership to hardliners (and with room for congressional bipartisanship almost diminished), the US government and the broader political system look are in for an unprecedentedly-tumultuous couple of years ahead. Are the Democrats prepared to sail into the choppy waters ahead?
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