Baltimore, Nov. 10 (U.S.): When he was in the White House, Donald Trump referred to Baltimore as a “disgusting mess, infested with rats and rodents.” But for President Joe Biden, the city is the first stop on what is likely to be a national tour to highlight the value of his agenda.
Biden plans Wednesday to disrupt the port of Baltimore as a blueprint for the rest of the country on how to reduce shipping bottlenecks that have hampered recovery from the coronavirus pandemic, according to administration officials who insisted on anonymity to discuss the event. The infrastructure package includes $17 billion to modernize the ports — an urgent need because the backlog of ships waiting to dock at major transportation hubs has fueled inflation and damaged public perceptions about Biden’s economic oversight.
The port in Baltimore is adding container cranes as well as a 50-foot berth where ships can be unloaded. The Port of Baltimore is also benefiting from grants to upgrade the Howard Street Tunnel, a brick-lined rail tunnel that opened in 1895. The tunnel will be expanded so that shipping containers can be double-stacked on railroad cars, making it easier to transport goods abroad. At the port, the Associated Press (AP) reported.
Nearly 90% of Baltimore voters supported Biden in last year’s election. The president last stopped in Baltimore for CNN Town Hall on October 21 Maryland’s largest city with a population of 586,000, Baltimore embodies the complexities of an increasingly diverse America at a time of heated national politics.
Poverty, crime, political corruption, and vacant homes have been witnessed by many Americans on TV shows like “The Wire” on HBO. The upheaval that followed Freddie Gray’s 2015 death from injuries in a police truck helped galvanize a national movement to respect the rights and lives of black Americans.
But Baltimore also contains deep pockets of wealth and prosperity in microcosm of the broader inequality facing the nation. There’s the ton mansions in Guilford, elite private schools, famous restaurants, and the status of Johns Hopkins University.
As president, Trump has repeatedly criticized the black-majority city on Twitter, calling it “the worst in the nation.” But while Trump has despised Baltimore, Biden sees a test case for his agenda beyond ports. Child tax credits send thousands of dollars to families in a city with a child poverty rate north of 30%. Work has begun on the renovation and modernization of Historic Penn Station, which may improve rail transportation through the Northeast Corridor.
A big part of Biden’s showing is that he has succeeded in a bipartisan infrastructure deal, while Trump has failed despite routinely hosting infrastructure weeks. On Tuesday during a virtual event hosted by the Democratic National Committee, Biden said his predecessor had never delivered to the country’s cities and ports.
He said, “So it was left to us.” “We got the job done.”
RAE