A pro-Trump nonprofit group called Women for America First hosted the “Save America Rally” on Jan. 6 at the Ellipse, an oval-shaped, federally owned patch of land near the White House.

But an attachment to the National Park Service public gathering permit granted to the group lists more than half a dozen people in staff positions for the event who just weeks earlier had been paid thousands of dollars by Trump’s 2020 re-election campaign. Other staff scheduled to be “on-site” during the demonstration have close ties to the White House.

Since the siege, several of them have scrambled to distance themselves from the rally.

The riot at the Capitol, incited by Trump’s comments before and during his speech at the Ellipse, has led to a reckoning unprecedented in American history. The president told the crowd to march to the Capitol and that “you’ll never take back our country with weakness. You have to show strength, and you have to be strong.”

A week after the rally, Trump was impeached by the House of Representatives, becoming the first U.S. president ever to be impeached twice. But the political and legal fallout may stretch well beyond Trump, who will exit the White House on Wednesday before Democrat Joe Biden takes the oath of office. Trump had refused for nearly two months to accept his loss in the 2020 election to the former vice president.

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According to media projections, Democrat Biden has won the November 3 presidential election. However, Trump, a Republican, has alleged election fraud and mounted legal fights in a number of battleground states.

“More people may die if we don’t coordinate,” Biden said in Wilmington, Delaware, on Monday, responding to a question on President Donald Trump refusing to concede the election and the outgoing administration not co-operating in the transition process.

“A vaccine is important. It’s of little use until you’re vaccinated. So, how do we get the vaccine, how do we get over 300 million Americans vaccinated? What’s the game plan? It’s a huge, huge, huge undertaking to get it done, prioritise those greatest in need and working our way through, and also cooperate with the World Health Organiszation and the rest of the world in dealing with this,” he said.

“So they (Trump administration) say they have this ‘Warp Speed’ programme that not only dealt with getting vaccines, but also how to distribute this. If we have to wait until January 20th (day of Presidential inauguration) to start that planning, it puts us behind over a month, month-and-a-half. And so, it’s important that it be done, that there be coordination now, now or as rapidly as we can get that done,” Biden said.

As of now, Biden said his action plan is to deal with every individual, organisation in the country from business to labour, Republicans and Democrats, to try to pull together a serious and consistent plan so that he is ready on day one with everything from staffing to ultimately naming cabinet members to moving along on coordinating with business and labour, the COVID-19 outbreak.

And so, it would make it a lot easier if the president were to participate. We have a number of Republicans suggesting that–the good news here is my colleague is still on the Intelligence Committee so she gets the intelligence briefings. I don’t anymore. But there’s a number of Republicans calling for that, he said.

“My message is I will work with you. I understand a lot of your reluctance because of the way the president operates, but I’ve been in contact with and will be in contact with more of them as we move along. And if it has to wait until January 20th to get–to actually become operational, that’s a shame but it may be that’s the only way to get it done,” he said.

Biden was also asked about his thoughts on Trump’s tweet over the weekend where he first seemed to acknowledge that Biden had won the election. However, soon after Trump said he would not concede, and that he had won.

“I interpret that as Trumping-ism, no change in his modus operandi. And I think the pressure will continue to build,” he said.

The President-elect said that he is having a lot of meetings with world leaders on the telephone and he can get into negotiating with them about things that are going to be done. They are calling with some degree of enthusiasm everyone from a holy father to prime ministers across the globe.

“So we are moving along knowing what the outcome will be and but I find this more embarrassing for the country than debilitating for my ability to get started,” Biden said.

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More than 170 countries are in talks to participate in the COVID-19 Vaccines Global Access (Covax) Facility, which aims to speed vaccine development and secure doses for all countries and distribute them to the most high-risk segment of each population.

The plan, which is co-led by the WHO, the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations and Gavi, the vaccine alliance, was of interest to some members of the Trump administration and is backed by traditional US allies, including Japan, Germany and the European Commission, the executive arm of the European Union.

But the United States will not participate, in part because the White House does not want to work with the WHO, which President Donald Trump has criticised over what he characterised as its “China-centric” response to the pandemic.

“The United States will continue to engage our international partners to ensure we defeat this virus, but we will not be constrained by multilateral organisations influenced by the corrupt World Health Organisation and China,” said Judd Deere, a spokesman for the White House.

The Covax decision, which has not been previously reported, is effectively a doubling down by the administration on its bet that the United States will win the vaccine race. It eliminates the chance to secure doses from a pool of promising vaccine candidates – a potentially risky strategy.

“America is taking a huge gamble by taking a go-it-alone strategy,” said Lawrence Gostin, a professor of global health law at Georgetown University.

Kendall Hoyt, an assistant professor at Dartmouth’s Geisel School of Medicine, said it was akin to opting out of an insurance policy.

The United States could be pursuing bilateral deals with drug companies and simultaneously participating in Covax, she said, increasing its odds of getting some doses of the first safe vaccine. “Just from a simple risk management perspective, this [Covax decision] is shortsighted,” she said.

The US move will also shape what happens elsewhere. The idea behind Covax is to discourage hoarding and focus on vaccinating high-risk people in every country first, a strategy that could lead to better health outcomes and lower costs, experts said.

US nonparticipation makes that harder. “When the US says it is not going to participate in any sort of multilateral effort to secure vaccines, it’s a real blow,” said Suerie Moon, co-director of the Global Health Center at the Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies in Geneva.

“The behaviour of countries when it comes to vaccines in this pandemic will have political repercussions beyond public health,” she said. “It’s about, are you a reliable partner, or, at the end of the day, are you going to keep all your toys for yourself?”

Some members of the Trump administration were interested in a more cooperative approach but were ultimately overruled.

Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar and Deputy Secretary of State Stephen Biegun had interest in exploring some type of role in Covax, a senior administration official said, speaking on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the decision-making.

But there was resistance in some corners of the government and a belief that the United States has enough coronavirus vaccine candidates in advanced clinical trials that it can go it alone, according to the official and a former senior administration official who learned about it in private discussions.

The question of who wins the race for a safe vaccine will largely influence how the administration’s ‘America first’ approach to the issue plays out.

An unlikely worst-case scenario, experts said, is that none of the U.S. vaccine candidates are viable, leaving the United States with no option since it has shunned the Covax effort.

Another possibility is that a US vaccine does pan out, but the country hoards doses, vaccinating a large number of Americans, including those at low risk, while leaving other countries without.

Experts in health security see at least two problems with this strategy: The first is that a new vaccine is unlikely to offer complete protection to all people, meaning that a portion of the US population will still be vulnerable to imported cases – especially as tourism and trade resume.

The second, related problem is that a US recovery depends on economic recovery elsewhere. If large parts of the world are still in lockdown, the global economy is smarting and supply chains are disrupted, the United States will not be able to bounce back.

Proponents of a multilateral approach to global public health would like to see all countries coordinate through Covax. Perhaps unsurprisingly, interest is strongest from poor countries, while some larger economies are cutting deals directly with drugmakers.

WHO officials have argued that countries need not choose — they can pursue both strategies by signing bilateral deals and also joining Covax.

“By joining the facility at the same time that you do bilateral deals, you’re actually betting on a larger number of vaccine candidates,” Mariângela Simao, a WHO assistant director for drug and vaccine access, said at an August 17 briefing.

If nothing else, the United States could pledge surplus vaccine doses to Covax to ensure they are distributed in a rational and equitable way, experts said.

Some cautioned against a focus on ‘winning’ the race. Given the complexity of supply chains, vaccine development will necessarily be a global effort, regardless of whether countries want to cooperate.

The decision to steer clear of Covax comes at a time of tremendous change for health diplomacy.

The United States has long been the biggest donor to the WHO and a major funder of vaccine initiatives.

In the early days of the coronavirus pandemic, Trump praised both China and the WHO for their handling of the outbreak. But as the crisis intensified in the United States, he turned on the UN health agency.

In April, he announced a freeze on new US funding. Not long after, the State Department started stripping references to the WHO from fact sheets and rerouting funds to other programs.

By July, the administration had sent a letter signalling its intent to withdraw from the WHO.

But untangling the United States from the agency it helped found and shape is not simple — and the terms of the separation are still being assessed.

It is not yet clear, for instance, whether a US withdrawal means the United States will just stop its contributions to the WHO or whether it will stop funding any initiative linked to the agency in any way.

For instance, the White House no longer wants to work with the WHO, but the United States is a major supporter of Gavi, which co-leads the Covax project.

Asked to comment on the Covax decision, a State Department spokeswoman pointed to US funding for Gavi, as well as money for such programs as UNICEF and the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria.

Stephen Morrison, director of the Global Health Policy Center at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, said the White House could still reverse course and join Covax, or at least let the Senate fund through Gavi – a political workaround.

“This just shows how awkward, contradictory and self-defeating all of this,” he said. “For the U.S. to terminate its relationship with the WHO in the middle of a pandemic is going to create an endless stream of self-defeating moments.”

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US President Donald Trump retweeted a video showing one of his supporters in Florida shouting “white power” at the protesters of his administration. It drew rebukes from allies and adversaries as protests continue a month after George Floyd’s death.

The retweeted video which was later deleted from the president’s feed triggered an immediate backlash. The tweet was widely criticized for being racist and insensitive, and again demonstrated the president’s willingness to use social media for sharing some of the most hateful commentary of some of his followers, even at the time of national unrest.

Senator Tim Scott of South Carolina, the only Black Republican senator, called the video “offensive” and asked Trump to take it off his Twitter page.

However, White House spokesman Judd Deere said in a statement that Trump is a big fan of the villages and the president did not hear the offensive chant.

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US President Donald Trump’s move to suspend H-1B visas and other visas for this year is putting immigrants in perpetual anguish. Evidently, it is affecting the American dreams of many young Indians.

Ninety per cent of applicants for the H-1B visa are from India. The proclamation that comes into effect on June 24 is expected to impact a large number of Indian IT professionals and several American and Indian companies who were issued H-1B visas by the US Government for the fiscal year 2021 beginning October 1. It would also impact a large number of Indian IT professionals who are seeking renewal of their H-1B visas. There are a total of over 4.5 lakh H-1B visa holders and majority of them are Indians.

A twitter user with the name H1BimmigrantAnshu Sharma, who runs a company in the US, tweeted,“Banning all H1B visas means CEOs like me have to open offices and hire more people in countries like Canada that allow immigration. The visa ban is morally wrong and economically stupid. What happened to being “for legal immigration”?

India’s apex IT body NASSCOM said H-1B Visa ban is misguided and harmful to the US economy. The IT body said in a statement that the new proclamation will prevent our companies and thousands other organisations from accessing the talent they need from overseas.

A Grim future for Tech Companies?

The business leaders fiercely opposed the move saying that it will block their ability to recruit critically needed workers from countries overseas. Chief Executive Officer Sundar Pichai said on Twitter he was “disappointed” and that “we’ll continue to stand with immigrants and work to expand opportunity for all.” “Immigration has contributed immensely to America’s economic success, making it a global leader in tech, and also Google the company it is today. Disappointed by today’s proclamation-we’ll continue to stand with immigrants and work to expand opportunity for all,” Pichai said.

About three-quarters of H-1B visas go to people working in the technology industry. According to the state department, the number of non-immigrant visas issued in 2019 declined for the fourth consecutive year, to 8.7 million from 10.9 million in 2015.CompTIA, a trade group that represents big tech companies like Amazon and Google parent company Alphabet Inc. said the move would deal a lasting blow to the economy.

Nandini Nair, an immigration partner at Greenspoon Marder, said to a media,“Many spent thousands of dollars filing paperwork for each H-1B visa applicant. They expended all of this money and planned their budgets and workforce capabilities on these visas and that’s now shot,” Nair said.Many workers have been unable to travel since the coronavirus pandemic shut borders across the world. “A lot of these workers are now prisoners in the U.S. because they don’t have a valid visa stamp in their passport,if they go, they can’t come back in,” Ms. Nair said.

Creating Opportunities for talents within the country

On the contrary, VikramAhuja, Co-Founder of Talent 500 by ANSR believes this is the exact opportunity to explore the potential of Indian companies and talent within the country.“We think this is a fantastic opportunity for the growth of Global Capability Centers (GCC’s) which allows global companies to access top talent and build teams where they are.GCC’s in India have grown at 50% year-on-year and have emerged as the strongest growth-driver for the Indian IT Industry,” he said.

He also said that H-1B will impact a lot of deserving professionals from accessing well deserved opportunities, “but at the same time is a terrific opportunity for talent to access newer opportunities which will come up in India due to enterprises needing to build great team irrespective of where they are,” Vikram Ahuja said.

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