Comment on Congress approves Panama, Colombia and South Korea trade deals

Greenland’s prime minister said Monday the autonomous island is not for sale after President-elect Donald Trump said owning Greenland “is an absolute necessity” for the U. S., The Hill reports. Said Prime Minister Múte Egede: “Greenland is ours. We are not for sale and will never be for sale.”

“President Joe Biden on Monday signed into law a defense bill that authorizes significant pay raises for junior enlisted service members, aims to counter China’s growing power and boosts overall military spending to $895 billion despite his objections to language stripping coverage of transgender medical treatments for children in military families,” NBC News reports.

“President Joe Biden has vetoed bipartisan legislation that would have added dozens of new federal judge positions in the coming years,” Politico reports. “The president had threatened to veto the bill because he didn’t want to give the president-elect new appointment opportunities, according to one of the outgoing president’s closest allies.”

Colorado state officials and the Union Pacific Railroad reached a tentative agreement on the future of the 100-year-old Moffat Tunnel — and, in the process, set the stage to expand passenger rail service in the mountains between Denver and Craig, officials announced Monday. Barring any major hiccups between now and the formal signing in May, the state will extend the 99-year lease allowing Union Pacific to use the tunnel for another 25 years.

We have enough data points now to have some idea of what is going on—and most of us probably won’t like it.