Italy's Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, who will visit the White House on Thursday, said that U.S. President Joe Biden had never challenged her on the issue of Rome being part of the Chinese Belt and Road Initiative (BRI).

ROME, July 23 (Reuters) - Italy’s Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, who will visit the White House on Thursday, said that U.S. President Joe Biden had never challenged her on the issue of Rome being part of the Chinese Belt and Road Initiative (BRI).

Meloni leads the only major Western country to have joined China’s BRI scheme, which envisions rebuilding the old Silk Road to connect China with Asia, Europe and beyond with large infrastructure spending.

    • DojanEnglish
      1•1 year ago

      Oh absolutely. Here’s an archive.gov page on Classification 50 which is needed for context.

      Unfortunately, it seems that the related documents aren’t filed online yet, it is mirrored on this wiki, and there are sources in the description. If you’re in the U.S. I’m sure you could head to a library and request this memo in person if you doubt its veracity.

      In the United States one cannot sell himself as a peon or slave – the law is fixed and established to protect the weak-minded, the poor, the miserable. Men will sometimes sell themselves for a meal of victuals or contract with another who acts as surety on his [sic] bond to work out the amount of the bond upon his [sic] release from jail. Any such contract is positively null and void and the procuring and causing of such contract to be made violates these statutes.
      …
      To assure emphasis on the issue of involuntary servitude and slavery in considering these cases on the one hand and to minimize the necessity of relying upon the element of debt to fix jurisdiction on the other, the Federal Bureau of Investigation has been requested to change the title on its reports from “Peonage” to read “Involuntary Servitude and Slavery.” Henceforth, Peonage will be considered as secondary to involuntary servitude and slavery investigations.

      In short, quote from the archive.gov page

      U.S. Attorneys were instructed to disregard entirely the element of debt and to depend upon the issue of involuntary servitude and slavery.

      This was done to end the convict leasing debt peonage system that used black codes, laws that specifically targeted black people. When a black person was caught doing heinous acts like playing dice, drinking alcohol, or talking too loudly near a white woman, they’d be arrested, tried, and convicted.

      This was after the civil war, meaning that while the legal status of being a slave had been abolished, chattel slavery was not. You could buy the labour of a convict. So if you create laws that specifically target black people, and convict people en masse, you end up with slavery. That is what FDR’s government recognised, hence Circular no 3591 was put in place to end it, because they were worried that the enemy would use this in a propaganda war against them.

      Here is a page from the Brownsville Herald (Texas) from October 2nd, 1942.

      Beeville Couple arraigned On Charge Of Holding Negro In Slavery On Farm
      HOUSTON - A. L. Skrobarcek, 62-year-old farmer, and Susie, his 29-year-old daughter were arraigned today on a complaint charging that they held Alfred Irving, 42, a negro farm hand in slavery. Ray J. Abbaticchio, special agent in charge of the FBI here, said the two were arrested at their isolated farm near Beeville by sheriff’s deputies, state highway patromen and FBI agents.

      There’s also Mae Louise Miller who purports that she and her family were held in peonage (read: slavery) until they were freed in 1961. That’s her personal account though, so take that as you will.