(Baltimore) US President Joe Biden vowed Friday to “move heaven and earth” to rebuild a bridge that collapsed in Baltimore in late March, killing six people.
“I'm here to tell you that your country is behind you,” Democrat Francis Scott said in front of the wreckage of the Key Bridge, where the container ship responsible for the collapse is still embedded.
Joe Biden, campaigning for re-election against his predecessor Donald Trump, promised a new canal would be built by the end of May to restore access to Baltimore Harbor, one of the nation's busiest.
Photo by Manuel Pauls Seneta, Associated Press
The president's helicopter, Marine One, flew over the scene Friday.
A temporary shipping lane was opened earlier in the week to allow vessels involved in rescue and clearance operations to pass, but is not wide enough to allow large commercial ships to pass through.
Flying over the area in a helicopter, the president said, “From the air I saw the broken bridge, but on the ground, I saw a community that was united.
“We're going to make sure everything gets paid for,” he said, urging Congress to support his full funding plan. “We will move heaven and earth to rebuild this bridge as soon as possible.”
American steel
The 81-year-old Democrat, who is seeking the support of working-class voters, also promised a rebuilding with “American labor and steel,” a wink to his industrial recovery policies, which he hopes will allow him to do so. He will have an advantage over Donald Trump in November.
The president paid tribute to all immigrants from Mexico, Guatemala, El Salvador and Honduras, marking his distance from his opponent's increasingly violent rhetoric on immigration.
The Port of Baltimore is a US port through which more than 800,000 new cars passed last year, whether they were vehicles manufactured in the United States and exported internationally, or foreign vehicles imported into the United States.
Reconstruction of the Baltimore Bridge, located 40 miles north of Washington, is expected to take up to three years.
