US President Joe Biden promised Friday to “move heaven and earth” to rebuild the bridge which collapsed at the end of March in Baltimore like a house of cards, killing six people.
“I am here to tell you that your country is behind you,” said the Democrat in front of the debris of the Francis Scott Key bridge, in which the container ship that caused its collapse is still embedded.
Joe Biden, campaigning for his re-election against his predecessor Donald Trump, assured that a new canal would be created by the end of May to restore access to the port of Baltimore, one of the busiest in the country.
A temporary shipping corridor was opened at the start of the week to allow the passage of vessels involved in rescue and clearance operations, but is not wide enough to allow the passage of large commercial vessels.
“I observed from the sky the bridge which was shattered, but on the ground, it was a united community that I saw,” added the president, who flew over the area by helicopter.
“We are going to make sure that everything is paid for,” he said, urging Congress to support his full funding plan. “We will move heaven and earth to rebuild this bridge as quickly as possible. »
American steel
The 81-year-old Democrat, who seeks to attract the favor of the working-class electorate, has also promised that reconstruction will be done with “American labor and steel,” wink. to his industrial recovery policies which, he hopes, will allow him to gain an advantage over Donald Trump in November.
The president also paid tribute to the deceased workers, all immigrants, from Mexico, Guatemala, El Salvador and Honduras, marking his distance from his opponent’s increasingly violent rhetoric on the subject of immigration.
The Port of Baltimore is the American port through which the most new cars pass, more than 800,000 last year, whether they are vehicles manufactured in the United States and exported internationally, or, Conversely, 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.