Soaring food, gas, and rent prices, supply chain blockages, summer power blackouts, and inflation on the up. President Joe Biden chose to ignore these key economic indicators Monday when he blithely assured the nation a U.S. recession is “not inevitable.”
Biden used a press conference in Tokyo to say the U.S. economy has “problems” but added they were “less consequential than the rest of the world has” and nobody should panic while his administration held office.
“Now, does that mean we don’t have problems?” Biden offered, before answering his own question. “We do. We have problems that the rest of the world has, but less consequential than the rest of the world has because of our internal growth and strength.”
Voters have previously shown they do not share the president’s sunny optimism when they pinpointed a faltering economy as their key concern for the year ahead, as Breitbart News reported.
Biden pointed to a host of outside forces as the source of U.S. problems, including the Russian invasion of Ukraine sending global oil markets into a spin and the strain it has put on European nations more reliant on Russian energy.
He spoke even after 78 percent of adults said they consider the national economy to be in poor condition, up from 70 percent last month, according to an AP-NORC poll released Friday.
“It’s affecting a lot of families,” Biden conceded.
He then pointed to his decision to release millions of barrels of oil from reserves to boost supply, but agreed it has not been enough to lower prices, which have hit records in recent days.
But when asked if a recession for the U.S. economy is inevitable, Biden responded, “No.”
Watch Biden address the state of the U.S. economy below:
Biden’s comments came just before the launch of the Indo-Pacific Economic Framework.
This new trade deal is designed to signal U.S. dedication to the contested economic sphere and to address the need for stability in commerce after disruptions caused by the pandemic and ongoing unrest in Ukraine.
AP reports nations joining the U.S. in the Indo-Pacific Economic Framework are Australia, Brunei, India, Indonesia, Japan, South Korea, Malaysia, New Zealand, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam. Along with the United States, they represent 40 percent of world GDP.