Biden's annual press conference: Russia will "attack" Ukraine, and the $1.75 trillion bill will be broken up

Reporter | Anjing

On January 19, local time, US President Joe Biden held a press conference on the occasion of the first anniversary of his appointment to review the work of the past year, explain the current situation, and look forward to the future.

The press conference, which lasted about two hours, was biden's 10th since taking office and was far less frequent than former presidents such as Trump and Obama.

At the launch, Biden spoke about COVID-19, U.S. oil prices, the Federal Reserve and the delayed $1.75 trillion social welfare spending bill.

Diplomatically, Biden focused on Russia, saying it would "attack" Ukraine, though it may not be a full-scale invasion. He also rarely acknowledges that there are differences within NATO members on how to deal with Russia.

Polls show that Biden's current approval rating is lower than that of Obama, George W. Bush, and Clinton in the same period, and only slightly higher than that of Trump. Biden was formally sworn in as President of the United States on January 20, 2021.

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The pandemic and the domestic economy

According to press conferences reported by the Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, Bloomberg and other media, Biden affirmed the work of the US government in the past year, saying that although the past year was full of challenges, it was also "a year of great progress."

On the same day, the Official Website of the White House listed the achievements of the U.S. government over the past year, including the decline in the unemployment rate from 6.2% when Biden took office to 3.9% now, the creation of 6 million jobs, and the expansion of health insurance coverage.

Biden himself referred to the $1.9 trillion COVID-19 bailout package, the $1.2 trillion infrastructure plan and COVID-19 vaccination rollouts passed by Congress. 62 percent of the U.S. population now completes two doses, up from 1 percent a year ago, but vaccinations have hit a bottleneck since last August.

Biden said his work on the fight against the epidemic "may be more than anyone had previously imagined", while acknowledging that there are problems with the anti-epidemic policy, including insufficient rapid testing reagents. But he promised that the United States would not reintroduce the "lockdown" measures that were imposed in the early days of the epidemic, nor would it close schools on a large scale again.

The United States is at the peak of a new wave of the epidemic, with a daily increase of 1 million confirmed cases. The CDC's forecast on Wednesday showed that more than 61,000 people in the United States will die of COVID-19 in the next four weeks. The number of COVID-19 deaths will rise over the next three weeks and then decline in the fourth week.

High inflation caused by factors such as the epidemic, the continuous blockage of supply chains, and economic stimulus policies are the biggest problems facing Biden. While unemployment has fallen, average hourly wages have risen, and U.S. GDP growth is expected to reach 5.6 percent in 2021, inflation has become the number one reason voters are unhappy with Biden.

Statistics website FiveThirtyEight on the 19th statistics showed that Biden's support rate fell to 41.9%, and the support rate rose to 52.5%. Biden's approval ratings for the year were lower than most former presidents and just above Trump's 38 percent.

At a news conference on Wednesday, Biden supported the Fed's tightening of monetary policy to rein in inflation. While respecting the Fed's independence, he also noted that the Fed has "a critical job of ensuring that prices will not continue to climb."

In addition to the Fed, Biden said the White House's economic plans and measures to promote market competition would help keep inflation under control. He promised that the U.S. government would find a way to stop oil prices from continuing to soar. U.S. oil prices are currently at their highest in seven years, with WTI crude futures for February delivery on the New York Mercantile Exchange rising to $85.43 a barrel.

On Tuesday, the U.S. government said it was consulting with oil producers to persuade countries to increase crude oil production. Biden has also negotiated with OPEC+ to increase production but was refused, and then the United States announced the release of 50 million barrels of strategic petroleum reserves, and India, Japan, South Korea and other countries also released strategic petroleum reserves with the United States.

Biden said the release of the Strategic Petroleum Reserve had reduced oil prices in parts of the U.S. by about 12 cents per gallon, but industry insiders believe the measure would only have a short-term effect. According to the American Automobile Association, retail gasoline prices have continued to rise since the beginning of the New Year, and are now rising to an average of $3.31/gallon.

Some business groups in the United States have called on the government to remove tariffs on Chinese products to ease U.S. prices, and Biden said at a press conference that the United States is not ready to cancel the tariffs imposed during the Trump era.

In response, Shu Jueting, spokesperson of China's Ministry of Commerce, responded at a regular press conference on Thursday that the removal of tariffs is beneficial to China, the United States, and the world. Especially in the current inflationary situation, the abolition of tariffs is in the fundamental interests of consumers and producers in China and the United States, and is conducive to the recovery of the world economy.

In addition to the COVID-19 bailout package and infrastructure plan, Biden has been hoping to pass a $1.75 trillion social welfare spending bill in his first year in office. But due to the opposition of Democratic Senator Manchin, the bill was delayed in passing a vote.

In order to pass the bill before this year's midterm elections, Biden said democrats may split the bill and "first pass what we can pass at the moment, and then fight the rest later." ”

According to Biden, the 1.75 trillion social welfare bill related to climate, energy, early education and other content may be more easily supported, and expanding child tax credits and providing tuition subsidies for community college students may be excluded from the bill, and then a negotiated vote will be held.

Russia and NATO

In addition to internal affairs, Russia, which is facing the West over the Ukraine issue, has become the focus of Biden's speech.

Biden said Russia is doing its best to test the West, the United States and NATO. Asked if he thought Putin would order a Russian invasion of Ukraine, Biden said: "I guess he will attack, he will definitely do something." "Russia has repeatedly denied that it will invade Ukraine.

Biden then added that Russia's actions against Ukraine are not necessarily a full-scale invasion, "I still think he (Putin) does not want full-scale war." He also teased that what Putin really wants to do in Ukraine "may depend on which side of his bed he gets up from in the morning."

Biden said the response of the United States and NATO will depend on Russia's next actions. If it is a "small invasion", there will be disputes within NATO over what to do; if Russia launches a cyber attack on Ukraine, "we will respond with the network"; if it is a full-scale invasion, Russia will face "disaster".

Biden did not explain which scenario would be a "smaller invasion," but acknowledged that NATO members are divided on how to deal with Russia. And his job was to make sure that every Member State was on the same side. Russia is an important source of gas for the European Union.

Both the United States and European countries have warned that they will face severe sanctions if Russia invades Ukraine. The sanctions considered by the United States include sanctions on large Russian banks, cracking down on Russian arms manufacturing, and prohibiting the export of chips made by American technology to Russia. Sources recently revealed that in order to avoid affecting the stability of financial markets, the United States and the European Union are no longer considering kicking Russia out of the SWIFT international payment system.

In response to what Biden called a "smaller invasion," White House spokesman Psaki then explained that once Russian troops crossed the border into Ukraine, it would be considered a "new aggression" and that the United States and its allies would respond "quickly, harshly and uniformly." For cyberattacks and paramilitary operations, the United States and its allies will adopt different tactics and make a "resolute, corresponding, and unified response."

At the news conference, Biden also revealed that Putin asked him to commit to two things: Ukraine will never join NATO; the United States and NATO will never deploy strategic weapons and nuclear weapons in Ukraine.

For the first request, Biden said that ukraine's probability of joining NATO in recent years is very low; for the second demand, depending on Russia's attitude, the two sides can negotiate.

But for russia's other demands, including the withdrawal of U.S. and NATO troops from the former Soviet Union and the withdrawal of U.S. nuclear weapons from Europe, Biden said there was no room for negotiation. He threatened that nato would increase its presence in Poland and Romania once Russia attacked Ukraine to protect the security of member states. Biden added: "Although we are highly concerned about the situation in Ukraine, we have no corresponding obligations to Ukraine. ”

On Friday, U.S. Secretary of State Blinken will meet with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov in Geneva.