Author: PolitCens

Washington — With increasingly frequent and vocal expressions of frustration, U.S. President Joe Biden appears to be distancing himself from Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who has vowed that international pressure will not prevent Israel from achieving “total victory” in its war against Hamas.

The rift is fueling speculation that the U.S. might restrict the supply of American weapons, particularly if Netanyahu moves to “finish the job” against Hamas in Rafah, where more than a million displaced Palestinians are sheltered.

Placing conditions on military aid would be Washington’s strongest leverage to affect Israel’s conduct of the war, which has killed more than 31,000 Palestinians according to Gaza’s health ministry.

While U.S. media have quoted anonymous administration sources saying they are considering that option, officially the White House has declined to “entertain hypotheticals.”

“The president has been very clear about our position on Rafah,” national security adviser Jake Sullivan said during Tuesday’s White House briefing. “A military operation in Rafah that does not protect civilians, that cuts off the main arteries of humanitarian assistance, and that places enormous pressure on the Israel-Egypt border, is not something that he can support.”

Biden himself was ambiguous about whether invading Rafah would cross a red line, saying he would never abandon Israel. At the same time, he rebuked the Netanyahu government for the way it has gone after Hamas following the militant group’s Oct. 7 attack that killed 1,200 people in Israel and took more than 240 hostage.

“The defense of Israel is still critical, so there’s no red line [where] I’m going to cut off all weapons, so they don’t have the Iron Dome to protect them,” he said in a recent interview with MSNBC, even as he underscored that Israel “cannot have 30,000 more Palestinians dead.”

However, the president is telegraphing his rebukes. Caught on a hot mic while speaking to a Democratic senator last week, Biden said that he has told Netanyahu they are heading for a “come to Jesus” meeting, an expression for having a blunt conversation.

Told by an aide that he could be heard, Biden said, “Good. That’s good.”

Electoral goals

Biden’s increasingly public criticism of Netanyahu comes as he ramps up his campaign for reelection in November. The president faces competing constituencies within his Democratic base.

He cannot afford to give Republicans an opportunity to capture pro-Israel votes. But he also needs to stop progressive Democrats, young voters, Muslim and Arab Americans from abandoning him, as threatened by the significant portion of voters in some Democratic primaries who marked their ballots “uncommitted” to signal their outrage at the president’s support for Israel.

To address his domestic politics and foreign policy goals, Biden is “performing a political amputation of Bibi,” said Laura Blumenfeld, a senior fellow at Johns Hopkins School for Advanced International Studies, using a nickname for Netanyahu.

The goal, Blumenfeld told VOA, is to separate what Biden considers Netanyahu’s “toxic war policies” from the state of Israel so that the president can follow his political instincts: to protect Israel from further attacks and facilitate the release of hostages “without sacrificing his moral core.”

Biden’s souring on Netanyahu may not be enough to appease pro-Palestinian Americans, particularly if a cease-fire isn’t secured soon. “Uncommitted” voters say they would abandon the president even when Biden surrogates point out that the Republican presumptive nominee, Donald Trump, known for his anti-Muslim rhetoric and policies, is likely to give Israel freer rein over its war conduct.

“I’ve lived through four years of Trump,” said Samraa Luqman, co-chair of the Abandon Biden campaign in Michigan. Palestinians, she told VOA, “cannot live through another Joe Biden presidency.”

Trump has avoided stating an explicit position on the war other than saying in a Fox News interview that Israel must “finish the problem” and that the “horrible invasion” by Hamas “would have never happened” if he were president.

Netanyahu hits back

In response to Biden’s criticism that Netanyahu is “hurting Israel more than helping Israel,” the prime minister hit back, saying in an interview with Politico that he has the support of the Israeli people.

If Biden meant “that I’m pursuing private policies against the majority, the wish of the majority of Israelis, and that this is hurting the interests of Israel, then he’s wrong on both counts,” Netanyahu said.

Only 15% of Israelis want Netanyahu to stay in office after the war ends, according to a poll by Israel Democracy Institute. But 56% believe that continuing the military offensive is the best way to recover the hostages.

In general, Israelis are focused on toppling Hamas, said Jonathan Rynhold, head of the Department of Political Studies at Israel’s Bar-Ilan University. To them, protecting civilians and providing humanitarian aid are “details,” he told VOA. “They don’t understand the significance in America.”

Distrust in Netanyahu

Earlier this week, an annual threat assessment released by the U.S. Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) cited deepening “distrust of Netanyahu’s ability to rule” since the war broke. The prime minister’s “viability as leader” may be in jeopardy, the report said.

“It’s clear that the U.S. administration is going after Netanyahu,” said Nimrod Goren, senior fellow for Israeli Affairs at the Middle East Institute.

As the process toward a political transition in Israel begins, Goren told VOA, the U.S. “is an actor in it.”

The ODNI report noted that “a different, more moderate government is a possibility,” drawing ire from Israeli officials who felt snubbed earlier this month when Israeli war Cabinet member Benny Gantz was received by Vice President Kamala Harris, Sullivan and Democratic congressional leaders.

Many see Gantz’s invitation to Washington as a sign of the administration’s support, should the popular centrist politician become Israel’s next prime minister.

Asked by VOA if Gantz’s visit is a signal that the administration is looking forward to an Israeli government without Netanyahu, national security communications adviser John Kirby flatly said, “No.”
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The U.S. House of Representatives passed a bill Wednesday that would force short-video app TikTok, used by about 170 million Americans, to separate from its Chinese owner, ByteDance, or face a ban. VOA Congressional Correspondent Katherine Gypson says the Senate may not approve the bill.
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Milwaukee, Wisconsin — U.S. President Joe Biden on Wednesday visited Wisconsin, a key swing state that he narrowly won in 2020, meeting with community members at a once shuttered but now thriving children’s community center to sell them on how he believes his economic policies are making their lives better.

Biden’s approval ratings in the Badger State have recently slumped, and on Wednesday afternoon, as Biden chatted privately with campaign volunteers at his new campaign headquarters in Milwaukee, less than a block away, several dozen protesters took aim at one reason why.

“Free, free, free Palestine!” the group members yelled as they waved Palestinian flags.

“Hey, Joe, what do you say, how many kids did you kill today,” they also shouted.

Inside the White House’s carefully managed events on Wednesday, the scene was different. Biden announced $3.3 billion in initiatives aimed at fixing transportation and infrastructure. He did not, during his public remarks, mention Gaza or any foreign policy issues.

“Everything we’re doing is connecting people with opportunity, not disconnecting people from opportunity,” Biden said, speaking at a community sports center that was shuttered during the pandemic but has since reopened.

“These projects will increase access to health care, schools, jobs, and will strengthen communities by covering highways with public spaces, creating new transit routes, adding sidewalks, bridges, bike lanes and more,” press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said to reporters aboard Air Force One.

The White House referred questions to the campaign when asked if Biden would meet with any Arab Americans in Wisconsin or Michigan, where he heads Thursday.

VOA asked Ben Wikler, chairman of the Democratic Party of Wisconsin, whether Biden had met — or would meet — with any concerned parties about the situation in Gaza.

“President Biden believes that every person’s life is profoundly valuable,” he replied. “From Palestine, Israel and around the world. He’s working to move forward towards a just and peaceful enduring solution, as he said in the State of the Union address. And that is the thing that will make the biggest difference for the profound feelings that people have about this crisis.”

The two main political contenders are taking a very different approach in this Midwestern state.

Biden said success in a closely contested state like Wisconsin “comes down to knocking on doors.”

On Wednesday, he lingered inside his new Wisconsin campaign headquarters — in the largest city, Milwaukee — where he met with Democratic volunteers behind closed doors for more than an hour.

Meanwhile, supporters of Biden rival Donald Trump this week submitted petitions in Wisconsin to force a recall election against the state’s top Republican, who refused calls to decertify Biden’s legitimate, narrow win in 2020.

When asked if the Biden campaign had faith in the state’s election process, Wikler was emphatic.

“Wisconsin has consistently been rated as among the best states in the country when it comes to administering elections,” he said. “That system allows us to have elections up and down the ballot where voters can trust the outcome.”
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Washington — A polio survivor known as the “man in the iron lung” has died aged 78, according to his family and a fundraising website.

Paul Alexander of Dallas, Texas contracted polio at the age of six, leaving him paralyzed from the neck down and reliant on a mechanical respirator to breathe for much of the time.

Though often confined to his submarine-like cylinder, he excelled in his studies, earned a law degree, worked in the legal field and wrote a book.

“With a heavy heart I need to say my brother passed last night,” Philip Alexander posted on Facebook early Wednesday. “It was an honor to be part of someone’s life who was as admired as he was.”

Christopher Ulmer, a disability advocate running a fundraiser for Alexander, also confirmed his death in a GoFundMe update posted on Tuesday.

“His story traveled wide and far, positively influencing people around the world. Paul was an incredible role model that will continue to be remembered,” said Ulmer.

A prior update on Alexander’s official TikTok account said he had been rushed to the emergency room after contracting Covid-19.

Iron lungs are sealed chambers fitted with pumps. Raising and lowering the pressure inside the chamber expands and contracts the patient’s lungs.

Invented in the 1920s, their use fell away after the invention of the polio vaccine by Jonas Salk, which became widely available in 1955 and helped consign the devastating paralytic illness to history.

Alexander held the official Guinness World Record for time spent in a lung.

According to his Guinness page, he was able to leave the device for periods of time after he learned to “frog breathe” with the help of a physical therapist.

This involved “using his throat muscles to force air into his lungs, gulping down air one mouthful at a time.” Eventually, he only returned to his iron lung at night to sleep.

As a practicing lawyer, he was able to represent clients in court in a special wheelchair that held his paralyzed body upright.

Seventy-five-year-old Martha Lillard of Shawnee, Oklahoma is reportedly the last surviving person in an iron lung. 
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Washington — The U.S. Treasury Department unveiled sanctions Wednesday against three individuals for undermining the “peace and stability of Bosnia and Herzegovina” by helping to organize an “unconstitutional” celebration of Bosnian Serb identity.

Bosnia has long been governed by a dysfunctional administrative system created under an agreement known as the Dayton pact that divides the country into two bodies — a Muslim-Croat federation and a Bosnian entity known as Republika Srpska (RS). 

The two entities are guaranteed a large degree of autonomy and connected by a weak central government.

The three individuals sanctioned on Wednesday were involved in “executing and organizing the commemoration of ‘Republika Srpska Day'” in the RS region on January 9, the Treasury Department said in a statement. 

This event occurred “in defiance” of a ruling by the country’s constitutional court, which found it to be “unconstitutional” because it prioritized only Serb people, and thus violated “the constitutional obligation of non-discrimination.”

“The United States is deeply concerned about the continued attempts to undermine the Dayton Peace Accords and the Bosnia and Herzegovina Constitution, two critical institutions that have been instrumental to peace and stability in the region,” U.S. Treasury under secretary for terrorism and financial intelligence Brian Nelson said in a statement. 

“We will continue to hold to account those who seek to sow division to achieve their own political aims at the expense of the people of Bosnia and Herzegovina,” he added. 

The U.S. announcement follows a similar decision by the U.K. authorities on January 15 to sanction a marketing agency involved in organizing the event. 

The “Republika Srpska Day” events were marked as a public holiday and saw some 3,000 people march in a parade in Banja Luka, the RS administrative center.

Bosnian Serb President Milorad Dodik attended the event with other RS officials and Russia’s ambassador to Bosnia.
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Before a presidential election can be held, political parties must choose their nominees. That is done either through primaries or caucuses.
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SAN FRANCISCO — A San Francisco Bay Area parking lot that sits on top of a sacred tribal shell mound dating back 5,700 years has been returned to the Ohlone people by the Berkeley City Council after a settlement with developers who own the land.

Berkeley’s City Council voted unanimously Tuesday to adopt an ordinance giving the title of the land to the Sogorea Te’ Land Trust, a women-led, San Francisco Bay Area collective that works to return land to Indigenous people and that raised the funds needed to reach the agreement. 

“This was a long, long effort but it was honestly worth it because what we’re doing today is righting past wrongs and returning stolen land to the people who once lived on it,” said Berkeley Mayor Jesse Arreguin. 

The nearly 1-hectare parking lot is the only undeveloped portion of the West Berkeley shell mound, a three-block area Berkeley designated as a landmark in 2000. 

Before Spanish colonizers arrived in the region, that area held a village and a massive shell mound with a height of 6 meters and the length and width of a football field that was a ceremonial and burial site. Built over years with mussel, clam and oyster shells, human remains, and artifacts, the mound also served as a lookout. 

The Spanish removed the Ohlone from their villages and forced them into labor at local missions. In the late 1800s and early 1900s, Anglo settlers took over the land and razed the shell mound to line roadbeds in Berkeley with shells.

“It’s a very sad and shameful history,” said Berkeley City Councilmember Sophie Hahn, who spearheaded the effort to return the land to the Ohlone. 

“This was the site of a thriving village going back at least 5,700 years and there are still Ohlone people among us and their connection to this site is very, very deep and very real, and this is what we are honoring,” she added. 

The agreement with Berkeley-based Ruegg & Ellsworth LLC, which owns the parking lot, comes after a six-year legal fight that started in 2018 when the developer sued the city after officials denied its application to build a 260-unit apartment building with 50% affordable housing and along with retail and parking space. 

The settlement was reached after Ruegg & Ellsworth agreed to accept $27 million to settle all outstanding claims and to turn the property over to Berkeley. The Sogorea Te’ Land Trust contributed $25.5 million and Berkeley paid $1.5 million, officials said.

The trust plans to build a commemorative park with a new shell mound and a cultural center to house some of the pottery, jewelry, baskets and other artifacts found over the years and that are in the Phoebe A. Hearst Museum of Anthropology at the University of California, Berkeley. 

Corrina Gould, co-founder of the Sogorea Te’ Land Trust, addressed council members before they voted, saying their vote was the culmination of the work of thousands of people over many years. 

The mound that once stood there was “a place where we first said goodbye to someone,” she said. “To have this place saved forever, I am beyond words.”

Gould, who is also tribal chair of the Confederated Villages of Lisjan Ohlone, attended the meeting via video conference and wiped away tears after Berkeley’s City Council voted to return the land.

 
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WASHINGTON — Members of Congress on Tuesday turned a hearing about President Joe Biden’s handling of classified documents into a charged referendum on a question central to the upcoming presidential election: the 81-year-old’s mental fitness. 

The Biden administration and their main challengers, the backers of presumptive Republican candidate Donald Trump, emerged from the House Judiciary Committee’s five-hour grilling of Special Counsel Robert Hur with radically different answers to that question.

They also starkly disagreed over Hur’s decision not to file criminal charges, despite concluding in his February report that Biden “willfully retained and disclosed classified materials as a private citizen.”

Criminal charges were not warranted, Hur argued in announcing his decision in early February, because, he said, Biden would likely present himself to a jury as a “well-meaning, elderly man with a poor memory” — words that Republican legislators repeated, repeatedly, during the hearing. 

Afterward, Ian Sams, spokesperson for the White House counsel’s office, gave his take:

“The main thing I took away from the hearing today was that we had three hours of the Republicans showing just how hypocritical they’re willing to be in order to politically attack the president at the same time that they and the Democrats and the special counsel himself laid bare exactly why there is no case here,” he said.

“The case is closed, the evidence did not support bringing charges, and it’s over,” Sams said. “It’s time to move on.”

Alex Pfeiffer, a spokesperson for Trump’s Make America Great Again movement, offered his own conclusion.

“Joe Biden put America’s national security at risk with his illegal retention and disclosure of classified material,” he said. “Biden lied about his wrongdoing in a national press conference, which begs the question — what else is Joe Biden lying about?” 

Further muddying the picture on the matter is Hur’s own grammatically complex statement: 

“The word exoneration does not appear anywhere in my report and that is not my conclusion,” Hur said. 

A newly released transcript of Hur’s five-hour interview held last year with Biden, includes instances of Biden saying he couldn’t recall details or citing dates incorrectly, appearing to say in one instance that his eldest son died in 2017 and that Trump, who was elected in 2016, was “elected in November of 2017.”

“The transcript is now available for every American to see, for all media to see,” Sams said. He noted it shows that, despite the confusion over the year of Beau Biden’s death, it shows that Biden correctly cited the date: May 30. 

“I think that you saw the anger and emotional reaction of a father who still experiences the pain of that loss every single day,” Sams said. 

Many Republicans used their five-minute question periods to compare Biden’s situation to that of his challenger. Trump, too, faces criminal charges over his handling of classified documents after he left office. He was initially slapped with 37 felony counts, including charges that he obstructed justice by failing to return the documents even in response to a subpoena. It’s not clear when that case will go to trial. 

Florida Representative Matt Gaetz, in one sentence, took aim at the justice system and Biden’s mental acuity: “This guy’s not getting treated the same way as Trump, because the elevator is not going to the top floor, so we can’t prove intent.”

Democrats resisted that characterization. 

“Joe Biden is a competent, good president who knows American values,” Tennessee Representative Steve Cohen said.

Hur, in his opening statement, said he would “refrain from speculating or commenting on areas outside the scope of the investigation.”

But he also responded to criticism that he overstepped, saying he could not have reached the conclusion he did “without assessing the president’s state of mind.”

Other elected representatives chose not to ask Hur any questions, such as Missouri Representative Cori Bush, a Democrat, who described Hur’s report as a “partisan hit job” — though she said it was appropriate for both Trump and Biden to be investigated. 

“Our country deserves better than this,” she said of the hearing. 

Texas Representative Nathaniel Moran praised Hur’s efforts, asking him only yes-or-no questions and suggesting Biden could be ruled incompetent by a District of Columbia court and placed under guardianship. And he repeated the critical line from Hur’s report — words sure to echo over November’s presidential contest — although he prefaced it with an adjective, calling Biden a “sympathetic, well-meaning, elderly man with a poor memory.”
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Haiti Prime Minister Ariel Henry announced his resignation Tuesday, the day after the United States pledged another $100 million to a United Nations-backed multinational security force intended to assist Haitian police in combating gangs, along with $33 million in humanitarian aid. VOA State Department Bureau Chief Nike Ching reports.
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washington — A re-elected U.S. President Donald Trump could well awaken the following day to a phone call inviting him to Pyongyang for a summit with Kim Jong Un, says a veteran of the two previous Trump-Kim summits in 2018 and 2019.

“If I were Kim Jong Un talking to my advisers in Pyongyang, I’d be thinking of whether I [should] call President-elect Trump the day after the election to congratulate him” and say, “Why don’t you come to Pyongyang? Let’s meet here,” says former Trump adviser John Bolton.

“And Trump might do it,” continued Bolton in an interview with VOA’s Korean Service on Friday.

Bolton served as national security adviser during the period in which Trump and Kim exchanged frequent letters and conducted summits in Singapore in June 2018 and Hanoi in February 2019, as well as an impromptu meeting at the inter-Korean border in June 2019.

The Hanoi summit broke down when Trump walked away from Kim’s offer to dismantle North Korea’s main nuclear plant at Yongbyon in exchange for sanctions relief, and Kim has refused to engage with the United States or South Korea since U.S.-North Korean talks broke down in Stockholm eight months later.

But Bolton said that does not rule out the possibility that Kim might try again, or that Trump might accept.

“The danger with another Trump administration is he prizes making deals more than the substance of the deals, which he often doesn’t understand in the international context,” said Bolton, who has frequently criticized the former president’s approach to foreign affairs since leaving his administration.

Gary Samore, former White House coordinator for arms control and weapons of mass destruction during the Obama administration, told VOA via phone on Friday, “Kim Jong Un may very well believe that if there’s another summit, he can persuade Trump to lift international economic sanctions” and “weaken the U.S.-ROK [South Korea] alliance as Trump did in the Singapore meeting.”

At a news conference following his 2018 summit with Kim in Singapore, Trump announced the U.S. would suspend military drills with South Korea, describing them as “very provocative” and “tremendously expensive.”

Joint exercises resumed, however, under Trump’s successor, President Joe Biden. The U.S. and South Korea are currently holding the annual Freedom Shield exercise. It began on March 4 and will continue through Thursday.

Harry Kazianis, a senior editor at the website 19FortyFive and president of the Rogue States Project, thinks another Trump-Kim summit would be unlikely.

“Right now, North Korea is likely getting billions of dollars a year from Russia to help Putin arm his military in the Ukraine war and likely little sanctions enforcement from China. If those conditions were to hold, Kim has very little to gain from dealing with Trump,” he said.

But, he told VOA via email on Friday, Kim might need to engage with the American leader again if Trump were to bring the war in Ukraine to an end and successfully pressure China to enforce sanctions.

Scott Snyder, director of the program on U.S.-Korea policy at the Council on Foreign Relations, said via email on Friday that Pyongyang has made clear it is not interested in talks.

For diplomacy to resume, he said “both sides would have to find a way of putting the Hanoi experience behind them and establishing a new modus vivendi and mutually beneficial rationales for pursuing a new relationship.”

Sangjin Cho contributed to this report.
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pentagon — The United States is providing a new round of military aid for Ukraine valued at up to $300 million, the first such announcement since late December, in what defense officials have called an “ad hoc” package made possible through U.S. Army procurement savings.

National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan announced the 55th presidential drawdown authority (PDA) package at the White House on Tuesday and said it would include artillery rounds and munitions for HIMARS, weapons desperately needed on the Ukrainian front lines where shortages abound.

The funding for this package came from savings garnered in “multiple contract actions over multiple months” where the Army was able to “buy things at a better price” than initially budgeted, according to senior defense officials who spoke to reporters on conditional of anonymity ahead of the White House announcement.

“This is a bit of an ad hoc or one-time shot. We don’t know if or when future savings will come in, and we certainly can’t count on this as a way of doing business,” one of the senior defense officials said.

In one example provided by the officials, the Army had initially estimated the cost of 25 mm rounds at $130 but was able to negotiate the price down to $93.

The savings were then placed back into the U.S. funding pot for Ukraine aid, a process that has happened several times but wasn’t considered as newsworthy during those times because the fund wasn’t “broke” before, according to defense officials.

$10 billion shortfall

The aid package comes despite a Pentagon funding shortfall of about $10 billion for U.S. military weapons needed to replace those already sent to Ukraine, a shortfall that requires additional money from Congress to fix, according to top defense officials.

“We don’t foresee a likely alternative outside of the supplemental funding [bill] or having that money added into an appropriations bill in order to achieve the replenishment that we need,” Deputy Secretary of Defense Kathleen Hicks told reporters on Monday.

Pentagon officials expected to get the funding to replenish those stocks in a supplemental request from the Biden administration, which included billions of additional dollars in aid for Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan. However, Congress has yet to pass a supplemental aid bill because of arguments on spending and U.S. border security.

Because it has been 15 months since Congress last approved money to help Ukraine, defense officials say Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin has expressed concerns about any future drawdowns.

The department still has about $4 billion in authority to send weapons to Ukraine, but there is no congressionally approved money left to replenish the Pentagon’s weapons stockpiles.

“We have the ability to move funds out of our stocks, but without the ability to replenish them, we are putting our own readiness at some risks,” according to one senior defense official.

The $10 billion shortfall is tied to the way the Pentagon has accounted for the aid sent to Ukraine. Last June, the Pentagon said it overestimated the value of weapons sent to Ukraine by about $6.2 billion over the past two years.

When calculating its aid package estimates, the Department of Defense was counting the cost incurred to replace the weapons given to Ukraine, while it said it should have been totaling the cost of the systems actually sent, officials told VOA at the time.

The error provided the Pentagon the legal cover needed to send more aid to Ukraine, but the problem remained that more funds would be needed to replenish U.S. military stockpiles with newer, costlier weapons.

Asked by VOA why the Pentagon was willing to use its savings to send more aid for Ukraine but was not willing to dip into this the $4 billion of remaining presidential drawdown authority, one of the senior defense officials told reporters that “the lack of clarity” from Congress on whether they will approve additional aid makes the Pentagon “very reluctant to dig the hole deeper.”

“In this case, we are not digging the hole deeper. We’re staying even, while recognizing that Ukraine is in a very tough spot this moment,” the defense official added.
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WASHINGTON — Consumer prices in the United States picked up last month, a sign that inflation remains a persistent challenge for the Federal Reserve and for President Joe Biden’s reelection campaign, both of which are counting on a steady easing of price pressures this year. 

Prices rose 0.4% from January to February, higher than the previous month’s figure of 0.3%, the Labor Department said Tuesday. Compared with a year earlier, consumer prices rose 3.2% last month, faster than January’s 3.1% annual pace. 

Excluding volatile food and energy prices, so-called “core” prices also climbed 0.4% from January to February, matching the previous month’s increase and a faster pace than is consistent with the Fed’s 2% target. Core inflation is watched especially closely because it typically provides a better read of where inflation is likely headed. 

Pricier gas pushed up overall inflation, with pump prices rising 3.8% just from January to February. Grocery prices, though, were unchanged last month and are up just 1% from a year earlier. The cost of clothing, used cars and rent also increased in February, raising the inflation figure. 

Despite February’s elevated figures, most economists expect inflation to continue slowly declining this year. At the same time, the uptick last month may underscore the Fed’s cautious approach toward interest rate cuts. 

Overall inflation has plummeted from a peak of 9.1% in June 2022, although it’s now easing more slowly than it did last spring and summer. The prices of some goods — from appliances to furniture to used cars — are falling after clogged supply chains during the pandemic sent prices soaring higher. There are more new cars on dealer lots and electronics on store shelves. 

By contrast, prices for dental care, car repairs and other services are still rising faster than they did before the pandemic. Car insurance has shot higher, reflecting rising costs for repairs and replacement. And after having sharply raised pay for nurses and other in-demand staff, hospitals are passing their higher wage costs on to patients in the form of higher prices. 

Voter perceptions of inflation are sure to occupy a central place in this year’s presidential election. Despite a healthy job market and a record-high stock market, polls show that many Americans blame Biden for the surge in consumer prices that began in 2021. Although inflationary pressures have significantly eased, average prices remain far above where they stood three years ago. 

In his State of the Union speech last week, Biden highlighted steps he has taken to reduce costs, like capping the price of insulin for Medicare patients. The president also criticized many large companies for engaging in “price gouging” and so-called “shrinkflation,” in which a company shrinks the amount of product inside a package rather than raising the price. 

“Too many corporations raise prices to pad their profits, charging more and more for less and less,” Biden said. 

Fed Chair Jerome Powell signaled in congressional testimony last week that the central bank is getting closer to cutting rates. After meeting in January, Fed officials said in a statement that they needed “greater confidence” that inflation was steadily falling to their 2% target level. Since then, several of the Fed’s policymakers have said they believe prices will keep declining. One reason, they suggested, is that consumers are increasingly pushing back against higher prices by seeking out cheaper alternatives. 

Most economists expect the Fed’s first rate cut to occur in June, although May is also possible. When the Fed cuts its benchmark rate, over time it reduces borrowing costs for mortgages, car loans, credit cards and business loans. 

One factor that could keep inflation elevated is the still-healthy economy. Although most economists had expected a recession to occur last year, hiring and growth were strong and remain healthy. The economy expanded 2.5% last year and could grow at about the same pace in the first three months of this year, according to the Federal Reserve’s Atlanta branch. 

Last week, the Labor Department said employers added a robust 275,000 jobs in February, the latest in a streak of solid hiring gains, and the unemployment rate stayed below 4% for the 25th straight month. That is the longest such streak since the 1960s. 

Still, the unemployment rate rose from 3.7% to 3.9%, and wage growth slowed. Both trends could make the Fed feel more confident that the economy is cooling, which could help keep inflation falling and lead the central bank to begin cutting rates. 
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In its annual global threats assessment report Monday, the U.S. intelligence community told lawmakers that the war in Ukraine is at a turning point whose outcome will depend on American assistance. VOA’s congressional correspondent Katherine Gypson has more from the Senate, where lawmakers called on the House to take up the $95 billion foreign aid bill.
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