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Joe Biden comes out fighting against Donald Trump

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When President Joe Biden approaches a lectern, the challenge he confronts is not high expectations. It is instead high anxiety within his own party about his capacity, at 81, to lead, and even to make a compelling case for his presidency. On March 7th he took a step towards dispelling such doubts with a forceful state-of-the-union address in which he extolled his achievements, demanded action from congressional Republicans to secure the border and make taxation fairer, and repeatedly attacked Donald Trump, the presumptive Republican nominee, whom he referred to never by name but as “my predecessor”.

It was a campaign-style speech out of keeping with the tradition of the annual address to both chambers of Congress. Mr Biden not only attacked his opponent but goaded Republicans in the chamber and scolded the justices of the Supreme Court, who sat before him, for their decision to overturn Roe v Wade. Coming from this president, an institutionalist who reveres such traditions, that in itself was a signal that he recognises Mr Trump has shifted American politics onto new terrain, and that Mr Biden intends to take the fight to him there.

Mr Biden directly tackled concerns about his age as he drew to a close after more than an hour. He noted that when he was first elected to the Senate in 1972 he was sometimes barred from Senate lifts because he was thought to be too young to be serving. Now, he continued, “I’ve been told I’m too old.” He smiled the confident smile familiar from his many campaigns, though less seen lately, then said the important question was not the age of the candidates but of their ideas. “Hate, anger, revenge and retribution are the oldest of ideas,” Mr Biden said, referring to qualities Mr Trump has embraced. “But you can’t lead America with old ideas.”

A survey conducted by the Wall Street Journal late last month found that 73% of Americans thought Mr Biden was too old to run for re-election, while 52% felt that way about Mr Trump, who is 77. (For Mr Biden that number was the same last August, but for Mr Trump it has ticked up by five points.) Though both candidates are unpopular, Mr Biden is leading the unpopularity contest. He trails Mr Trump narrowly in national polls, according to The Economist’s poll tracker, but Mr Trump has opened leads in key swing states and, more dangerously, has the confidence of more Americans when it comes to issues they consider critical, such as handling the economy and securing the border.

Mr Biden squinted at the teleprompter as he read his speech, and he swallowed some syllables and occasionally whole words. But he showed himself to be in command of his material and the chamber by baiting Republicans into jeering, then, like a boy relishing a playground scuffle, grinning and punching back. “Yeah, yeah,” he sneered, as Republicans booed his description of the bipartisan Senate border-security bill that the House speaker, Mike Johnson, has refused to bring to a vote. “Look at the facts. I know you know how to read.”

As Mr Biden rattled off the enforcement provisions of the bill, James Lankford, the conservative Republican senator who helped negotiate it for months only to see his party desert it, nodded his head and appeared to mouth, “That’s true.” Mr Biden accused Mr Trump of blocking the bill to help his electoral prospects, then challenged him: “Join me in telling Congress to pass it. We can do it together.”

Mr Biden opened his speech by saying his ambition was to “wake up the Congress” and alert the American people to threats facing the country. In a hopeful sign for aid to Ukraine that is now stalled in Congress, Mr Johnson, seated over Mr Biden’s left shoulder, nodded somberly as the president warned of Russia’s president, Vladimir Putin: “If anybody in this room thinks Putin will stop with Ukraine, I assure you he will not.” Mr Biden invoked Ronald Reagan’s demand that the leader of the Soviet Union tear down the Berlin Wall, adroitly drawing applause from Republicans even as he pivoted to his first, sudden strike at Mr Trump: “Now my predecessor, a former Republican president, tells Putin, quote, do whatever the hell you want!”

Mr Biden connected the threat to democracy in Europe to the attack on the Capitol on January 6th 2021, and said “my predecessor and some of you here seek to bury the truth” about the day. “Here’s the simple truth,” Mr Biden continued. “You can’t love your country only when you win.”

Mr Biden later turned to what he called the “gut-wrenching” violence in the Middle East. He insisted that Israel had the right to pursue Hamas, but also that it had a “fundamental responsibility” to protect civilian lives, and he gave a harrowing account of the suffering of Gazans. He said America would erect a temporary pier on Gaza’s shore and begin supplying aid by sea, and that Israel had also committed to opening a crossing into the Gaza Strip from the north.

These efforts might not mollify Democratic progressives angry at Mr Biden for his support of Israel. But Democrats in the chamber were thrilled with the pugilistic, populist tenor and substance of his speech. For the most part he avoided high-flown oratory in favour of simpler formulations as he demanded that Congress act to lower drug prices and housing costs. “Folks at home,” he shouted at one point, “does anyone really think the tax code is fair?” “No!” shouted the Democrats in the chamber, and Mr Biden promised to “keep fighting like hell to make it fair”.

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Checks and Balance newsletter: The election of Pope Leo XIV goes beyond American politics

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Checks and Balance newsletter: The election of Pope Leo XIV goes beyond American politics

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Germany’s economy chief Reiche sets out roadmap to end turmoil

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09 May 2025, Bavaria, Gmund Am Tegernsee: Katherina Reiche (CDU), Federal Minister for Economic Affairs and Energy, takes part in the Ludwig Erhard Summit. Representatives from business, politics, science and the media are taking part in the three-day summit. Photo: Sven Hoppe/dpa (Photo by Sven Hoppe/picture alliance via Getty Images)

Picture Alliance | Picture Alliance | Getty Images

Germany needs to take more risks and boost its stagnant economy with a decade of investment in infrastructure, German Minister for Economic Affairs and Energy Katherina Reiche said Friday.

“The next decade will be the decade of infrastructure investments in bridges, in energy infrastructure, in storage, in maritime infrastructure… telecommunication. And for this, we need speed. We need speed and investments, and we need private capital,” Reiche told CNBC’s Annette Weisbach on the sidelines of the Tegernsee summit.

While 10% of investments could be taken care of with public money, the remaining 90% relied on the private sector, she said.

The newly minted economy minister also addressed regulation coming from Brussels, warning that it could hinder companies from investments and start-ups from growing if it is too restrictive. Germany has had to learn that investments comes with risks “and we have to kind of be open for taking more risks,” she said.

Watch CNBC's full interview with German Economy Minister Katherina Reiche

“This country needs an economic turnaround. After two years of recessions the previous government had to announce again [a] zero growth year for 2025 and we really have to work on this. So on the top of the agenda is an investor booster,” the minister added.

Lowering energy prices, stabilizing the security of energy supply and reducing bureaucracy were among the key points on the agenda, Reiche said.

Germany’s economy contracted slightly on an annual basis in both 2023 and 2024 and the quarterly gross domestic product has been flipping between growth and contraction for over two years now, just about managing to avoid a technical recession. Preliminary data for the first quarter of 2025 showed a 0.2% expansion.

Forecasts do not suggest much of a reprieve from the sluggishness, with the now former German government last month saying it still expects the economy to stagnate this year.

This is despite a major fiscal U-turn announced earlier this year, which included changes to the country’s long-standing debt rules to allow for additional defense spending and a 500-billion-euro ($562.4 billion) infrastructure package.

Several of Germany’s key industries are under pressure. The auto industry for example is dealing with stark competition from China and now faces tariffs, while issues in housebuilding and infrastructure have been linked to higher costs and bureaucratic hurdles.

Trade is also a key pillar for the German economy and therefore uncertainty from U.S. President Donald Trump’s changing tariff policies are weighing heavily on the outlook.

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Andrew Bailey on why UK-U.S. trade deal won’t end uncertainty

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Bank of England Governor Andrew Bailey attends the central bank’s Monetary Policy Report press conference at the Bank of England, in the City of London, on May 8, 2025.

Carlos Jasso | Afp | Getty Images

Bank of England Governor Andrew Bailey told CNBC on Thursday that the U.K. was heading for more economic uncertainty, despite the country being the first to strike a trade agreement with the U.S. under President Donald Trump’s controversial tariff regime.

“The tariff and trade situation has injected more uncertainty into the situation… There’s more uncertainty now than there was in the past,” Bailey told CNBC in an interview.

“A U.K.-U.S. trade agreement is very welcome in that sense, very welcome. But the U.K. is a very open economy,” he continued.

That means that the impact from tariffs on the U.K. economy comes not just from its own trade relationship with Washington, but also from those of the U.S. and the rest of the world, he said.

“I hope that what we’re seeing on the U.K.-U.S. trade side will be the first of many, and it will be repeated by a whole series of trade agreements, but we have to see that happen of course, and where it actually ends up.”

“Because, of course, we are looking at tariff levels that are probably higher than they were beforehand.”

Trump unveils United Kingdom trade deal, first since ‘reciprocal’ tariff pause

In Bank of England’s Monetary Policy Report released Thursday, the word “uncertainty” was used 41 times across its 97 pages, up from 36 times in February, according to a CNBC tally.

The U.K. central bank cut interest rates by a quarter percentage point on Thursday, taking its key rate to 4.25%. The decision was highly divided among the seven members of its Monetary Policy Committee, with five voting for the 25 basis point cut, two voting to hold rates and two voting to reduce by a larger 50 basis points.

Bailey said that while some analysts had perceived the rate decision as more hawkish than expected — in other words, leaning toward holding rates elevated than slashing them rapidly — he was not surprised by the close vote.

“What it reflects is that there are two sides, there are risks on both sides here,” he told CNBC.

“We could get a much more severe weakness of demand than we were expecting, that could then pass through to a weaker outlook for inflation than we were expecting.”

“There’s a risk on the other side that we could get some combination of more persistence in the inflation effects that are gradually working their way through the system,” such as in wages and energy, while “supply capacity in the economy is weaker,” he said.

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