WASHINGTON (AP) – A showdown with Congress that has the nation’s solvency at stake; a frantic scene at the border as pandemic restrictions are eased; a trip abroad critical to maintaining support for Ukraine and containing a more assertive China in the Indo-Pacific.
Three weeks into the launch of his re-election campaign, President Joe Biden is facing a series of problems in his day job that defy easy solutions and are not entirely within his control. If, as his advisers believe, the best thing Biden can do for his re-election prospects is to govern well, the coming weeks could be an almost existential test of his path to a second term.
Economists warn the country faces a debilitating recession, and worse, if Biden and lawmakers can’t agree on a path to raising the debt limit. Biden wants Congress to lift it without preconditions, equating Republican demands for spending cuts with a bailout for the country’s full faith and credit.
The expiration of the COVID-19 public health emergency marked the end of special pandemic restrictions on migrant procedures at an already sealed US-Mexico border. His administration has responded with new policies to crack down on illegal crossings while opening legal avenues that encourage would-be migrants to stay and apply online to come to the US, but Biden himself has predicted a “chaotic ” as the new procedures take effect.
The tests come as Biden prepares to leave Washington on Wednesday for an eight-day trip to Japan, Papua New Guinea and Australia. Biden will seek to rally unity among the Group of Seven’s leading democratic economies to maintain support for Ukraine as he prepares to launch a counteroffensive against Russia’s invasion and to energize alliances in the face of China’s assertive regional moves.
Biden put his ability to solve problems at the core of his pitch to voters in 2020 and is central to his case for why, at age 80, he is better prepared for four more years in the White House.
“I have more experience than anyone who has ever run for office,” Biden told MSNBC this month. “And I think I’ve proven myself honorable as well as effective.”
However, the chaotic US withdrawal from Afghanistan in 2021 undermined Biden’s image as an effective manager, lowering his approval ratings and he is still working to recover.
An April poll by The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research found Biden’s job approval rating at 42 percent, a slight improvement from March’s 38 percent. The March poll came after a pair of bank failures dented already shaky confidence in the nation’s financial systems, and Biden’s approval rating was then near the lowest point of his presidency. It also found that 26 percent of Americans overall want Biden to run again, a slight rebound from the 22 percent who said so in January. Forty-seven percent of Democrats say they want him to run, also up slightly from just 37% who said so in January.
Aides point out that Biden entered the White House as the country faced an even greater set of tests: the COVID-19 pandemic, an associated economic crisis and strained international alliances after four years of Donald Trump’s presidency. trump
“President Biden continues to use his experience and judgment to fight for middle-class families and mainstream values, including standing up to congressional Republicans’ extreme MAGA threat to trigger a recession,” unless they receive big cuts to spending, White House spokesman Andrew Bates said.
Biden said Saturday that it’s “hard to know” how the staff-level talks will shake out to avoid a crisis over the debt limit. He plans to meet again with House Speaker Kevin McCarthy and other congressional leaders before heading overseas, but the White House has been adamant that while Biden is open to considering spending cuts as part of the budget process, he will not accept them as a condition of raising the debt limit.
“There is no agreement on the debt ceiling,” White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said Friday. “There is no negotiation on the debt ceiling. That’s something Congress has to do.”
US officials warn that the impasse threatens national security. Pentagon brass have already warned it could hurt U.S. and troop wages and benefits around the world, National Security Council spokesman John Kirby said.
“It sends a horrible message to nations like Russia and China, who would love nothing more than to be able to point to this and say, ‘Look, the United States is not a reliable partner.’ The United States is not a stable leader of peace and security around the world,” he said.
Biden also faces a key test on the southern border, where the Title 42 transition has been anything but smooth. Migrants along the border were still entering the Rio Grande to risk entry into the country, defying officials who were calling for them to back off. The lawsuits have threatened measures to release migrants into the United States to prevent overcrowding at Border Patrol facilities, as well as efforts to crack down on asylum seekers entering the country.
But the US cannot solve the problem alone.
“It is true that the Americas are currently going through an unprecedented displacement crisis,” said Olga Sarrado, spokeswoman for the United Nations Refugee Agency.
The United States has seen more and more migrants arrive at its southern border from China, Ukraine, Haiti, Russia and other nations far from Latin America, and they are increasingly family groups and children traveling alone. Thirty years ago, however, illegal crossings were almost always single adults from Mexico who were easily turned back at the border.
Meanwhile, Border Patrol agents are encountering more than 8,000 migrants a day, and the human cost of the challenge has been driven home in recent days by the death of a 17-year-old boy in northern custody american An investigation is ongoing.
“A decision by one country will not solve the challenges,” Sarrado said. “And we cannot forget that these are human beings, many of them in need of international protection, and that we must put them at the center of any decision that is made.”
With Election Day just under 18 months away, it’s not a given that these issues will sway voters’ decisions, said Chapman University presidential historian Luke Nichter.
“There is a long time between now and November 2024,” he said. “I don’t think the issues today matter much because they probably won’t be the issues on voters’ minds more than a year from now.”
Jonathan Young, a Democratic donor who came to hear Vice President Kamala Harris on Friday in Atlanta, said Biden needs to navigate the current gauntlet with something to show the middle of the electorate, especially if Republicans nominate someone other than trump
“A rematch could go the same way, because Biden is still not Trump,” Young said, arguing that the former president turns any contest into personality rather than policy.
But Young noted that Biden’s response to Trump’s “big personality” in 2020 had to be almost deliberately dull and stubbornly competent. However Biden navigates the debt ceiling and immigration, Young said, he must maintain the ability to credibly sell that image again as the incumbent.
“I think he’s great at politics and I think he’s usually great at politics,” Young said of Biden. “He has shown that he can read the mood of the country very well.”
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Associated Press writers Colleen Long and Aamer Madhani in Washington and Bill Barrow in Atlanta contributed.
