Polls show that Americans’ concerns about inflation are driving down perceptions of an otherwise strong economy, creating a major problem for President Joe Biden as he seeks re-election. To further complicate things for Biden, there’s little he can do as president to lower prices. That’s why he’s focused on things he can control, such as forgiving student debt, fighting junk fees and capping the cost of insulin for seniors on Medicare.
In a normal election year, Biden’s Republican challenger would have an easy task: constantly remind voters about inflation, blame the president’s economic policies for causing it and make some vague promises, if elected, to fix it. Donald Trump has gotten the first two parts of that formula down. But in his typical eat-the-chess-pieces approach to strategy, the presumptive GOP nominee has proposed a policy that would, if anything, make inflation worse. For months, Trump has called for imposing a 10% across-the-board tariff on all imported goods. This approach would be far broader in scope than the strategy of his previous term