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My Take | Biden’s Olympics boycott threat not what it seems
- With plummeting popularity, the US president doesn’t want to appear ‘soft on China’, but threatening a boycott now means keeping his options open, including not doing it when the time comes
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China has helped Joe Biden score a big win back home, yet the US president has turned around and threatened a diplomatic boycott of Beijing’s Winter Olympics. Is that the political equivalent of a sucker punch?
After playing down for months the significance of rising inflation as “transitory”, his administration is paying a heavy political price as the United States faces the strongest inflationary surge in decades, as do other major economies.
His approval rating is at a new low, at 36 per cent, according to the latest Quinnipiac University poll.
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After his virtual summit with President Xi Jinping, Beijing has reportedly agreed to a coordinated release of strategic petroleum reserves. Oil prices, an inflationary factor, retreated from above US$80 a barrel this week. Opec+ has resisted calls from Biden to ramp up production.
A close coordination between the world’s two biggest oil consumers would not be welcome news to the oil cartel.
The White House said Biden and Xi discussed “taking measures to address global energy supplies” during the summit.
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