The White House announced on Wednesday that it assisted in the negotiation of a deal for the Port of Los Angeles to operate 24 hours a day, seven days a week, as part of an effort to relieve supply chain bottlenecks and move stranded container ships, which are driving up prices for American consumers.
President Joe Biden planned to mention the deal during a speech about supply chain challenges that have delayed the recovery from the coronavirus pandemic on Wednesday afternoon. The supply chain problem is inextricably related to Biden’s larger inflation challenge.
40 percent of all shipping containers entering the United States pass through the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach, California. According to the Marine Exchange of Southern California, there were 62 ships berthed at the two ports as of Monday, with another 81 waiting to dock and unload.
The operator of the Los Angeles port, longshoremen, and several of the country’s major retail and shipping corporations have all pledged to help alleviate the backlog. Walmart, FedEx, and UPS all agreed to unload during off-peak hours, allowing the LA port to run nonstop and decrease the backlog. For the previous three weeks, the Long Beach port has been open 24 hours a day, seven days a week.
Prior to his speech, the Democratic president was set to hold a virtual roundtable with executives from Walmart, FedEx Logistics, UPS, Target, Samsung Electronics North America, the Teamsters Union, and the United States Chamber of Commerce, among others.
Biden’s $1.9 trillion coronavirus treatment proposal has been chastised by Republican senators for driving up expenses. Despite the fact that “supply-constrained items” account for 80% of this year’s inflation overshoot, political criticism continues to hurt as housing and oil prices contribute to inflationary pressures, according to recent research by investment bank Goldman Sachs.
Inflation has been one of Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell’s main complaints of Biden, indicating that getting prices under control could be critical for Democrats hoping to keep their congressional seats in next year’s elections.
“The Democrats’ inflation is so terrible,” McConnell said in a Senate floor speech last week, “that even though the ordinary American worker has gotten a multiple-percentage-point salary boost over the previous year, their actual purchasing power has been slashed.” “Even dollar stores are raising their pricing.” Simply inquire about any American family’s recent trips to the supermarket, gas station, or toy store. If they’ve had to participate in the housing or auto markets recently, God helps them.”
Higher inflation, according to the Biden administration, is just temporary. Despite the fact that the economy began to reopen and recover months after vaccines reduced many of the pandemic’s hazards, supply chain challenges have remained.
Economists predict that the consumer price index would rise 5.3 percent from a year ago on Wednesday, far beyond the Federal Reserve’s 2 percent objective. In a Tuesday address, Atlanta Fed President Raphael Bostic stated that he no longer considers inflation to be “transitory” since he believes the present “episode” of inflation will run until 2022 or beyond.
