Biden is getting no domestic credit on Ukraine

You might have thought America’s voters would appreciate having Joe Biden in charge at this time of geopolitical crisis. I certainly am. The case against Donald Trump need hardly needs restating. A man who went from nuclear brinkmanship with North Korea to schoolboy infatuation with Kim Jong Un in the space of a few weeks lacks the temperament to handle a bona fide threat to global stability. That is without mentioning his crush on Vladimir Putin. But I would also make the distinction with Barack Obama, who, for all his cerebral qualities, lacked both the patience and conviction that Biden has been showing these past few weeks. To be sure, Biden makes regular gaffes, or Bidenisms as we call them in DC. But we knew this about Biden anyway and largely discounted them. Most people, including Putin, can appreciate the difference between Biden extemporising his moral outrage against Russia’s leader and the reality of official Nato policy. They are not the same thing.

So why does Biden keep falling in the polls? It was easy to understand that drop in his numbers prior to February 24, but I confess to being surprised they have kept falling since then. This is in spite of the fact that most voters actually approve of how Biden is handling the Ukraine crisis. It follows that they don’t rank Ukraine as a particularly pressing issue: it’s not in the list of top three of voter concerns. Maybe they know something I don’t, but I really think it should be. Unfortunately, the world is not a fair place. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is exacerbating most of the problems that were damaging Biden in the preceding months.

Chief of these are rampant inflation and falling US growth prospects. As the effects of last year’s stimulus recede, voters will feel the pinch even more. There is not a lot that Biden can do about this. Yesterday he announced that he would release 1mn barrels of oil a day for the next six months from America’s strategic reserve. Alas this will not be nearly enough to counter the impact Russia’s invasion has had on inflation. Nor will Biden’s periodic statements about market concentration make any appreciable difference.

There is little doubt that many sectors in the US economy are borderline oligopolistic. But trustbusting takes years and will have no effect on today’s prices. The knock-on effects of the war in Ukraine are also being exacerbated by China’s periodic Covid shutdowns — most recently in the key port of Shanghai — that worsen the global supply chain problem that is behind much of the inflation. The other driver, excess US demand, is something that can only be addressed by the Federal Reserve. As Lawrence Summers points out in this fascinating exchange with Ezra Klein, in the past few months real US interest rates have fallen further into negative territory. So the Fed will have to apply the brakes more sharply, which will dampen growth and may even lead to recession.

All of which offer bleak auguries for Democratic midterm election prospects. This is where the twisted irony of Putin’s war kicks in. By invading Ukraine, Putin has made Biden’s midterm outlook even more dire than it was. The voter enthusiasm gap between Republicans and Democrats — which is historically a very accurate measure of what is going to happen — has risen from an already flashing-red 11 percentage points last October to 17 percentage points today. There is no way Democrats can retain control of Congress unless these numbers change dramatically.

A Democratic loss of Capitol Hill would paralyse Biden’s domestic agenda and commensurately boost the odds of Trump’s 2024 prospects. Military analysts keep saying that Putin has no way out from his colossal blunder in Ukraine. That may be true in the military theatre. But Trump’s return to power on this side of the Atlantic would be just the kind of endgame that could turn the geopolitical dial back in Putin’s favour. Trump despises most of America’s European allies and admires Putin. Just last Tuesday, on day 33 of the war in Ukraine, he publicly requested that Putin release dirt on Hunter Biden’s alleged business corruption in Russia. I don’t need to underline how shocking that is.

Brooke, you are very kindly filling in for Rana this week. I don’t wish to ruin your evening but please tell me the plausible story where what I have described above doesn’t happen? I’m particularly keen on your answer because as FT readers know, you’ve recently returned to New York after many years in London. You have a fresh eye on your home country. As the saying goes: “What does he of England know, who England only knows?” 

Recommended reading

• My column this week reminds readers that whatever deal is eventually struck between Ukraine and Russia, the latter will remain a nuclear power most probably still run by Putin. In this understandably emotional climate, we should be careful not to get ahead of ourselves. “The gap between what America expects to end this war and what is likely to happen is unfortunately wide,” I write.

• Talking of the war, the Biden administration has rightly received plaudits for restoring the reputation of the US intelligence agencies. Particular credit should go to Bill Burns, director of the CIA, and Avril Haines, director of national intelligence, who are two of the most high quality professionals in government. But they didn’t get everything right. Along with Putin and virtually every think-tank in the world, it seems, we all drastically overestimated Russia’s military prowess. This fascinating Atlantic piece explains why.

• Finally, do please read this debate between Adam Tooze and my colleagues Robert Armstrong and Ethan Wu on whether globalisation is going into reverse. It follows nicely from the exchange between Rana and me on this subject in the last Swamp Notes. I tend more towards the Tooze point of view, which is that he will only believe that deglobalisation — and the repatriation of supply chains — is real when we see actual decoupling from China. Russia isn’t a serious part of the global supply chain.

Brooke Masters responds

Coming back from the UK, I have been struck by how little Americans care about the world outside their borders. Ed, I assume the Washington folks you talk to are following the damage that Russia is inflicting on Ukraine. But most Americans I interact with have already started treating the war as background noise. They’re more interested in Will Smith’s behaviour at the Oscars, the tight housing market and the high cost of gasoline than a land war in Europe. This is particularly true the farther you get from the East Coast. I wasn’t alive in the late 1930s, but it feels like a similar level of ostrichlike behaviour is at work.

That unfortunately spells bad news for the Democrats, as you’ve already pointed out. When crime and inflation are top concerns, centrist voters often swing away from the Democrats, and even Biden’s historic choice of Ketanji Brown Jackson for the Supreme Court is unlikely to be enough to surmount the enthusiasm gap among the black voters the party relies on.

There are two wild cards. The first is that the war recaptures the spotlight, perhaps by getting so big and so bad that Americans can’t ignore it. That might prompt a reset of public opinion.

The other is that the Supreme Court so blatantly guts abortion rights this term that it motivates female voters to turn out and elect a pro-choice Congress. But the conservative justices are probably too clever for that.

Your feedback

And now a word from our Swampians . . . 

In response to ‘The end of an era’:

“What we are going to see is more integration within a more regional system . . . In short, more Nafta, less bipolar trade with authoritarian mercantilists and petrol states. Common interests among democratic nations will become more prominent. For the west, the new and coming trade order will be OECD-plus as this trade orbit pulls in affinity states that want to be part of a more open and rules-based approach rather than mercantilist bullying. The west will also get tougher on intellectual property and authoritarian freeriding.” — Reader Paul A Myers

“The economic rise of much of the world relative to the US has unsettled a Washington that was used to total dominance. How the US can adjust to this without creating chaos is as much the future story as rivals like China pushing different values. Dressing this process up in terms of improving security against ideological rivals is a way to avoid acknowledging that it is largely old-fashioned protectionism.” — Reader ‘Global’