Washington Giant signs reading “Bidenomics” framed the stage where US President Joe Biden delivered his biggest campaign speech on the American economy to date on Wednesday.
The term has become a buzzword for Biden’s billion-dollar location policy. In the presidential election campaign, the White House is putting “Bidenomics” prominently ahead, because the polls for the 80-year-old Biden are weakening.
“I took office when our economy was in tatters,” said Biden in the US metropolis of Chicago. “Today, the US has the highest rate of economic growth since the pandemic, the highest in the whole world.” The US economy has “recovered faster than the other major industrialized countries,” said the US President.
Since the outbreak of the pandemic, the US economy has grown by 5.4 percent, while growth in the rest of the G7 countries has averaged just 1.3 percent, according to a White House analysis.
The USA is experiencing a boom, particularly in the manufacturing sector: spending on the manufacturing industry has almost doubled. “Bidenomics”, the US President’s economic policy, apparently fulfills what his predecessor Donald Trump only announced.
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During the Trump presidency, investment in manufacturing remained under $100 billion annually. But since Biden’s subsidy programs, the curve has shot up steeply, with almost $190 billion now flowing into manufacturing.
Today, the US has the highest rate of economic growth since the pandemic, which is the highest in the entire world. US President Joe Biden
At the same time, there is a gradual investment flight on the other side of the Atlantic, especially from Germany. In 2022, 132 billion US dollars more direct investment flowed out than was invested in Germany. This was the largest outflow among 46 states, Handelsblatt reported this week.
So far, the US government has always referred to its own good numbers, but avoided direct comparisons with other economies. Apparently that’s changing now: the US Treasury Department suggested on Tuesday that other nations, including Germany, were being left behind with the American investment boom.
According to a blog post by the ministry, the aim is to “put the US upswing in an international context”. Such an increase in manufacturing “appears to be unique to the US and not to other advanced economies.”
Specifically, the Treasury Department compared the US figures with those in Japan, where production is below pre-pandemic levels – and with Germany, where “real new construction spending on factory and workshop buildings has remained relatively stable over the past decade”. “The factory-building boom that has gripped the US is not happening in other advanced economies,” the Treasury Department said.
“Bidenomics” has become the buzzword for Biden’s multi-billion dollar location policy.
(Photo: IMAGO/UPI Photo)
Under Biden, the United States decided on the largest industrial policy investments of all time. In the summer of 2021, the US Congress launched an infrastructure package worth almost one trillion dollars. In August 2022, the US President signed the gigantic semiconductor funding program “CHIPS Act”, which flushed 280 billion US dollars into the chip industry.
A few days later, the “Inflation Reduction Act”, or IRA for short, followed, Biden’s prestige industrial policy project. The IRA is pumping nearly $370 billion into manufacturing, with a focus on future green technologies.
Biden was greeted in Chicago by a heavy smoky air, the plumes of the Canadian wildfires have been hovering over parts of the United States for weeks. Biden said he blames climate change for extreme weather and fires. “You won’t see a new coal-fired power plant being built in the US,” he announced.
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In many regions of the USA, the subsidies ensure an upswing. “If you look at energy prices and higher inflation in Europe, the US market is more than ever the best choice,” Pat Wilson, chief economic development officer for Georgia, told Handelsblatt.
booster
650
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The Biden government is pumping money into US industry with the support programs “CHIPS Act” and “Inflation Reduction Act”.
The south-east of the USA is benefiting particularly from the investment boom. “74 percent of our investments in the first half of this budget year come from abroad. Normally it’s 25 to 30 percent in a comparable period.”
When he travels to Germany, “every entrepreneur I speak to is looking to expand in the US,” says Wilson. Even before Biden’s reforms, the USA was the largest and most stable consumer market in the world. “But now the fire is burning faster and hotter than ever.”
Although inflation rates in the US are still high, the job market is booming and wages are rising: During Biden’s presidency, the US created 13 million new jobs. “Made in America isn’t a slogan, it’s actually happening,” Biden said. “We see bidenomics in action”.
You won’t see a new coal-fired power plant being built in the US. US President Joe Biden
But the successes have not yet been reflected in Biden’s popularity. More than 54 percent of Americans are dissatisfied with Biden, according to the latest survey average from analysis website FiveThirtyEight. The negative trend has intensified in recent weeks.
A few weeks ago, Biden launched the campaign for his re-election in November 2024. But the president’s public appearances are not without risk: the 80-year-old Democrat, who trained himself to stutter as a young man, occasionally confuses names and places.
Last week he equated China’s head of state Xi Jinping with a dictator. He previously said in an unrelated appearance, “God save the Queen.” On Wednesday, hours before his speech in Chicago, he told reporters that Russian President Vladimir Putin is “clearly losing the war in Iraq.”
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