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    As Inflation Surges, Biden Targets Ocean Shipping

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    The president is targeting shipping companies that have jacked up prices during the pandemic, but critics say bigger economic forces are at work.With inflation surging at its fastest pace in 40 years, President Biden has identified a new culprit that he says is helping fuel America’s skyrocketing prices: The ocean vessels that ferry containers stuffed with foreign products to America’s shores each year.Shipping prices have soared since the pandemic, as rising demand for food, couches, electronics and other goods collided with shutdowns at factories and ports, leading to a shortage of space on ocean vessels as countries competed to get products from foreign shores to their own.The price to transport a container from China to the West Coast of the United States costs 12 times as much as it did two years ago, while the time it takes a container to make that journey has nearly doubled. That has pushed up costs for companies that source products or parts from overseas, seeping into what consumers pay.Mr. Biden has pledged to try to lower costs by increasing competition in the shipping industry, which is dominated by a handful of foreign-owned ocean carriers. He has cited the industry’s record profits and directed his administration to provide more support for investigations into antitrust violations and other unfair practices.Congress is also considering legislation that would hand more power to the Federal Maritime Commission, an independent agency that polices international ocean transportation on behalf American companies and consumers.The bill, which has bipartisan support, would authorize the commission to take action against anticompetitive behavior, require shipping companies to comply with certain service standards and regulate how they impose certain fees on their customers. Mr. Biden is pushing lawmakers to add a provision that would allow the commission and Justice Department to review applications for new alliances between companies for antitrust issues, and reject those that are not in the public interest.The House passed its version of the bill in December; it must be reconciled with a Senate version.But it’s unclear to what extent more government oversight and enforcement will actually bring down shipping costs, which are being driven in large part by soaring consumer demand and persistent bottlenecks. Global supply chains are still plagued by delays and disruptions, including those stemming from the Russian invasion of Ukraine and China’s broad lockdowns in Shenzhen, Shanghai and elsewhere.“As a standard matter of economics, if you have inelastic supply and experience a surge in demand, you will see a rise in prices,” said Phil Levy, the chief economist at Flexport, a logistics company.The effect is expected to worsen in the coming months. Shipping rates typically take 12 to 18 months to fully pass through to consumer prices, said Nicholas Sly, an economist at the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City.“The goods that are being affected by shipping costs today are really the goods that consumers and American households are going to be buying many months from now, and that’s why those costs tend to show up later,” he said.Some of the price increases from late last summer have yet to work their way through into consumers, he said, and the conflict in Ukraine is causing further disruptions.Shipping prices have already skyrocketed so high that, for some products, they have erased companies’ profit margins.The cost to ship a container of goods from Asia to the U.S. West Coast surged to $16,353 as of March 11, nearly triple what it was last year, according to data from Freightos, a freight booking platform. While supply chain congestion showed some signs of easing in January and February, the Russian invasion of Ukraine has quickly worsened the situation along with lockdowns in China that have closed factories and warehouses.Analysts at Capital Economics, in a research note on Wednesday, said that it was still possible for China to suppress coronavirus infections without causing widespread disruption to global supply chains. “But the risk that global supply chains links within China get severed is the highest that it has been in two years,” they said.American businesses that use ocean carriers have been pushing for additional oversight of what they say is an opaque, lightly regulated industry.One of the main complaints among importers and exporters is that ocean carriers are charging customers huge and unexpected fees for delays in picking up or returning shipping containers, which are often mired in congestion in the ports or in warehouses. American farmers, who have struggled to get their goods overseas, say that ocean liners have refused to wait in port to load outgoing cargo or skipped some congested ports entirely. As a result, some have periodically been unable to get their products out of the United States.Eric Byer, the chief executive of the National Association of Chemical Distributors, said American companies were having trouble getting chlorine to clean swimming pools, citric acid to make soft drinks and phosphoric acid to add to fertilizer through American ports.“It’s taking weeks upon months, and they’re getting nickelled and dimed on costs. There are a lot of fees that are being imposed on products waiting in the San Pedro Bay,” he said, referring to the body of water outside the busy California ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach.“It’s been a lot of turmoil and challenges, a lot of unreliability,” said Patti Smith, the chief executive of DairyAmerica, which exports milk powder to foreign factories to be made into baby formula. Her company has sometimes been unable to get its products out of West Coast ports, she said, and has racked up extra warehousing costs and unexpected fines because of the delays.While Ms. Smith said she supported the administration’s efforts to enhance oversight of the shipping industries, she wasn’t sure that would do much to bring down overall prices.“I wouldn’t say it would necessarily lower prices. I think it might put prices more on a level playing field,” she said.The White House insists that its efforts can drive down costs, portraying the measures Mr. Biden announced as a way to calm skyrocketing inflation, which has become a huge economic concern among voters. Consumer prices surged 7.9 percent in the year to February, a 40-year high.American demand for foreign products, and for space on container ships, shows little sign of easing.Erin Schaff/The New York TimesThe White House has pointed to rapid consolidation in the industry over the past decade as a driver of higher prices, saying that three global shipping alliances now control 80 percent of global container ship capacity, and increased shipping costs would continue to fuel inflation. “Because of their market power, these alliances are able to cancel or change bookings and impose additional fees without notice,” the administration said in a fact sheet.The Russia-Ukraine War and the Global EconomyCard 1 of 6Rising concerns. More

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    House Votes to Suspend Normal Trade Relations With Russia

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    WASHINGTON — The House voted overwhelmingly on Thursday to strip Russia of its preferential trade status with the United States, moving to further penalize the country’s economy in response to the invasion of Ukraine.The lopsided 424-to-8 vote came after President Biden announced last week that the United States and its European allies would take new steps to isolate Russia from the global trading system. All of the lawmakers who opposed the measure were Republicans.The bill, which would allow the United States to impose higher tariffs on Russian goods, is the latest in a series of measures that lawmakers have approved to support Ukraine and punish Russia for its invasion. Others include a ban on Russian oil and gas products and a $13.6 billion military and humanitarian aid package.The trade measure still needs Senate approval. Senator Chuck Schumer, Democrat of New York and the majority leader, said he would work to move it through the chamber quickly.The House vote came a day after President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine delivered a searing speech to Congress via video link in which he urged lawmakers to do more to help his country and penalize Russia. His address, as well as a wrenching video he showed of Russian-inflicted carnage in Ukraine, hung heavily over the House floor on Thursday as lawmakers debated the trade bill.Mr. Zelensky “showed us the absolute horrors that Russia is inflicting on the Ukrainian people in full view of the world,” said Representative Richard E. Neal, Democrat of Massachusetts and the chairman of the Ways and Means Committee. “And he pleaded for us to do more. With the legislation that stands before us at this hour, we intend to answer his call.”Top lawmakers in the House proposed nearly a month ago to strip Russia of its trading status and begin a process to expel the country from the World Trade Organization. But last week, as the House worked to advance the legislation in tandem with a measure to ban the importation of Russian oil and gas products, Democrats stripped out the trade provision at the request of the Biden administration, which sought more time to confer with European allies about the move.“Folks, I know I’ve occasionally frustrated you,” Mr. Biden said to House Democrats at their retreat in Philadelphia last week. “But more important than us moving when we want to is making sure all of NATO is together — is together. They have different vulnerabilities than we do.”The move by the United States to strip Russia of its preferential trade status — known as “permanent normal trade relations” — carries symbolic weight, but trade experts have said it would have a limited economic effect compared with other sanctions that have already been imposed.The legislation passed by the House would also suspend normal trade relations with Belarus, in recognition of its role in aiding Russia’s attack on Ukraine.Stripping Russia of its trading status would be the latest in a growing list of economic penalties imposed on the country, whose economy is facing collapse.Russia-Ukraine War: Key Things to KnowCard 1 of 4A key vote. More

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    Amid Russia Invasion, I.R.S. Aims to Police Oligarch Sanctions

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    It wants to add agents to a 3,000-person investigations unit to help crack down on attempts by Russian oligarchs to evade sanctions.WASHINGTON — The Internal Revenue Service is pressing Congress to devote more resources to the agency as it takes an increasingly central role in the Biden administration’s efforts to prevent Russia and its oligarchs from evading the punishing sanctions that the United States has imposed.Aides to Charles P. Rettig, the I.R.S. commissioner, told congressional staff on Wednesday afternoon that the agency’s criminal investigations unit, which has 3,000 employees, needs to grow about 40 percent over the next five years. It wants a net gain of about 1,300 after attrition. That could require Congress to invest more than $5 billion in the agency, which is trying to oversee a sprawling sanctions program and coping with evasion tactics that have become more sophisticated as a result of the proliferation of digital assets.The Biden administration is already looking to bolster the overall I.R.S., including trying to increase its budget by $80 billion over 10 years in an attempt to crack down on tax cheats. That effort has faced resistance from Republicans, who have historically tried to starve the agency of money. The Treasury Department, which oversees the I.R.S., has not previously specified the need for funds for the criminal investigations division.In a report circulated among members of Congress that was reviewed by The New York Times, the I.R.S. said it needed additional resources because the criminal investigations team had been asked to assist with interagency efforts to enforce sanctions related to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. The agency asserted that investing in the division would pay off, noting that its current $600 million annual budget allowed it to identify $10.4 billion in tax fraud and financial crimes last year.“Working with law enforcement entities across government, the I.R.S. is already in the process of investigating Russian oligarchs and those who facilitate the illegal movement of money or assets on their behalf,” the report said.The I.R.S. has been involved in more than 20 investigations related to money laundering by oligarchs since 2017, working with other law enforcement agencies to track assets and seize property, the report said.The criminal investigations division of the I.R.S. has a storied history; its agents have helped take down notorious tax cheats such as Pete Rose and Al Capone. Like the rest of the I.R.S., the unit has seen its budget depleted in recent years. The size of its staff declined 25 percent over the last decade.In the last month, its task became much more complicated.The United States has enacted sweeping sanctions on Russia in response to its invasion of Ukraine, freezing the assets of its central bank, blocking transactions associated with major financial institutions and targeting top government officials and oligarchs. Experts consider the sanctions to be the most robust ever directed at a major economy, but they are also expected to spur aggressive evasion measures by Russians.I.R.S. officials said they would use financial tracing technology and work with banks and international counterparts to track how oligarchs and others were shifting money and assets around the world in violation of the sanctions. They are looking for signs of newly created fictitious businesses that could be used to shelter assets and transactions involving cryptocurrencies, which criminals use to move money anonymously.According to the report, the I.R.S. seized $3.6 billion of stolen cryptocurrency last year and has already surpassed that this year.Russia-Ukraine War: Key Things to KnowCard 1 of 4Zelensky’s appeals. More

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    Treasury Shifts Cash Among States as Pandemic Housing Aid Dries Up

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    The Biden administration pulled back the aid from states and counties with unspent funds and diverted it to four states pressing for more: California, New York, New Jersey and Illinois.WASHINGTON — The Biden administration has clawed back $377 million in federal emergency housing aid from states and counties, most of them controlled by Republicans, and redirected the cash to states that have been clamoring for more help, including New York, California and New Jersey.The $46 billion Emergency Rental Assistance Program, first enacted by Congress in 2020, succeeded in preventing a wave of evictions stemming from the downturn caused by the pandemic. But Treasury Department officials, increasingly concerned that evictions might rise after the program winds down, have tried to ensure that none of the remaining funding goes unspent while pushing states to find other funding sources to assist poor tenants.In recent months, White House officials have pressured governors in states with unspent funds to turn over the money to local governments within their states. Now they are going one step further, pulling back cash from states with relatively few tenants — like Montana, Nebraska, South Dakota and Wyoming — or localities that failed to efficiently distribute the aid, including Alabama, Arkansas and several counties in Texas.The money, in turn, is being diverted to four states that burned through their allotted amounts — with $136 million in additional aid headed to California, $119 million to New York, $47 million to New Jersey and $15 million to Illinois, according to a spreadsheet provided by a senior administration official. North Carolina, Washington and other localities will be receiving smaller amounts.New York officials were happy with their windfall but said it fell far short of the $1.6 billion in additional aid requested by the state.“This is better,” said Representative Ritchie Torres, a Democrat whose district includes the South Bronx, which has some of the highest eviction and poverty rates in the country. “But it’s a pitiful drop in the bucket compared to what we need.”The four states, home to roughly a third of the nation’s low-income renters, have already spent billions in emergency aid paying back rent for tenants at risk of eviction, and they have requested more funding, citing affordable housing shortages and rising rents. In January, their governors — Gavin Newsom of California, Kathy Hochul of New York, Philip D. Murphy of New Jersey and J.B. Pritzker of Illinois, all Democrats — called on Treasury Secretary Janet L. Yellen to shift cash from low-spending states into their accounts, saying that tenants were “facing an immediate need now.”Treasury officials responded with the reallocation — but made it clear the well was running dry, and states would soon have to make hard choices by using their own revenues, or other federal pandemic relief funding, to bankroll anti-eviction initiatives that might have been buoyed by President Biden’s stalled social spending bill.“The emergency rental program has helped keep millions of families in their homes, reducing the economic costs of the pandemic, and built a nationwide system for eviction prevention that didn’t exist before,” the deputy Treasury secretary, Wally Adeyemo, who has overseen the implementation of the program, said in an interview.“As these funds run out, Treasury is encouraging state and local governments to invest in long-term strategies to prevent evictions and build affordable housing, using other resources,” he added.The program, initiated under the Trump administration and ramped up by Mr. Biden’s team, got off to a sluggish start, as state governments struggled to create new systems to process applications, determine eligibility and distribute the cash.But by late 2021, most local systems were up and running, thanks in part to White House guidelines relaxing verification requirements.The enormous infusion of cash, coupled with federal and local eviction bans, helped prevent or delay about 1.35 million evictions in 2021, according to an analysis published last week by Princeton’s Eviction Lab. Evictions have risen in recent months in some cities but remain below the levels predicted when the pandemic first struck.Most of the aid that the Treasury Department is clawing back comes from states in the West, Midwest and New England with relatively high per capita incomes and low percentages of renters per capita. But part of the money is being pulled out of some of the country’s poorest states, where local officials were unable, for various political and logistical reasons, to disburse the funds.Alabama, for instance, is losing $42 million from a total allocation of about $263 million. A spokesman for the state’s housing agency provided a memo from state housing officials claiming that the Treasury Department “did not consider that Alabama has a lower proportion of renters to homeowners” in making its aid decisions, and that an overall lack of need put “downward pressure” on applications.But applicants and housing groups have complained that the state has made accessing the money difficult, and that a company hired to run the program rejected a large percentage of low-income tenants.West Virginia, which has been slow to distribute a range of federal food, housing and anti-poverty aid during the pandemic, was forced to return $39 million despite recent efforts by state officials to encourage more renters to apply. A spokesman for Gov. Jim Justice of West Virginia, a Republican, said the state was “simply not a renter state,” adding that the program “was clearly designed with Manhattan in mind — not rural America.”And Arkansas, which took months to organize its effort, is giving back $9 million, according to the tally provided by the senior administration official.The Biden administration had hoped to avoid shifting funding across state lines, opting instead to negotiate with governors to send unspent aid to counties and cities in their own states. Late last year, the White House persuaded Arizona, Georgia, Louisiana, Wisconsin and other states to voluntarily shift about $875 million to the cities and counties in their states that needed the money most.Yet administration officials are less concerned about offending state officials that have lost funding than tamping down the expectations of Democratic governors who want them to claw back even more.Gene Sperling, who oversees the Biden administration’s pandemic relief programs, said that the program was on track to help around five million renters, and that the largest complaint now was that “the funds are moving out so swiftly that there is very little left to be reallocated.” More

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    Biden Withdraws Sarah Bloom Raskin as Nominee for Fed’s Top Bank Cop

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    President Biden will withdraw his nomination of Sarah Bloom Raskin to serve as the Federal Reserve’s top bank regulator on Tuesday, after a Democratic senator said he would join Republicans in voting against her, most likely dooming her chances of confirmation.Ms. Raskin earlier on Tuesday sent a letter to the White House asking to withdraw her name from consideration to be the Fed’s vice chair for supervision, according to two people familiar with the decision. The New Yorker earlier reported the existence of the letter.“Sarah was subject to baseless attacks from industry and conservative interest groups,” Mr. Biden said in a statement released on Tuesday afternoon.While the end of Ms. Raskin’s candidacy will leave the Biden administration without the regulatory voice it was hoping for at the Fed Board, which oversees the nation’s largest banks, it could pave the way toward confirmation for the White House’s other Fed picks. Republicans had been stonewalling Ms. Raskin’s nomination, and in the process they were holding up the White House’s four other Fed nominees, including Jerome H. Powell, who is seeking confirmation to a second term as Fed chair.Besides Mr. Powell, Mr. Biden has nominated Lael Brainard to be the Fed’s vice chair and two academic economists — Philip N. Jefferson and Lisa D. Cook — to serve as governors.“I urge the Senate Banking Committee to move swiftly to confirm the four eminently qualified nominees for the Board of Governors,” Mr. Biden wrote in his statement.Ms. Raskin almost certainly lacked sufficient support to pass the Senate. Republicans opposed her nomination to be vice chair for bank supervision and Senator Joe Manchin III, Democrat of West Virginia, said on Monday that he would not vote to confirm her.In deciding to withhold support for Ms. Raskin, Mr. Manchin essentially doomed her chances in an evenly divided Senate. Democrats most likely needed all 50 lawmakers who caucus with their party to vote for Ms. Raskin, with Vice President Kamala Harris able to break ties.Republicans had shown little appetite for placing a supporter of tougher bank regulation into a powerful regulatory role at the Fed and had also boycotted her nomination over her work in the private sector. Lawmakers refused to show up to a key committee vote to advance her nomination to the full Senate.They had also seized on Ms. Raskin’s writings, saying her statements showed that she would be too aggressive in policing climate risks within the financial system and would overstep the unelected central bank’s boundaries.“President Biden was literally asking for senators to support a central banker who wanted to usurp the Senate’s policymaking power for herself,” Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the minority leader, said on Tuesday. He added: “It is past time the White House admit their mistake and send us someone suitable.”Senator Joe Manchin III, Democrat of West Virginia, cited Ms. Raskin’s past comments on the role that financial regulation should play in fighting climate change for his opposition.Jim Lo Scalzo/EPA, via ShutterstockMr. Manchin, who represents a coal state and has close ties to the fossil fuel industry, cited Ms. Raskin’s climate comments in explaining his opposition.Ms. Raskin had written an opinion piece in September 2021 arguing that “U.S. regulators can — and should — be looking at their existing powers and considering how they might be brought to bear on efforts to mitigate climate risk.”She did not argue that the Fed push beyond its legal boundaries, and the fierce backlash underlined that the issue of climate-related regulation is politically fraught territory in the United States.The White House “may want to take some time, lick their wounds, and make sure they carefully think about who to nominate next,” said Ian Katz, a managing director at Capital Alpha Partners. He noted that he would expect the White House to name a new nominee before the midterm elections in November. “They’re not having success with candidates who do not sit well with moderate Democrats.”Saule Omarova, a Cornell Law School professor whom critics painted as a communist after Mr. Biden picked her to lead the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, withdrew her candidacy late last year.Opponents to Ms. Raskin’s confirmation targeted more than just her climate views. They also took issue with work she did in the private sector — and the way she answered questions about that work.Republicans had specifically cited concerns about Ms. Raskin’s time on the board of directors of a financial technology firm. The company, Reserve Trust, secured a coveted account with the Fed — giving it access to services that it now prominently advertises — after Ms. Raskin reportedly called a central bank official to intervene on its behalf.It is unclear how much Ms. Raskin’s involvement actually helped. But the episode raised questions because she previously worked at the Fed and because she made about $1.5 million from the stock she earned for her Reserve Trust work. Democrats regularly denounce the revolving door between regulators and financial firms.Republicans had demanded that Ms. Raskin provide more details about what happened while she was on the company’s board, but she had largely said she could not remember. Senator Patrick J. Toomey of Pennsylvania, the top Republican on the committee, led his colleagues in refusing to show up to vote on Ms. Raskin and the other Fed nominees until she provided more answers.Mr. Toomey signaled on Monday that he would favor allowing the other Fed nominees to proceed.Sherrod Brown, Democrat from Ohio and the chairman of the Senate Banking Committee, said in a statement on Tuesday that he would hold a markup for the other nominees, and later told reporters that he might move them as soon as this week.“Sadly, the American people will be denied a thoughtful, experienced public servant who was ready to fight inflation, stand up to Wall Street and corporate special interests, and protect our economy from foreign cyberattacks and climate change,” Mr. Brown said in his statement.Several more progressive Democrats expressed disappointment that Ms. Raskin would not be confirmed.“The lobbyists have power on Capitol Hill, and when they see their power threatened, they fight back hard — Sarah Bloom Raskin is just the latest casualty,” Senator Elizabeth Warren, Democrat of Massachusetts, said in response to the news.Michael D. 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    Russia Asked China for Military and Economic Aid for Ukraine War, U.S. Officials Say

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    WASHINGTON — Russia asked China to give it military equipment and support for the war in Ukraine after President Vladimir V. Putin began a full-scale invasion last month, according to U.S. officials.Russia has also asked China for additional economic assistance, to help counteract the battering its economy has taken from broad sanctions imposed by the United States and European and Asian nations, according to an official.American officials, determined to keep secret their means of collecting the intelligence on Russia’s requests, declined to describe further the kind of military weapons or aid that Moscow is seeking. The officials also declined to discuss any reaction by China to the requests.President Xi Jinping of China has strengthened a partnership with Mr. Putin and has stood by him as Russia has stepped up its military campaign in Ukraine, destroying cities and killing hundreds or thousands of civilians. American officials are watching China closely to see whether it will act on any requests of aid from Russia. Jake Sullivan, the White House national security adviser, is scheduled to meet on Monday in Rome with Yang Jiechi, a member of the Chinese Communist Party’s elite Politburo and director of the party’s Central Foreign Affairs Commission.Mr. Sullivan intends to warn Mr. Yang about any future Chinese efforts to bolster Russia in its war or undercut Ukraine, the United States and their partners.“We are communicating directly, privately to Beijing that there will absolutely be consequences for large-scale sanctions evasion efforts or support to Russia to backfill them,” Mr. Sullivan said on CNN on Sunday.“We will not allow that to go forward and allow there to be a lifeline to Russia from these economic sanctions from any country, anywhere in the world,” he said.Mr. Sullivan did not make any explicit mention of potential military support from China, but other U.S. officials spoke about the request from Russia on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of diplomatic and intelligence matters.Liu Pengyu, a spokesman for the Chinese Embassy in Washington, said he had never heard of the request from Russia. “The current situation in Ukraine is indeed disconcerting,” he said, adding that Beijing wants to see a peaceful settlement. “The high priority now is to prevent the tense situation from escalating or even getting out of control.”The Biden administration is seeking to lay out for China the consequences of its alignment with Russia and penalties it will incur if it continues or increases its support. Some U.S. officials argue it might be possible to dissuade Beijing from ramping up its assistance to Moscow. Chinese leaders may be content to offer rhetorical support for Moscow and may not want to further enmesh themselves with Mr. Putin by providing military support for the war, those U.S. officials say.Mr. Sullivan said China “was aware before the invasion took place that Vladimir Putin was planning something,” but added that the Chinese might not have known the full extent of the Russian leader’s plans. “It’s very possible that Putin lied to them, the same way he lied to Europeans and others,” he said.Mr. Xi has met with Mr. Putin 38 times as national leaders, more than with any other head of state, and the two share a drive to weaken American power.Traditionally, China has bought military equipment from Russia rather than the other way around. Russia has increased its sales of weaponry to China in recent years. But China has advanced missile and drone capabilities that Russia could use in its Ukraine campaign.Although Russia on Sunday launched a missile barrage on a military training ground in western Ukraine that killed at least 35 people, there has been some evidence that Russian missile supplies have been running low, according to independent analysts.Last week, the White House criticized China for helping spread Kremlin disinformation about the United States and Ukraine. In recent days, Chinese diplomats, state media organizations and government agencies have used a range of platforms and official social media accounts to amplify a conspiracy theory that says the Pentagon has been financing biological and chemical weapons labs in Ukraine. Right-wing political figures in the United States have also promoted the theory.On Friday, Russia called a United Nations Security Council meeting to present its claims about the labs, and the Chinese ambassador to the U.N., Zhang Jun, supported his Russian counterpart.“Now that Russia has made these false claims, and China has seemingly endorsed this propaganda, we should all be on the lookout for Russia to possibly use chemical or biological weapons in Ukraine, or to create a false flag operation using them,” Jen Psaki, the White House press secretary, wrote on Twitter last Wednesday.China is also involved in the Iran nuclear negotiations, which have stalled because of new demands from Russia on relief from the sanctions imposed by Western nations in response to the Ukraine war.American officials are trying to determine to what degree China would support Russia’s position in those talks. Before Russia raised the requests, officials from the nations involved had been close to clinching a return to a version of the Obama-era nuclear limits agreement from which President Donald J. Trump withdrew. Mr. Sullivan might bring up Iran with Mr. Yang on Monday.Current and former U.S. officials say the Rome meeting is important, given the lives at stake in the Ukraine war and the possibility of Russia and China presenting a geopolitical united front against the United States and its allies in the years ahead.“This meeting is critical and possibly a defining moment in the relationship,” said Evan Medeiros, a Georgetown University professor who was a senior Asia director on the National Security Council during the Obama administration.“I think what the U.S. is probably going to do is lay out the costs and consequences of China’s complicity and possible enabling of Russia’s invasion,” he said. “I don’t think anyone in the administration has illusions that the U.S. can pull China away from Russia.”Some U.S. officials are looking for ways to compel Mr. Xi to distance himself from Mr. Putin on the war. Others see Mr. Xi as a lost cause and prefer to treat China and Russia as committed partners, hoping that might galvanize policies and coordination among Asian and European allies to contain them both.Chinese officials have consistently voiced sympathy for Russia during the Ukraine war by reiterating Mr. Putin’s criticism of NATO and blaming the United States for starting the conflict. They have refrained from any mention of a Russian “war” or “invasion,” even as they express general concern for the humanitarian crisis.They mention support for “sovereignty and territorial integrity,” a common catchphrase in Chinese diplomacy, but do not say explicitly which nation’s sovereignty they support — meaning the phrase could be interpreted as backing for Ukraine or an endorsement of Mr. Putin’s claims to restoring the territory of imperial Russia.Russia-Ukraine War: Key Things to KnowCard 1 of 3Expanding the war. More

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    Biden Urges Americans to Blame Rising Prices on Putin. Many Do, for Now.

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    News that inflation has hit a 40-year high is another blunt reminder of just how much the president is asking voters to sacrifice in an election year.WASHINGTON — The price of gasoline has risen every day since Russia invaded Ukraine. Record-high inflation in the United States is causing sticker shock. And now, President Biden is blaming the pinch on Vladimir V. Putin, the Russian president.“There will be costs at home as we impose crippling sanctions in response to Putin’s unprovoked war,” Mr. Biden said in a statement on Thursday.The president is betting that Americans are willing to endure the financial pain that comes from waging an economic war with Russia. But Thursday’s news that inflation has hit a 40-year high is another blunt reminder of just how much he is asking voters to sacrifice in an election year.With the midterm elections eight months away, the urgent political question for Mr. Biden is whether the American people are prepared to go along with blaming the Russians, and not him, for rising costs. Experts have said that prices have risen over the past year primarily because strong demand, stoked in part by government relief spending, outstripped pandemic-disrupted supply. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is just beginning to compound the problem.“It’s certainly a challenge, but it’s not one that we really have a choice about making,” Josh Schwerin, a Democratic strategist, said about imposing financial penalties on Russia. “There’s broad support for standing up to Putin and putting these sanctions in place, including those that will increase the cost of gas.”Mr. Biden’s approval ratings have been pulled down for months by frustration among many Americans about inflation and the pandemic. But recent surveys of voter attitudes suggest that many Democrats and Republicans support the administration’s sanctions on Russia, even if the penalties are bad for their pocketbooks.In an Economist/YouGov poll released this week, 66 percent of Americans said they approved of sanctions aimed at punishing Russia for its invasion. In a Wall Street Journal survey, 79 percent of voters supported a ban on Russian oil even if it meant that energy prices would rise as a result.Those findings are good news for Mr. Biden, who has been the subject of Republican attacks for failing to keep inflation in check. Republicans have blamed him for the rise in gas prices even as they supported his decision to impose a ban on Russian oil. Officials familiar with his decision said Mr. Biden had struggled for days over whether to cut off Russian oil amid fears of accelerating the already rapid rise in the price of gasoline.Ronna McDaniel, the chairwoman of the Republican National Committee, accused the Biden administration on Thursday of refusing to take responsibility for rising costs.“Prices continue to skyrocket under Biden and Democrats’ reckless policies,” Ms. McDaniel said in a statement. “Biden’s attempt to deflect blame is an insult to every American and small-business owner struggling to afford the cost of everyday goods.”Jen Psaki, the White House press secretary, told reporters on Thursday that there was “no question that inflation may be higher for the next few months than it would have been” without the Russian invasion of Ukraine, and that the administration’s focus would be to mitigate the long-term effects of rising costs.Democratic strategists pointed out that much of the criticism of Mr. Biden from Republicans is that he has not done even more to confront Russia. The president has repeatedly said he is unwilling to send American troops into Ukraine, and the United States declined this week to take fighter jets from Poland and station them at an American air base for eventual use in Ukraine.Each decision Mr. Biden is making, the strategists from his party argue, is rooted in strategic decision making, not political calculation.Russia-Ukraine War: Key Things to KnowCard 1 of 4On the ground. More