Biden warned Americans about the "Putin tax"

Americans are being forced to pay a "Putin tax" on fuel and food, US President Joe Biden said in a speech following the release of May's inflation data, which was a record for more than 40 years. “We have never seen anything like Putin’s tax on food and gasoline all at once,” he said.

At the same time, according to him, the United States will be able to fight inflation "from a position of strength, like no other country in the world." “I understand that inflation is a real challenge for American families. Today's inflation report confirms what America already knows - Putin's price increase is hitting America hard: gas at gas stations, energy and food prices account for half of the monthly price increase in May, ”Biden said.

So he commented on the report of the US Department of Labor, according to which consumer prices in the country rose by 8.6% in annual terms in May, which is the largest increase since December 1981. "I'm doing everything in my power to blunt Putin's price hikes and bring down the cost of gas and food," the US president concluded.

Since the start of the Russian special operation in Ukraine, consumer and energy prices have risen all over the world. This is due to the sanctions pressure on RUSSIA, which supplied the world markets with a large amount of oil , gas, fertilizers, grains and other commodities.

US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said earlier that inflation in the country will remain high, although the department hopes for its decline. Slowing down prices should be Washington's number one priority, she said. Yellen also said that she and the HEAD of the Federal Reserve Jerome Powell were mistaken in calling such inflation "transitional".

In early May, the US Federal Reserve System (FRS) announced the most significant interest rate hike since 2000 - by 0.5 percentage points at once, to the range of 0.75-1% per annum. At the same time, the American regulator pointed to the appropriateness of further tightening of its policy.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has previously warned of the threat of growing poverty and inflation in the world due to the mistakes of Western countries. Western countries have made mistakes in economic policy for many years and imposed "illegitimate sanctions," the president said. Such actions, according to him, led to problems in the economy: "To a wave of global inflation, to the destruction of the usual logistics and production chains, to a sharp increase in poverty and food shortages."