The ten challenges for the United States in 2022

U.S is preparing to receive 2022 as the country with the most infections and deaths due to pandemic and it faces difficult challenges such as curbing inflation not seen in decades or achieving the necessary consensus to approve major social and economic plans, without forgetting the mid-term elections.

Here are ten of the challenges facing the world’s leading power next year:

Contain the pandemic

The United States continues to be the country with the most victims of the pandemic and faces a difficult start to the year with the rapid spread of the omicron variant, which has set off the alarms of the government of Joe Biden.

The US government has already announced the mobilization of resources to provide the country with more tests, vaccines and protective equipment, and has been among the first to reduce the quarantine period in the face of this new, highly contagious but also milder variant.

Inflation overshadows the recovery

The rise in inflation, which has reached 1982 levels, has overshadowed the recovery of the economy and has become one of the most pressing challenges for Biden, whose image is already beginning to feel citizen discontent.

Strong demand, bottlenecks in the global supply chain and labor shortages are among the causes behind inflation, a problem that the Federal Reserve (Fed) is currently facing with the withdrawal of stimulus – the purchase of debt – while deciding whether to raise interest rates in the near future to help contain prices.

Social plan to the Senate

Biden’s ambitious $ 1.75 trillion social spending package will go to the Senate in early 2022, where it still lacks the required support after Democratic Senator Joe Manchin said he will vote against the initiative, in a Upper House divided 50% between Democrats and Republicans.

Biden’s plan, approved by the Lower House in November, represents a historic expansion of public spending, especially in the fields of health, child poverty and the fight against climate change.

Migration, road of ups and downs

It is expected that in 2022 there will be new attempts to carry out the long-awaited immigration reform, after a 2021 marked by the rejection in Congress to approve a path that allows to legalize millions of undocumented immigrants and by the unprecedented arrival – and despite the closure of borders – of thousands of immigrants who tried to enter the country through Mexico.

Another challenge will be the application of the controversial “Stay in Mexico” program, which this government had to resume on December 6 in compliance with a court order that forced it to reverse its decision to repeal it.

Gun violence, an open wound

It is difficult to predict if there will be any progress in 2022 to curb the spiral of gun violence in the United States. The year that is ending is about to become the most violent in recent statistics of deaths caused by weapons, with more than 20,400 deaths, 23,800 suicides and 39,900 injured, with no alternatives to curb the possession of weapons in the country for now. .

According to figures from the Gun Violence Archive (GVA), a nonprofit project that tracks gun violence in the United States, some 686 mass shootings have taken place this year alone. However, the laws to control the sale continue to clash with the defenders of the Second Amendment of the Constitution, which enshrines the right to own and carry weapons.

Contain Russia and China

If 2021 was the year to confirm Biden’s words that “the United States has returned” to the international scene, 2022 will be key in the new dynamics of Washington’s relations with China and Russia, marked by economic, geopolitical and political struggles. ideological.

One of the measures that will inaugurate the relationship with China next year will be the boycott of the Beijing Winter Olympics, which will not be attended by any diplomatic representative from Washington to protest the human rights abuses of the Asian giant. For the White House, 2022 starts with Ukraine among its concerns, given the possibility that Russia decides to enter Ukrainian territory.

Elections, the test

With a divided Senate and a Democratic majority in the Lower House, the November midterm elections are presented as a litmus test for Democrats and an indicator of public opinion, so much so that former President Donald Trump (2017-2021) has made his candidacy for the White House in 2024 subject to that process.

Biden’s management will also be on trial, because if his party loses control of Congress it will have to face a steep path to carry out its proposals.

Latin America, diplomacy of shocks

Latin America and the Caribbean will continue to attract Washington’s attention, either because of questioned elections, attempted coups, or the impact of the climate crisis on the region’s fragile economies.

The agenda is broad and can range from sanctions against Cuba, Nicaragua and Venezuela to plans to curb irregular immigration from Central America or attention to the complex situation in Haiti.

Racism, a latent pain

While the image of George Floyd dying under the knee of a white police officer was the trigger in 2020 of a wave of protests against racism and police brutality unprecedented in recent United States history, similar cases are still known that recall that racial wounds remain latent.

The year 2022 will come after another case, this time involving Kim Potter, a police officer found guilty on two counts after she killed young black Daunte Wright with her pistol in April, allegedly mistaking it for her electro-shock or taser weapon.

Cinemas still with empty chairs

And although the pandemic failed to stop premieres in 2021, the industry’s challenge for 2022 will be to refill movie theaters, which in the last two years have struggled with pale box office numbers.

For now, ómicron has once again deflated expectations and the receipts during the start of December were one of the lowest for US theaters in recent months.