Elected last November on a wave of optimism, US President Barack Obama now finds himself governing an increasingly pessimistic country in recession while muscling through Congress a healthcare reform overhaul and weighing whether to commit more US troops to the eight-year-old Afghanistan war.
The latest Associated Press-GfK poll shows Americans grew slightly more dispirited on a range of matters over the past month, continuing slippage that has occurred since Obama took office.
They were more pessimistic about the direction of the country; they disapproved of Obama’s handling of the economy a bit more than before; and, perhaps most striking for the novice commander in chief, more people have lost confidence in Obama on Iraq and Afghanistan over the last month.
Obama’s approval rating stands at 54 percent, roughly the same as last month but very different from what it was in January just before he took office, 74 percent. And some 56 percent of people say the country is heading in the wrong direction, an uptick from 51 percent last month and 49 percent in Obama’s first month as president.
Unemployment hit 10.2 percent last month even though the administration has promoted glimmers of improvement and most economists say the recession is over.
Those jobless figures help explain why as many people said the economy got worse in the past month as said it got better — and it’s not many people who thought it improved — just 22 percent. Most say the economy stayed the same and just 46 percent approve of the way Obama is handling the economy, compared with 50 percent last month.
Americans have grown even more lukewarm on Obama and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Some 45 percent now disapprove of Obama’s handling of Iraq, up from 37 percent, while 48 percent now disapprove of his handling of Afghanistan, up from 41 percent; a majority opposes both wars. More than half — 54 percent — oppose sending more troops to Afghanistan, an increase from 50 percent last month.
Republican US lawmakers on Friday criticized US President Joe Biden’s administration after sanctioned Chinese telecoms equipment giant Huawei unveiled a laptop this week powered by an Intel artificial intelligence (AI) chip. The US placed Huawei on a trade restriction list in 2019 for contravening Iran sanctions, part of a broader effort to hobble Beijing’s technological advances. Placement on the list means the company’s suppliers have to seek a special, difficult-to-obtain license before shipping to it. One such license, issued by then-US president Donald Trump’s administration, has allowed Intel to ship central processors to Huawei for use in laptops since 2020. China hardliners
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