President Joe Biden on Wednesday gave a positive take on supply-chain worries with just days remaining before Christmas, saying gifts are being delivered and store shelves are stocked.
“The much-predicted crisis didn’t occur,” Biden said as he convened a meeting of his supply chain task force. “Packages are moving,” he said, touting his administration’s actions he said it took amid warnings about a “crisis around the holidays.”
The White House has taken steps including pushing ports to speed up handling of containers, and the president has met with retailers including Walmart
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and Best Buy
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getting assurances that supply-chain problems are easing.
Read: Biden holds Cyber Monday meeting with retail CEOs to discuss inflation, supply chains
While he touted progress, Biden did not declare supply-chain problems fully resolved — a view echoed by one of the meeting’s participants, FedEx
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Chief Executive Fred Smith.
“The supply chain issues are not all solved,” said Smith. “But there’s a lot of effort underway to solve them, and we’re optimistic that people will have a good peak season and most of Santa Claus’s products will be delivered to the consumers.”
Supply-chain worries are still evident among businesses and consumers. Nine of 10 retailers anticipate revenue will continue to be impacted by supply-chain issues for at least the next six months, according to a survey conducted by Sapio Research on behalf of Coupa Software Inc.
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See: Supply-chain issues to bedevil retailers through 2022, according to survey
Biden’s latest meeting came as he and his administration are grappling with the omicron variant of COVID-19, which is threatening to disrupt stressed supply chains further. On Tuesday, the president rolled out a series of new steps to combat the pandemic, including free COVID tests.
Republicans, eyeing next year’s midterm elections, have assailed Biden and hif fellow Democrats over historically high inflation and supply-chain issues. The Democratic National Committee, meanwhile, sent out on Wednesday a New York Times article explaining why Christmas gifts are arriving on time — with the DNC titling its emailed message, “Poof goes another Republican talking point.”
