Deputy Treasury Secretary Blames Russia for High Inflation and Food Costs in the U.S.

BRZEZINSKI: “And now we turn to the state of the U.S. economy here in the U.S.. The Federal Reserve yesterday raised interest rates by another half point in its ongoing fight to curb inflation. Joining us now Deputy Secretary of the Treasury, Wally Adeyemo. Wally, thank you very much for joining us. So the latest rate hike causes obviously a reaction. But are we looking at — there’s a lot of talk about this being more of a soft landing, what are officials in the U.S. government feeling about the strength of the US economy moving forward?”

ADEYEMO: “Well, thanks for having me. It’s good to be back on the show. And we feel good about the strength of the U.S. economy. We’ve created more jobs in the first few years of President Biden’s administration that at any time in the last 50 years. We still see a great deal of momentum in the economy, in terms of consumer demand is still strong. Over the course last few weeks, I’ve had a chance to sit down with CEOs who tell me that from their perspective they’re still getting orders from consumers, from other businesses, they feel good about their order books. And sitting down with leaders from Africa and around the world over the last few weeks, they all are amazed by the strength of the American economy, which isn’t something that happened without the hard work and determination the American people and the policy choices we’ve made to get out of the Covid epidemic and to deal with Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. And I think that we often think about what we’re doing for the Ukrainian people, but we also need to think about what the Ukrainian people are doing for all of us, in terms of not only defending the values we all stand for, but the reason that energy prices have been so high. And the reason that food costs are so high is partially because of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and their weaponization of both of those things. So ending that war as quickly as possible, making sure that that invasion ends, is not only good for our values, but it’s also good for our economy.”