The Federal Reserve, which acts independently from the Oval Office, was slow to act to contain hot inflation, for example. That Biden is seen as stoking high inflation is due somewhat to optics: he took office in early 2021, around the time inflation spiked notably, economists said. "In my view, neither Trump nor Biden is to blame for the high inflation," said Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody's Analytics. At a high level, hot inflation is largely an issue of mismatched supply and demand. For example, Trump imposed tariffs on imported steel, aluminum and several goods from China, which Biden largely kept intact.

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Persons: Joe Biden, Donald Trump, Justin Sullivan, Trump, Biden, David Wessel, Mark Zandi, Wu Shaoyang, Wessel, Zandi, Stephen Brown, Eric Baradat, —, Michael Strain, Strain, Jerome Powell, Olivier Douliery Organizations: CNN, Getty, Federal Reserve, Biden, Trump, Hutchins, Brookings Institution, Moody's, Qingdao Port, International Monetary Fund, North, Capital Economics, American, Afp, American Enterprise Institute, Federal, . Federal Locations: Atlanta, U.S, Ukraine, Qingdao, Shandong Province, China, North America, Washington, It's