Ukraine changed its military leadership and announced a change of tactics in the past week, as a vote in the US Senate brought renewed hope of US aid for the embattled country.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy appointed ground forces commander Oleksandr Syrskii as commander-in-chief of the armed forces on February 8. Zelenskyy reportedly asked the outgoing Valery Zaluzhny to “continue to be part of the team”, without specifying what that meant.

“We stood against a vile and powerful enemy. Endured together,” wrote Zaluzhny, an immensely popular general who stopped Russia’s invasion in February 2022 and ordered a counterattack in August that year, which claimed more than 1,500sq km (580sq miles)

Since then, Ukrainian forces have become bogged down in positional warfare. A counteroffensive last summer failed to achieve its goal of cutting the Russian front in two.

“The tasks of 2022 are different from the tasks of 2024,” Zaluzhny wrote.

In his first meeting with Rustem Umyerov, the defence minister, the following day Syrskii said drones and electronic warfare would play a greater role – something Zaluzhny had also said shortly before his dismissal.

Ukraine has set a goal of building a million small drones – essentially flying bombs – this year.

Prime Minister Denys Shmyal said the government’s primary goal was to develop high-tech defence industries during a budget meeting on Tuesday, with $1bn going to drones alone.

“We are talking about the developments of the Defence Tech cluster, scaling up the production of drones of various categories, electronic warfare,” Shmyal said.

Mykhailo Fedorov, minister for digital transformation, told Reuters the number and range of Ukraine’s domestically built drones were dramatically increasing.

“In December alone, drone deliveries were 50 times higher than in the entire 2022,” he said.

Ukraine’s defence ministry launched a web form for Ukrainians to become involved in a community of innovators to “help solve the most difficult challenges at the front”, and is seeking to build a 10:1 technological advantage over Russia.

This strategy has been showing results.

Two long-range drones struck Russian oil refineries in Ilsky and Afipsky in Krasnodar Krai on Friday. Geolocated footage showed smoke rising from the refineries.

Ukrainian naval drones sank the Russian Landing ship Caesar Kunikov off the southern tip of the Crimean Peninsula on Wednesday. Ukrainian military intelligence’s Group 13 used Magura-V surface drones in the attack.

It was the fifth Russian landing ship in the Black Sea Ukraine sank or disabled. Nocturnal video shot by the drones showed the Caesar Kunikov being struck and capsizing to port.

A week earlier, Ukraine’s military intelligence used six Magura drones to sink the Ivanovets, a missile corvette.

Bringing greater efficiency to logistics, to keep front lines better supplied, and restoring Ukraine’s units with rest, new troops and training, was also a priority, Syrskii said.

Ukraine has almost a million troops under arms.

Syrskii also sought to overcome his image as “the butcher”, earned when he ordered a stout defence of the eastern town of Bakhmut that was costly in lives.

“Of course, we need to improve tactics. For us, the main task and value is the life of our soldier,” he told Germany’s ZDF television. “I would rather leave, perhaps some position, but I will not allow the death of the entire personnel,” Syrksyii said.

He emphasised self-reliance, saying “We, first of all, have to rely on our own strength. Not only on partners.”

As these words aired, the US Senate passed a bipartisan national security bill approving $60.6bn in financial and military aid to Ukraine by a vote of 70 to 29. The bill also contained $35bn in aid for Israel and Taiwan.

The bill must also pass the House of Representatives, but House Speaker Mike Johnson, a Republican ally of presidential hopeful Donald Trump, has said he will not consider aid to Ukraine, even though 84 percent of the appropriations would go to US defence manufacturers.

“There is no question that if the Senate bill was put on the floor in the House of Representatives, it would pass,” US President Joe Biden said. “So, I call on the speaker to let the full House speak its mind and not allow a minority of the most extreme voices in the House to block this bill even from being voted on.”

Trump has campaigned on cutting US defence costs in Europe, including the cost of defending NATO allies who, he believes, should spend more on defence.

“One of the presidents of a big [NATO] country stood up, said, if we don’t pay and we’re attacked by Russia, will you protect us?,” he told students at Coastal Carolina University on Saturday. “No, I will not protect you, in fact, I would encourage [the Russians] to do whatever the hell they want. You gotta pay,” he said to cheers.

Biden responded, saying, Trump “gave an invitation” to Russian President Vladimir Putin to invade the US’s NATO allies.

“When he looks at NATO, he doesn’t see the alliance that protects America and the world. He sees a protection racket,” said the president.

Trump peppered his speech with inaccuracies. He put the bill of US aid to Ukraine thus far at $200bn, and Europe’s contribution at $25bn.

In fact, the US has contributed $113bn in financial and military aid, and Europe 88.3 billion euros ($95bn), but Europe has approved a further 39.5 billion euros ($42.5bn) in financial and military aid for this year.

Trump’s influence over House Republicans means there are no US appropriations for Ukraine so far this year.

The Financial Times reported that Ukraine is already facing artillery shortages. The New York Times reported that Ukraine’s air defence missiles will run out by March unless replenished.

Russian forces, meanwhile, continued to rage against Ukrainian defenders in the east, launching as many as 100 assaults a day.

Ukraine’s armed forces estimated they were killing or wounding about 1,000 enemy troops across the front each day – a figure that could not be verified.

Tavria group commander Brig-Gen Oleksandr Tarnavskyi said Russia’s aim was to capture Avdiivka.

“The enemy is increasingly adding armoured groups to assault infantry groups,” he said.

Syrskii made his first trip as commander-in-chief to the eastern front, accompanied by Umyerov. He said troops faced “extremely difficult conditions”.

Umerov said drones and electronic warfare reinforcements were on their way.

“Avdiivka, Kupiansk, Lyman are extremely important areas on which all our attention is concentrated,” said Umerov.

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In a departure from norms, Johnson’s package required that the emergency aid be offset with cuts in government spending elsewhere. That tack established the new House GOP’s conservative leadership, but it also turned what would typically be a bipartisan vote into one dividing Democrats and Republicans. Biden has said he would veto the bill, which was approved 226-196, with 12 Democrats joining most Republicans on a largely party-line vote.

Johnson, R-La., said the Republican package would provide Israel with the assistance needed to defend itself, free hostages held by Hamas and eradicate the militant Palestinian group, accomplishing “all of this while we also work to ensure responsible spending and reduce the size of the federal government.”

Democrats said that approach would only delay help for Israel. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., has warned that the “stunningly unserious” bill has no chance in the Senate.

The first substantial legislative effort in Congress to support Israel in the war falls far short of Biden’s request for nearly $106 billion that would also back Ukraine as it fights Russia, along with U.S. efforts to counter China and address security at the border with Mexico.

It is also Johnson’s first big test as House speaker as the Republican majority tries to get back to work after a month of turmoil since ousting Rep. Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., as speaker. Johnson has said he will turn next to aid for Ukraine along with U.S. border security, preferring to address Biden’s requests separately as GOP lawmakers increasingly oppose aiding Kyiv.

The White House’s veto warning said Johnson’s approach “fails to meet the urgency of the moment” and would set a dangerous precedent by requiring emergency funds to come from cuts elsewhere.

While the amount for Israel in the House bill is similar to what Biden sought, the White House said the Republican plan’s failure to include humanitarian assistance for Gaza is a “grave mistake” as the crisis deepens.

Biden on Wednesday called for a pause in the war to allow for relief efforts.

“This bill would break with the normal, bipartisan approach to providing emergency national security assistance,” the White House wrote in its statement of administration policy on the legislation. It said the GOP stance “would have devastating implications for our safety and alliances in the years ahead.”

It was unclear before voting Thursday how many Democrats would join with Republicans. The White House had been directly appealing to lawmakers, particularly calling Jewish Democrats, urging them to reject the bill.

White House chief of staff Jeff Zients, counselor to the president Steve Ricchetti and other senior White House staff have been engaging House Democrats, said a person familiar with the situation and granted anonymity to discuss it.

But the vote was difficult for some lawmakers, particularly Democrats who wanted to support Israel and may have trouble explaining the trade-off to constituents, especially as the large AIPAC lobby and other groups encouraged passage. In all, two Republicans opposed the bill.

Rep. Brad Schneider, D-Ill, who voted against the package, said: “It was one of the hardest things I’ve had to do.”

To pay for the bill, House Republicans have attached provisions that would cut billions from the IRS that Democrats approved last year and Biden signed into law as a way to go after tax cheats. The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office says doing that would end up costing the federal government a net $12.5 billion because of lost revenue from tax collections. Taken together, the cost of the aid package and revenue reduction adds up to more than $26 billion.

Republicans scoffed at that assessment, but the Independent Budget Office is historically seen as a trusted referee.

Backers said the package would provide support for Israel’s Iron Dome missile defense system, procurement of advanced weaponry and other military needs, and help with protection and evacuations of U.S. citizens. CBO pegged the overall package at about $14.3 billion for Israel.

As the floor debate got underway, Democrats pleaded for Republicans to restore the humanitarian aid Biden requested and decried the politicization of typically widely bipartisan Israel support.

“Republicans are leveraging the excruciating pain of an international crisis to help rich people who cheat on their taxes and big corporations who regularly dodge their taxes,” said Rep. Jim McGovern of Massachusetts, the top Democrat on the House Rules Committee.

Rep. Dan Goldman of New York described hiding in a stairwell with his wife and children while visiting Israel as rockets fired in what he called the most horrific attack on Jews since the Holocaust.

Nevertheless, Goldman said he opposed the Republican-led bill as a “shameful effort” to turn the situation in Israel and the Jewish people into a political weapon.

“Support for Israel may be a political game for my colleagues on the other side of the aisle,” the Democrat said. “But this is personal for us Jews and it is existential for the one Jewish nation in the world that is a safe haven from the rising tide of antisemitism around the globe.”

The Republicans have been attacking Democrats who raise questions about Israel’s war tactics as antisemitic. The House tried to censure the only Palestinian-American lawmaker in Congress, Rep. Rashida Tlaib, D-Mich., over remarks she made. The censure measure failed.

Rep. Andrew Clyde, R-Ga., said he was “so thankful there is no humanitarian aid,” which he argued could fall into the hands of Hamas.

In the Democratic-controlled Senate, Schumer made clear that the House bill would be rejected.

“The Senate will not take up the House GOP’s deeply flawed proposal, and instead we’ll work on our own bipartisan emergency aid package” that includes money for Israel and Ukraine, as well as humanitarian assistance for Gaza and efforts to confront China.

Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky is balancing the need to support his GOP allies in the House while also fighting to keep the aid package more in line with Biden’s broader request, believing all the issues are linked and demand U.S. attention.

McConnell said the aid for Ukraine was “not charity” but was necessary to bolster a Western ally against Russia.

In other action Thursday, the House overwhelmingly approved a Republican-led resolution that focused on college campus activism over the Israel-Hamas war. The nonbinding resolution would condemn the support of Hamas, Hezbollah and terrorist organizations at institutions of higher education.

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“The investment we’re making today will be for our kids and grandkids,” Biden said. “Today’s announcement is transformational.”

The announcement included up to $7 billion in grants for seven hydrogen “hubs” across the country, including two in Pennsylvania, and marks the biggest step yet in a controversial pillar of the president’s climate agenda.

Many advocates and policy experts say a new clean hydrogen industry could, if designed well, play an important role in cutting climate pollution from sectors of the economy without good low-carbon alternatives, like steel making, fertilizer production and aviation. But some of those same experts warn that, without proper guardrails, expanded use of hydrogen could also undercut climate goals and extend reliance on fossil fuels while costing the government potentially hundreds of billions of dollars in subsidies.

“It’s really essential that we get it right,” said Morgan Rote, director of U.S. climate policy at the Environmental Defense Fund. She added that this week’s hub announcement, together with a tax credit enacted by Congress last year, will throw a tremendous sum of public money at the technology, “and there are a lot of ways that we could go off the rails.”

Critically, Rote and other experts say, the department has yet to make enough information public about the hydrogen hubs to determine whether those needed guardrails are in place. It is even possible, according to one analysis, that some of the hubs could fail to meet the Energy Department’s own definition of “clean hydrogen.”

“They seem to have the right goals and objectives,” Rote said of the department. “The extent to which the projects actually align with that I think remains to be seen.”

The seven hubs are scattered across the country, backed by a combination of industries, universities and local and state governments, and will aim to produce roughly 3 million metric tons of hydrogen per year by 2030, or one-third of the Biden administration’s goal. The administration said the hubs will eventually eliminate 25 million metric tons of climate pollution per year, equivalent to the emissions of about 5.5 million cars, but it released few details that would allow experts to assess that estimate.

While the sum of emissions cuts is relatively small, at less than 1 percent of  the nation’s total of more than 6 billion metric tons annually, the hubs are meant to test the technology and provide a model for a larger industry. If that effort is successful, the new production tax credit could provide far more support to companies that build clean hydrogen projects, tens or even hundreds of billions of dollars over a decade.

The answer to whether hydrogen will help meet climate goals will depend on a set of questions, some of them highly technical, about how the fuel is produced and where it’s used.

Hydrogen burns without generating climate pollution, meaning it could replace fossil fuels in a number of applications. But producing it requires pulling it out of other molecules—generally either methane from natural gas, or water. Either process requires large amounts of energy.

To make it “clean,” that energy has to come from a low-emissions source, like wind or solar power. Many oil and gas companies are also trying to use equipment that would capture and store the carbon dioxide emissions that are released when hydrogen is separated from methane gas.

Of the seven hubs announced, at least three would use natural gas and carbon capture. Many scientists and environmental advocates have warned that making this so-called “blue hydrogen” could fail to meaningfully reduce emissions and could even, under some circumstances, increase climate pollution. One problem comes from leaks of natural gas, which is primarily methane, a greenhouse gas that traps 86 times more heat than carbon dioxide over a 20-year period. If the leaks from drilling and delivering the natural gas to the hydrogen plant are too high, they can outweigh the benefits of capturing carbon emissions and replacing fossil fuels with hydrogen.

Another question is whether companies will be able to achieve the success they claim they can with carbon capture. So far, there have been no commercial-scale projects that remove the high levels of CO2 that would be needed to make blue hydrogen truly qualify as clean.

In a report published last month, the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis, which has been critical of carbon capture technology, warned that the Energy Department’s own modeling for emissions from blue hydrogen was faulty. One of the problems they identified was that the department’s modeling assumed that methane leaks were significantly lower than the majority of scientific studies suggest.

If projects use these default assumptions, rather than supplying information about leaks specific to their projects, it could make projects seem like they meet the threshold of “clean” when their true emissions are significantly higher.

The Energy Department declined to answer a question about whether it would require applicants to provide information about methane leaks specific to their projects.

The department’s publicly-available information for applicants said it “encouraged” projects to use project-specific data when estimating their greenhouse gas emissions, but did not require them to do so, and said that it would rely on the defaults in its models absent specific information.

Even if projects are able to clean up methane leaks and capture nearly all the carbon dioxide they pollute, they will still spur more drilling and hydraulic fracturing for natural gas, processes that have been tied to numerous health impacts for people living near development, including higher rates of certain cancers.

One of the largest blue hydrogen proposals has come from ExxonMobil, which said it plans to build a major blue hydrogen plant at its Baytown refinery and petrochemical complex near Houston. Exxon is part of a consortium of companies, including Chevron, behind a Gulf Coast hydrogen hub that was awarded up to $1.2 billion by the Energy Department. Oil companies, which have huge natural gas assets, have been big supporters of the idea of government investment in hydrogen technology, which could give them a market for their products in a climate-constrained future.

The hub could be particularly problematic when it comes to greenhouse gas emissions because some of the country’s highest rates of methane leaks are in the nearby Permian Basin.

A spokesperson for the Gulf Coast hub did not respond to questions for this article about where it will source its natural gas, what its expected rates of methane leaks would be or whether it would provide specific data to the Energy Department or rely instead on the national average default. The project has said it will also produce hydrogen using renewable power.

Many local environmental groups, however, are unhappy about the news.

We are “extremely disappointed with today’s hydrogen hubs announcement,” said Elida Castillo, program director for Chispa Texas, an offshoot of the League of Conservation Voters, in a statement. “While we appreciate an acknowledgment of the climate crisis, we cannot support initiatives that benefit the same industries that got us here and for questionable emissions reductions. Our frontline communities, who already bear the brunt of the costs to our health and environment, should be the recipients of that $7 billion instead—Congress misdirected these taxpayer dollars.”

A group of companies forming an Appalachian hydrogen hub was awarded nearly $1 billion and will also use carbon capture and natural gas. Arria Hines, a spokesperson for hub, said it would achieve a “production-weighted average” of 1.15 kilograms of carbon dioxide-equivalent emissions for each kilogram of hydrogen it produces. That figure could include some amount of hydrogen produced with renewable energy, she said.

That would place it well below the department’s definition of “clean,” or 4 kilograms of CO2-equivalent per kilogram of hydrogen. It would also place it well below the department’s estimates of what a blue hydrogen project should be expected to achieve, however, and would imply a remarkably low rate of methane leaks and near total carbon capture rates.

Hines declined to say whether the hub’s estimate would be based on direct measurements, rather than modeling, or whether it would make its methodology available to the public and have it verified by an independent party, all of which are considered best practices.

Sean O’Leary, a senior researcher at the Ohio River Valley Institute, an advocacy group that has been critical of hydrogen and carbon capture, said the Appalachian hub “is neither the most effective nor the lowest cost way” to reduce emissions.

The Biden administration said that two-thirds of the hub money will go towards “green hydrogen,” which is made using renewably generated electricity. Most climate advocates argue this is a better use of funds and eventually should be the only kind of hydrogen produced. But even green hydrogen has its risks.

If projects divert clean energy from the electric grid, for example, they can increase demand that would be met with fossil-fired power plants and actually drive emissions higher.

Two projects also plan to use electricity from nuclear power to make hydrogen.

Beyond the type of production, the use of hydrogen can be just as important. Some studies have shown that using hydrogen to heat homes, for example, or blending it into natural gas pipelines to burn in power plants, would be far less effective than using electricity generated by wind or solar power and could drive up energy costs.

The EPA has proposed rules for cutting climate pollution from the power sector that would allow companies to rely on fueling their plants with hydrogen, and the hubs could help shape how that effort develops.

Four of the seven hubs say they plan to use hydrogen in the power sector, while two mention using it for heating.

Beyond the climate implications, the hydrogen hubs will be a test for the Biden administration’s stated goals of using a clean energy transition to help improve the lives of people who have suffered the most from polluting industries and lost jobs in the fossil fuel sector.

The Appalachian hub, for example, said it would create more than 21,000 jobs, many of them in coal communities. But many community groups say they have been left out of the process of selecting winners for the hub awards.

“The amount of community engagement and community protections are going to be really crucial to the projects’ success,” Rote said. “Without those, projects could create really unfair health and environmental impacts. There’s potential for worsened air pollution, for interrupting existing water resources.”

So far, Rote said it is impossible to say whether civil society groups will get enough information from the department to meaningfully affect the hubs’ development before it’s too late.

The announcement of the winners is just a first step. The department will now enter into negotiations with the hubs and could rescind those awards depending on the outcome. The department has said it will release more information as the negotiations proceed.

“I’m sort of giving them the benefit of the doubt and assuming that that information is forthcoming for people to be able to engage,” Rote said. “They know what’s needed.”

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The three leaders held a flurry of summits among them amid North Korea’s escalating provocations in recent weeks.

“North Korea has been staging more hostile and assertive provocations than ever before,” Yoon said during the three-way summit held on the sidelines of the East Asia Summit in Phnom Penh.

“North Korea’s provocations, which were staged at a time when South Koreans are deeply saddened (by the Itaewon crowd crush), clearly show that the Kim Jong-un regime is anti-humanitarian and anti-humanity,” Yoon said. “The cooperation among South Korea, the U.S. and Japan is a strong bastion for defending universal values and achieving peace and stability of the Korean Peninsula and Northeast Asia.”

Biden and Kishida also noted North Korea’s recent provocations threaten the region’s peace and underscored the importance of trilateral cooperation among them.

“North Korea continues its provocative behavior, this partnership is even more important than it has ever been,” Biden said in his opening remarks at the trilateral summit.

Kishida responded that the trilateral summit took place “in a very timely manner when North Korea is staging unprecedented provocations” and the three need to “strengthen trilateral cooperation for more resolved responses.”

The Korea-U.S.-Japan trilateral summit was held four months after the three leaders sat down for talks in June on the sidelines of the NATO Summit in Spain.

This shows that North Korea’s recent saber-rattling has prompted the three countries’ leaders to send the Kim regime a strong, coordinated warning. Though the trilateral summit ended after 15 minutes, apparently due to time constraints, their joint statement identified their agreement to strengthen deterrence against the North’s recent provocations.

“President Biden reiterated that the U.S. commitment to defend Japan and the Republic of Korea is ironclad and backed by the full range of capabilities, including nuclear,” the statement reads. “As the regional security environment grows more challenging, President Biden reaffirms that the U.S. commitment to reinforce extended deterrence to Japan and the Republic of Korea will only strengthen.”

As part of their agreement, the leaders confirmed their intent to share “missile warning data in real time to improve each country’s ability to detect and assess the threat posed by incoming missiles.”

Also, the leaders agreed to launch “a dialogue among the three governments on economic security,” as they emphasize the importance of trilateral cooperation to strengthen the “rules-based economic order to enhance economic security and prosperity throughout the Indo-Pacific and the world.”

President Yoon Suk-yeol listens to his U.S. counterpart Joe Biden during their 
summit at a hotel in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, Sunday. Yonhap

North Korea’s provocations were also the main subject of South Korea-U.S. and South Korea-Japan summits.

During their 50-minute bilateral summit, which took place before the trilateral meeting, Yoon and Biden shared serious concerns on North Korea’s unprecedented provocations and agreed to maintain and strengthen cooperation and joint defense posture, according to South Korea’s presidential office. The two leaders also reaffirmed that both Seoul and Washington will explore every possible measure to respond with overwhelming force to any type of nuclear use by North Korea.

Biden reaffirmed the U.S. commitment to provide extended deterrence to defend South Korea is ironclad.

Also in the meeting, Biden acknowledged South Korean companies’ major contributions to the U.S. economy in the car and rechargeable battery industries, which he said should be considered in the discussions for setting up action plans for the U.S. Inflation Reduction Act (IRA).

During his meetings and encounters with Biden this year, Yoon has been reiterating that the IRA would deal a hefty blow to South Korean carmakers selling electric vehicles (EVs), as the act will provide tax credits to buyers of EVs assembled only in North America.

President Yoon Suk-yeol, right, shakes hands with Japanese Prime Minister 
Fumio Kishida during their summit at a hotel in 
Phnom Penh, Cambodia, Sunday. Yonhap

During a summit between Yoon and Kishida after the trilateral meeting, the leaders strongly condemned North Korea’s repeated launches of ballistic missiles, which pose a serious threat to the peace and safety of Northeast Asia and the international community.

The two leaders also agreed to join efforts to strengthen the United Nations Security Council’s response to the North’s provocations and enhance security cooperation between Seoul, Washington and Tokyo, according to a press release issued by South Korea’s presidential office. The press release did not reveal whether there were talks on improving bilateral relations.

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Iranian Foreign Ministry Spokesman reacted to Joe Biden’s claims about the US’ continuous attacks and aggression against the anti-terrorist forces of Syria.

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“I’m proud to say that our relationship with the State of Israel is deeper and stronger, in my view, than it’s ever been,” Biden said upon his arrival on Wednesday, vowing to deepen Israel’s integration into the Middle East.

“We’ll continue to advance Israel’s integration into the region,” Biden added, before taking part in a tour highlighting Israel’s advanced missile-defense systems.

Israelis rolled out the red carpet for the US President when he landed in Tel Aviv on Air Force One. He was greeted by a full array of politicians.

Israeli caretaker Prime Minister Yair Lapid described Biden as “one of the best friends that Israel has ever known”.

“We will discuss the need to renew a strong global coalition that will stop the Iranian nuclear program,” Lapid said.

This is Biden’s 10th visit to the country. His first visit was in 1973 when he was a first-term US senator from Delaware. This is also his first visit to the Middle East as president.

‘Strategically consequential region’

Biden will spend two days in Jerusalem for talks with Israeli leaders before meeting Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas on Friday in the occupied West Bank.

Afterward, he will take a direct flight from Israel to Jeddah in Saudi Arabia — a first for an American president — on Friday for talks with Saudi officials and to attend a summit of Gulf allies.

US officials say the trip could produce more steps toward normalization between Israel and Saudi Arabia, two of America’s strongest allies in the region.

Biden’s trip also aims to counter Iran, Russia and China’s growing influence in the region.

“This trip will reinforce a vital American role in a strategically consequential region,” US national security adviser Jake Sullivan said on Monday.

Biden, under pressure at home to bring down soaring gasoline prices that have damaged his standing in public opinion polls, is expected to press Gulf allies to expand oil production to help bring down gasoline prices.

A centerpiece of Biden’s visit will be the talks in Jeddah with Saudi leaders, including Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.

Biden will meet Israeli leaders seeking to broaden cooperation against Iran and Palestinian leaders frustrated by Washington’s failure to curb Israeli aggression.

Biden’s talks with Abbas will mark the highest level of face-to-face contact between the US and the Palestinians since then-President Donald Trump took a tough approach to the Palestinians upon taking office in 2017.

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Speaking a day after Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm said he was evaluating pausing the tax temporarily, Biden told reporters: “Yes, I am considering it. I hope I have a decision based on the data I am looking for by the end of the week.”

The president also said he wanted more answers on why energy companies were not refining more oil.

Granholm told CNN on Sunday the president was evaluating a pause on the federal gas tax to bring down prices, adding that such a move was “not off the table”.

The consideration comes as the United States struggles to tackle soaring gasoline prices and inflation, now at its highest in 40 years.

The pause of the federal gasoline tax is among various options being considered by the Biden administration to control inflation and surging gas prices.

Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said on Sunday some tariffs on China inherited from the administration of former President Donald Trump served “no strategic purpose” and added that Biden was considering removing them too as a way to bring down inflation.

Biden reiterated on Monday that he felt a U.S. recession was not inevitable, adding he had spoken to former U.S. Treasury Secretary Lawrence Summers who told NBC News on Sunday he expected a recession.

Whether the United States, the world’s largest economy, will slip into a recession has been a growing concern for chief executives, the Federal Reserve, and the Biden administration.

The surge in inflation has made hawks of nearly all Federal Reserve policymakers, only one of whom dissented earlier this week against what was the central bank’s biggest rate increase in more than a quarter of a century.

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