U.S. President Joe-Biden held his first press conference 2022

 Biden holds a press conference to review his achievements and challenges in his first year in office

U.S. President Joe-Biden held his first press conference 2022 in the White House on Wednesday. Biden said his first year as president was both "challenging" and "great". He also said the U.S. has no intention of removing tariffs on Chinese goods because China has not kept its promises. He also criticized China for not being transparent enough about the origin of the new coronavirus.

Biden opened the news conference with a presentation on what his administration has accomplished over the past year.

He cited an increasing number of Americans who have been vaccinated against the new crown, and pointed out that the number of unemployed people in the United States has dropped significantly.

Biden said the U.S. should have done more testing of the public for the coronavirus early in the pandemic, "but we're doing more testing now." Starting Wednesday, Americans can start ordering free at-home coronavirus tests.

President Biden's news conference on Wednesday came as two key parts of his policy agenda stalled in Congress and the coronavirus pandemic is still raging in the U.S. and around the world. Since the U.S. withdrew from Afghanistan last September, Biden's polling approval rating among voters has hovered at just over 40 percent. A Quinnipiac University poll released last week put Biden at just 33 percent.

Biden's subdued approval ratings have been exacerbated by perceptions of his handling of the coronavirus pandemic. Despite the government's intensive vaccination campaign, the outbreak is in its third year. Public health experts have criticized the administration for failing to foresee the emergence of the delta and Omicron variants of the coronavirus, and for failing to increase testing capacity for the new coronavirus, including making rapid test kits available to all Americans.

While Biden passed a massive $1 trillion package in Congress to improve America's infrastructure, he sought to finally pass his $1.8 trillion "Building Back Better Future" social safety net and climate change in the U.S. Senate. The plan was opposed by his own party, Senator Joe Manchin, a moderate Democrat from West Virginia. Manchin holds a key vote in the Democratic-Republican Senate.

Reuters reports that the White House is preparing a new, simplified version of "Building Back for a Better Future" that could cut some programs, such as the child tax credit and paid family leave, to get Manchin's support.

Manchin and another moderate Democratic senator, Sinema of Arizona, are also blocking the Senate from passing two Biden-backed voting rights bills because they oppose changes to a longstanding Senate rule that requires the 100-member Senate The 60 members voted to advance the bill to a final vote.

Biden said that U.S. Trade Representative Dai Qi is in contact with China, but the prospects for U.S.-China trade are not clear. He said the U.S. cannot lift tariffs on Chinese goods because China has failed to fully implement the U.S.-China phase one trade deal .

In terms of tracing the origin of the new crown virus, Biden said that he had pressured Chinese President Xi Jinping on the source of the new crown virus, but China was not transparent enough. "I made it clear to that I think China has an obligation and to be more forthcoming about the exact origins of the virus and where it came from." he said.

Wednesday's news conference was only the 10th of Biden's presidency, far fewer than previous presidents since George W. Bush, according to data compiled by the University of California, Santa Barbara.