Tag Archives: United States

Biden says U.S. considering diplomatic boycott of Beijing Olympics

By Trevor Hunnicutt

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -The United States is considering a diplomatic boycott of the Beijing Olympics, President Joe Biden confirmed on Thursday, a move that would be aimed at protesting China’s human rights record, including what Washington says is genocide against minority Muslims.

“Something we’re considering,” Biden said when asked if a diplomatic boycott was under consideration as he sat down for a meeting with Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.

A diplomatic boycott would mean that U.S. officials would not attend the opening of the Beijing Winter Olympics in February.

A U.S. decision not to send diplomats would be a rebuke of Chinese President Xi Jinping just days after Xi and Biden worked to ease tensions in a virtual summit, their first extensive talks since Biden took office in January.

Activists and members of Congress from both parties have been pressing the Biden administration to diplomatically boycott the event given that the U.S. government accuses China of carrying out a genocide against Muslim ethnic groups in its western Xinjiang region, something that Beijing denies.

White House spokesperson Jen Psaki told a regular briefing on Thursday that U.S. consideration of a diplomatic boycott of the Winter Olympics was driven by concerns about human rights practices in Xinjiang province.

“There are areas that we do have concerns: human rights abuses,” Psaki told reporters. “We have serious concerns.”

“Certainly there are a range of factors as we look at what our presence would be,” she said, while declining to provide a timeline for a decision.

“I want to leave the president the space to make decisions,” she said.

Sources with knowledge of the administration’s thinking have told Reuters there was a growing consensus within the White House that it should keep U.S. officials away from the Games.

Last week, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Washington was talking to countries around the world about “how they’re thinking about participation,” but left a deadline for a decision unclear.

A bipartisan group of U.S. senators in October proposed an amendment to an annual defense policy bill that would prohibit the U.S. State Department from spending federal funds to “support or facilitate” the attendance of U.S. government employees at the Games.

Democratic House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has also called for a diplomatic boycott, saying global leaders who attend would lose their moral authority.

Some Republican lawmakers have been calling for a complete boycott of the Olympics.

Senator Tom Cotton of Arkansas told a news conference on Thursday that a diplomatic boycott of what he called the “genocide Olympics” would be “too little, too late” and said no U.S. athletes, officials, or U.S. corporate sponsors should take part.

Nikki Haley, a Republican former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, also had called for a complete boycott, saying attending would send a message that America was willing to turn a blind eye to genocide.

(Reporting by Trevor Hunnicutt, Steve Holland and David Brunnstrom; Writing by Katharine Jackson and David Brunnstrom; Editing by Tim Ahmann and Bill Berkrot)

U.S. Gulf of Mexico auction attracts pent up demand from oil drillers

By Nichola Groom

(Reuters) -The Biden administration’s auction of oil drilling rights in the U.S. Gulf of Mexico generated more than $190 million in high bids, bringing in more money for taxpayers than any government offshore lease sale since early 2019.

The Department of Interior auction came days after the U.S. joined a global agreement that for the first time asked governments to accelerate emissions cuts by phasing down coal and fossil fuel subsidies.

It was the first auction under President Joe Biden, whose administration paused drilling sales under a promise to end development on federal properties. But Biden lost a court fight to oil-producing states that sued to reinstate the sales.

The sale’s total high bids – $191,688,984 — was announced by U.S. Bureau of Ocean Energy Management Gulf of Mexico Director Mike Celata on a live webcast. The bureau, an arm of the Interior department, had offered almost all available unleased Gulf of Mexico blocks, or 80 million acres. About 2% of that acreage, or about 1.7 million acres, sold.

The total high bids was far higher than the $121 million the government received at a sale held by the Trump administration a year ago, but the price per acre sold was around $112 compared with $233 at last year’s auction.

Major bidders included Exxon Mobil Corp, which snapped up nearly a third of the tracts for $14.9 million, and Chevron Corp, which was the auction’s biggest spender at with $47.1 million in high bids. Anadarko Petroleum Corp, owned by Occidental Petroleum Corp., BP and Royal Dutch Shell were also among the top five bidders.

Anadarko placed the highest single bid — more than $10 million — for a tract in the deep water Alaminos Canyon.

The sale was the first opportunity to test the oil and gas industry’s demand for Gulf acreage with energy prices at multi-year highs. U.S. crude futures on Tuesday settled at $80.76 a barrel, up 95% in the last 12 months.

Despite the court-ordered resumption of auctions, Interior spokesperson Melissa Schwartz said the agency was “conducting a more comprehensive analysis of greenhouse gas impacts from potential oil and gas lease sales than ever before.”

Environmental groups strongly opposed the sale and had called on Biden to cancel it over the last week.

(Reporting by Nichola Groom; additional reporting by Sebastien Malo in New York; Editing by Leslie Adler, David Gregorio and Aurora Ellis)

U.S. plans to invest billions in manufacturing COVID-19 vaccine

By Jeff Mason and Alexandra Alper

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -The United States plans to invest billions of dollars in expanding COVID-19 vaccine manufacturing capacity and make available an additional one billion doses per year, White House COVID-19 coordinator Jeff Zients said on Wednesday.

Activists have pressured President Joe Biden’s administration to increase vaccine supply to poorer countries.

Zients said the government was preparing to offer makers of the mRNA vaccines substantial help to expand infrastructure and capacity, including facilities, equipment, staff or training.

Pfizer/BioNTech and Moderna are the only makers of mRNA vaccines, though Zients said subcontractors of those companies would also be included.

Production will start in the second half of 2022, he said.

The investment in vaccine production is part of a private-public partnership to address vaccine needs at home and around the world and to prepare for future pandemics, he said. It will be paid for with funds from the American Rescue Plan Biden signed into law in March.

In the short term, the program would make a significant amount of COVID-19 vaccine doses available at cost for global use. In the long term, it would help establish sustained domestic manufacturing capacity to rapidly produce vaccines for future threats, Zients said.

Zients said 80% of Americans 12 and older have received at least one COVID-19 vaccine dose, highlighting a milestone in efforts to curb the spread of the deadly virus.

He also said 2.6 million kids aged 5-11 will have received their first shot of the COVID-19 vaccine by the end of Wednesday.

(Reporting by Jeff Mason and Alexandra Alper, Additional reporting by Doina Chiacu and Ahmed Aboulenein; Editing by Chizu Nomiyama, Bernadette Baum and David Gregorio)

U.S. drug overdose deaths jump over 28%, top 100,000 in the past year

(Reuters) – Over 100,000 people in the United States died from drug overdoses during the 12-month period ending April 2021, data from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention showed on Wednesday.

That marks a 28.5% jump from the previous year, with deaths from opioids such as fentanyl, which can be 100 times more potent than morphine, and psychostimulants such as methamphetamine helping drive the increase, provisional data from the health agency showed.

“As we continue to make strides to defeat the COVID-19 pandemic, we cannot overlook this epidemic of loss, which has touched families and communities across the country,” U.S. President Joe Biden said in a statement.

Data in July showed that last year’s drug overdoses jumped 30% as pandemic lockdowns made getting treatment difficult and dealers laced more drugs with a powerful synthetic opioid.

The new data showed that deaths from cocaine and prescription pain drugs also increased compared to data from the previous year.

(Reporting by Manas Mishra in Bengaluru; Editing by Bill Berkrot)

Biden, needing a boost, to sign $1 trillion infrastructure bill

By Steve Holland

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -In need of a political boost, President Joe Biden will sign a $1 trillion infrastructure bill on Monday at a ceremony expected to draw Democrats and some Republicans who were instrumental in getting the legislation passed.

The measure is expected to create jobs across the country by dispersing billions of dollars to state and local governments to fix crumbling bridges and roads, and expanding broadband internet access to millions of Americans.

The White House said on Sunday that Biden named former New Orleans Mayor Mitch Landrieu to supervise implementation of the infrastructure effort.

In addition, Biden signed an executive order before the ceremony directing that materials made in the United States will be given priority in infrastructure projects, the White House said. It also established a task force made up of top Cabinet officials to guide implementation of the legislation.

The ceremony, scheduled to be held on the White House South Lawn to accommodate a big crowd, represents an increasingly rare case where members of both parties are willing to stand together and celebrate a bipartisan achievement.

The bill had become a partisan lightning rod, with Republicans complaining that Democrats who control the House of Representatives delayed its passage to ensure party support for Biden’s $1.75 trillion social policy and climate change legislation, which Republicans reject.

The 13 House Republicans who broke ranks with their party to support the measure have been targeted by former President Donald Trump and some of their own colleagues.

Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell, who voted in favor of the bill, told Louisville, Kentucky’s WHAS radio last week that he was not attending the signing ceremony because he has “other things I’ve got to do.”

The phrase “infrastructure week” became a Washington punch line during Trump’s four years in the White House, when plans to focus on investments in America’s roads, railways and other transportation were repeatedly derailed.

Now it is Biden who needs some positive momentum as he struggles to address rising inflation and high gasoline prices that have contributed to a drop in his job approval ratings. The Democratic president and his party are eager to show they can move forward on his agenda ahead of the November 2022 midterm elections when Republicans will seek to regain control of both chambers of Congress.

INFLATION CONCERNS

U.S. consumer prices last week posted their biggest annual gain in 31 years, driven by surges in the cost of gasoline and other goods. Republicans have pounced on inflation worries, arguing that the increase reflects Biden’s sweeping spending agenda.

Biden’s economic advisers defended his policies on Sunday, saying rising inflation was a global issue related to the COVID-19 pandemic, not a result of the administration’s programs.

“There’s no doubt inflation is high right now. It’s affecting Americans’ pocketbooks. It’s affecting their outlook,” Brian Deese, director of the White House National Economic Council, said on NBC’s “Meet the Press.” “But it’s important that we put this in context. When the president took office, we were facing an all-out economic crisis.”

Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen and Deese said in separate television appearances that they expect the infrastructure legislation, as well as the $1.75 trillion “Build Back Better” bill, to help bring down inflation.

The “Build Back Better” package includes provisions on childcare and preschool, eldercare, healthcare, prescription drug pricing and immigration.

Deese said he was confident that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi would bring the bill to a vote this week. That will only be a first step, however, as the Senate has not yet taken up the legislation, and Democratic divisions could threaten its chances in that chamber.

(Reporting by Steve Holland; Additional reporting by Doina Chiacu; Editing by Peter Cooney)

Exclusive-Mexico considers tighter entry rules for Venezuelans after U.S. requests -sources

By Alexandra Ulmer, Dave Graham and Matt Spetalnick

SAN FRANCISCO/MEXICO CITY (Reuters) -Mexico is considering setting tougher entry requirements for Venezuelans, partly in response to U.S. requests, after a sharp rise in border arrests of Venezuelans fleeing their homeland, according to three people familiar with the matter.

Currently, Venezuelans do not need a visa to enter Mexico as tourists. But as apprehensions of Venezuelan migrants on the U.S.-Mexico border soar, Mexico is looking at making their entry subject to certain criteria, a Mexican official familiar with the government’s internal discussions said.

New entry rules could be applied soon, the official said.

A second Mexican government source said Mexico was reviewing its options, and holding discussions with Venezuela to explore alternatives to imposing visa requirements.

A third person familiar with Mexican-U.S. talks said Washington is urging Mexico to impose visa restrictions on Venezuelans, noting that U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) has been complaining about the increase in Venezuelans.

Options under review include making Venezuelans show they are economically solvent and in employment, and have a return plane ticket when they enter in order to ensure they are not using Mexico to enter the United States, the first source said.

A U.S. State Department spokesperson said Washington was working with Mexico to address root causes of irregular migration in a “collaborative, regional approach” when asked by Reuters whether the Biden administration was pressing Mexico to tighten entry requirements for Venezuelans.

“The United States appreciates Mexico’s efforts that contribute to safe, orderly, and humane processes for migrants at and within its borders,” the spokesperson said.

The White House, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS), and CBP did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Neither Mexico’s foreign ministry nor Venezuela’s Information Ministry replied to a request for comment.

The discussions come as encounters of Venezuelans at the U.S.-Mexico border have leapt to 47,762 in the year through September from just 1,262 during the previous 12-month period, according to U.S. government data.

Total apprehensions of migrants at the U.S.-Mexico border have hit record levels this year. That has put pressure on U.S. President Joe Biden ahead of congressional elections next November, with many voters in Texas border towns upset https://www.reuters.com/world/us/migrants-school-buses-texas-town-feels-caught-middle-2021-09-21 and Republicans accusing his administration of pursuing an “open border” policy.

One of the Mexican sources said Washington had lobbied Mexico to slow arrivals from Venezuela, but that Mexico also wanted to make sure people were not entering on false pretenses.

A fourth source, in U.S. government, said efforts to lobby Mexico to tighten entry requirements from OPEC member Venezuela had increased since Venezuelan arrivals jumped this summer, and that requests for cooperation had been made informally by diplomats and the DHS. The source said Washington was not leaning hard on Mexico.

Tighter entry rules could seriously affect migration plans of many Venezuelans, who pay smuggling networks to help them escape economic devastation under President Nicolas Maduro, who has presided over a severe financial meltdown amid heavy U.S. sanctions. Many of the Venezuelans depart with little money.

Venezuelans arriving from elsewhere in Latin America like Colombia or Chile, where they often work for a few years to save in hard currency before heading north, would likely be less exposed to requirements centering on their solvency.

Rights activists on Friday decried the potential move to restrict Venezuelan arrivals.

“Venezuelan migrants and refugees are fleeing a complex humanitarian emergency, lack of justice, an absence of freedom, and violence,” said David Smolansky, an exiled Venezuelan opposition leader who coordinates the Organization of American States’ response to Venezuela’s migration crisis. “In the face of such a situation, it is fundamental that they receive protection.”

Reuters reported in October that the Biden administration wanted Mexico to impose visa requirements on Brazilians to complicate their path to the U.S. border. And in September, Mexico suspended visa exemptions for Ecuadorians for six months following a steep increase in that country’s nationals trying to cross the U.S. border.

The U.S. government source said Biden’s aides could raise the Venezuelan migrant issue with Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador’s delegation when he visits Washington next week for a U.S.-Mexico-Canada summit.

(Reporting by Alexandra Ulmer in San Francisco, Dave Graham in Mexico City and Matt Spetalnick in Washington; Additional reporting by Kristina Cooke in San Francisco, Mica Rosenberg in New York, Vivian Sequera in Caracas and Ana Isabel Martinez in Mexico City; Editing by Rosalba O’Brien)

Exclusive-Qatar to act as U.S. diplomatic representative in Afghanistan – official

By Humeyra Pamuk

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -The United States and Qatar have agreed that Qatar will represent the diplomatic interests of the United States in Afghanistan, a senior U.S. official told Reuters, an important signal of potential direct engagement between Washington and Kabul in the future after two decades of war.

Qatar will sign an arrangement with the United States on Friday to assume the role of “protecting power” for U.S. interests to help facilitate any formal communication between Washington and the Taliban government in Afghanistan, which the United States does not recognize.

The move comes at a time when the United States and other Western countries are grappling with how to engage with the Taliban after the hardline group took over Afghanistan in a lightning advance in August as U.S.-led forces were withdrawing after two decades of war.

Many countries including the United States and European states are reluctant to formally recognize the Taliban as critics say they are backtracking on pledges of political and ethnic inclusivity and not to sideline women and minorities.

But with winter approaching, many countries realize they need to engage more to prevent the deeply impoverished country from plunging into a humanitarian catastrophe.

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken will announce the deal with his Qatari counterpart Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al-Thani at a news conference after their meeting on Friday.

According to the arrangement, which will come into effect on Dec. 31, Qatar will dedicate certain staff from its embassy in Afghanistan to a U.S. Interests Section and will coordinate closely with U.S. State Department and with U.S. mission in Doha.

The U.S. official said the United States would also continue its engagement with the Taliban through the Qatari capital, Doha, where the Taliban have maintained a political office for years.

“As our protecting power, Qatar will assist the United States in providing limited consular services to our citizens and in protecting U.S. interests in Afghanistan,” said the senior State Department official, who spoke about the sensitive matter on the condition of anonymity.

Consular assistance may include accepting passport applications, offering notarial services for documentation, providing information, and helping in emergencies, the U.S. official said.

The U.S. Interests Section will operate out of certain facilities on the compound in Kabul used by the U.S. Embassy prior to the suspension of operations, the State Department official said, adding that Qatar would monitor the properties on the compound and conduct security patrols.

Millions of Afghans face growing hunger amid soaring food prices, a drought and an economy in freefall, fueled by a hard cash shortage, sanctions on Taliban leaders and the suspension of much financial aid.

The Taliban victory in August saw the billions of dollars in foreign aid that had kept the economy afloat abruptly switched off, with more than $9 billion in central bank reserves frozen outside the country.

In a separate agreement, Qatar will continue to temporarily host up to 8,000 at-risk Afghans who have applied for special immigrant visas (SIV) and their eligible family members, the U.S. official said.

“SIV applicants will be housed at Camp As Sayliyah and al-Udeid Air Base,” the official said.

The two decades-long U.S. occupation of Afghanistan culminated in a hastily organized airlift in August in which more than 124,000 civilians, including Americans, Afghans and others, were evacuated as the Taliban took over. But thousands of U.S.-allied Afghans at risk of Taliban persecution were left behind.

(Reporting by Humeyra Pamuk; Additional reporting by Jonathan Landay, Editing by Robert Birsel)

U.S. and allies would ‘take action’ if Taiwan attacked – Blinken

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The United States and its allies would take unspecified “action” if China were to use force to alter the status quo over Taiwan, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said on Wednesday.

Blinken was asked at a forum hosted by the New York Times whether the United States would step in to defend Taiwan in the event of an attack by China. He repeated regular U.S. statements that Washington’s role is to make sure the island has the means to defend itself, as is required under U.S. law.

“At the same time, I think it’s fair to say that we’re not alone in this determination to make sure that we preserve peace and stability in that part of the world,” Blinken added.

“There are many countries, both in the region and beyond, that would see any unilateral action to use force to disrupt the status quo as a significant threat to peace and security, and they too would take action in the event that that happens.”

Blinken did not say what sort of action he was referring to.

U.S. President Joe Biden caused a stir last month when he said the United States would come to Taiwan’s defense if China attacked.

Those remarks appeared to depart from a long held policy of “strategic ambiguity”, not making clear how the United States would respond. But the White House quickly said Biden was not signaling a change in policy, and some analysts dismissed his comments as a gaffe.

The Democratic chairman of the influential House Intelligence Committee, Adam Schiff, last week urged the Biden administration to be less ambiguous about what he called a U.S. obligation to defend Taiwan from attack by China.

Blinken’s remarks came ahead of a planned virtual meeting between Biden and Chinese leader Xi Jinping, which a source briefed on the matter told Reuters will be held as soon as next week.

Asked if the meeting would happen next week, Blinken said it was “coming up soon” but was not more specific.

(Reporting by David Brunnstrom; Editing by Mark Heinrich)

Soaring gasoline, food prices boost U.S. inflation; labor market tightening

By Lucia Mutikani

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -U.S. consumer prices accelerated in October as Americans paid more for gasoline and food, leading to the biggest annual gain in 31 years, suggesting inflation could stay uncomfortably high well into 2022 amid snarled global supply chains.

Inflation pressures are also brewing in the labor market, where an acute shortage of workers is driving wages higher. The number of Americans filing claims for unemployment benefits fell to a 20-month low last week, other data showed on Wednesday.

High inflation is eroding the wage gains, adding to political risk for President Joe Biden, whose approval rating has been falling as Americans grow more anxious about the economy. The White House and the Federal Reserve, which views high inflation as transitory, have maintained that prices will fall once supply bottlenecks start easing.

“There is increasing evidence that inflationary pressures are broadening out, underlining that inflation will remain elevated for much longer than Fed officials expect,” said Andrew Hunter, a senior economist at Capital Economics.

The consumer price index jumped 0.9% last month after climbing 0.4% in September, the Labor Department said on Wednesday. The largest gain in four months boosted the annual increase in the CPI to 6.2%. That was the biggest year-on-year rise since November 1990 and followed a 5.4% increase in September.

The broad-based increase in prices last month was led by gasoline prices, which surged 6.1% after rising 1.2% in September. Food prices advanced 0.9%, with meat, eggs, fish, vegetables, cereals and bakery products becoming more expensive. But prices for alcoholic beverages declined. Rents increased a solid 0.4% and prices for both new and used motor vehicles rose.

Excluding the volatile food and energy components, the CPI gained 0.6% after climbing 0.2% in September. The so-called core CPI jumped 4.6% on a year-on-year basis, the largest increase since August 1991, after being steady at 4.0% for two straight months. Economists polled by Reuters had forecast the overall CPI shooting up 0.6% and the core CPI rising 0.4%.

U.S. stocks opened lower. The dollar rose against a basket of currencies. U.S. Treasury yields rose.

WORKER SHORTAGES

Inflation is heating up again as the economic drag from the summer wave of COVID-19 infections, driven by the Delta variant, fades and supply bottlenecks persist. Trillions of dollars in pandemic relief from governments across the globe fueled demand for goods, leaving supply chains overstretched.

The nearly two-year long pandemic has upended labor markets, causing a global shortage of workers needed to produce raw materials and move goods from factories to consumers. The government reported on Tuesday that producer prices increased strongly in October, reversing a slowing trend in the monthly PPI that had become entrenched since spring.

Though the Fed last week restated its belief that current high inflation is “expected to be transitory,” most economists are skeptical, also noting that wages are rising strongly as companies scramble for workers.

The U.S. central bank this month started reducing the amount of money it is injecting into the economy through monthly bond purchases. The Fed’s preferred inflation measure for its flexible 2% target increased 3.6% year-on-year in September.

With labor scarce, companies are holding on to their workers. In another report on Wednesday, the Labor Department said initial claims for state unemployment benefits fell 4,000 to a seasonally adjusted 267,000 for the week ended Nov. 6.

That was the lowest level since the middle of March in 2020, when the economy almost ground to a halt under the onslaught of mandatory business closures aimed at slowing the first wave of COVID-19 infections. Claims, which have now declined for six straight weeks, are within striking distance of their pre-pandemic level.

The report was published a day early because the federal government is closed on Thursday for the Veterans Day holiday.

The government reported last Friday that the economy added 531,000 jobs in October, with annual wage growth the largest in eight months. The labor force is down 3 million from its pre-pandemic level, making it harder to fill the 10.4 million job openings as of the of August.

“Businesses facing labor shortages are likely retaining rather than laying off workers,” said Rubeela Farooqi, chief U.S. economist at High Frequency Economics in White Plains, New York. “Even so, for the labor market, supply remains a constraint that is a headwind for the recovery for now.”

(Reporting by Lucia Mutikani; Editing by Dan Burns and Andrea Ricci)

U.S. credit card use returning to pre-pandemic patterns, NY Fed report finds

By Jonnelle Marte

(Reuters) – U.S. consumers are spending more and ramping up credit card balances, reversing a shift during the COVID-19 crisis, when they scaled back spending and substantially paid down debt, a Federal Reserve Bank of New York report showed on Tuesday.

After rising by $17 billion in both the second and third quarters, credit card use appears to be returning to pre-pandemic patterns, the researchers said. However, balances were still $123 billion lower than at the end of 2019, according to the quarterly report on household debt and credit.

“As pandemic relief efforts wind down, we are beginning to see the reversal of some of the credit card balance trends seen during the pandemic, namely reduced consumption and the paying down of balances,” Donghoon Lee, a research officer at the New York Fed, said in a statement. “At the same time, as pandemic restrictions are lifted and consumption normalizes, credit card usage and balances are resuming their pre-pandemic trends, although from lower levels.”

Credit cards typically follow a seasonal pattern, in which balances show “modest” increases in the second and third quarters, followed by a more substantial increase in the fourth quarter, researchers said. Consumers then usually reduce those balances in the first quarter as they pay off holiday spending, the report said.

During the pandemic, however, households supported by direct cash payments and forbearance programs that paused payments on mortgages and student loans largely reduced their credit card debt.

With forbearance programs winding down, some of those consumers may be able to use some of their available credit to make ends meet, the Fed researchers said.

The report also found that total household debt increased by $286 billion in the third quarter to $15.24 trillion, driven mostly by a $230 billion increase in mortgage balances. Total debt balances are now $1.1 trillion above where they were at the end of 2019, the report showed.

Auto debt increased by $28 billion in the third quarter and student loan balances grew by $14 billion.

Originations of new mortgage loans, at $1.1 trillion, and auto loans, at $199 billion, both remained near series highs. Rising car prices contributed to the high volume for new auto loans by leading to a higher origination amount per loan, researchers said. The authors did not do a similar breakdown for mortgages but said rising home prices could be having a similar effect on mortgage debt.

Lenders may be offering more credit to borrowers with lower credit scores after clamping down at the start of the pandemic, the report showed. For example, credit card issuance for lower credit score borrowers is back to pre-pandemic levels after declining at the start of the crisis. The median credit score for new mortgages and auto loans declined slightly in the third quarter, but was still high by historic standards, researchers said.

The findings showed that consumer debt delinquencies remain low, thanks in part to forbearance programs and other federal aid.

(Reporting by Jonnelle Marte; Editing by Andrea Ricci and Dan Grebler)