For more than a decade, Apple could do virtually nothing wrong. The iPhone made it the most valuable company in the world. The App Store helped launch companies like Uber and Airbnb. And the company’s new products made it a player in healthcare, Hollywood and finance.

Now the difficulties are piling up. The Justice Department on Thursday filed an antitrust lawsuit against Apple for giving its own products benefits that it took away from competitors. The lawsuit is the latest in a series of lawsuits brought against the company by regulators on three continents.

The problems are testing the resilience of the Apple brand and undermining its business dominance, even as Apple products remain popular and continue to power a highly profitable business. The company reported a profit of $97 billion on revenue of $386 billion last year.

Here’s a look at the challenges ahead.

US v Apple

The Justice Department filed a sweeping antitrust lawsuit against Apple on Thursday, directly targeting the company’s most important business: the iPhone. The government argued in an 88-page lawsuit that Apple violated antitrust laws by preventing other companies from offering applications that compete with Apple products, such as its digital wallet.

The lawsuit follows a yearslong investigation into Apple that focused on the ways the company controlled the user experience on iPhones and other devices to create what critics call an uneven playing field. It has given its own products and services access to core features like the NFC chip and notification system that it denies to competitors like PayPal and Garmin smartwatches.

It could take months before the case comes to trial.

European regulators against Apple

On March 4, the European Commission fined Apple 1.8 billion euros ($1.95 billion) for thwarting competition by preventing music streaming rivals from offering users promotions and subscription upgrades. Because Apple is the sole gatekeeper controlling developers’ access to iPhone customers, European regulators said it wrote the rules for the App Store in a way that allowed Apple Music to offer benefits that it denied to rivals like Spotify.

“From now on, Apple will have to let music streaming developers communicate freely with their own users,” said Margrethe Vestager, executive vice president of the European Commission in charge of competition policy. The size of the fine, she added, “reflects both Apple’s financial power and the harm Apple’s behavior has caused to millions of European users.”

Since the fine, Apple has postponed a request from Spotify to inform users about offers on its website, Spotify said. The European Commission has said Apple could face additional fines if it doesn’t comply with the orders.

South Korea and the Netherlands against Apple

Apple is also facing fines from regulators in the Netherlands and South Korea.

In 2021, Dutch regulators ruled that Apple violated competition laws in the dating app market by preventing services like Tinder from using payment systems other than Apple’s. Rather than allow other payment systems to take that money, Apple lowered its commission from 30 percent to 27 percent on the price paid per user. But Dutch regulators said the move was inconsistent with the law and fined Apple €50 million ($53 million) last year.

A similar situation is playing out in South Korea, where lawmakers were among the first in the world to respond to developer complaints about App Store commissions by passing legislation forcing Apple to allow alternative payment systems. Apple has relaxed its requirement 26 percent. The country’s telecom regulator said this Apple could be fined $15.4 million for ‘unfair practices’.

Apple said it disagreed with the findings of Dutch and South Korean regulators. It is appealing against the Dutch fine and is awaiting the results of a South Korean investigation.

Japan, Australia and Great Britain against Apple

Several other countries are exploring legislation or regulations that could force Apple to loosen its grip, including Japan, Australia and Britain. The regulatory changes they are discussing could require Apple to offer alternative payment options and reduce its commissions. After seeing how Apple has complied with similar laws elsewhere, lawmakers may choose to be more prescriptive in their regulations.

The rules would be the latest to split what was once one App Store into a tangle of digital stores across national borders.

China vs Apple

Last fall, China began telling government agency employees not to use iPhones for work. Authorities made no public statements other than to say there were “media reports” about security flaws in iPhones. But the directive has spread throughout the country’s smartphone market.

iPhone sales in China fell 24 percent in the first six weeks of the year, according to Counterpoint Research, which tracks the smartphone industry. At the same time, sales of Huawei, once China’s largest smartphone maker, rose 64 percent after introducing a new phone with 5G wireless capabilities.

Epic vs. Apple

Apple largely triumphed over Epic Games, the maker of Fortnite, after the video game company sued Apple in 2020 over its App Store. But a federal judge has dealt a major blow to Apple’s control of the App Store, ruling that Apple violated California competition laws by preventing app makers from offering alternative ways to pay for services.

After the Supreme Court decided not to hear the case, Apple said it would comply with the ruling, just as it did in the Netherlands: by lowering the commission to 27 percent for developers who use alternative payment options.

Last week, Epic filed a motion in court challenging Apple’s compliance, saying the new fees and rules undermine the judge’s order. Meta and Microsoft have filed a brief in support of Epic, prompting the court to once again decide whether Apple is violating California law.

Developers vs. Apple

Before European regulators this month began enforcing a new competition law to give customers more choice, app makers complained that Apple’s response to the law broke the rules. The company would open the iPhone to alternative app stores and payment systems, but added these capabilities alongside new commissions and requirements.

On Monday, developers met with Apple in Europe and questioned how the fees complied with the law, which has several “free” provisions. Apple has insisted that its policies comply with the new rules.

European regulators could open a formal investigation into Apple’s plans. The lawsuit could spark a protracted legal battle that could force Apple to change or face fines of up to 10 percent of its annual global revenue, which was nearly $400 billion last year.

Wall Street vs. Apple

Apple’s investors are calling to jump into the world of generative artificial intelligence. The technology, which can answer questions, create images and write code, is being praised for its potential to create trillions of dollars in economic value.

But at a time when peers like Microsoft and Google are starting to build generative AI companies, Apple has yet to introduce a product. Apple CEO Tim Cook has assured investors that something is coming later this year. The company has been in talks with Google about adding its AI model called Gemini to iPhones.

Investors have sent Apple shares down more than 3.75 percent this year. At the same time, the Nasdaq Composite Index, packed with technology stocks, rose nearly 11 percent.

AIPAC, the pro-Israel group that has long been among Washington’s most powerful lobbying forces, faces intense challenges as it tries to maintain bipartisan support for Israel during the war in Gaza — even as it alienates some Democrats with its increasingly aggressive policies. tactics.

While AIPAC has traditionally enjoyed strong support from members of both parties, in recent years it has taken on a more overt political role by helping finance electoral challenges to left-wing Democrats it views as insufficiently supportive. The tension has been exacerbated by divisions within the Democratic Party over Israel against the backdrop of rising civilian casualties in Gaza and the barriers Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has erected to humanitarian aid.

AIPAC has also had to deal with the complicated politics of foreign aid on Capitol Hill, where money for Israel has become entangled in the dispute over providing aid to Ukraine. Under former President Donald J. Trump’s administration, many of AIPAC’s traditional allies on the right have opposed additional funding for Ukraine, preventing the House of Representatives from moving forward with legislation that would also provide billions to Israel. It is a stalemate that the group has so far been unable to help resolve.

“I think they’re having a bit of an identity crisis,” Martin S. Indyk, the U.S. ambassador to Israel under President Bill Clinton and special envoy for Israeli-Palestinian peace talks under President Barack Obama, said of AIPAC. “It is disguised by their formidable ability to raise money, but their lives have become very complicated.”

AIPAC’s aggressiveness and the challenges it faces became clear this week when the group — formally the American Israel Public Affairs Committee — brought together about 1,600 donors and senior lawmakers from both parties, including Chairman Mike Johnson and Sen. Chuck Schumer of New York, the Democratic majority. leader, to gather support and show his strength. Mr Netanyahu spoke to the group video link on Tuesday.

A separate video montage played for donors at the conference showed Democratic members of Congress criticizing Israel or expressing support for the Palestinians. Officials at AIPAC, which is led by Howard Kohr, its CEO, urged donors to fund the group’s efforts to defeat some of its members. One panel consisted of two challengers who took on the Democratic incumbents targeted by AIPAC.

But speakers and donors also pushed back against suggestions that the group would turn against the Democratic Party’s left flank. They emphasized AIPAC’s support for pro-Israel Democrats and Republicans in the ideologies of their respective parties. AIPAC donors, they noted, traveled to Capitol Hill on Tuesday to visit members of Congress from both parties, including Democrats who identify as progressive, to seek support for the relief package.

“Most people are not purely liberal or purely conservative,” said Mark E. Ginsburg, a New York surgeon who attended the conference. “AIPAC is an important part of the pro-Israel lobby and is evolving with the times.”

Representative Eric Swalwell, a California Democrat who attended a reception for conference participants Monday evening, said: “It is critical that they bring and keep Republicans and Democrats together.”

AIPAC has recently criticized at least one Republican lawmaker, but its campaign spending for this year’s elections is largely focused on opposing candidates in the Democratic primary who it believes are not in line with its agenda. AIPAC’s super PAC, United Democracy Project, has already spent money defeating candidates in Democratic primaries for House of Representatives seats in California and Illinois seen as insufficiently supportive of Israel, including a Chicago community organizer who supports Israel’s offensive in Gaza has described as “genocide.”

And AIPAC has defeated its nearest – albeit much smaller – rival, the more forgiving pro-Israel group J Street, which has criticized Mr Netanyahu and called for a negotiated stop to the war.

J Street “is many things,” AIPAC has said repeatedly on social media“but it is not pro-Israel.”

Jeremy Ben-Ami, the president of J Street, responded: “Intracommunal bickering and organizational food fights do nothing to advance the security and well-being of the people of Israel.”

AIPAC’s naked approach has led to protests. On Monday, a coalition of progressive advocacy groups launched an initiative called “Reject AIPAC,” an effort to counter this $100 million that AIPAC is expected to spend to defeat congressional candidates who have criticized civilian suffering in Gaza caused by Israel’s war against Hamas.

Marshall Wittmann, a spokesman for AIPAC, said in a statement: “Our sole criterion for evaluating candidates from both parties is their position on strengthening the U.S.-Israel relationship. We believe that it is fully consistent with progressive values ​​to stand with the Jewish state.” Regarding the anti-AIPAC initiative, he added: “We will not be deterred in our efforts by an extremist anti-Israel fringe.”

Last week, Dave Min, a California Democrat targeted by AIPAC, won despite a victory in his primary A $4.7 million boost against him by United Democracy Project.

AIPAC donors have told some candidates that if they accept J Street’s endorsement, they will not get AIPAC’s support, said two people with knowledge of such warnings.

Some Democrats say AIPAC’s tactics have had a chilling effect in Congress.

“I’ve seen people say I really can’t vote this way because I don’t want an AIPAC opponent,” said Rep. Mark Pocan, Democrat of Wisconsin and an outspoken critic of the group. “That’s said a lot.”

AIPAC remains one of the most powerful interest groups in Washington. It raised a record amount of money in 2023, and its super PAC started this year with more than $40 million to spend on campaigns. Some of the biggest donors are Republicans, such as hedge fund manager Paul Singer and WhatsApp co-founder Jan Koum.

AIPAC’s political action committee and super PAC “have given the pro-Israel community a stronger voice in the political process by directly helping elect pro-Israel candidates and defeating opponents,” Mr. Wittmann said.

Founded in the 1950s, AIPAC for years largely eschewed taking on incumbents by funding challenges from candidates who might be more supportive of its agenda.

But the Obama administration’s nuclear deal with Iran, negotiated in 2015 despite fierce opposition from AIPAC, prompted the group to take a different approach, as did the growing prominence of a new generation of Democratic progressives who are not so reflexively loyal were to Israel.

Friends of the organization urged the organization to take a more aggressive stance, said an activist involved in these discussions, including by launching primary challenges to incumbents whose commitment to Israel appeared inadequate.

United Democracy Project and AIPAC Political Action Committee launched in late 2021. During the 2022 midterm elections, AIPAC’s super PAC endorsed candidates in nearly a dozen Democratic primaries, winning most of them, including in a race between two incumbents.

Then came the October 7 terrorist attack by Hamas on Israel and the subsequent war in Gaza. Israel’s conduct in the conflict has divided Democrats and left Israel increasingly isolated internationally, underscoring the importance for AIPAC of maintaining the support of the United States.

“The world is kind of abandoning Israel right now,” said Rep. Tim Burchett, Republican of Tennessee, after meeting with AIPAC members from his district at the reception on Monday. “So that’s what they’re concerned about.”

AIPAC’s influence depends heavily on its ability to assemble top donors, like those it convened just outside Washington for this week’s summit — many of whom had pledged to donate $10,000 or more through AIPAC’s political operation to candidates who were supported by the group, according to those present.

Officials urged donors to give more, deeming the moment perilous for the group’s mission, even as the programming demonstrated AIPAC’s lasting influence.

On Sunday evening, Michael Herzog, Israel’s ambassador to the United States, spoke at the conference. On Monday, attendees heard from President Biden’s Middle East coordinator, Brett McGurk, as well as Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the Republican minority leader, and Benny Gantz, a member of Israel’s war cabinet. Mr. Gantz warned the crowd that an Israeli invasion of Rafah — the area in southern Gaza where Hamas leaders are believed to be hiding — was a matter of when, not if, one listener said.

Mr. Schumer received a standing ovation when he declared that “as long as Hamas exists, there will never be a two-state solution,” according to two people who heard his comments, “where Israel and a Palestinian state live side by side. peace, prosperity, security and dignity.”

As the U.S. military races to build a temporary port on Gaza’s coast, the major practical challenges facing humanitarian efforts by sea to prevent famine in the area are becoming increasingly apparent. Obstacles include logistical, cost and security issues, diplomats and aid officials say.

But desperate conditions in Gaza, depicted in images of starving children, make the American-led international plan a necessity, they say, especially given strict security measures imposed by Israel that are slowing land shipments of food, water and medicine.

Even if it can overcome the hurdles, the international initiative will likely take several weeks, if not months, to reach its goal of delivering two million meals a day to the people of Gaza.

Citing the deepening humanitarian catastrophe in Gaza, Canada and Sweden are resuming funding for the main United Nations agency supporting Palestinian refugees in Gaza. The governments said the embattled agency had taken steps to improve accountability amid allegations that some of its employees had ties to Hamas.

The two countries were among more than a dozen that suspended payments to the aid agency, the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees, known as UNRWA, following accusations in January by Israel that a dozen of its 13,000 employees were working in Gaza were involved. in the October 7 Hamas-led attacks on Israel or their aftermath.

UNRWA has argued that Israel, which has long called for the agency’s removal from Gaza, has attacked the country with a “deliberate and coordinated campaign” to undermine its operations when its services are most needed. Warnings of widespread hunger bordering on famine have become more urgent, and signs of desperation are increasing as people resort to consuming livestock feed or ambushing aid trucks.

In a government statement on Saturday, Sweden said it would make a conditional first payment of about $20 million. It said UNRWA had agreed to allow independent audits and strengthen internal oversight.

“In this urgent situation, where the need among the civilian population is so great, it is first and foremost important to save lives,” the statement said.

Canadian officials said Friday that they had received an interim report from the United Nations internal agency investigating the claims, and that UNRWA had taken immediate steps to improve accountability. The United Nations has also ordered an external investigation.

Israel’s Foreign Ministry reacted angrily to the countries’ decision, issuing a statement calling it “a serious mistake” that was reached before the investigation was completed. “The resumption of funding for UNRWA will not change the fact that the organization is part of the problem and will not be part of the solution in the Gaza Strip,” the ministry said.

The European Union, one of UNRWA’s biggest donors, announced last week that it would substantially increase the organization’s funding, saying Palestinians faced terrible conditions and should not pay for Hamas’ crimes. The first tranche of 50 million euros, about $54 million, was due to be paid this week.

The United States has said it will wait for the results of a U.N. investigation before deciding whether to resume donations. It is the agency’s largest donor, pledging $344 million in 2022.

The multinational plan to build a functioning pier on the Gaza coast is undeniably ambitious. But aid officials have criticized it, insisting that delivering food by truck is by far the most efficient way to help Gazans. They called on Israel to open new border crossings in northern Gaza and ease entry restrictions.

U.S. officials have conceded it will take time, but say a maritime corridor will eventually allow them to vastly increase the amount of aid.

Gaza has no functioning port and its coastal waters are too shallow for most ships – especially the large ships that would be needed to transport the enormous amounts of cargo needed for hundreds of thousands of hungry Palestinians.

Ursula von der Leyen, the president of the EU’s executive body, said on Friday that officials expected to test the process in the coming days in what she described as a pilot project. But aid officials said it was not immediately clear how or where ships would unload their cargo or how it would be distributed with continued Israeli bombardments and attacks on aid trucks by both ordinary Palestinians and well-organized gangs. Hundreds of thousands of Gaza’s 2.3 million residents face the threat of famine.

The effort will be costly, but it is uncertain how costly. Initial estimates for the floating pier and shipping costs are in the tens of millions of dollars over several months.

But security and distribution, more than money, seem to be the bigger challenges. It is unclear who will manage and secure the port area and the convoys needed to distribute aid. In his State of the Union address Thursday evening, President Biden was adamant that no “American boots” would touch the ground in Gaza.

The Israeli invasion successfully toppled the Hamas government in northern Gaza, but nothing has filled the security vacuum, leading to widespread lawlessness in the north.

The remaining Hamas civilian police personnel could step in to provide security, U.N. officials have said, but their involvement would likely be unacceptable to Israel and the United States.

The Israeli army could patrol the convoys, but their presence would pose a challenge to the United Nations, which is working hard to avoid being seen as too close to any side in the conflict. The UN coordinates their convoys with Israel, but does not require the Israeli army to secure them.

Two years ago, just six days after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, President Biden opened his State of the Union address by promising to stop Vladimir V. Putin. The response in the House of Representatives was a series of standing ovations.

On Thursday evening, Mr Biden again opened his speech by repeating his warning that, if left unchecked, Mr Putin would not abandon his territorial ambitions on Ukraine’s borders. But the political climate was completely different.

With many Republicans vowing not to vote for more aid and the Ukrainians short of ammunition and losing ground, Mr. Biden challenged them to defend former President Donald J. Trump’s statement that if a NATO country were not enough pay for his defense, he would tell Mr Putin to ‘do whatever you want’.

As Democrats cheered Biden’s direct shot at his opponent in the 2024 election, many Republicans in the House looked down or checked their phones — an illustration of the evolving and mounting challenges he faces at a time when his foreign policy agenda comes into play. central role in the re-election campaign.

Mr. Biden’s pledge to restore American power by rebuilding alliances and “proving that democracy works” is a far more complicated task than when he came to power.

His problems go deeper than the new thinking of a Republican Party that has moved in two decades from President George W. Bush’s declaration that America’s mission would be the spread of democracy to Mr. Trump’s open admiration for Mr. Putin and quasi-autocrats like the president. Viktor Orban of Hungary, who will visit Mar-a-Lago on Friday.

On the progressive side of his own party, Mr. Biden is dismayed to discover that an entire generation of Americans does not share his instinct to protect Israel at all costs, and is highly critical of the way he has used American weapons to undermine Prime Minister Benjamin’s power Netanyahu had him fed. Bombings of civilian areas in Gaza continue, killing more than 30,000 people, according to local health authorities.

After two Democratic primaries in which “unaligned” won notable percentages of the vote in protest of the administration’s Middle East policy, Biden spent the final part of his speech struggling to let progressives know he was listening. He described in detail what Gazans have experienced and emphasized that “Israel must allow more humanitarian aid.” It was a change of tone for a president who has no desire to pressure Netanyahu in public, even as the two leaders have feuded bitterly over safe lines.

Mr. Biden sought to use the receding memory of the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol to stitch together his domestic and foreign democracy agenda, at one point declaring the disaster “the greatest threat to democracy since the Civil War formed. ”

And while he counted on the sound of cheering that he knew would greet these remarks, hoping to expose the election deniers in Congress and beyond, the sound was almost certainly heard from Beijing to Berlin, where leaders were desperate want to gauge what America they will have to deal with in ten months’ time.

Ukraine presents the clearest test of Biden’s ability to declare that he has rebuilt America’s alliances just in time.

He opened with a reminder of Franklin D. Roosevelt’s 1941 State of the Union address, when “Hitler was on the march” and “the war was raging in Europe.” Comparing that moment to today, he argued that “if anyone in this room thinks Putin will quit on Ukraine, I assure you he won’t.”

It was part of a strategy to portray opponents of future military aid to Ukraine as appeasers, accusing Mr Trump – whose name he never spoke and called him “my predecessor” – of “bowing to a Russian leader ‘. And he went on to celebrate NATO, “the strongest military alliance the world has ever known.”

Now, after two years in which the alliance has rediscovered its mission of containing Russian power, even that line has left Republicans silent. Nothing that has happened in the past two years, not even the European commitment of $54 billion to rebuild Ukraine and the delivery of Leopard tanks, Storm Shadow missiles and millions of artillery shells, has deflected Trump from his talking points. He still denounces the alliance as an attack on America, and his former top aides say he might withdraw from the alliance if elected.

Mr. Biden’s most influential advisers, including Senator Chris Coons, the Delaware Democrat who regularly talks to the president, have insisted that Mr. Trump’s expression of sympathy for the Russian leader is the rare case of a foreign policy issue that could move the needle of conflict. a presidential election.

And they think support for Ukraine runs deeper than it seems. Many Democrats argue that if the bill to provide $60.1 billion in additional aid to Ukraine — much of which will remain in U.S. weapons factories — were voted on in the House of Representatives, the bill would pass. But under pressure from Mr Trump, Chairman Mike Johnson has so far avoided discussing the vote.

But if Ukraine is a place of moral clarity for Mr. Biden and his argument that American intervention on behalf of democracies is at the heart of the national mission, the war between Israel and Hamas is a quagmire.

Mr Biden’s announcement during the State of the Union address that he had ordered the military to send emergency aid to Gaza by building a pop-up port on the Mediterranean Sea was in some ways a demonstration of America’s global reach, as the country struggles to cope with a massive humanitarian disaster before hundreds of thousands starve.

But in other ways it was also a symbol of Mr. Biden’s global frustrations.

The very fact that he had to order the construction of the floating pier in Israel’s backyard, apparently without assistance, was a remarkable admission of how his repeated pleas to Mr. Netanyahu have fallen on deaf ears.

Unable to influence Mr. Netanyahu and his war cabinet, Mr. Biden is literally walking around them, building floating piers designed for landing in hostile territory. Biden’s order was motivated not only by a humanitarian impulse but also by the electoral imperative to unite his party’s divisions over Middle East policy and demonstrate that he is willing to do much more for the Palestinians than Mr. Trump .

“To Israel’s leadership I say this,” Biden said Thursday. “Humanitarian aid should not be a secondary consideration or a bargaining chip. Protecting and saving innocent lives must be a priority.”

Mr. Biden is not yet where the left of his party is; for example, he did not say he would place restrictions on how American weapons supplied to Israel can be used. And while the new maritime effort to deliver aid quickly may help, if combined with a pause or ceasefire that allows for the distribution of food and medicine, Mr. Biden may be too late to reassure disenchanted members of to regain his base.

Remarkably, the foreign policy initiative that Mr. Biden sees as the single most important of his term received the least mention: containing China’s power while competing with China on key technologies and pushing the country cooperation on climate and other common issues.

He gave China just seven rules, but officials say these remain the core of his strategy. But even there he couldn’t resist a jab at Mr. Trump, who railed against the “China virus” during the pandemic but was slow to cut chips and chip-making equipment, as Mr. Biden has done . “Frankly, for all his tough talk on China,” Mr. Biden said, “it never occurred to my predecessor to do that.”

Nearly five months after Hamas militants attacked and killed about 1,200 people in Israel, President Biden has been drawn into the resulting unrest in the region. As he prepares to address the nation, he faces a broader emergency in the Middle East, with profound moral, political and security implications for his presidency.

Early sympathy for Israel after the October 7 attacks has given way to domestic and international anger over the suffering in Gaza. Israel’s subsequent military campaign to crush Hamas has now killed more than 30,000 Palestinians, according to Gaza officials, with severe shortages of food, water and medicine causing a humanitarian crisis.

Because the Israeli military relies heavily on American-supplied weapons and ammunition, Mr. Biden is under pressure at home and abroad to rein in Israel and ease suffering in Gaza. But despite increasingly adamant calls for Israel to do more to protect civilians and provide them with assistance, U.S. officials say that is not happening.

Yet Mr. Biden has reined in his criticism of Israel’s right-wing government and resisted demands to limit U.S. aid to Israel, often reminding the world that Israel was brutally attacked and is entitled to self defense. He has ordered aid landings into Gaza to supplement the limited truck convoys entering the area from Israel. But aid workers say those air supplies will make little difference.

In an effort to do more, Mr. Biden will announce a plan for the United States to build a floating pier off the coast of Gaza that could receive more supplies.

U.S. officials say their best hope is to help broker a deal between Israel and Hamas to pause the fighting for several weeks, allow the release of Israeli hostages held by Hamas and bring a wave of humanitarian aid to the area make possible. Some U.S. officials believe such a pause in fighting could evolve into a longer-term ceasefire. Talks between several countries to reach an agreement have been going on for weeks, and US officials say Israel has signed an offer. But Hamas must agree again.

Looming in the background is the threat that violence poses to Biden’s re-election campaign. Many progressive voters are outraged that Mr. Biden has not done more to rebuke Israel or take action to halt arms shipments to the country.

At the same time, many analysts say Mr. Biden’s defense of an Israeli military campaign that he has called “arbitrary” has undermined America’s moral high ground as it charges Russia with atrocities in Ukraine. (Israeli officials call such criticism unfounded, saying they are taking unusual steps to warn civilians of coming attacks and that Hamas is provoking civilian casualties by operating in crowded areas.)

The problem for Mr. Biden is compounded by the October 7 regional shockwaves and Israel’s response. Israel is also exchanging fire with Iran-linked Hezbollah militants along the border with southern Lebanon, where some Israeli officials warn they could launch a major attack on Hezbollah strongholds. That would risk drawing Iran into the conflict – an escalation that could in turn attract the United States.

But Biden has already resorted to military action: Since October 7, Iranian-backed militias have repeatedly attacked US troops stationed in Iraq, Syria and Jordan, killing three US soldiers in January. These attacks have led to several U.S. airstrikes on these groups.

Mr Biden has also ordered dozens of strikes against Yemen’s rebel Houthi militia, which has shown solidarity with Gaza by attacking international shipping vessels in the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden, disrupting global trade and at least on Wednesday killing two civilian sailors. .

While Biden’s diplomats are frantically trying to bring calm to the region, his political advisers are struggling to limit any damage to his re-election campaign. His State of the Union address could include an attempt to do some of both.

As he prepares to deliver the State of the Union address on Thursday, President Biden faces four persistent political issues that could threaten his re-election campaign.

Concerns about his age, discomfort over his stewardship of the economy, frustration over his alliance with Israel during the Gaza war and an openness to outside and independent candidates have emerged as central reasons why his Democratic coalition appears somewhat smaller and less enthusiastic. than in 2020.

Biden still has spring, summer and fall to turn things around — and Democrats have won a string of elections in recent years by focusing their campaigns on abortion rights.

But together, these political hurdles threaten his ability to advance the case that his aides have made central to his campaign strategy: making 2024 a binary choice between the president and his predecessor, former President Donald J. Trump.

“It’s very clearly a vibes election and not a math election, right?” said Tory Gavito, the president of Way to Win, a liberal advocacy group. Her organization warned last week that the “uncommitted” vote against Mr. Biden in the Michigan primary, protesting his Gaza policy, “was not something to be ignored, taken lightly or dismissed as isolated to Michigan.” “Uncommitted” captured 19 percent of the vote in Minnesota on Tuesday.

Mr. Biden’s campaign has argued for months that his political position will improve once voters recognize that the 2024 election will be a choice between him and Mr. Trump.

“President Biden enters the general election from a position of strength and with the right ingredients to win,” campaign spokeswoman Lauren Hitt said. “Our base is uniquely motivated and united by Roe and Donald Trump’s threats to our democracy.”

Here we take a closer look at the four challenges:

Biden faces persistent concerns about his age.

Mr. Biden, now 81, has fended off such concerns since announcing his presidential campaign in 2019.

Last month, America watched as a special counsel called Mr. Biden a “well-meaning, older man with a bad memory.” A recent poll by The New York Times and Siena College found that 73 percent of all voters said he was too old to be an effective president.

What can Mr. Biden do?

“I think he should take a pill and become 40 years younger,” said Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont, who at 82 is just over a year older than Mr Biden. “And if he has that pill, I hope he shares it with me.”

In all seriousness, some Democrats have been pushing Mr. Biden to show voters he is still ready for the job.

Mr. Sanders expressed confidence and said he expected Mr. Biden to wage “a vigorous campaign” to sell his achievements and lay out an agenda for the second term. He said that in his own conversations with Mr. Biden, he had encouraged the president to emulate President Franklin Roosevelt’s 1936 campaign, which culminated in a second inaugural address in which he did not shy away from the reality of the Great Depression, declaring, “I see a third of a nation ill-housed, ill-clothed, and ill-fed.”

Biden’s allies in key battleground states have also tried to defend him against criticism and speculation about his future.

During a recent interview, North Carolina Governor Roy Cooper recalled being forced to convince a local CEO that Mr. Biden would indeed be the Democratic nominee.

Gov. Tony Evers of Wisconsin, who is considering seeking a third term in 2026 when he turns 74, said he aims to retire well before he reaches Mr. Biden’s age.

“If I told you at the age of 82 that I was going to run, I would tell you, ‘That’s not going to happen,’” Mr. Evers said.

Israel’s war in Gaza has turned some Democrats against Biden.

The war in Gaza has alienated key parts of Biden’s 2020 winning coalition, including young voters, progressives and some black voters.

The Biden campaign dismissed the 13 percent of Michigan Democratic primary voters who voted “uncommitted,” as within the state’s historical norms.

But the percentage was much higher Tuesday during Minnesota’s primaries and only slightly lower in North Carolina, where there was no organized protest campaign. A new push by left-wing groups during the Washington state primaries next week means Biden will continue to face Democratic opposition over the war.

“He looks weak in this conflict because he is unable to uphold what we said are American values,” said Rep. Pramila Jayapal of Washington state, leader of the Congressional Progressive Caucus. “I said this directly to the White House: I think we could literally lose this election to Donald Trump because of this war.”

Ms. Jayapal and other Democrats argue that every day the conflict continues is a day their party will struggle to deliver a message about how Mr. Biden is superior to Mr. Trump, because voters angry about the war nowhere to listen to him. otherwise.

Some progressive Democrats say that to win back support, Biden must go beyond calling for a ceasefire and end unconditional U.S. military aid to Israel.

“Just demanding a ceasefire would have worked a few months ago,” said Keith Ellison, Minnesota’s attorney general. “People are looking for a relational change, because after 30,000 deaths and how many displaced people there are, I think it’s like this: look, we can’t go on like this anymore. We can not. The world cannot continue like this.”

Voters do not appreciate Biden with improvements in the economy.

Economic indicators largely point in the same direction. Inflation is cooling down, consumer confidence is increasing. Many Americans generally feel good about their own economic circumstances.

They just don’t think Mr. Biden has much to do with it, and believe the overall economy is worsening. Only 19 percent of respondents in the latest New York Times/Siena College poll thought the economy was better than four years ago — when Trump was in power — while 65 percent said it was worse now. Looking back just one year, 23 percent said the economy was better now, while 40 percent said it was worse and 36 percent about the same.

“There is a hole here,” said Governor Phil Murphy of New Jersey, a Biden ally who has predicted for months that Mr Biden will earn credit for an improved economy this summer, just in time for the general election. “I’m not suggesting it’s going to be a magic wand moment, but I think it’s literally only a matter of time before the president gets the credit he deserves.”

Mr. Biden has tried a series of measures to claim more credit faster. He has described his domestic agenda as “Bidenomics,” a phrase that few in the upper echelons of his circle have embraced, but which has nevertheless occasionally stuck in the White House brand. Thursday’s speech presents Mr. Biden with one of his biggest stages of the year to brag about his achievements — something even former supporters say they need to hear him do more.

Adrianne Shropshire, the executive director of BlackPAC, an African American political organizing organization, described leading a recent focus group in which participants were surprised to learn about the legislation Mr. Biden passed and how the economy had improved during his presidency.

“Someone said, ‘I didn’t know anything about this. Why are the Democrats so bad at messaging?’” Ms. Shropshire said. “That is a feeling that is felt quite widely.”

Third-party candidates can pose a real threat.

The Biden campaign has aimed to frame the 2024 election as a binary choice between the president and Mr. Trump. One problem with that strategy is that voters may have other options.

For months, Democrats feared that No Labels, the centrist group that claimed to have a $70 million war chest, would field a brand candidate. But now that the key targets have been passed, Democrats’ concerns about independent third-party candidates have shifted to the prospect of Robert F. Kennedy Jr. could siphon votes away from Mr. Biden.

“Everyone in the Democratic coalition is worried about Kennedy,” said Matt Bennett, co-founder of the centrist group Third Way, which has led the party’s efforts to block independent and third parties.

Candidates like Kennedy, and to a lesser but still significant extent Cornel West and Jill Stein, could splinter the fragile coalition that elected Biden in 2020.

That year, Biden united left-wing Democrats with center-right Republicans who opposed the prospect of a second Trump term. But now that many of those voters have a soft spot for both major party candidates, Democrats fear that more votes will come from Biden’s column than Trump’s.

In the coming months, the battle over whether candidates like Mr. Kennedy and Mr. West will qualify for election in key battleground states will be over. So far, Mr. West is on the ballot in Alaska, Oregon and South Carolina, and Mr. Kennedy is on the ballot in Utah. Late Tuesday, his campaign announced that he had collected enough signatures to qualify for the ballot in Nevada, which would be his first battleground.

“Third-party presidential candidates generally pose a major threat to the presidency,” said Rahna Epting, executive director of MoveOn, the liberal activist group. “In this election, the result will be that they will swing the election toward Donald Trump, and this country cannot have him in office for another four years.”