Biden to highlight NATO and other foreign partnerships in recent foreign policy speech

With a world at war UkraineMiddle East and Sudan, President Biden is set to talk about his foreign policy legacy in a speech at the State Department on Monday that is expected to focus on his administration’s investment in strong global alliances and an effort to restore America’s leadership role in the world.

When Mr. Biden took office four years ago, he sought to placate his global allies and restore foreign agreements that the Trump administration had backed away from. In the face of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s intervention in Ukraine, the president restored strong ties with NATO leaders and rejoined the Paris climate accord. But world leaders are preparing for change with the upcoming inauguration of President-elect Donald Trump.

Mr. Biden is expected to argue that US engagement with the world will protect American interests, not isolationism.

The president recently told USA Today He said he helped restore relationships that had been damaged during the Trump administration and managed a “tipping point” in history. He cited his long history on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee as helping him “manage some of the fundamental changes in Europe, Latin America, the Middle East and the Far East.”

“The only advantage of being an old man is that I have known all the great world leaders for a long time,” he said. “And so I had a perspective on each of them and their interests.”

In First foreign policy speech as president in 2021Mr. Biden aimed to bridge foreign and domestic policy interests by arguing for a foreign policy for the middle class. The focus should have been on China and rebuilding alliances, but the crises in Ukraine and the Middle East have derailed it.

“The United States is in worse geopolitical shape today than it was four years ago,” says Stephen Wertheim, a historian and senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. “The United States is embroiled in a major war on the European continent with serious risks of escalation; it is returning to bombing the Middle East with no end in sight and has entered a full-spectrum strategic competition with China.”

Ukraine, Russia and NATO

Mr. Biden has been a staunch supporter of Ukraine, was the first president to travel to a conflict zone without US troops, and has directed more than $183 billion in military aid since Russia’s 2021 invasion. He played an important role in the acquisition of NATO. spend more on collective defense.

Fierce fighting continues on the front without a clear plan for a peace deal. With the slogan “Nothing about Ukraine without Ukraine”, Washington has postponed to Kiev when and how the negotiations will be held.

Early in the conflict, the administration was criticized for holding back on sending the deadliest weapons, and later by some Republicans for spending too much on aid to Ukraine.

A senior administration official told CBS News that Mr. Biden is expected to argue that his policies ensure Ukraine’s survival as an independent state and thwart Putin’s ambitions.

Israel-Hamas war

after Hamas attack on October 7, 2023 Regarding Israel, which has killed more than 1,200 civilians, Mr. Biden has made it clear that Israel has the right to defend itself by sending billions of dollars worth of military aid to his administration.

According to the Hamas-run Gaza Health Ministry, the administration has not changed its position when Israel launched a war in Gaza that has killed more than 45,000 people and caused a humanitarian crisis.

In April 2023, Mr. Biden told Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that future US support for his country depended on Israel protecting civilians and aid workers in Gaza.

“Biden immediately threw in the towel, pledging military support for Israel; then criticizing the decisions of the Israeli government,” Wertheim said.

The State Department notified Congress earlier this month of a planned $8 billion arms transfer to Israel. Ceasefire talks between Israel and Hamas are still ongoing as pressure mounts for a deal to be reached before Trump’s inauguration on January 20.

Evacuating Chaotic Afghanistan

The most striking failure in foreign policy was the withdrawal of the United States from Afghanistan in 2021.

Mr. Biden has promised to end America’s longest war and has assured Americans that the Afghan army is capable of taking over the Taliban. Instead, the Taliban expanded their control of territory inside the country sooner than the United States had expected, and seized Kabul as soon as the Afghan government collapsed. The U.S. hastily evacuated 125,000 people, including 6,000 Americans, but dozens of Afghans and 13 U.S. service members were evacuated. died as a result of a kamikaze attack Thousands of people tried to leave the country in front of the Hamid Karzai airport in Kabul.

US citizens and Afghan allies who supported American troops throughout the war were left behind. Thousands feared retaliation from the Taliban and felt abandoned by the American government, which had promised to take care of them.

Images of Afghans clinging to military planes in the hope of escape and US military weapons being left behind and paraded by the Taliban became emblematic of the missteps that led to the evacuation.

Within three years of the Taliban’s return to power, al-Qaeda and other terrorist groups had established a presence in the country and Afghan women and girls are deprived of basic freedoms After the 2001 US-led invasion, they enjoyed two decades of Western-backed government.

China

Trump started a trade war China and imposed tariffs on other countries aimed at curbing what he saw as unfair trade practices in his early days and encouraging American consumers and businesses to buy and sell more domestically produced goods. While the rhetoric has changed under Mr. Biden, he has continued his tariff policy. As under the Trump administration, both viewed China as a security threat, not just an economic one.

The Biden administration has introduced safeguards to protect industries such as chip manufacturing from relying on China. Global alliances such as the Quartet – US, India, Japan and Australia – and AUKUS – Australia, US and UK have made diplomatic and military progress to deter China. The Biden administration has it, too strengthened the military alliance with Japan.

Mr. Biden was vice president during former President Barack Obama’s “To Asia” speech. American policymakers have been trying to shift the focus of foreign policy ever since, but there’s a world of distractions in the way.

“The United States cannot expect to dominate China while remaining the leading military power in Europe and the Middle East. If the United States really wants to dominate China, it must retreat elsewhere,” Wertheim said.

contributed to this report.