WASHINGTON (AP) – President Joe Biden launched a foreign policy agenda four years ago that focused on repairing alliances strained by four years of Republican President Donald Trump’s “America First” worldview. Appeared at the White House.
The one-term Democrat took office in the midst of the worst global pandemic in 100 years, but his plans are set against a series of complex international crises, including a chaotic U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan and Russia’s 2022 withdrawal. The invasion of Ukraine and Hamas attacks soon put the country under stress tests. A brutal attack on Israel in 2023 triggered an ongoing war in the Middle East.
As Biden prepares to leave office, he claims his first term as president has made strides in restoring America’s credibility on the world stage and proving that the United States remains an indispensable partner around the world. continues to do so. That message will be at the heart of a speech he will give on his foreign policy legacy Monday afternoon.
WATCH: Biden speaks out about his foreign policy legacy as he prepares to leave office
But Mr. Biden’s foreign policy achievements will be overshadowed and shaped, at least in the short term, by the troubling counterfactual that American voters are handing control of the country back to Mr. Trump and his protectionist worldview. It will probably happen.
“The real question is: Does the rest of the world have the national wealth, the economy, the innovation infrastructure, the ability to attract investment, and the ability to attract talent that the rest of the world has today?” White House National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan said in an interview with The Associated Press. “When we took office, a lot of people probably said China. … Nobody says that anymore.”
After four tumultuous years around the world, the Democratic administration claims Biden has provided a steady hand to the world and left the United States and its allies on a stronger footing.
But from the beginning of his presidency, Biden has often spoken of his desire to prove that “America is back” but has been tested by war, disaster and miscalculation.
Chaotic US withdrawal from Afghanistan was an early setback for Biden
As the United States completes its withdrawal from Afghanistan in 2021, Mr. Biden fulfilled his campaign promise to end America’s longest war.
However, the 20-year conflict ended in an ominous manner. The U.S.-backed Afghan government collapses, a brutal bombing kills 13 U.S. soldiers and 170 others, and thousands of desperate Afghans descend on Kabul’s airport seeking a way out before war. . The last American plane departed over the Hindu Kush.
The Afghanistan fiasco was a major setback just eight months into Biden’s presidency, from which he has struggled to recover.
Biden’s Republican critics, including Trump, see this as a moment that foreshadows the failure of his presidency.
“I’ll tell you what happened, he was very bad about Afghanistan. It was a very terrible embarrassment and the most embarrassing moment in our country’s history,” Trump said in a slight with Democrats. He said this a few weeks ago during the only 2024 presidential debate with Biden. He announced the end of his re-election campaign.
Biden’s success in Ukraine may depend on Trump’s approach going forward
In the wake of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Mr. Biden rallied allies in Europe and abroad to provide billions of dollars in military and economic aid to Ukraine, including more than $100 billion from the United States alone. It is. This allowed Kiev to remain in the fight against Russian President Vladimir Putin’s much larger and better-equipped army. Biden’s team also coordinated with allies to hit Russia with a steady stream of sanctions aimed at isolating the Kremlin and forcing Russia to pay an economic price for its war effort.
But Biden has faced criticism during the war that he was too cautious in providing Ukrainians with certain advanced lethal weapons in a timely manner and placing limits on how they could be used, and he has not been able to launch long-range ATACMS missiles. It initially resisted requests from Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to do so. In addition to penetrating deep into Russian territory, there were demands for Abrams tanks, F-16 fighter jets, and other systems.
Biden needs to draw the line against escalation amid concerns it could draw the United States and other NATO members into direct conflict with nuclear-armed Russia. I hesitated many times until I finally gave in.
President Trump criticized the war’s cost to U.S. taxpayers and vowed to bring the conflict to a quick end.
Biden said Friday he was hopeful the U.S. would continue supporting Ukraine after he leaves office.
“I know there are a significant number of Democrats and Republicans who believe that we should continue to provide assistance to Ukraine,” Biden said. “My hope and expectation is that they will speak up if President Trump decides to cut off funding to Ukraine.”
Daniel Fried, a former U.S. ambassador to Poland and an adviser to Presidents Barack Obama, George W. Bush and Bill Clinton, said Mr. Biden’s legacy in Ukraine will be largely shaped by Mr. Trump.
He added that Trump may succeed in bringing about a “decent end” to the Ukraine war that many Americans would accept.
“It’s not necessarily going to happen, but it could happen,” Freed said. “And if you do that, the criticism of Biden is that he acted to help Ukraine, but he hesitated, hesitated, did a lot of hand-wringing, and that it took Trump to actually bring about a fair settlement.” It will be.”
Sullivan argues that Trump, a billionaire real estate developer, should consider aid to Ukraine from a dealmaker’s perspective.
“Donald Trump has built his identity around deals, and the way to make good deals is to use leverage,” Sullivan said. “Our case for the next team is to build influence, demonstrate staying power, and support Ukraine, both publicly and privately. There is quite a bit ahead on the road.”
Biden’s Middle East diplomacy overshadowed by devastation in Gaza Strip
In the Middle East, Biden has supported Israel in its effort to eradicate Hamas from the Gaza Strip. The war also sparked a new war in Lebanon, where Israel dealt a crushing blow to Hezbollah, Iran’s strongest ally, even as Israel successfully conducted airstrikes overtly inside Iran for the first time.
Hezbollah’s decline was also felt last month when the Islamist-led rebels ousted Syria’s longtime leader Bashar al-Assad, a brutal member of Iran’s “Axis of Resistance.”
Biden’s relationship with Israel’s conservative leader, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, is based on the huge number of Palestinian casualties from the fighting (currently more than 46,000 dead) and the fact that much of the Gaza Strip has been destroyed for food and supplies. The situation is tense due to Israel’s territorial blockade, which has created a hellish situation in which access to the country is impossible. Basic medical care is severely limited.
Pro-Palestinian activists have called for an arms embargo on Israel, but US policy has remained largely unchanged. The State Department recently notified Congress of a planned $8 billion arms sale to Israel.
Aaron David Miller, a former Middle East negotiator at the State Department, said this approach pushed Iran into a corner, but Biden would pay a reputational price for the devastation in the Gaza Strip.
“The administration was either unable or unwilling to create some kind of restraint that the average person would consider significant pressure,” Miller said. “It was beyond Joe Biden’s emotional and political capacity to impose the kind of sustained or significant pressure that could lead to a change in Israeli tactics.”
Some 98 hostages remain in Gaza, more than 15 months after the Hamas-led offensive that sparked the war. More than a third of them are estimated dead by Israeli authorities.
Biden’s Middle East adviser Brett McGuirk is on a trip to the region, aiming to secure the elusive hostages and reach a cease-fire agreement as the remainder of the president’s term looms. President Trump has warned that “all hell” will break loose on Hamas if the hostages are not released by Inauguration Day.
Sullivan declined to comment on President Trump’s threats against Hamas, but said both sides agree on what matters most: a deal.
“The previous administration and the next administration are working together because it is in the national interest of the United States to carry out a hostage trade at the earliest possible opportunity,” he said. “It would be good to have a unified message on that and we have been coordinating closely with the incoming team to this effect.”
