On Thursday, to cement and provide a basis for these Herculean efforts to transform dispersion, sometimes errant in the Donald Trump administration, Biden traveled to the State Department to meet his tireless and visionary Secretary of State Antony Blinken and personally thank officials foreign service for your service.
“America is back, diplomacy is back at the center of our foreign policy,” Biden told the world. “America’s alliances are our greatest asset and leading with diplomacy means standing shoulder to shoulder with our allies and key partners once again.” He asked diplomats to include some basic principles, “integrity in everything you do, transparency and responsibility to rebuild trust in America around the world”.
This represented a dramatic break with his predecessor, who had sought to dismantle entirely, or, at best, neutralize any efforts to maintain America’s democratic and coherent presence on the world stage. Some of these actions, such as the end of American involvement in the Paris climate agreement, the nuclear pact with Iran and the Open Skies Agreement, while diminishing the American presence from Afghanistan to Germany, are now being revised or reversed.
Small hints from press secretary Jen Psaki and an even more comprehensive view of national security adviser Jake Sullivan and State Department spokesman Ned Price, followed by Biden’s own historical speech on Thursday, suggest several key pillars foreign policy. The first is that the actions of other countries and the reaction of the United States must, in almost all cases, be “in our interest”, as Price suggested when pressed on issues as diverse as the coup in Burma and Russian activities at home or with respect to important treaties.
“The denominator we are adhering to in this case are our interests. It is clearly in our interest to have a full five-year extension of the new START agreement,” Price said on Wednesday about the nuclear weapons treaty with Russia.
“As we engage Russia in ways that promote American interests … we can also remain aware of the challenges that Russia poses. Even if we work with Russia to promote US interests, we will also hold Russia accountable for its recklessness. and his adversary behavior “, he added. In short, a rather sharp departure from a Trump administration that rarely held Russia responsible for anything.
In fact, even reading Biden’s inaugural phone call with Russian President Vladimir Putin was revealing. On the American side, word came that the president “reaffirmed the United States’ firm support for Ukraine’s sovereignty” and “raised other concerns, including the SolarWinds hack, reports that Russia has awarded rewards to US soldiers in Afghanistan , interference in the United States Elections in 2020 and the poisoning of Aleksey Navalny. “
“President Biden has made it clear that the United States will act firmly in defense of its national interests in response to the actions of Russia that harm us or our allies,” the White House statement said. And in his speech on Thursday, Biden added that “the days when the United States rolled over Russia’s aggressive actions, interfering with our elections, cyber attacks, poisoning its citizens are over”.
Above all, Biden released his version of the call long before the Kremlin. “The presidents expressed satisfaction after exchanging diplomatic notes about an agreement to extend the New START Treaty,” said the Kremlin press office.
And there are certain elements that will not please some of Trump’s closest friends abroad – especially his decision to suspend all American assistance to offensive operations in Yemen, a move directed directly at Saudi Arabia and its leaders, who have developed close ties with Trump . “This war has to end,” said Biden, in another dramatic break with Trump, who was all-in in support of his Saudi allies.
When Jake Sullivan briefed the press ahead of Biden’s visit, he outlined five key pillars of Biden’s new foreign and defense policy, which ranged from ‘reinstating important institutions and agreements’ to ‘reaffirming our values’ as well as ‘competing’. more effectively with our competitors across the board. ”
Biden, in his comments, mentioned that he is prepared to work with China “when it is in the interest of the United States to do so”. Still, its leader Xi Jinping is the only major world leader that Biden has not contacted personally.
On Wednesday, Ned Price managed to extend an olive branch, noting that the government will continue to be “guided by the policy of one China”. This is unlikely to be viewed with pleasure in Taiwan, where leaders hoped to continue to assert a minimum of independence from the continent and were encouraged by Trump’s early and clearly misinformed gift of an unprecedented phone call, even before he took office.
From the early hours of Biden’s presidency, world leaders have been called to hear this enunciated worldview. Between Biden, Blinken and National Security Adviser Sullivan, they summoned at least 45 presidents, prime ministers, chancellors and national security advisers.
As evidence of his priorities, Biden started with his two neighbors – Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador. Then he looked for Briton Boris Johnson, Frenchman Emmanuel Macron and German Angela Merkel. Putin was followed by the secretary general of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, Jens Stoltenberg.
Above all, the new administration, inheriting the largest collection of red lines ever assembled in a single moment on the planet, is being very cautious in choosing its path among them or, mainly, establishing any new ones. Price, with the State Department, has already admirably answered a series of questions on this subject alone.
Price was asked on Wednesday whether Iran’s refusal to have some of its sites inspected by the International Atomic Energy Agency would amount to a red line. “The kind of decision you are pointing at is not something that the United States would like to make alone or consider or contemplate alone,” he said. This was a sharp departure from Trump’s self-reliance policy. Price concluded, “I don’t want to define any red lines from here, certainly not today.”
Still, in his speech, Biden made no reference to the nuclear deal with Iran – apparently prepared to leave other aspects of its new foreign policy behind – to build bridges for allies eager to restore the pact and win friends in Tehran with the end of military aid. to anti-Iranian forces organized in Yemen.
Overall, the Biden government’s first actions and words were an admirable start for the development of a truly consistent and constructive foreign policy that will protect and defend the United States and consolidate its values around the world.
