It’s a new day in Washington D.C.. With the swearing in of Joseph R. Biden over, and the confirmation of his cabinet members well underway, the Biden administration has commenced overturning several key policy themes of the previous administration, from climate change to civil rights. One contentious area where drastic changes have yet to occur, however, is foreign policy. Secretary of State Antony Blinken has quickly set about contacting his counterparts across the globe, and the Paris Climate Agreement has been rejoined - but on many pressing issues, the tone is all that has changed.
With the presidential campaign heating up amidst a global pandemic killing hundreds, if not thousands of Americans daily, deteriorating race relations reaching a breaking point after the murders of George Floyd, Ahmad Arbury, and Breonna Taylor, and the largest economic downturn on record since the Great Depression, it is perhaps unsurprising that foreign relations were low on the list of priorities in debates, speeches, or press releases. Russia, one area that was always a little bit too relevant for the Trump administration, did arise on the campaign trail, with President Biden lambasting Trump for his lack of action against Russian President Vladimir Putin, in wake of the startling news that Putin was paying bounties to kill American soldiers in Afghanistan. While the Trump administration has been characterized by its lenience in the face of election interference and bounties on American troops alike, they have not been quite so steadfast in China-US relations, where they swung wildly between hosting Chinese President Xi Jinping for a summit and getting into a trade war that, at least according to Vice President Kamala Harris, the US has lost. Biden has advocated for, firstly, taking a harder stance on human rights from Hong Kong to the Uyghur genocide, and secondly, applying pressure on China’s trade practices. Biden’s advisers have touted some aspects of Trump’s China policy as worth continuing, such as the economic and diplomatic pressure placed on Beijing over things such as trade practices and technology theft. These advisers have held more fault with Trump’s erratic, brash statements than the policy itself. There is a similar disconnect between policy and rhetoric in the Middle East; while Trump and Biden had a shared goal of withdrawing troops, Trump insisted, publicly and often, that troops would be pulled out on a strict timeline that never materialized. On the other hand, President Biden struck a more cautious tone, saying withdrawal was contingent on the meeting of benchmarks that have yet to be determined.
Much of Biden’s foreign policy appears to be a return to the Obama years, a strategy that fits neatly into his overall message about a return to normalcy. Included in this return to normalcy is reaffirming our commitment to NATO and the Iran nuclear deal which Trump pulled out of directly, imposing sanctions that hurt Iran's economy and resulted in an increase in nuclear activity. While some leftists have criticized Biden for failing to promise more progressive foreign policy, many have argued that Trump damaged both relations with allies and the very institution of American diplomacy to the point that it needs to be walked back to a baseline and stabilized before any more action is taken. One area that illustrates this is Afghanistan - Trump campaigned on pulling troops out, and the administration brokered a deal with the Taliban calling for US troops to leave by mid-2021. Biden has refused to commit to a definitive end date, insisting that conditions on the ground must be monitored closely. This is not to say Biden is taking no action on foreign policy at all - beyond rejoining supranational institutions such as the Paris Climate Agreement, World Health Organization, NATO, the Iran Nuclear Deal, and the Trans-Pacific Partnership, he has also swiftly reversed some actions of the Trump administration, such as the “Muslim ban, a travel ban that restricted citizens of primarily Muslim countries from immigrating to the United States. Continuing in this vein, President Biden has pledged to take a stance on refugees that is more humanitarian than isolationist, in a sharp turnaround from the Trump administration’s cap of 15,000 annually. Indeed, Biden is even surpassing the Obama administration’s cap of 85,000, to admit 125,000 refugees annually.
While on the campaign trail, almost exactly a year ago, President Biden laid out his foreign policy proposal, full of idealism and promises for direct action, in Foreign Affairs magazine. Included in this were a laundry list of changes, a “day-one down payment on our commitment to living up to democratic values at home.” Among these were the reversal of the Trump administration’s highly controversial family separation policy, reaffirming the ban on torture, more transparency in US military operations, and restoring a government-wide focus on lifting up women and girls around the world. Later, he would propose a “global Summit for Democracy,” calling democratic leaders and civil society organizations around the world to America to “put strengthening democracy back on the global agenda”.
While the Summit for Democracy seems to have been put on the back burner, global leaders seem unequivocally relieved to have someone with foreign policy experience and diplomatic chops in the White House again. Biden is uniquely suited to repair America’s image abroad, having served twice as chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, and having met with close to 150 foreign leaders from nearly 60 countries. Anne Hidalgo, the mayor of Paris, provided perhaps the best endorsement of Biden’s positive image abroad, tweeting “Welcome back America” shortly after the election.
In his first hundred days, beyond the myriad domestic crises occurring, Biden has been left with a series of increasingly alarming international crises, the Trump administration’s parting gift. In his lame duck days, Trump set about damaging the last reachable parts of Obama’s foreign policy legacy that Biden came in hoping to rebuild. As Raffaello Pantucci, a senior fellow at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies in Singapore put it, “The Trump administration is locking in place a series of conflicts that change the starting point for Biden walking into office on the world stage.” In his last days in office, former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo oversaw legislation and statements that named Cuba a state sponsor of terrorism, planned to designate the Houthi rebels in Yemen as a foreign terrorist organization, and lifted restrictions on contact between American officials and Taiwanese officials. This last shift in policy is particularly dangerous, diplomatically speaking, as it threatens to wreak havoc on a fragile peace struck by decades of building US-China relations. Since the US established formal diplomatic ties with the People’s Republic of China in 1979, it has refrained from having official diplomatic relations with China - until now.
All in all, it is easy to believe that there will not be a seismic shift in foreign policy with the transition of power, but rather in rhetoric. Restoring moral leadership and soft power as cornerstones of American foreign policy are priorities of the Biden administration - the Summit for Democracy is simply the manifestation of a desire to showcase the commitment to returning strengthening global democracy to a priority. While Biden may be focusing on rebuilding the moral aspects of US foreign policy, Trump focused mainly on economic and security ideas - translating, policy-wise, to a priority on peace and international cooperation for the former, and prosperity and safety for the latter.
In the foreign policy proposal published in March 2020, just as the COVID-19 pandemic was gathering strength, Biden pledged, “As president, I will take immediate steps to renew U.S. democracy and alliances… This is not a moment for fear. This is the time to tap the strength and audacity that took us to victory in two world wars and brought down the Iron Curtain.” It is almost ironic, Biden calling for Americans to not be afraid, directly before one of the most tumultuous years in American history, before a year that would see hundreds of thousands dead from the pandemic, millions unemployed, widespread civil unrest, and an insurrection that killed five and very nearly resulted in the assassination of multiple members of Congress. If we tapped into our reserves of strength and audacity to lead us to victory in two world wars and brought down the Iron Curtain abroad, America will need to dig deeper than ever before to heal our own divisions before we attempt to lead the world again. It remains to be seen whether the actions taken thus far are just the first step in Biden’s self described “return to soft power,” or yet another area where the American people will have to say, as Greta Thunberg put it, “while we do appreciate beautiful speeches and promises - we prefer action”.