Presidential candidate Joe Biden announced the foreign policy part of his election program. In a speech in New York, the former vice president sharply criticized the course of the current head of the White House. Biden’s main claim against Donald Trump was that he was “threateningly incompetent” and “unable to be a world leader,” and his policy, according to Biden, threatens US interests. The vice-president of the United States himself promised to restore the lost positions in the international arena.
“The world does not organize itself. If we do not deal with the formation of norms and institutions that regulate international relations, then the other country will probably fill this vacuum. Maybe no one will. Then chaos will reign. And this brings me to the final thesis: Biden's foreign policy will return the main role to America, ”said the 76-year-old politician.
Recall that applying for the role of the main candidate from the Democratic Party in the US presidential election in 2020, Joe Biden has been leading for a long time in the electoral race. According to a poll published on June 11, commissioned by NBC News and the Wall Street Journal, he is still ahead of his Democratic rivals with 26% support. The rating of Biden's closest competitor - Senator Elizabeth Warren - is 19%.
Moreover, according to American sociologists, Joe Biden can become a dangerous rival for Donald Trump. So, according to a poll by the Washington Post and ABC News, conducted from June 28 to July 1, Biden has every chance of defeating the current US president with a big advantage. If both politicians agreed in a pre-election fight, according to the poll, 53% of voters would vote for Biden, while only 43% would vote for Trump. At the same time, as shown by the results of the same sociological investigation, Senator Kamala Harris could have triumphed over Trump by a margin of 2%, and Bernie Sanders - by 1%.
Relations with Russia
According to Joe Biden, Trump's policy based on the “America First” principle leads only to the isolation of the United States. In order to rectify the situation, Washington, he said, must restore confidence in himself, lost due to Trump's disrespect for international agreements. Biden’s promises include lifting the ban on immigration to the US from Muslim countries, ending trade wars with China and NATO allies, returning the US to a “nuclear deal” with Iran and the Paris Climate Agreement, and extending the START III treaty with the Russian Federation.
“I’ll seek to extend the term of the START III Treaty, one of the pillars of strategic stability in US-Russia relations, and also intend to use it as a basis for new arms control agreements,” Biden said.
At the same time, the politician once again accused Russia of interfering in the US presidential election in 2016 and put it to merit in fighting the reflection of this “threat” in the Obama administration. Biden also criticized Trump for talks with Vladimir Putin last year in Helsinki, and this was at the G20 summit.
“He repeatedly passed in front of Vladimir Putin against the interests of the United States, contrary to the American intelligence community and, I would say, against the interests of the American people,” Trump described at his meeting with Putin in Finland.
- Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin at the Helsinki summit
- Reuters
- © Kevin Lamarque
Commenting on Biden's speech, analysts noted the inconsistency of his foreign policy program.
“There are very serious contradictions here, it’s not quite clear how to negotiate and save the world from nuclear war, refusing dialogue with Moscow. Here the ends do not converge, ”stated Vladimir Batyuk, head of the Center for Military-Political Studies of the Institute of the USA and Canada, Russian Academy of Sciences, in an interview with RT.
The expert explained that if Biden wins, "the chances of saving the START III treaty will increase, but at the same time the regional aspects of Russian-American relations may become more complicated."
For example, as the expert recalls, on the eve of the anti-Russian protests in Georgia, Biden's adviser Michael Carpenter visited this country, speaking out against the open-door policy on the part of Tbilisi against Russian tourists and business.
Also, according to the political scientist, it is not clear how Biden will be able to resolve the issue of extending START-III, refusing an equal and respectful dialogue with the Russian leader.
In the name of democracy
The priority of his foreign policy, Joe Biden, called the global spread of democracy. According to him, only the United States will be able to fulfill such a mission. To this end, he promised to increase funding for non-governmental organizations operating in other countries, and to hold a summit in Washington to strengthen democracy throughout the world.
At the same time, the leading candidate from the Democrats harshly criticized the leadership of Turkey, Hungary, the Philippines and Saudi Arabia. These US allies, Biden accused of authoritarianism and commitment to illiberal values. He also threatened Riyadh with the cessation of support for the Yemen military campaign.
- Saudi troops in Yemen
- Reuters
- © Faisal Al Nasser
“We are the United States of America, and we don’t complain about dictators,” the presidential candidate said.
According to experts, reproaching Trump for spoiling relations with his allies, Biden runs the risk of taking the same path.
“Not all of America’s allies are supporters of those very liberal values. If the future American president pursues foreign policy solely on the basis of some ideological constructions, the process of weakening the US foreign policy position can accelerate very rapidly, ”Batiuk believes.
In turn, Deputy Director of the Institute of Strategic Studies and Forecasts of RUDNN Nikita Danyuk in an interview with RT recalled that it was under Obama and Biden that the US spoiled relations with Israel, which Trump had to restore later. From the point of view of a political scientist, if Biden wins in 2020, the United States risks returning to the previous state of affairs. And such inconsistency is unlikely to contribute to restoring confidence in the United States, which Biden declares as the main vector of his foreign policy.
"It would be wrong to assume that Joe Biden will become a conductor of the policy that will rally around him American allies," the expert says.
War and Peace
Another promise of the former US Vice President is to resort to the use of force in foreign policy only to protect Washington’s “vital interests” and also to “put an end to protracted wars in Afghanistan and the Middle East.” Biden promised that if he took the presidency, he would lead most of the US military out of the hot spots in the region. Earlier, Donald Trump spoke about this, but the Americans maintained a serious military presence in Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan.
- American troops in Syria
- Reuters
- © Rodi Said
According to experts, Biden, who actively supported the war in Iraq, is unlikely to give up the policy of interfering in the affairs of other states.
“In US foreign policy with the change of presidents, the style mainly changes, but not the goals and objectives of foreign policy,” Danyuk asserts. “Republics are betting on brute force and intimidation, democrats prefer to use the tools of soft power, promote their influence, but the goals are the same.”
In turn, according to Vladimir Batyuk, the theses of Joe Biden on the need for the United States to support democracy throughout the world and the desire to avoid wars contradict each other.
“I don’t understand how to combine the spread of democracy and the end of wars,” Batiuk wonders. - Until now, Americans have spread democracy at the expense of the notorious regime change, with all the ensuing consequences, including through direct American military intervention. No one invented any other means in Washington. ”
"Many contradictions"
It is worth noting that the American media took Biden’s election speech quite restrained, noting that, in fact, the former vice president did not offer anything new, promising to simply return to the policy of Barack Obama.
“Joe Biden remembers the past. Biden’s message may even be directed into the future, but its main theme will be the return to America of its former merits lost under the current president, ”such a prediction about Biden’s speech was previously given by the Atlantic.
According to the Los Angeles Times, Biden turned to the topic of foreign policy because of the not-so-successful speech at the first debate of the US Democratic presidential candidates. They had the race leader to answer a lot of uncomfortable questions, including those relating to supporting the segregation of the white and colored people in the 1970s, when Biden was already a senator. As a result, the position of the opponents of the ex-vice-president in the Democratic Party itself intensified, while he himself left an important financial donor.
"Joe Biden tried to regain his position by promising to restore the world order that existed before Trump," the newspaper notes.
A similar motivation is seen in the circulation of Joe Biden and the Politico and Washington Post publications.
In turn, the Internet portal Vox notes that in the past two and a half years since Biden and Obama left the White House, not only the world has changed, but also the Democratic Party itself. The positions of the radical left, “progressive” wing strengthened. For these people, the idea of Biden to restore everything, as it was under Obama, does not seem tempting.
“Joe Biden wants to restore the world order that existed before Trump. But is this enough to subdue the Democratic electorate? ”, The publication asks.
According to Vladimir Batiuk, in his speech, Joe Biden appeals not to the majority of Americans, but to the cosmopolitan part of the country, "promising to keep the American leadership and all the privileges and advantages that America receives from it."
However, experts believe that such a policy is in any case doomed to failure.
“The process of the formation of a multipolar world is objective,” Nikita Danyuk stresses. - The United States has a huge public debt and many contradictions even with the allies. US resources for global military and technological leadership is not enough. And in this regard, neither Joe Biden, nor anyone else will be able to restore this kind of American leadership. Under these conditions, Trump's advantage is that he understands this trend. The incumbent president is trying to keep America’s leading position in only a few regions in the midst of the formation of a polycentric world order. ”