Over the last six weeks, while everyone has paid attention to the Coronavirus, the Economic downtown, and the protests resulting from the police murder of George Floyd, Donald Trump has continued taking American Foreign Policy to the reactionary, fascist coddling, and isolationist postures of the America First Movement that drew support in parts of the United States in the years just before the country’s entry into World War Two.
Over the last few weeks, the 2016 Popular Vote Loser has:
Cut off funding and the United States membership to the World Health Organization.
Postponed the G7 conference to September and asked that Putin ruled Russia and other nations (Australia, India, and South Korea) to attend the meetings.
Advanced a plan to pull troops out of Germany.
These actions continue the current administration's ill-advised withdrawal from global hotspots in places like Syria, enabling dictators (like the dictators and aspiring tyrants in Turkey, North Korea, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Brazil, and the Philippines,) ill-conceived trade wars and antagonizing the nations long-standing allies since it came into office in 2017.
2020 Presumptive Democratic Presidential Nominee, former Vice President, and former Chairperson of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee Joe Biden would offer a markedly different vision of international relations and global affairs than Mr. Trump.
If elected on November 3, 2020, Biden would endeavor to reestablish America as a good neighbor/ally, a world leader, and an example of a free Democratic society other nations would strive to emulate.
Mr. Biden articulated his foreign policy views in a series of articles in the April and May 2020 edition of the journal Foreign Affairs.
In the introduction of the article titled “Why America Must Lead Again: Rescuing U.S. Foreign Policy After Trump,” the former Vice President pledged to:
“Take immediate steps to renew U.S. democracy and alliances, protect the United States’ economic future, and once more have America lead the world. 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.”
“The triumph of democracy and liberalism over fascism and autocracy created the free world. But this contest does not just define our past. It will define our future, as well.”
“Renewing Democracy at Home and Abroad.”
The first approach Mr. Biden would take to undo the calamity that is the Trump Foreign Policy is to renew Democracy at home and embrace it abroad.
To that end, he would:
Invest in the American education system and make it equitable so there is no qualitative difference where a child attends school.
Further reform the criminal justice system and “end mass incarceration” and other “inequitable disparities.”
Fully restore the full force of the Voting Rights Act so no one’s right to vote in this country would be suppressed.
Undo Mr. Trump's cruel immigration policies including separating parents from children, the travel ban, and draconian asylum requirements.
Again, make the United States the exporter of democratic values and ideals.
Promote the equality and good treatment of women.
Secure the United States Borders with honor.
Provide an aid package to the nation’s Central America to help those countries so people do not feel a need to emigrate to the United States.
Support a constitutional amendment to stop the flow of dark/dirty money into political campaigns.
Host a Global Summit for Democracy in his first year in office and promise to “fight corruption, defending against authoritarianism, and advancing human rights in their own nations and abroad.”
“A Foreign Policy for the Middle Class”
The second goal of the Biden foreign policy agenda would be to:
“Equip Americans to succeed in the global economy—with a foreign policy for the middle class.”
Stating that “economic security is national security,”, the former Vice President would:
Improve the countries trading position by strengthening the nation’s middle class.
Modernizing the nation’s infrastructure and middle-class access to it like higher strength broadband, a modern energy grid, twenty-first-century school buildings, and new clean energy industries with millions of “high paying union jobs.”
Making the United States the leader again in research and innovation over China and India.
Raise the minimum wage and buying power of American citizens.
Fairtrade deals that protect and benefit American workers.
Sensible and intelligent trade policies.
Build an alliance to confront China and its bad actor trading policies. Readers should not that the Obama-Biden team had formed the Trans-Pacific Partnership that Mr. Trump and his team abandoned.
American Leadership Restored “Back at the Head of the Table”
Finally, the Biden Foreign Policy Agenda envisions a restoration of American Leadership in global affairs and a retreat from Trumpist Isolationism and Nativism.
To that end, Mr. Biden would work to:
Work to stop “the forever wars” in Afghanistan and the Middle East.
Stop enabling Saudi Arabia in Yemen.
Continue the focus and commitment to counter-terrorism.
Restoring American credibility in Diplomatic relations.
Reestablish close ties with the United States closet Allies like those in N.A.T.O.
“Counter Russian aggression.”
Reinforce alliances with friendly nations in the Middle East (Israel for example,) Asia (India, Japan, Australia, and South Korea,) Africa, and Central/South America.
Lead the war to fight climate change.
Rejoining the Iranian nuclear deal if Iran backs down from its escalation during the Trump Administration.
Pursue a denuclearized North Korea.
A new START agreement with Russia.
Large investments in cybersecurity and other technologies to safeguard the United States and Allied security.
The former Vice President concluded his essay by refuting the Putin notion that “the liberal idea is ‘obsolete,’” saying:
“No army on earth can match the way the electric idea of liberty passes freely from person to person, jumps borders, transcends languages and cultures, and supercharges communities of ordinary citizens into activists and organizers and change agents.”
“We must once more harness that power and rally the free world to meet the challenges facing the world today. It falls to the United States to lead the way. No other nation has that capacity. No other nation is built on that idea. We have to champion liberty and democracy, reclaim our credibility, and look with unrelenting optimism and determination toward our future.”
A Joe Biden Foreign Policy would not:
Abandon allies
Coddle Dictators.
Leave vital organizations like the World Health Organization in the middle of a pandemic that is killing helpless Americans.
Exit agreements that are working.
Adopt trading policies that hurt American Farmers.
Forget that the United States is a nation of immigrants.
Spit on the American Democratic Ideal like the current Administration and its enablers have.
A Joe Biden Foreign Policy would greatly restore American resolve, reliability, honor, competence, and idealism that would better protect Americans, improve their standing and livelihood, and move the United States and the rest of the world forward.
Please click here to read Vice President Biden’s essays in the April/May 2020 issue of Foreign Affairs.
Thank you to Biden campaign spokesperson Vedant Patel for referring this writer to the series of articles in Foreign Affairs.
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