A handshake and a meeting with Saudi Arabia’s crown prince. China’s tariffs and export restrictions. The Israeli city of Jerusalem is the country’s capital. The withdrawal of American forces from Afghanistan has begun.
According to former government officials and observers, President Biden’s administration’s approach to strategic goals is strikingly similar to that of the Trump administration.
On the campaign road, Mr. Biden promised to deviate from the previous administration’s foreign policy course, and he has done so in certain respects. With his proclamations of “America First” and critiques of other countries, he has restored Donald J. Trump’s weakening ties, notably in Western Europe. Biden’s efforts in recent months have put Washington in a position to lead a coalition imposing sanctions on Russia amid the conflict in Ukraine.
And President Biden has spoken out against autocracies, emphasised the significance of democracy, and advocated for global collaboration on a range of challenges, including climate change and the coronavirus epidemic.
In important areas, the Biden administration has not made significant changes, demonstrating how tough it is in Washington to design fresh foreign policy directions.
At the beginning of this month, President Joe Biden visited Israel and Saudi Arabia as part of a tour intended at reinforcing stronger relations between the two countries under the so-called Abraham Accords.
Joe Biden met with Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman in the face of the country’s human rights abuses, including the murder of Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi in 2018. According to US intelligence sources, the prince was behind the execution. Despite President Biden’s previous commitment to cease assistance due to Saudi bombings that killed civilians, the United States continues to offer significant support to the Saudi military in the Yemen conflict.
Biegun, the Trump administration’s deputy secretary of state and a National Security Council staffer under President George W. Bush, said, “The policies are aligning.” It is normal to see continuity even when the presidents are so diametrically opposed as Trump and Biden.
According to several former administration officials and commentators, Trump’s presidency has been consistent in its efforts to identify and address critical threats to the United States’ interests.
Some people are less optimistic. They claim that President Biden’s decisions have exacerbated existing issues with American foreign policy and have sometimes veered from the president’s professed beliefs.. In spite of administration officials’ promotion of a UN-brokered ceasefire in Yemen, senior Democratic legislators have questioned his meeting with Prince Mohammed and help to the Saudi military.
Emma Ashford, a senior member at the Atlantic Council, claimed that President Joe Biden has not lived up to many of his campaign pledges.
America’s worldwide supremacy has been a concern for both Trump and Biden administrations, since the United States looks to be on the decline. The rise of China as a counterbalance and Russia’s boldness have made the world more dangerous.
As part of Trump’s national security agenda, foreign policy has been shifted from focusing on terrorist organisations to “great power rivalry” with China and Russia. In part due of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the Biden administration has maintained this push.
It was thought that the Biden White House will announce its own national security policy early this year, but that has now been postponed. As a result of the conflict in the Ukraine, government officials are now amending the constitution to reflect new information. The emphasis on competitiveness among strong countries is anticipated to remain in the final agreement.
Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken recently echoed Mr. Biden’s assessment that China is the United States’ largest rival, while Russia poses the greatest danger to American security and partnerships.
Scholars have argued that the legacy of continuity between administrations is a product of the bipartisan foreign policy establishment in Washington, which Ben Rhodes, a deputy national security advisor to President Barack Obama, derisively nicknamed “the Blob.”
However, others say that external factors, such as the actions of foreign governments, the attitudes of American voters, and the power of businesses, limit the options available to U.S. leaders.
There are still the same problems,” he says. The world hasn’t changed. Our ability to influence people and our country’s demographics haven’t changed much, and we still have the same instruments at our disposal.”
Mr. Biden and Mr. Trump were reacting to the desire of the majority of Americans, who had grown tired of two decades of war, by agreeing to remove troops from Afghanistan. The relocation was also an opportunity for Mr. Biden to conclude some unfinished business. In keeping with President Obama’s aim to wind down the “forever wars,” he had backed the return of troops as president, but he was opposed by US generals pressing for a presence in Afghanistan.
Polls indicate that the majority of Americans favour terminating U.S. military engagement in Afghanistan, notwithstanding the chaotic retreat that occurred in August of last year when the Taliban seized over the nation.
A lower American military involvement in crisis zones is something that both Mr. Trump and Mr. Biden have urged. However, they both came to the end of their thinking. In response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and Somalia, President Biden has dispatched additional American soldiers to Europe and reversed a Trump-era military pullback.