America after Trump still isn't exactly popular around the world
It's going to be an awkward period of adjustment to Joe Biden's foreign policy for the rest of the world.
By Hayes Brown, MSNBC Opinion Columnist
President Joe Biden is a familiar face in Munich. Since 1980, he’s been a frequent attendee of the Munich Security Conference, an annual confab of diplomats, government leaders and other foreign policy wonks to talk through global problems.
Biden gave his first major foreign policy address as vice president in Munich in 2009. In the first lines of that speech, he heralded how the U.S. had just “gone through the oldest of our traditions: that is the peaceful transfer of power.” America has been through a lot since then, especially over the last four years. When Biden addresses the conference’s virtual attendees on Friday, things will be a little different than a decade ago, to say the least.
As a candidate, Biden pledged to reverse the isolationist and unilateral policies of former president Donald Trump. As president, his administration is trying to get back to America’s old foreign policy playbook as a way of reintroducing itself to the world. But four years of the United States going rogue have made the last four weeks an awkward affair. America may be back to business as usual — but, aside from the absence of whiplash, is anyone really happy about that?
On the one hand, the Biden administration has drawn a sharp contrast to Trump on human rights. Where Trump readily embraced dictators and authoritarians, Biden has already spent a good amount of time (diplomatically) yelling at them.
He’s given Brazilian president Jair Bolsonaro the cold shoulder after the right-wing leader echoed Trump’s election fraud claims. Biden’s first phone call with Chinese President Xi Jinping was a reminder that he isn’t cool with Xi’s assault on democracy in Hong Kong or China’s human rights abuse toward Xinjiang’s Uighur population. His State Department called out Turkey’s crackdown on LGBTQ protestors and condemned a show trial targeting Turkish political dissidents.
So far, so good as far as getting things back to pre-Trump “normal.” But those are the layups — part of what was so maddening about the Trump administration was its inability to score even the most basic diplomatic points. No, what’s got me worried are the areas where the Biden administration would want to have a bit more leverage but isn’t really finding solid backup from U.S. allies. Earlier this month, generals in Myanmar launched a coup overthrowing the civilian government. Last week, Biden announced that in response to the takeover, Burmese military leaders would face economic sanctions. It’s the kind of firm action that you’d expect our international friends to rally around.
Not so much in practice, though. Japan is hesitant to issue new sanctions, fearing what it would mean for Japanese businesses and potentially pushing Myanmar even further into China’s camp. India is also likely to stay on the sidelines rather than join the U.S.’s pressure campaign, not wanting to upset its strategic position against China.
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Posted By: Dea. Ron Gray Sr.
Thursday, February 18th 2021 at 10:03AM
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