DIPLO DISASTERS
Biden in NYC for UN address amid policy fiascos
President Biden arrived in New York City on Monday for his first address to the United Nations General Assembly amid a series of foreign-policy crises — including a rift with France that caused America’s oldest ally to pull its ambassador over a new strategic alliance with Australia and the UK, and the fallout from the disastrous withdrawal of US forces from Afghanistan.
The president was greeted at the airport by Gov. Hochul and Mayor de Blasio, with his wife, Chirlane McCray. He was scheduled to hold a one-on-one meeting with UN Secretary-General António Guterres later Monday evening ahead of his address on Tuesday.
A senior administration official said the president’s speech to the world body would focus on “closing the chapter on 20 years of war” and turn to other issues including the COVID-19 pandemic, climate change, trade and what the official described as “vigorous competition with great powers, but not a new Cold War.”
The central theme of the speech, the official added, would be “purposeful, effective, intensive American diplomacy defined by working with allies and partners to solve problems that can’t be solved by military force.”
It will mark the first time the president has spoken publicly since what some critics dubbed the administration’s “Friday from hell” when over the span of a few hours, France recalled its envoy to Washington and the US military admitted it had killed 10 civilians — including seven children and an aid worker — in a drone strike the administration initially spun as a triumph of its “over the horizon” anti-terrorism capabilities.
The spat with the Paris government began last Wednesday, when Biden, along with British Prime Minister Boris Johnson, announced plans to equip Australia with nuclearpowered submarines. The initiative, meant to send a warning signal to China and repair a slight to Australia over the Afghanistan withdrawal, upended a French defense contract worth at least $66 billion to sell diesel-powered submarines to Australia and caused outrage in the European power’s government.
French Minister for European and Foreign Affairs Jean-Yves Le Drian announced Friday that he had called back the ambassadors to the US and Australia and slammed both countries for what he called “unacceptable behavior between allies and partners, whose consequences directly affect the vision we have of our alliances, of our partnerships and of the importance of the Indo-Pacific for Europe.”
Biden is expected to speak with French President Emmanuel Macron in the coming days to attempt to smooth over the matter. The fiasco marked a new setback for international relations under the Biden administration following the chaos and confusion of the Afghan withdrawal.