President vows diplomacy changes
Foreign policy reset takes aim at Putin, Yemen war support
President Joe Biden goes after Russia’s Vladimir Putin and says he’ll bolster diplomatic corps.
WASHINGTON — Asserting a broad reset of American foreign policy, President Joe Biden said Thursday that he would halt the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Germany, end support for Saudi Arabia’s military offensive in Yemen and make LGBTQ rights a cornerstone of diplomacy, while also declaring the days of the U.S. “rolling over” for Russian President Vladimir Putin are gone.
Biden used his first visit to the State Department as president to outline how his foreign policy would differ from that of his predecessor, calling for a return to the “grounding wire of our global power” as he sought to buck up the diplomatic corps, many of whom were discouraged by President Donald Trump’s policies and tone.
“America is back. Diplomacy is back,” Biden told State Department staff before delivering his foreign policy speech. “You are the center of all that I intend to do. You are the heart of it. We’re going to rebuild our alliances”
The new American president sought to make clear to the world that he’s making a dramatic turn away from Putin following the presidency of Trump, who often appeared to curry favor with the Russian leader while downplaying his malign actions.
Biden issued his strongest condemnation of Putin as large protests have broken out throughout Russia following the jailing of opposition leader Alexei Navalny. Thousands of protesters have been arrested.
“I made it clear to President Putin, in a manner very different from my predecessor, that the days of the United States rolling over in the face of Russia’s aggressive actions — interfering with our election, cyberattacks, poisoning its citizens— are over,” said Biden, who last week spoke to Putin in what White House officials called a tense first exchange. “We will not hesitate to raise the cost on Russia and defend our vital interests and our people.”
With Biden’s most public diplomatic effort of his young presidency, White House officials said he was hoping to send an unambiguous signal to the world that the United States is ready to resume its role as a global leader after four years in which Trump pressed an “America First” agenda.
He offered a list of issues where he said he would reverse Trump’s policies or forge different priorities, including scrapping the former president’s plan to withdraw about 9,500 of the roughly 34,500 U.S. troops stationed in Germany. The European nation hosts key American military facilities like the Ramstein Air Base and the headquarters for U.S. European Command and U.S. Africa Command.
Trump announced the pullback after repeatedly accusing Germany of not paying enough for its own defense, calling the longtime NATO ally “delinquent” for failing to spend 2% of its GDP on defense, the alliance benchmark.
No reductions or changes have been made to U.S. troop levels since Trump’s announcement. Biden said no U.S. military personnel would be pulled out before Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin does a review of America’s troops presence around the globe. Austin, he said, will ensure that “our military footprint is appropriately aligned with our foreign policy and national security priorities.”
Biden also said the United States was ending support for a grinding five-year Saudi-led military offensive in Yemen that has deepened suffering in the Arabian Peninsula’s poorest country, calling the move part of restoring a U.S. emphasis on diplomacy, democracy and human rights.
“The war has created a humanitarian and strategic catastrophe,” Biden told diplomats. “This war has to end.”
The announcement on Yemen fulfills a campaign pledge. But it also shows Biden putting the spotlight on a major humanitarian crisis that the United States has helped aggravate. The reversing of policy also comes as a rebuke to Saudi Arabia, a global oil giant and U.S. strategic partner.
Saudi Arabia responded Thursday, welcoming an assurance by Biden that the United States would continue cooperating in the kingdom’s defense. In a statement on the official Saudi press agency, the kingdom said it welcomed international diplomatic efforts, affirming “its firm position in support of a comprehensive political solution to the Yemeni crisis.” The kingdom also stressed its humanitarian aid to Yemenis.
The ending of U.S. support for the offensive will not affect any U.S. operations against the Yemen-based terror group al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula, national security adviser Jake Sullivan said.
Biden said he would also issue a presidential memorandum that will address protecting lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer individuals worldwide.
Biden also announced plans to increase the cap on the number of refugees allowed into the United States to more than eight times the level at which the Trump administration left it.
Trump drastically reduced the cap to only 15,000. Biden’s plan would raise it to 125,000, surpassing the ceiling set by President Barack Obama before he left office by 15,000.