Biden has a long way to go to regain trust
Joe Biden’s first speech to the United Nations general assembly as US president was intended to rescue his foreign policy from the debacle of the recent withdrawal from Afghanistan. He talked a lot about “togetherness” and said the US was “back at the table”. But whether it will reassure the sceptics who question his commitment to global, multilateral leadership will depend on his actions.
The rhetoric that accompanied US troops out of Afghanistan last month led many to conclude that Biden’s world view was not that different from his predecessor in the White House. Mr Biden came to office promising a different era in US foreign relations, visiting Europe in June for the G7 with the declaration that “America is back”. He spoke at the UN of “relentless diplomacy” yet finds himself with precisely the same difficulties encountered by Donald Trump, for which he was roundly denounced by the Democrats and their media cheerleaders.
In order to confront Beijing, Mr Biden has entered into a pact with the UK and Australia which has angered France. Emmanuel Macron is now pushing hard, cheered on by the European Commission, for a European army and foreign policy in what would amount to a threat to Nato. Whether the eastern EU countries like Poland and Hungary are happy with this does not seem to matter in Brussels, Berlin and Paris.
Mr Biden was opposed to Brexit, seemingly on sentimental rather than strategic grounds, and yet has precipitated a crisis inside the bloc that will exacerbate tensions already there. The Aukus pact appears to demonstrate that the special relationship remains strong and yet Boris Johnson, who is in New York for the UN meeting, has not been able to get the president to focus on a trade deal that the Prime Minister needs in order to show the benefits of Brexit. The PM did, however, secure a commitment from the president to help meet the $100 billion target for a climate change fund ahead of the Cop26 summit in Glasgow in November.
In his speech opening the assembly, UN secretary-general António Guterres warned that the strategic rivalry between the US and China was even more unpredictable than the Cold War and risked opening “an abyss” of global mistrust.
This implied criticism was aimed at Washington and the Chinese government, which is flexing its muscles in the Pacific and spurning invitations to join efforts to curb CO2 emissions. If the UN wants to bring anyone to book, it is Xi Jinping.