Biden declares ‘America is back’ in address to allies
WASHINGTON — President Joe Biden used his first address before a global audience Friday to declare that “America is back, the transatlantic alliance is back,” after four years of a Trump administration that flaunted its foreign policy through an “America First” lens.
Speaking to the annual Munich Security Conference virtually, Biden ticked through a daunting to-do list — salvaging the Iran nuclear deal, meeting economic and security challenges posed by China and Russia and repairing the damage caused by the coronavirus pandemic — that he said would require close cooperation between the U.S. and its Western allies.
Without mentioning Donald Trump’s name, Biden mixed talk of a reinvigorated democratic alliance with a rebuke of his predecessor’s approach.
“I know the past few years have strained and tested the transatlantic relationship,” Biden said. “The United States is determined to re-engage with Europe, to consult with you, to earn back our position of trusted leadership.”
The president also participated Friday in a virtual meeting of the Group of Seven industrialized nations, where leaders managed to work Biden’s campaign theme into their closing joint statement, vowing to “work together to beat COVID-19 and build back better.”
“Welcome back, America,” said European Council President Charles Michel.
But plenty has changed over the past four years to create new challenges.
China has cemented its place as a fierce economic competitor on the continent as the U.S. has reconsidered long-held national security and economic priorities. Populism has grown through much of Europe. And other Western countries have, at moments, sought to fill the vacuum left as America stepped back from the world stage.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel noted that some differences between the U.S. and Europe remain “complicated.”
Still, Merkel, who had a strained relationship with Trump, didn’t hide her preference for an American foreign policy informed by Biden’s world view.
“Things are looking a great deal better for multilateralism this year than two years ago, and that has a lot to with Joe Biden having become the president of the United States of America,” Merkel said.
Biden also called for cooperation in addressing economic and national security challenges posed by Russia and China and identified cyberspace, artificial intelligence and biotechnology as areas of growing competition.
“We must prepare together for long-term strategic competition with China,” Biden declared.
His message was girded by an underlying argument that democracies — not autocracies — are models of governance that can best meet the challenges of the moment. The president urged fellow world leaders to show together that “democracies can still deliver.”