When President Joe Biden mounts the iconic green marble rostrum inside the hall of the United Nations General Assembly on Tuesday, he will face an audience skeptical he really is as different from his predecessor as he likes to claim.
For world leaders who were alternately addled and amused by former President Donald Trump — who once encountered mocking laughter from the UN crowd in the middle of his big speech — Biden represented hope for a different era in American foreign relations. He spent his first foreign trip in June declaring across Europe that «America is back.» He continued that message in his first appearance in New York when he met with UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres. «The strong partnership between the United States and the U.N. is based on common values and principals, and at this moment, those bonds are more important than ever. America’s back and we believe in the United Nations and its values,» Biden said. Yet this week he finds himself under intense scrutiny from allies who have been disappointed his election has not done away entirely with the «America First» policies Trump espoused during the former President’s annual speeches to the UN. They have complained bitterly about being left out of key decisions. In increasingly public fashion, foreign officials have begun unfavorably comparing Biden to Trump — an insult to a President who ran as the capable and experienced alternative to Trump’s global tumult. In his first address as President to the General Assembly, Biden will seek to allay those fears, making the case for a collective approach to simmering world problems like the Covid-19 pandemic and climate change. He will argue for a wholesale recalibration of priorities away from the wars of the past two decades and toward threats emerging today. The President is expected to make the case for «rallying allies and partners and institutions to deal with the major challenges of our time,» a senior administration official said. Like in almost every aspect of his foreign policy, China will loom large, and Biden will warn in his speech against the world devolving into a new Cold War that divides the globe into spheres of influence. Still, the growing wariness of once-enthusiastic allies isn’t lost on the President or his aides. «I think the President’s view, having been on the world scene for 50 years, is that you always have to work on your relationships. That includes with global leaders,» press secretary Jen Psaki said. «He believes our relationships are sustaining over the course of many decades, and every step he has taken since the moment he took office was with the intention of rebuilding alliances and rebuilding those partnerships that were frayed over the last four years.» Psaki said that didn’t mean countries would always agree with each other, but argued over the long run, global relationships would be made stronger by Biden’s approach.
