Biden Says His Foreign Policy Gives Trump ‘a Strong Hand’

President Joe Biden on Monday defended his foreign policy record amid two major foreign wars that broke out under his watch, declaring that his four years in office strengthened America’s position in a complex world, reinvigorated alliances and left adversaries like China and Russia weaker than they were.

“America is more capable, and I would argue better prepared than we’ve been in a long, long time,” Biden said. “While our competitors and adversaries are facing stiff headwinds, and we have the wind at our back.”

In a speech at the State Department, the man who built relationships with world leaders since his early years in Washington on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee spoke largely for posterity and the consideration of his own legacy. But there was little accounting for having failed to deliver on his central promise to the world — to end Trumpism and the accompanying America First policy that once again has longtime allies bracing for more turbulence.

Before a supportive crowd of aides and State Department officials, Biden sought to put a bookend on the speech he gave in the same room four years earlier, where he vowed to place diplomacy and democratic values at the center of efforts to rein in autocrats, restore alliances and bring more stability to the world.

But, with new wars ongoing in eastern Europe and the Middle East, and Donald Trump’s return to the White House just seven days away, he also spoke to the current moment, pleading with lawmakers, the incoming administration and everyday Americans to appreciate that an engaged, reliable America is essential.

“New challenges will certainly emerge in the months and years ahead,” Biden said. “But even so, it’s clear my administration is leaving the next administration with a very strong hand to play.”

Biden declared that his foreign policy successes were “bipartisan” in nature and that a stronger America and more secure world benefit all Americans — an attempt, it seemed, to coax Trump and GOP leaders in Congress to build on his efforts, not reverse them.

“The United States should take full advantage of our diplomatic and geopolitical opportunities we’ve created: to keep bringing countries together, to deal with challenges posed by China, to make sure [Russian President Vladimir] Putin’s war ends in a just and lasting peace for Ukraine and to capitalize on a new moment for a more stable, more integrated Middle East,” the president said.

Biden had already abandoned the stark foreign policy frame he articulated at the beginning of his term — a view of the 21st century as a fight between autocracies and democracies. Despite rhetorical efforts to emphasize the consistency of his values and approach, the president’s Cold War mindset evolved over four years into a more pragmatic, less boisterous or declarative approach to a more complicated world. But it remains grounded in the idea of American engagement abroad in the advancement of democratic values — one that still serves as a counter to Trump’s more transactional, isolationist worldview.

“Throughout my career, the world has undergone tremendous change. But certain things have always held true: America leads not only by the example of our power but the power of our example,” he said. “In the past four years we’ve used that power not to go it alone but instead to bring countries together, to increase shared security and prosperity, to stand up to aggression and to solve problems through diplomacy wherever possible.”

While Biden touted strengthening alliances with Europe and in the Pacific, he also touted new domestic investments in manufacturing aimed at lessening America’s economic dependence on China and other countries.

Without explicitly mentioning or criticizing Trump, Biden referenced the situation he inherited in 2021 as a point of comparison, asserting that his predecessor’s four years in office had eroded allies’ trust in Washington and left the democratic world, still reeling from the pandemic, on its heels with China poised to gain ground.

Biden leaves office with U.S.-China relations in a far more stable, less confrontational place as the result of serious and sustained bilateral communications, and with the countries’ two economies headed in opposite directions. Further, he has aligned European allies behind the U.S. approach to China and seen scant criticism from Republicans on his approach.

“It’s more effective to deal with China alongside our partners than going it alone,” Biden said. “But even while we compete vigorously, we’ve managed our relationship with China responsibly so it’s never tipped over into conflict.”

Biden touted his one-on-one diplomacy with Chinese Leader Xi Jinping. He also urged Trump, who has articulated a persistent admiration for autocrats, not to give ground to China on artificial intelligence or to reverse American investments in clean energy intended to counter Beijing’s efforts to dominate the market.

Biden’s work in strengthening diplomatic ties between allies paid dividends last year at a breakthrough Camp David summit where the leaders of Japan and South Korea agreed to reengage after years of hostilities. He pointed to the AUKUS defense pact with the United Kingdom and Australia and “The Quad” as additional examples of cooperation aimed at enhancing security in the Pacific.

The strongest evidence of Biden’s commitment to alliances is NATO’s cohesion, expansion and deepened resolve in response to Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine. Not only did the organization ratify the accession of Finland and Sweden, it is far closer to the goal — agreed on in 2014 — that member nations spend 2 percent of GDP on defense, a benchmark 23 of 32 countries now meet.

While Biden claimed credit for this development, something Trump demanded in 2018, the increased defense spending by European nations is largely a reaction to Putin’s invasion.

But while Biden succeeded in keeping the alliance united, his trepidation about escalating the conflict with Russia has left Ukraine in a tenuous place after nearly three years of fighting. Its beleaguered military is struggling to hold territory and the more isolationist Trump, not Biden, wants to resolve the conflict at the negotiating table with terms that may be more favorable to Russia than Biden’s team would support.

Noting an emerging coalition of autocrats from Moscow to Tehran and Pyongyang, Biden asserted that rogue states were banding together “more out of weakness than strength.” The U.S., he said, is “in a fundamentally stronger position than we were four years ago.”

Biden also sought to put a more positive spin on his foreign policy failures, suggesting that the botched 2021 evacuation from Afghanistan, however messy, followed through on a promise to bring U.S. troops home after two decades of war.

“It was time to end the war and bring our troops home,” he said.

But there was little accounting for the intelligence failure that did not foresee the rapid Taliban takeover of Afghanistan that led to the chaotic scramble to evacuate remaining troops under duress in August 2021.

Biden saw his approval ratings drop after the disastrous pull-out — they never fully recovered — as Americans had reason to question the competence of an administration and a president who had held up their experience and know-how as a calling card.

Speaking of his decision as something historians will reassess in years to come was the only acknowledgment of how much damage it did to his standing in the present.

“Ending the war was the right thing to do, and I believe history will reflect that,” Biden said.

He also spoke optimistically about the prospects for a long-awaited hostage deal between Israel and Hamas as proof that persistent diplomacy can succeed even in the most difficult of circumstances. But there is no denying that the president’s approach to the conflict was a political and diplomatic failure.

Not only did Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu routinely ignore Biden’s red lines, the president’s middle-ground approach left him — and Vice President Kamala Harris once she took his place atop the Democratic ticket last summer — vulnerable to attacks from Trump. The then-candidate claimed Biden was selling Israel out. Further, progressives and Arab-Americans increasingly saw the administration as complicit in what they labeled a genocide against Palestinians.

“We’re on the brink of a proposal that I laid out months ago finally coming to fruition,” Biden said. “I have learned through many years of public service to never, ever, ever give up.”