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Introducing his national security team that includes veteran
diplomats, Biden and his nominees on Tuesday emphasized working
to strengthen alliances and multilateralism, ideas that fell out
of favor during the "America First" approach of Republican
President Donald Trump.
"It's a team that reflects the fact that America is back, ready
to lead the world, not retreat from it," he told a news briefing
in Wilmington, Delaware.
But analysts said that while the incoming Democratic
administration could secure quick reversals in areas such as
rejoining the Paris climate agreement that Trump abandoned, it
would be more difficult reclaiming the global power relinquished
by Washington, a trend that started before Trump.
"Biden, to the extent he reinforces those norms and
institutions, will help shore up America's position," St.
Lawrence University history professor Howard Eissenstat said.
"What he cannot do is change the hard reality that the U.S. is
no longer that exceptional: Other countries and regions can and
will effectively compete in every sphere."
DIFFERENT WORLD
Biden, who takes office on Jan. 20, will be taking on a much
different world from the one he left four years ago as Barack
Obama's vice president. China has assumed a larger global role,
ranging from multilateral institutions to assisting development
in Africa and Latin America.
"It might start to look an awful lot like Obama 2.0 rather than
Biden if it's talking a big game about returning to Asia but
resources are declining," said Randall Schriver, who worked as
assistant secretary of defense under Trump.
Over the past four years, the United States has taken steps to
withdraw from the World Health Organization and pulled out of a
2015 nuclear deal between Iran and world powers. Trump
questioned NATO's relevance and resisted taking a tough approach
against foreign policy rivals such as Russian President Vladimir
Putin, moves that raised eyebrows among allies.
The United States and China have been increasingly at odds
during the Trump presidency, as the world's two biggest
economies clashed over trade, Beijing's handling of the
coronavirus, and Hong Kong and the South China Sea.
During the election campaign, Biden vowed to take a tough line
on China's expanding influence worldwide, reverse Trump's
decision to pull the United States out of the Paris climate
accord and rejoin the Iran nuclear accord if Tehran resumes
strict compliance.
"We can't solve all the world's problems alone" he said on
Tuesday. "We need to be working with other countries, we need
their cooperation, we need their partnership."
But current Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said on Tuesday that
"multilateralism for the sake of hanging out with your buddies
at a cool cocktail party - that's not in the best interest of
the United States of America."
Citing the defeat of Islamic State militants in Syria and
actions to contain China and Iran, Pompeo told Fox News: "We
work with nations when we have common interests and we develop
coalitions that actually deliver real results and reflect the
reality on the ground. That wasn't what was happening when we
came in here to the State Department."
(Reporting by Trevor Hunnicutt, Humeyra Pamuk and David
Brunnstrom; Writing by Lisa Lambert and Humeyra Pamuk; Editing
by Mary Milliken and Peter Cooney)
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