Why Joe Biden’s Foreign Policy ‘Reset’ Will Be A Disaster

Speaking from the U.S. Department of State in Washington D.C., on Thursday afternoon, President Joe Biden delivered the first foreign policy speech of his administration, providing an initial window into his strategy (or lack thereof) for America’s role on the global stage.

His supporters on the Left and the legacy media applauded Biden’s foreign policy “reset,” celebrating his promise to “repair” the damage of the Trump administration. However, those with any foreign policy understanding will remember that Joe Biden has been wrong on matters of foreign policy for the entirety of his political career, and that his speech raises far more questions and concerns than the legacy media will ever admit.

No mention of Iran

Throughout his entire speech, Joe Biden made one single reference to Iran — the world’s largest state sponsor of terrorism — when he recognized as a side-note that “Saudi Arabia faces missile attacks, UAV strikes, and other threats from Iranian-supplied forces in multiple countries.”

Late in January, Dr Majid Takht-Ravanchi — Iran’s ambassador to the United Nations — published an opinion piece for the New York Times titled, “Biden Wants to Return to the Iran Deal. He can Start Here,” saying that “There is a window now to restore America’s credibility and bring more stability to the Middle East.”

Such an assertion — while objectively laughable — is unfortunately the view of the political establishment which is now spearheaded by Biden, a man often clueless on issues of foreign policy.

The Iran Nuclear Deal, which Biden will presumably work to embrace, was utterly disastrous, handing terror-sponsoring Iran the opportunity to grow as a regional superpower. Combined with Biden’s ideological ineptitude when it comes to the Middle East — including voting against the Gulf War in 1991 and for the Iraq War in 2003, opposing the assassination of Osama Bin Laden and bolstering Obama’s murderous drone war — anyone who values peace in the Middle East should be terrified by Biden’s intentional decision to ignore Iran during his speech.

Weakness in the face of China

During his speech, Biden made very brief and very careful references to America’s greatest adversarial opponent on the global stage: China. On the subject of “advancing authoritarianism,” Biden mentioned “the growing ambitions of China to rival the United States.” Later, he promised to “take on directly the challenges posed by our prosperity, security, and democratic values by our most serious competitor, China,” and that his administration will “confront China’s economic abuses; counter its aggressive, coercive action; to push back on China’s attack on human rights, intellectual property, and global governance.”

The problem with Biden on the subject of China is twofold. Firstly, he has held every position regarding America’s enemy throughout his career. In June of 2019, Biden stated that “We are in a competition with China. We need to get tough with China. They are a serious challenge to us, and in some areas a real threat.” Just a few weeks earlier, Biden seemed to counter this position, saying “China is going to eat our lunch? Come on, man. They can’t even figure out how to deal with the fact that they have this great division between the China Sea and the mountains in the east — I mean the west. They can’t figure out how they’re going to deal with the corruption that exists within the system. They’re not bad folks, folks. But guess what? They’re not competition for us.”

Joe Biden has flip-flopped on the subject of China on multiple occasions, and has repeatedly ignored the obvious conflict of interest posed by his son, Hunter Biden, who still holds an investment stake in a Chinese company funded by the Chinese government.

Secondly, Biden’s calls to “take on” China, to “confront” and “counter” their actions are, frankly, meaningless. This is the same set of empty threats employed by the Obama administration which will cause President Xi Jinping no concern whatsoever, especially as Biden rushes to realign with the China-controlled World Health Organization.

Open borders when it comes to refugees and asylum-seekers

Before celebrating his executive order which overturned the “hateful, discriminatory Muslim ban” — which, of course, wasn’t anything of the sort — Biden continued to announce his administration’s open border policies.

He called for (yet another) executive order “to begin the hard work of restoring our refugee admissions program to help meet the unprecedented global need,” which would “raise the refugee admissions back up to 125,000 persons for the first full fiscal year of the Biden-Harris administration.” 

The combination of these two attitudes — increasing refugee admittance and removing the ability to filter or screen those entering the country — has already been tried, with unprecedented consequences. After waves of unfettered immigration — celebrated by the globalist European Union as an empathetic and humanitarian act of charity — there was an explosion of serious crime across the continent. In Germany alone, over 1,200 women were reportedly sexually assaulted during the 2015-2016 New Year’s Eve celebrations. Europe has dealt with a resurgence of terrorist acts, as well as horrendous instances of anti-Semitic violence.

It is one thing to increase the admittance of those seeking asylum. It’s another to do so in the naive manner Biden is proposing.

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Joe Biden’s foreign policy announcements may amount to a reset, but they are not a return to anything worth celebrating.

Ian Haworth is an Editor and Writer for The Daily Wire. Follow him on Twitter at @ighaworth.

The views expressed in this piece are the author’s own and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.

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