President Biden’s foreign policy decisions have fueled anti-Americanism, with some experts saying the administration has eroded America’s role as a global leader.
“I’ve always been a firm believer that the president of the United States is in charge of the world and Congress is in charge of domestic policy,” Fred Zeidman, co-chair and director of the Council for a Secure America, told Fox News Digital. . “We have a president right now who I think is completely focused on domestic policy and completely ignores world policy.”
Zeidman’s comments come as Biden has faced several high-profile foreign policy crises since taking office, including a disastrous withdrawal from Afghanistan, a Russian invasion of Ukraine and an increasingly hostile stance from countries like China, North Korea and Iran.
According to Zeidman, the growing threats facing the world can be traced back to Biden’s foreign policy strategy, which uses a strategy similar to former President Barack Obama’s to undermine the US ability to be a formidable deterrent to the world’s aggressors.
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President Joe Biden (Joe Radle/Getty Images)
“This started under Barack Obama, not his direct predecessor… to destroy American exceptionalism,” Zeidman said.
Zeidman argued that Biden has not only “weakened our military,” but has also pursued domestic policies that have limited the US ability to project power. He pointed to Biden’s energy policies, arguing that moves to limit domestic oil production have left the US dependent on foreign sources of energy and unable to fill the void for allies facing energy shortages as a result of Russia’s war in Ukraine.
“In the history of the world, arguably, the source of every war has been energy,” he said.
Zeidman also pointed to the US withdrawal from Afghanistan, arguing that the spectacle that was played out for the world to see gave American adversaries enough incentive to take an aggressive course.
“I still believe that our response in Afghanistan is what triggered the Russian invasion of Ukraine,” Zeidman said, adding that China may also see this moment as an opportunity to move on Taiwan.
These issues, Zeidman believes, can be traced back to the foreign policy philosophy that began under Obama, which positioned America as the world’s leading and dominant power.
A Ukrainian military Grad multiple rocket launcher fires rockets at Russian positions on the frontline near Bakhmut, Donetsk region, Ukraine, Thursday, Nov. 24, 2022. (AP Photo/Libkos, File)
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“President Obama has always been philosophically a supporter of the underdog, and so he’s always been a supporter of countries that are considered underdogs, which would arguably be anyone other than American, other than NATO,” Zeidman said.
James Phillips, senior research fellow for foreign policy at the Heritage Foundation, also believes that much of Biden’s foreign policy philosophy is a carryover from the Obama administration.
Phillips pointed out that the majority of the Biden administration’s staff is staffed with people who also served in the Obama administration, resulting in Biden “pursuing a deceptive deal with Iran at the expense of Israel, Saudi Arabia and other partners threatened by Iran.”
Supreme Leader of Iran Ayatollah Ali Khamenei (Iranian Leaders Press Office – Handout/Anadolu Agency/Getty Images)
“The foreign policy of the Biden administration is essentially rehashing Obama’s foreign policy, particularly in the Middle East,” Phillips told Fox News Digital. “Like Obama, he seeks to downplay the threats posed by Iran, while justifying the withdrawal of US forces in the Middle East, apparently to contain China, as part of a ‘pivot’ in the Indo-Pacific.”
Phillips argued that the result is not to contain China, but rather to invite its influence in the Middle East where the US has traditionally been the dominant power.
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“China has turned to the Middle East to strengthen ties with Iran, and to cultivate better ties with Saudi Arabia and other Arab states, which are increasingly skeptical that they can rely on the Biden administration,” Phillips said.
But Joel Rubin, a former deputy assistant secretary of state for the Obama administration, argues that the Iran deal negotiated under Obama was the most effective way to contain Iran’s nuclear ambitions.
“On Iran, what Trump did destroyed the multilateral agreement on nuclear weapons,” Rubin told Fox News Digital. “The result is that Iran is now closer to the bomb than ever.”
Russian President Vladimir Putin and Chinese President Xi Jinping toast during their dinner in Moscow on March 21. (Pavel Byrkin/Sputnik/Kremlin Pool Photo/AP)
While efforts to restore certain types of deals have stalled, Rubin noted that once abandoned, it can be difficult to restore them. However, he argued that Biden’s push to return to the framework of the deal would be a better step toward containing a potentially nuclear Iran.
“If you want to prevent Iran from getting a nuclear weapon, the deal we made before was doing it,” Rubin said. “The maximum pressure Trump’s policy was enacted after he pulled out of the deal, and we see the results, which is that Iran is still messing up the Middle East, oppressing its own people, and by the way, it’s more advanced. nuclear program.”
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Rubin argues that Biden’s foreign policy doctrine aims to restore American leadership around the world, including improving relations with NATO allies who have often felt isolated under the Trump administration. He also pointed to Biden’s work to forge new commitments and alliances in Asia, designed to help counter the emerging threat from China.
“To restore and accelerate our multilateral alliances and put American leadership at the top of that pyramid,” Rubin noted as one of Biden’s primary foreign policy objectives.
President Joe Biden shakes hands with Israeli Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu. (Gideon Markowicz/TPS)
In addition to alliance building, Rubin pointed to Biden’s domestic agenda as a pillar of Biden’s philosophy, calling it “building from within.”
“Donald Trump has had the idea of investing in and rebuilding America for four years and never figured out how to do it,” Rubin said. “Joe Biden now spends $2 trillion worth on domestic industry … for the future and our infrastructure for climate and energy infrastructure, climate resilience, new technology, roads, bridges … that didn’t happen under Trump, under Biden. happened.”
Rubin added that another key pillar of Biden’s foreign policy strategy is investing in “hard power” infrastructure, pouring money into the Defense Department to build and repair what has long been neglected.
In this Aug. 21, 2021, image provided by U.S. Air Force, U.S. Airmen and U.S. Marines guide a U.S. Air Force C-17 Globemaster III in support of the Afghanistan evacuation at Hamid Karzai International Airport in Kabul, Afghanistan. (Senior Airman Brennan Lage/US Air Force via AP) (Senior Airman Brennan Lage/US Air Force via AP)
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“You have a mix of economics, diplomacy and defense,” Rubin said. “It’s not just sales, Trump sold a lot of American military equipment, but didn’t invest a lot in the defense sector. We’re now learning about areas that need to be invested a lot because of this hot war we’re supporting in Ukraine.”
Taken together, Rubin said Biden’s foreign policy strategy is to rebuild America’s role as a leader.
“Are we leaders or are we followers? Are we different?” Rubin said. “How do you cover China when you are alone? You don’t. You try, but only sanctions on China alone, when countries are fleeing, is not good. But now they are not fleeing,” he added. “In partnership with the United States” refers to Japan’s increase in defense spending.
New recruits of the Chinese People’s Liberation Army gather. (via China Daily Reuters)
However, Zeidman believes the US has done anything but restore its role as a global leader under Biden.
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“All the countries that depended on the United States to defend them… quickly came to the conclusion that they could no longer depend on the United States,” he said, referring to the US withdrawal from Afghanistan and how it was perceived. . “We have to have a strong military. The world has to understand that we have the ability and the will and the willingness to support countries that are friendly to us.”
