WASHINGTON (AP) – President Joe Biden used his first speech to a global audience Friday to declare that “America is back, the transatlantic alliance is back,” after four years of a Trump administration that made flaunting its foreign policy through a slow “America first.”
In virtual statements at the annual Munich Security Conference, Biden set out a daunting list of tasks: saving Iran’s nuclear deal, tackling the economic and security challenges posed by China and Russia, and repairing the damage caused by the coronavirus pandemic. they require close cooperation between the US and its Western allies.
Without mentioning Donald Trump’s name once in his speech, Biden mixed talks about an invigorated democratic alliance with a rebuke of his predecessor’s approach, a message warmly welcomed by Western allies.
“I know the last few years have strained and tested the transatlantic relationship,” Biden said. “The United States is determined to re-engage with Europe, to consult with you, to regain our position of trusted leadership.”
The president also participated on Friday in a virtual meeting of the Group of Seven Industrialized Nations, where leaders managed to work on the theme of the Biden campaign in their joint closing statement, promising to “work together to overcome COVID-19 and rebuild better “.
“Welcome, America,” said European Council President Charles Michel, who effectively summed up the mood of the Munich conference.
But while this happy talk conveyed a palpable sense of relief among allies at Biden’s commitment to correcting the strained relations between the United States and Europe, there have been many things they have created over the past four years. new challenges.
China has consolidated its place as a fierce economic competitor on the continent, as the United States has rethought national security and long-standing economic priorities integrated into the transatlantic alliance. Populism has grown in much of Europe. And other Western countries have tried, at times, to fill the void left when America withdrew from the world stage.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel noted that some differences between the US and Europe remain “complicated”. Europe sees China’s economic ambitions as less of an existential threat than the United States and has its own strategic and economic concerns that are not always in sync with Biden in Russia as well.
Still, Merkel, who maintained a close relationship with Trump, made no secret of her preference for an American foreign policy that was informed by Biden’s worldview.
“Things look a lot better for multilateralism this year than two years ago, and that has a lot to do with Joe Biden becoming the president of the United States of America,” Merkel said. “His speech right now, but also the first announcements from his administration, have convinced us that it’s not just about talking but about action.”
Biden addressed his speech to a global audience as his administration this week took steps to reverse key policies of the Trump administration.
He said the United States is ready to rejoin talks on the reinstatement of Iran’s 2015 multilateral nuclear deal abandoned by the Trump administration. The Biden administration on Thursday announced its desire to reclaim Iran and took action at the United Nations with the goal of restoring politics to what it was before Trump withdrew from the deal in 2018..
Biden also spoke about the two-decade war in Afghanistan, where he faces a May 1 deadline to withdraw the remaining 2,500 U.S. soldiers under a peace deal negotiated with the Trump administration with the the Taliban. He also called for cooperation to address the economic and national security challenges posed by Russia and China and identified cyberspace, artificial intelligence and biotechnology as areas of growing competition.
“We need to prepare together for long-term strategic competition with China,” Biden said.
His message was closed by an underlying argument that democracies, not autocracies, are models of governance that can meet the challenges of the moment. The president urged fellow world leaders to show together that “democracies can still achieve.”
At the G-7, administration officials said, Biden focused on what is left for the international community as it tries to extinguish the economic and public health crises created by the coronavirus pandemic.. He announced that the United States will soon begin releasing $ 4 billion for an international effort to bolster the purchase and distribution of the vaccine to poor nations, a program Trump refused to support.
Biden’s turn on the world stage came when the U.S. officially joined the Paris climate deal, the largest international effort to curb global warming. Trump announced in June 2017 that he would withdraw the United States from the benchmark deal, arguing that the pact would undermine the US economy.
Biden announced the intention of the United States to reunite the first day of his presidency, but he had to wait 30 days for the movement to take effect. He has said he will include considerations on climate change in all major domestic and foreign policy decisions his administration faces.
“This is a global existential crisis,” Biden said.
Biden also encouraged G-7 partners to meet their commitments with COVAX, a World Health Organization initiative to improve access to vaccines, even when the US ear reopens. .
Trump had withdrawn the U.S. from the WHO and refused to join more than 190 countries in the COVAX program. The former Republican president accused the WHO of covering up China’s erroneous steps in handling the virus at the start of the public health crisis that unleashed a strong U.S. economy.
Biden urged greater international cooperation in vaccine distribution amid growing calls on his administration to distribute some U.S.-made vaccine supplies abroad.
French President Emmanuel Macron has called on the United States and European nations to allocate up to 5% of the current supply of vaccines to developing countries, the kind of vaccine diplomacy that China and Russia are already deploying.
Biden, who announced last week that the United States will have enough vaccine by the end of July to inoculate 300 million people, remains focused on making sure all Americans are vaccinated, administration officials say. Macron on Friday again pressured the United States and Europe to do more.
“It is up to Europeans and Americans to allow all the poor and emerging countries in the world to access vaccines as quickly as possible,” he said.
The Allies listened intently to what Biden had to say about an approaching crisis with Iran.
Iran reported this week to the International Atomic Energy Agency that it would suspend voluntary implementation next week of a provision in the 2015 agreement that allowed UN nuclear monitors to conduct inspections of undeclared sites in Iran at short notice, unless the United States lifts sanctions on 23 February. .
“Now we have to make sure that no problem arises from who takes the first step,” Merkel told reporters. “If everyone is convinced that we should give this deal a try again, we should find ways to make this deal pull again.”
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Associated Press writers Darlene Superville in Washington, Geir Moulson in Berlin and Angela Charlton in Paris contributed to this report.